Carefully Mordecai finished repacking his bag before taking one last look around the small hotel room to see if he had missed anything. Aizea and the four breeders had already gone ahead, somewhat secure in their neuron armor, to get them a cab. Since it was close to 10 pm at night, they were quite safe from UV radiation, if not from roving psionics.
While it would be quicker to translocate to the airport, the more they acted like Normals, the less likely they were to be noticed by the swarms of psionics ranging all over the city. Hence the cab.
Seeing that he had not, Mordecai nodded in satisfaction. He then immediately reached into the ether with his senses.
They were out there, somewhere. The lone gunmen, several of them already on route to Calgary as they closed in on the still growing node of Uncertainty that had brought Mordecai to the prairie city nearly a week and a half ago. Much had happened in those nine days since: discovery, illumination and war, mostly. And they were far from done here!
With the fall of Samson and his Alliance, the rebellion had become quietly desperate. The Alliance had been elemental as a driving force against the oppression of the Brotherhood, convincing the other psi nations in the city to actively fight against them. Now that they were gone, the Alliance subsumed by the ESETs, there no longer was a driving force for independence.
Instead, there was a sense of defeat, fatalistically powerful, as the surviving fourteen nations waited for the Brotherhood to complete their re-conquest of the city.
In retrospect, Mordecai knew he could've saved them. He could've easily stopped these other ESETs and prevented the Alliance's destruction. And he could've helped the other nations in their bid for freedom against the Brotherhood when Samson had asked him to.
But, consumed by his personal vendetta, he hadn't and now he had to push aside his feelings of guilt and concentrate on a more essential issue: the Brotherhood and their Armageddon Project. If the Brotherhood indeed had a breeding facility in France, they were closer to implementing the project than he and Jeriko had first thought. That, of course, injected a note of urgency into his own plans of shutting the Brotherhood down before they could initiate their plans.
The penetration of the breeding facility also offered an excellent opportunity to both gather additional information about the Armageddon Project and to destroy more of the Brotherhood's superstructure. If their breeding program was as important to the project's success as he suspected, destroying it would hurt them badly.
Mordecai smiled tightly and quite coldly. 'And hurting the Brotherhood is definitely the name of the game now!' he thought grimly. Jeriko's death wasn't going to be in vain, if he had anything to do with it. And then he was focusing his thoughts as his mind touched the one he was looking for. 'Now to put things into motion!'
By the time Mordecai had reached the street in front of the hotel, not only had Aizea gotten them a cab, but also had all of the vampires' gear already loaded into it. Which was considerable; shortly after he had gotten the plane tickets, Mordecai had then taken a heavily shielded Aizea shopping for clothes and other necessities for her and the breeders. They had been forced to leave the nest with only the heavy 'day' cloaks on their backs when the Brotherhood had stormed the stronghold. If they were to pass themselves off as Normals, they needed to look the part.
So Mordecai had fished out his massive wad of local currency and had proceeded to buy them all complete sets of clothing and equipment, tailored to their measurements, enough to last them several months. Which was more than enough time to find their clan. All that equipment and clothing was then packed and loaded into the large, minivan cab. All they were waiting for was him and his single black bag.
The bag went into the back and Mordecai joined Aizea in the front seat, closing the door before doing up the seat belt.
"Are we set?" the cabbie, a middle-aged Sikh with the characteristic turban wrapped around his head, asked with a lightly accented voice. Mordecai nodded and the cab smoothly accelerated into motion.
As the cab driver expertly maneuvered his way through the city and out towards the airport, Mordecai found himself staring out the window and into the growing gloom around them as they left the city street lights behind. As that darkness filled his vision, his mind continued to methodically work on the possibilities ahead.
There was, of course, a good chance that he was walking into a trap. If the Brotherhood had read Preacher's reports about him tapping into the wet banks, they may have assumed that he had learned about the breeding facilities scattered across Europe from there and, being ultra-cautious, had taken steps to protect them. He could be finding himself faced with a ward webwork even denser than the one that he and Jeriko had faced in Preacher's headquarters. And he didn't even want to think what sort of other defenses might be in place.
Now, that was a pretty big, but somewhat logical assumption. Even if the Brotherhood didn't suspect he was coming to knock down their house of cards, the defenses could still be considerable and perhaps even insurmountable. In that case, he might need to bring in another lone gunman, or two to help punch through. A list of possible partners floated for a moment in front of Mordecai's mind's eye as he thought about that.
Of course, there was the final possibility: the Brotherhood, so confident that no enemy would be able to penetrate into their very heart, would have no significant defenses in place at all. Mordecai grinned at that. That scenario was definitely 'best case'. Then all he would have to do was stroll in and, . . .
Abruptly his thought process was interrupted when he felt a slender, unnaturally warm hand slide into his. The man in black jerked his eyes away from the window to look down. Only to find Aizea's hand fitted neatly into his. His eyes immediately tracked up to her face. And found her lips mouthing the words: 'Thank you for everything.'
"Airport, next turn," the cabbie announced and the lights of the terminal became visible through the windshield.
After arriving at the terminal, the cab driver helped the six of them unload the luggage and get it to the check-in counter. That left them with only carry-on bags as they then made their way to the security checkpoint. All throughout Aizea stayed close to the big psionic, often reaching out to take his hand when he made to draw away. All the touching she was doing was making him think it was not just because the airport was crawling with psionics, both Brotherhood wireheads and nation members trying to flee the besieged city.
Mordecai and Aizea both kept the breeders close as they walked past encounter after encounter of Brotherhood heavies intercepting the desperate nation members, often right before they reached their departure gate, turning them back before they could leave. Still, for the chaos that was filling the terminal, they managed to stay clear of any entanglements.
That is, until:
"Wait a sec, wirehead," the big mover growled as he reached out to put a hand on Mordecai's chest. "Not so fast." Mordecai looked up to find no less than five hard softwires facing them, the knot of men having stepped out of the shadows just three metres before the door leading to the security checkpoint, their final obstacle before the departure gates.
"You seem to be going somewhere in a hurry," the mover went on to say, letting his eyes scan over Aizea and the other vampires, which literally cowered beneath the psionic's gaze. Behind him the other movers also stared hard at Mordecai and his party, small smiles of satisfaction touching their lips at seeing how what they thought were independent nation psionics, were scared of them.
"Don't you know that the Brotherhood has sealed the city to all inbound and outbound traffic?"
"The Brotherhood?" Mordecai said, feigning ignorance. The mover didn't know how powerful he was, only that he was a psionic by his aura. That was something he couldn't hide, no matter how powerful he was!
"Yeah, moron," one of the other movers spoke up from just behind the first mover. "The Brotherhood. The organization that owns this town."
"I see." Mordecai nodded in understanding then smiled thinly. "Well, whoever this Brotherhood is, they don't own me."
Several faces tightened at that and the first mover leaned in, a threatening expression on his broad features.
"You're a psionic, ain't ya?" he hissed, reaching out to painfully jab his finger into Mordecai's chest.
"Yes." Mordecai's own face darkened at the rough treatment as he looked up from the finger back to the mover's face, eyes narrowed.
"Then they own you, pal. The Brotherhood owns every wirehead within their jurisdiction."
"Where does it say that?" the man in black quickly countered. And almost immediately he felt the temperature around the mover begin to drop.
Sensing it almost before Mordecai could, Aizea's hand tightened inside his almost painfully as a tremble of fear washed through the Lilith. If they were exposed here and Mordecai was defeated, they were as good as dead. And, by the looks of this lot, they would be a long time in dying!
Ignoring Aizea, Mordecai's jaw rippled as he stared eye to eye with the big mover. Every hardwire instinct he had was telling him to drop this bozo and his bumpkin buddies into a deep hole. How dare they try to interfere with him! It would be so easy, too. He had more than enough reserves to take these movers out without pulling in ambient energy, a sure give-away that he had some juice.
The trembling hand in his, however, was enough to remind him what was at stake here. Considering how many Brotherhood psionics were in the terminal, a psionic battle wasn't the wisest option, if he wanted to keep Aizea and her breeders safe and undiscovered. If he hit these clowns with even a little shockwave, and they would be swiftly reinforced by every affiliated wirehead in the place. While he didn't doubt he could defeat them all, the subsequent turmoil would prematurely interrupt his mission to Europe.
If Mordecai was going to get out of this, it wouldn't be psionically. So he would have to do it the Normal way: bluff, bluster, and throw down, if it came to that.
"I said, where does it say that?" he hissed, his nose now only hairbreadths from the big mover's.
"The Brotherhood says it, asshole," the mover bit back, his breath pluming whitely now as the temperature continued to drop.
"And I say the Brotherhood can stuff that up their ass," Mordecai growled back. "Nobody tells me what and when and how to do it. Nobody!"
"Okay, that's it, pal," the mover snarled, reaching out with a ham-like hand. "You're coming with me for a little attitude adjustment, . . ."
The big man never had the chance to finish the sentence. As his sausage-sized fingers knotted into Mordecai's jacket lapel, the man in black snapped out a rigid right forearm, catching the man in the throat. Windpipe instantly crushed, the mover dropped like a full sack of potatoes, his breath wheezing as blood filled his throat.
"What the fuck, . . .?" one of the movers managed to say before Mordecai was moving forward at high speed, a blur of continuous motion that paused only to send a Brotherhood psionic to his death.
A flying scissors kick took out the nearest two, snapping their heads back with enough force to break their necks, the impacts throwing them clear to let the man in black sail between them. A light touch on the floor then a knifing toe kick crushed the fourth mover's throat before he dropped into a ready crouch to take the last one out.
Only to find the mover holding a wildly struggling Aizea in his hands.
"One more move, buddy and she buys it," the Brotherhood wirehead warned in a trembling voice, stunned that a psionic was so physically adept at combat. As Mordecai's eyes fell onto him, the mover's hand started to shimmer with a psyken field. Mordecai's darting eyes could see that Aizea was barely managing not to scream, her neuron armor, for the moment, keeping her safe. But if that field came close to her face, . . . even as he watched, the mover began bringing his fist up to the side of Aizea's head, meaning to drive a shockwave through her cranium, effectively ripping her brains to shreds, along with the rest of her head, at that range.
It was instinct more than anything. Before the mover could do more than blink, the seething cable of psyken and pyroken rage was lashing just over Aizea's shoulder to hammer into the man's chest. Splashing light and fire over him, the cable then picked him up and bodily driving him through a nearby support column.
Instantly the Normals that were clustering around the doorway into the security checkpoint took notice, several women beginning to scream as they staggered back from the explosion of light and sound. Seeing that as he hastily reeled his energies back in, the man in black knew they had to withdraw from the unfolding chaos now or run the very real risk of still getting the mission derailed.
Mordecai darted forward and managed to catch Aizea before she hit the ground, dizzy and pale from the shock of psionic energy so close to her body.
"C'mon," he hissed tightly at the frightened knot of breeders, standing and shivering just to the side. "We need to get through that checkpoint before the Normals get their law enforcement people in here. Move it!"
Holding a limp Aizea close, Mordecai managed to get the five of them to the checkpoint even as the Normals swirled uncertainly around the doorway, many of them staring at the five unmoving bodies they suddenly found in their midst. Seeing that, he had an idea on how to get them through.
"Oh man, did you see that?" he said hoarsely with feigned shock as he staggered up to the checkpoint. "I, I have to get my girls outta here!"
Hearing that he wanted to get his family to safety, several people quickly pulled aside and waved him past them. They got through just as airport security came running up, weapons drawn as they called everybody to stay right where they were. And that included the full dozen Brotherhood movers and burners that tried to push through the crowd in response to the surge of psionic energy they had felt from nearby.
They were held back by police officers even as Mordecai, Aizea and the breeders passed through the security checkpoint and its mostly distracted officers and made their way towards the departure gates. Bracing Aizea against his body, Mordecai threw a grin over his shoulder at the snarling knot of Brotherhood movers he could see through the doorway, staring hard after them. They had made it!
It took nearly the entire distance they had to go to reach the vampires' departure gate, Gate D-43, where the night flight to Rio de Janeiro, with a stop in Mexico City for refueling, was currently boarding, for Aizea to recover. But recover she did: abruptly Mordecai felt her stiffen against him then regain her footing.
"We, . . . we made it?" she asked somewhat woozily as Mordecai brought them all to a halt just outside the departure gate itself.
"Just about," Mordecai answered, helping the Lilith return completely to her feet. A scan back the way they had come revealed the chaos was still churning. Frowning thoughtfully, he turned to point at the departure gate.
"You just have to pass through that door there and then you'll be on your way. And I'd hurry if I were you; they've just made the last boarding call."
With a wave, Aizea sent the breeders on ahead.
"Here." The big man pressed a large manila envelope into Aizea's hand. She pulled it open and immediately gasped at what she saw inside.
"There's a hundred thousand US dollars in there. That should just about buy you a house in Rio, if you use it wisely. You'll also find narrow band EMF shields at the bottom of the envelope. Their batteries have enough life to get you through the day tomorrow before you get to Brazil and will protect you from the harmful UV."
"Thank you," Aizea husked, feeling tears fill her eyes. Tears for a psionic?? Was she going soft? Or simply mad? "We couldn't have done it without you!"
Mordecai shrugged. Then he was pressing a flat, plastic vial into her hand. When Aizea held it up, she could see that it was filled with dark human blood, freshly drawn. In fact, she could still feel its warmth though the vial's thin walls.
"I know you'd rather take it directly from my veins, but all things considered, this'll be as good as you get." He smiled tightly. "The blood of a psionic, as per our agreement. Thought I'd give it to you now, since I don't think you'll be up this way when I finally wipe the Brotherhood out. Use it as you will and you can consider my debt to you paid."
"But my debt to you has only begun," Aizea managed, her throat tight. Then, before Mordecai could react, she was stepping in close, her lips pressing tightly against his as she kissed him passionately and deeply.
Briefly Mordecai stiffened, every sense telling him that he was kissing a vampire queen, never a healthy thing to do. Then the fog of pheromone swept over him and he found himself returning Aizea's heated kiss with passion of his own, visions of her naked form standing in the middle of his hotel room filling his mind's eye.
Carefully his tongue slid into her mouth and she just as carefully avoiding stabbing it with her fangs as her own tongue sensuously writhed against his. His hand found firm vampire buttock as her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling his face down to her even as she pressed her body hard against his.
The kiss seemed to last a delicious lifetime. Then, as he realized that she had to go, the big psionic pushed away, leaving them both breathless. Aizea lifted light fingers to brush against Mordecai's cheek and then she was turning to run for the gate, throwing one last look at him over her shoulder before stepping through the door and disappearing.
Mordecai shook his head, partially in wonder and partially to clear the last lingering effects of Aizea's potent pheromone presence. Were those tears he saw in her eyes before she left? He waited long enough to watch her plane lift off the ground, the big 747 heading southward to a much warmer clime, bearing the vampires to safety, albeit a temporary one, if the Brotherhood was successful.
As the plane climbed out of sight, the man in black couldn't shake the feeling that he'd see the sensuous Lilith again. Whether that was a good thing or not, he couldn't tell. But, if that kiss was any indication, his suspicion he had in the hallway before stepping back into his room the last time may indeed come true, for better or for worse!
Frowning, he turned away from the window at that, his mind mulling that over. 'A vampire and a psionic? Nah, it'll never work!' And then he was running down the corridor to catch his own midnight flight to France.
****