A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter 1.
This is the 1st of 3 chapters I'm posting tonight.
This story will probably be the same length as my last, possibly a little shorter.
Chapter 14: SurroundingThe pictures lay spread out in front of them, aerial pictures and pictures of various angles of the bases. Interior shots were mixed in amongst them. Each set of pictures was groups according to the final six locations: Chester, Lichfield, Starrgate, Gloucester, Warick and Manchester.
Ingrid had been right; the rebels weren't in any of the locations mentioned in the hard drive and by Patrick.
Mina looked at the last picture in front of her deciding it belonged in the Lichfield pile.
That was what had led them to the game of spot the difference in front of them.
"They're all buildings." Scott supplied, Vlad rolled his eyes looking at him.
Jonno looked up, "You've never done this before have you Scott?" Scott gave him a blank look. "You've got to look at these pictures and see what they have in common and what they don't have in common."
"They're all buildings." Scott repeated.
Vlad shook his head trying to hide his smile; the wolves didn't have a clue what Jonno meant. He quickly dashed towards two of the piles grabbing outside shots of each.
"Scott, look at the pictures what else do you see?" Scott shook his head in confusion, Erin was right when she said it was worrying that the wolves weren't as observant as they were supposed to be. Vlad gestured to the windows; "Both of these pictures have windows with thick wire mesh in front of them, that's a similarity once we've noticed that we can look to see if it's the same for the other pictures."
"So you look for things that connect the pictures. You actually look at the detail." Vlad nodded, as it finally seemed to sink in for Scott.
Bertrand moved forward, "Then we think about why they have these things." Scott squinted at the pictures of the window and the mesh. "The mesh is to stop vampires from entering through the windows in the form of bats."
Scott turned to Jonno, a slightly annoyed look on his face. "Why couldn't you have said it that way?" Jonno shrugged, he didn't think he'd actually demonstrate what he meant to the wolf, although now he knew he'd made a promise to turn it into a habit.
Scott turned away and grabbed some pictures from the file.
Vlad settled himself on the floor, reaching for some pictures. This was going to take a while.
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Jonno threw the stylus to the tablet away from him as far as it would go. A grimace on his face before realising the mistake he'd made. He stood and slowly walked across the room to pick it up.
Vlad didn't care for the high tech technology the slayers used, Jonno already had to plug his tablet in when it decided to say 'low battery' and switch off without saving the data he'd spent hours inputting.
Vlad's handwriting wasn't very neat as he scrawled across the paper. He did have neat handwriting but as long as he could read it he didn't care for the moment.
Each was looking at the pictures and making notes before compiling them together as one.
Ingrid flexed her hand as it began to cramp from all the writing. Bertrand shot her a sympathetic smile as his hand felt exactly the same.
Erin had propped herself up against the wall, her back hurting her rather badly. A cushion was wedged there between her lower back and the wall. She was leaning back with a slightly uncomfortable expression on her face.
Vlad threw his pen down with annoyance; he'd been staring at the last picture for the last five minutes unable to concentrate at all.
With a slight click from his arms and back he pushed himself from the floor, he wiped his hands over his jeans and shirt trying to remove all the dust and dirt.
Everyone seemed to notice his movements, all eyes were on him, "We need a rest." He told them, "Then we can come back and look again with a fresh pair of eyes."
Jonno and Mina nodded, stretching slightly before jerkily standing up themselves. Ingrid shot up and vanished from the room, as did Bertrand. Scott simply strode from the room.
Vlad moved across to Erin stretching as he did so in an effort to stop himself from clicking any further. He held his hands out for her to take; once he was certain she had grasped his fingers tightly he pulled her upwards.
Erin winced as she felt her own bones cracking back into place as she stood. "You looked bored." She whispered conspiringly,
"I'm tired of staring at pictures." Erin saw the tiredness in his eyes; he blinked trying to refocus them.
Erin reached up and pressed a soft kiss to his jaw before wrapping her arms around his waist. She missed being able to press herself completely against him but it was worth it. She breathed in his scent smiling, as she immediately felt more relaxed.
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Vlad was happy to give them all an hour or two off from looking at the pictures. While it was important, if they continued looking in the slightly tired and irritated state they were in mistakes would be made and it would take a lot longer than two hours to sort out.
"You cheated!" Robin cried as they entered the throne room. Erin jumped next to him not expecting a loud cry as they entered.
Bertrand's eyes flashed but his voice was calm, "I don't cheat." Immediately Robin backed down, Ingrid laughed at Bertrand's intimation of Robin, he didn't make a movement other than stare at him.
"No one can beat me." He muttered again.
Vlad looked at the table noticing for the first time the chessboard in front of the men. Erin perched herself in one of the chairs around the table, reaching for a green apple and eagerly biting into it.
Bertrand had obviously picked to be the black chess pieces; he seemed to have quickly won the game within a few moves, which was unexpected considering that Robin could beat any computer.
Ingrid leaned forward and grabbed Robin's shoulders, pinching them under her hands, "Chess is a game of strategy and Bertrand knows more about strategy than anyone else." Robin nodded conceding she did have a good point.
Ingrid remained hovering over him, "Ingrid can you let go now, it kinda hurts."
His eyes screwed up as she tightened her grip for a moment before letting go.
Ingrid stepped away from him before offering a goblet of blood to Bertrand. He took it from her his fingers brushing hers, Ingrid jolted backwards as if lightening had struck her. It was happening more and more now.
"Static." She explained to Bertrand's questioning gaze. "Shut up Vlad." She spoke without looking once at her brother.
Vlad's eyes shot up to look Ingrid in the eye, Vlad looked indignant shaking his head. "I didn't say anything."
"You were going to."
He wasn't…well maybe he was going to say one tiny comment about her and Bertrand.
Erin tapped on his arm drawing his attention to her, "Can't we just lock them in a cupboard together?"
Vlad shook his head, "Knowing Ingrid she'd break the door down to get out."
"You know it's obvious you're talking about the pair of them." Robin commented, drawing everyone's attention to them.
"Thanks Robin." Vlad muttered to his friend as he tried to weather Ingrid's icy glare.
Wolfie ran up to the table and jumped onto the chair. "What's for dinner?"
"Ocelot."
Matching groans echoed around the table, Bertrand's was the loudest he really hated ocelot. He hated it even more than he hated some of the breather food they were served.
"Just make sure I don't have the nose." Ingrid, Erin and Vlad spoke at the same time. Renfield nodded before handing them portions of the diced meat. Erin's portion was twice as big as everyone else's; it was times like this she really hated eating for two.
Wolfie's hand shot into the air, "I'll have it." He always was too eager; the Count grabbed his ward's hand and lowered it.
"I'll have the nose. I always have the nose."
Wolfie shrugged before digging into the portion Renfield set in front of him.
Vlad saw Erin's put out expression at the food in front of her, she hated ocelot almost as much as Bertrand hated it. He gallantly took some of the portion from her plate and handed her some of the potatoes he'd insisted Renfield prepare and replaced the portion with them. Erin gave him a grateful look before digging into the food.
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Erin propped herself up against Vlad as they cross-referenced the lists in the group.
Vlad's arm rested around Erin, his finger tracing idle patterns on her stomach. Erin glanced over the compiled list of similarities.
"So we've got reinforced doors, protective wire mesh around the windows, lab facilities, well lit, large buildings, reinforced windows that only open a short distance at less than 30 degrees so nothing can fly in, no chimneys, a few have a basement, cells, argentalium coated walls…"
Erin's attention switched to the photographs in front of her, she quickly reached for one from each location. Vlad didn't notice his attention fixed on Jonno listing what they'd noticed so far.
Jonno was speaking, "Each building is an older building, it hasn't been built for the purpose of being a headquarters."
Looking at the aerial photos of the locations she noticed something they didn't. "They're all in the middle of nowhere…"
"I don't think Chester and Gloucester are the middle of nowhere…" Jonno began, trailing off, as Erin grew angry at the interruption. The baby began to move sensing it's mother's heightened emotions. Vlad immediately rubbed soothing circles on her stomach, the child immediately responded to its father's touch, calming instantly.
Erin took a deep breath, but not apologising, as Jonno should have known better than to interrupt her knowing how quickly she could grow angry with her heightened hormones.
"I mean they're all in the open." She gestured to the buildings, "There aren't any trees or any other buildings around them. Stokely had the town, here we have the woods but these buildings have no cover nearby."
Vlad agreed with her, "Its almost like building castles on hills, you can see an attack coming and have plenty of time to defend yourself."
Jonno turned on the laptop hooked up to the projector. Once it had loaded (after seemingly taking forever) Jonno pulled the corresponding maps up on the projector screen, comparing all the pictures and locations he had to agree with Erin, the locations of possible bases were in the open.
"That really isn't good." Vlad commented looking at the ordinance maps of the six of the suspected and rejected locations of rebel bases on the screen, each map held a segment of the screen.
"What?" Ingrid asked confused.
Vlad pulled himself away from his wife; he stood and moved across to the projector. "You can't see them on the photographs."
"What?"
"Have we got any large A2 paper?" He asked Jonno. Jonno looked at his mother.
"Yeah." Mina told him, reaching behind her into a large carry case. She pulled it out. Bertrand seemed to understand what he was doing. He held the paper for Vlad, standing in the direct light of the projector. He winced as the light hit her eyes.
"The suspected base is here." He put a cross on the paper. "There's nothing surrounding it except," He switched to a blue pen. "This, this, this and this." He drew a right angle on the paper around the base before adding another deliberately wonky line and a final one.
He moved onto do the same for each of the six bases.
Pulling the pen back and stepping away from the paper. The paper had been divided into the six segments much like the projection. Each segment of the paper held a base; the base was denoted by a cross surrounded by a large blue oblong.
"Each base is surrounded by flowing water." He finished,
"And vampires can't cross flowing water. And any bridges would have been destroyed." Ingrid continued.
It was the on thing that annoyed them more than ever; they couldn't cross any form of water that flowed. If there was a bridge or a boat - yes but they couldn't jump over it or wade through it, if they tried it was like hitting an invisible wall. The purity and cleansing effect of the water reacted against the evil within them, as it couldn't 'wash' their evil away it repelled it instead.
Maybe all wasn't lost, "There can't be that many locations with flowing water all around," Erin told them, "Even if they filled or created moats it wouldn't have gone unnoticed."
"Erin's right, there can't be that many places." Jonno agreed, "I'll get the slayers looking into it."
"Have a select group." Vlad told him, "Keep it quiet, we don't want the rebels finding out what we're up to."
It was a wise move, the more people that knew the more likely the rebels would find out.
"Are we going to sent a recon mission to find out more?"
Bertrand shook his head, "Not until you're sure you've listed every possible location."
Jonno gave them a puzzled look, "What are you going to do while we're doing that?"
Ingrid gave him a smile. "Find a way to cross flowing water."
TBC
A/N: Thanks for reading.