New Beginnings

19. Carmilla

She woke to the sound of a raging fire.

She woke to the smell of one as well, the stench of burning wood filling her nostrils. The heat she felt on her face panicked her into thinking the fire was close and that she would be burned unless she moved. Once she opened her eyes she saw that the fire was actually a fair way above her, consuming the remnants of the connecting passageway. The heat she felt wasn't due to proximity but to intensity. She wondered, somewhat wryly, whether there had been any oil paintings on either level of the connecting passageway.

She took stock of her situation and looked around.

She was lying on her back, her bare skin could feel stone and she realized she was in the courtyard. Had she fallen? No if she had she'd be dead. Someone must have moved her here. Laura?

Laura.

The thought of Laura hit her like a thunderbolt. Where was she? She had been hurt badly and left alone with a lying snake Carmilla did not trust. How long had she been out? What if Laura needed her? She had to find her.

But when she sat up, it was to a goon sitting in front of her. They were close, but not close enough for her to get within reach before they could bring up the gun they held firmly in their hands. Upon seeing her wake, the goon casually pulled out a radio and spoke Italian into it. Her voice was flat and bored, as if burning buildings full of dead people were something she saw every day.

She was sitting almost underneath the wreckage of the connecting passageway, the almost part being important as every once and awhile a piece of burning debris would fall from it to the ground behind her. The two main corridors were to her left and right in front of her.

Carmilla wasn't tied up or restrained in any way and the knife she'd taken during the fight with the previous goons lay on the ground in front of her, within reach if she stretched. When she saw it the goon's eyes flicked from her to it and then back to her again. The woman's eyes glittered dangerously.

Go ahead and try it. The eyes encouraged. Make my shitty day easier.

Carmilla didn't take the bait. Instead she gave them a casual smile and stretched out languidly. She could play this game. Only one moment of distraction and the goon's day would get a lot worse. Though, she really hoped that moment would come sooner rather than later, a part of her brain refused to stop demanding she find Laura regardless of what was currently happening and it wouldn't be long until that part of started shouting at her.

A door to her left, leading into the Western Corridor opened and another goon came through it. Unlike the woman he had his gun slung over his shoulder. He walked over to them, eyes on Carmilla. Two would be harder, she would have to deal with one quick enough to get close to the other before they could shoot.

Above him, on the second floor of the corridor a third goon appeared, their weapon covering them from a broken window.

Okay, this was getting trickier, she had to admit. Now she needed a distraction, to kill one quickly, maybe use the other as a shield...

Another figure came through of the door behind the second goon.

She blinked once, then a few times more. What she was seeing didn't make any sense. Maybe she'd fallen after all and her brain wasn't working anymore.

The latest figure was unmistakably Gustav. He moved with a limp and is armour vest was gone, which reduced his size slightly, but it was him. Somehow she hadn't managed to kill him.

He winked at her when he saw her. After walking through the door only one side of him was properly visible to her, he kept it that way when he spoke.