Vampire Redemption (15 page)

Gordon broke into a jog, and Lee and Tom did the same, falling in line naturally. Dominique and Selah fell in, and they hustled out past the guards who glanced at them, saw Dominique's lab coat, made assumptions, and let them out.

A hundred yards out, Gordon slowed down. They regrouped and turned to look back. The high-wire fence topped with its concertina razorwire was limned by the powerful flashlights, and they could see squads of soldiers still moving into the building through the double entrance doors.

"Did we do it?" Dominique looked to Lee. "We did it!"

"Hold on," said Tom.

The spotlights had changed their pattern. From simply illuminating the approach from the gate to the building's entrance, they had begun to swing back and forth, searching the rutted raw earth.

"Wigner's got the word out." Gordon spat. "Come on." He turned and led them off the road, into the shadows.

It was impossible, the idea that they would be able to sneak through a base swarming with soldiers, but only then did Selah realize that more was going on, more than just their attempt to break free. For a moment, the sight of distant flashing lights and gunfire brought hammering home the memories of the base in LA, and she faltered, staggered to a stop at the corner of a cement barracks. Tom gripped her elbow and she could only point. The base wasn't being overrun. It was, however, under attack.

The wire fence perimeter was lit up with the occasional flashing chatter of high-powered gunfire. Shattering sheets of white and gold fire would burst in staccato rhythm as .50 caliber guns would open up, and somebody just beyond the perimeter would be torn apart even as they spun and danced and sought to evade the gunfire with preternatural agility.

"We've got to keep moving," said Lee. He turned back to Selah. "Keep going."

She pushed off the barracks wall and gave Tom a weak smile. He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly and they were off again, making the most of the confusion to stalk across the base. As they flitted from building to building or occasionally walked brazenly, madly across open spaces, Selah tried to look at everything at once. The constant shooting that surrounded the perimeter. The lights and madness that swept the grounds behind them around the lab. The soldiers that rushed back and forth, faces grim, eyes slitted and as feral and desperate as those of starving street cats.

That's when it hit her. Selah cursed herself for being so short-sighted. They were isolated. Trapped. Surrounded. These men had probably been under nightly attack for who knew how long. A week? Another explosive burst of heavy gunfire ruptured the night. Another vampire danced its fatal .50 cal dance and went down. How many nights had they been tested in this way, each night promising the potential of being overrun like the LA base? The air was desperate, ugly, raw. It wouldn't take much for these men and women to take their ire out on a ragged band of black-eyed freaks.

"You!" They kept walking. Gordon was leading them across another open stretch of space, getting them ever closer to whatever destination he and Lee had in mind. "Halt!"

Gordon wheeled around, his square face mean and promising trouble for whomever was yelling out commands. Selah did the same, heart pounding. A narrow, hatchet-faced man of some rank had slowed, stopped, was pointing at them. Soldiers were gathering behind him. Gordon strode forward as if prepared to literally butt heads with the man, a pugnacious mountain ram ready to crack skulls. He was like a boulder rolling down hill, and he stopped short just shy of the man.

"Yes, Captain?"

The man stumbled back and Selah cursed. Gordon had forgotten his eyes! The Captain's face contorted as he panicked, and Gordon realized what he had done. His own certainty faded and he stepped away, half poised to run. The soldiers, not understanding what was going on, raised their rifles. Selah opened her mouth, tried to think of something to yell, saw Lee desperately looking back and forth, Dominique struggling to hold him back.

A soldier elbowed her way to the fore, her anger and scorn resplendent like a night-burning sun. "Captain." Her voice was a whip crack. The man turned to her, mouth opening and closing like that of a fish that hadn't realized it had just been filleted. "You've found them. Good. I'm to escort them to the perimeter."

Selah stared. It was McKnight. Her confidence and determination was a river rock that parted flow of incipient panic. She held the Captain's gaze with implacable calm.

"What?" The Captain's ability to process events was struggling to keep up. "Sergeant?"

"The Hybrids, sir. They're being deployed. We need them outside. A large wave of vamps is en route. We need them out there as a foil. I'm to escort them."

The Captain looked past her at the perimeter. Some stroke of luck saw a blast of gunfire erupt right then and sustain itself for three full beats of Selah's heart. His gaze grew sharp with suspicion. "I didn't hear about any wave of vampires."

McKnight shrugged and didn't respond. Her opinion as to his lack of information obvious.

Lee stepped forward and saluted. "Delta Force Sergeant First-Class Lee, sir. Permission to engage the enemy and kick some undead ass."

The soldiers behind the Captain grinned, and the Captain found his footing. A formal request for violence seemed more to his liking. "Delta Force, eh?" Selah carefully stepped behind Tom and half turned away, willing herself to be invisible. "All right. Proceed with your mission." Everybody saluted each other, and then they were off again.

McKnight strode next to her. "What the hell are you guys doing walking out in the open?"

"Getting out," said Selah. Gordon had taken point again, marching them straight toward a now visible airfield. "They're shutting down my vaccination. The President. He wants to--"

"I know," said McKnight, cutting her off. "I just finished speaking with Adams."

"You did?" Selah tried to wrap her head around that. "He called you?"

"I got through to him after I dropped you off."

Tom was a lanky shadow by Selah's side. "Why'd you help us, Sergeant?"

"I'll explain later. You still headed to the Bugbug?"

Lee was right behind them. "If the General's made it available to us. It our only way out."

McKnight shook her head. "That's why I've been looking for you. You'll never get clearance to take off. And if you do, you'll be taken down by the anti-aircraft missiles."

"General Adams will see to it," said Selah. "It'll work. It has to work."

They entered the airfield. It was more like half a football field of cement with a score of helicopters and a couple of vertical take-off jets scattered across its surface, men rushing back and forth between them. More gunfire from the perimeter. It came rapidly now, every few seconds. Dominique checked her Omni, and then looked up and pointed. Gordon followed her finger and saw a chunky copter that looked like it was shrugging under its sagging rotor blades. It was being prepped by a half dozen men. He nodded and hurried over.

"Stop!" Selah looked over her shoulder. The Captain. Furious, red in the face, running after them, a score of soldiers behind him.

"Lively now," said Lee.

They sprinted as a group toward the chopper. Gordon bellowed orders of his own and the technicians scattered. Tom jumped into the pilot's seat and they all scrambled into the hollow of its body, climbing into seats. More commands were yelled, but the rotor blades began to churn the air, the engine rising into a high whining roar, and the Captain and his men fell back.

Dominique scrambled into her seat as Gordon leaned over and buckled Selah in. McKnight was next to her, Lee up front next to Tom. The chopper shuddered, rose and hesitated an inch off the ground, and then surged up into the sky. The ground fell away, twisted to one side as they heeled off toward the perimeter. Selah let out a yell, grinning widely at McKnight beside her.

The Sergeant's sober frown stopped her cold. She looked outside. The mountains rose up around them, dark and majestic and covered with black trees. The sky was vibrant, the blue almost refulgent, the moon a disc of glowing pocked silver. The last of the base buildings were sliding out of view behind them. There went the perimeter fence. Gunfire. What was the problem?

Sparks exploded all around them and Selah let out a cry and covered her face. Somebody yelled a warning and the chopper hitched as if it were suddenly having trouble drawing breath. Selah grabbed onto an oh-shit bar, her heart lurching. She couldn't see anything wrong, there was no smoke, but Gordon's face had grown tight as if his skin had shrunk around his skull.

They were racing forward still, stabbing into the night, but again the chopper hitched, coughed, and through her seat, Selah felt the machine shivering and shaking. Something had gone wrong. Something had been broken or was in the process of breaking. She looked out the side. Tom had brought them low and they were scudding over the tops of the fir trees, nose down, heading toward the mouth of the valley. The sky still brilliant, the mountain slopes absorbing all light. Selah tried to yell out a question to McKnight, but without headphones, her words were stolen by the wind.

Another hiccup and then something broke. Selah felt the shock shake the chopper, and the world outside began to slide over to the right as they fishtailed through the night. Gordon flashed her a savage grin, and in that smile, Selah saw a devilish acceptance of finality. 
No
, she thought, the thought clear and singular. 
I'm not ready.

They straightened, slurring over to the right again, but they were losing altitude. Selah felt as if she could lean out and brush her hand over the treetops. Felt them knock against the underside of the chopper's carriage. Tom lost all control as another series of cracks whiplashed through the helicopter and they dipped, turned sideways, and hit the treetops. Selah saw Lee leap out into the night, and then the world exploded into fragments of wood, snarling screams of heated metal, and everything came to a sudden and explosive stop.

Chapter 13

Pain. Selah shivered violently. Strapped in, head lolling down, eyes closed. Somebody was shouting, but it was far away. The pain was like a fire creeping up her side, flames licking her skin from within, awakening her flesh. She groaned, could barely open her mouth to do so. Where was she? A deep drumming sense of urgency beat at her, but she didn't understand what she had to do. Pain. It was growing sharper by the moment. With Herculean effort, she opened her eyes.

She didn't understand what she saw. Things were too blurred. Sparks were falling in beautiful cascades. She was buckled into a seat. But sideways, hanging against the straps, sagging toward the open side of the helicopter which rested on a mat of broken branches and tree trunks, fir needles thick and scorched. She was having trouble breathing. Having trouble even thinking.

McKnight was struggling beside her. As her safety harness clicked free, she half fell out of her seat onto the broken branches, catching herself at the last moment. Blood glimmered horrifically across her face. Selah lifted her gaze, saw Dominique hanging limply in her seat across from her. Gordon was gone. Selah coughed and pain blossomed white and absolute in her mind. She gasped, couldn't breathe, and then hands were on her, helping her out of her safety harness as well. She sagged free and fell into somebody's arms.

The pain receded. McKnight was steadying her, helping her sit on creaking and straining branches. She was yelling something. Selah couldn't understand the words. She could hear them, but they were just sounds. McKnight turned away in frustration and began to work Dominique free. Gordon appeared. Selah closed her eyes. She wanted to rest. Just for a moment.

Somebody lifted her. She was hauled up and out into frigid air. She opened her eyes. Gordon had her over his shoulder. It dug into her stomach. Nausea swelled up within her and she felt sharp flecks of glass grind against the inside of her skull. Gordon was making his way down, scrambling down a great tree. Then they were falling, hitting the snow with a jarring thud. He put her down and was gone.

She closed her eyes. Pain. She was no stranger to pain. She desperately fought for thought. They had crashed. Into trees. They were outside the lab. It was night. They had to move. They had to keep going. She tried to sit up and sank back down with a stifled cry.

The drumbeat of agony punctuated the darkness. Then something stabbed her in the thigh, and real fire began to pour through her veins, consuming her. She tried to scream and opened her eyes. Lee was crouched beside her, a fat hypodermic needle jabbed into her leg. He pushed down the plunger and then tossed it aside. The flames scorched their way up her body, and where they raced, they consumed the pain. Strength blossomed in its place, and with a gasp, Selah felt the tight bands ease around her chest and the headache recede.

She knew this feeling. Knew this strength. It was like the return of an old lover, the caress intimate and soothing. Power, energy, vitality. It coursed through her, and though her body felt ill-used, battered, and sore, she pushed herself up.

"How's Selah?" Gordon was coming down the tree, helping McKnight navigate the descent.

"Selah's fine," she said. It was bitterly cold, but she only registered the fact in abstract; the serum was burning up her body.

Gordon dropped the last five yards and landed lightly. McKnight took a breath and jumped after him, landing in his arms. He set her down and they both turned to look at Selah, McKnight wiping blood from her face. She felt feverish and the edges of everything felt strangely pronounced. This wasn't the same as true vampire power. This was a thin, synthetic simulacrum, but she'd take it. Right now, she would take whatever they could give her.

"That should hold you for an hour or two." Lee stood up next to her. "No sense in giving any to Dom. She's out cold. McKnight, you want a shot?" The Sergeant shook her head. Lee shrugged. "Gordon, can you carry her?"

Gordon scooped Dominique's still body up from the snow with ease. He didn't seem the worse for wear. Dominique looked small, shrunken with his arms. Nothing seemed wrong with her; she could have been sleeping lightly in his arms for all Selah could tell.