"Kadasa," Lash hissed, reaching for his clothing. Long used to dressing in the strangest of places as a Qos Viran operator, he was fully clothed before the lilith could slip her underclothing back on. He turned to her to bow his head.
"My lady. I suggest you stay here. I will investigate why your team has lost contact with their rearguard."
"Let me come with you," she said, pulling her blouse back on. "If we're dealing with the Hand, my position should ..."
Lash quickly held up a forestalling hand.
"Forgive me for interrupting you, my lady. But the Hand attacked a lilith's holding in Belgium after they discovered she was harboring us. In their zeal to follow their masters' orders, they have forgotten the ancient laws."
She stared at him for a long handful of seconds. Then she darted in close to kiss him hard and deep before letting him go.
"Good hunting, my wolf," she said in a hoarse whisper. "Leave their blood cold on the ground!"
Nodding, Lash stepped back and reached behind him to open the door. Where he found a tall, and relatively strong-looking vampire with bright blue eyes and pale skin, obviously from the same clan as his queen. Seeing Lash step out of the small chamber, he backed up to let the much bigger vampire step into the aisle.
"Report," Lash tautly directed. Hearing the note of command, the M'tada guardsman bowed his head.
"Commander. Her Ladyship ordered a vanguard two cars up and a rearguard two cars back to give her a buffer of protection."
The guardsman's face tightened.
"We've lost contact with the rear guard two minutes ago. When we tried ..."
Lash found his eyes moving off the guardsman to what appeared to be shifting blurs around as the male continued his terse report. It was enough to push him into reaching into the small of his back.
"You need to pull back to your vanguard," he interrupted the guardsman to say, trying to track the blurs as best he could without moving his eyes or head.
"Commander?"
He looked directly at the guardsman, his expression hard.
"Take her Ladyship and retreat to the vanguard's position," he tightly directed. "Now!" He then pulled the Shanzi from its holster.
Seeing the futuristic machine pistol appear out of nowhere, the M'rada guard's eyes flew wide. But before he could speak or react, one of the blurs was behind him to sprout a pair of hands. Then one hand was taking him by the head while the other suddenly held a car'dieth knife, which was swiftly drawn across the guardsman's throat.
Blinking rapidly as blood abruptly spilled out the blackening slash, the guardsman stared at Lash for a handful of seconds, his mouth working soundlessly. Then he was crumpling to the floor.
Which was fine by Lash as he had snapped the Shanzi into position as soon as the hands had appeared. Now he had a clear line of fire.
"Death to the Hand!" he grated. Then the Shanzi was filling the car with death-dealing ceramic flying too fast to avoid.
First to die was the operative who just murdered the guardsman, stitched across the body by ceramic retribution. The slugs' impact threw him back with enough force, the stealth daycloak he was wearing was flung from his body. Which, in turn, made him visible.
Then the entire car was filled with suddenly visible bodies, the Shanzi's fiery ordnance both slaying and revealing as it slammed into the stealthed Hand agents. A single pass was all it took to make a full dozen appear as their cloaks were flung from mortally-wounded and twisting bodies.
"Guided," Lash growled. "Target marks with the same physical parameters as those on the floor."
"Acknowledged," the Shanzi's AI said. "Targets identified. Firing." And Lash watched several rounds dart through the door before either taking a hard left or right, bodies audibly dropping a heartbeat after. A pair even went into the ceiling before Lash caught sight of two bodies, one per side, drop past the windows.
With those dropping bodies marking the Shanzi falling silent, Lash was, for the moment, satisfied he had eliminated any Hand that were nearby. But he certainly wasn't operating under the illusion that he had killed every agent on the train.
Holstering the machine pistol, the big vampire stepped over the bodies, his fierce eyes looking for any sign of life. There, one near the door was still moving.
Hearing the vampire's breath gurgling blood from multiple punctures in his lungs as he approached, Lash paused long enough to scoop up one of the discarded car'dieth daggers that now lay haphazardly about with their former owners' bodies cooling nearby. Then he was kneeling beside the stricken vampire.
Dark brown, almost black eyes swung onto him as he came into the agent's visual range. Normally Lash would've complimented the warrior on a battle well-fought if it was honorable combat. He might even have offered to hasten the mortally-wounded vampire's passing to the other side.
This piece of filth, however, deserved no such courtesy. This murderer and rapist deserved every bit of agony available. So, he held up the car'dieth instead. The agent's eyes immediately widened in fear.
"I think you dropped this," Lash said in almost a conversational tone. Then he was reaching out to draw a line down the man's cheek with the radioactive tip of the car'dieth's blade.
Instantly the skin started to blacken and smoke, the nervous tissue igniting beneath. And while he was already mortally wounded, the Hand agent began to writhe in pain.
Lash watched the agent twist in pain for a moment before he reached out and pulled free the man's car'dieth sheath, shielded so it could be worn close to the body. Not that the big Ventru needed to worry about that, with his EM shielding doing all the work in deflecting the radioactive blade's dangerous energy. Still, it made carrying the blade a bit easier. So he took it and sheathed the blade he had just scratched the Hand agent with.
That done, he stood as the agent's skin cracked and peeled away with his silent screams, exposing the burning flesh beneath.
"Ash in agony," he growled. He then turned and quickly stepped back to the lavatory.
A knuckle to wood then:
"My lady."
The door was pulled open to let the lilith throw herself into his arms.
"Lash!" she cried, squeezing him tightly. "Thank the Dark Father!" She eased her hold on him to step back, looking around him at the carnage that now filled the passenger car. "I heard the bodies hitting the floor."
That was then that she saw her former guardsman, Colin's face blackened and melted to reveal charred bone beneath.
"A car'dieth," she said quietly. "Oh, Colin!"
Lash stepped away from her before kneeling beside the first Hand agent he had cut down. Retrieving that vampire's radioactive blade and sheath, he covered the blade then held it out to her.
"The blade that took his life," he indicated.
She nodded as she took the sheathed weapon, watching her guardsman finally collapse into ash, his body ravaged.
"He will be avenged," Lash said, his expression tight. "You have my word on it!"
The lilith nodded again before looking up at him, lifting her free hand to brush away the hint of a tear that had appeared in the corner of her eye.
"What do we do now, my wolf?" she asked.
"Regroup and consolidate with your remaining M'tada, my lady," Lash began.
"Fiadh," she interjected to say, slipping the sheathed blade into her waistband.
"Fee-uh?" Lash repeated and she nodded, her smile brightening slightly.
"Said correctly, but probably not spelt right in that handsome head of yours,"
"I'm afraid my Irish Gaelic is quite rusty. I'm not sure what ..."
"It means me, Ingamon," she said. "It's my name."
"My lady, I ..."
Fiadh stopped him from finishing by laying a light hand on the side of his face, her fingers curving possessively under his strong jaw.
"You and I were as intimate as a man and woman can be, my wolf," she said, pausing to go up on her tiptoes to kiss him. "And, Dark Father be praised, I now carry our child within me. I think it's only proper that you actually know my name."
Lash gazed at her for a moment, absorbing what she had just said. It required pushing the battle lust out of his mind long enough to let it sink in. Then he was smiling and bowing his head slightly.
"As you wish, my Lady Fiadh," He said. Then the smile was gone. "And now we need to fall back!"
Truk looked up as a knot of determined M'tada stepped through the door, a stride ahead of the dark monster that was Ingamon Lash. A flash of fiery red hair marked the woman that walked close behind the powerful Qos Viran commander, a confident and determined stride that matched the big vampire stride for stride.
But it was Narcist, first sighing with relief at spotting him, that named the big vampire.
"Lash! Thank the Dark Father you're okay!"
"Aye, when the lilith took you, we weren't sure ..." Truk began to say before, quickly pulling herself around Lash's body, Fiadh kissed him deeply, hands on either side of his head to hold him close, before reluctantly parting to step into the center of her M'tada in defensive formation. A formation that was being bolstered by the vanguard returning from the next car ahead.
"Ah." the veteran nestari stammered into an awkward silence even as Narcist shot him a dark look, reaching out with her foot to nudge him. She then looked over at Lash as the big vampire dropped into his seat beside her.
"By that expression, I'd say you ran into some old friends," she said, earning herself a quick nod in confirmation.
"Hand agents in stealth daycloaks," he added. "They killed the lilith's rearguard and were pressing her position when I intervened, killing a couple dozen of them."
"A couple dozen!" Truk regained his composure in a rush to exclaim. "If there were that many, then this train is likely crawling with them."
"That much is certain," Lash agreed, his expression grim. A quick inhalation and sigh then he was looking at the lilith currently ensconced in her knot of M'tada. And found her looking at him, her eyes bright.
"I believe we avoided bringing them on board." He looked to Truk then over at Narcist. "But her Ladyship is in season. She caught my scent in the train station and followed, bringing her entire personal guard with her."
"Dark Father's fury," Truk hissed in dismay. "No disrespect to her Ladyship, but she may have just killed us with that."
That earned him another nudge from Narcist.
"She's in season, you idiot," she hissed when he looked over at her with a questioning look. "It's just as likely her instincts took over and made her follow Lash onto the train." She looked at the frowning Qos Viran commander. "He's an alpha prime, after all."
Lash grimaced.
"Not you, too," he growled. A slight smile touched her lips for a minute before it disappeared and she held up her hands in mock surrender.
"I won't say another word about it," Narcist indicated. "May my blood spill cold."
Truk, however, wasn't so willing to let it go.
"While I get why you'd be an alpha prime, Wolf, 'cuz you're a freaking beast, how did you manage to get out of that Nestrecht lilith's hands without her pinning you down like the Irish girl did? What was her name? Emma??"
"Wow," Narcist said, face palming. "Subtle as always, Truk."
"As definitely not an alpha prime, I think it's a legit question," the Ventru nestari pressed. "I'm not ever going to get pulled out of a crowd via a pheromone fog to do my duty for queen, clan, and the People of the Night any time soon, so it's made me curious."
He looked over at a frowning Lash.
"I'm guessing by your expression you don't actually know, Wolf."
But, again, it was Narcist that answered.
"These genetic designations have always been the purview of the queens and the breeders," she said. "Every male is evaluated at puberty, with that evaluation improving or degrading as they continue on as adults, an evaluation that isn't generally shared with the males themselves. It allows the Houses and the Clans to strengthen their bloodlines with more precision and planning than the pure, dumb luck the humans use. And, as you well know, since we're a people that find it difficult to propagate ourselves, genetic planning is something ..."
"The breeders and liliths do," Truk said with a sigh and a nod of understanding. "Okay, I get it. Like I said: good call, ladies. The man is a specimen."
Narcist let her eyes track over to a frowning Lash where they stayed for a long moment. Then she was nodding.
"That, he is," she admitted. Seeing that look, Truk also frowned.
"You still haven't told me why the Irish girl got on a train just to reach our boy here, and Emma didn't give him a second look."
A brow lifted on Narcist's forehead at that.
"You weren't there, Truk. How would you know if she showed any interest or not?" she countered.
"Neither were you," Truk retorted.
"True. But I heard Wolf wasn't down in Van Tallert's courtyard more than five minutes before reports were coming from Emma's compound about what the females there thought of our commander here. Including the lilith, who, if she had been in season like the Irish girl is now, would've taken the time to take the time. She knew he was an alpha prime out of the box. Probably half the reason she helped him to begin with!"
That only served to tighten Truk's expression into belligerence.
"You're no breeder, Narcist. How do you know all this?"
"Breeder, no. And I prefer the company of a woman more than a man. But despite my preferences, I'm still a woman and vampire women talk. A lot." Abruptly she smirked. "Not to mention, biology is biology. I wouldn't be much of a female if I didn't at least notice."
"Not helping, Narcist," Lash rumbled, finally having heard enough talk that distracted them from their primary mission. And again she held up her hands in mock surrender. Then Narcist was grimly serious, dropping her hands into a not-so-patient pose.
"What's our next move, boss?"
After another glance at the M'tada and their precious cargo, Lash looked at the door beside him.
"We're going to try and rampart long enough to reach Dublin," he said. "There, we'll use the chaos of the main train station to slip away to one of the Ventru safehouses nearby."
"How many do we have in the city?" Truk asked, almost glad to be talking about the mission once again, and not the mysterious inner workings of vampiric genetics, despite being the one that pressed the issue.
"Three. But it's the one closest to the station that we want," Lash said. "Last I checked, it was a holdout shelter, hardened against Brotherhood assault." he looked from Narcist back to Truk. "It'll have the resources to replenish our ammunition, get some rest, and maybe even a blood meal while we determine how to get out of Ireland. It also is equipped with a hardline that can be connected directly to any Ventru holding in Europe, so we can contact Lady Van Tallert and give her a status update." He leaned forward slightly.
"If we can sufficiently elude the Hand in the Irish capital and replenish our resources at the holdout, we might also find ourselves with the opportunity to book a flight on a human airline and not burn Lady Van Tallert's resources to bring us in."
Truk nodded before hazarding a look over his shoulder at Fiadh and her M'tada.
"Can we expect any help from the lilith?"
"She offered." Lash looked down at his boots for a moment, then: "I said no."
"What??"
"I know what you're thinking, Truk, but Lash made the right call. Regardless of how handy and well trained her M'tada might be, we don't want to pull her into our situation," Narcist said with a nod, her eyes on Lash.
"With the Hand willing to fire on a lilith, as we witnessed with Emma, who came under attack after re-equipping Lash and sending him on to us, she'd be at risk." She looked over at Truk. "She'll need to protect what she acquired from our good commander. Not throw down with homicidal White Flames, and power-drunk Hand operatives!"
"Just as well," Truk said, nonchalantly leaning back with an unworried expression on his face. "I wouldn't want those bumble-footed M'tada stumbling around, getting in our way!"
Several long moments went by after that, Fiadh's M'tada shifting around nervously while they watched the door to Lash's left. Truk too, looked a little anxious after his initial flippancy, gazing steadily at the door with a hand on his handgun. Narcist, for her part, returned to her decoding, her fingers flying over the tablet as she labored to crack what apparently was turning out to be some seriously powerful encryption protecting the data from the Galway safehouse.
Lash, however, wasn't content to sit and wait for the Hand to come and get them. After staying patient enough to let almost a half hour go by, he had enough of the waiting.
Truk and Narcist both looked up as, in a surge of motion, Lash was out of his seat.
"If you're looking for a snack, the meal car is in the other direction, Wolf," Truk dryly pointed out.
"I hunger, yes." Lash pulled the Shazi free. "But for the blood of Ventru's enemies, not food." Then he was gone, through the doors and heading towards the back of the train.
Truk was staring at the door when he felt a presence appear beside him. Looking over at it in surprise, he found himself looking at the pale, redheaded beauty that was the Irish lilith. She, too, gazed intently at the door with her bright green eyes.
"Night mistress, you honor us ..." he recovered enough to say before a curt gesture cut him off.
"My wolf hunts alone," she said, her melodic voice sad and filled with not a little melancholic longing.
"Fear not, night mistress," Narcist quickly stepped in to say with a quick glance at the bemused Truk. "Commander Lash's reputation as a fierce and capable warrior is well-earned."
"I know, nestari," the lilith replied, her expression of longing not changing. "He single-handedly cut down over twenty four Hand filth to ensure our safety less than an hour ago."
She finally looked down, her expression becoming pensive.
"He would cleanse the train himself, and leave the bodies for the humans to find, if he had his way."
"Very true," Narcist found herself agreeing.
The lilith turned her bright green eyes onto the tattooed tech specialist.
"He forbade me help him, when I so desperately wanted to," she said with a hitch in her voice that, thanks to the pheromones thickening the air around her, actually brought tears to Narcist's eyes. "Has he forbidden you, his own comrades, to join him in combat?"
Narcist frowned at that. How could she answer the lilith's question without making it sound cowardly? Then she mentally shrugged. Maybe she should just tell the truth and see how the lilith takes it.
"He didn't ask us to join him, night mistress," she revealed. And watched as a look of understanding appeared on the lilith's flawless face.
"I've known him for less than an hour, yet that matches completely the man I've come to know," the lilith admitted with a wry smile. "Thank you for your honesty, nestari." Then she was looking back at the door, her expression of longing returning.
****