The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

An Old Friend

It was several hours later that found Lash in one of the Silver Legion's spare officer's quarters, finally getting some rest after several days of frantic activity, heavy damage, and soul-destroying relentless pursuit by their enemies. After a shower to remove the final traces of his most recent dunk in a blood tank and donning a fresh Silver Legion uniform, he had asked to see the Ventru nestari currently ensconced in the guardhouse. Only to be politely but firmly refused.

Seeing few other options open to him, he then requested quarters to get some rest until the Conclave either summoned him before them once more. Or granted him and his nestari permission to leave and continue on to Brussels where a confrontation with the traitorous Anna van Tallert loomed. And he was immediately shown to the quarters he now occupied.

Resigned, for the moment at least, to his current trajectory, Lash meditated for nearly an hour to continue the process of centering his mind that Mimsy's blood meal began. That was followed by some light calisthenics and stretching. Then, after what felt like an eternity since he last was in a bed at the safehouse in Dublin, he climbed into the plain, but comfortable bed the quarters was equipped with and immediately went to sleep.

It wasn't hard; besides being physically worn and mentally exhausted, his service in the various military branches of the vampire nation had taught him to get sleep when and where he could, like a good soldier did. And that meant dropping off as soon as he was horizontal.

And, as a firm knock on the door had him instantly awake and fully alert, it had also taught him how to be awake and ready with the lightest of stimulation.

"Yes?" he called out, sitting up by swinging his legs around to put his feet on the floor. Lit by a single infrared light, much like the bedrooms at the safehouses were, he had plenty of illumination to see to the door, some fifteen feet distant from the bed and where it sat against the far wall.

Half expecting one of the legionnaires guarding his door to say he was being summoned back to Conclave, he was surprised when, instead:

"An old friend would like to see you," a familiar woman's voice replied.

Standing, Lash frowned as he tried to place the voice which, undoubtedly, sounded like someone he knew. But who? And why would they be here if they weren't Silver Legion? Because no lilith he knew sounded so powerless, for the lack of a better description. Rather, without the extra vibrancy and timber being a queen of the night seemed to bring to a vampiress's voice. Whoever it was, they were an ordinary vampiress, yet didn't belong to his group of Ventru nestari. Who wouldn't have identified themselves that way regardless.

With his patience finally running out at being unable to identify the speaker, he called out:

"Come."

The door immediately swung open and a vampiress in the uniform of the Silver Legion stepped in. Looking past her, Lash could see he now warranted four legionnaires as his guard, an increase over the two that warded his door after he was given the room to sleep in. Then he was refocusing on his visitor as she closed the door behind her.

"Couldn't figure out who I was, could you," she asked with a bright, excited smile as she stepped into the light cast by the infrared lamp.

"Not quite," he freely admitted with a frown.

"I'm hurt," she said, her smile never wavering. "Then again, it's been a decade and a half since we last spoke, so I almost don't blame you." She stopped a couple paces away. "After all, look what you've become: a giant filled with fire and vengeance!"

She then looked down at herself.

"And I'm a bit taller, my boobs are a bit bigger and my ass a little wider."