Ch 2. Through the Fire and the Flames
Too late. Too goddamn late. Branwen had known it as soon as they left the hotel, the kid in tow with a backup copy of the documents tucked on him, Cardel carrying the originals. They’d stepped out into the evening and seen the German airship like something out of a crappy History Channel program. Airborne soldiers descended like flies on a carcass, and Londoners and tourists by the hundreds, by the thousands panicked, screamed, and ran, and were shot down, cut down, and savaged. V2 and handheld rockets roared down like vitriolic little meteors, blasting and shredding structures and people in the wake of indiscriminate warheads and gunfire. The three, two and a half? Agents had made a desperate fighting retreat, emptying their smuggled pistols and stripping a team of dead freaks of their weapons, K43 rifles, wartime Colt clones, STG 44s, and all the grenades and ammo of an eight man assault team that two and a half men could carry, but damned if the kid didn’t hold his own, drawing first blood by tackling one of the bastards, sure to smash his helmeted head against the curb before pressing the barrel of a Beretta Tomcat into his face and jellying his brains with the last two rounds. Bastard fought like a bat out of hell. So three years of having the kid play soldier weren’t all wasted. Branwen had been the most skeptical of his inclusion in the unit at all, let alone this last ditch runner’s errand, but damned if the kid wasn’t worth his salt in a fight.
Cardel leveled his pistol and it barked twice, emptying the brain pans of two geeks clear across the street who had knelt down to snack on a mother and her… Oh fuck that! Even if they were just copies, fighting vampires without blessed weapons and silver dusted hollow points was a cast iron bitch, but they’d been trained for this kind of fight. The brain and the heart were ideal, but up close the name of the game was to shoot, or stab them in the eyes, stab them in the guts, stab them in the nuts. Unless it dressed in a spooky long coat and dual wielded hand cannons or was played by Arnold Schwarzenegger those were still the best tactics for anything running on human hardware. Of course, shooting them in the back in bushwhacking didn’t hurt either. And Vampires or not, whatever these guys were geeked up on didn’t have any real healing factors.
They weren’t even fighting like real soldiers, they had rained down in the middle of the city and ran headlong into indiscriminate mutilation of civilians, less a militaristic assault than a terroristic mass shooting. That just made picking them off easier,
Half block by half block the three fell back, standing to cut down freaks four, five, ten at a time, taking and running from cover behind cars and blasted out chunks of concrete and rubble, swapping guns and scavenging ammunition until the dulcet hum of helicopters and heavy anti material rifles crashed in to the cacophonous sea of small arms fire. Kade found himself looking for a place to dig in to. He tapped Branwen on the shoulder.
“Bookstore, two stories and one staircase, we can dig in there and funnel the fuckers into a meat grinder!” he barked over the relentless blare of gunfire.
The two older agents shared a look and came to an agreement, better to dig in that be sandwiched by what was turning into a two sided front, gunships were landing and Crusaders with heavy rifles looking like spearmen were engaging the Nazi Battalion, and they saw those battle lines threatening to move in and swallow the street. They charged in, Kade on point, followed by Branwen with Cardel in the rear. Before he was through the door Cardel tumbled forward, an automatic burst punching three or four holes through his shoulder. He crashed into the next man’s back, the bigger man turned and caught him, dropping his rifle to carry the casualty as his free hand produced one of the Colts. He sat Cardel down on a chair by the storefront window and turned back, he saw a lone bad guy jump into the street and start to reload an empty sub machinegun , Branwen has his pistol on target when he saw the muzzle of another rifle kiss the soldier’s temple, then his head was blown clean off and cooked in the muzzle flash. The new shooter walked into his view, a light blonde with sunglasses, holding a Soviet SVD rifle like an oversized pistol and, dressed in Priest’s robes? She shouted “Stay behind cover, und Praise the Lord Jesus Christ! There’s more of zem coming!” She gave the order and ran off, whether to join the fight elsewhere or flee he never found out. An ordained butch with a rifle? Will the wonders never cease?
Kade hadn’t missed a moment, rifle up, clearing left and right, wasting two victims-turned ghouls only to have his long barrel catch on a bookshelf, turning his arm off, behind the next row of shelves he saw a huge soldier throw down some poor bastard he’d been eating and charge forward, Kade dropped the rifle and leaned onto his left foot, rolling into a right foot push kick, but he couldn’t put enough ass behind it, he felt a strong iron grip seize his ankle and tip him backwards when the big bastard’s head was blown apart . He fell hard on his back and was dumbstruck, knowing he should have died there and then. Branwen grabbed him by the arm and helped him up, both his pistol and his right hand a god-awful mess, the last round hand exploded in the chamber, a huge chunk of the barrel flying forward at terminal velocity and smashing the big bastard’s skull into visceral fragments.
“A little tight in here for rifle work kid but you’re doing good, watch your ass!”
Kade caught his breath and shook off the moment of terror that flashed before him. “call me kid one more fucking time.” He spat it out as a single garbled curse under his breath.
“Your hand’s all fucked up, lemme find someth-“
He was cut off by the deafening roar of sustained fire from his left, he and Branwen dove down, seeing another ox of a man with a big gun hip firing the dreadful buzz saw like it was a toy. The rows of shelves and books were blasted apart in a fractal spray of splinters. Cardel tightened his grip on his rifle and crawled left towards the far wall, biting through the shattered wreck of his shoulder blade. He was prone, crawling over splintered wood and broken glass like a slug, he leaned against the front wall, barely peeking out from behind the corner of the first shelf, he saw the machine gunner dead in his sights and squeezed the trigger two, three times, blasting the man’s gun arm off at the elbow and shredding his lungs and heart. The machine gun dropped down and Sergeant spent his last round through the bastard’s ear before his own rifle sagged, and then dropped, his arm exhausted. His was running out of gas real fast. He felt himself pulled back and lifted up, Kade and Branwen hauling him up the shop’s stairs to a smaller second floor, Kade was holding a Strumgewehr at the hip and cleared left in a wide arc, Branwen taking the right ride with his good hand.
“Clear left!”
“Clear right!”
The trio carried Cardel away from the top of the stairs, shoved stacks of books off a table and tipped it top forward for concealment, the hard wood wouldn’t even stop them pissing themselves, no chance it’d stop any fire. He felt terrible treating books like that, then he saw something really valuable on the far wall, five seconds later he had the first aid kit open and was wrapping bandages over Branwen’s hand. He didn’t know if it had been a hot round or the inevitable result of taking museum pieces into combat. The Luger’s steel frame had taken most of the blast, but his friend’s thumb was gone and his trigger finger was hanging by a scrap of flesh, and he was bleeding badly, did an artery get cut that he couldn’t see? Shitshitshit.
The big man tensed his good fingers and bit back a violent curse.
“Take it easy Kade, long wise around the thumb and index…There ya go. Tie that off. You’re doing good.”
Kade wiped away the stinging behind his eyes against his shoulder. He was as covered in blood as his team mates were but it wasn’t his own, not yet anyway.
Cardel and Branwen both took cover, Kade dropped a jammed pistol and ran back down the stairs, peeling a broom handle Mauser off the dead man he’d kicked, and liberating the Buzz saw and a couple ammunition belts off the second bastard, and hoping back up the stairs to their perch. He handed the big gun to the biggest man, Branwen thumbed open the top plate and fitted in the new bullet belt, slapping it down, and racking back the bolt, the M60 he’d trained on had used a mechanism practically identical. He used his right wrist to knock down the bipod and steadied it towards whatever fresh Hell may come.
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That hell came hard and fast, an enemy squad came through the door, half were cleared as they entered and half were facing their six 0’clock, dumping full magazines in senseless bursts. Kade saw the glow of rising fires on past either side of the store’s windows, but couldn’t catch the smell of smoke yet, those second floor windows were in-tact. They were all hunkered down behind the big table, breathing quiet as a mouse, the front of the enemy squad took their time clearing left and right in pairs with one man keeping his rifle trained on that overturned table, his finger itching against the trigger. His squad worked even farther than the first trio had the time to, kicking in back rooms and closets, firing single shots that might have been merciful executions to anyone left breathing, but Kade couldn’t see any of it, instead he looked with scared eyes to the two older men hunkered down with him, Branwen and Cardel shared a glance before answering the kid with the gestures they’d trained him on just last week, though Cardel handled most of the “Talking”.
That Point man knows we’re up here but he ain’t got X-ray vision. He reached across with his right hand and pulled limp fingers off his rifle and let it fall an inch onto the light blue carpet; then he pulled a stick grenade, they hadn’t used any yet, and the three hunters had eight between them. He tossed his five over to the kid and motioned for him to unscrew the safety caps.
Branwen curled up his legs behind him, pressing into the wall, his machine gun pressed up against the bottom of the tabletop, Cardel pulled a small polished metal mirror from his back pocket and tilted it up, Branwen used the reflection to angle his weapon down at the rifleman who still had them covered with the unmoving barrel of his gun. Kade was working the greased end cap off his fourth grenade, with one tucked under his armpit.
He saw Cardel’s good hand rise and fall, Three. Two. One. The team leader came up to his left side, his good hand holding a Strumgewehr, he pointed it straight down at the floor and stood on the trigger.
On cue Branwen spat a five round burst at the point man downstairs, he could have sworn he'd seen daylight through the chest cavity as the men fell. He kept it up and mowed down the enemy’s rearguard before they knew they’d been sandwiched. Kade had pulled off the last grenade’s end cap and gripped the stick under his arm, yanking out the white string before tossing two of them over and down the stairs and falling back behind concealment. He checked the Mauser he’d lifted and saw the safety was off. Fuck . He thumbed it down and gripped it in both hands, counting Four… five… Six… The count of seven came with two sharp blasts and seven or eight cries of pain. The kid didn’t speak German but hoped that meant “Oh fuck that really hurts! Let’s get out of here!”. No such luck huh?
More shouting, the squad’s officer pulling his thumb out and giving orders. Kade made sure the last MG belt was where Branwen could grab it, he peeked out from under a hole blown through their table, a piece of shrapnel must have just missed him! He saw three, no four men running out of the front door. He didn’t even know Cardel had reached across and taken two more grenades until he saw them fly overhead into the door frame. This time there was hardly three seconds before the blast. The Kid cried out and turned away from his peephole.
“You cooked those you crazy asshole!?” His eyes stung with dust as much as shameful tears now.
“Desperate times, Mano!”
Their exchange was silenced by another roar of Branwen’s machine gun before the first belt ran dry. Kade opened his eyes in time to see a pair of hands gripping at the sills of the second floor windows, reaching up and punching them in before the superhuman enemies hoisted themselves up and rolled in, rifles up and at the ready. Branwen was already slapping the dust cover home over his last belt.
Too late. Too goddamned late.
Kade didn’t even have time to raise his pistol before he was looking down the nostrils of a nightmare. This one spoke English.
“I love a little pepper for my first fresh Boy meat tonight.”
He had barely got to his knees before he hit the back shelf, the monster’s breath like an acrid gas that stank of sulfur, rotten meat and burnt iron. He felt a vice grip on his shoulder and saw a gruesome maw open in front of him. Then he felt the pistol’s broom handle grip. It danced in his hand like a Cowboy’s Sixgun at high noon. He pressed the muzzle up under his new friend’s chin and squeezed back.
His ears were blown out by the pistol’s report, the barrel caught under the jawbone after the first shot keeping it in place as the magazine emptied in a single burst. Then he couldn’t see a thing, he felt something smack him in the head and his left eye was blinded, shut against the sting of his own blood and his arm dropped limp, shoulder hurting like Hell.
He shoved the empty pistol in his pocket and grabbed blindly until another hard strike sent him sprawling. Through his ringing eardrums he heard the crack of four more grenades over intermittent gunfire, he heard Branwen howling out in pain. Or was he crying?
He opened his right eye just in time to see the stairs clogged with bad guys. They were on their bellies, crawling. Being… Pulled back? He heard a pained and cacophonous groan, like a thousand terrible sad souls churning against each other, breaking waves on a shoreline. Then he saw the tide that made that sound and looked away and buried his face in the crook of his arm and tried to forget that sight. No such luck. He heard desperate cries a dozen languages he didn’t know, but knew those crawling enemies had been dragged under and swallowed by that ghoulish horrible flood.
Then all was quiet. He tried the curl up and make himself smaller against a creeping cold that wanted to take him too. Then warm. A firm warm embrace and pale red light scorching away the dark Cold. He was crying and didn’t know why and felt ashamed that he couldn’t stop it.
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Seras Victoria was… Bored? Well that’s a bloody weird thing to say. No, more like tired past caring She’d spent the last ten hours buttoned up in Fargason’s old field jacket hauling away dead vampire bodies and slabs of architectural wreckage by hand. She’s have to thank the man for the offer too, Sunlight had lost its bite but after the first hour she’d still felt a dull string, like a jellyfish or a sunburn wear on her patience. She’d finally cleared the whole damned Manor of corpses and trip hazards, only once rifling a half a bag of transfusion blood down her throat like a pint of Ale after a day’s yard work. She’d dug out a pager and given orders to the Barracks staff to page her as soon as Integra was awake. That could take some time yet, she’s been patched up after five hours in Intensive surgery… Now there’s a novel thought, the sweet Police Girl giving orders? She’d found Captain Fargason again and almost had to make him listen to her formal Report after action, the Cop in her just couldn’t let that go undone, then un-ceremonially pulled off the field jacket just as the sun fell low in the horizon, dipping into a lounge on the second floor and liberating a bottle of Italian White from the bottom shelf and drinking half the bottle in a fearsome swig. She marched to the same room she’d left the boy in. Kade. He’d only said it once but she knew she’d heard it right. The door opened before her and her precious fledgling was still fast asleep. Was I really out like a light for a day and a half? Then she’d remembered she’d died in her True Blues and awoke in… Her own sky blue pajamas. She shivered at that. Of course Walter was too old for that sort of shite but it wasn’t a leap of faith to think that Alucard had… That train of thought went right the hell away, Pip stuffed in the very bottom of her mind’s Fuck-It Bucket. If nothing else she felt better with how modestly she’d handled dressing the boy after his wounds had been cleaned. Clean.
What luck, the guestroom had an adjoined lavatory. She didn’t even care that every other damned guest room in the mansion did too. A half a minute later she was in heaven.
A tub that hasn’t been shot up or blasted by shrapnel, and a Hope against all hope, hot water. If her faith in God had ever wavered, it was restored wholly by this small miracle. She sank into the steaming water completely, steeping and the hot water eased dozens of small cuts and a hundred aches she didn’t know she had. She dipped in her phantasmal arm, still alien to the ghastly limb, it had been solid enough to hold the steering wheel and hold guns. She could feel her fingers through the semi formed phantom cloud.
Pip chimed in, awfully quiet now that he didn’t have a real mouth to run. “How about this? How did you grab ahold of my ear earlier?”
She thought for a second. I imagined it, of course. I can give you another too. She thought about it though, not just imagined. Clearly visualized it. Needed it, like fingers to grip a steering column. Seras kept her eyes closed and worked her brain. It’s an arm. I never lost it. It's right here on me shoulder where it’s always been. She felt the phantom mass around her twitch. Now concentrate and find a shape that felt right, then pull back into her until the thing held the size and rough shape it was supposed to.
Seras was seating when he opened her eyes again, she hadn’t expected shape shifting was this much work! She looked away from the phantom limb and into the bedroom, using her good hand to splash and scrub her face clean before she glanced right.
“Well ma chere there’s always room for improve-“ Rather than grabbing his ear she grabbed something else, that really shut him up for a few seconds. It wasn’t…right… but it was close. She’d pulled back the freakish flaring shadow form into the shape of a solid arm, never mind that it looked like she had taken that arm off a professional wrestler and the hand bigger than her own skull.
Now she saw her fingers, and a hand almost solid at the end of the mass. She took a few steady breaths and flexed her hand, turned it to and fro a few times. She used her right arm to grab the washcloth and clean herself, scrubbing off almost two days’ worth of sweat and filth and dust and blood until she was afraid the tub water might be too much to drain. The half century old plumbing reaffirmed her faith in all that was good in the world and drained neatly, but left a thin mire of mess in the tub. She stood up and stretched, trying not to laugh as she heard her ankles pop. The shower head came on, still steaming hot and she rinsed herself clean.
It could have been midnight or it could have been next week when she pulled a bath robe about her. She was just about past caring for clock or calendar. Then she saw the one glaring hole in her great design. It was an actual hole. She’d forgotten that the room she’d picked had been breached during the battle the night before. Now it was night again and for the first time in almost three days the whole manor was quiet. Without thinking she grabbed the curtain rod over the bath and jammed it into the gap of the wall. Fits like a glove.
She pulled the plastic curtain closed, limped over to the couch and drank down the last of the wine bottle like she was dying of thirst in the Sahara. She hit the couch like a sack of bricks and less than a minute later was sleeping as soundly as her boy.