Part seventeen
Vash suspected he'd been subconsciously picking up her call since he'd arrived, accounting for the irrational panic that had been clawing at him for the past couple nights. For the most part, he had controlled it.
Now, so close to the Plant chamber, he was no longer certain which emotions were his and which were the Plant's.
fearpanicterrorhelphelphelp
He tried to send out calm, cool comfort to assuage her fears but all he could understand was that same unrelenting dread. It drove him on, pushing his cautious walk into a jog, then run, and finally into an all-out sprint. He thought he may have encountered another vampire in this blind, stumbling journey but he wasn't sure. Perhaps that had been earlier with that girl – what was her name? – the one who had been hurt, who existed in time.
Perhaps not.
terorrhorrorpainherepainhereimhere
He skidded to halt outside the door, knowing she was there, right *there,* waiting for him, waiting so long.
He stepped inside and almost immediately gagged on the stench. Something – many somethings – had died here, bones and flesh still strewn about the room. Some were small and oddly shaped, hapless animals at the wrong place and wrong time. Others were far larger and recognizable.
herehereatlastreliefhelpescapestayawaywrongherebutoverpainpainpain
He took calming breaths through his mouth, ignoring the atrocity that surrounded him, concentrated solely on the bulb at the center of it all. The light from within was still a light blue, pulsing regularly. But even as he watched, it faltered, dimming, tinged with a sickly green. He stepped forward, taking one glove off and letting it drop to the floor. He placed his only real hand against the glass, closed his eyes, and opened himself fully to the alien mind within.
hereagaintheyaretheymeanpainalwayspainneverenoughforthemalwaysmoremoremore
never enough more consuming everything everyone kill
Killers They're killers
And They're. So. Hungry.
"Oh god."
His voice coming from ever so far away, choked, almost sobbing.
"They're *feeding* off of you."
***
The Master watched from the shadows as the strange man stumbled into the antechamber, blindly groping his way to the Plant bulb. He'd hardly expected anyone to find the ship, let alone travel this far into it.
Strange. The Master tilted his head to the side, listening. Since sipping of the Plant's life, he'd become aware of a low-level hum constantly surrounding her that occasionally resolved itself into impressions and meanings. Now, it appeared she was responding to the blonde collapsed against her outer shell, almost as if she were – communicating?
Could it be…?
The Master licked his lips in anticipation. To have a Plant without the difficulty of entering the bulb was a delicacy indeed. He stepped forward, moving from shadow to shadow, quiet as a cat, eyes yellow-bright in the dark. This meal would be so very sweet, the man never aware of him, not until it was too late and his fangs were already in his neck, feeding off of that most precious fluid…
Something almost like a warning came from the Plant and the man turned. The bulb shone brighter, the glare creating spots in front of the Master's eyes. His prey no longer stood in front of him. Or rather, it did but it no longer appeared as it had before. Instead a vision of pure fury glared at him, eyes pulsing blue, and limbs very like wings unfurled behind it.
"Get. Out." The vision told him.
The Master was predatory, arrogant, cruel, and never one to pass up on an easy meal. However, the Master was by no way stupid.
He spent another half-second gaping before turning tail and fleeing from the room.
***
Meryl's first conscious thought upon waking was how the hell did I get such a bad kink in my neck?
Then she remembered.
With a groan, she opened her eyes, blearily registering that she didn't have the faintest idea where she was. She rose slowly but the world still insisted on swimming around her, instead of coming to rest sensibly.
"Easy now. Not so fast."
Hands settled against her back and she looked up to find Liam's face smiling fuzzily at her. Deciding for the moment that she'd rather be on her back than nauseous, she allowed him to guide her back down. She swallowed against a dry mouth. "What happened?"
"A vampire attacked you." Oh yeah, that was in vivid detail. She sincerely hoped Liam had gotten the bitch who bit her, a wish that was confirmed by the man a moment later. "We chased away or killed the rest of them, but you needed first aid. I brought you to the med bay and Vash continued on ahead."
"What?" She immediately sat up again, stomachache and sore neck be damned. "You let him go off by *himself?* What were you thinking?"
The attempt to get out of the bed met with even less success than before as the room continued to spin and Liam firmly held her in place. "You needed my help more than he did."
"Hello? Bad things happen when he's left up to his own devices. Property damage, emotional trauma, psychotic robots." Scars, abandonment, tears, she didn't add. Enough time to think about those later, after she had rescued his sorry ass. Again.
Liam, however, didn't appear to share that opinion, never allowing her to rise more than a few inches off the bed, simply waiting for her wooziness and exhaustion to take over instead. When she'd at last collapsed back into her starting position, a dehydration headache starting to pound at her temples, he smirked. "Feel better?"
"No."
"Well, you shouldn't. Your system got a shock to it and it needs time to recuperate. Doctor's orders." She opened her mouth to protest, and he placed a gloved finger against it. "Don't push it."
Meryl sighed, resigned to fact that at the moment, she was out of commission.
She was just about to ask how Liam had learned to use any of the equipment here when he suddenly sat up straighter, eyes darting back to the door. She frowned. "What is it? What's wrong?"
He didn't answer immediately, shoulders tensing, breath so shallow she almost imagined he wasn't breathing at all. Abruptly, he stood. "I have to go."
"Excuse me, what?"
"Here." He reached inside his pocket, withdrawing a wooden cross, its end sharpened into a fine point. "Just in case. And keep your guns handy – they can at least slow anything down that comes after you."
"And just where are you going?" Meryl demanded.
"To take care of some business." Without another word, he swept out of the room. A moment later he stuck his head back around the doorway. "And I mean what I said before. Stay put."
He left before she could protest. She glared at the empty doorway, crossing her arms and refusing to pick up the cross he'd left for her.
"Yeah," she muttered. "That makes me feel *real* secure."
End part seventeen