Shadow Land

Turning

After he stopped mentally whimpering, she smiled smugly, he wasn’t dead, at least.

‘Well, me an’…an’…Adan, yeah, Adan, found um…Nicolas an’ ‘is tech buddy, Phillip in tha cells ‘ere a’ Division. No clue wha’s goin’ on, mind, bu’ though’ you’d wanna know all tha same.’

Miranda made a point of pushing the Call to the back of her mind before cursing in every language she knew. It took a while for her to stop.

‘ ‘ello?’ Xander asked nervously through the Connection, but Miranda didn’t notice; she was too busy seething.

Nicolas was supposed to be one of the best they had! How had he been caught? More importantly, what were they going to do about the situation involving Division latest idiot project? Oh, why now? Of all the times for things to go horribly wrong, now was definitely the worst!

‘Um…Ladyship? Lis’en, it weren’t us, I swear. If you like, we coul’…see wha’ we can do ‘bout ge’in’ ‘em out?’ Xander offered nervously, unnerved by the silence.

With a deep breath, Miranda focused back on the Call, ‘No, that won’t be necessary. We appear to have a leak. It’s the only way Nicolas could have been caught. Keep your eyes open, Xander. See what you can find out. I imagine a man with your abilities has no issues blending in?’

‘’Course no’, ma’am.’ Came the immediate reply.

‘Good. Then use them to get into whatever closed door meetings you can and find out everything you possibly can. Report to Sebastian whenever you find anything out. Understood?’

‘Yeah!’

‘Excellent.’ And with that, she ended the Call.

Miranda spent the next thirty minutes pacing the clearing by the cave mouth figuring out what to do. She was too preoccupied to notice how much time she had waited. When every option that presented itself had a down side, she growled in frustration. This was too big to just choose a course of action and hope for the best.

She called Lucien.

Since this literally was a life-or-death situation, and could potentially result in the end of the world, hopefully he wouldn’t be too mad.

‘This better be good,’ Lucien growled the second the Connection was established.

‘Nicolas and Phillip are in the cells at Division. The rest are assumed dead,’ Miranda stated quickly, not wanting to waste time.

There was a long pause from Lucien, no doubt he was cursing just as fluently as Miranda had before. Miranda waited, trying her best not to let her ragged emotions show through to Lucien.

‘What plans do you have?’ He asked her eventually.

She told him all of them.

‘No, those all require small teams.’

‘Isn’t that the best way to go? Surely we’re not strong enough for a full on assault of Division?’ She asked in astonishment.

‘It’s not a matter of if we’re ready, it’s a matter of what we need to do. The building of Division is still new, and while the foundation is old the new framework is still being created. Hopefully they will be weak enough for us to take. Grim as the idea may be, we seem to have no alternative. How is your boyfriend?’

Miranda blinked surprise, trying to process all this. Then, his last question occurred to her, what did he want to know about Alexander for?

‘Still going through the turning as far as I know. I wasn’t allowed in.’

‘Well pray he makes it through alive. I want both of you in Division when we storm it, you two are the only ones of us with enough battle experience to pull this off.’

‘But Lucien, he’ll still be weak from the…’

‘That was not a request, Miranda. Like I said, the idea is grim but we have no other alternative.’

‘I…’

‘Miranda!’ Lucien warned, a small fraction of his natural gift seeping through. Before becoming a Dark Vampire, Lucien had been a regular-old vampire with the ability to force his will on anyone through pain. Fortunately for him, and rather unfortunately for his victims and subordinates, that was a gift he had managed to keep through being turned to ‘The Dark Side.’

‘Yes, sir,’ She said weakly through the pain.

With that, the Call was ended, and immediately followed by another string of archaic curse words.

After a few more minutes, Miranda was at the end of her patience. Muttering under her breath, she strode into the cave and followed the light emitted by the Governess.

“We really need to cut this short,” Miranda started as she entered the cave, then froze.

To one side of the cave was Alexander’s corpse, being completely ignored by the Governess and Alycia who had their backs to both Miranda and Alexander’s body and seemed to be engulfed in a whispered conversation.

“You killed him!” She screamed in horror, staring at the corpse.

 This couldn’t be happening, not after she spent so long finding him. She wouldn’t let this happen!

“Miranda!” Alycia cried, turning towards her in surprise at the same time as the Governess hissed, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“You’re stupid rules don’t matter anymore! He’s dead!” Miranda screamed.

Out of the corner of her eye, Miranda saw Alycia turn and kneel in front of something on the other side of the cave, but right now it didn’t matter. Alexander was dead and the woman responsible was in an in closed space with Miranda.

There was only one way this could end.

In less than a second she was in front of the Governess, her fingers on the Attroxian’s throat. The Governess instinctively tried to release her power and throw Miranda across the room, but nothing happened. Her eyes widened in horror; her powers had never failed her. She had once killed an entire army with a simple wave of her power, but now it could not save her from one vampire.

Miranda’s face contorted into a terrifying smile that held no humor; only death.

“What’s wrong? You did know that I could take all your powers with a touch, right?” Then she stepped back and released the Governess’s own light on her.

She didn’t have a chance.

The high Attroxian fell to the ground with a horrified thud as all her trained power hit her. Miranda stepped forward, her smile showing her fangs extended. She had complete control over this situation and her prey. There was no escape for her victim, just death. This was her element.

This was what she was made for.

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That's DJ by the way.

Oh, and thank titansfriend for the cliffhanger, she talked me out of posting the second half of this chapter.