Chronicles of the Uprising (Trilogy 1): Trilogy 1 (16 page)

“What did you do that for?” Mira asked.

“Assuming it had a tracking beacon, I’d say we bought ourselves a little time,” Curtis responded.

“Right. Good thinking. How much longer until sunset?” Mira asked.

“Little more than an hour, I’d say.” Curtis tossed his tool back on the workbench.

“Tracking beacon or not, they’ll know the last location of that soldier before he went missing. I doubt we bought ourselves any additional time.” Lucian’s tone was somber. “Don’t forget the other one. We’ll need to disable his com-link as well.”

“Aye,” Curtis said, retrieving his tool, and headed over to the other dead soldier. “Then we’ll have to leave sooner rather than later.”

“Mira, how long can you be in sunlight?” Lucian asked.

“Direct light? Not long. Even if the light wasn’t touching my skin, it would still affect my vision. Too much light is blinding.”

“What about sunshields or lenses? That soldier might have had a helmet. Sarah, can you run out and check if they had a transport?”

Sarah looked up from her scrubbing and sneered at Mira, as if it were her fault she could not handle the sun. “Anything to be away from that.” If glares could kill, Mira would have been six feet under by now.

Mira did her best to ignore Sarah. “A helmet with a sunshade might help in indirect light; not sure how much, though. It really depends on how much light it filters out.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing,” Lucian said. “Curtis, do you have transport or a vehicle of any kind?”

“Sorry, sir, I’m not affluent enough to own anything like that.”

“Do you have any friends who would let you borrow one?” Lucian asked.

“Not on short notice.”

“On foot, through a city guarded by hundreds of soldiers looking to kill us. Sounds like a great time.” Mira’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Don’t forget with a blind vampire too,” Lucian added.

“That’s the spirit.” Hopeless as their situation was, Mira had to appreciate Lucian’s attempt at a joke.

“No transport outside or nearby,” Sarah called from the top of the stairs.

“That makes things difficult,” Lucian sighed.

“Yeah, and no helmet either,” Mira said.

“We’ll just have to make do. Curtis, you have any sunglasses?” Lucian asked.

Curtis finished stripping down the soldier and tossed the clothes in a heap in front of Lucian. “I’m sure I can scrounge up a pair.”

“Good. Please hurry,” Lucian said. “Mira, you’ll probably fit in the smaller uniform.” He nudged the pile of heavy clothes toward her. “The boots will be big. Just try to make them work for now. We need to look as much of the part as we can.”

“You have a plan beyond impersonating a soldier?”

“No. That’s pretty much it. We just need to blend in for an hour or so until sunset. We can better do that in uniform, patrolling the streets, than running like a pair of fugitives, right?”

“Hide in plain sight, sure. It’s simple enough it might just work.” Mira was impressed, but skeptical. “But what do we do with the bodies? We can’t leave them here. Curtis and Sarah will be implicated.”

“They’ll have to come with us. We’ll escort them around under the guise of taking them back to central command.”

Mira wanted to argue against bringing the other humans along. The longer they stayed together, the more danger they would be in. But she saw no other way around it. There was no time to properly dispose of the bodies, and two dead soldiers in their home, no matter the reason why, would be a death sentence for this couple.

Mira finished pulling on the soldier’s uniform. It hung loosely on her shoulders and was baggy throughout. She hoped no one would pay too close attention, because she was obviously not a soldier.

Sarah came downstairs. “Here. Let me help with your hair.” She grabbed some oil from Curtis’s work bench and used it to slick back Mira’s short dark hair. “This will make you look more like a man.”

Surprised at the gesture, Mira’s voice caught in her throat as she tried to thank the perplexing woman.

“Save your thanks,” Sarah said with all the spite and vitriol she’d shown earlier. “I’m doing this as much for myself as I am for you.”

That was more of what she expected. “I appreciate the honesty.” Mira truly did. She understood the human’s revulsion at her species, but the fact that she was not letting blind hatred color her actions earned some respect.

Sarah finished with Mira’s hair and handed her a pair of large-lens sun glasses. “It’s the best we’ve got here.”

“It’ll have to do.”

Dressed and ready, Lucian cautiously opened the door and looked outside. In the distance sirens had started. The other soldiers were on their way.

Lucian looked back. “I’ll take Sarah, you take Curtis,” he said to Mira. “Make it look like you’re taking them in for questioning. Like this.” He grabbed hold of Sarah’s upper arm and tugged her forward. “Walk slowly and keep your head down, okay?”

Sarah nodded.

Mira reached out cautiously to Curtis, more for his comfort than her own apprehension. He may have seemed comfortable around her, but it was wholly another thing to be in the clutches of a predator. “Why don’t you take the lead? I’ll be a bit blind, so you’ll have to guide me.”

Looking as if he were steeling his courage, Curtis nodded and held out his arm for Mira to hold.

“Let’s move out,” Lucian ordered. He held his gun in one hand, pointed toward Sarah, and guided her forward with his other hand around her arm.

Mira winced as she followed through the door. Even though the cloud cover was in her favor, the light filtering though her sunglasses from the overcast sky was still annoyingly bright. She paused at the threshold and took a breath, looking down to the ground to try to allow her eyes to adjust and focus.

“Are you going to be able to do this?” Curtis asked, sounding surprisingly concerned.

“I always do what I must to survive. It is the way of my people.”

“Vampires?”

“Gladiators.” She let the weight of the word sink in. “This light is harsh, but a full blast from a UV torch is a bit more powerful.”

“Enough talk, let’s move,” Lucian called back from the street.

Mira didn’t want to admit it, but there was something about the way he sounded, when giving orders, that really connected with her. “Go.” She nodded stiffly and let Curtis set their pace.

Sirens were closer now. A block away, if Mira’s guess was right. Unable to really see where they were going and what was around, Mira tried to recall what she’d seen on their run the previous night. “We need to find a way off the main roads. What’s behind these rowhouses?”

“There’s an alleyway for trash collection and utilities,” Curtis responded.

“Utilities… what about sewer?”

“Nowhere to access the tunnels back there, if that’s what you’re after.  You’d be better off finding a street hatch.”

“If we can get off high traffic roads and locate one, we might just have a way out,” Mira said.

A large armored vehicle pulled up alongside of the road, its siren blaring.

“You there,” a soldier called out from the passenger window. “What are you doing?”

Lucian stepped forward pulling Sarah roughly with him and pulled his sidearm. He pressed the gun to Sarah’s side. “Caught these two escaping from a house about a block over.”

The soldier pulled up an address on his dash-mounted screen. “2857 Stonebend?”

“That’s the one. But I wouldn’t get too close. This one here rigged some kind of EMP.” Lucian lifted his arm, showing off his non-functioning bracer. “Knocked out our com-links. Couldn’t radio in. We’re going to take these two in to command.”

“Need a lift?”

“Nah. There are two dead bodies in the basement of that old house. Someone’s going to have to get in there and get a cleanup crew going. Why don’t you radio that in? Word is they were harboring the fugitives. I’d say they made a break for it and are probably roaming the streets as we speak.”

“Roger that.”

“Let them know we’re coming in on foot with two prisoners, too,” Lucian added.

As the large transport began to pull away, Mira breathed a sigh of relief. That had gone more smoothly than she could have hoped for. And Lucian, the way he talked, with such command – his Elite side was definitely showing through. She began to think they might actually pull this off.

They continued on, Mira moving slowly behind, concentrating on every step, the light burning her eyes. The sound of tires screeching caught her attention. Then a shot was fired from behind. She turned and tried to focus on the transport. Either it was growing larger, or it was heading back in her direction.

“Shit! Time for plan B. Get down!” Mira shouted.

The transport came to a screeching halt next to them. Three soldiers inside had guns trained on them. “On second thought. Why don’t you all come quietly with us?” One of the soldiers slid open the side door. Still pointing his gun, he nodded at Lucian. “You and the girl first.”

“Ladies always go first.” Using a burst of her supernatural speed, Mira jumped the soldier and in one smooth motion snapped his neck. One of the other soldiers in the vehicle shot at her blindly. She felt the sting of the heated metal piercing her flesh, but would not let it deter her from her mission. She snapped the driver’s neck and then ripped away the gun from the last soldier. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.” She lunged at him, ripping away his Kevlar body armor like tissue paper, and sank her teeth into his tender flesh.

“Now we have transportation to get us where we need. I say we take this baby and ram it through the front gates.” Flushed full of adrenaline-soaked blood, Mira was ready for another fight. She felt like she could take on all the soldiers in the city.

“We’ll do that… but on a smaller scale,” Lucian replied. “I know every entrance and exit in the city. We’ll want to hit the least likely one to bring attention. One only Elites are allowed to use.” He winked and took the driver seat. “Get in, you two,” he called back to Curtis and Sarah.

The sweet coppery tang of blood caught Mira’s attention. More than there should be in the air. She looked back to find the horrified, struggling Sarah trying her best to lift Curtis off the ground. Blood pooled beneath his body. His face had gone dangerously pale.

Mira jumped out of the car and helped Sarah lift him. The scent of his freshly spilled blood tempted her, especially being so close to it. She could lap it up off the ground and enjoy every last drop, but her concern for their situation and the urgency of their need to move kept her riveted to the task at hand. “Get him inside. I’ll try my best to heal him.”

Curtis moaned weakly, barely audible even with Mira’s enhanced hearing, as they pulled him inside the vehicle. This didn’t look good. Mira feared he might be too far gone. The desperation in Sarah’s eyes made that thought ten times worse. They were the ones risking their human, mortal lives for her, a slave.

No, she couldn’t let him die. Mira ripped open Curtis’s shirt to inspect his wound.

“What are we waiting for? Drive!” Mira shouted to Lucian.

“Where to?”

“Anywhere, just get us out of here now.”

Lucian put the vehicle into gear. It lurched forward, and Mira turned her attention to Curtis.

“Will he be all right?” Sarah was frantic. She hovered over her husband.

Mira tried to push her back. “I’ll give him my blood. It should help jumpstart his body’s natural healing.”

“Should?”

Mira didn’t have to look up to know the fright that would be written all over Sarah’s face. She did her best to give her an honest reply, though, not wanting to deliver false hope, but not wanting to scare her further. “It’s not an exact science. It really depends on how much blood he’s lost, and how bad the wounds are. I don’t know if the bullet is still in his body or not.”

“Just help him!” Sarah demanded.

Mira ripped open her wrist and held it to Curtis’s mouth. Moments before, when she had done this to help Lucian, Sarah had practically condemned her; but now that the tables were turned, she didn’t care what happened. Sarah just wanted her husband to be okay.

Curtis wasn’t swallowing. His breathing was deathly shallow. Mira massaged his throat to help encourage him to swallow as his mouth filled with her blood.

With her free hand she prodded the wound, inspecting it but also hoping to get a response from Curtis. Anything, even a pain response would be good at this moment. He was too close to death, and Mira desperately wanted to see him live.

The bullet must have passed through her and hit him in the chest. She guessed it still remained. Depending on how far gone he was, her blood might not make any difference at all. If the bullet had hit a vital organ, there might be no hope. The good news – if you could call it that – was that there was blood on Curtis’s back as well. If the bullet had passed directly through him, it might be his saving grace. If she could get the bastard to swallow. This man had risked everything to save her and Lucian. He did not deserve this as his fate.

“Drink, damn you!” She slammed a fist against his chest. “Wake up and drink!”