The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

A Final Hunt

Lash could feel his teeth grinding in frustration as he stepped through the door and found the corridor beyond, outside of several blood smears on the walls, empty. He had nearly killed Demaskieros back in the trial chamber a moment ago and now rued his failure. Because, thanks to his modified human allies, the arch traitor was nowhere to be seen. And that bastard so needed to die for his crimes against the Children of the Night!

Easing forward with his Kali ready, Lash studied the corridor's walls, ceiling, and floor for signs the retreating White Flames had left boobytraps in their wake. The modified humans seemed to favor more smash mouth encounters than ambush and traps, but he also knew they adapted on the fly. If they suspected they were being followed, they were more than skilled enough to lay traps for anybody coming behind them to slow them down.

He glanced at the bloody smears that streaked on both sides of the wall. He couldn't be sure they belonged to Demaskieros, who he had struck before his escort could pull him to safety. Or the escort themselves, which he had targeted several times. Normally the scent would tell him vampire blood from human, but with both muddled heavily by nanites, they smelled much the same.

The staccato rhythm of human style firearms discharging somewhere to his left made the big vampire glance in that direction. Were the modified humans simply executing more vampires they had come across? Or, were elements of his security team, or the Silver Legion actually still holding a position inside the fortress walls that impacted the extraction team's path of egress?

Hoping it was more the second than the first, Lash sped up. If that lonely post could hold out for a moment or two longer, that could give him sufficient time to catch up to the extraction team and execute Demaskieros before the White Flames could get him out of reach of vampiric justice.

He went through the door at the short corridor's end. And, as expected, it terminated into a 'T' with a corridor going to the right at a ninety degree angle and another to the left. Left, where he had heard the humans firing their weapons. A quick check to make sure he had plenty of munitions in the Kali he had in his hands, then Lash was gliding down the left corridor, moving as quickly as his tactical caution would allow.

More weapons fire rattled in the distance, although much closer now, and directly in front of him. Hearing it, Lash quickened his pace as much as he dared. 'Night Father, give my feet wings,' he silently prayed as he snapped his Kali to the ready. 'And grant me the strength to bring retribution to the arch traitor and justice for your Children!'

Two more corridors and corners then the big vampire was stepping around a third when several sundogs hummed through the space he was about to occupy. A quick glance around the corner yielded several White Flame operators huddled behind several pieces of battered, and projectile-riddled furniture, their backs to him.

They weren't Demaskieros and his escort, much to the big vampire's disappointment. But there was a good chance they were a rear guard, put in place to hold the vampires up long enough for the escort to clear the castle and get Demaskieros to the extraction team waiting to get them out of the cavern. Take them out and the way to the arch traitor should be clear.

The Kali hummed as he hit full auto then swung the powerful weapon in a tight crescent, much as he had done on his way to the trial chamber. And, exactly as what happened then, the stream of superheated ceramic basically cut the modified humans in half, shattering their makeshift barricade at the same time.

As the operators, now reduced to bleeding pieces of meat, fell awkwardly against the ruins of their shelter, Lash stepped around the corner fully, Kali at the ready, to make sure the modified humans had taken enough damage that their nanites couldn't bring them back from the brink of death. In doing so, he stepped into the line of sight belonging to the handful of vampires that had either been pinned down by the rearguard. Or had pinned the rearguard down, depending on which viewpoint one used.