The Children of the Sun (48 page)

“They’ll blow this place before you ever get close to him,” Thomas said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“They need time to set the charges,” Tori replied. “The whole system is built so it can’t be rigged quickly, to prevent any one person from blowing the whole place up. They didn’t want someone getting suicidal and deciding to take the whole crew with him.”

“We do not want to give them that time,” Theroen said.

“We’re not going to,” Tori replied.

“Thomas … come with us,” Two said, and at this he glanced over at her.

“What did you say?”

“Come
with
us. These people don’t want you and they don’t care about you. They think you’re a traitor because you haven’t managed to stomp out every last part of your humanity. I know that you haven’t. You’re a good man and I don’t want Naomi to lose you. She cares about you very much.”

“What the fuck would she want with me? I’m the enemy and she’s known that for years, apparently, so she spent those years making me weak. She played me like a fuckin’ Stradivarius.”

Two laughed. “That’s what you think? God … boys are dumb.”

“Two, we have to go,” Theroen said. “Thomas must decide his own path.”

“All right,” Two said. “Tori, how close are we to midnight?”

Tori glanced down at the digital watch on her left wrist. “Eight minutes.”

“That enough time to get to the warehouse?”

“If you stop the bonding session and hurry the fuck up, yes,” Tori growled. Two rolled her eyes and glanced once more at Thomas.

“Last chance,” she said.

“You really think …?” Thomas began, and then he stopped himself, shrugging. “Fuck it, I’m in. The Emperor’s a lying, murdering piece of shit and I don’t want to play for his team anymore. If I come with you, at least I have a chance. Maybe I can even talk some sense into anyone we meet.”

“We are missing our weapons,” Theroen said.

“They’re in a locker by the front desk,” Tori replied. “We can get those cuffs off your ankles, too.”

“What about the guards?” Two asked.

“You mean the guards who tried to call up to the colonel when I decided to come back to the cell?” The tone of Tori’s voice told them everything they needed to know. Two blew air out through her pursed lips and nodded.

“Let’s do this,” she said.

* * *

If Thomas had hoped to talk with the first soldier they met, Tori didn’t give him the chance. Moving up the stairwell from the third sublevel, where the cells were, they had encountered a man holding an assault rifle out in front of him.

“Hey, stop right … holy shit, Captain Perr—” he began, and Tori leapt forward, stabbing one blade through the man’s trachea. The second she drove deep into his breastplate, just left of center, piercing his heart. As he slumped forward, she stepped back and removed her blades, and the soldier’s body tumbled down the stairs past the others.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Thomas muttered, and Tori glanced back at him.

“I made it quick,” she said. “I doubt there was much pain.”

“No, yeah, that’s terrific,” Thomas said, his distaste evident. “Just keep going, would you? Shit.”

Tori turned and led them again up the stairs, and Two was glad when they made it to the top, reaching the security door near which Theroen had earlier killed the guard. The man’s blood was still there, splashed on the concrete wall. She wondered for a moment if anyone had found his body in the men’s bathroom, or if it was still sitting there in the stall, a ghastly surprise waiting for the morning shift. She forced this image away and followed Tori through the door.

“Garage is down that way,” Tori said, pointing. “There may be people there. They’ll try to sound the alarm.”

“It would be best if they were prevented from doing so,” Theroen said.

“Well, no shit,” Tori replied, nonplussed. “That’s why I’m telling you this. The switch is on the far left, near the offices, which will be empty at this time of night. Anyone who’s there will be working on the floor, fixing vehicles or whatever.”

“I’ll guard the alarm,” Thomas said. He had equipped himself with a firearm taken from one of the cellblock guards.

“That fills me with confidence …” Tori said, and Thomas glared at her.

“I said I was in, right, Captain? I’m in. There’s going to be killing in there and I don’t want any fuckin’ part of it, so I’ll guard the alarm. If anyone comes toward it, I’ll stop them. I’m sure you’ve seen my combat marks … ain’t no one in there who’s going to be able to outfight me, even if I am half starved.”

“Fine,” Tori said, and she glanced again at her watch. “Four minutes. They won’t have firearms, so we should be able to keep it quiet. Once we’ve marked the hostiles, split off and engage. I can take two or three if I have to, and—”

“Tori, stop,” Two said. “We’re not soldiers, but we know what we’re doing. Just go. We’ll follow your lead.”

Tori glanced at her, and smiled, and for a moment there was something between them like friendship. Two’s heart welled up at this, but as quickly as it had come, Tori shoved it away.

“Stay close,” she said, and without further hesitation she began to run toward the far end of the hallway. Two followed, with Theroen right behind her. Thomas brought up the rear.

Tori kicked her foot out as they reached the entrance. Two had no idea if the door was locked, but it didn’t matter; the force of the former vampire’s speed and weight and strength blew the door off two of its three hinges, and it swung drunkenly inward. Two heard cries of surprise from inside and felt an almost overwhelming sadness rush through her. These were people – not monsters but just confused, misguided people – and she was going to have to kill them.

Please let tonight be the last time,
she thought, though she didn’t know to whom the request was directed.
I don’t ever want to do this again
.

Then it was too late to think. They were engaging the enemy, and she was happy to let training and instinct take over. Tori had broken right, intercepting two people who had been racing toward the alarm. Two glanced in that direction, saw Thomas heading for it, and wondered if he was about to betray them. There was no time to worry about it; a man in green combat fatigues was charging at her, holding a massive wrench above his head with both hands.

Two was no longer the untrained girl who had confronted Abraham, nor even the fit but inexperienced fighter who had battled Aros’s horde of Burilgi. She had spent the past two and a half years training with perhaps the best Ay’Araf warrior in the Western Hemisphere, and this human – trained soldier though he might be – was no match for her.

Operating on instinct, which had always served her well but which under Jakob’s tutelage had been honed to a fine edge, she ducked down and leaned sideway
s
, sticking her foot out to trip the man even as her blade bit into his abdomen, loosing his intestines on the concrete floor. He made a grunting noise of surprise as he fell forward on top of his own innards, and Two, who had no interest in torturing anyone, stood and turned, burying her sword deep in his skull. If the man had suffered, it hadn’t lasted long. He was dead by the time she removed her weapon and turned back to the fight.

Theroen had made similar short work of his foe, another man, taller and more muscular than Two’s heavyset opponent. That soldier was now lying on his back in a pool of his own blood, missing an arm and writhing in agony. He tried to sit up, and Two watched as Theroen delivered the killing blow. Behind him, she could see that Tori was finishing off the second of her two opponents. The fight had only lasted a few seconds, and they had cut down their enemies with barely a sound.

“That was good,” Tori said, stepping back up to the two of them. “Wasn’t sure you actually knew how to use those things.”

“I’ve been training,” Two told her. She glanced over at Thomas, who had left his post at the alarm switch and was making his way toward the group, trying not to look at the dead soldiers on the ground.

“Guess that’s done,” he said.

“Do you know how to open these, Tori?” Theroen asked, gesturing to his left. The entire west wall of the facility was lined with massive garage doors, each large enough to allow easy entrance to a tractor-trailer.

“I don’t think we can do them all at once,” Tori said, and she began to walk in that direction. The others followed.

“Well, even if someone tries to stop us, at least we can get a few of them open,” Two said.

“Right,” Tori replied, stopping at the first door. “I think this is it.”

There was a large yellow box attached to the wall, an electrical pipe rising up from it, and two large, black buttons on its face. Tori pressed the top one in and waited, but nothing happened.

“Never had to work this shift, Captain?” Thomas asked, a small smile on his face, and Tori glanced over at him.

“My education was a bit different than the rest of yours,” she conceded, and Thomas nodded.

“They turn off the main breaker at night. Hang on.” He stepped over toward a large, grey panel and flipped it open. There was a snapping sound as he flipped the appropriate circuit breaker and returned. “Try now.”

Tori pressed the green button again and smiled as the door began to rise, the sound of the chain-driven mechanism echoing out from above. Warmth wafted in from the summer night outside, and Two could smell the wet air coming off the Great Lake that lay just to the east.

“Good, everyone else grab one,” Two said, and they split apart, each heading for a door. It was necessary to hold the button down for the duration, and so for a moment there was nothing to do but stand and wait. When the doors had reached the end of their tracks, the group moved on to the second four.

When all eight doors were open, Two turned and peered out into the night. She couldn’t see anyone out there, but she knew that meant nothing. They had studied the elevation maps around the area, and there was a large drop-off just behind the Children’s building, filled with trees. The plan had been to use this as a staging area, and she had little doubt it was now filled with vampires.

Theroen stepped up next to her and looked out into the dark. He drew in a breath and called out into the night, “
Ma haptoni se impto, prinate essi intive
.” It was the signal that had been agreed upon. Sasha, Lewis, and Leonore would know that it meant the time had come.

Indeed, there was a tremendous rustling from just over the hill, past the chain-link fence that surrounded the parking lot, and Two saw the first vampires begin to emerge. Lewis was there, and Sasha. Leonore, not a fighter, was likely hanging back in case there was trouble.

When Lewis reached the fence, he produced a pair of hand held bolt cutters and began taking apart the links. Two saw other vampires doing the same as the crowd behind them swelled. The fence was not electrified; the Children wanted to maintain a low profile, and so their business appeared on the surface to be entirely normal. The last thing they needed or wanted was some innocent bystander touching the fence and getting killed. The razor wire at the top, combined with their surveillance system, had served them well.

“Jesus,” Two said. “This might actually work.”

That was when something hit the floor to her right with a clank. Turning, she saw a human woman scrabbling out from underneath a half-disassembled truck. The noise had come from a tool that she had knocked from the truck’s wheel well. Two knew even as she began to shout that no one was going to reach her in time, not even Tori, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Shit! The alarm! Someone—”

Tori was moving already, had started moving even before Two opened her mouth, but there was too much distance to cover. The woman made it to the alarm before Tori could reach her and yanked on the metal handle. Immediately, orange lights on the ceiling began flashing and a long, wailing siren echoed out from within the building. There could be no doubt; the Children’s security had been compromised, and now they knew it.

Chapter 23
Holding the Fort

“Dupont, I want those fucking cameras working right now,” Miller shouted. The alarms were still blaring, and Vanessa felt a cold, tight ball in her stomach; she shouldn’t be here in the CC, where everything was observed by cameras and taking action meant issuing commands via phone or intercom. She should be out with what was left of her squad, fighting whatever invaders had entered the building.

“Sir,” she tried.

Miller ignored her, shouting at another aide. “Baker, take the timer down as low as it can go. Two hours. I want those charges going off in two hours. Then I want you to take your men and go stand guard at the Emperor’s door. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” the young man said, visibly distressed. Vanessa was not enthusiastic about sending a green lieutenant to lead the defense of the Emperor, but she supposed it was better than nothing.

“Colonel Miller, I need to go,” she said, trying a more forceful pitch. This got his attention, and the colonel glanced over at her.

“You’ll do exactly what I tell you to do and not a goddamn thing otherwise, Captain. You haven’t been chosen yet, and I still outrank you.”