The Crucivire

Chapter Twenty Six: Heartfelt Words and Unleashed Horror

The elder vampires Victor, Harold, Fara and Archibald stood around a table, their eyes closed. They communicated in the mindscape, with victor sending out images to the other elders.

"The Night Hunter facility has three main defenses," said Victor. "The first is the mansion itself. There are night hunters whose job is simply to live in that mansion. Since the mansion is their home, no vampire save a feral one can enter uninvited."

Victor sent them images of night hunters going through training exercises, eating, and sleeping in the mansion.

"Second," he continued. "We'll have to get past the electronic security system."

He sent them images of keypads, hand scanners, eye scanners, and electronic doors.

"Last, but not least, the facility's sprinkler system is connected to a tank blessed by a priest on a daily basis. If any vampires breach the facility, they can be killed by holy water raining down from the ceiling."

He showed them images of a priest standing over a gigantic water tank crossing himself as he blessed the water. Victor then showed water from that tank flowing through pipes and out of sprinklers, burning the skin of vampires in the hallways.

Victor then dismissed the images, and the vampires opened their eyes to speak in the real world.

"The electronic security and the holy water were accounted for long ago," said Victor. "Through a technique Harold and I developed together; a means to install a mental command into someone and hide it from mental monitoring. It is done by installing the command slowly over a number of years, taking shape deep inside the subconcious until it can triggered at a later date. To make sure it stays hidden from psychics, no other mental tampering must be attempted, making it effectively a one off.

"You won't be able to control that person outside of that singular command, but they will obey that command, and then have no memory of it once it is done. We already used a command to allow Terry Caldwell access to the same training sesson as Alice Hayes, but we have two more mental commands inserted into four night hunter agents with security clearance. Two to disable the security, and two to nullify the holy water. If things go as planned, we'll only need one of each."

"A sneaky trick," said Archibald approvingly. "I like it. But how did you insert the commands without the Night Hunters knowing? Surely they would know if a relative of the target was kidnapped?"

Victor smirked, "Unless they didn't know they were related. You'd be surprised how many humans get away with infidelity. It's simple; a man has a child with his wife, and get's away with cheating on her, having a child with another woman. The child of his wife then grows up to be a Night Hunter, blissfully ignorant of having a half sibling. After years of observing the Night Hunters stationed at Saint Vivia, we were able to find people with similar scents who otherwise have no connection. By making the secret half siblings our thralls, we have back doors into the Night Hunters' minds that the hunters cannot possibly anticipate."

"My dear Victor," said Archibald. "And Harold, you've outdone yourself with this."

"It's impressive, I suppose," said Fara nonchalantly. "Now, how do you plan to deal with the rule of invitation?"

"With the ferals I have altered," said Victor.

"Uh uh," said Arichald, "You know, Victor, I may just a half mad vampire with a fantasatic sense of humor and loads of charm..." Fara snorted derisively and Harold rolled his eyes... "But even I can see the obvious problem with that plan. Feral vampires do not require an invitation to enter, sure, but the Night Hunters will make short work of them. With bright lights, strong smells, and those sonic devices, the ferals will be rendered helpless. We can't train animals to resist such things as we train our more rational forces."