By this point, while still weak, Anna had recovered enough from the emergency injections that she could grab hold of Lash's armor. Taking as good a grip as she could manage, she pulled herself close into the big vampire's powerful body. Still she had to fight to not gasp in pain with every step as each jolted her still healing body.
At least that pain wasn't exaggerated by being put down every time the big vampire paused to check on other downed vampires that they passed by, each cut to pieces by the effective strafing the attacking aircraft were using. Instead, he swung her to the side so he could visually examine the body. Once he was satisfied they were unrecoverable, he used the toe of his boot to turn their EMF generators off, letting them ash out under the afternoon sun before gathering himself and running on.
Four more times he was forced to stop and give his fellow nestari the final rites before moving on, one of them Vledni, the vampiress that had used her remaining rocket round to take out the sniper. And each time he would hiss in dismay when his triage found the downed vampires beyond saving.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they were running between destroyed machine gun nests and through the front gate.
"Here, Wolf, here!" Truk waved them towards an outcrop close to where they originally took cover before storming the gate. "I think we've got some cover from that aerial attack here!"
Nodding, Lash angled in that direction, following hard on the heels of the now three vampires carrying Magnar, one of them lost to the strafing attacks. It took a minute or two before they were finally under cover, however, with several of the survivors taking up the task of trying to spot the planes before they were fired on again.
For his part, Lash eased Anna to a comfortable sitting position beside Narcist, who immediately punched another jumpstart into her neck. Before he could draw away, however, intent on examining Magnar, she caught him by the sleeve.
"Thank you," the young van Tallert hoarsely said, her voice significantly stronger than it was during her rescue.
Lash favored her with a quick look, then nodded before turning away. Feeling both Narcist and Anna's eyes on his back, Lash resolutely stepped to where Truk and Ballan were carefully undoing the straps they had used to carry Magnar out of the castle and to safety. If there was fallout from him risking so much to save the vampiric noblewoman, he'd deal with it later. Hopefully when they were far from this kill box and with answers from Liam Magnar!
"You'd think the ride would've woken him from his stupor," Ballan commented as Lash knelt beside his high commander and former mentor.
"Maybe a jumpstart will pull him out of it," Truk added as Lash reached out with a frown.
What was that on Magnar's neck? A collar??
"Did he have this on when you found him?" Lash asked, tugging on the collar. It was as he tried to move it that he discovered it was adhered to the skin of his neck. And some sort of blinking red light was active just above where the collar passed over Magnar's carotid.
"Aye," Truk replied, his expression curious. "We weren't sure what it was so we left it in place. Could be what they were using to keep him docile."
"Like a drug injector?" Ballan asked, earning a nod from Truk.
"Or an explosive rigged to go off if he tried to escape," Lash grimly suggested. "A vampire without a head can't regenerate."
It was as he leaned forward to get a better look at the relatively simple metal ring painted in matte black that he noticed a symbol etched into the metal beside the indicator light. A stylized flame, like the one on the shoulder patches belonging to the human soldiers.
A crunch of boots on gravel just then made him look up. Where he found himself watching four vampires carefully and as quickly as they could, drag several of the black uniformed humans in various stages of death from where they had been thrown during the battle for the front gate back to their covered position.
Oddly enough, seeing that made the big vampire nod in unconscious approval. They had just fought a massive fight and took heavy casualties. Even the vampires that were dragging the bodies sported several holes in their armor in testament to how hard they fought. He couldn't begrudge them a blood meal from human sources in an attempt to recoup some of the resources expended during that fight. In fact, if there was opportunity, he wouldn't mind a drink himself! As long as they ...
He smiled when one paused long enough to pull a purity kit from a backpack to check to see if the humans' blood was tainted. At least they had learned from those boobytrapped familiars back at the Galway Airport. As long as they got the green light to confirm no toxins were present, they were welcome to drink their fill. Then resolutely he turned back to Magnar, his thoughts churning once more on the strange humans and their flame symbol.
Who were they? And what in the name of the Night were they doing here??
"We need to get this damn collar off," he rumbled in a low voice. "Hopefully without blowing his head off in the process!" He tapped it. "I'd wager good blood gold there's a tracking device in there."
"Tracked by ... the Hand?" Truk asked and Lash shook his head before reaching out to point at the symbol etched into the metal. "Night take me, the humans?!? I thought they were just some sort of special trained familiars!"
"Not with those reflexes and strength," Ballan grimly noted. "They gave us so much resistance at the front gate, we thought they might be enhanced."
"Like Brotherhood enhanced??" Truk looked from Ballan to Lash, who shook his head.
"But close. Highly trained and conditioned." His thoughtful frown deepened. "And definitely not scared of taking the fight to us." His eyes narrowed. "Up until I found their symbol etched into this damn collar, I thought them mercenaries, hired by the Hand to provide daytime security in addition to the handful of daycloaks they had available. Unaware that they guarded vampires, or fought against them, for that matter. Now, however ..."
"Humans in full awareness of the Children of the Night." Truk shook his head even as Ballan quietly swore under his breath. "Never in a thousand years would I have thought it possible."
"If the humans become aware of us, and gather against us ..." The French-born Ventru stammered to a halt.
Lash found himself remembering a similar conversation between the psy-lord Mordecai and some of his fellow psionics, a conversation that he overheard by chance. It was over something Mordecai had called 'The Shield', the elaborate ruse that protected Humanity's mutant children from discovery and destruction. Mordecai, before he became a psy-lord, was a member of a small group of very powerful psionics called 'the Lone Gunmen'. These Lone Gunmen's singular reason to exist was to protect those mutant children, Humanity's 'Dark Edge', by maintaining and enforcing the Shield. Enforcement that just as often was against their own people, like the Brotherhood, than it was against other races.
It was in the aftermath of that conversation that Lash discovered that the Shield also existed to protect the other two most powerful mutant races belonging to the Dark Edge, the Vampires and the Werewolves. Though he'd wager neither realized it fully. The Children of the Night had always operated in secret, partially due to their nocturnal existence, and the rest because they literally hunted humans. The Shield enhanced that secrecy and, until now, had worked with their own secretive ways to keep them safe.
If the prey one day discovered they were being hunted, that would instantly change, if not because of shear numbers alone. Normal humans outnumbered their vampiric cousins by orders of magnitude. If they gathered their forces to destroy the Children, that fight would be short and brutal. Bloody, but over far too soon for the Children to survive. And the Brotherhood and their ilk would be all too happy to help exterminate their ancient enemies!
Lash's eyes narrowed as he looked back down at the collar, extremely advanced in its simplicity. It was something in all his experience in dealing with normal humans he hadn't seen before. Along with those highly trained soldiers. It was enough to make him think they were dealing with not an incursion by the rest of Humanity. But a small splinter group that had discovered their existence and now worked with the Hand to exterminate the First Clan of the Night.
"Before our assumptions paralyze future action, consider this, my brothers:" he began. "Including the rather loud battle at Van Tallert Castle, up to this point the humans have paid us no mind. Much as they've done for thousands of years." He pointed at the collar. "I think this is some sort of cabal, a sect of Humanity that works apart from their brothers and sisters. Like the Brotherhood works apart from the rest of the psionics. A splinter group that, for reasons of their own, haven't informed the rest of Humanity of our existence and have sided with the vendetta against us."
Both vampires looked at Lash as he said that, their eyes thoughtfully narrowed as they considered his words. Before they could speak in reply, however, Magnar abruptly twitched and came awake in a rush.
"Where ... where am I?" he said in a low, slurred voice as he tried to sit up. Only to find Lash's big hand holding him in place.
"Lie still, Liam," Lash said in a low, concerned voice. "You've been heavily drugged for a long period of time. Your body needs time to recover."
"Lash?" the square-jawed Magnar twisted his head around in an attempt to see the bigger vampire even though he knelt right beside him. "Why can't I see you??" A flailing hand finally managed to find Lash's arm and took hold of it. "Better question is: what are you doing here?"
"Rescuing you of course, old man," Lash said in reply, playing a hunch. "Couldn't keep yourself out of trouble with the Hand, could you?"
Magnar's pale but still handsome face quickly knotted into a mask of anger.
"Those filthy traitors!" he spat. "They killed Korliss and took my sister and her children hostage to use against me. When I gathered my household nestari to remind them of a Magnar lord's fury, they ambushed us in Galway before we could travel."
The hand that clutched Lash's arm tightened convulsively.
"They killed them all, my sworn soldiers," he husked, sudden sorrow in his hoarse voice. "then dragged me back to the castle where I found my Qos Viran guard dead, my wife Alsae... raped and murdered."
Somehow, even though they were still glazed over with the drug that had kept him insomnolent, Magnar's eyes turned until they looked directly into Lash's. It was then that he could see they were filled with tears, hot and bitter.
"Ventru has fallen, Lash," he gasped, clutching at Lash's arm now with both hands. "And her enemies sever her allies from her embrace."
"Not yet, old friend," Lash growled in reply. "Ventru isn't dead yet! But we will only win if we know who we are fighting. Do you know who on the council has declared vendetta against my clan?"
Again Magnar's face became a visage of fury.
"I do. It's Lord ... urk!"
Magnar abruptly twitched so hard that he nearly flipped Lash over by his grip on the bigger vampire's arm. Then he was frantically twisting and writhing in pain, his mouth open in a silent howl of agony.
It was as he tried to hold his former mentor down that Lash noticed the indicator light on the collar had gone from red to green. Then he saw Magnar's skin on either side of the collar begin to bubble. A bubbling that quickly spread to every exposed surface on his body.
It wasn't like how magma bubbled when gas moved up through it, or like boiling water bubbled. No, this was like the frantic motion of flesh infested with parasites that were trying to escape their inevitable doom.
"Father of Shadows," Truk breathed, his eyes flying wide as he too caught the movement just under Magnar's skin. "What is that?"
"Get ... back!" Magnar without warning gasped, his mouth filled with blood from him biting through his own tongue as he let go of Lash's arms to throw them wide to either side of his body. Then his right arm exploded into a thousand bloody pieces.
Arching in pain, Magnar managed a guttural, animalistic pain-filled sound. Then his left leg exploded.
"Ahhyeeee!" he screamed. "My blood ... burns! The collar. Get it off, get it off!"
Somehow spared from the dual geysers of bone and blood from his old mentor's exploding limbs, Lash leaned in and grabbed the collar, intending on tearing it free. Only to stumble back when without warning it gave way in his hand.
Unable to regain his balance, Lash went down hard, hitting with a hip then his back. And was as quickly back on his feet, snapping his body back up with a whip crack of motion and speed. Just in time to hear one of the vampires that had drank from a downed human soldier start to scream.
Head twisting around to bring his eyes to bear, Lash watched in dismay as the vampire's skin shifted wildly in the same pattern that Magnar's had, the male shockstill with pain. A heartbeat later three more vampires were adding their howls to the first as they toppled to the ground to writhe in agony, their skin visibly crawling.
"No more drinking from the human soldiers!" he shouted to a handful of vampires that had been moving in to take their share. Then he had to desperately throw himself to the side, arms over his head, as a long strafing run ran straight down the road before hammering into the gate, missing him by mere centimeters.
Continuing to roll back under cover, Lash returned a second time to his feet. Letting his eyes track off the four vampires now stricken with what appeared to be the same thing killing Magnar and onto the Irish vampire, he then watched as his former mentor and high commander exploded into a cloud of bloody particles, the eruption cutting off Magnar's own cries of pain with terminal abruptness.
"Liam," Lash husked in disbelief. Then he was looking over his shoulder as, with sickly 'pops', the four vampires that drank the human blood, also exploded into mist.
"Ahhh, what is this?" Ballan cried into the silence created by the four obliterating, stumbling back from where Magnar had lain, clawing at his face as he did.
Looking back over at the French Ventru, Lash felt a thrill of alarm rush through him at spotting the telltale bubbling on Ballan's left cheek where some of Magnar's blood appeared to have landed. Playing his second hunch of the moment, he yanked free his combat knife and ran to Ballan's side.
Once there he slapped the frantic vampire's hands aside and saw that the bubbling had taken up a full quarter of his face, from cheekbone to jaw, and looked to be spreading.
"Hold still," he tautly commanded. Then, with a hand bracing Ballan's head, he stabbed the tip of his knife into the vampire's cheek. To his credit, the French nestari didn't flinch, his expression already a rictus of concern, panic, and pain. Not hesitating, Lash then used the tip of the knife to quickly cut around the affected piece of skin and flesh before pulling it free and tossing it onto the ground.
Wiping his knife on his leg, the big vampire watched as the patch of skin continued to consume itself even as Ballan pressed a field dressing to the hole in his face.
"Narcist. I need your skills over here," Lash said, still staring at the patch. "And make it quick: our opportunity is fleeting!"
"Already here, Wolf," the grim tech said as she dropped to one knee beside the patch of skin and held out a sensor probe over it. "Father Night, the thing is crawling with nanites!" Then she was jerking her hand clear as the patch exploded into a tiny cloud of red mist.
"Nanites," Lash repeated, his expression hard. "That's within our tech range, but no vampire would use something that deliberately contaminates blood!"
"It has to be the humans then," Truk said as he and Ballan joined him beside Narcist, the French Ventru already dropping away the field dressing as his skin closed over the wound with typical vampiric regenerative speed. "Nanites to take out Magnar if he managed to escape their custody. And in their soldiers to prevent us from using them as a battle resource."
In the silence that fell after Truk's grim realization they could hear the whining turbines of no less than three attack aircraft circling their position.
"This position is compromised. Fall back to the transports," Lash directed as he looked up into the sky and almost immediately spotted one of the aircraft, a straight wing vehicle with a split tail and twin jets mounted on the rear fuselage. It was banking in preparation to line up a strafing run.
"And keep to cover! Or those planes will cut us to ribbons before we can reach our extraction point."
The surviving vampires, a mere handful compared to the numbers they had gone in with, quickly prepared to move out. Lash was about to do the same when Narcist called out.
"Wait! I see something where Magnar was lying!"
What? Lash turned back to the red splash on the ground marking where his mentor had violently died. And he almost immediately spotted what Narcist had seen: something rectangular and metallic approximately where Magnar's right leg had been.
"Hold your position," he directed to Narcist as he carefully stepped past her to the red spot. "Better that only one of us get infected with nanites." Pulling a pair of pliers from a utility pouch, he carefully leaned over and took hold of the metallic object and lifted it free of the splash zone. That done, he then stepped back out of the red area, retracing his steps as best he could.
Now free of the contaminated area, he lifted up the object to take a closer look at it.
"Huh," Narcist grunted as she joined him in peering at the metallic rectangle. "That looks like some sort of data vault. He must've been hiding it inside his body somewhere for the humans not to find it."
"If Lord Liam Magnar, Lord High Commander of the Qos Viran was hiding a data vault inside his body, then there's something very important stored on it. That you can wager your fangs on!" Lash bluntly declared. He then wiped it and the pliers off on a scrap piece of cloth, which he then threw away.
"But now isn't the time to find out what it is. It's time to get the hell out of here! Let's move."
****