The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Clean Up

For a long moment the two sides traded gunfire, the vampires relying on their more resilient bodies and powerful body armor to keep them out in the open and able to focus more readily on their targets. Then, with another White Flame spun around by yet another tight burst from Bronwyn and dropped, the humans began to slowly fall back. As they did, the vampires began to advance.

Lash's breath was rattling in his throat when Truk reached over and hammered three kickstarts into his shoulder as he used tactical advance strides to go past him. Then Narcist was putting two more into his other side on her way by, the two vampires taking up a position just behind him to cut off the incoming fire and guard his back. There, standing in wide stances and shoulder to shoulder, they hammered away at the retreating humans.

The big vampire shuddered as the kickstarts, fueled by werewolf blood and a veritable cocktail of stimulants and rapid action meds, began to knit his tattered body back together. Then he was opening wide eyes that had nearly closed from the effects of his failing body to look back into Fiadh's worried face. Seeing the haze that had nearly closed over his eyes being pushed back by the force of his will and the power of the five kickstarts surging through his body, she nodded.

"Kill them, my wolf," she said in a quiet, yet fierce voice. "Kill them all!"

Nodding, Lash renewed his grip on the Shanzi, made slick by his own blood pouring down his arm and over the contoured grip. Then he was pivoting on a knee, his face twisted into a silent snarl of pure vampiric fury. Reaching between his fellow Ventru, he opened up with the machine pistol, hurling a stream of lightning hot ceramic through the night air to cut three White Flames down in a single surge.

Then, his strength beginning to return, he rose to his feet and joined Narcist and Truk in cutting down the remaining humans, the power of the futuristic machine pistol destroying any cover they thought they had. Behind them Bronwyn smoothly moved forward to sling her assault rifle then take Fiadh by the hand to quickly lead her back to the safehouse.

As skilled as the White Flames were, bolstered by their nanites and their own training, the firefight lasted several minutes longer than the vampires wanted. Still, breaking into a more mobile formation, it was satisfying hunting the last of them down and putting a bullet into each of their heads.

Truk looked over at Lash as the frowning giant pulled what was left of his body armor, and the neural armor off his torso and, along with what was left of his shirt and hoodie, and threw it all onto the ground. And in doing so, saw just how much the White Flames' weapons fire had ravaged the big vampire's body.

Bullet holes were so close together in his torso, they blended into larger holes that, while they were just starting to close, still oozed blood down onto Lash's blood-soaked pants. They had avoided passing through his body and striking Fiadh only by virtue of the front part of Lash's body armor. And, when Lash turned around, he revealed a back that resembled ground meat more than it did muscle and skin. Even as his eyes fell onto it, Truk watched as the big vampire's healing body pushed several slugs out of the tattered flesh to drop with dull thuds to the ground.

"Better not go through a metal detector any time soon," Narcist said as she lifted her boot off the side of the last White Flame's neck, the man dying right after she had pumped several rounds into his head.

"I guess a commercial flight out of Dublin is out, then," Truk dryly noted. "We won't make it twenty meters without Full Metal Jacket here giving us away!"

They both smiled when they heard Lash quietly laugh at that, the big vampire usually dour to the point of grimness. Then he was bending down to scoop up the data vault he had tossed towards the human to begin their counterattack. A quick look at it, then he was tossing it to Narcist.