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2. Thicker Than Blood

The reactor buzzed with people. Tifa peeped around her boulder, wondering what she should do. Cloud had found her in the stairwell and brought her out here to keep her safe. He had gone back inside after making sure she was okay, and though some part of her pain-fogged brain had shrieked that he was going exactly where Sephiroth had gone. Cloud had promised he would return. He hadn't. Now dozens of Shinra flunkies were arriving in trucks. A bevy of white-coated men followed when they gave the 'all clear' sign.

A strong hand grasped Tifa's shoulder. She swung out on instinct. Someone blocked her punch like she was a novice and twisted her arm up behind her back. It was lucky she hadn't been injured badly when she confronted Sephiroth. He could have killed her. She had, after all, got right up in his face after he had burned Nibelheim and its people to the ground. Instead, he had simply thrust her aside hard enough to crack her head against the metal stairs and knock her out. Sephiroth had been so focused on getting inside that reactor, she was less than insignificant to him.

"Shut up if you don't want to die," hissed a voice. It was deep but noticeably female. "I'm not here to hurt you, idiot girl. I'm here to save you."

Tifa stiffened. What was this woman twenty minutes ago? "Cloud – my friend – he went back inside. We have to help him –"

"It's too late for the grunt."

Tifa's eyes widened. "No." Her voice cracked on the word. Cloud couldn't be dead. He had come to save her, just like he promised. He couldn't pull off something like that and then just die.

"There's no point running in there in some half-assed rescue attempt. You'll either be shot on sight or Hojo will convince the higher-ups it would be in everyone's best interests to let him have you."

"What?"

"Nobody else survived. You're officially a specimen – you not only survived, you came into physical contact with the General. You'll disappear into the labs and never be heard of again. Is that what you want?"

Tifa shook her head. She was reeling from the thought that Cloud might be dead. Sephiroth, Shinra's hero, had killed him. She was struck by a melange of memories; times Cloud had clipped newspaper articles or kept flyers showing Sephiroth's picture to tempt people into working for Shinra. Cloud had hero-worshipped the man. The irony was bitter as vinegar on an open wound.

"Listen carefully," the woman growled. She pulled Tifa close to whisper into her ear from behind. "You need to run. You need to run fast and you need to run far. Get as many miles between you and this place as you can and don't look back."

"No!"

"Don't argue. Just do it."

"But –"

"If you stay, you're dead or worse."

"But who are –"

"Don't ask me who I am or why I'm letting you go. Accept that I'm not an enemy and do as I say. Escape while you still can, little girl. After what happened here tonight, all hell is about to break loose." She spoke with such grim certainty that Tifa couldn't help believing her. "You were damn lucky to make it out alive. You can't help your friend. He's beyond anyone's help now."

Tifa's arm was suddenly her own again. She turned to see a striking woman in a dark business suit. Her long loose hair might have been grey, but in the poor light it looked almost blue. Over the collar of her black suit showed a crisp white shirt and black tie knotted at her throat. The effect was one of formidable contradictions: her clothes said corporate executive, her hair said model, her stance said martial artist. Her expression said nothing at all. She showed less emotion than the rocks around her.

"Go," she ordered.

"Will anyone come after me?" Tifa demanded. "Will you?"

"If I'm ordered to. You just have to hope that doesn't happen. I'm showing mercy, little girl, which is unusual for me, but I won't contravene a direct order. Now go before I knock you out again and leave you for Professor Hojo's goons to find."

Tifa still couldn't accept what she was being told to do. Cloud had come for her when she needed him. She couldn't just abandon him in return. "I won't leave his body to be cut up by those –"

The woman's hand shot out. Tifa had been trained by Mast Zangan, who had called her the most promising pupil he had ever taught. She was something of a prodigy, unbested by anyone else in town. Despite this, she reeled back, clutching her shoulder.

"It's only dislocated," the woman said coolly. "Don't do anything stupid or I'll do the other side too, and I won't be so gentle a second time. Go."

Tifa stared, pain radiating from her shoulder in a nauseating wave. "Who are you?"

"Nobody you need to know." The woman turned away. "You'd be advised to forget everything that happened here tonight." She glanced over her shoulder. "But I'm betting you won't. I've met lemmings like you before." she took a step and was gone, blending into the shadows as if she was one herself.

A mixture of confusion, grief and anger churned her gut. Her shoulder was hot with agony. It would be simple to fix herself, but that would make her scream. She couldn't be so near here when she did it.

Voices drifted to her from the trucks, fading in and out as the men weaved in and out of the haphazardly parked vehicles. "… Werewolf?"

"… all hairy … pointed ears …"

"… don't exist …"

"… just telling … what I saw, man …"

"But him?"

"Hey, if Sephiroth can become …"

"Don't even joke about that, dude."

"… all the guys are saying …"

"… quick way … fired … or worse."

"Whoops!"

"Be careful with that!" a very different voice snapped. It was nasal and imperious; the kind of voice that made your skin crawl and the roots of your hair try to turn in on themselves.

Tifa found herself gritting past the pain drawn to look once more around the boulder. What she saw made her heart stop. Zack?

The First Class SOLDIER had come to town with Sephiroth and, unbeknownst to her, also Cloud. Zack was friendly and likable, quick to laugh and quicker to smile. He had an easy kindness that could make anyone comfortable around him, no matter how they felt about Shinra. It was easy to forget nasty rumours about the company when Zack was their representative. Sephiroth may have been the glorified hero, but he was aloof and, through a combination of reputation and poor social skills, he came off as unapproachable when you talked to him. Zack was far more human. He had been kind to Tifa.

He must have followed her up the mountain when she chased after Sephiroth. She vaguely remembered a figure bending over her after Sephiroth threw her down the stairs, but it was hazy. She blinked, also remembering strong arms picking her up. She had thought they belonged to Cloud, but now she remembered already being outside when Cloud's voice brought her back to consciousness. Cloud had hidden her behind the rocky outcropping, with a perfect view of the reactor, but it must have been Zack who actually removed her from the building. She owed her life to both of them.

Zack was strapped to a stretcher. He had restraints around his arms, legs, neck, chest and waist. A strip of cloth had been draped over his hips to preserve his dignity, but that was all. Tattered strips of what could have been a sweater hung off his shoulders. He was blood-spattered but uninjured and his eyes were closed. If they had thought it necessary to restrain him, Tifa surmised, he couldn't be dead.

A man in a white coat smacked one of those holding the stretcher. "That's a very valuable specimen! Be more careful with it!"

"Yes, sir."

The man's eyes gleamed behind his spectacles. Tifa thought she had seen him before, though Shinra employees rarely came into Nibelheim proper. They preferred to stay at the mansion; as if consorting with rough village folk would somehow lower their IQ points. Even so, she was sure she recognised this guy. His greasy black hair sat on the back of his neck in a ponytail, while his voluminous lab-coat couldn't conceal a tall, thin frame. The wrinkles said he was old, but his body had the gawkiness of a teenager. He was a collection of contradictions.

"These two are irreplaceable," he said, almost reverently. "You idiots are not."

"Yes, sir."

Two? Another stretcher emerged from behind a truck as Zack's was loaded into the back of one.

If Tifa's heart had stopped when she saw Zack, now it exploded. Cloud's blond hair was unmistakable, which was lucky, as his face was so bloody it was difficult to make out his features in the poor light. His neck was a torn mess of meat. Unlike Zack, he was fully clothed but had been covered by a sheet that had obviously flopped down from his face. One of the men carrying him made gagging noises. Tifa held hers inside, along with her horror, as they covered Cloud's slack face up again. The second stretcher was loaded up and locked away behind a rolling metal shutter.

The man in the lab-coat patted the side of the truck, and then shook his hand as if to free it of dirt. He looked back at the reactor and murmured something Tifa couldn't hear. Shaking his head, he returned to the entrance. "Hold everything until I arrive," he barked at a flunky. "I have to finish up here, but then I'll be right along."

"Yes, sir."

"Sir," one man said nervously.

His companion shot him a warning look. "Don't do it, dude."

He didn't listen, though his voice shook a little. "I-Is it true what they're saying, sir?"

The man in the lab-coat gave them both a look that could have frozen steam off a hot-spring. "And what, pray tell, are the nebulous 'they' saying?"

"Um …" Committed now, the unfortunate flunky toyed with his helmet clasp. He wore the same kind as Cloud. It covered nearly all his face and obscured his identity totally. No wonder she hadn't recognised Cloud until he took his off. "That the General, um, had an episode and … uh … and set fire to the village."

The man in the lab-coat folded his arms. "What is the protocol if a large urban area is infected?"

"Sir?"

"You've been through basic training, haven't you?"

"Um, yes sir. Standard procedure is to isolate the vampires and terminate them, sir."

"And if the area is entirely infected?"

"You mean Nibelheim was a Red Zone, sir?"

"What." The words came out clipped and icy. "Is. Standard. Procedure?"

"To immolate by whatever means necessary, sir. If regular means prove ineffective, a surgical strike is recommended."

"In layman's terms, wipe out as many vampires as quickly as possible. Now, if you'll wrack that little pea-brain of yours, perhaps you can also tell me what methods are effective when terminating infected subjects?"

"Vampires are susceptible to staking, sunlight, decapitation, removal of the heart and … fire, sir."

"Good boy." The man in the lab-coat actually patted the flunky's helmet. Then he punched his exposed chin. Evidently there was a lot of anger behind that disdainful exterior. "Now get moving before I add you to the list of those missing."

"Thir! Yeth, thir!" The unfortunate drudge grabbed his friend and scuttled off.

"No!" Tifa hissed. Busted shoulder or not, she couldn't let this happen. She couldn't let those kinds of lies get out. Nibelheim had not been totally infected! And she certainly couldn't let Cloud's body be spirited away to who-knew-where for who-knew-what. She had barely moved, however, when someone grabbed her from behind. Pain shot down her dislocated arm and opened into her chest, making her retch.

"I'm sorry, Tifa. I can't let you kill yourself like this," said a familiar baritone.

"Master Zangan?" A nerve in her neck pinched. Without another sound, Tifa fell into unconsciousness for the last time tonight.

The Turk woman looked on dispassionately. "I didn't think she'd leave on her own."

"You didn't have to hurt her," Zangan hissed. He gathered Tifa in his arms. She was so light. He could imagine how easily Sephiroth had hurt her, and how easily a volley of gunfire could kill her. Usually he had supreme confidence in his student, but not tonight. Tonight had already seen enough bloodshed and death. He wasn't willing to take the risk of losing Tifa, too.

"You did," the Turk acknowledged.

"She'll come round." Grudgingly, he added, "Thank you for bringing me to her."

The woman shrugged. "My remit was to keep causalities to a minimum."

Zangan gaped. "The entire village is dead!"

She shrugged again. Her callousness was stunning. "My remit only stretched to this immediate area."

Despite his gratitude, for a moment Zangan hated her. She represented everything that had gone wrong with Nibelheim since Shinra set up here. He shook the feeling off. Now was not the time. "Will you follow us?"

"No." Her gaze slid to the scene Tifa had been watching. "I have other orders."

"Do orders come before morals now?" he couldn't help sniping.

"Morality is a code set down by mankind to regulate behaviour. Orders are set down by my boss to regulate the behaviour of his employees. You do the math."

Zangan's teeth gritted. He felt something shift in his gums and unclenched before he broke something. "Will Shinra come after us?"

"Nobody but my boss and I know you were even here," she said without looking at him. "And frankly, I'm getting sick of you people hanging around where you're not wanted. Piss off already."

Zangan took his leave, heading into the mountains. Out there a native Nibelheimer like himself could survive for weeks off the land, but outsiders never ventured that far into the frozen wastes. The harsh landscape kept them out better than a barbwire fence.

The Turk shook her head. "Like lemmings," she murmured, putting them immediately out of mind. She didn't concern herself with whether they would be okay once they had left her. She wasn't paid to care about things like that.

She still had work to do tonight.

"The magic is dying."

"What?"

"The magic. Can't you feel the change? It's dying."

"It can't die. Magic is life. The magic will only die when all life dies, and we fought to make sure that doesn't happen."

"It is dying. The elves are dying and the magic is going with them."

"That only means elf magic is dying, not all magic."

"The humans are replacing the elves."

"Not always. Some of the elves are mating with humans and hiding among them so they don't get hunted down and killed like their brothers and sisters."

"The humans don't have magic of their own."

"Some do."

"Tricks and sleights of hand; not true magic. That's why they have no connection with the Planet, and why the infected ones always sought out elves to drain instead of humans. Compared to elves, humans are deaf, blind and mute. Their magic isn't enough to keep us in the world."

"What?"

"We need magic to feed us – spiritual power, belief, faith, whatever you want to call it. Without it, we have no foothold in the mortal world. We may as well just be common ghosts."

"Ridiculous."

"That can't happen."

"Can it?"

"It can and it will. If the elves all die, we do too – ahh!"

A gust of energy sprang up amidst the jittering, half-formed shapes. They squeaked and parted, allowing the much more powerful spirit to take form. It towered over them, narrowing eyes that weren't really eyes at all, but more the memory of yellow irises that had died millennia ago and the glint of black pupils that hadn't yet been born.

"Magic alive," it said harshly.

One of the twirling balls of light hesitantly replied, "B-But we've sensed it lessening since the Calamity was defeated and so many elves died–"

"Magic. Alive." The newcomer was an old spirit; so old and seated in the animals it was totem for, it didn't use full sentences like those who had grown closer to mortals and more reliant on their prayers to survive. Spirits needed power to remain in the mortal realm. Lesser spirits used the power of belief. Stronger spirits could siphon power directly from mortals without draining them to death, the way the infected had during the war with the Calamity From the Skies. "Elves live. Survive. Spirits survive."

"But–"

"You say magic life, but life magic. Find life to find magic. Find magic to find life for self."

"What?"

The stronger spirit turned away from them, evidently assured it had made itself clear. The lesser spirits orbited uncertainly. They seemed like they wanted to follow it, but also like they were afraid to leave this spot.

On the other side of the veil, a group of humanoid figures gathered around an altar. Vaulted white ceilings arched above, but the wide space around them was practically empty of people. There used to be so many more who clasped their hands and invoked the ancient magics the way they were doing right now. Likewise, there used to be so many more spirits who could pass into the mortal world through portals created by the power of this kind of prayer. Just after the war, spirits could move freely from the astral plane to the mortal one. Now it was a struggle to find a place where enough elves prayed hard enough to create even a small portal. More and more, lesser spirits were finding they could look, but not touch.

The stronger spirit paused to look back at them crowding each other for a spot to pass through. It talked a good game, but it knew the truth: magic really was growing weaker everywhere. It was a good thing they had worked with the elves to defeat the Calamity and sealed its body deep below the Planet's surface. With the elf population dwindling more each decade, it wasn't sure they could pull off such a feat again. The Planet still needed time to heal. It had thought the same was true of the elves, but the humans had hunted them almost to extinction, thinking they were in league with the infected creatures the Calamity had used as an army in the war. Those elves that were left were apparently more intent on merging with the humans than preserving their bloodlines. Their magic was growing thin; so thin that in another couple of generations, they wouldn't be able to hear the magic or the spirits at all anymore.

"Life is magic," it muttered. "Find magic to find life for self. Find life to find magic for self."

The lesser spirits ignored the words. Leaving them to squabble, it swirled away into the ether.

To Be Continued …