A Life In Blood (Chronicles of The Order Book 1) Read online

  And I looked forward to delivering it in person.

  CHAPTER 15

  Special Delivery

  I felt more nervous than I should have as the Osprey flew towards the small compound. We were better trained, we were better equipped, and they didn’t expect us. Plus we were attacking from two directions, with Lev riding with Tavoy’s ground assault and Corvi with me dropping in from the air.

  Still, something felt off to me, as if I was missing something important. A familiar presence in my mind stole any concern away, replacing it with the steely determination I’d shown back at my base.

  Do not fear, my dearest, Corvi told me psychically. I am with you. Is there a phrase in Vampiric for‘none shall stand before us’?

  I thought about it for a moment, trying to work out what that would be.

  The closest would be nahdis’ka nera vashae - none shall deny our wrath.

  Hm. I like that. Nahdis’ka nera vashae, Sythan’en.

  I’ll have you speaking it like a pro yet, I told her with the psychic impression of a smile, and she grinned at me from across the troop compartment.

  I’ll be right there with you, my love. Let us teach these people to fear us once more.

  Yes, I told her, giving her a predatory reflection of her grin. Let’s.

  “One minute to drop!” one of the Osprey crew shouted, and we released our harnesses and prepared to jump.

  The loading ramp gaped before us, the trees and grass still several hundred feet below us as Corvi stood with me at the lip.

  “You sure I’ll survive that?” I called to her, over the sound of the tearing air flow.

  “Mostly!” she laughed, and grabbed my hand. “You’ll live, and you can heal anything you suffer!”

  At that she ran down the ramp, dragging me with her and throwing us both into the empty air.

  Somewhere in my rapid descent, an unknown instinct kicked in, and I flipped in mid-air just before I hit the ground. My boots slammed into the soft earth, my knees bent in instinct, and although the impact was jarring nothing broke. That alone was something I was thankful for, given the amount of damage I’d suffered over the previous two years, but the sound of fighting nearby brought my thoughts to a halt.

  “Sounds like Lev hit right on time,” Corvi said as she straightened up beside me, a UMP .45 sub-machine gun held ready

  “Then let’s go join the party,” I replied, readying my rifle. I was hungry for this.

  As the Osprey began to unload behind us, Corvi and I surged forward, meeting the first wave of hunters who had spotted the aircraft coming in. We both unleashed several short bursts of gunfire, dropping several of the group in a spray of blood. Fingers tightened on triggers in reflex, and two of them actually shot their comrades as they dropped. Only six were left, and we were closing fast.

  I let go of my rifle, letting it hang on its sling as I lunged for the first hunter near me. I avoided his shots easily, grabbing his MP5 by the barrel housing and tearing it out of his grasp before smacking him in the face with it. As he staggered back I grabbed him by the throat, sinking my teeth into his exposed neck and drinking my fill from his veins. I turned slightly as I fed, using my meal as a human shield against the return fire of his companions - return fire which was rapidly diminishing thanks to Corvi tearing through them.

  Having sated my thirst, I dropped the man to the ground to let him bleed out, rushing at the next guy in line. A kick to his left knee smashed the joint into a splintered backwards bow, and as he screamed I clamped my left hand on his shoulder, my right hand over his mouth and pulled. His neck twisted with a sickening crack, and I moved away from the broken corpse.

  Corvi was toying with the last hunter, having forced him to waste all his ammunition and advancing on him slowly. When she saw that I was clear, she changed her mind and instead shoved him roughly. The force sent him sprawling-

  - into the hammer blow I had aimed at the centre of his back.

  My fist punched through his spine, through the back of his ribs and into the meat of his torso. I rested my free hand on his shoulder for extra leverage, and more blood erupted from his lips as I forced my hand through the space under his sternum.

  The man gurgled his last and went limp, and I withdrew my hand to let him collapse on the grass.

  “Damn, you’re hot when you’re vicious,” she told me breathlessly, and I don’t think it was exertion that caused it. I looked at her in that moment, the blood staining her teeth and smeared around her mouth, and found myself inexplicably aroused by the sight.

  She must have felt it too, because despite the conflict she pulled me close and kissed me roughly, lust and hunger driving her against me. I ran my hands along her face as I kissed back, smearing my latest victim’s blood across her cheek and around her eye, pulling her against me.

  A hard tap against my shoulder signalled our team moving up, and an amused voice simply said “save it for later you two.”

  We separated as roughly as we’d come together, staring at each other with shared hunger for a moment before readying our weapons and following the team in.

  Inside the building, it was clear that it was far from being a normal country house. Gunfire that missed its target chewed chunks of plaster from the walls, exposing the steel reinforcement within. Several doors were solid metal bulkheads, and the hunters were defending the place aggressively.

  Not that it helped them at all.

  Once all of our teams had entered, they broke up into smaller squads in order to clear the building faster. Several went upstairs to prevent reinforcements coming down to attack us from behind, while a handful others were left to hold the access points.

  Corvi and I led a surge deeper into the building, to find the control centre that we were sure was likely to be underground.

  A rapid burst of gunfire tore into my shoulder guard, spraying shards of carbon fibre against my cheek and causing a few minor lacerations. Ignoring the subtle sting, I ducked behind a corner to reload, trying to avoid being hit by the silver rounds I’d discovered they were using. Ten minutes previously a pair of bullets had torn into my side, and the burning pain had told me all I needed to know. I’d pulled the rounds out with my own fingers, then ripped out the throat of the hunter who shot me.

  First time I had ever killed a woman. Something odd I found was that her blood tasted sweeter than that of the men I’d killed. It took me a while to learn that it was due to the lower iron content in women’s blood, which made it taste less metallic.

  “Any idea why they’re so keen to stop us?” I asked Corvi behind me, who had switched to her sword and one of my pistols as soon as her UMP had run dry. She finished disembowelling her target, shooting his two companions in the head before replying.

  “I would say because they hate us, but they do seem more tenacious in their defence.” Her reply was so calm and casual, anybody would think she was out for a nice family day out, instead of bringing death and bloodshed to our enemies.

  I rounded the corner once more, opening up with my MP7 on full auto and sweeping my gunfire over the group.. The gunfire ripped through the hunters’ body armour, spraying their blood across the walls and floor and as they dropped.

  One of them had clearly taken less damage than her fellows, and I strode over to were she lay coughing.

  “Go on,” she wheezed, coughing up fresh blood. “F-finish me y-you bastard.”

  I was slightly stunned when I realised I knew her - she’d been one of my father’s favourite team-mates on several hunts, and I had even entertained the possibility that they’d had a relationship after my mother died.

  “You forced this fight,” I told her, and the sudden hate in her eyes told me sh
e recognised me. “Yeah, it’s me. And I found out that we were on the wrong side all this time, Sara. I’d ask you to give my father a message, but...well, you won’t live to deliver it.”

  My teeth piercing her throat choked off any reply she might have made, and I drank hungrily from her, kick-starting and accelerating the regeneration process.

  I also found some key information within her most recent memories - where to find our objective.

  “This way,” I announced, pointing down the corridor I was standing in. Corvi and my team followed silently, eager to get to our target.

  If it hadn’t been for Corvi’s psychic strength, we would have walked into a trap. The room we were after was situated at the end of a short corridor, with no other doorways or joining corridors ahead of where we entered it. Behind our position, however, had been a T-junction, both sides of which held more troops waiting for us to get locked in a firefight before sweeping in to trap us.

  Instead, Corvi led half of our squad to attack them pre-emptively, while my half of the squad opened fire on the small force blocking the doorway.

  “Keep firing, and don’t let up,” I told them, then plunged headlong into the firefight. As I sprinted down the hallway I drew four of my throwing knives, my enhanced speed stopping the hunters from getting an effective shot at me. It also meant my own team had no real fear about accidentally hitting me, because even if they did I’d heal quickly.

  As I closed with the hunters I threw my knives out all once, taking two of them in the throat, one in the eye and one in the centre of his forehead. As soon as my throwing blades left my hands I dropped and slid the last few feet on my right side, pulling my blade free backhanded with my left hand and severing a hunter’s leg in one strike. I surged to my feet, passing the blade back to my right hand and slashing diagonally upwards, opening another hunter from hip to shoulder. As he fell away from me, I followed through into a sideways slash at neck height, decapitating another of the hunters even as I drove the blade back in a reverse thrust, impaling a third hunter who had barely even registered my presence among her comrades. I wrenched the sword free and swung it straight up, carving through the groin and abdomen of a hunter who had turned to take advantage of my brief pause. A short salvo of gunfire ripped into him before he fell, ensuring he was well and truly dead.

  With the other members of the small force already gunned down by my squad, the door to our objective was now clear, and Corvi strode casually back down the corridor, her blade and body armour stained with fresh blood.

  “How we looking hon?” I asked her, as my squad set up a breaching charge on the door.

  “From where I’m standing?” she queried, looking me up and down. “Fucking gorgeous.” I gave her a shy smile in response, still unused to her compliments.

  Or her swearing.

  “However, if you mean how is the attack going, I think we’ve won.”

  There was a brief shout, followed by a small metallic foom.

  “Door’s open, sir,” one of our soldiers announced, and I gestured towards our objective.

  “Shall we?”

  “Let’s,” she answered, taking my arm as we walked towards the still-smoking door.

  It was definitely not any kind of control room. The bare gurney and nearby tray of medical implements was proof enough of that, but that was hardly the only indicator.

  Not too far from the gurney, their prisoner had been chained to the wall with silver-plated manacles. The body was female, naked and covered in blood, and the light scent of spice in the air confirmed that it had been Maria.

  Corvi moved over to examine the body, her face an expressionless mask as she investigated her former aide and the surrounding area.

  On the left side of the room, almost opposite Maria’s corpse, was a small steel desk, a chair of similar design and a computer, currently powered down.

  “Deimos.”

  Corvi’s hard tone brought me to her side almost instantly, and I could sense her conflicted emotions - gratitude that others had killed Maria, disgust at her fate, relief that she was dead at all.

  “Can you smell that?” she asked, and I focussed on the scents around the body.

  I instantly regretted it, retching at the sickly stench that permeated that part of the room.

  “She was raped,” I said, when I was finally able to speak.

  “Repeatedly,” Corvi confirmed, and shook her head slightly. “And people wonder why our kind don’t get on with mortals. But what else can you smell?”

  Reluctantly I inhaled again, fighting the urge to vomit, but then I picked up what had caught Corvi’s attention.

  Something with a harsh chemical tang, something...unusual.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “I don’t know my love, but what also concerns me is the fact she is covered in blood - her own blood. She has about a dozen wounds, large and small, and none of them show any signs of regeneration.”

  “Guess we missed the party then,” Lev said from the door, and I walked towards her.

  “Report,” I commanded, my concern for my sister hardening my tone more than I intended.

  “Upper levels are clear and secure,” she told me casually, as if she hadn’t noticed my tone. “We lost seven soldiers and three others are wounded, one badly. Your sister, however, is just fine.” She grinned as Tisiphone pushed her way through the group of soldiers, hugging me before turning to Lev and giving her a longing kiss.

  “Of course I’m fine,” she said to me, after pulling away from her vampire girlfriend. “I had Lev watching my back.”

  “I’m sure she was,” I replied with a smirk, and turned to the computer in the room.

  “Corvi, I’m thinking we can get some information from here, if we can access their computer network.” I powered the machine up, unsurprised when I found out it was protected by a password.

  “Great. Lorelei, you still with us?” I asked over the radio, and the redhead’s response was almost instantaneous.

  “Sure am, chief, all clear on the sat imagery.”

  “Good to know. Listen, we have a password-protected computer here, anything you can do to help?”

  Lorelei scoffed.

  “Come on, Deimos, I’m a miracle worker sure, but that would take time. A lot of time. And even then there’s no guarantee it would work.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” I looked at the other soldiers and vampires with us. “Anyone here got any ideas?”

  Tis shoved me out of the way and sat in the chair, her delicate fingers dancing over the keyboard.

  “Jesus, over a thousand years of experience between you all and none of you learned even a basic hack? You guys are hopeless.”

  While I was still recovering from the shock that my little sister was capable of hacking computers, she pulled out an array of information on what we were after, saving it all onto a USB pen drive for later review.

  “So basically, we need to be worried,” I told her, looking over her shoulder at the screen.

  “About this?” She pointed to the information regarding attempts at recreating vampiric abilities through technology, through augmentations or exo-skeletal hardware.

  “Fuck, no. These are still experimental, and the data suggests they’ve met with far more failure than success - the casualties while testing these processes have been catastrophic, and seriously hampered their chances at getting further funding.”

  She clicked to a different screen, details of a drug or chemical that the hunters had been working on.

  “This is cause for concern,” Tis continued. “This is not only successful, but already in active use. It’s a chemical that stops vampires from regener
ating, some sort of advanced anti-coagulant I think - no doubt it’s what caused your friend over there to bleed so thoroughly,” she said, gesturing to Maria’s body.

  “She isn’t our friend, little sister,” Corvi replied seriously, as she moved to stand by me. “Download whatever information you can, Tisiphone, then we’ll examine it in greater detail when we get back.”

  “Already downloading, it’ll be ready in a minute,” Tis beamed, and for the first time since entering the room Corvi smiled as well.

  “Lev, are the erasers set?” she asked, and our friend nodded.

  “Yup, primed and ready. They’re on a proximity trigger, so as soon as we hit safe distance, this place is a crater.”

  “And with any luck, a sound warning to our enemies,” I added.

  “Done!” Tis called, pulling her pen drive free. “let’s roll, people. I need a coffee, and I’m not buying.”

  I looked to Corvi, since she was the ranking member of the attack force, and my wife just smiled.

  “What she said.”

  Apparently, the ensuing explosion actually registered as a small earthquake in several of the surrounding counties, and the smoke plume was visible for several miles in each direction.

  CHAPTER 16

  A price paid

  Buoyed by our success, the whole force returned to my smaller base in Upper Heyford for debriefing, recuperating and urgent medical attention for those who needed it.

  Sadly Anneka Denning, the soldier who had been wounded severely at the hunter compound, died from her wounds while en route. We held a memorial for her, and arranged for her body to be returned to her family for burial.

  The debrief hadn’t lasted long - it was simply recapping what we had uncovered for those who were busy keeping the building secure, and significant praise for everyone involved, who had performed to the high standards expected of them.