Descent into Darkness (Major Spoilers for House of Ashes)

Chapter Nine

First through to the other side was Salim, followed by Gabrielle, who he'd helped up. "You doing alright, Salim? That was a close one." She asked, wanting to make sure that he was doing ok, while Jason followed them. "Yes, I'll be fine." Salim answered with an appreciative smile on his face, the pair helping Jason to his feet.

The next person to join them was Nick. "Shit, Nicky! You turned up like the fucking cavalry!" Jason enthused to Nick as he was getting up. "Yeah, we thought you were dead. Glad to be wrong." Gabrielle agreed, Salim walking on ahead to start sweeping the area to make sure it was a safe place to stop.

"Not my time." Nick responded confidentally. Then Eric crawled through, followed by Rachel. Gabrielle had rejoined Salim, taking in the area. There was even more archeological gear dotted around, makeshift tables set up around the edges with notes littered on them. In the middle was yet another oddly shaped console of some sort, some strange statues and a small body of what looked like water a little ways behind the console.

She, considering the ferocity of the vampires, was surprised the explorers had even got this far. "This place..." Salim trailed off. This was the first time she got a moment to stop and properly appreciate what the group had stumbled across. "I've never seen anything like it. Minus the constant threat of death, Joanna would've loved to see something like this." Gabrielle commented.

Once everyone was through, they properly regrouped and huddled round one of the makeshift tables to take a look at whatever they had left and come up with a plan.

Salim was the first to ask about what that plan was. "We fuck those things up and get the fuck out." Jason answered simply. Gabrielle sighed in response, hoping for a more elaborate plan than that. "Good plan!" Salim replied with a hint of sarcasm. Nick then started laying out all the ammo leftover at Jason's request.

What little ammo they had left in the dwindling amount of clips didn't even sound like enough, the group down to their last C4 explosive and two more of the phosphor rounds on top of that.

She was glad that Jason had taken the bundles of dynamite he'd found earlier on their way down. "What about the UV lamp, Colonel?" Jason asked Eric after Nick had finished listing off everything and placing it all on the table.

"Took a knock but I can fix it. Just need a minute." Eric answered. Nick was the next person out of the group to speak up. "All in, it's not enough." He sighed, echoing Gabrielle's thoughts on the matter. That was when Jason took said bundles of dynamite out of his bag and put it with the rest of the ammo. "We've also got this."

Nick took a closer look at one of the bundles while the pair discussed the unpredictability of old explosives. "Fuses are shot, but we can use the C4 to denotate them. Let's just hope they still pack a punch" Nick responded, Jason and Gabrielle relieved the dynamite was still useable without the fuses.

Salim then got involved in the conversation. "The vampires come from those cocoons. You saw how many there were in that vault. There could be thousands in there." He cut in, worried about the overwhelming numbers of those creatures. "So we blow them up. We have the firepower, might as well make use of it." Gabrielle suggested.

Jason nodded in agreement. "Seems, as usual, we're both on the same page then, Gabby. We burn as many of those motherfuckers as we can and head for the surface." He said, before asking for Nick's opinion on the matter, who responded with the marine battlecry. Jason smiled, turning to Salim to hand him a gun. "I'm not gonna allow him to carry a pistol." Rachel protested, but Jason, much to Gabrielle's relief, still gave Salim the gun anyway. "We are way past that point now, ma'am. We stand together as one." Jason told Rachel, still being polite to her.