As expected, the massive space had been heavily fortified into a last stand setup with sandbagged hard points armed with mini guns surrounding a bunker built with portable ceramic barriers where the council table once sat. And the place was crawling with White Flames wearing the most advanced armor they possessed, their weapons no doubt loaded with sundog rounds and nothing but.
He could also make out a couple of councilors moving about in their expensive robes, their expressions uncertain as they kept looking at the doors in anticipation of the last assault. They he also anticipated: collaborators looking for protection from their master Demiskieros now that the traitor's scheming was collapsing their world around them.
What Lash didn't anticipate, however, was the cluster of kneeling female figures in skin tight isolation suits, like Romanescu's enslaved liliths had worn, their heads down and hands bound behind their backs. Standing over them were Hand agents with naked car'deith daggers in their gloved hands ready to strike.
Lash drew in a quick breath. They had to be liliths, in iso suits to prevent them using their pheromones. They were no doubt there as a final line of defense for Demiskieros to use to bargain his way out of his death sentence, the traitor knowing the Ventru high lord wouldn't risk the liliths' lives unnecessarily.
"Are those ... liliths in those suits?" a disbelieving Chescu breathed over the comms, the Nosferatu m'tada coming to the same conclusion as the grim Ventru giant.
"I've got clear LOS from our position on those Hand agents," Orimov hissed, his voice filled with barely concealed anger. "We can kill most of those honorless filth before ..."
"Hold your fire," Lash husked, eyes narrowed. "We're not seeing everything that there is to see!"
A quick switch to displacement and the big vampire felt a muscle in his jaw tighten as all the previously empty space was filled with Hand agents under cloak. But, before he could bring his observation to the attention of his comrades, there was a sudden commotion from the far end of the chamber. Then a familiar figure was stepping into view, advanced White Flame armor smoking from several direct hits by high velocity weapons fire. Behind him came several of the rogue human element themselves, two or three pairs carrying badly wounded comrades.
"Romanescu!" Lash couldn't help growling as the Nosferatu slaver threw back the visor on his helmet.
"You're late," a tall vampire at the far end of the chamber said without turning away from staring at the wall, hands clasped behind his back.
"You try cutting through VCG assassins then stumbling through absolute darkness for kilometers just to get here, and be on time," Romanescu spat in response as he pulled off his helmet and threw it to the side in anger.
"If we didn't use sundogs on them, they would've cut us to pieces." A muscle rippled with tension as the former Qos Viran looked over at the tall, lean vampire who had spoken to him.
"Are the assassins at the entrances to the secret passages the reason you're still here, Demaskieros?" He then looked at the makeshift fortifications and the kneeling liliths in containment suits with car'deith being held at their throats.
"Or has Lash backed you into a corner and you have nowhere else to go?"
Snorting derisively before the tall vampire could speak, Romanescu stepped to the liliths and squatted in front of one to look into her shielded face, his eyes measuring.
"Don't bother saying anything. I already know the answer."
"I expended considerable resources and made many promises to our new allies to ensure you reached the Nocturnum in time, Romanescu," Demaskieros finally replied. "You promised you could get us out of the castle, and the capital before Ventru attacked."
The tall vampire finally looked over his shoulder at the frowning slaver.
"Yet, here you finally are well after Ventru has blasted through the city's gates to ravage its way through the city, undiminished by our pogrom and looking to spill the blood of its enemies. Which, thanks to the Ventru High Lord Ingamon Lash, have been identified during his burning charge across Europe towards the inevitable confrontation we all knew would happen if we couldn't kill him right away."
Demaskieros turned to once again stare at the wall.
"Soon the enraged High Lord will be here, looking for retribution. The captive liliths will hold him at bay only until he figures out how to free them. Then he will kill everything that isn't them in this room."
"You, you said we would be safe!" one of the African councilors stammered in fear at hearing the fake Vorinov councilor make his grim prediction. "You said the Nocturnum was impregnable and that Ventru wouldn't have the power ..."
"Silence!" Demaskeiros tautly snarled without looking at the babbling councilor with enough force, the vampire immediately fell silent. "You made a blood vow in exchange for our protection, resources, and beneficial treatment for your clans, Nkosi! Now our fate will be yours!"
Demaskieros finally turned enough to stare at the trembling African councilor.
"If we escape, you have purchased the right to accompany us with your vow. But if we fall ..." he turned back to the wall.
"You will fall with us!"
Romanescu chuckled quietly at that.
"You find our precarious position amusing, slaver?" Demaskieros bit out, twisting to look over his shoulder at the Nosferatu traitor, his long, chiseled face an annoyed and disapproving mask..
"A little bit, yeah," Romanescu said with a smirk. "Fifty years of plotting and scheming, of corrupting High Lords all across Europe, and buying off councilors on the council itself to convince them to declare Ventru blood traitors at the least little provocation, because you knew the original clan would resist your coup. You replacing the Vorinov sitter to put yourself on the council to restore Toreador power, making deals with Janner and his augments, enslaving liliths across the planet in an attempt to break their power ... And yet, here you are."
The Nosferatu traitor stood.
"Hiding in the Nocturnum's council chamber, waiting for me to extract you." He made a show of dusting off his combat armor. "Like you couldn't develop your own plan of escape in the fifty years you've been plotting this coup."
"Day Witch's left teat," Truk hissed over the comms. "This idiot is giving us everything!"
"I'm not surprised," Chescu growled. "Once a traitor, always a traitor. And now he betrays his final master by revealing every sordid detail of Demaskieros's treachery! Fah! Lord Ionescu wanted this treacherous maggot gutted a decade ago. Hearing this slaver's self-important pontificating, I wish he had!"
Lash slowly nodded, both agreeing with Chescu and noting what Truk had, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. The slaver certainly had become very revealing, Romanescu confirming every theory and suggested reason for Demaskieros's efforts on the council. Which, while he appreciated the M'tada commander's reasoning, he still had to, of course, wonder why.
While the last few weeks weren't shrouded in secret, the build up to Demaskieros taking control of the council certainly had been. Decades worth of secrets had been kept as he maneuvered to put himself in position to make his move. And now his underling was letting those secrets out like blood spraying from a severed carotid.
It was an effort that didn't escape Demaskieros's ire.
"You are lucky those that would oppose us aren't in ear's range of your words, slaver," the lean Toreador vampire growled. "Or I'd slit your throat myself to silence you!"
Romanescu smiled ferally.
"Who's to say they're not, Demaskieros?" he retorted. "After all, you already know your own secrets, those that lick your boots are already sworn to secrecy, and the Hand obeys your every command. Me telling them your secrets avails me nothing!"
The former Qos Viran paused there to do a slow circle, eyes sweeping over the chamber's stone walls.
"However, if your enemies had already penetrated not only Varos Ejzhaka, but the Nocturnum itself, there would be a very good chance that they are already looking in on this chamber."
Again Romanescu smiled ferally.
"Personally, I hope they have. Especially a certain Ventru high lord. Because then ..." he paused to reach inside his armor vest to draw out the unmistakable shape of a remote detonator.
"It makes using this that much more satisfying!" Romanescu finished as he held the detonator to casually look it over.
"What ... is that?" the Nakagi sitter hesitantly asked.
"A remote detonator," Demaskieros frostily replied before Romanescu. "That's your final solution, slaver? To kill us all instead of allowing us to be captured by Ventru?"
"Something like that," Romanescu smugly replied. "Although, I'd rather use it as leverage." He lightly tossed the detonator into the air and caught it.
"Now I know most, if not all of you thought you'd be able to pull this coup off without any repercussions. Ventru would be conveniently unable to resist, gutted by your fake purge declaration, Toreador would be restored to power, Vorinov castigated for overreaching and the liliths' robbed of their unnatural power over our people."
The Nosferatu traitor smirked.
"I, on the other hand, did not move forward under that illusion. I served with Lash, you see, for years as Qos Viran. And I knew he was vicious and relentless, with skill, strength, and conviction. Going at him directly would only serve to piss him off. Which it did."
Romanescu folded his arms.
"It's the reason I never offered to send any of my own Qos Viran-trained security forces to assist in any of your little operations."
"Does this filthy traitor ever shut up??" Orimov growled, his voice filled with impatience.
"He's in love with his own voice, that's certain," Tanis dryly noted.
"So why aren't we shooting him?" Orimov tautly asked.
"Until we know what that detonator does, he continues breathing," Lash flatly directed. "Knowing Romanescu like I do, it's just a matter of time before he brags about it. He can't help it."
Almost as if he was privy to their comms, Romanescu once again held up the detonator for everybody in the council chamber.
"What kind of leverage can you get from a simple bomb, slaver?" Demaskieros hissed challengingly.
"Not much," the former Qos Viran admitted, still looking at the device in his hand. "But me and my operatives spent the better part of the last year wiring not only the Nocturnum, but all of Varos Ejzhaka as well with tactical nukes. All of which can be simultaneously triggered by this remote device."
Lash could feel his face tighten. There it is: what the detonator would set off. Described, as expected, in an offhand kind of smugness as if Romanescu expected to be congratulated for both his cleverness, and ruthlessness.
"Darktower, Lash."
"Lash, Darktower. Go."
"Be advised, general. The enemy has put nucleonics into play. Harden all EM shielding to maximum and deploy your Cerberus teams immediately!"
"Acknowledged, my lord. Cerberus teams are now active. The First Dragon is now on Gamma protocols. Level of threat, sir?" Darktower crisply asked.
"Multiple tactical devices scattered in a maximum destruction pattern throughout the city and fortress. We will attempt to take possession of the detonating device before it can be triggered. If we fail, however ..."
"Understood, my lord. Dark Father watch over you and your soldiers. Darktower out."
And his general was gone, leaving Lash staring hard through a crack at a smirking Romanescu. Now, all the traitorous slaver had to do was make his demand!
Thankfully he didn't have long to wait.
"Is that leverage enough, Toreador?" he turned to ask the frowning Demaskieros.
"You would kill hundreds of thousands of vampires just to, what? Satisfy a whim?" the lean imposter snarled back, struggling to keep bravado in his voice, and fear and dismay out of it.
"Nope," Romanescu replied, his smirk growing slightly. "To draw out our opponent. Isn't that right, Lash?"