Piacenza-San Damiano Air Base, Italy 10:00pm
Caius lurked in the shadows of the growing darkness, looking out at the light blazing out from the human airbase beyond. Behind him were his ten remaining followers, all almost invisible to human eyes.
He had chosen to lie low for the past day, hiding out in an abandoned barn ten miles from the airbase, planning his strategy. Although, to be honest, he thought, there was no need for any real tactics for this assault. The humans couldn't possibly take out any of his elite group. After laying waste to this place through a surprise attack, Caius intended to fight a long and bloody campaign against the humans, and the nearby city of Bologna would prove an easy target for the next stage. Without Aro and Marcus, he was now the most senior vampire in the world, and intended to raise a vast army of vampires and newborns to wipe out any who opposed him. By the time he was finished, he would be the ruler of all humankind, and would hold court upon the ashes of the United Nations Headquarters.
With a rush of air, one of his most loyal lieutenants, Santiago, appeared next to him, his red eyes ablaze.
"I have seen human soldiers moving into the base since the early afternoon. Armoured vehicles, helicopter gunships, jet planes…they're organised. Maybe…"
"Maybe nothing." Caius snarled. "Prepare the guard. We move in five minutes."
Captain Joseph Staunton watched the perimeter fence through his rifle scope, the night vision painting the land beyond in lurid shades of luminescent green. The SAS officer didn't know if his rifle would have any effect upon the vampires lurking somewhere out there, but if the powerful Russian made 14.5×114mm rounds loaded in his unit's anti materiel rifles didn't, then there was no hope for them anyway.
Casually running a hand over the stock of his customized AS50 sniper rifle, he glanced at the airfield behind. The whole international European Division of the UN's vampire taskforce, known as Ultra Vector 2085, named for the NATO code for U and V, Undead Vampire, and the number of the UN Security Council resolution creating it, all one hundred of them, was positioned on all the approaches to the airbase, along with the base garrison of five hundred Italian Army soldiers. Staunton's ten man squad was all in position with a complement of high powered anti materiel rifles and heavy machine guns, made up of soldiers from various European special forces regiments, including British SAS, French GIGN, Belgian Pathfinders, German Kommando Spezialkrafte and Polish GROM. Above roared an Apache helicopter gunship on patrol, sweeping the area with bright light, and the rumble of an Italian C1 Ariete battle tank moving into position behind.
With a sigh he set his eye to the scope again. Nothing would attack them tonight. Then he saw a shape blur into existence about ten metres from the perimeter fence. Instantly he was on the radio to Command back at the base.
"Contact! Contact! Ultra Vectors in the area!"
Caius cursed as searchlights erupted over the base beyond and a piercing alarm screamed out, hammering onto the sensitive hearing of all the vampires present.
"We move now!" he ordered, pointing one pale hand at the base beyond. "Santiago, Jane with me!" The rest of you, kill them all!"
With a single animalistic roar the entire group rushed forward, straight into the blazing lights from beyond. As soon as they burst through the flimsy perimeter fence, a storm of automatic gunfire struck them. Caius felt a smile creep onto his face as the bullets ricocheted off his skin. Beside him Santiago laughed as he sprang forward alongside the Volturi leader.
"The hunt begins…" he began, but suddenly an ear splitting crack pierced the air, and the burly vampire fell to the ground, his head gone.
"Explosive weapons!" Caius roared. "Jane, make them pay." He commanded coldly, spotting a group of human soldiers taking aim nearby.
Jane was at his side in a heartbeat, her face filled with fury. Her brother had been one of the many casualties of the destruction of Volterra. With a smile on her pale features she turned to him, ignoring the bullets spinning past them.
"With pleasure."
Captain Staunton saw the aftermath of his shot, watched the huge vampire fall to the ground. But then, in the time he took to pull the bolt back on his rifle, the vampire leader, a blonde haired mountain of a man, was joined by a pale faced girl, who couldn't have been more than thirteen.
But when the girl raised her hand toward him and the other snipers, Staunton knew that, whatever the girl vampire was about to do, it was directed at him and his squad.
"Get…!" he was able to say before he fell to the ground, his rifle clattering uselessly to the floor, fire all over his body, and that of the rest of his men.
"It's all over me!" screamed a wiry GROM operative next to him, writhing in abject pain and terror.
And, as his squad, all trained and hardened commandos, all rolled in the grass covered in flame, Staunton could see, in between the flashes of excruciating pain, the blonde haired vampire leader casually stop next to him, look down, and laugh.
Caius looked down at the screaming commandos; all clawing at the imaginary fire they believed tore at their bodies. And yet it was all an illusion created by Jane, who stood by a howling GIGN soldier, fist ready to punch out the man's heart.
"Shall I kill these ones?" she said softly, ducking to avoid a rocket fired from further up the hill, then casually running a hand through her hair, which had been slightly blown out of its tight bun by the rocket flying past.
"No." Caius replied, looking at the base up the hill, where gunfire still crackled out from. "Let them suffer."
And with that the two vampires sprinted on, Caius throwing aside two terrified Italian soldiers who attempted to run, tearing them both apart in seconds.
"Cowardly dogs." He spat. "Destroy everything."
His army, now missing two members, emerged out onto the tarmac runway, three hangars looming up ahead, where groups of human soldiers were attempting to mount a defence against the all-powerful enemy they faced.
Tearing the throat out of a screaming commando, Caius looked up as the roar of helicopter blades drowned out the screams of the humans and rattle of gunfire. Above them loomed four Apache helicopter gunships, ready to take on the creatures of the night. He grinned.
"Good effort, but too late to save you..."
Staunton slowly picked himself up from the ground, checking himself for burns and injuries on his uniform and retrieving his rifle from where he threw it.
The rest of his squad were also getting up, a German Kommando next to him vomiting into the grass before saying.
"What was that? I was on fire…"
"Vampire illusions." Staunton stated bluntly, looking at the airbase beyond, where screams and explosions continued to emanate from. "Now let's go get the bastards."
The human soldier bellowed with rage as Jane lifted him with one hand and suspended him in midair, giggling as she held him just off the ground upside down. But, to her horror, even though she blasted him with an illusion of excruciating pain, he only spat in her face, and drew his sidearm. She was already about to throw him when he aimed at her face, but was already too late, the bullet slamming into her eye just as she threw him upwards. Although normally she would have rejoiced in pleasure at her victim's demise, sent screaming at hundreds of miles per hour straight into the cockpit of a low flying helicopter, destroying the machine in a blazing explosion, she had no time for that as she fell to the tarmac howling in pain, her own pain, for the first time in centuries.
She almost felt happy when a tall human soldier stood over her, his rifle pointed straight at her face, not even caring when he spoke.
"Let's even that pretty face up…" he said, laughing grimly as he pulled the trigger and condemned the ancient vampire to oblivion.
In the melee in the center of the tarmac, Caius stood in a sea of bodies, effortlessly dispatching any who came near him. Tearing off the arm of a howling Russian Spetnatz soldier clutching a curved machete, the Volturi leader grinned, sinking his teeth into the dying man's throat.
But then he felt a sharp pain strike his legs, looking down in horror to see them nothing but charred stumps, a group of nearby snipers lowering their smoking rifles.
"You would…!" he started, his eyes blazing with rage at the damage the humans were doing. Already five of his group was dead, the enemy bringing them down with crude explosive weapons and sheer audacity. But they would all pay. With or without legs, he could easily tear these humans apart without a second thought. Then he felt himself shoved to the ground, and he looked up as a soldier in a black uniform, the badge on his light brown beret showing him as an SAS officer, loomed above him. Coldly looking down at the most powerful vampire on the planet, he drew a huge revolver from his belt, aiming its long barrel straight at Caius' face.
"I wouldn't try anything if I were you." He snapped. "You may be fast but I think my trigger finger is just as quick. And if you're wondering this gun has explosive rounds in it, so if you so much as move your head will be paste, monster"
Caius snarled at Captain Staunton, but didn't move, the sound of battle seeming to slow from around them as the two, man and monster, stared at one another.
"You think you can destroy the vampires?!" Caius laughed. "Many men just like you have tried to fight us, and all came to ruin. That fancy gun of yours will be no help to you when the full might of the Volturi is brought to…"
Staunton shushed him softly, and was surprised when the vampire leader actually paused for a second, long enough for him to shove a hand grenade in the hulking monster's mouth.
"You talk too much…" he said bluntly, pulling the pin and throwing it to one side as he casually walked away.
A dull thump was the only sound from behind him as the last of the Volturi leader was destroyed, and he only glanced behind, muttering to himself.
"Job well done."
An hour later and the whole area had been locked down, a full contingent of the Italian Army sweeping the surrounding area, and the battered remains of the European Contingent patrolling the base, teams with flamethrowers burning the corpses of the vampire attackers.
Captain Staunton was stood by the main hangar, earning a salute from a flamethrower team marching past, glancing up as two black Chinook helicopters soared overhead, filled with squads of special forces troops. Already they were being called out to destroy small groups of vampires across Europe, and soon they would be starting the process of training new groups up, with a small unit sent to Johannesburg to help set up an African Division.
But Staunton had no time to think of the future, with General Uberto, the newly promoted commander of the European Diviosion, on the line.
"How many dead?" the general asked his voice crackling slightly over the secure line.
"Thirty five, all good soldiers…" Staunton replied. Since his part in ending the battle, after the destruction of the leader the others had been quickly dealt with, he had been promoted to the leader of this fifty man unit, soon to be joined by five others across the continent.
"And the Volturi?"
"All dead sir. We're burning the bodies now…just in case."
The general sounded approving as he replied.
"Good, good. The Security Council is eager to find out the result. But we have to know one thing Captain, is the Volturi leader Caius dead?"
Staunton paused for a second, walking over to where he had left Caius' body after blowing him apart with a high explosive grenade. As he walked, Uberto was still talking.
"Anyway, once you've confirmed the death of Caius, we need you ready to move by tomorrow. There's talk of a powerful vampire coven in Romania…"
But Staunton wasn't listening as he looked down at the bloodstained tarmac, almost letting the radio drop to the floor.
"Captain, what's wrong?!" Uberto demanded, and Staunton, with a slight tremble in his voice, finally answered him.
"Sir, it's the Volturi leader Caius…he's gone…"