“Bite me,” said Reece.
Aika let go of him and her red eyes looked him square in his face as she tilted her head to the side in pain and confusion. “Huh?”
“Bite me. Drink my blood. Trust me, it’ll help you a lot more than Aldo’s.”
“Okay.”
Aika sunk her fangs into Reece’s neck and drank deep. After a few seconds, she hadn’t stopped. Reece tried pushing her off, but it took him and Pasha together to get her to release him. Her red eyes dilated while the tink-tink-tink of bloody bullets bounced off the hard tile floor, having been pushed from her body as it quickly healed itself. Pasha pulled her back and hugged her tightly, embracing her as one would embrace a distraught child.
“Breath little lady, just breath,” soothed Pasha, holding Aika’s head against her chest. “It’s okay...you’re okay.”
Aika’s rapid breathing slowed before she took a deep breath and collected herself. Reece could tell that this wasn’t the first time Pasha had calmed her like this. It seemed like a routine.
“Wow,” whistled Pasha, letting the word out slowly in surprise. “You haven’t gone all feral like this since the first couple of weeks after you first became a vampire.”
The Pasha looked at Reece and addressed him too.
“Oh, yeah. Reece, as best as we can figure, Aika’s a vampire. We’re not sure how, but she’s been this way since after the shuttle crash. I know all this must be shocking to you, but we need to get moving. We can talk all this out later,” he explained before looking back to Aika. “Are you good? We need to go right now.”
Aika nodded and composed herself before giving Reece a strange look that seemed to demand answers he may or may not have. Needing to leave and to break the tension, Reece jogged a couple of steps over to his bag laying on the counter. Side-stepping the bloody pool forming under the deceased doctor, he picked the satchel up. Reece saw that Aika’s katana had been laying underneath it. It was at an angle to him, so he hadn’t noticed it from the metal table. He turned to Aika, offering her the weapon that he had once gifted to her at what seemed like a lifetime ago. Her eyes flashed in joy at the sight and a wicked grin spread across her face.
“I wondered where that went. I searched my grave and the surrounding area for hours trying to locate it,” she explained before a look of melancholy pain flashed across her face. “They were the only things I had of you, and they were perfect.”
She took the katana from Reece and drew the other one, getting a feel for the dual katanas she had once practiced so much with. Momentarily, she set them on the counter and drew a sabre from her hip, and handed it to him. He quickly examined it.
The blade was black as coal but shined like metal. The hilt was an ornately carved woman, her arms forming the cross-guard, one arm petting a swan whose body sat at her feet, forming the finger guard. Her head and fiery hair completely encased the base of the curved blade which had an elegant script in an unknown language etched along its entire length along with strategically placed roses and birds (doves perhaps). It was obviously a masterpiece and he could feel the age of the weapon. It was ancient, despite being in near-perfect condition. Even the supple leather cord that clothed the shapely form of the woman from chest to feet showed no signs of rot.
“That was a gift from Aphrodite. There is much you don’t know,” explained Aika. “Take good care of it. I treasure it almost as much as the twin katanas you made for me.”
She had already picked her katanas back up and was heading for the one door in the room which had been out of his sight while he was strapped down. He sheathed the sabre in the loop he had used for his scimitar as they had a similar curve, before following her and Pasha out of the room. He grabbed the dead man’s gun, prying it from his death grip. He was wearing the typical uniform of one of the Order’s lackeys.
“Who is Aphrodite?” asked Reece in a whisper as they made their way down a short grey hallway with several white doors on either side. More droplights illuminated this area as well.
“You know, the Greek goddess of passion,” came Aika’s slightly annoyed reply. “Surely you’ve heard of her.”
Reece chuckled in near disbelief as the three of them came to the end of the hall, or rather, where the hall made a sudden left. Pasha peaked around the corner for a second and drew her head back.
“Clear?” mouthed Reece to his good friend who was now a young woman.
She vigorously shook her head ‘NO’ as machine-gun fire erupted from down the hall and bullets whizzed by, bouncing off the other side of the hall and taking chunks out of the corner where Pasha’s head had just been. Aika smiled as she waited for the gunfire to die down. As soon as it did, she leaped at the back wall and used it to springboard herself along the adjacent wall, running up it for several steps before she was out of sight.
Curiously, Reece peaked around the corner to see Aika use her momentum to land on her knees and slide under a squad of gunmen. As she passed them, she used her katanas to deadly effect. They were no match for her strength, speed, and skill and were all dead before the first of them hit the ground. Reece hadn’t even seen the blades move, even as she came back to her feet to complete the move. To him, it just looked like the six uniforms exploded on their own into blood and viscera.
Aika motioned for them to follow as she stepped out into a wide area. Reece made out several vehicles in the room, making it some sort of garage. Once he and Pasha made it through the door into the huge room, Reece realized it wasn’t a garage but a hangar. In addition to several jeeps, bikes, troop-transports, and trucks, Reece noticed a few hydro-copters, solar-planes, and even a couple of fusion jets.
One was an F-55 Ghost-raptor, utilizing sixth-generation stealth and penetrating counter-air technology. The other was a much larger YF-77 Phoenix, an experimental seventh-generation fighter that could seat four. In addition to all the capabilities of the F-55, the F-77 had a sort of force field. Reece had read about it before being selected as an astronaut.
Supposedly, once it achieved a kilometer of altitude, it would automatically energize its external hull with heavily ionized particles. Once a missile or another aircraft entered within a quarter kilometer of the jet, the particles would instantly flow to the object, creating a powerful lightning strike that would destroy almost any missile or heavily damage any aircraft.
Reece pulled his gaze away from the vehicles to check their surrounding for any more enemies. He and Pasha watched as Aika zipped from one Order henchman to another, taking them all out.
Reece looked back and asked Pasha, “Does she need help?”
Pasha wasn’t looking at Aika or the guards. Pasha’s cute face was nearly drooling as she stared at the YF-77 with a curious desire.
“Oh momma,” she said under her breath. “We’re going to be leaving in style.”
Noticing Reece staring at her, she shook her head, breaking the spell, “Nah, she’s got this. Let’s go!”
Pasha sprinted over to the phoenix and started climbing the small ladder that went to the rear-opening of the jet. Just as she pulled the lever to manually lower the jet’s rear entrance ramp, one of the Order guards Aika hadn’t made it to yet fired several rounds. Pasha was struck in the chest, neck, and head. She fell limply to the hangar floor.
Reece screamed and fired on the guard with his stolen gun, filling him with holes. Dropping the empty weapon, Reece rushed to Pasha’s side. He could see as soon as he reached her that she was already dead. Still, Pasha had been dead before and he had somehow gotten better. Only thing was, Reece had no idea how long it would take or what conditions may be required. Aika arrived and put her hand on Reece’s shoulder.
“It’ll be okay,” she told him. “Just back away from her.”
Reece anxiously did what he was told. Aika pulled a small flask from her back pocket and squirted a clear liquid that smelled like old-school lighter fluid. Then she put it away and pulled out a Z-spark and bent down to the body. Pressing her thumb to the lighter, a small flame shot out and ignited the fluid that had been sprinkled over Pasha’s body.
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Faster than what seemed natural, Pasha’s form was engulfed in flame and quickly blackened to ash. Just as quickly as it had formed, the ashen body exploded outward as fleshy arms and legs burst forth from the form. As the last flame went out, a now male Pasha sat up and then stood and stepped out of the pile of ashes completely nude. Only, it wasn’t quite the Pasha that Reece remembered. It looked just like Pasha, only much younger. He looked like he was in his mid-to-late teens.
“Jupiter’s balls!” he swore. “I was just getting used to her again.”
He strode over to where the man who had shot him lay dead and kicked him in the ribs. Then he proceeded to strip the man and don his clothes. Unfortunately, the boots didn’t fit.
“Aika, could you be a dear?” he asked.
Aika nodded and zipped around the hangar until she found a dead guard with the requisite shoe size. Relieving the body of its footwear, she brought the combat boots to Pasha who happily accepted them. Once dressed, he went back to the phoenix. Reece laughed.
“Does anyone else realize how preposterous this coincidence is?” he asked the other two.
They both looked at him like they didn’t know what he was talking about.
“You know, Pasha... you’re a phoenix,” explained Reece, flummoxed that he had to explain it at all. “And we’re about to take a different phoenix to fly away.”
“Yeah, what’s your point?” asked Aika with a tinge of annoyance in her voice.
Pasha just shook his head and shrugged. Defeated, Reece followed them into the jet and watched as Pasha began bringing the steel bird to life. Aika was still looking at him questioningly.
“Never mind,” he mumbled before looking up at Pasha as an uncomfortable thought entered his mind. “Pasha, can you fly this thing?”
“Of course,” replied Pasha with extreme confidence. “I can fly anything that can be flown. Call it a gift.”
Reece didn’t doubt him, especially as he watched Pasha’s fingers fly across the console, bring this and that system to life. The rear ramp was already closing, and the fusion engines were churning up. There were six seats in the cockpit. Pasha sat in one of the two pilot’s seats, while Aika and Reece each took a seat in the second row. Reece noticed helmets stashed under the seats. When he noticed Aika looking at him, he pulled the helmet out from under his seat and showed it to her.
“This is a gunner’s helmet. Each one can be synchronized with a swiveling railgun affixed to the jet. There are four on the underside of the fuselage and two up on top, plus two at the tail and two at the front.” Reece pulled something out from inside the helmet. It looked like a baseless flight stick with three buttons on its top.
“This is the trigger. You aim with your head and fire with this. Each button must be a different kind of munition. Large caliber uranium rounds, incendiary rounds, or seeker missiles would be my guess.”
“You know a lot about these things,” replied Aika matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, I’m kind of an aircraft and tech nerd, and this beast has the best of both worlds,” replied Reece, shrugging his shoulders.
Before they could continue the conversation, Pasha engaged the fusion drives and the jet lurched forward towards the opening hangar doors that he must have remotely activated. They were all thrown back into their seats and Aika and Reece quickly began buckling in, her finishing before he had even grabbed the first buckle.
By the time they had cleared the hangar doors, Reece had finished buckling up. It was just in time as Pasha pulled the phoenix nearly straight up at a 90-degree angle and launched them into the sky. Pressed back into his seat, Reece was reminded of the shuttle launch that started this whole adventure
The aircraft soon righted itself and they accelerated away from the base, Reece noticing that Pasha’s fingers flashed across the weapons console.
“What did you just do?” Reece asked Pasha suspiciously.
“I just left a couple of presents behind for your hosts,” replied Pasha. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Not at all, Pasha, not at all,” chuckled Reece, bombs exploding across the base as they left it behind.
“Great. So, where to now?” asked Pasha.
“I need to get back to Florida and check on my comrades,” began Reece before Aika cut him off.
“We will, I promise, but first we need to get you to Mistress X before we can do anything else,” replied Aika.
Reece took a deep breath and tried to bury his worry and concentrate on his new task. “I understand. So, you already know where she is?” asked Reece, confused as to why the voice in his head would give him directions if the agents that she had sent to save him already knew how to find her.
“Yes and no,” replied Aika. “We have extremely vague dreams that have guided us over the last few months. She’s somewhere in Mexico, possibly near the capital. But Pasha and I disagree on the meaning of our dreams. Regardless, neither of us have any idea of where to start looking.”
“Ah, okay,” replied Reece as it started making sense, “I guess that’s where I come in.”
“Good,” replied Aika in obvious relief, “We thought that may be the case, but it wasn’t much more than a feeling. So, you know where to go?”
“Yeah,” answered Reece. “I’m pretty sure Mistress X is Xochiquetzal, the Aztec goddess of passion and she put a map in my mind to guide our way. By the gods, I can’t believe I just said that all out loud. Things just keep getting crazier and crazier. Part of me is waiting to wake up in a mental hospital and find out that all of this was just a dream.”
“I know what you mean,” cut in Pasha from upfront. “I grew up as a girl until I turned eighteen. Then I went to sleep one night and woke up to my house on fire. By the time I got out, my parents had been taken by the fire and I was an eighteen-year-old man. No one made it out of that fire alive. I had been reborn. My grandparents took me in and tried to explain what had happened. Let’s just say, I had quite the difficult time with it, believe me.”
“So, you’ve known all along that you were different,” concluded Reece.
“Well... sort of,” replied Pasha as he strung out the words in indecision. “While I remembered everything, to cope, my mind made me think I was merely misremembering things. I studied dreams, memory, and mental disorders to try and make sense of it. I found an answer that explained everything. I was merely delusional. I almost committed myself but decided to self-medicate instead. I’ll stop there as that is an even longer story. We have more important things to concentrate on, like where we are going. Reece, this beast is fast. Wherever we’re going, we’ll be there shortly. So, I need you to navigate for me, and the sooner the better.”
“Alright,” said Reece. “We need to land somewhere around the northeast of Mexico City. There should be an ancient temple there.”
“See,” yelped Pasha as he suddenly cut back in. “I told you it was near Mexico City.”
“Yeah, yeah,” mocked Aika, “You’re so smart.”
“Oh, you’re just sore because you thought it was in some ancient ruins,” laughed Pasha.
“It is in some ancient ruins,” cut in Reece. “They are hidden under the temple ruins of Teotihuacán and have somehow remained undiscovered.”
“I guess we were both right,” chuckled Aika.
“Yeah, I guess so,” added Pasha, smiling back at her before his face suddenly turned serious.
Reece caught the look and felt a hint of dread creep into his spine. They weren’t telling him everything and they looked worried about whatever it was. After a few seconds, Reece couldn’t take the tension anymore. “What is it? I can tell something’s up. Just spill it already.”
“So, do you want to tell him, or should I?” asked Pasha.
“I’ll tell him,” said Aika quickly. “So... uh...Reece. I uh, well... a lot has happened since the shuttle crash. We both thought you were dead, uh, Pasha and I... and it didn’t happen right away. We looked all over for you, but...well...you see...Pasha and I... we...sort of got together. I’m so sorry. Again, we both thought you were dead.”
Aika blurted out the last bit, almost as if she needed to get it over with. Almost like ripping off the proverbial bandage. Reece’s blood ran cold and his mouth tasted of ash. But who was he to get jealous of? He knew he still loved her, but he had been with three other women since that fateful shuttle crash.
So, he swallowed his pride or jealousy or whatever and smiled at her as honestly and tenderly as he could. Unfortunately, it didn’t make him feel any better. He had thought she was dead, but now this. He still loved her, and it made him sick to think that she had moved on so easily. He hadn’t and he had always known it.
“It’s okay,” he soothingly replied, though a tear betrayed his true emotions. He quickly looked away and gathered himself before he continued to speak. “A lot has happened with me as well. After all, I saw both of you die.”
“Wait just a second,” growled Aika as she stared daggers into Reece with eyes that glowed a more intense red than usual, “What do you mean, a lot has happened?”
“Well, you see...,” Reece began as he explained much of what had happened to him since they had all been together.
Aika seemed to get more and more furious for a while, but as he continued to tell his story, she began to calm down. When he finally finished, she seemed deep in thought.
“I guess I can understand, and I want to apologize,” she said. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry. It’s just that ever since I became like this,” indicating her sharp fangs, “my emotions have been heightened and harder to control. So, I’m sorry. We both thought the other was dead and have tried moving on with our lives, such as they are.”
“Like I said, it’s okay,” said Reece before deciding to ask her a question to lighten the mood, “So, you and Pasha, huh? So, do you two get together when he’s a man or a woman?”
“Yeah,” answered Aika sheepishly.
Reece was caught off-guard for a second but then started to laugh at her simple and honest answer.
“Hey, I told you I was a lesbian trapped in a man’s body, didn’t I?” cut in Pasha from the front of the cockpit.
“Yeah, a couple of times,” answered Reece, still chuckling a bit.
It helped to lighten Reece’s mood, but he still felt like he had been kicked in the gut by a horse. They sat in silence for a short time before Reece spoke up again.
“Look, I get that we have a mission that only we can do. Honestly, it feels more like a quest from some fairy tale. The thing is, once it’s done, I need to see to my companions. I left them in a bad place, and I need to make sure they’re okay. Can I count on you to help me out with that, after we do this?”
Aika looked at him for a moment before responding, “Of course, I promise. And, I’m sure Pasha will help too.”
“Count on it,” cut in Pasha from the front. “For the time being, however, we’re almost there. Wow, this thing is fast. I’m going to go in low and hopefully attract a minimum number of ghouls.”