DISCLAIMER:
If you think I own 'Buffy' or any of the canon, seek psychiatric help :-) - but barring Wesley, Travers, and maybe Merrick, everybody here is mine, all mine.
Well it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it....
'We Care a Lot', by Faith No More.
23:42, SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 28, 1995, LIMA - 11:42/28-09-95, ZULU
CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT, NAPIER, NEW ZEALAND
When you live in a country that's basically one big tectonic fault line, there are some things that come with the package. The 'occasional' tremblor; scattered volcanoes, in varying degrees of dormancy; a nation-wide theme of hills and mountains and valleys; and, as a natural consequence of geography and latitude, a great deal of rain.
Tatyana the Vampire Slayer doffed her cap, tipped her head back, and closed her eyes, letting the steady, gentle fall of water wash over her face. "I love the rain," she sighed in her accented English, rolling her head to let the water cover her whole face.
Misha watched his best friend, caught between marvelling at how easily she could escape her cares and being awestruck at the sheer, elemental beauty she showed in that moment. She was so at one with nature when he saw her like this.... "Which is probably just as well, Taz, living in New Zealand as you do," he murmured dryly, his throat a little thick at the sight of her.
"I mean it, Misha," she breathed, not shifting her attention at all. "Rain doesn't care about what you've done or who you are. It just falls on everyone, washing them clean... maybe even washing away your troubles."
Misha swallowed a rising lump in his throat. God, she's so lovely.... he thought dazedly, using his highest compliment... then shook his head and stuffed what he'd just felt back into its well-worn box. "Are you sure you're not part rusulka?"
"Will you be serious for once?" she countered.
"Hey, stranger things have happened," he shrugged.
"This from living proof," she smiled, finally lowering her face to look at him again. She raised a hand to her lip-mike headset and pressed 'transmit'. "\Okay, Anvil, what do you have?\"
{"\Two jokers at the front door checking ID. Smart money says they've got a back-up in the entry alcove with heavy firepower. Nobody visible at the side door, and they haven't disturbed the 'party favours' I rigged.\"} Andrew Hazelton's chosen observation point, with near-perfect views of the front door and fire-exit of the 'night-club' they were setting up on, was in the second-storey window of a department store a hundred metres away from where the Slayer and her operating partner stood.
"\The doormen?\"
{"\Uniformed Stormhawk troopers, both wearing sidearms. They're not letting anybody in who doesn't have the right credentials, and they're switched-on - no way you could sneak up on 'em on the street.\"}
And we can't use the side entrance.... "\Did you manage to get those plans? Construction blueprints, security systems, an internal layout, anything?\"
{"\Sorry, kiddo. Smokey said he still can't find a crack in the firewalls around Templar's mainframe. He's had less trouble getting into the CIA.\"}
"\Shit. Thanks. Keep an eye out, the show starts in about twenty minutes.\ Looks like we'll have to take what we've got and fly with it," she shrugged to Misha, a little whimsically.
"Oh, yeah, *that's* gonna look good in the after-action report: 'Our entire battle-plan was based on a one-liner from the Muppets'...." The young man rolled his eyes and turned his attention to the target building again. "Come in through the shop above?"
"Arleigh-gram should do the trick."
"Figure they've got pressure sensors or motion detectors?"
"Be the first time. C'mon, let's move."
Misha sighed as he started collecting his kit. There're too damn' many unknowns about this.... "One of these days, that hard-charging attitude of yours is gonna get us killed."
"And your deliberate approach to things takes too long. You sound like Mama," she drawled, shrugging into her assault vest.
"Hey, I *like* Elena," he protested, even as he checked the action on his suppressed MP-5 one last time.
"The way your own mother ignores you, I don't blame you," she sniffed.
"We have a 'hospitality club' to raid - can we *please* not restart *that* discussion right now?"
The Sundown Club's overhead lighting was the red colour and dimness of late dusk, perfect for vampire eyes. One portion of the premises was laid out like a conventional strip club, with a bar, a number of tables, and a runway for the performers to strut their stuff. Currently, a live sex show (starring a fourteen-year-old Chinese girl and two Brazilian boys only a year older) held the attention of most of the crowd in that section of the building. At the back of that section of the club, three tables held a buffet selection of cuisine to snack on: a Thai, a Filipina, and a Malayasian, only one of them even seventeen, all quite handily shackled to the tables for easy feeding. No drugs were used to subdue them; it would taint the blood's flavour. If you wanted to indulge other lusts with these girls, there were semi-private alcoves at the back, and in there, anything went - with the proviso that you paid for any damage.
On the other side of the subterranean establishment was the real main attraction: the arena. Modelled on an old-style amphitheatre, its four superimposed rows of seating faced a twelve-foot-high razor-wire fence that separated the customer area from the hard-packed bare earth of the near-circular fighting pit. Above the fight-floor's flat side (and only door) was the 'corporate box' the Freiherr and his intimates used; at the moment, it was unoccupied. Human bouncers, troopers from Stormhawk Security Forces' Tactical Reaction Corps, stood at the top of each aisle, wearing full uniform and cradling SPAS-12 auto-shotguns. The winning 'gladiator' in the last bout had made the mistake of trying to scale the fence, and the nearest Stormer had blasted her back off it for her pains; her arena-filthy, shredded body still lay at the foot of the fence as an object lesson, her blood soaking the earth into maroon mud. Now, two of her stable-mates - one Chinese, one Japanese, neither even sixteen - were engaged in mortal combat. Both wore a sleeveless, mid-thigh length smock as their only garment (pale blue for the Chinese, grey for the Japanese); both were armed only with their teeth and nails; both were covered in sweat, blood, and dust from the arena floor. The audience, mostly vampires, were all on their feet baying and cheering the fighters on, driven wild by the sight and smell of blood and violence. The two girls wrestled back and forth, biting and clawing with the savagery of desperation, for both had been told the terms of the arena when they were imported: the winner lived. The loser's fate was decided by the patrons.
Tadeusz Zdanski, one of the vampires in the back row, had only been coming to these clubs for a few weeks, and despite the disturbing rumours about the Slayer's special interest in them, he simply couldn't help himself. In here, he could give as much rein to his lusts as his wallet would support, and not only did the legal authorities not acknowledge the Sundown's existence, they were part of the establishment! For the cover charge, you could snack on, beat, rape, even torture the imported marchandise a little; a *lot* of torture, or even a kill, cost you an extra premium - and anyone who couldn't pay never got the chance to try to default.
You've got to hand it to Freiherr von Hausmann, he thought, even as he elbowed aside a burly Ventros demon to howl encouragement to the Chinese girl he'd bet five hundred dollars on, it's a slick arrangement. He imports the girls for a pittance, squeezes every last cent out of us for our use of them, then puts them in the arena and dumps the bodies in the Pacific, and no-one cares! He makes sure that the real police never get a whiff of this place, his troops guard it, and no-one even knows these children exist, much less that they're here to be used, abused, and discarded!
Bar the Slayer, of course, he qualified, even as 'his' Chinese reeled back, leaving a piece of her shoulder between the other girl's bloody teeth but taking some of the Japanese's cheek away with her nails. He'd heard stories of Slayers before, but never of one like this. Only a handful had even been in a building she struck and lived to speak of it, and none who'd seen her face; she was especially careful about that. All the previous Slayers had fought with the traditional weapons in the traditional way, hand-to-hand, patrolling the streets, striking down those they found. This one used *modern* hardware, and she and her unknown sidekick(s) struck by surprise, where they were expected least, seeking out haunts like this, freeing all the 'food' and leaving no survivors in their wake... only devestation. Some who'd heard the radio traffic between the girl and her comrades called their group 'Forge'; other, more gloom-ridden members of Hausmann's Ordo Astra, their belief in their tradition of victory virtually shattered by this girl's guerilla tactics, were whispering about the Slayer's group as 'Nga Kehua'. 'The Wraiths'.
Hell of a way to -
*KA-CHOOOM!*
Everybody ducked away from the blast, ear-shattering even over the crowd and the music. A manhole-sized circle had been blown through the ceiling over the stage. Even as Zdanski turned to look, two shapes dropped through it, landed, rolled to one knee with cat-like surefootedness, raised their weapons. Barring their combat boots, ink-black body-armour festooned with ammunition and equipment, and round helmets whose hue matched the vests, they were clad entirely in midnight-blue: trousers, long-sleeved shirts, sweaters with reinforced joints. Their faces were hidden by dark-blue balaclavas, polarised Bollé SWAT-goggles, breath-filters; each carried a silenced sub-machine-gun - the attached laser sights made unnerving red lines though the smoke the entry charge had raised - and wore a pistol, ammunition pouches, hand-to-hand weapons on their vests and combat harnesses.
The Slayer! Zdanski realised, dread striking viperish fangs deep into his heart.
Even as he finished turning, the pair stood and opened fire, their suppressed weapons making only an eerie 'tik-tik-tik' sound as the actions cycled. Their shooting was controlled, mechanically rhythmic, inhumanly precise: sight-acquire-fire, sight-acquire-fire. Each burst struck its victim right in the head, shattering it. Vampire after vampire flashed into dust as hollowpoints wrecked - smashed - their brains and spinal columns.
At the foot of the main stairs leading up to the street, the Stormhawk guard raised his SPAS-12, sighting on the taller intruder. Even as he started to press the trigger, the smaller figure pivoted, set its laser-sight on the man's face, fired. The Stormer went down, his head virtually exploding. An instant later, one of the aisle-guards met a similar fate and went tumbling down the tiers like a rag-doll.
Though their view of events was obscured by those above them, even the arena-goers on the lowest tiers could see *that* and know it was no good. They scattered hither and yon, some seeking escape, others to attack the interlopers - but all the avenues for either led up into the attackers' lines of fire.
The taller intruder lowered her(?) sub-gun for a moment, snatching a small cylinder from a vest pocket to pull the pin and lob it into the amphitheatre. An instant later, it exploded into a shower of white phosphorus pellets that burned everything they touched, incinerating a dozen vampires in their tracks. The Ventros that had just elbowed past Zdanski to launch itself at the duo howled in agony as a dozen pellets bored into its flesh, and reeled into him, knocking him tumbling backwards down the seating. The vampire landed on his belly in the bare space between the front benches and the arena fence, momentarily dazed.
I've got to get out of here! was his first thought, but even as he started to gather himself, he caught a glimpse of the club's fire-door swinging open, maybe a dozen patrons pushing to get up the stairs. There was another, complex explosion; the whole stairwell was suddenly deluged with jellied patroleum, and a split-second later the would-be escapees were hacked down by three scything arcs of high-velocity metal, steel ball-bearings and burning magnesium pellets, most of them vanishing in puffs of fiery dust, the rest scattering, shrieking and blazing, from the sudden inferno in the stairwell.
No escape! he realised, a bare instant from full-blown panic... before an idea occurred to him. But if I wait here... play dead... watch... tell the Freiherr of what I see, I'll survive. He'll *reward* me for word of this!
Even as Taz's Willy-Pete exploded among the pit-fight audience and Andrushka's 'party favours' - homebrew napalm ignited by Claymore mines the old operator had rejigged for vampire slaying - closed off the fire-exit, Misha could feel the momentum of the battle - and it was all going their way. The vampires in here were all eaters, not fighters, and they didn't, couldn't know how to deal with such an assault. Denied time to think in a situation like this, how you reacted instinctively was the difference between survival and death, and the bad guys didn't have the training to react the right way to survive.
"\Set!\" Taz cried, raising her MP-5 again.
Motion in peripheral vision. Misha shifted his aim. A Stormer kneeling on the top arena tier - a muzzle-flash! A half a dozen simultaneous body-blows, each a punch from Thor, knocked him right on his rump. His reflexive return shot was off, stitching the woman from left breast to right collarbone. She grunted, looking astounded as the triple impact lifted her; Taz caught the movement and finished her with three more rounds to the temple.
"\You okay?\"
Owwwwwwch.... "\Just lost my wind!\" he assured her, standing again. His body-armour had absorbed the pellets' energy, but the bruises the next morning would be the size of his fist. He'd been shot enough times to know that. Damn' eyes....
{"\Response unit headed this way!\"} Andrushka interjected.
"\Regular cops or Stormhawks?\" Misha asked, blowing the throat out of a staggering Ventros demon.
{"\Tacticals.\"}
"\Kill 'em!\" Taz said promptly.
Andrushka hadn't needed the instruction. He'd chosen his weapon that night with great care and attention to local conditions and the situation. Tacticals travelled in armoured Nissan Pathfinder four-wheel-drives, each man on a four-man response unit packing a pistol and either a Chilean-made SAF sub-gun or (for the senior man) a full-blown Colt M-4 carbine. Thus, he needed more firepower than his customary G-3(SG-1).
The Heckler and Koch G-8, the G-3's half-brother, was designed especially for counter-terrorist use, which made for several interesting features. It was accurate enough to be used for sniping, rugged enough to be used on the battlefield - and if need arose, it was easily converted to a belt-feed mechanism to provide fire support. Andrushka had opted for that latter alteration and loaded a full two-hundred-round belt of four-to-one FMJ/tracer, slapped on a night-vision telescopic sight and bipod, and waited for customers. And here they were: a Pathfinder full of Stormhawk Tacticals, frantically racing up to 'protect' patrons of a club that officially didn't exist. Giving the beige-and-ochre four-wheeler with the flashing red-and-yellow lightbar just enough lead, he snuggled the machine-rifle in tight, gathered himself, and squeezed the trigger.
His first second-long burst went straight through the right side of the windscreen, aiming fifteen rounds at the man behind the steering wheel. Armoured glass was tough, but not that tough; the windscreen imploded, and the Pathfinder suddenly wobbled, went sideways on the wet asphalt, and flipped up onto the passenger's side. It went screeching along the street for almost fifty metres before wrapping itself around a streetlight. Andrushka gave each of the door-guards a five-round burst, the high-velocity 7.62mm-NATO rounds sneering at Kevlar and barely noticing flesh and bone; then, never having been one to leave a live enemy behind, he poured the rest of the belt into the roof of the wrecked four-wheeler. Leaking petrol vapours met the phosphorus from the tracer, and the Stormer vehicle went up in a fireball that almost dazzled the former SAS trooper. Human or vampire, no-one was getting out now. Not taking the time to savour the moment, he slapped a new belt into the G-8's smoking receiver; he'd need it.
{"\Got 'em, but there'll be more coming. You jokers better work fast!\"} he urged, opening up on the patrons trying to get out the club's nominal entrance. Vampire or demon or human, it didn't matter to him: none cleared the doorway.
{"\We had it in mind!\"} Taz replied tartly. Her sub-gun ran dry, and she swung it up and around on its sling to hang across her back. She'd always been a get-up-close-and-personal kind of operator, and now she reverted to her preferred close-combat weapons, her right hand snatching a stake from her hip-pouch, her left taking the Ka-Bar from her right shoulder-strap. Stopping an onrushing vampire by simply driving the Ka-Bar through its throat to the spine, she brought the stake up and drove it up under her victim's ribcage into his heart.
The vampire's eyes bulged, staring into hers from only a few inches away, wide in shock and agony. The Slayer smiled viciously behind her mask, twisted the stake, then withdrew it and moved on, leaving the vampire to crumple to the floor with mystic flames consuming him from within.
Misha's eye-problems denied him the depth-perception for Taz's get-to-grips, rough-and-tumble style of fighting, but he made up for it with fanatical development of his shooting skills, especially at CQB ranges. Even as Taz drove the few remaining patrons before her, herding them towards the stairs (and Andrushka's kill-zone) by killing those who tarried, he mopped up those who remained in other parts of the club with aimed bursts of sub-gun fire. Thankfully, all the kids had hit the deck when the Arleigh-gram went off and stayed down since, so there were no obstructions in his lines of fire other than structural. (A moment's gratitude for kids who grew up in rough territory.)
A few seconds later, it was all over. Not a single patron in the 'hospitality club' was moving; most were dust, either on the floor or in the front doorway. All the guards had offered resistance and paid the price.
"\Hammer One, clear!\" Taz cried. "\I'll get those 'gladiators' out.\"
"\Hammer Two, clear!\" Misha confirmed, lowering his sub-gun. "\I'll round up the rest.\"
{"\Anvil, clear,\"} Andrushka added from his post. {"\I'll have the cargo out front in a minute. Next Stormer unit gets here in three, so don't stop for lunch!\"}
"Nag, nag, nag," Misha muttered without keying his radio, crossing to the runway. All three 'performers' were huddled behind it, staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes. "We're friends - we're here to help you," he assured them in English, the Ordo Astra's common language. "Go to the foot of the stairs and wait. *Don't* go outside." He repeated the bare essentials in Portugese and Cantonese, and all three obeyed almost instantly.
Not watching them go, Misha went around to free the girls at the tables. Lacking time to finesse their bonds, he severed the handcuffs with his pocket-sized bolt-cutters, gave them the same instructions, and went over to assist Taz.
Taz, for her part, resheathed her weapons and cleared a path for the two bloodied gladiators with her own wire-cutters. Lacking Misha's facility with languages, she settled for pointing to the stairs, then reloaded her MP-5 and surveyed the portcullis at the back of the arena. "\Two, get these two out as well, I'm going to check the holding cells!\"
"\On it!\"
Conscious of the seconds ticking away, Taz snatched open a vest pocket and unravelled a six-metre length of flexible shaped-charge cord. Pressing it to the portcullis to outline a rough oblong six feet high and four wide, she set the detonator and stepped aside to punch the 'fire' key. Despite the seemingly muted nature of the blast, the result was distinctly satisfactory: amputated all around its edges, the outlined section of iron bars groaned, wavered, then crashed flat onto the arena floor. Instant door. Explosives - you gotta love 'em.
"One, truck's here!" Misha called from the stairway. "Two minutes until the Stormies arrive!" Andrushka appeared at the club's doorway with his G-8 in hand. "\Go with him!\" he told the oldest girl, the Malayasian; she nodded and started hustling her fellows up the stairs. With Andrushka handling the extraction, Misha turned and hurried to assist his partner.
Either side of the passageway behind the arena door held six holding-cells, each only a metre square. Only six of those twelve cells were occupied, and of those kids, four of them were bloodied, filthy, and exhausted, though they wore fresh bandages over their wounds. A man in Stormhawk beige and wearing a red-cross armband was standing in front of the nearest cell, a Browning BDA raised and aimed in both hands. Taz flung herself sideways and rolled across the floor, going under his first shot and closing the distance between them; her left foot arrived ahead of the rest of her, folding the man's knee backwards the wrong way. Even as the Stormer landed next to her, howling and clutching at the broken joint, the edge of her right hand smashed down on the bridge of his nose like an axe-blade, driving bone splinters into his brain. Dismissing the spasming corpse that fast, she rose and made for the cell doors.
Even as she knelt before the first door, a Stormer came swinging around the corner at the far end of the cell-bay, his SAF levelled waist-high -
- Ah, shit! Taz thought, chagrined at being caught napping like this. She went for her holstered Glock, knowing she'd never get there -
- and the Stormer went over backwards in a puff of pink mist, his amazed expression marred by the trio of bullet-holes in his forehead.
Taz glanced the other way, knowing what she'd see. Indeed, there was Misha just inside the portcullis, lowering his smoking MP-5 a little. "\Nicely timed,\" she nodded.
"\All part of the service. We have a clock to beat, remember?\" he reminded her, keeping careful watch in both directions.
"\Right.\" Again working with the deliberate haste of long practice, she set finger-charges against the locks of each cage door and started the fuses, working so fast that by the time the first charge went off, she was setting the third. As each gladiator emerged from their call, Misha gave them directions.
As the last 'fighter' disappeared out the portcullis, Taz got back to her feet, dumped the spent mag from her MP-5, and slapped in a fresh one. "\Right. Now, let's -\"
Shots and a child's scream cut her off, and both youths bolted for the portcullis.
Zdanski's dreams of glory had had time to ferment, and visions of the rewards for actually *killing* Forge had overwhelmed him during the delay. He'd crept over to the nearest Stormer corpse during the delay and retrieved her Browning, ready to ambush 'Forge' when they reappeared through the gate. Instead, he'd tagged a damn kid!
That was his last thought, because even as he gaped at the fourteen-year-old blonde who was sagging back against the grille, two dark-clad forms appeared in the gap in the portcullis, sub-guns ready. He was dead before his eyes could process the muzzle-flashes.
"\Fuck!\" Misha hissed, lowering his weapon again as the tumbling corpse crumpled into dust. "\Get her to the cargo - I'll empty the register!\"
"\On it!\" Taz nodded, wielding her slung MP-5 in one hand, pistol-fashion, as her other arm supported the girl. "\C'mon, kid,\" she murmured, not unkindly, "\let's get you out of here.\"
Misha vaulted the bar and punched the register's 'open' key, quickly snatching out wads of notes and stuffing them into his hip-bag, then raking the gold and silver coins in after them. Some might call it macabre, but none of them had any qualms about robbing the Ordo Astra or its various organs; every cent they took hit von Hausmann in both of the places it hurt him most - the pocketbook and the ego - and almost ninety-eight percent of it went back into funding their own operations to counter him.
With that done, he went scrambling for the stairway. He cleared the club's front door in time to see another Stormhawk Pathfinder come screeching around the corner down the street, lights blazing and siren blaring.
Behind him, the flap in the canvas covering the cargo-deck of the three-tonner they'd 'acquired' for this caper peeked open, and the tik-tik-tik-tik of a suppressed weapon on full-auto came to his ears. The Pathfinder's armoured windscreen starred under the impacts, and the four-wheeler slewed to a halt, all four troopers diving out.
Using the opening Taz had given him, Misha seized the grab-bar and half-vaulted himself up into the back of the truck. Thanking his partner with a nod, he knelt up again, turned, and joined her in pouring sub-gun fire into the Stormers who were trying to take cover behind the Pathfinder. One man was late getting there and went sprawling in the street, clutching at a shattered shoulder and howling in agony; another stood up behind the engine-bay and tumbled backwards as Misha's fire tore half his face away.
"\Anvil, all bodies in, let's get the fuck outta Dodge!\" he cried, covering Taz as she reloaded again.
"\Gone!\" And with a lurch, the big diesel vehicle started moving, rumbling up the street away from Hausmann's newly-arrived gunsels... and more importantly, from the blue-and-red lights of legitimate police units also responding to the disturbance.
Both teenaged troopers held their positions, keeping the Stormer's heads down with their sub-gun fire, until Andrushka rounded a curve that broke both sides' line of fire. It took a moment for the duo to relax enough to lower their weapons. When they both realised that the firefight was in fact over, at least for now, they shared a long look of relief and turned towards their passengers.
The Stormers out of sight and mind for the moment, Misha shed his helmet and scrambled over to where the blonde girl lay screaming softly in a growing pool of blood. One of her fellow gladiators was already kneeling over her trying to tend her wounds, and one of the Brazilian boys was doing his best to help.
"\Let me through,\" he urged in Portugese, half-pushing the boy aside.
One glance was all it took. The girl had been hit laterally through the belly three times; two of the bullets had ruptured her liver, and it looked like the third had at least nicked her spine. Her tunic was soaked in near-black blood, and short of a full transplant in the next twenty minutes, she was beyond help.
Taz joined him and saw the girl's wounds, assessing their severity with that same ease... an ease born of far too much practice. She and Misha shared a look; both understood the situation, and the choices that they faced.
"\What's your name, child?\" Misha asked, gently brushing the girl's blonde fringe back from her face, a face already pale and sweaty from shock. He spoke in Russian; her screams and pleas had been in Serbo-Croat, which was close enough to Russian for government work.
"Natalija," she gasped. Tears were running down her cheeks, and she'd bitten through her lip trying to control her screams. "Natalija Treskovic."
"Natalija," he nodded. "\You're hurt pretty badly. We can get you to a hospital where you can get help -\"
"\Can *they* find me there?\" she interrupted.
Misha swallowed. "\Probably. Almost certainly.\"
She *smiled*. It was a weak, sarcastic expression, but still a smile, and horrible to see on a face so close to the grave. "\Go to hospital to live - and be returned to the slave-pens?\" She shook her head. "\I'd rather die free.\"
"\That's your choice. We can give you some pain-killers to make it easier -\"
"\Please!\" she nodded.
Taz nodded and retrieved the medical kit Andrushka had left in the back for them, filling a syringe from a large phial of morphine despite the high-speed swaying of the truck.
"\Are you religious, Natalija? How should we pray for you when we bury you?\" Misha asked urgently, blinking back tears of his own as he laced his fingers with hers.
"\I'm... I'm Croatian. Catholic. They took me just after my First Communion.\"
Misha nodded, wishing he could take off the balaclava so she could see his encouraging smile... but they didn't dare let anyone see their faces, 'rescued' or not. "\Okay. We're going to give you something for the pain now.\"
He caught Taz's eye and nodded, and as she pushed the needle into Natalija's heart, Misha started to recite the Twenty-Third Psalm in Russian. Natalija caught the familiar rhythm and sense of the words and started speaking with him, her voice getting ever weaker. She'd just gotten to 'for Thou art with me' when the morphine hit her system and her eyes went dreamy; a second later, her voice faltered, then trailed off, and those pale brown eyes went completely blank.
Misha swallowed the lump in his throat and closed the girl's eyes gently, then carefully laid her hand back down, moved up to the front of the cargo-bay, and sat back against the cab, thankful that his goggles hid his tears. Taz moved up and sat beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder in mute comfort as the truck rolled on.
And outside, the rain kept falling.