And with that, the warrior tech went to work. Forced to keep his eyes on the road to make sure they were going where they needed to go, Lash was unable to actually watch what the vampiress was doing. He could only go by the sounds of her fingers dancing across the surface of her tablet. If he were to judge by how rapidly those fingers were going, however, he would've said she was working very hard indeed to set up something to trap a passive signal coming off their supposed mole.
So it wasn't much of a surprise that, after a good fifteen to twenty minutes of furious work, he saw her pause out of the corner of his eye and sit back.
"Got something?" he asked and she nodded.
"Had to pick it out of ambient, but yeah," Narcist added in the way of explanation. "As I said before with the signal trace on the cell phone, whoever is setting up the Hand's covert network is a pro. I mean, it's next level."
"And that's surprising?"
Narcist favored him with one of her patented long looks before nodding.
"At least with vampires," she indicated, looking down at her tablet and tapping the signal that was now being traced across its surface in a low, rhythmic line. "In all my experience as a tech head working for Lady van Tallert, I've seen thousands of different set ups. Some better than others. But none reached beyond a certain level of sophistication because ..."
"Because we didn't need it to," Lash interjected to finish for her. "We're hunters. We pursue. We don't ... build."
Narcist nodded fiercely in agreement.
"Precisely. We have advanced tech but only create what we need at the moment." She shook her head. "The only time I've seen something as sophisticated as this is when I hacked a Brotherhood network looking for battle plans to head off an oncoming assault on our European assets during their latest attack wave against us."
Lash felt his brow lift in unmitigated curiosity. The Brotherhood?
"You think the Hand is working with psionics on this?" he asked. Narcist immediately shook her head.
"None of what I've seen between the two signals would suggest psionics were involved," the tech clarified after seeing Lash's raised brow. "I mean, this is on par with Brotherhood sophistication, but there's a straightforward nature to it that doesn't match the inherent arrogance you see in psionic networks, which have a deliberate complication to them because they want you to know they were designed by superior intellects."
Lash couldn't help the wry chuckle that escaped his lips at that. It was a fitting description of Brotherhood arrogance, to be certain. Even the only psionic he would count as a comrade and friend, the psylord Mordecai had an unconscious smugness to him that told of supreme confidence in his intellect and psionic prowess.
The half-smile that had touched his lips momentarily abruptly vanished. If the two signals and their apparent sophistication couldn't be attributed to psionics and were far beyond what vampires would normally use, then who was creating them? Did they have another faction on the battlefield? Someone that would benefit from Ventru's downfall?
Pushing that thought aside for a moment, Lash focused on the signal that Narcist managed to uncover.
"Okay, so let's locate our mole," he grimly directed. "Is he or she on the truck with us?"
After her fingers danced across the tablet for a moment, Narcist shook her head.
"Whoever it is, they're riding behind Truk," she indicated.
Lash jerked a nod. At least it wasn't the veteran nestari commander. A fact that, oddly enough, the big vampire was relieved at.
A quick glance revealed that Narcist too had relaxed a little at discovering it wasn't Truk.
"So you thought it might've been him as well, then," he observed and Narcist looked up from the tablet and gazed at him for a long moment before nodding.
"It was logical," she said before looking back at the tablet. "He put together the team, had access to comms to let anybody waiting for us know that we were coming. And access to Lady van Tallert." A slight smile touched her lips briefly. "But, as you said with me, it was almost too obvious a choice."
Lash's lips thinned.
"I'm starting to wonder if that's deliberate," he growled.
"Deliberate? What do you mean, Wolf?"
"I mean, the team's composition, Truk's hand in creating it notwithstanding, may have been manipulated into putting enough obvious people in place that it would be difficult to detect the actual mole until it was too late."
"Ah. I see where you're going there. We would've been guessing and discarding multiple times before coming up with the right vampire." Then she tapped the tablet. "Whoever set this whole thing up didn't think we'd figure out the lojack signal even though we managed to backtrack the signal from the cell."
"No, they did not," Lash tautly agreed. He didn't like being played, and certainly not from a shadowy outside player working beyond his ability to see. Which, of course only brought him back to his unspoken question from earlier: was there another player on the board? One that was neither vampire nor psionic? Once more he had to silently thank the Dark Father for guiding him to Mordecai where he learned to think about such things like lojack signals.
A sign came into view ahead, telling him they were approaching the turn they would need to make to go up into the mountains.
"We're making our last turn," he indicated. "An hour or two up into the mountains and we'll reach Magnar's estate." His expression tightened slightly. "Once we're regrouped and equipped, we'll deal with our mole before heading to the castle itself. Hopefully before it tells our enemies that we're coming!"
As predicted, the ride up into the hills in which the Lord Commander's castle was nestled took about an hour and a half. As they traveled, Lash vacillated between planning on how to take out the mole before they could raise the alarm. And silently marveling at the landscape around them.
For good reason: while the veteran Qos Viran commander had been to the castle dozens of times, the trip had always been made at night. Possessing the keenest of night vision, vampires nevertheless could see deep into the infrared and ultraviolet ends of the spectrum, a trait that helps them hunt their warm-blooded prey, which had significantly poorer vision at night.
Unfortunately that ability to see beyond the visible light spectrum didn't grant them enough clarity that they could see details in the landscape beyond what was immediately close. Why would they need to? As long as they could tell a tree was a tree, and a hole was a hole, they could navigate well enough in blackout conditions that they easily ran their prey down.
So, seeing the hills above Galway for the very first time with the sunlight allowing him to pick out even the glint of crystal in the worn granite, the dozens of shades of green between the grasses, bushes, and trees, and even how clear the blue sky above them was a vision that was almost too intoxicating for his nearly overwhelmed senses to comprehend. He was forced to pull his eyes away from the vision or run the risk of driving right off the road, distracted as he was. Only by periodically focusing on how to deal with the mole kept his mind from wandering too far afield.
A glance in the mirror revealed that Truk was having the same problem behind him, the heavy transport weaving back and forth as he struggled to adjust to the entirely novel way of seeing the world fast enough to avoid plowing the truck into a ditch. Or into the back of the lead truck, for that matter. Thankfully the road that led up from the airport had been relatively hemmed in by rocky banks on either side or they would've weaved all the way to the turnoff as well.
Between the new way of seeing things in daylight and compensating for Truk's unfamiliarity with the route, it took the team the better part of an hour to make their way up the meandering road into the hills. An hour that Lash spent planning a way to uncover their mole without compromising the team.
With time no longer on their side, the big vampire knew he was running the risk of letting the mole communicate with the Hand agents undoubtedly ensconced on Magnar's estate the longer he waited to take the mole out. Which meant yet another ambush. Although he suspected they already knew they were coming, just not when. And he wasn't about to let the mole pass that bit of vital information on if he could prevent it.
So, when the team was about fifteen minutes from the castle and he spotted a pullout to the left, he knew this was the opportunity he was looking for. Now was the time to deal with the mole.
A light tap against Narcist's leg and a gesture towards the approaching pullout was enough to put her on the same page. Then his arm went out the window to signal a trailing Truk that he intended on pulling over into the space on the side. A flash of Truk's lights confirmed that he understood and, keeping a careful eye out for traffic either on approach or behind, he guided the big transport truck into the pullout which was just big enough to handle both vehicles if pulled in tight to each other.
"Mark the nestari that's giving off the signal with something," he instructed Narcist as he put the engine into park then turned it off.
"I have a targeting laser, blue in color," she said, already reaching into her kit bag for it. "I'll paint them in the chest as soon as I have the mole for you."
Lash nodded as he climbed out of the cab then closed the door behind him. As he turned towards the trailed transport, he reached down and flipped the safety off the sidearm he had holstered on his hip. He needed to drop the mole as soon as it was painted or again they ran the risk the traitor would get a signal off and alert the Hand as to their whereabouts.
Truk nodded in greeting as he too climbed out just as Lash drew even with his door.
"Go the rest of the way on foot?" he asked as Lash continued around towards the back of the transport.
"I'm thinking so," Lash said over his shoulder before reaching up to give the side of the transport a smack. "Everybody out!"
"Makes sense," Truk said with an understanding nod. "Wouldn't want them to hear us coming up the road!"
Lash shook his head 'no' in agreement as the half of the team that had ridden with Truk began climbing out, with those that had been shot in the hanger pretty much recovered from their injuries as most were rendered superficial by their enhanced armor. Seeing them coming out and dropping to the ground in order, he took up a position just off the corner so it would appear that he was watching the road while keeping an eye on the disembarking team.
So he was ready when a male vampire with the bright eyes and pale skin of northern Europe and wearing a tattoo of a ready to strike scorpion on his left cheek hopped down and immediately developed a bright blue targeting dot on the center of his chest. He drew his sidearm and fired all in one smooth motion, putting a bullet first in the traitor's neck, then another in his leg before anybody could react.
Grunting in pain, the vampire threw a hand up to try and clamp closed the neck wound. As he did, he fell, his damaged leg unable to hold his weight. Which was where his second hand went in an effort to stem the flow of blood that spurted from a severed femoral artery.
"Wolf! Have you lost your mind??" Truk shouted, sprinting towards him, pulling his own sidearm free as he did so.
But Lash was faster. As soon as the wounded nestari was on the ground, Lash was beside him, knocking aside the hand on his neck to jam a thumb into the ragged hole. The vampire instantly screamed in pain.
"Tell me who recruited you, traitor, and I'll give you a fast death," Lash hissed through clenched teeth, his face only inches away from the mole's. "Stay silent and I'll peg you out."
"Fuck ... fuck you, backstabber," the spy managed to gasp. "You'll get nothing ... aaaaAAAAHHH!"
Lash could feel the tissue shred and tear as he pushed his thumb in further. Then he was twisting to aim his sidearm at the hard-charging Truk.
"Stay your place!" he snapped, the expression on his face enough to make Truk pull up short. But the nestari commander kept his own weapon trained on the determined Lash.
If that mattered to the grim vampire, he didn't show it. Instead, he brought his weapon back down to fire a round off near the mole's ear before pressing the hot muzzle against his face. Instantly the mole's face began to smolder and his screaming intensified for a moment before Lash pulled his weapon back.
"Speak! Or I'll peg you down right now in broad daylight!"
Then Narcist was pushing past Truk and the rest of the team, now half of them with their sidearms in their hands if not pointing them at the determined Lash. Falling on her knees beside him with a small scanner in her hand, she began to run it over the man's upper body. It didn't take long before indicator lights flashed on the scanner's screen. With the scanner over the spot, she pulled out her combat knife and began to pull and dig at the mole's clothing. A few seconds later she found what she was looking for.
Pulling out the small, coin-sized transmitter from where it was sewn into the back of the man's jacket, she showed it first to Lash, then to a stunned Truk before holding it an inch away from the mole's face.
"Did you think you could hide from us forever, you traitorous filth?!" she tautly hissed, waggling the transmitter in the man's view. Then she was twisting away from him to toss it to Truk.
"Your man is a mole for the Hand, Truk," she heavily pronounced, making several of the team gasp in shock. "He was the one that set us up at the airport by letting them know where we were and when we'd get there." She turned to look back at the mole who was by this point pale from blood loss. "Just as he was about to do to us again, by telling the Hand that we were on approach to Magnar."
Then the vampire was screaming again as Lash grabbed him by his heavily-bleeding leg and gave it a hard squeeze.
"Last chance," he growled through the man's howls of pain. Howls that echoed in the space between the transport and the rocky edge of the road when Truk stepped forward to put a knee on the man's arm and took hold of his face.
"Speak, Danik, and I'll give you a clean death myself!" the commander snarled, leaning close enough to nearly bite the man's nose off.
"F-f-fuck you, Truk," the man managed to stammer through his deep gasps for air.
"Wrong answer," Lash grated, holstering his weapon. Then he was pulling his heavy combat knife from a sheath on his leg to turn and drive it through the knee on the man's wounded leg. Truk was a heartbeat behind, putting his knife through the other leg before two other nestari knelt with them to jam their knives into the man's arms at the elbows.
As the now-pinned spy continued to thrash weakly, his screams of agony growing fainter by the second, the four vampires stood and stepped back. But not before Lash pulled the man's EMF shield generator off his belt.
Now unprotected from the searing radiation of broad daylight, the man's skin immediately began to char and break down, forcing the screams to a crescendo for a brief moment. Then, as the radiation ignited the short-circuiting nervous system into a chemical fire, the man succumbed to his injuries and the spasming of his limbs stopped. The silence that descended at that point was only interrupted by the hissing and popping of the mole's overheated nervous system burning his body into black goo, the heat generated by the chemical fire enough to burn even his clothing and the neuron armor he still wore.
With it being just past noon and the sun at its peak energy output, it didn't take long before the man's body was completely consumed, turning into oily ash in a matter of moments, leaving only metal behind.
"Whoever recruited him had Danik scared enough that he'd rather get turned to ash than give them over," Truk grimly noted as he knelt to reclaim his knife, the other two nestari doing the same.
Lash slowly nodded in agreement as he looked at the man's blackened outline, thoughts whirling feverishly.
"How well did you know that man?" he asked after a long, thought-filled moment.
"Not well enough, apparently," Truk growled. "We served nearly ten years together, the last five with Lady van Tallert. Never once did I think he'd betray the Ventru."
"He may have been a spy that whole time," Narcist bluntly suggested, taking that opportunity to kneel beside the ash heap to pull free Lash's knife. Which she then used to poke and prod at the ash until something metallic revealed itself.
Flicking it clear of the ash, she reached out to pick it up, giving it a cursory examination before handing it and the knife to Lash.
"I thought I saw something from where I was standing back a bit," she explained.
Nodding, Lash took the knife hilt-first and re-sheathed it after a quick wipe against his leg. He then lifted the chunk of metal close to see if he could pick out any detail about it. It didn't take much before he spotted the faint, partially-melted image of a stylized griffon etched into the charred metal.
"Nordstrom," he hissed in disgust, tossing what was left of what used to be a medallion back to Narcist.
"Nordstrom," she concurred, catching it and giving it another look. "He must've had it bonded to a leg bone to hide it from us."
Truk shook his head, partially in confusion and partially in denial.
"I knew he was from the north. I just didn't think it was that far north!" he said. "But what would bring a Nordstrom this far south? They're paranoid, inbred, isolationist freaks that prefer their own blood to humans."
"Perhaps he was here hunting other vampires," one of the other nestari suggested. When the three of them looked at her, she shrugged.
"Nords hunt vampires. You said so yourself, Truk."
"I don't think it's as simple as that," another one of the nestari pointed out. "I think it's closer to because they hunt other vampires, their loyalty to any one clan is suspect."
Truk waved a negating hand.
"What I said was that they prefer their own blood to that of a human," he said. "They're cannibals, hunting each other on the pack ice during the winter, and beneath it during the summer."
"They're abominations," Lash said heavily. "But they are skilled warriors that often divide themselves into warrior cults with animal totems." He pointed at the pile of ash. "He was a graffonstrakker, a War Hawk. A particularly violent group amongst a people known for its proclivity for violence."
That revelation brought every eye back to a frowning Lash.
"You sound like you know them," Truk said, brow raised in curiosity.
"Of them, yes. My ancestors would travel thousands of kilometers onto the pack ice to hunt them," Lash revealed, his frown only deepening with the confession. "It was a right of passage for members of my House and a dozen others. To hunt a creature whose sole purpose was to hunt vampires was to prove themselves against an apex predator and become the vampire or vampiress one was born to be."
"That must've made the Lash House popular at Nordstrom gatherings," Truk dryly noted. "No wonder there was hate in his voice when he spoke to you."
Lash nodded.
"Even though that was hundreds of years ago, a vampire's memory is long. And we killed enough Nords that they would remember us for a very long time!"
"If my own memory serves, didn't House Lash form Ventru, the first clan, thousands of years ago?" Narcist asked and Lash nodded.
"We did."
"Then the Nordstrom have hatred built-in for Clan Ventru from the beginning."
"They would," Lash agreed.
"So we know why he wanted Ventru destroyed but not who recruited him to work as a spy and an infiltrator for over ten years," Truk said thoughtfully.
"Magnar might know, if he's as deep in the conspiracy to purge the Ventru as some of the evidence is suggesting," Narcist pointed out.
"Which is the reason why we're here," Lash said. "So we can ask him! Get your gear. We need to be on the move in case the whole world heard this Nord fool's death screams and we have not only Hand operatives to worry about, but human forces as well!"