A subtle agency omnibus, p.84
A Subtle Agency Omnibus, page 84
part #1 of The Metaframe War Series
Anton almost laughed out loud, stifling it with a hand over his mouth, but Peter’s words broke the tension.
“How do you do that?” Anton whispered. “This looks like madness.”
“Were fighting vampires - what do you expect? A walk in the park? We’re gonna go in there and mess them up. What did you think - you’re gonna survive all this?” Peter rubbed his hands together, then interlaced his fingers, cracking his big knuckles with a sound like stones colliding. “You’ve gotta love the challenge of it all. You could have a long and boring life, or you could fight vampires, really tough vampires, and on their home territory no less … could you walk away from that?”
Anton studied the manor house, his gaze intense, his heart thudding in his ears. “No way.”
“Then don’t worry about it. We’ll be together,” Peter said, he glanced across at Li, who was listening intently on Anton’s right. “That’s right Li, we’ve got each other’s back.”
Li whispered without taking her gaze off the manor house, “Always.”
Walker signaled ‘advance,’ with a waved fist. The team broke up into smaller combat teams to avoid presenting a single target and to allow each small team to cover the other teams. Anton, Peter, and Li advanced together.
Anton put his game face on - shit was about to get real.
* * *
Anton walked on point, Peter, and Li behind him.
He preferred being in front; point was dangerous, the person occupying the role was most likely the first person to contact the enemy. He preferred it because he didn’t want to see his friends getting hurt if he could help it. Too many people he loved had died, he wanted it all to stop - and if he could, he would stop it. There would never be any questions left to ask after a battle. Could he have done more? Had he given his all? Did he do everything he could to save his friends and defeat those who would kill them?
There would be nothing left undone.
He broke into a garden clearing dominated by a stone pool lit by lamps under the water. The lights were artfully placed to illuminate an elegantly carved statue of a crane. The stonework was impeccable, dragging the eye to the curving neck and majestic head of the bird. An apparently simple subject lifted into a sublime expression of repose and alert watchfulness.
Anton stared at the stone, faintly sparkling in the soft, buttery light.
Crane.
* * *
The front doors of the manor house were made of oak banded with iron.
Walker’s command whispered over the tactical link, “Lamb, Slayne, Wu, take us inside.”
Anton half crouched with Peter and Li on either side of the main door, under cover of the eave. Rain continued to patter softly down onto the graveled driveway. The rest of the team members were arrayed in pairs within the gardens, scanning the approaches and searching for threats. At Richard Walker’s direction the combined team was composed of smaller combat teams; Anton, Peter and Li, Jay and Chiara, Francis and Luther, Walker and his youngest team member James Cox, and another pair of experienced warriors, Karen Chapman and David Khan.
Walker had put Anton on point, and the majority of the Mirovar force team at the front of any action. It seemed like people within the Order were still trying to kill him, or was that just paranoia?
Anton didn’t give a damn - they could get in line with the Vampires and the Red Empire - he glanced at Peter and Li.
They both nodded, they were ready.
Anton tried the door handle, the door was unlocked, gliding open on well-oiled hinges. The interior light spilled out in a warm glow on the doorstep.
There was no response from anyone inside, the only greeting was silence. Anton lifted his FN P90 submachine gun in both hands, it was loaded with high performance armor piercing rounds, every fifth bullet was silver. The Blue Dragon was strapped to his back, its handle reaching up over his right shoulder. He paused for a moment, lifting his nightglasses aside and running a gauntleted hand down his face, wiping away the moisture. The last thing he needed was a stray drop of water dripping into his eye at the wrong moment. Fixing his nightglasses back into position, he dropped into silence. He ramped hard, time slowed, and he blurred over the threshold with Peter and Li behind his left and right shoulders.
The manor’s foyer opened up into a large hall, Anton, Peter, and Li blurred to the far corners of the foyer, scanning the hall beyond. The interior of the hall reached up from the ground floor through the first and second floors. Balconies running the lengths of the left and right walls connected with staircases down the walls to the floor.
At the base of the far wall was a large stone fireplace, lit with a roaring fire. Three brilliant chandeliers hung from the ceiling, banishing all shadows from the hall.
Over the fireplace was a single large painting. A portrait of a tall, slim French nobleman dressed for war and carrying an ornate broadsword. His eyes were brown, his hair long and dark. His face was impassive, as if unconcerned by anything that others might do.
Anton dropped the barrel of his gun slightly, his gaze drawn to the portrait.
“Is that Crane?” he whispered. “Is that what he looks like?”
Peter shrugged his shoulders, and Li whispered, “Could be.”
Footsteps padded quietly in the foyer. Jay and Chiara taking up position behind Peter, and Francis, and Luther falling in on the same side as Anton and Li.
Walker commanded over the tactical link, “Clear the upper floors, we don’t want any surprises before we go into the dungeons.”
Anton glanced behind him, everyone was ready.
He led them into the Manor house.
* * *
Anton, Peter, and Li worked to clear the ground floor, the other teams had moved up the stairs to the left and right to search the first and second floors.
There was one wing left to clear on the ground floor. Anton blurred into the room, it was an armory composed of a pair of aisles to either side of a line of cabinets. Unlike the other ground floor rooms, this chamber had no windows, the outside wall was covered in a centuries-old tapestry depicting a French castle. The baron’s shield was displayed on each corner of the tapestry, a blue crane over a silver field.
In the bottom left-hand corner was a short sentence woven in dark-blue thread, ‘Le Baron Cornelius de Grue.’
de Grue, Anton thought, the Crane.
A cold fire burned in his heart, he turned to face the other wall. A portrait of a young dark-haired woman was the sole display, she was dressed in silver, red and black, in the classic style of a 19th century Order of Thoth warrior. She stood in a training arena, the sun behind her, sporting a silver rapier in her right hand and a pistol holstered at her belt. Her expression was relaxed, a slight smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
Anton seethed; it was Chloe Armitage - unchanged to the day he’d last seen her. He approached the painting, a metallic gleam catching his eye. He turned in horror, the cabinet beneath her picture held the assassin’s rapier that had been used to torture and behead his mother.
Memory flooded back - as clear as if it was happening now.
His stomach clenched with nausea; this nightmare had to be over soon. He pushed the last door open, taking a step into the last room on the ground floor.
It was a library, in the center was an open space where half a dozen human forms were covered by a black sheet of fabric. Anton, Peter, and Li entered the room ramped, scanning the walls, ready to respond instantly to any threat.
They circled the sheet, Anton dropping out of his ramp. He knelt next to the sheet and lifted it aside from the first form. He was a tall, lean man, perhaps in his late fifties, with sandy-gray hair and dressed in a well-made black suit.
He was dead, his throat bitten through, his flesh pale with blood loss.
Anton tore the sheet away, revealing six dead, still dressed in their household uniforms and all with the marks of vampire attack.
Peter looked on grimly. “They’ve killed the manor house staff.”
“She’s not planning on coming back here,” Li observed.
Anton nodded. “Let’s make sure she doesn’t leave - ever.”
“Copy that,” Peter remarked, his eyes bright.
Li caught Anton’s gaze and proposed, “Time to bring this to a close.”
Anton agreed, “Once and for all.”
He stood up, glanced around one last time, and led the combat team back out into the hall, he tapped his earbud and reported, “The ground floor is clear.”
“Roger,” Walker responded.
The rest of the Order team moved into the great hall, joined by the other combat teams descending from the floors above.
It was now time to go below.
Into the dungeons.
* * *
The secret stairwell had been charted by the ill-fated mission of Francine Parker and Michael Wilson.
Their path had been captured by their Order nightglasses and recorded by Joan Lewis onto her laptop. Data now reused to chart a path through the dungeons to Kain’s last known location. Each team member could see the path as a ghostly green line overlaid on what they could see with their Order nightglasses.
Anton was the first to reach the bottom of the spiral staircase and take a step onto the second level of the dungeon complex. The first level had been cleared minutes before, and nothing had been found. The combined team proceeded forward, observing mission silence by using hand gestures for communication. Anton was still on point and tactically leading the advance into the dungeon.
The corridor in front of him was well lit by fluorescent lamps bolted onto the stone ceiling a dozen feet overhead. Twenty feet in front of him the corridor branched to the left and right. Another thirty feet past the intersection, the corridor opened up into a well-lit room. The green light ran the length of the corridor and ended in the open room - where Francine Parker and Michael Wilson had died.
Somehow Armitage and Drake had surprised them despite their training, and their failure had cost them their lives.
Anton pushed out into the corridor in front of him, hugging the right-hand wall with his shoulder, his FN P90 submachine gun held up high, pointing exactly where he was looking. Peter and Li were on the other side of the corridor and pacing him as he advanced forward.
Anton glanced back, Jay, Chiara, Francis, and Luther were all in the corridor, the rest of the team had reached the bottom of the stairwell. He lifted his left fist to signal a halt, he caught Peter and Li’s attention with a flick of his hand, indicating the intersection left and right. They would check it thoroughly before proceeding, he didn’t want to be caught the same way Parker and Wilson had been.
Anton, Peter, and Li moved into the intersection and then advanced down the left and right corridors. Both were dead ends, running about seventy feet before reaching bare stone. Jay, Chiara, Francis, and Luther took up positions at the intersection, keeping watch while Peter and Li cleared their end, and Anton cleared his.
A secret door would work here, he thought. Was anything disturbed? He found it moments later, a little mortar fragment on the floor, five feet above it, a stone brick in the wall where the mortar was separated all the way around it as if the brick had been recently removed and put back. He prized the brick free with his fingers, and put it quietly on the floor, revealing a six-inch deep cavity hiding a black-metal lever.
Anton left the lever alone, backing back to the intersection where Francis watched him with proud eyes, and Luther scowled.
Anton pointed to his eyes and back at the lever - this intersection would need to be watched.
Francis nodded and signaled Anton to advance.
Peter and Li came back, their corridor was empty. Together they moved up to the room where Francine Parker had died, and Ramin Kain was last seen alive.
It was empty, except for a set of chains and manacles attached to the left-hand side wall. The flagstones on the floor in front of the chains were still damp, and water had pooled in the grooves between the stones.
Had someone tried to wash something away?
Anton walked over to the chains, stooping down to examine the water. He dipped his finger in it and lifted it up to the light, there was a faint pinkish tinge - traces of blood. Was it Kain’s? It seemed likely it was.
Anton shook his head, Kain wasn’t here, he must have been moved. Anton stared down the last corridor, it opened up into a much larger space. He flicked his left hand toward it, it was time to go down it. It was the last unexplored space under the manor, it had to be where Kain would be if he were still here.
Anton reached the threshold first. He sidled up to the edge of the opening and looked inside, the well-lit chamber was sixty yards across and twice that deep. The ceiling must have been at least twenty feet high. Two corridors branched off into darkness on both sides, and the chamber narrowed to a final corridor that led to the external cliff face, a cold draught coming from that direction.
It was empty.
“What the hell!” he whispered harshly. How could it come to this? All that effort for nothing, Kain was gone. Armitage and Drake had already left - unless they were hiding in the corridors branching off the chamber - but, why do that? What could possibly be the advantage of doing that?
“Silence Slayne,” Walker barked. “Joan just went dark, comms are down.”
A figure emerged from the far-left corridor and proceeded to walk into the chamber - it was Ramin Kain.
“RK!” Luther called out, pushing past Anton.
“Sam,” Kain declared, smiling, and opening his arms wide. “I knew you would rescue me from this hell hole.”
Luther jogged forward, his katana still sheathed, his FN P90 carried before him.
Walker shouted, “Sam, stop.”
Luther ignored him.
Francis snapped, “Defensive positions everyone.”
Walker whirled on Francis and thundered, “Don’t give orders, this is my jurisdiction.”
Francis stared incredulously at Walker, pointed at Luther running toward Kain, and shouted, “Mon Dieu?”
Luther enthused, “Ramin! You’re safe?”
“Quite so,” Ramin observed, his smile broadening.
“I knew you would survive.”
“And right you are Sam. Loyal Sam, good Sam, I knew I could trust you above all others to find me.”
Anton watched in horror as Luther got within touching distance of Kain.
Kain’s eyes were filled with hunger.
Chapter Twenty Six
“You shall not allow a vampire to live.” - Quote from The Way of the Faithful, a book of Red Empire lore.
* * *
Armitage Manor, The Dungeons, Yorkshire, August 22nd, 20:46
Li ramped hard, power coruscated through her body, time slowing down to a crawl.
Even ramped, Kain’s movement was quick, striking like a snake, his hands snapping forward to grasp Luther’s shoulders, his face lunged forward, his mouth agape, his new fangs gleaming in the overhead lights.
He hit Luther’s throat hard, blood jetting to the left and right.
Li lifted her FN P90, the barrel lining up on the center of Kain and Luther’s bodies. Luther was falling to his knees, Kain following him down - still horrifically attached to his neck. Luther was doomed, there was no way he was going to survive the violence of Kain’s hunger. She pulled the trigger, her submachine bursting into life, the bullets flashing down toward the two men.
She never saw them land.
* * *
Li’s world turned to mirrors.
A mirrored corridor appeared around her.
The three-round burst she’d just fired disappeared through a mirror a handful of feet short of where Kain and Luther had been standing. The mirror absorbed the rounds, three wave-like ripples emanated out from an inch-wide point four feet off the ground, flexing across the mirror before disappearing along its edge.
“What?” she whispered.
She whirled around; the mirrored walls ran from floor to ceiling. She was boxed in a long-mirrored corridor on all sides stopping where the rear wall of the chamber had been.
She tried to remember in exact detail how the mirrors had come into existence, they’d grown in an instant, congealing, seemingly out of thin air.
Voices started swearing across the chamber, everyone else was trapped too.
Li touched the nearest mirror with the barrel tip of her gun, it was solid with a slightly plastic ‘tap,’ sound on contact. While perfectly reflective, its behavior when shot indicated it was nothing like a regular mirror.
She put her FN P90 down, allowing it to hang from its straps at her side. The Green Dragon hissed clear of its scabbard, its majestic blade reflecting into infinity within the mirrored hall.
Whatever was about to happen, Li felt sure it would be settled with the blade and nothing else. She advanced forward, approaching her image in the far mirror.
The image of herself distorted, the walls were moving, running like fluid as they reshaped to a new configuration. Her teammates shouted warnings to each other, the hall around her was shortening, the far wall evaporating to reveal a doorway into a larger chamber.
The maze fell into silence; everyone watched and waited.
A chill clawed at her heart, she blinked, pushing it away - fear would only slow her down.
“Your move Armitage,” she whispered. “I’m ready.”
* * *
Gossamer!
The quantum field activated smart material had been on the drawing board when the Raven had been inserted into the Mirovar force team. As the Red Ghost’s child, they’d been instructed in the strategies for technical advancement being pursued by the Red Empire. Clearly, the technology of Gossamer had been perfected.
There had to be a control system nearby. A system that would be compatible with the Red Empire software hidden on their smartphone. They held back a couple of steps from the other Order team member trapped with them. They needed to be careful, what they were about to attempt could not be discovered and would have to be done fast. Gossamer was perfect for maze traps, and its deployment here meant that Armitage must need all of its special capabilities. Now was the opportunity to thwart her plans by bringing the maze down.
