He was still working on that thirty five minutes later as their flight passed the halfway point and was beginning its descent when he heard movement in the seat behind him. Then a hand was grabbing his left arm. Looking down at it, he saw it belonged to Bronwyn. A quick look back found her in Narcist's seat and wearing a mask of concern.
"I smell dark intent!" she hissed for my ears only, her eyes narrowed. "And gun metal!"
Gun metal and dark intent? They were the last passengers on board, the gate agent pretty much closing the door right behind them. So how did they miss that as soon as they were in the same enclosed space?
It was then that a puff of air against his face reminded him that the plane was on recycled air. It had taken over half the flight for scents from further back in the cabin to circulate to the front. To where a vigilant Bronwyn had picked them out of the flow. The realization tightened his expression.
Out of the two places he had anticipated the enemy attacking, he had hoped it would've been the terminal at Heathrow. There, they had defensible positions to retreat to and defend, as well as extraction points. It would've been a fierce battle, but one they could have won without casualties. And they were indeed attacked there, the more logical of the two places for their enemy to strike against them.
Fighting on board a plane, on the other hand, was tantamount to suicide. And here the enemy was, prepared to try and take them on a Day Witch cursed plane. It was madness. Or desperation; either way, there would be no victors here. Only death.
A passing thought made him wonder if they had actually been attacked twice. Was the ambush in the corridor with Jerisa and her M'tada aimed at them? Or at the lilith and her Blood Guard? It could be argued either way, with Lash and his company simply in the wrong place. Or that Jerisa and her M'tada were.
Even the possible attack about to unfold on the plane; how could it have been deliberate if the Hand didn't know they were actually getting on this plane? Unless the reason they weren't attacked in Dublin was to allow the Hand and the White Flames to crack the booking database and find out what planes they were on and react accordingly.
Of course that was given a generous amount of credit to the thuggish Hand. The White Flames, however; they were a different animal altogether. Then he was grimly pushing it all aside. It didn't actually matter if the attack in Heathrow was planned or not. They were attacked.
Nor did it matter whether the Hand and the White Flames planned to take them out on the plane if they couldn't in the airport. Because here they were. In both instances, Lash and his comrades were forced to take action. Or die as piles of ash.
Nodding over his shoulder to let Bronwyn know he was acknowledging her track. Then it was over at Truk to flash him two upraised fingers.
In the planning session earlier that day, Lash had made Truk, Narcist, and Bronwyn aware that he thought there were two distinct possibilities of the enemy attacking: at Heathrow, and on the plane itself. They then hammered out two separate scenario plans for those two possibilities. Of course, none of that planning had anticipated their enemies would attack them in both places!
Flashing a two to Truk signaled they were on scenario two: defending an attack on the plane. He then held two fingers out into the aisle to let Narcist and Bronwyn also know they were moving to the second scenario. Then he was waving one of the stewards over.
When the human reached his chair, Lash showed his Interpol credentials, which Narcist had retrieved from their database as part of the scenario 2 work up.
As the man's eyes widened, Lash spoke in a low voice.
"I need a quiet conversation with your pilot, and the air marshal."
Thankfully the human, in light of how frequently air flights were targeted by terrorist post 9-11, was well trained. So, beyond his eyes widening, he gave nothing away to possible observers deeper in the cabin.
Instead, he subtly nodded and casually straightened up to step to the flight deck door. A light tap and he was whispering through the cracked open door.
A heartbeat later a fairly nondescript human stepped out of economy.
"Excuse me," he said to the remaining steward still in the front of the plane. When the steward turned to him, he smiled.
"Think I could get a bottle of water, mate?" he asked in a light British accent.
As the steward nodded and turned to the pantry, Lash found the man's hand extended toward him. A look at it yielded a sky marshal's identity. In response Lash put his Interpol ID onto his leg in the man's sight line but no-one else's.
He then held out a plain black card and put that on his leg. It was a symbol pulled from the Interpol database that was used to warn of an in-flight attack.
"Thanks, mate," the man said with a nod and smile as the steward handed him the bottle of water. He quickly unscrewed the top and took a swallow.
"So dry the air in these things," he said casually. "I go through at least four or five bottles even on short hops."
"I know what you mean," Lash said in response to the coded query where the marshal was asking how many assailants and where they were located in the plane.
"But I go for the cheap stuff, no bubbles. Those I can drink like ten or more, scattered throughout the flight."
"Ten? Damn, mate. You get help drinking those? You have to bloody swimming after all that!"
Lash chuckled.
"To the point I feel ready to explode. But if I don't, nosebleeds for days!"
It was the air marshal's turn to chuckle.
"Well, wish you luck then, friend. And if you find you have too many, you can pass a couple back to me in Economy, in 7C."
"Will do," Lash said, flashing a thumbs up before the man disappeared back towards his seat.
While seemingly innocuous, the brief, coded exchange had been vital. Not only had he alerted the air marshal to the possibility of ten or more attackers poised to storm the plane. But the marshal had also communicated his level of preparation and willingness to assist.
Getting the marshal on board with their plan was vital. In his search of the Interpol air terror database, there had been scenario walk-throughs and communication protocols outlined that, if he performed them properly and in the right sequence, he could leversge the plane's crew and the marshal into helping them. Not to mention, setting it up similar to the closing moments of the train attack, would help sell the terrorist angle, hiding the fact that it was vampires attacking, preserving the dark secret.
So he had spent some time memorizing the protocols in case scenario two became a reality. Thanks to his Qos Viran training, he easily absorbed the information in a short time, packing it away into his short memory for quick retrieval. And here they were.
A motion out of the corner of his eye pulled Lash's eyes to the flight deck door, which led to the cockpit. And he watched the pilot slip out and turn to the steward to ask for a bottle of water.
Knowing that was the signal to approach, Lash stood and stepped to the business class toilet.
"Occupied," he said out loud for the benefit of any listening. "Guess I'll wait." And he folded his arms as if to do just that.
Which let the pilot step close to him. After Lash carefully showed his Interpol ID, letting the human copy down the ID to check if it was valid once she got back to the cockpit to check with European Flight Control, she nodded and turned as if to return to the flight deck. Only, she didn't.
"What are we looking at?" she quietly asked.
"Up to 10, scattered throughout economy," Lash reported. "Likely armed but unknown with what. And likely equipped with an explosive device."
The pilot swore under her breath at that.
"Any idea on motive or target?"
"Negative."
"Any connection to what happened back at Heathrow?" she wanted to know. Lash adopted a thoughtful expression, then slowly nodded.
"There's a very good chance," the big vampire said. "They may have even designated this plane as a fallback in case the authorities started locking down the entire airport."
It was the pilot's turn to nod.
"Makes sense, actually," she said. "Although I wish they would've planned otherwise. How did you uncover them?"
"Hand-held molecular sniffer," Lash said, secretly amused at how Bronwyn would react to her new title. "Since the train attack in Dublin, we've been watching all travel out of the UK. We picked up the explosives after we went to on-board air, and based our numbers on what we learned about this cult's past operations."
The pilot nodded her understanding a second time, her expression grim.
"I'll call it in, which means a divert and an escort. Will these bastards pop early if they see either the escort or find out we've changed course?" And her expression darkened further when Lash nodded in the affirmative.
"The marshal is armed. Are you and your team?"
"With non-lethal only. Lyon is scrambling to get ahead of this. With them still trying to put measures in place, we couldn't get authorized for lethal force in time before boarding the flight."
This time her nod of understanding was significantly tighter.
"Can you engage if they become aggressive?"
This time Lash's affirming nod lightened the pilot's expression somewhat.
"We, of course, will attempt to negotiate. As soon as that breaks down, however, we'll do our best to subdue the assailants." the big vampire added.
"Thank you," she said before looking into his face. "Your actions have saved everyone on this flight, Agent Lash."
"We're not there yet, captain," Lash grimly cautioned. "Thank me once we're safe on the ground!"
Truk looked over at Lash as the big vampire took a quick look down the length of the plane before dropping back into his seat.
"Stealthed daycloaks?"
"Affirmative," Lash tautly replied.
"How many?" Lash threw him a grim look. "Ah. Too many." He pulled his Shiva into view, tucking it beside his leg for easy access. "Can we hit them first?"
Lash shook his head. They would have to wait for the Hand to make the first move. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how one looked at it, the Hand wasn't about to make them wait long. As he had looked down the aisle to gauge numbers and location, he spotted several bent air shapes already moving forward.
It was a logical attack, made possible by stealth daycloaks and car'dieth irradiated stone blades. Thanks to their vampire physiology, all the Ventru needed was to be scratched with that blade, the breach in their skin letting a lethal dose of radiation in to hyper-excite their nervous systems. Which, in a matter of moments, led those nervous systems to literally light on fire with enough energy to turn the entire body to ash from the inside out.
It was the most painful way to die for a vampire, and the favorite method of execution for the Hand. It was also one of the reasons the common vampire feared the Hand, which often struck out of the shadows like assassins with their radioactive blades, that fear enough for the heavy handed sitters on the Council to force through unpopular laws and writs.
Which, of course, was why one of the few remaining members of the House of Lash took such satisfaction in sending as many Hand operatives to Hell as he could. And that hopefully would include every one of those arrogant bastards that had snuck onto this plane in an attempt to end not only his life, but those of his friends and comrades as well. And while it was repulsive for him to consider the possibility, it was more than likely they'd ash Fiadh out as well as Meredith, with her known support for Ventru, just to tidy up loose ends.
Lash let a calming breath ease out his nostrils as he could feel the Hand operatives' eyes on the back of his neck. They were close. To communicate that, he flicked the arm of his chair. And he watched out of the corner of his eye Truk put his hand down onto his Shiva's grip.
It was both instinct and reflex that made him suddenly throw a blocking arm over his head. Just in time to catch the arm of a daycloaked operative, their car'dieth appearing as though it hung in mid air without any support. Then Lash was twisting out of his chair as the operative simply let the stone dagger go in an attempt to get gravity to do the dirty work for them and put the dagger into a place where it could scratch Lash's skin.
Instead, with Lash quicker than most vampires thanks to his rigorous training at the hands of the Qos Viran, the dagger dropped untouched through the space the big vampire had just occupied. Then the operative themselves were being jerked roughly back as the powerful Ventru hammered a quick combination into their body.
"There are dozens of passengers on this plane," he quickly hissed in English loud enough for the suddenly cowering stewards to hear. "This attack puts them all at risk. They need not be harmed. What are your demands? I'm sure we can negotiate a settlement."
"Demands?" the operative snarled in reply as their stealth daycload began falling off as they wrestled with the far larger Lash, choosing to speak vampiric instead of any human language.
"We demand you die, Ingamon Lash, Scion of House Lash, and prominent son of the Ventru Clan!" Then Lash was getting two hard impacts in the torso from the 3D printed handgun that abruptly appeared in the operative's hand.
"Gun!" he shouted in English even as the rest of the passengers, some of them already crying out in fear, crouched down in their seats at the sound of the handgun going off.
A single-use weapon, the operative threw his gun aside with a snarl, now revealed as a wiry vampire male of African descent as the daycloak finished falling off to tumble to the aisle. Still feeling the burn from the slugs hammering into his body armor, much as he had done facing the Hand agents trying to executed Meredith, Lash risked a glance down at the bullets sitting on the carpeted floor. And he felt his guts twist to see that the slugs also glowed with a dull light.
More sundogs.
"Watch yourself, Ventru," he growled in vampiric. "The Hand are using irradiated rounds!"