The sound of war continued to filter in through the walls. Selah stood still. The soldier kept talking, his voice growing quieter. "Things keep up, we'll roll out the Abrams. The Strykers. There's no fucking way."
Selah thought she could hear screams. The kind of screams that were torn out of your gut against your will, the kind that you fought to keep down, but they simply overpowered your self-control. The gunfire was constant now, a droning, biting sound that was as textured as a waterfall of lead ball bearings.
"What's your name?"
"What?"
"Your name. I'm Selah Brown. What's yours?"
"Williams. Private First Class Williams."
The door slammed open. She heard Williams snap to attention so sharply he might as well have been zapped with a dose of electricity. A number of people strode up to the cell. The door was unlocked. Selah began to back up. They came in, no words, and then her world burst into shattering pain as somebody hit her right in the solar plexus again. She fell to her knees, sucking in the nylon hood, eyes straining, unable to breath. Heaving, she fell to her side.
"What do you know about this attack?" It was McKnight. The Sergeant.
Selah fought for air, and felt hands around her neck as the hood was loosened and then torn off. White light speared into her eyes. Boots around her. She looked up, saw four soldiers and the Sergeant. McKnight was staring down with implacable self-control, but under that mask simmered a vast fury. Selah sucked for breath and shook her head.
"What do you know about this attack? Are they coming for you?" The words like whip cracks.
"No," managed Selah, gasping for air still. She tried to sit up, failed. "No."
"You're telling me it's a coincidence that an army of vampires is attacking us the day after we take you in? You were Arachne, the leader of the biggest gang. They're out there now. You're telling me that's a coincidence?" She didn't raise her voice, but the anger behind her words made it sound like she was yelling.
"I don't know." Another deep, sucking breath of air. "I don't know!"
Two soldiers picked her up. A third stepped in and cracked her fist across Selah's face. She saw blank white light, and then the world came back. She snarled and tried to jerk free. If she had Sawiskera's power now! She would toss these idiots across the cell, would bend a bar free and--
Another sharp blow knocked her head back and then the Sergeant was in her face, hand around her neck, grip fierce, their faces only an inch apart.
"Tell me! Tell me what you fucking know!"
Selah narrowed her eyes. The girl who had entered Miami but a month ago would have been terrified by this treatment. But she'd been through too much since then to collapse before a few hard slaps. She took a breath. "Shouldn't you be out there instead of hiding in here with me?"
The Sergeant's eyes narrowed and her grip tightened. Selah tried not to choke, but before she was forced to, the Sergeant stepped back. She nodded to the soldiers, who dropped her to the ground. They turned and left the cell. "Private, prepare to move your prisoner. This building's about to be compromised." Then she was gone.
Selah coughed and sat up. Her eyes were stinging and her stomach was burning, throbbing. She blinked away tears. Coughed once, sharply, and then spat. Worked her way up to her knees, and then with a jerk, rose to her feet.
She turned and looked at Williams. He was a large man, about the size of a refrigerator, his honey-colored hair cropped close around a boxy head. He looked about her age, and he stared at her with alarm, anger, and fear. Two of the other soldiers had stayed behind to assist him.
He stepped up to her, and with efficient swipe of his knife, cut the flexcuffs at her ankles. "We're falling back. Let's go!"
Chapter 4
Selah stepped outside into roiling madness and chaos. A blast wall stood directly before the bunker's entrance, and she moved to its edge and peered out. Vast floodlights that towered up from behind her bunker lit up the grounds, illuminating the faces of the vampires as they poured over the perimeter fence, forcing them to slit their eyes even as the powerful electric currents charred their hands. Selah watched one leap high over the rolls of razor wire and fall twenty feet to the packed dry earth, only to be blasted apart by concentrated fire.
Even in the harsh glare, the vampires were hard to track, flitting like shadows with impossible speed. They swarmed up the three guard towers in sight, finding impossible hand holds in the circular cement segments and pouring in through the small windows at the very top, squeezing in under the cab roof only to be blown back out into the night air by the gunfire within. They moved fast--that delirious and impossible speed that only vampires could muster--springing over the walls, hitting the ground running. For every one that was dropped, another one made it forward to fall upon the massed soldiers. A Humvee had crashed into the base of a tower, was buckled up on three tires, its machine gun turret half torn off, screams coming from within as vague shapes fought in the close confines.
From where Selah stood frozen by her bunker, she could see dozens, no, hundreds of soldiers in packed groups ahead of her, laying down fire, forming a wall between her and the vampires. They were crouched behind massive cylindrical sandbags, on top of bunkers, and on the ground with heavy machine guns propped up on tripods before them. Men were yelling out commands, bellowing curses, or just screaming as their weapons shook and shivered in their hands. The night was lit up with the flashing bright white flare of gunfire, and the sound was cacophonous, tearing apart the walls of the world, numbing the mind, overwhelming it so that Selah froze, staring out over the corpse-strewn ground.
One of the guard towers was overrun. Within moments, the .50 cal within was turned on the soldiers below, and living hell was unleashed upon their ranks. The bullets churned up the dirt, slammed finger-sized chips out of the hardened concrete walls, mowed down troops were they crouched or lay. Screams and orders were yelled, and then the top of the tower was engulfed in flames as a grenade hit it dead on. Chunks of concrete were blown out over the wall to fall into the night, but still the gunfire came down, hailing death upon the soldiers.
The vampires were amongst the troops now. With great gamboling leaps and sprints, they crossed the kill field and fell upon them, their speed such that they seemed to move from point A to B without crossing the intervening space. The bright lights illuminated it all in glaring, unforgiving detail. Splatters of blood through the air. Gunfire turned in panic upon the shapes that flickered amongst the units. Guns were scooped up by the vampires and aimed with deadly precision at the men.
Selah felt a palm shove her from behind, and she stumbled out from behind the wall. Williams grabbed her by the back of her shirt and dragged her after him, his service rifle held out. The other two soldiers ran behind him, laying down short bursts of suppressive fire at anything that came close. A strange vehicle came rumbling into sight, eight wheels churning over bodies, armored like a tank but with the face of a frog, its grey metal surface riveted everywhere and a soldier up top swinging a massive machine gun back and forth, mowing down the vampires as they came over the walls.
"Let's go!" yelled Williams, and turned her away from the fight to sprint back along the bunker, hugging the wall and past the soldiers. Overhead came the low sonic roar of a fighter jet, and then the ground beyond the wall detonated as some kind of bomb was dropped. Selah ducked her head as the air pounded into her ears and the ground shook, but Williams hoisted her to her feet and kept her moving.
She ran, the toes of her shoes catching on every ridge of dirt. The second time she stumbled, Williams hauled her back up only to shove her so hard that she crashed to the ground. She yelled in surprise, and then looked up just as a gangly vampire with fevered black eyes swung a length of pipe right through the air where she had been, the swipe so vicious and fast that the pipe actually sang as it sliced through the air above her. She rolled onto her side and saw Williams step back, bringing up his service rifle, and unload a clip into the vampire's chest. The creature danced back, shoulders herky-jerking as it let go of the pipe, its chest cratering. When Williams finished firing, it just stood there stunned, only to look up and grin, showing its bloody incisors at the soldier.
Williams stared at the still-standing vampire in shock. Another soldier sprinted by, and as he passed, simply raised his revolver and squeezed off a shot into the vampire's temple. The far side of the vampire's head blew out, the other soldier ran on and was gone, and Williams hauled her to her feet. "Move!"
More jets were scrambling overhead, and Selah saw a huge, ponderous-looking tank roll by a bunker over, tan-colored and with its huge cannon aimed blindly at the wall. Then it was gone and she was being herded between a series of large, identical blocky buildings, three of them in a row, and then out onto a road. Everywhere was madness. Squads were sprinting to the front alongside more vehicles. Overhead, helicopters scudded over, twin mini-guns rotating with a high whine as they lay down long furrows of bullets across the militarized zone beyond the wall.
Williams knew where he was going. Down the road, and then he took a turn and ran past a group of men on guard, into a large building. Down a hallway, a left turn, and then he stopped and shoved Selah into a room the size of a closet. She could hear people's voices raised in fury, somebody was repeating a question over and over again, and then Williams slammed the door closed and she was shut away in darkness.
She struggled mindlessly for a moment against the flexcuffs, and then stepped up to the door and pressed her ear to it. She couldn't hear much. Thank God the hood was off. She stepped back. She was breathing in short, horrified pants. The stench of cordite, blood, and panic was thick upon her. Mind swirling, she closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the door.
This wasn't a raid. This was a full out assault. Padrino Machado had said that thousands of vampires had been created over the past few years. Yet, they hadn't attacked the Base last night. Instead, they had done... What? If they were acting in an orchestrated manner tonight, what had they been doing the night before? It must have been purposeful. Williams had said it had been like watching foxes in a henhouse. Had they been killing people randomly? No. Realization hit her. They had been making more vampires.
More yelling from outside. Selah tried to settle down, to wait with some modicum of patience, but she was too amped up on adrenaline and terror to do more than just pace and replay what she had seen over and over again in her mind. The front line of the soldiers had been compromised even as Williams had led her away. The squads imploding as the vampires fell amongst them. Did that mean they would fall back? Were there plans for something like this? There had to be.
Five minutes passed. Every few moments another
whoompf
would shake the building. The sound of constant gunfire seemed to be growing louder, like a tide rising about her. Were they going to leave her locked in this little room? Had Williams run off? She moved back to the door and kicked it.
"Hey! Williams!" She kicked it again. Nothing. Pressed her ear to the smooth wood and listened. She could make out yells, screams. "Hey!"
The door yanked open. It was McKnight. Her cap was gone and a thick blond braid had unspooled and fallen down between her shoulders. She held her service pistol, the muzzle leveled down the hallway. Screams and gunfire came from just out of sight to their left.
"Come on. Let's go." The words were sharp, and Selah looked past her for a sign of Williams. She hustled forward, into the hall, and the Sergeant shoved her away from the entrance, where the sound of fighting came. Selah almost tripped over Williams where he lay on the ground, throat torn out. Selah felt her gorge rise, but clamped it down. There was no time. Horrified, she rushed forward and into a large room whose cement walls were lit up with data monitors. Almost all of them showed a null screen, the few that were still up showing crimson progress bars and with the words
Data Burn
over them.
"What's going on? Where are we going?"
"New orders. I'm to get you to a helicopter. You're getting a priority evac."
Selah turned to look at her and tripped, falling hard to the ground. The Sergeant cursed and dropped down next to her, pulling a knife from her belt. She pushed Selah over and cut her flexcuffs with one clean swipe. Selah found that she could barely move her arms--her shoulders were swollen, her arms numb. McKnight sheathed the blade and hoisted her up with a grunt, lifting her to her feet as if she weighed no more than a small child. Selah stared at her, surprised at the Sergeant's strength, and then ducked aside as the other woman raised her pistol and unloaded the clip.
The gunfire was stunningly loud, and Selah turned to stare at the vampire that had drawn McKnight's ire. It was a Japanese kid with spiky pink hair, his shirt torn, several bullets already lodged in his chest, blood smeared horrifically across his grinning visage. The Sergeant hit him with every shot, even as he leaped over a desk, palming its surface so as to vault through the air at them.
God,
thought Selah,
they're so fast when you're just mortal.
Had she once been able to keep up with them? No longer.
The vampire crashed to the ground and writhed there as if its back had been broken, flapping at the ground with its forearms, kicking with its blood-smeared sneakers.
"Move!" McKnight shoved her and they ran, bolting for the back of the large room. Selah shouldered open the door and ran down a short hall, passing open doors where she saw men and women in uniform hurriedly typing at their consoles, barking commands into their shoulder Omnis. Then she was out a large door, back into the night and behind a second blast wall. Before she could run out from behind it, McKnight grabbed hold of her shoulder and hauled her around.