A helicopter had landed while Eric had been dispatching the Acolytes that had been tormenting Erika. A half dozen men in full combat gear had quickly disappeared into the bowels of the ship. A tremulous voice had soon begun to issues directives for any surviving members of the ship to make their way to the main cargo bay for a personnel count. Men and women in white uniforms began to emerge and scour the deck for survivors of the brutal attack.
Eric ignored all of this as he followed Erika down a stairwell and into the tight confines of the vessel. He had been in such a rush to find her and Rishima that he had left his shotgun behind. It would have been immensely useful through the narrow corridors they found themselves briskly marching through. They passed several bloody and dazed members of the crew that didn't give them a second glance. That changed as soon as they came to Erika's destination.
"No!" Erika screamed as she caught sight of Rishima's still form with a bank of computer equipment molded around her body.
"Contact!" One of the men from the helicopter screamed and raised his submachinegun.
Eric grabbed the shapely vampire around the waist and swung her around. He grunted quietly as he felt the rounds deforming against his armored tac-vest. One errant round caught him in the right triceps but it didn't feel like it caught the bone so he would call that a win.
"Stand down!" A different voice, one used to command, shouted with barely continued ire. "Mikkaelson, what in all the fucking Hell do you think you're doing? If Blade wanted you dead, you'd be fucking dead, and the Elder was expecting him. Lower that weapon and go with Wierbowski to find Selene. Right. Now."
"Yes, sir!"
"Come on, young idiot."
Eric turned his head and moved out of the way as the taller man that had fired at them fast-walked out of the room without a glance. Another of the mysterious soldiers sauntered past with a shake of his head as he carried his helmet against his hip.
"Sorry about that," He said, winking one light brown eye. "Lad's green as a Leprechaun's balls. We'll get him sorted."
Eric turned more fully to meet the eyes of their commander. The man was a couple inches taller than he was a had a steely look in his light blue eyes. With a nod of acknowledgment, the man returned to whatever his men were doing. The hunter looked down at what he had once considered his prey, now he didn't know what to think of her as, only to meet softly glowing blue eyes. She opened her mouth in a slow hiss and, to his surprise, took a moment to back her ass up flush against his crotch. Then Erika came back to herself as her gaze fell upon the still form of Rishima.
"No, no, no, no!" Rishima shrieked in near hysteria as she darted to Rishima with vampiric speed.
Eric followed after her with the same haste and wasted little time in pushing apart the prison of equipment some tremendous force had buried the lycan in. Erika caught the unconscious woman and gave a sharp sob at the state of her body. Blood was still leaking in copious amounts from both shoulders and there was an unnatural tilt to her head. Once Erika laid her down with the lycan's head cradled in the vampire's lap, Eric took a knee to gently examine her neck. He could feel that several vertebrae were severely out of alignment; there was even a conspicuous bulge just under her skin close to her brainstem. That, combined with the amount of blood she had lost, was enough for Eric to know that she didn't have much time left.
He was surprised how much the thought hurt.
"Hey," a weak, barely recognizable voice came from Rishima's mouth. "Thought I'd never-" A pause happened because Eric knew she was trying to master the tremendous pain she was feeling. "-see you again."
Erika leaned down and kissed Rishima's forehead gently before whispering, "I thought the same thing but Blade saved me again."
Rishima's eyes, glazed over as they were, managed to settle on him and a pain-wracked smile teased her face for a moment, "I knew you'd come back. You're a good man."
"No. I should have been here sooner. Should have seen it through."
"You're... here now. That's all that matters. Don't have much time left, I think. Stop that bastard. He's strong but nothing a few fifty-cal rounds to the head won't fix." She paused to take a shuddering breath and fixed him with a fierce glare. "Promise me you'll end him."
"He'll be dead by dawn."
Rishima nodded once and tilted her head back to stare into Erika's eyes, "I'm sorry we didn't have enough time."
"Every second with you was a lifetime of joy. Please don't go. Please."
"One more request, Blade?" Rishima didn't take her gaze from Erika as she spoke. "Take care of our vampire."
It should have been easy to tell her to go to Hell after reminding the lycan about his campaign of extermination. Instead, like most fools when hearing a dying person's last wishes, he said, "I will."
"Good. Kiss me."
Erika immediately lowered her lips to Rishima's own and Eric stood as he didn't want to interrupt the intimate scene. He quietly made his way over to the side of the room where Alexander was giving his final instructions to the tall commander even as the blonde soldier was removing an ampule of blood from the venipuncture device in the Immortal's arm.
"Render Selene whatever assistance she requires, Samuel. Tell Carmen that this was my last command. She and my descendant are the future. I see it... clearly now. Carmen may be resistant but you must convince her, son."
"I will, sir," Eric could tell that Samuel was trying to remain stoic but there was a quaver in his voice that was hard to disguise.
"Who is that behind you?" Alexander asked, his voice seemed to grow more weary by the moment.
"Blade, sir."
"Ah. Blade. Come closer." There was something about the old man that reminded him of Whistler and he was stepping forward before he fully realized what he was doing. "Would you do a dying man the favor of removing your..." There was a pause for breath and his eyes glazed over just a bit more. "...glasses." Eric did as requested and met the man's eerie blue eyes with his own golden-brown gaze. "You remind me so much of my eldest son. A fierce warrior, stalwart in his resolve, but doomed to walk this Earth alone. Forever denying himself love and friendship. Do not walk down that path, son. Having a family, a place to belong..." This time the sigh was of long-buried memories rising to the surface. "The importance of such a thing should never be underestimated. You understand?"
Eric took a few precious seconds to mull it over before nodding, "I do."
Alexander gifted him with a sad smile, "I hope you do. Prepare a syringe for Blade as well."
"Yes, sir."
Eric looked to a trio of stainless steel tubes resting beside Samuel's bent leg. Each container had what looked like the tail end of the vacuum tubes filled with Alexander's blood sticking out of them. Samuel inserted a fourth tube into the receiver and watched with a carefully neutral expression as the Elder's potent blood filled it. Footsteps, quick and angry, had Eric placing his shades back on just as Selene came into the room. Behind her, the two men Samuel had sent carried Michael's blood-stained body on a stretcher. Eric moved so that the Death Dealer could take his place and grunted quietly at the sight of the massive hole in the Hybrid's torso. From what little Eric had learned of Michael, he had been a good man that just happened to have ancestry that made him useful to the factions in the supernatural underworld. It was one of the reasons the vampire hunter did what he did. He had seen too many families torn apart because of interest from Immortals.
"Did he get the pendent?" Alexander asked without preamble.
"Yes," Selene's brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Why are you not healing? Those wounds should not be fatal to someone of your age."
"My time has come. I tire of this world, Selene. I have been so tired for so long." Alexander sighed and fixed his sorrow-filled gaze on the Death Dealer. "He is too powerful for you alone."
Eric stepped forward so that he was just behind and to Selene's left, "She won't be alone."
"Stalwart," Alexander smiled in fond remembrance and then gasped in pain. "Together, even you two may not be enough to overcome my sons."
"You were the only one older than Marcus, the only stronger. You could have killed him yourself." Selene nearly growled in frustration.
"No matter what he's become, he's still my son. You four are the last hope we have. Quickly now, Samuel, before the potency is lost."
Samuel quickly handed all four syringes to Selene and she frowned.
"What will we become?"
Alexander smiled again in that grandfatherly way and whispered, "The future."
With that, his eyes slid closed as his head lowered to his chest.
"Sir?" Samuel asked in a trembling voice as he held a finger to Alexander's neck. "Let's take him to the morgue. I'll be back to get you sorted soon, Miss Selene."
Selene said nothing as the soldiers quickly produced a stretcher and carried Alexander's corpse from the room. Several seconds passed before she looked up at Eric with a fierce expression.
"I can't make the choice for you," Selene took a look at where Erika and Rishima were huddled. "And I'm not sorted enough in my own mind to convince them. Will you?"
Eric knew it was probably uncharacteristic of the Death Dealer to ask anyone for anything. Rather than make light of the moment, he simply nodded and held out his hand. She placed three of the syringes into his hand and, without hesitation, extended the syringe from the tube before sliding it into her right carotid. He turned away as she stumbled to where they had lain Michael and her body was wracked with either pain or tears.
"What is that?" Erika asked as Rishima looked on with increasingly glassy eyes.
"The Elder's blood. I'm assuming it'll mutate us further. Make us stronger. It might save Ri."
"Well, give it here!" Erika demanded with a determined scowl.
"I'll do it," Eric said before unceremoniously kneeling down and undoing the buckles of Rishima's armored vest.
"What are you doing?" Erika asked as he gently rolled the lycan's tanktop so that her sternum was easy to access.
"You ready?" Eric asked Rishima and the lycan nodded with a small smile. Eric exposed the needle and slammed it into Rishima's torso at just the right angle to pierce her heart.
It acted like a shot of adrenaline and the woman bolted upright with a gasp that knocked Erika back. When she sat up, Eric was behind her and slid his second syringe into her neck. She yelped and clapped a hand to her neck as she fixed him with a look of betrayal. As he was raising his own syringe to his neck, Erika's eyes rolled into the back of her head and Rishima also fell unconscious.
When he hit the plunger, it was as though he had just taken a thousand hits of his own serum. He grunted, fell to his knees, and then to his side.
I hope I don't bite my tongue off.
Then the convulsions hit him full force.
Marcus landed heavily inside the brightly lit lowest level of the ruined fortress. It was in such a remote valley of the Carpathians that the Elder wondered how Viktor ever managed to build what was obviously once a magnificent structure.
Viktor was a massive cunt but the man undoubtedly had vision. As he shifted into his human form, the scent of one of the men in dark gray combat gear clearly wafted to him. A human? Viktor took a moment to watch the men, far more than had survived his bite, and focused his gaze on Brutus as his second-in-command spoke to a shorter, swarthy-skinned human.
As though Brutus could feel the heat in his gaze, the younger vampire looked up to meet his eyes, and quickly dismissed his subordinate. With confident strides, Brutus approached Marcus with his head held high.
"Elder," He greeted with a half-bow, "Mikhaela radioed ahead and told me the mission was a success. I have been hurrying the fortifications along ever since."
"This is good but why are there so many..." Marcus snarled quietly and reined in the impulse to tear Brutus' throat out, "...humans and why did they not react to my appearance.
"They're part of a mercenary company that contracts with the Twelve Houses. We stopped using their services a few hundred years ago when containing the mongrels became much less about fielding large numbers of soldiers."
"I was not aware that we used... Familiars." Even the word tasted foul on the Elder's tongue.
"It seems Viktor kept many things from you, my Lord," Brutus gestured towards a hall at the opposite end of the courtyard that led down into the dark waters of the river. "If you please, my Lord, I'll explain more on the way. I'm sure you're anxious to see your brother." Marcus nodded impatiently and followed Brutus.
"They have some expertise in fortifying ancient structures and Captain Ibanez did not seem disturbed when I mentioned that you have gained the ability to fly. They come highly recommended
and have successfully defended strongholds against hunters many times over the centuries."
Marcus snorted as they entered the freezing river. He knew that an unprotected human would be go into hypothermia in less than a quarter hour. The Elder and his Acolyte were beyond the frailties of mortality and waded without concern. Soon, they came to a wall that took up the entire passageway. Brutus stepped aside as Marcus put the two halves of the key together, eased it into the depression, and turned it just as his stolen memories directed him. Both Immortals took a step back as the door rumbled upwards through some clever hidden mechanism. Brutus turned on the personal light source on his utility vest and the darker tunnel was illuminated in harsh relief.
The rest of the journey passed in a dream because, before he knew it, Marcus was standing in front of the prize he had sought for centuries. It was a massive sarcophagus, more like an Iron Maiden knowing Viktor, and had a depression in the center of it shaped like his key. Again, following his memories, Marcus twisted the lock in a precise motion that immediately drew a harsh clanking from the prison. With a look of hunger twisting his face, Marcus watched gleefully as the sides of the sarcophagus slid to either side. The proud shape of William's profile, even Shifted, cause a tremulous smile to grow on Marcus' face, that was ruined by Brutus a moment later.
"I expected him to be big-" Brutus yelped quite loudly when William awoke with a roar.
With contemptuous ease, William snapped the ancient, rusted chains binding him and made a beeline for Marcus.
"William, stop!" Marcus put a hand up to stop his brother's murderous advance. "Be still, brother! I'd no sooner harm you than myself. I have you now and we'll be safe once we destroy our enemies."
His brother settled down and nodded his over-sized head. Marcus held out a syringe filled with blood from one of the Coven that had refused his offer.
"But, first, a present for you."
"Blade, get up," Selene's stern voice snapped Eric out of the euphoric haze that Alexander's blood had sent him into.
Springing into a crouch, one hand braced against the floor, Eric took in his surroundings in an instant. Selene was standing just to his left with her arms crossed and an impatient look on her face. Rishima and Erika were seated at one of the nearby tables that hadn't been ripped from the floor. The lycan still looked as though she was in acute pain but she seemed conscious and alert as Erika gripped her hand. Michael's corpse, for some reason, had been placed in a bodybag with the top half partially unzipped. Selene noticed where his gaze lingered and a sudden look of vulnerability crossed her face.
"We're taking him with us. I don't want him too far from me."
There were so many sarcastic comments on the tip of his tongue but now was certainly not the time. The hunter simply nodded to the Death Dealer as he rose to his full height.
"How long was I out?"
"A little less than two hours."
"We have a plan?"
"Kill them all."
"Good plan."
"You two are the most fucked up, bloodthirsty twins I've ever seen," Rishima commented drolly from her seat. The lycan assassin tilted her head to their left where a cafeteria-style table was covered in weaponry. "Hope you don't mind but Erika and I took the liberty of bringing our weapons up. I figured you wouldn't want to waste time."
"You know I don't when it's time for action," Eric twisted his head to smile with one corner of his mouth as he turned to the weapons. "Of all kinds."
"Did he just-?" Erika questioned in a tone of sheer disbelief.
Rishima actually giggled, "I think he did."
The smell of fresh, bloody meat turned his attention away from the hardware on the table just in time to see one of Corvinus' men bring in a platter covered in barely warmed steaks. Rishima thanked him with a cheeky grin and immediately dove in with both hands. Eric had to will his jaw to stay shut when Rishima held out one of her bloody fingers to Erika and the blonde immediately sucked the digit deep into her mouth; both women kept their eyes locked on his shades as they performed the act.
"A little respect would be appreciated," Selene grumbled as she began to arm herself from the arsenal on the table.
"Sorry, Selene," Erika ducked her head and Rishima, to Eric's disbelief, quickly went back to eating.
"Don't be too hard on 'em," Eric said as he checked over his HK91. He saw a box of 7.62 armor-piercing rounds and knew he had Rishima to thank. His normal, custom silver-plated ammo would definitely not do the job against enemies immune to the substance. With supernatural quickness, he loaded three 30-round magazines for his assault rifle. "You know how it is when you feel Death's hand reachin' out to you. Some just have stronger reactions."
"I know," Selene replied as she filled her USP magazines with jacketed hollow points.
The two fell into, Eric could hardly believe it, a comfortable silence as they prepared for battle. He slammed home a magazine into his rifle's receiver and then slid the other two into their pockets in his vest. His Super 90 was next and a convenient box of 12-gauge slugs had been placed near it. He had to remove his coat to slip the bandoleer around his chest but that quickly went back on as he placed four fragmentation grenades into compartments specially sewn into the lining. Rishima quietly joined them to begin assembling her AR-50 with the kind of smooth speed and confidence of someone that had performed the operation countless times. Eric momentarily forgot about his own preparation as she placed the finished weapon down barely thirty seconds after she had walked up to the table and checked to make sure everything was aligned properly.
Then it became a race to see who would be ready first. Selene, on account of arming herself with her USP Match's, one knife, and a dozen of those explosive disks, was finished first and went to talk with a patiently waiting Samuel. Rishima, to Eric's chagrin, was the second done. She had decided to go without her own Match's. Instead, she took her Python with four speedloaders, the 1911, and four spare magazines. Between the .50-caliber AP, incendiary rounds on the stock of her weapon and those she had around her left bicep, Rishima had a dozen rounds ready to go as well as twenty more in a special hard case she wore like a small backpack. Eric had rounded out his weaponry with his MAC, four magazines of his normal ammo, and half a dozen throwing darts of EDT. He would have to find more diverse sidearms if he was going to fight suckheads that were immune to silver.
"Do I get a weapon?" Erika asked hesitantly.
"Why would you?" Eric asked, his brow furrowed.
"Because she's coming with us," Rishima said before she handed Erika an H&K UMP submachinegun, a utility vest, and four magazines.
"Are you sure you can handle it?" Eric questioned with a raised eyebrow.
Erika grinned to reveal slightly elongated fangs, "There's only one way to be sure."
Stop that,Eric chided himself before he could return the grin. It didn't help that Rishima was echoing her lover's, for that was what had obviously transpired in his absence, expression.
"Then let's go teach that flying motherfucker just who he fucked with."
Eric slung his shotgun across his back and cradled his rifle as he walked up to Selene.
"I still think you should take my men and I, Miss Selene," Samuel spoke with a stern frown plastered across his severe face.
"I told you," Selene said as she turned to face Eric, "You'll just die. You ready?"
"Always," Eric answered.
"What he said!" Rishima chimed in far too cheerfully for someone who had nearly died not too long ago.
To Selene's credit, she merely fixed Erika with a single glare before nodding.
"Help me with him, Blade?"
Normally, Eric might have balked at the demand but the plaintive way she asked had him complying without complaint. He braced his rifle against his shoulder and grabbed the foot end of the bag with one hand. Together, they carried Michael through the eerily quiet corridors to the helipad where an obsidian craft waited for them. It had minimal running lights and was definitely running more quietly than commercial or standard military birds. They slid Michael inside and strapped him to the floor. Eric waited to help Erika and then Rishima inside. He hopped into the cabin and quickly stowed his rifle and shotgun in the weapons rack.
"Good luck!" Samuel said before he slammed the loading door closed.
Eric took a seat next Erika, sandwiching the blonde between him and Rishima, before he placed a set of headphones on and situated the boom mic. Selene was across from them and couldn't seem to take her eyes off Michael's body.
"Check. Everyone aboard?" A friendly male voice with a heavy Australian accent came through the headphones.
"All aboard," Selene informed him.
"Alright. I'm your pilot, Dale, and your co-pilot is my ravishing companion who goes by Taz. Say hello, Taz."
"Hello," This voice, female and surly, had an accent as well that was a bit harder to place from the single word; South Africa, possibly.
"We've only crashed four times since we've been flying the Cleaner Express. You're in good hands tonight!"
Rishima laughed maniacally as the helicopter seemed to leap off the helipad before banking away from the ship at an extreme angle and accelerating.
"I think I like them!" Rishima screamed over the headphones and Eric could hardly blame her because Erika was shrieking hysterically into the lycan's shoulder.
Why am I surrounded by so many psychos?
