The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Lilith, Revisited

Seeing that he wasn't going to comment on it further, the Lilith shrugged.

"By the way, my name is Aizea."

"Mordecai," the man in black muttered, holding up the completed armor as he waited for the last residues of the little psyken robot he had created to work, faded. "Here, it's done. Come close and I'll show you how to put it on."

With a nod, Aizea stepped close, a light smile dancing over her full lips as she felt the warmth of Mordecai's body brushing against her naked skin as he reached around her to put the armor on. The man in black, however, was deliberately oblivious to her obvious physical charms as he quickly worked.

"The armor functions by blocking any psionic energy from reaching the central nervous system," he explained as the armor fitted smoothly to the Lilith's body. "The seal is on the left side, the armor opening like a shell. I would recommend wearing it directly against your skin for maximum effectiveness."

Aizea nodded as he stepped back, twisting slightly as she tested the fit of the armor, now sheathing completely her upper body from neck to pubis. It fit her like a glove, the material as supple and smooth as finely tanned doeskin. As she moved, she could feel it shift to accommodate her, almost intelligently working to maintain its coverage of her body despite her twisting. She was, however, still naked from the waist down.

"And this will protect my brain as well?" she asked, running her hands over the smooth, black composite material.

"Only from indirect attack," Mordecai indicated. "It won't even protect me in the case of a direct attack. However, what protection it gives you now, will be sufficient to keep you safe around me, even if I have to use psionic energies relatively extensively." He turned to indicate the bathroom. "I've teleported some additional clothing into there, if you don't have anything to wear over the armor." He looked from Aizea to the four breeders. "Enough for all five of you, I believe. You may want to grab a shower as well."

"A shower?" Aizea's eyebrow rose at what she thought might be a slight. "Are you suggesting we smell?"

Mordecai's answering smile was faint. It was ironic that she would ask that in light of her earlier comment about their scent tracking capabilities. That was because, despite their blood hunger, he knew vampires as a people were almost fastidiously clean. To the point of being fanatical about it, as if they could psychologically distance themselves from the animalistic nature of their liquid diet.

"Not at all. Not to me, anyway. But I've recently learned that the Brotherhood's been employing werewolves as part of their tracking teams in the effort to find me. An hour beneath those cloaks would've been enough to produce a scent even the most inexperienced werewolf could track. And you've most likely been under them since the fall of the nest, several days ago." He looked down at Paladin. "Now, if you could have the breeders step forward so I can measure them for the armor, . . . .?"

A half-hour later found Mordecai frowned as he stared down at the updated map of the city. With the probes completing their latest scan with the parameter data that he had given them, it now was covered with several boldly colorful splotches which marked the locations the ESETs had been working at, including Samson's house.

Connecting the splotches of high activity were now spidery lines of light, the trace scans of the ESET members' individual signatures, outlining their movements over the last two or three hours. The man in black gnawed on the inside of his cheek as he followed the glowing green lines that stretched from Samson's house to a location downtown which glowed with minimal psionic energy. 'Quick Poison's bolt hole,' he silently marked the spot on his mental map. As good a place as any to start the search for Tabitha, whose pattern remained unaccounted for, even with the trace scans.