Brutal Asset, page 18
“Well, I’m only five-ten, that’s pretty average and I could do contacts as well,” I said.
“Yeah, but it’s a lot harder to hide your body, stud, than it is hers. She’s small enough that we can drape enough ugly fabric over her to cover her killer bod. You on the other hand are shaped like a wedge, with muscles on your muscles!” she said.
I’ve always been muscular, but the V-squared had taken that to almost ridiculous extremes. Not overly bulky, but I look like I’m always ready to compete in a bodybuilding pose off. I wear a lot of loose shirts and baggy pants to cover it.
“Every description I’ve ever seen or heard of you begins with ‘extremely muscular’,” Galina agreed.
Lydia was looking me up and down, but Tanya spoke first. “Padding in strategic areas might do it, but your arms and hands would have to stay covered and your face would need latex prosthetics.”
“Hmm, that's a good project to work on,” Lydia mused.
“Why?” I asked. My personal desire to change my appearance had been for two reasons: everyone was following me, and my hair had been still long from my role as an uncover cop. This seemed a bit extreme.
“Because Chris, the time will most likely come when disguising you is both desirable and necessary. Better to get it done now, especially with the challenges you present,” Galina answered.
I wasn't used to my 'vampire-in-law' being nice to me. It sorta set me on edge.
“Good idea Lyd,” Tanya said. “Now I want to go visit the Outer Guard.”
Both Lydia and Galina wrinkled their noses at the thought of the sewers, but neither said anything negative.
“You hungry?” I asked, watching the slow smile that told me her answer. “Alright, breakfast first, then dressed, then sewers, then shower!” I said.
“Right order!” Lydia laughed.
***
A hour later found us moving through the tunnels of Citadel, while Tanya directed me to the best place to enter the sewers. Best as in most likely to find the vampires that haunted the drainage tunnels surrounding the Darkkin fortress. While we traveled, Tanya told me more about the vampires of the Outer Guard.
“Last I knew there were something like forty-seven of them, but that number changes from time to time,” she said.
“That's not many!” I said, surprised.
“Well out of a local population of anywhere from three hundred to five hundred Darkkin, that many who feel ostracized is about right. Not every vampire with a blemish or scar ends up outcast. Those with Chosen mates are not nearly as likely to live underground.”
“The whole Coven lives underground!” I said.
“Now, it does! But that's a recent move, the Outer Guard vampires have been living down here for decades and decades.”
“Do you know the three I mentioned?” I asked.
“Yes, they tend to be the representatives for the rest. I spent a bunch of time in the sewers during my....silent phase, so I know most of them.”
Tanya has been adjusting rapidly to her 'awakened' life, but she doesn't like to talk about her silent years with very many people. Mostly just me, Lydia and Nika, who can read her mind anyway.
She changed subjects. “ So, Uncle Illarion needs a new security chief, huh?”
My link wasn’t telling me much, I was flying blind. “Yeah, well he pulled a blade on me,” I replied, watching her sidelong to try and gauge her reaction.
“Never a smart idea,” she said with a nod, her bandaged eyes pointed ahead of the golf cart we were riding in. “A chosen has the right to stand up for their partner, awake or asleep, competent or incapacitated,” she intoned.
“That’s what I was taught,” I said, unsure if I should be defensive or not.
I let the cart slow, concentrating on her. She 'stared' straight ahead, if that's what you call it when a blindfolded person does it. Her smooth white throat flexed slightly as she swallowed reflexively.
“Dr. Singh believes that I'm healing so well because of what you did in the club, pouring your blood into my eyes and breathing it into my lungs,” she said, her voice soft. These changes in conversational direction were disconcerting enough by themselves. Add in the sudden mix of conflicting emotions I was feeling through our bond and I was thoroughly lost. She was alternately nervous, excited, unsure, fiercely happy and bemused.
“Ah, it seemed like the thing to do,” I said with a shrug, then realized she couldn't see it.
“He's really interested in the fact that this necklace is made of silver yet it doesn't burn me. It burned him when he touched it and regular silver still burns me,” she said, waving at her bandaged eyes as an example.
“It's never burned you all the times we've been together and I've forgotten to take it off,” I said.
“Hmm,” she purred, “that's so very true! I'll need to give it back.”
That was a statement. “Yeah, eventually I'll need it back. It helps with my dark side,” I agreed. “But until your eyes are healed, you need to wear it.”
“I am your Chosen!” she stated, like it was a Eureka moment.
“Ah, yes Tanya, I kinda thought we had established that,” I said.
She shook her midnight black hair. “You were my Chosen the moment you touched my heart,” she said, referring to the literal moment when I actually, physically touched her heart with my fingers.
“But you're human or at least you were when that happened. Choosing is a Darkkin thing. I never believed...never dared to hope that you could understand Choosing – never really get it!”
I stayed quiet, sensing she wasn't done yet.
“But everything you've done, every action you took is exactly what a Chosen would do!”
“So actions speak louder than words?” I asked.
Her kiss was answer enough, although I almost crashed the golf cart.
Chapter 25
We arrived at our destination, a rather inauspicious corridor that ended at a metal hatch door, like something from a submarine. Red rust streaked the plain metal and multiple generations of spiders had colonized the mesh covered light bulb positioned over it. As disused as it looked, there was nothing old or moldy about the electronic access panel that Tanya felt for and placed her hand against. It activated immediately, read her palm, and the door popped open an inch or two in response. I pulled it the rest of the way, peering through into a small pool of light from the bulb on the outside. Sewer stink hit my nose at the same time that the dripping sound of water struck my ears. Inky blackness led away in two directions and Tanya unerringly chose to turn left out the door. I followed her into the pitch black tunnel, my other senses coming alert to replace my next to useless vision. Night sight is only good if there is some ambient light, which there wasn't. Thermal vision only helps if there are contrasting heat levels, but everything was the same temperature. Tanya moved smoothly forward, her vampire sense of space, which near as I can figure out uses air currents, sound and the body's electric field, keeping her from smacking in to obstacles.
We hadn't gone far when I felt a change in the stinky air in front of us. Something was ahead, around the corner that was coming up quick. Tanya slowed while I started to move in front of her. She blocked me with her arm, pausing to process the meager sensory information coming our way.
“What no greeting, Niles?” she spoke suddenly. I concentrated on my vision, forcing it to go thermal. A white contrast to the cold blues of the concrete tunnel formed on the edge of the corner, becoming brighter until an orange outlined figure moved into view. Vampires are cooler than humans, who are cooler than weres. This was definitely a vampire, a male at that.
“Tatiana? What are you doing here?” a deep voice rumbled. His head was pointed in my direction, no doubt puzzled by my were-like body temperature.
“What, I can't visit old friends?” she asked, her voice relaxed, even as her body remained tense.
He paused for a moment, then chuckled deeply. “I suppose I should have guessed who you were by your companion. Moves like a vampire, radiates like a were, smells like a human.”
“Niles, this is Chris, my Chosen. Chris, this is Niles, one of the original Outer Guard.”
“Outer Guard! Shoot, girl, call us what we are...outsiders!” he said, the humor in his voice sounding real. He moved closer while he spoke and I noted the object held in his right hand was shaped like a fire ax. Fast and smooth as he moved, his posture revealed that something was wrong with his spine, as he was partially hunched over during each step that he took. He was thin and wiry, one of those guys whose voice doesn't seem to match their physique. But he was vampire and wiry means little where the V-squared virus is concerned. I watched him carefully, not excited to let any threats near Tanya. Both of them sensed my tension, probably because of the involuntary growl that escaped my throat.
“Christian, Niles is one of my oldest friends,” Tanya admonished gently. Niles had frozen into utter stillness, an immediate re-evaluation of my threat level visible in his body language. Moving slowly, he sheathed the fire ax on some kind of loop on his back. “No worries friend,” he said. “Your girl has been visiting us lowly types since she was just a newly minted teenager. An exceedingly quiet teenager I might add. But rest assured, no Darkkin from the depths would ever, ever permit any harm to our young Queen!”
I nodded, trusting him to see the gesture with his own thermal vision.
They chatted some more, Niles leading us further into the tunnels and announcing our presence to subsequent vampires, which started with the oldest looking vampire I had ever seen (she must have been turned in her seventies) as well as others who were missing one, two and even three limbs, not to mention other important body parts like eyes, ears and, in one case, at least a third of a skull. I now understood why Alex, Dave and Leet were the representatives for the disfigured vampires. I say disfigured and not disabled, as everyone of them could move around with at least human speed if not faster. The V-squared might not have been able to fully heal them, but it sure allowed them to adapt and overcome their deficiencies. Of the group I had seen so far, the three representatives were the most normal looking by far. The group was dressed in mostly clean, newer styled clothing which I hadn't anticipated. Then I heard a few mention nightly forays up to the city and realized they could still get anything they needed with just their vampire skills. I asked about blood though. Niles answered before Tanya could. “This one has seen to it that we get all the blood we need,” he said pointing a thumb back at my vampire. “Hasn't always been that way, in lean times we've had to make do as best we could,” he said. Another vampire in the glowing orange crowd that ghosted through the tunnels with us spoke the answer to my unspoken question. “Rats!” he said, then trailed off in a whispery mutter. “Yes, Oscar, rats are always a fall back. Not that a few of the 'residence challenged' haven't been poached a time or two,” Niles admitted. I realized the homeless would present a vulnerable prey population to the Outsiders. Tanya sensed my thoughts and spoke. “That doesn't happen now does it Niles?” she asked.
“What?” he said with a start, then glanced in my direction. “Oh, no! Not since we've been getting the steady supply from the Coven!” he said quickly.
“Our Young Queen here started that program when she still didn't talk. She had Nika translate her outrage to her mother and suddenly the Coven blood banks were sending down the good stuff!” he explained. A chorus of softly voiced affirmations followed that speech.
Shortly, we came to a big junction point, a place where six giant tunnels came together in one large space that was lit with compact fluorescent bulbs. Niles caught me looking at the modern bulbs and said with a smile, “They last longer.”
The common space was occupied by at least twenty Outsiders, with more arriving from the other tunnels in addition to the nine that were with us. Burns, lost limbs and facial disfigurements were most common. I was intrigued by the old 'looking' vampire whose name was Nancy. Most Darkkin were turned in their younger to middle human years, with twenties and thirties being most common. I was still thinking about that while Tanya spoke with virtually all the vampires present. She knew each by name and asked details of them that spoke of long years of association. She had talked to about two-thirds through the group when another vampire entered from the tunnels and caught my eye. My vampire age sense told me she was about one hundred and seventy or so, one of the oldest. But she looked like a twelve year old girl and she gave off a nasty vibe. Sliding through the ranks of vampires, who made way for her with haste, she moved closer to Tanya. Despite her brown eyed, brown haired school girl appearance, all I saw was an angry hundred plus year old vampire approaching my wounded mate.
The ‘girl’ vampire pushed between a Darkkin with one leg and a scarred woman, stopping to stare at Tanya, who couldn’t see her. I noticed the vampires around us went still at the sight of the girl. Tanya sensed something different, and certainly sensed my concern, but I was also dead determined that if the girl made a move I didn’t like I paste her. Tanya had to know that too.
Dressed in Abercrombie jeans, a Hollister tee shirt and wearing tan Ugg boots she was the very image of a seventh-grader till you looked at her eyes. Narrowed and old, they glared at Tanya with hate.
“Slumming Demidova? Or are you now one of us?” she asked in a hissing voice.
My vampire’s posture changed from slightly pensive to resigned and sad. “Hello, Trina, how have you been?” she asked, ignoring the girl’s questions and tone.
“How have I been? How have I been? As if you don’t know the answer Young Queen!” she said, managing to make the title into an insult. Tanya still didn’t defend herself, staying quiet instead. I wasn’t sure how much crap I would allow, but my limit was approaching.
“I’m the same Demidova! Always the same!” she said, pushing into Tanya’s personal space. I couldn’t stop myself from moving up to block her. Her hate filled face snapped my way.
“Who the fuck are you? Human?” she said, sniffing my scent. “Is this him? The one who ‘woke’ you?” she sneered, looking me up and down, derisively.
“Trina this is my Chosen, Chris,” Tanya said.
“And now you brought him as a snack for the rest of us?” the venom-filled teen clone asked.
The other vampires moved back and Alex with the scarred face spoke up. “That’s enough Katrina!” she said, trying to sound firm, but not quite making it. I understood that every vampire in the chamber was scared of Katrina who was eldest and therefore strongest.
“Fuck you Alex! I’ll help myself to what I want!” she hissed back, spinning and starting to come at me. Tanya took a step back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Trina, you are making a huge mistake! But I’m not going to stop you,” she said, resigned. “I will tell you he just took out Illarion Demidov’s chief of security!”
Trina bared her fangs in an attempt to scare me and the image of a twelve year old vampire was so wrong that I understood, a bit, of why there weren’t more children vampires. Darkkin abhor vampires who turn children. The penalty is death. But they also abhor child vampires, which would be the reason for Katrina’s presence in the sewers.
“But he used a gun to do it! And I don’t smell a gun on him now!” Katrina said, an evil smile gracing her face.
She blurred forward with all the speed and power of a one hundred and seventy year old vampire. I caught her by the throat and spun, throwing her across the room in the same direction she had been traveling. She hit the wall on her arms and feet, unharmed, and spun to attack again. I could feel the part of me that I labeled Grim calculate options, but it was my own conscious self that selected the one I felt most appropriate.
As the girl shot forward to attack again, I raised my right hand and blasted her with a bolt of aura. Just a tap. It had enough power to stop her and knock her back ten feet.
“I told you, Trina!” Tanya said. “In case you didn’t hear, my Chosen is not prey. In fact, he’s not even human…just smells like one. That’s because vampires and weres are his prey! If I let him, Trina, he’d chop you into dogmeat…with just his hands!”
Katrina just lay on the ground until Dave moved over to help her up. He touched her then shot back three feet in alarm. “She’ssss..human!”
“For a few days, then she’ll be back to her regular mean, hateful self,” Tanya said. The girl looked stricken and finally looked like a real twelve-year old. She stood and looked in horror at her hands, then the vampires around her, who all were pondering her change in status. Stumbling, she turned and rushed at mere human speed into the darkness, which was absolutely the wrong thing to do. A number of vampires started to move after her, their predator instincts taking over, but Tanya’s voice stopped them. “If you kill her, I’ll be unhappy with you,” she said simply, her tone even. It wasn’t a threat, just a statement, but every vamp stopped cold.
“We’re leaving now, but I would like to visit again tomorrow?” she asked.
