Author's Note: What lovely reviews! You guys rock. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I sort of wish I owned the characters and show, but I don't and they seem to be in capable hands.
Sanctum
-((-))-
Running
For a long moment, they were weightless, airborne in a dark sky with glimmering glass shards surrounding them in their flight. Then he slowly fell, feet landing heavily on the dry soil, Helen's weight pulling on his arms. The tinkling of falling glass eventually stopped, and they found themselves surrounded by the sounds of night.
Pulling Helen closer to his chest, Nikola looked around furtively. It seemed he had timed it right and luck was heavily in their favor. Those who had been surrounding the building were even now spilling within, looking ardently for them in the wrong place. The crash hadn't been loud and he doubted anyone had heard it, especially based off the noise level now coming from inside. There did appear to be a few soldiers left behind to guard the perimeter, but they couldn't differentiate between sounds. They had no reason to assume what little they could hear wasn't merely a result of the actions of their own people. He pressed back against the shadow of the building so that when the two near the corner panned toward them, he and Helen couldn't be seen. He held his breath and didn't release it till they looked away again.
In his arms, Helen slid her left hand down under his arm and reached around his middle to the bag hanging from his shoulder. "Ready?" Her voice was strained and it tickled as she mumbled the word into his bare chest so that she couldn't be overheard.
"Now." Nikola grunted quietly, and remotely switched the house shield off. There was a brief spark of light as the thing failed, drawing the guards attention upward. He felt like a heavy weight was being lifted from his shoulders. At almost the same time, Helen flipped on the personal shield device. Another flash sparked around them, giving them both the tingling sensation of being surrounded by a static field. He breathed in through his nose and out his mouth to steady himself. Taking a careful, firmer hold on Helen, he sprinted from the cover of the shadows.
The guards at the corner spotted them belatedly, raised their weapons and recoiled as their own weapon's fire rebounded off the shield toward them. He ran the distance to the nearest brush quickly and disappeared behind it before they could call out for reinforcements. The vegetation was thick, but sparse it most areas, so he ran from thicket to thicket for some time, dodging among the clumps to throw off pursuit. Though he was confident in his abilities as a vampire to outrun any normal human and most abnormals, even given his and Helen's ragged states, he still kept moving even after the sounds of pursuit faded behind them just to be sure. He couldn't risk Helen. Even though his chest was afire as he moved, he didn't dare pause to put her down. She would no doubt be slower and suffer greater than he was right now if he did anyway. So for a long while, he concentrated on nothing more or less that continuing to run as fast as he could. Finally, sure their hunters wouldn't find them at least long enough for him do what he needed to, he paused to rest. A small, rolling hill stood between them and the enemies they had just escaped, so he had no line of sight by which to gauge their progress. However, their pursuers wouldn't see them either. He stood still, breathing and listening intently as the rush of his altered form slowly leaked away. Eyes that had been dark black cleared, his claws retreated. Just before his senses collapsed in on themselves back to normal, he made out noises that might have been weapons fire at the house on the very edge of his hearing.
"Nikola." Helen suddenly breathed into his skin, voice shaking. "Please... put me down. My leg-"
Distracted, he looked down at her bad leg pressed tightly to his abdomen, and obviously causing her intense pain. Immediately, he did as she asked, carefully lowering her to the ground. As he shifted his arms from beneath her, he smiled down at her. "Now- we just have to turn on the house shield, it'll fall to the amber grid and we're home free." He tried to make it sound cheerful and hoped she found his words more encouraging than he did.
"Explain to me again how that is supposed to help us?" She groaned, leaning her back against the hill, eyes tightly closed
Giving her a look she didn't see, he crouched beside her and whispered fiercely. "We're in a hurry and you want me to play professor again?"
"I just need an slightly clearer idea," She hissed, peeking out at him. "-not technical specifications in triplicate."
"If you'd listened before-"
"If you think I'm going to-"
Impatient, he waved his hands for her to be quiet and was surprised when she obliged. He blinked. "Really? Just like that?"
"Nikola." She answered warningly.
"Yes, time crunch- When activated, the current in the house's shield will react with that of the Gestapo's, effecting every last microchip, as I said before."
"Which was why they couldn't pass through our shield."
He nodded quickly. "This will be the same, only having the opposite effect. The microchips that their shield uses will ensure that they and everything with them - i.e.- cars, personnel, et cetera – will be drawn into the house. They will be unable to pass outside of the house's shield while theirs is active. Trying to fight against it would be like a penguin fighting gravity."
"Fruitless." She managed to get out straight-faced.
He was impressed. "Exactly. They are momentarily trapped and disoriented giving us-" He gestured between them vehemently and raised an eyebrow.
"Time to slip away." She provided, clearly exasperated with him.
"Not much mind you, as soon as they figure it out they'll find a way to turn their shield off, but enough."
"How do we even know that they raised their shield again?" She asked. "Or that they haven't put it together already and switched off the chips in their uniforms?"
"You put in enough traps to have convinced them that it's necessary, I'm sure. And I think you overestimate their intelligence."
"I think you underestimate it, per usual."
"Really, Helen, you can be such a cynic sometimes." He chided gently.
"And whose fault is that?" She griped under her breath, moaning softly as she sat up.
"Shh." He said sharply, repressing a grin. "I need quiet to concentrate."
She poked him irritably in retaliation for teasing her, but went silent as he requested.
He pulled out the remote, twisted the dial on its side and fiddled with the frequency. "Now, I need to be on the outside of our little shield for this to work, so stay here with this." He handed her the bag with the personal shield device inside and offered her a wide smile. "And I'll be right back." Standing, he moved off to the side. He didn't have to go far, the range of their little shield wasn't vast and didn't want to risk being spotted by the soldiers looking for them. Flourishing the remote to get an exasperated smile past Helen's exhaustion, he pressed the button.
There was an empty pause.
Helen leaned forward to whisper loudly in his direction. "How do we know if it worked?"
A concussive blast of force and sound suddenly bent the short trees and scrub brush around him horizontal. As it passed, a roar like that of a newly caged lion filled the air, along with a heat that sizzled with the intensity of a blazing furnace. Nikola felt himself lift off the ground and fly several feet from where he'd been standing before reacquainting himself roughly with the terra. The force of his landing knocked the air from his lungs and made his eyes swim, but he could clearly hear Helen cry out as the ground itself rolled from the explosion. Debris blasted past them, some even ricocheting off their shield and taking out more vegetation as it went down. He barely managed to regain his senses in time to dodge a flaming piece of something that fell from the sky and embedded itself into the ground where he had been. Scuttling backward, he quickly put himself under the protection of the shield again, but to no avail. Even as he passed under it, their personal shield fizzled and died. Now unhindered, a fine layer of misted dust finally drifted down around them.
Coughing, he looked over at Helen. She had shifted with the moving earth and now lay face down, her good arm folded protectively over her head. His worry faded somewhat to see that the shield and hill had protected her from the worst of it.
Jerkily, she stirred. "What the bloody hell was that?" She coughed, raising her head and blinking things from her eyes.
"Trouble no doubt." Nikola answered. Chest aching, he twisted up onto his knees.
Though he was ready to help her up too, Helen managed to get up onto her good hand and knees on her own. Face distorted into a strong grimace, she shifted her weight onto her good knee and straightened up to sit back on her heel. He watched her eyes pan slowly around them, then return to the ground around her. "Well, the shield didn't last as long as you hoped." She grunted, nudging the offending bag before turning her head to look at him.
Really? "Extenuating circumstances." He whined. "I didn't really design the thing to withstand an explosion like that. It wasn't made to last long anyway, it's not my fault."
She smiled slowly, eyes crinkling as a laugh escaped her chest.
He returned it. It was good to see her smile again but her mirth at his defensiveness slipped away far to quickly for his liking.
"Any ideas?" She asked, sobering. She gestured weakly around them at the ruined landscape.
"Something must have happened to the Amber Grid. A reaction I didn't anticipate." He staggered up onto his feet.
"You?" She peered up at him. "Not anticipating every possible outcome? Nonsense." Even in the dark, he could see she had that glint in her eyes again. Her smile returned full force.
"There's no need to be so hostile." He frowned at her, though truth be told, he was grateful Helen had something else to take her mind off her pain. Leaning down, he helped her up, putting her left arm around his shoulders for support as he moved them forward up the slight slope of the hill.
"Why not?" She puffed out, fighting through her pain to get the words past clenched teeth. "Someone has to tease you and I graciously volunteer after all the trouble you keep dragging me into. Like this whole mess, for example. I'll never get my Razor Sills now." She actually sounded hurt about that last part.
"I'm not always the only one doing the dragging." He pouted defensively. "Besides, admit it, you love getting to see me."
"Oh, always." She said sarcastically, tone playful.
He smiled, still supporting her weight as they made slow progress. "You do and you know it. Even if I get you shot."
"Next time, I'm the only one that gets to do any shooting." She moaned, hobbling a little further.
"Yes, of course." He laughed, angling to lift her weight so she could step the last way up to the top of the slope. "I'll be sure to tell that to the next army that comes after us."
Mouth open to respond, Helen suddenly stopped as her eyes strayed past him. She stared with wide eyes.
He turned and felt his mouth fall slightly agape at the sight visible over the flattened brush and burning rubble. Where the house had been there lay only a large smoking crater and what remained of one wall still standing, looking as though a gentle breeze would topple it over the rest of the way.
"Dear god." He heard her breathe behind him.
He agreed with the sentiment.
-((-))-