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This work is fiction. The work has no relationship with any person existing at any time anywhere whether real or imaginary or copywritten. Everything in this work is mea culpa.
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A Little Blue
Fourteen
09/09/09 1900 Cairnryan, Scotland
General Milne leaned back in his chair and waved Ciaran and Baker into seats. He didn’t have a desk and was using a table in the house he was staying in. “Lieutenant Travers said you needed to speak to me and that it was important. What is it?”
Ciaran looked at Baker. She shook her head angrily. “You tell him. It’s your mission.”
Milne blinked. “What is going on here, captain? I thought you two were a team.”
“So did I, sir.”
Ciaran sighed. “General, are you aware that there’s a group of people who formed a resistance cell against the Blues here in the Cairnryan area?”
“The mayor mentioned that fact to me, but went on to say that they were unimportant to us. Why?”
“I was contacted by them when I was first in Cairnryan and pretending to be a Blue. They provided me with some information about the situation and I helped them out a little in return. When we got back with the relief expedition, I was contacted by them again. I was told that they rescued the Irish sailors and have them in their possession. I know you’re looking for them and I want to go get them, but I thought it was wise to get your blessing first.” He glanced at Baker. “The problem is they feel they’ve been treated almost as poorly by the Royals as they were by the Blues and they say they only trust me to go the rendezvous. They don’t even want Captain Baker to go with me, which is the cause for our current disagreement.”
“Why do they think we’ve treated them poorly?”
Ciaran met the general’s gaze directly. “I was told that this is the third time Royal forces have had to liberate Cairnryan. They feel that a proper garrison would have kept the Blues from ever coming back after the first attack.
Milne rubbed his eyes. “They’re right but we don’t have the forces to station garrisons in every village in the kingdom.”
“That isn’t going to matter to them and we all know that.” Ciaran pulled himself back on track. “What about my going to get the Irish sailors?”
Milne didn’t look happy. “I don’t like it. They might be planning to take you prisoner.”
Ciaran and his women had considered that possibility, but couldn’t come up with a good reason for the partisans to want him as a bargaining chip. He couldn’t offer them any immediate benefit and trying to catch him would only get them a world of grief from his harem and, later, possibly the Royal government. “I’m taking my harem with me, general. These people said they trust me, which is wonderful. I, however, feel a little trust goes a long way. And a little trust is all they’re getting. At the first sign of trouble we will run away as fast as we possibly can.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“I was told it will take less than a week to go and return. If things change I will contact Captain Baker and advise her of any changes when I find out about them.”
Milne frowned. “You can do that?”
“Both of us have the computers that my employer has been selling to the Royals,” Ciaran explained. “I gave her that one as a gift, so it’s not government property either.”
Baker looked surprised. “You did? I thought it was part of the inventory designated for my government.”
He shook his head. “I bought it for you so in theory you couldn’t have it confiscated by some supercilious official who envied your possessions.” He looked at Milne. “With it, she and I can communicate anywhere in the British Isles. That’s part of what my employer is selling to your government.”
“I will be happier when that equipment is in more common circulation.”
“So will us all, general,” Ciaran replied.
Milne leaned back in his chair. “The mayor didn’t know who the leader of the freedom fighters is. Do you?”
Ciaran shook his head again. “No, I don’t, and before you ask I know one person in the chain and I have not been given permission to release his name.”
Milne looked thoughtful. “What if I got a psychic pokegirl to get the name from you? Then you wouldn’t have to actually give it to me.”
“If you do that then you’re invading my privacy and at that point we will have a problem.” Ciaran met the general’s gaze unflinchingly. “Now what the Irish tell you once they’re back I have no control over, but you’d have to let me go get them before they could tell you anything.”
Milne’s lips twisted like he’d bitten into a lemon. “Can I really forbid you from going?”
Ciaran shrugged. “No, you probably can’t forbid me but you might be able to convince me not to go. I would much rather be on my way to Ireland instead of being the errand boy for some group of Scots. If you can come up with a good reason why I shouldn’t go, I’ll listen to it.” He smiled slightly. “And if I have to go, I’d rather do it with some kind of official authorization. It’s a lot easier than sneaking out of Cairnryan in the middle of the night. Besides, if I have your knowing permission and you don’t do anything underhanded like try to track us, it might help to show these people that the Royals can still be trusted and make them more helpful for you in the future.”
Milne surprised himself with a chuckle. “Very well, Mr. Sullivan, you may go with my reluctant blessing. I would like you to stay in touch with Captain Baker during the trip, however.”
Ciaran nodded. “I’ll contact her in the morning and again in the evening if you’d like.”
“I would indeed, Mr. Sullivan.” He looked at Baker. “Captain, you will be given a pass so you will have immediate access to me without having to bother with any of my staff. You are to use it if anything untoward happens to Mr. Sullivan or if you feel the slightest suspicion that something is going on that he might not be aware of.”
“Yes sir,” Baker replied crisply.
“Is there anything else, Mr. Sullivan?”
Ciaran recognized the dismissal and rose. “No, general, and I thank you for your time.”
“My time will have been well spent if you can retrieve those sailors without them suffering any more trouble. They’ve been poorly treated since they arrived on my country’s soil and I would like that to stop.”
“I will do what I can,” Ciaran reassured him.
General Milne held up a hand. “Captain Baker, please remain for a moment.” Ciaran and Baker exchanged a glance before he silently left. Milne waited until the door was shut. “Captain, is there a problem between you and Mr. Sullivan?”
“I do not believe there is, sir.”
“Then why are you unhappy with him?”
“Sir, I am his liaison. I should be going with him on this trip.”
Milne nodded. “I agree that you should, captain, and I suspect that Mr. Sullivan isn’t entirely pleased about the situation either. Unfortunately, right now these partisans have the upper hand in the negotiations. Once we have the Irish back things will have to be reassessed, but for the moment they can dictate terms to us. I will freely admit that I am glad they have the sailors. It turns out that the Blues were going to murder them to keep them out of our hands. I am not pleased that they don’t trust their own government enough to return them to us without involving Sullivan, but that is an issue that will have to be resolved another day.” He smiled. “Congratulations on your promotion and your upcoming medal, by the way.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I will want daily reports on Sullivan’s progress, captain. I think you should deliver those after you’ve spoken to him in the evening.” He raised an eyebrow. “However, like I said before, if there is a problem or you even think there might be one, inform me immediately. Considering the current fondness for him that the government has I do not want to be the man who let Sullivan die through inaction on my part.” He fixed Baker with a hard look. “And you do not want to be the woman who made it possible.”
“Yes sir, I understand.”
09/10/09 0530 Cairnryan, Scotland
“Morning, Ciaran.”
He smiled slightly as Baker headed straight for the coffee. “Good morning to you, Tamsin. I am surprised to see you up at this time of the morning.”
She gave him a look. “You’ve been training me to get up this early every day and I was concerned you might try to slip away before I could talk to you.”
“And yet, here we are,” Victoria said as she handed Baker a cup. “You needn’t have worried.” The glance she shot Ciaran belied her apparent ease, but nothing showed in her tone or body language.
He knew she was concerned because Woolsey had gone out only a few minutes before Baker had appeared, but he wasn’t worried. Woolsey had given him all the details he needed before she’d left. He was supposed to meet Karen at the east side of the village near a tall sturdy tree that was called the Hanging Oak. He’d seen it on his first visit to Cairnryan and had learned then that poor tree was called the Hanging Oak because legend had that, long ago, condemned criminals had been strung up in its branches. Nobody had any evidence that it had ever really been used as such, but it did make for a colorful story. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
She laughed. “Don’t worry, Ciaran. I may be British and my people may be among the most stubborn and tenacious ones to walk the Earth but even I have tired of trying to talk you out of going. I wanted to ask if you’d decided when I should expect for you to contact me each day.”
He smiled. “I have set up reminders to call you at sunup and sundown. Unless I am involved with something where I absolutely cannot spare the time to do so, you can expect to hear from me around those times. If you don’t answer, I’ll leave a message. If there’s an emergency you can call me, but I will only have my phone on vibrate and I might miss it. I’m not going to have it make noise and call a feral in to attack or give someone a target to shoot at.”
Ceres came inside. She was wiping her tongue on an old towel, leaving a dark stain on the fabric. “The soil here is too acidic for coffee. I’d have to prep it too much to adjust the pH into something suitable to be able to plant seeds today. It will have to wait until we return.”
Baker gave her an incredulous stare. “You eat the dirt?”
The Tantrasaur chuckled. “Of course I do not. I am not that kind of pokegirl. I taste the soil to see how good it is for something I want to grow there.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Elsa said as she entered the kitchen. “If anyone recognized what the plant was they’d strip it bare for the coffee beans. Considering the IQs involved, someone would probably eat green coffee fruit and we’d end up blamed for the ensuing mess.” She grabbed a couple of scones and sat down next to Ciaran. “How does that work, Ceres? I thought you could grow plants in any dirt.”
Ceres gave her a flat look. “I can grow any plant in any soil. Soil is not just dirt. However, plants grow better in soil that they are suited for. In the case of coffee, the quality of the soil heavily influences the flavor imparted to the beans. Bad soil has unpredictable results, resulting in coffee with sometimes unpleasant flavors. Is that what you want?”
Elsa smiled. She enjoyed needling people. “What does tasting the soil do?”
“I taste the plant to get an idea of what it likes and then taste the soil to see if it’s the right soil for that specific plant species. That gives me the information I need to change the soil’s properties to best suit the plant I want to put in it.”
Elsa opened her mouth and Ciaran tapped his spoon on the tabletop. Everyone looked at him as he gave the Mazouku a flat stare. “Are you ready to go yet?”
Elsa’s ears flicked uncertainly. “I just need a few minutes to finish packing my things.”
“Well, Ceres is already packed. Since she had some spare time while we’re waiting for everyone else, she decided to test the soil to see if we could leave some coffee growing for our return. You, on the other hand, are wasting our time trying to get a rise out of her. Unless you want to drink coffee that tastes like unwashed socks I’d suggest you stop trying to aggravate her, finish eating and then complete whatever tasks you need to do so we can leave.”
Elsa looked down at the scones and put them down on the table. “I’ll finish packing and then I can eat these on the road if I have to.”
Ceres watched her leave before looking at Ciaran. “She was not bothering me. Elsa was just being Elsa.”
“Yes she was and apparently I’m not in the mood for her to just be Elsa,” he replied.
Victoria picked up the scones and wrapped them in a piece of cloth to keep them clean. “What is the matter?”
He shook his head. “There’s something about this trip I just don’t like.”
“Do you think these people will try something with us?”
Ciaran shrugged. “If I had something other than a cold feeling between my shoulder blades I would have told you already and we wouldn’t be going. It’s probably the fact that I want to get to Ireland so we can get this mission over with and this is just a distraction from that.”
Ceres sat down across from him. “Ninhursag told me that we weren’t on a specific schedule.”
“We aren’t, but that doesn’t mean I want to be traipsing around for the next five years while waiting for,” he jerked his head towards Baker, “her boss to make up her mind about meeting with us.”
“I’ll send another message while you’re gone,” Baker said quietly.
He looked at her. “What happens if that one doesn’t get a reply? I’m not normally big into trespassing, but would you just go ahead and take us there?"
She blinked. “Without having permission to do so, bad things would happen to all of us once we arrived.”
“That’s just lovely.” He shrugged. “I can’t make her decide. All I can do is eventually just let Iain know that I’m done waiting.”
Eliana entered the kitchen as he finished speaking. “You’re not waiting for me, are you? I mean Elsa’s the one who isn’t ready now and she’s almost done.”
Ciaran chuckled in spite of himself. “I wasn’t talking about that, but I’m glad we’ll be leaving soon.” He looked at Ceres. “The sooner we get started the sooner we’ll get back.”
She nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”
Elsa almost trotted into the kitchen with her pack. “I do not need taken care of. I am ready to go now.”
“Good,” Ceres said. “Help Victoria clean up in here. Eliana, get everyone’s gear outside.” Ciaran,” she paused, “think about why you might have misgivings. Your subconscious might be trying to tell you something that we’ve all missed.”
He got up. “I can help Eliana carry things outside while doing that.”
09/10/09 0630 Cairnryan, Scotland
Ciaran stopped at the Hanging Tree and looked around for Woolsey. He blinked when she moved out of the shadows. She was wearing an old camouflage military uniform not that different from the one he still had from masquerading as a Blue. On her back was slung a light backpack and she carried a crossbow easily in the crook of her arm. She smiled at his expression. “For generations my family has had poachers in it on both of my parent’s sides. Since he didn’t have a son, my dad taught me everything he could.”
Elsa sniffed the air. “I can barely smell your scent.”
“It’s an old poacher’s trick. My clothes stay packed with fir and hawthorn so that’s what I smell like when I wear them. I don’t have a pokegirl of my own, so I have to sneak through the forest.”
“And the crossbow keeps the noise down so you don’t attract other pokegirls if you have to defend yourself,” Ceres said.
“Yes, but originally it was so the lord’s men didn’t hear the lord’s pheasants and rabbits being taken.”
Ciaran grinned. “I’m afraid we don’t sneak.”
Karen grinned back. “I wouldn’t mind not having to do it myself.”
Victoria cocked her head. “You could get a pokegirl.”
“I live in town and she would be noticed. Besides, sex with another woman is a sin.”
Ciaran nodded. It was a common enough stand on pokegirls. “I understand. Ceres, let’s get going.”
The Tantrasaur didn’t hesitate. “Karen, stay close to Ciaran if you would and indicate the way. Eliana, you’re on point.” She looked at Victoria. “I know you and Elsa are going to be working while we travel, but both of you need to help keep an eye on our surroundings.”
“I will,” the Angel replied.
“Me too,” Elsa echoed. “I am still Ciaran’s bodyguard.”
“We’ll stop early each day so they get some uninterrupted time to train,” Ciaran said. “Even with us doing that we should still make better time than a person sneaking through the woods by herself.” He shifted his pack on his shoulders and started forward.
09/12/09 1325 Isle of Whithorn, Scotland
The bullet hit the rock to the left and behind Woolsey with a sharp crack and whined off into the distance, leaving a white mark on the stone. Ciaran instantly, threw himself flat and began crawling for cover as the sound of the shot reached them. He noted that Woolsey reacted almost as fast as he did as she did the same thing he’d just done.
Elsa moved as fast as he did, but Ceres unconcernedly sauntered behind a piece of building. She picked up a chunk of stone as big as her head and slowly slid it to the side and out of cover of the wall she was behind. A hiss of air sounded as a bullet whipped past the rock. She pulled the rock back into hiding. Several seconds later there was a broken off yell. Ceres glanced towards him. Eliana located the shooter by his second shot and she has captured him. It’s a human male. I told her to bring him here by a roundabout route in case there are other gunmen we haven’t located yet.
Ciaran made a show of whispering into his phone and looked at Woolsey. “Eliana caught the shooter and is bringing him here.”
Woolsey nodded. “Him?”
“Yes, it’s a man. I hope that it turns out he’s one of the people you know from out here and not some stray Blue.” He grimaced. “We’re not prepared to keep prisoners on top of everything else that’s going on.”
Elsa smiled, showing the tips of her canines. “Don’t worry. If he’s a Blue I’ll take care of it.”
“We are not murdering people out of hand,” Ciaran said firmly. “If it comes to it, I’ll cut him loose with a pistol and a box of ammunition nearby but out of his immediate reach until we’re safely away from him.”
“Turning a human loose out here with just a pistol is just a slower way of doing what I would,” Elsa argued.
“You should like it that way,” he countered. “He gets fear for a while and then death.”
“Yes, I do like that idea but there’s no fun in it for me if someone else gets to kill him.”
“I caught him,” Eliana said as she came up holding a limp figure firmly in her hands. “If anyone is going to kill him it should get to be me.”
Woolsey looked at the prisoner. “I am sorry to dash your hopes but I know him. He is one of the people we’ve come out here to meet. Did you have to hit him?”
“I did not,” Eliana said with an amused twist to her lips. “He yelped and then passed out when I grabbed him.”
Ciaran shook his head. “Put him down. Where is his weapon?”
The Samhain turned to present her equine body. Stuck through the webbing of her harness were a scoped rifle with a sound suppressor and a pack. “He had a radio. I put it in his backpack.” She dropped the body unceremoniously on the ground before handing him the pack and weapon. Apparently once she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to kill him she’d lost all interest in her captive. “I will sweep again for more people.” Moving from piece of cover to piece of cover, she headed off into the village.
Ciaran dropped the man’s gear, retrieved the medical kit from his own pack and offered Woolsey an ammonia capsule from it. “Crush this and wave it under his nose. That should wake him up in short order.”
Woolsey knelt next to him, crushed the capsule and almost stuffed it into the man’s nose. He gasped and began coughing. “Wake up, Johansson, and tell me why you tried to kill me and my friends.”
Johansson opened his eyes and tried to grab the capsule. “Get that bloody thing away from me, Karen.”
“Don’t you Karen me,” Woolsey said as she sat back, taking the capsule with her. “Right now it’s Miss Woolsey to you, Duncan Johannsson.” She held up the capsule between her thumb and forefinger. “Unless you want me to be putting this as far up your nose as I can, tell me why you were shooting at us.”
“You damned woman, I thought you were the bloody monsters come for me!”
“Monsters?” They both turned to look at Ciaran. “What monsters?”
“We dinna know. They come in the night and steal a man away without nary a sound. In the morning there’s always one less of us.”
“It’s not night,” Elsa said cuttingly. “It won’t be for several hours.”
“What about your pokegirls,” Ceres asked. “Can’t they defend you?”
“They haven’t seen anything to fight,” Johannsson said. “Nobody has.”
“What about the Irish sailors,” Ciaran interjected. “How are they?”
“Other than being as frightened as everyone else is, they’re fine. They don’t stand guard and it’s the guards that’re being taken.”
Ciaran looked at Elsa and Ceres, but he asked the same question of Victoria and Eliana over his twee. “What could be doing this?”
Elsa shrugged. “It could be any of several breeds doing this.”
“Many of those would have just killed everyone at once,” Ceres disagreed. “That reduces the number of potential pokegirls significantly. We won’t know which it is until we see one, though.”
Elsa’s ears flicked. “I might be able to identify one by scent if I’ve encountered her breed before, but I should be able to see her at that point.”
Ceres looked at Ciaran. “We’ll have to stand guard tonight, but we have the best chance of identifying what is doing this and stopping her.”
“Then I guess we’re standing guard tonight. Something that’s picking off the guards will eventually start in on the other people staying here unless they’re stopped.”
Elsa’s ears flattened for a heartbeat. “We could just watch and follow when one of the normal guards is taken. It’s less dangerous for us.” She held up a hand when Ciaran glared at her. “I have to offer the option even though I know you’re going to reject it. If we are to advise you all of the possible plans should be laid out for you to examine.”
His glare softened. “I don’t necessarily agree, but I understand what you’re doing. I doubt I’d let that happen to Blues, either.”
“Her plan could be modified into something better,” Ceres said. “We could stand back and intervene when one of the sentries is attacked. That would allow us to concentrate our forces against whoever is doing this. If we’re the only sentries then we could be defeated in detail without achieving anything useful against our enemies.”
“The partisans would have to be willing to be bait,” Ciaran said. He looked at Woolsey. “Think they’d do that?”
Duncan laughed bitterly. “We’re doing it now, only without anyone backing us up.”
Woolsey frowned. “We need to talk to Smith. He’s the only one who could authorize your idea.”
Ciaran nodded. “Let’s talk to him then. Lead us in, Miss Woolsey.”
She smiled suddenly. “Miss Woolsey is it now? You were calling me Karen.”
“I’m sorry, Karen. Please lead us to the others.”
“I’d be glad to, Ciaran.”
09/12/09 1500 Isle of Whithorn, Scotland
Stephen Smith was a tiny man, barely five feet tall, but he radiated an energy, whether sitting or standing, that made him seem much larger than he was. His eyes were bright blue and glittered in a sea of white and brown from his unkempt hair and bristly beard. He looked at Woolsey with ill-concealed curiosity. “I thought ye said his name was Culpepper?”
“I did. He was using that name when I first met him, but in fact he’s actually a Sullivan. Ciaran Sullivan.”
Smith turned his gaze on Ciaran. “Are ye? Where are ye from?”
“I’m from Texas, but both of my parents are from County Cork. I’ve still got kin there and it’s one of the places I intend to visit before I leave the Isles.”
“Why have ye come here?”
“Karen told me that we were the only people she’d trust to bring the Irish back and not betray you or the fact that you’ve got your own pokegirls.”
Smith frowned. “We?”
“Me and my ladies.”
“You count them as people?” Elsa’s lips thinned but she managed not to bristle.
“I do. Either they’re people or I’m guilty of a terrible sin.”
“What sin would that be, boy?”
“Bestiality.”
Smith cackled. “True enough, boy, but I doubt we treat ours the way you do yours.”
“I’m not here to pass judgment on you, Mr. Smith. I came here to get the sailors, but I might be able to figure out what’s attacking your people and stop the attacks while I’m here.” He shrugged. “If you don’t want that help, I can just get the sailors and leave now while it’s still light.”
Smith shook his head vigorously. “I’m not turning down yer offer of help, Sullivan. I doubt any of the people I’ve lost are still alive and I can’t afford to lose any more of them. We’ll stand as bait for you if you can stop the attacks.”
“I’ll do what I can, Mr. Smith. Now, tell me everything your people know about what’s going on.”
09/12/09 2330 Isle of Whithorn, Scotland
The partisans had their base in an old fortress that dated back several hundred years which sat on the edge of town and had been converted into a museum sometime in the 1920s. Not being stupid, they hadn’t posted sentries on top of the structure where they could be picked off by passing flying pokegirls. Instead they’d put their guards in improvised nests in nearby buildings and stationed them close enough for mutual support. The geometry of the arrangement had made it so they were unable to use their original plan, and it had been modified so now Ciaran and his ladies were in one of these nests and keeping an eye on the other posts along with their own.
More accurately, Victoria and Ceres were watching the other posts while Ciaran, Elsa and Eliana slept. Ceres checked the time on her phone and kicked Eliana lightly in the foot. The Samhain opened her eyes and sat up. “What?”
“It’s time for you to relieve me.”
Eliana rolled to her feet. Her movement disturbed Ciaran and he woke up too. He yawned hugely. “Is it still quiet?”
Victoria was using binoculars to look out the windows of their outpost. “Everyone is checking in on their radios every ten minutes as we requested.” There’d been a lot of grumbling about that, until Ciaran offered to replace three times over any batteries expended in the operation. He’d already made an arrangement with Theodora for her to deliver five cases of suitable batteries to him during her next scheduled shipment in less than a week.
He nodded. “Good.”
“I can’t sleep with all of you talking,” Elsa cracked an eye and glared at them through it. “It’s not my turn on watch yet so be quiet.” Suddenly her eyes opened and she moved in a blur to the window. “I hear something,” she hissed. Her eyes closed and her ears rotated slowly. Her mouth opened and she growled softly. “I hear very soft wings.” She pointed. “That way.”
Victoria swung the binoculars. The night should have been brightly lit by a full moon, but the sky was heavily overcast and as dark as it could be. Still, between the binocular’s light gathering ability and her twee enhancing it even further, she could barely make out forms landing on the building housing one of the sentry posts. She never would have seen them if she hadn’t been actively looking for them and she silently gave thanks for Elsa’s hearing as she spoke. “I see pokegirls at post three. I can’t make out their breed or number. It’s too dark and I think they’ve got some kind of night camouflage.”
Elsa grinned predatorily. “We’ll identify them from the bodies.” She looked at Ceres. “Flying pokegirls will be weak to Victoria’s and my lighting attacks but we must move now before they get to the sentry.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Go. Eliana will cover you while I watch Ciaran.”
Eliana jerked open the door going out and held it as Victoria and Elsa dashed by before following them outside and pulling it closed behind her. “I can’t see them,” Elsa hissed softly.
Use your twee so they can’t hear us, Victoria replied. I can’t see anyone either. We will have to aim at the top of the building and hope to hit some of them. She raised her hand and thunder crashed as lightning leapt from it to smash along the top of the sentry post. A second later Elsa’s lighting attack joined hers.
There was a shriek and, in the flash of light, figures began to scatter as one of them writhed at the end of Victoria’s bolt. It toppled from sight, leaving the two pokegirls frantically blinking the jagged afterimages away as they tried to get their night vision back. Then they loped for the building to see what they’d bagged. Eliana had looked away before they attacked and she followed them easily, her attention on their surroundings instead of what was ahead.
Inside, Ciaran hit the transmit button on the radio. “Post three, this is post five. My girls were attacking something on top of your building that was trying to get to you. They are on their way to investigate. Do not fire at anything unless I tell you that you are weapons free, over.” He waited a few seconds. “Post three, reply.”
A voice trembling with terror answered. “I hear you, Sullivan. I won’t shoot. Fuck that was scary.” There was a pause. “Over.”
“Pokegirl attacks usually are, over” he replied. “All posts, this is post five. Post three was attacked by the mystery pokegirl. All posts report in, over.” He listened as every post called back to report they were all there. When the last had, he relaxed a little. “All posts, this is post five. You are to continue with status reports every ten minutes. This is post five, over and out.”
Ceres waited until he was done and had put the radio down. “Victoria said she could see more than one attacker.”
“I know. There’s no reason to scare them any more than they already are.” He rubbed his eyes. “They haven’t spirited away more than one person a night, so they aren’t splitting up. If they return, we’ll let Victoria and the others know so they can intercept them again.”
A few minutes later a disgusted Elsa looked at Victoria. “You hit her. We saw it and I smell burned flesh. But apparently it didn’t kill or incapacitate her because she’s not here and she didn’t walk away.”
“One of her flock mates might have carried her off,” Victoria said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Elsa replied. “They’re gone.”
“You have their scent?” Both girls turned to look at Eliana. “When the sun comes up you can fly around and see if you can find their lair.”
Elsa scowled. “If they have enhanced speed it could be dozens or even hundreds of miles away.”
Eliana nodded. “It could, but it’s not. They don’t have enhanced speed.”
“Oh and how do you know?”
“They keep coming here. If they had that kind of speed they could hunt all over Scotland at night and choose prey from anywhere. They keep feeding here because it is within half a night’s flying range and other places are not. A girl with moderate enhanced speed could get to Cairnryan and back in a single night.” She looked at Elsa. “Any of us could and people wander around there at night. They’d be easier victims.”
Elsa sneered. “Your logic is flawed. They just might like hunting this area.”
“Her logic could be flawed,” Victoria agreed, “but it could also be right. We’ll start looking at dawn and it’ll give you and me something to do besides figuring out how we’re going to safely herd a dozen humans back to Cairnryan without any of them getting killed on the way.”
Elsa grinned. “Suddenly, looking for a lair does sound a lot better than listening to the Irish tell Ciaran that they know what they’re doing. Just remind Ceres and Ciaran to record all of their conversations with them so he can’t be blamed for what happens to them when they ignore his recommendations.”
09/13/09 1045 Isle of Whithorn, Scotland
Victoria circled high above the houses and buildings of Whithorn and watched as Elsa flew an intricate route much closer to them in an attempt to scent out possible lairs for the pokegirls they’d seen the night before. The wind was light and, more importantly, steady, allowing the Mazouku to remain downwind of the town and let the odors of the place come to her.
It was much easier for the Angel as she was high enough to glide from thermal to thermal while she followed Elsa’s flight path. They’d been doing this for over two hours, moving from the village itself to the surrounding countryside as they searched.
Suddenly, Elsa’s flight became a straight line as she turned westerly and increased her speed even as her altitude dropped to only a few dozen feet. Victoria reached out through her twee. Did you find something?
Faint. Elsa flew another mile and began spiraling outward for nearly a minute before climbing for Victoria’s position until she was close enough to speak. “Do you see the stone building in the clearing with the rusted out lorry?”
Victoria examined it from her position. It was massive, with three stories and only a few windows, all of which appeared to have been blocked from the inside with some kind of cardboard, paneling or something similar. There was one door that she could see and an overhead door suitable for driving lorries through next to it. Both were closed. “Is that it?”
“According to my nose whatever I smelled last night is either in there or was there recently.” Elsa did an Immelmann to change direction and get above Victoria. “We need to inform Ciaran.”
“You don’t want to investigate further?”
Elsa shook her head. “Not alone. That place is large enough that the interior could be nothing more than a maze of death traps, and that before we find any pokegirls that might be inside. The building itself could be a death trap. When I was a Blue I watched a Dragoness land on an abandoned building that looked a lot like this one. Her weight started the building crumbling. It turned out that a firefight inside had compromised the structural supports and although it looked sound on the outside the entire building collapsed from that one landing.” Teeth flashed in a wide grin. “Her nickname instantly became Fatso.”
“That’s cruel.”
“It was. It was also funny and could have been much worse.”
Victoria turned with her as they headed back for the base. “How could it be worse?”
“I was going to land there only she managed to get there first. It would have been much worse if it had been my fault.”
Victoria couldn’t help laughing as they landed in front of Ciaran, Ceres and Eliana. He raised an eyebrow. “Anything you’d care to share?”
She grinned. “I just learned that Elsa almost ended up being named Fatso.”
“Why on earth would I want to name her that?”
“Not you, Ciaran. I’ll explain later.”
“I’ll explain later,” Elsa said firmly.
Ciaran shook his head. “What did you find?”
“I found the same scent coming from a building a few miles from here. It’s big and doesn’t have many windows, so there’s no way to tell what’s inside without actually going in.”
“I’ll scout the interior.”
Ciaran blinked and turned to Eliana. “There’s no telling what’s inside. It could be a death trap.”
“I can phase and they won’t be looking for a tiny scout.”
“Tiny? You? You’re taller than me. How are you going to become tiny?”
She grinned. “Like this.” She reached up, grasped her hair and, with a loud pop, pulled her head off of her neck.
Ciaran shrieked and fell stumbled backwards away from her as every hair on his body stood up. He fell to his knees and covered his eyes.
“You idiot!” Ceres shoved Eliana out of the way and knelt in front of him. “It’s ok,” she said soothingly. “The Samhain breed can remove its head without coming to any harm. Eliana hopefully thought you already knew.”
I checked the entry. Ceres is right. She isn’t harmed. Ciaran took a shaky breath and pulled his hands down. Ceres’ confident expression helped him a little, but what calmed him the most was the fact that Eliana was next to her, her head back where it belonged and a terrified look on her face. She reached towards him but didn’t actually touch. “I am so sorry, Ciaran. I should not have done that to you. I just couldn’t resist.”
He hugged them both. “Please don’t ever scare me like that again, ladies.”
Victoria looked at Elsa and said in a whisper. “Is that one of those things you find funny?”
“Not in the slightest,” was the quiet reply. “In fact, later I may get Eliana alone and express to her just how little I liked her terrifying him in a way she will easily understand.”
Victoria glowered at Eliana, who was still being hugged by Ciaran. “Can I help?”
Ciaran sighed and hugged her tighter before letting the two women go. “I’m sorry, Eliana, I’d never read your entry. I didn’t have any idea you could do that and it scared me. I thought you’d just hurt yourself.”
Ceres stood and pulled him to his feet with her. “Do you want to forbid her to do that again?”
He looked shocked. “I can’t do that. It would be like telling you that you couldn’t change form. It’s part of her and I’ll,” he hesitated, “eventually get used to it.” He turned to Eliana. “Please understand that it may take some time, though.”
“You are not sending me away?”
“I have no plans to ever do that, Eliana.”
“If I am here then you may take all of the time you need.” She looked at Ceres. “Do I scout?”
The Tantrasaur nodded. “We’ll move closer beforehand, but yes.” She looked around. “Get moving, people.”
09/13/09 1500 Isle of Whithorn, Scotland
“You don’t have to watch me do this,” Eliana said to Ciaran.
He shook his head. “You are one of us and this is a part of you. I accept that and I will get used to it.” He smiled slightly. “This time, at least, it won’t be a surprise.”
She gave him a pleased smile. “Thank you.” Then she pulled off her head.
Ciaran noticed that there was no noise this time, but decided not to question it so as not to distract her. She rotated the head in her hands and released it. It hovered in midair for a second before turning to look at him. “Where do you want my body?”
He’d finally read the entry on the Samhain and so knew that somehow she could talk without lungs and even consume food without a direct connection to her neck. He motioned to a tree. “You can sit down under there. If we have to evacuate, we’ll take your body with us. I can use my twee to tell you where we’ve gone to.”
She watched as her body walked over and sat down beneath the tree’s canopy. “I can always find my body,” she said. Then her head turned and flew towards the building a hundred yards away.
They were hidden in a gully that held a rivulet that locals would call a stream but Ciaran knew was a creek, not that it really mattered. Bushes screened them from observation but they could be pushed aside enough to let Ciaran and the others watch the building, which Victoria had said was probably an old barn of some kind. It was in decent condition, with a slate roof and stone walls with only a few tiny windows on the second floor. What Elsa had called the third floor was probably a loft or something like that. An old six wheeled truck or, as they called them here, lorry sat rusting near the building, not far from where the truck door and the pedestrian door were set in the wall. The vehicle was a flatbed, with rotted tires, a halfway cratered cab and only one remaining door on the passenger side.
Ciaran peered carefully but couldn’t see Eliana’s head anywhere. Here. A caret appeared in his vision about two thirds of the way to the barn and began moving towards the structure. Inset in his view he saw the image inside the caret. Eliana’s head was flickering above the ground for a second before dropping back below the surface as it headed for the building. He watched until it vanished through the wall next to the truck door before turning to Elsa. “Did you recognize the scent?”
She shook her head without taking her attention from their surroundings. “No, but it seemed familiar from back when I was in Sukebe’s armies. I cannot place it however, and I didn’t get an eidetic memory until I received my twee so I may not remember what it is until after Eliana has returned and told us what breeds she saw in there.”
Ciaran nodded and returned to examining the building, this time with his binoculars. He was so focused on the building that he jumped when his twee spoke. Eliana has been discovered.
Ceres, Victoria and Elsa all came alert and stared at the barn as he checked his shotgun. “What can we do to help her?”
She is not in danger. The pokegirls cannot touch her while she is out of phase with the material universe. There was a pause. The analysis was incorrect. Eliana is dead.
Ciaran whipped around just in time to watch the Samhain’s body go flaccid and slide sideways until it touched the ground. The air suddenly stank with the smell of excrement and urine. He exchanged a stunned look with Victoria and then dropped to his knees with shock. His voice was hoarse with surprise and pain. “What happened to her?”
Her brain took massive and sudden damage. As soon as it realized what was happening, her twee broadcast a data burst but it was interrupted in mid transmission, but I have it and am using your computer to process it for information.
Victoria wrapped him up in her arms and held him tightly against her while his mind tried to comprehend that, in an instant, Eliana was gone. He forced down the hurt and slowly pulled free of the Angel. There was something that he had to do. He looked at Ceres and spoke in a cold tone she’d never heard before. “Leave me one guard and then I have a mission for you. I want the nearby houses searched and every mattress, pillow and stuffed toy you can find placed on the bed of that lorry. Get me a big pile of them.”
She blinked. “May I ask why?”
“Something in there just killed someone I care about and when you set it on fire, burning foam produces deadly toxins and incapacitating smoke. We’re going to open that overhead door, shove that truck in there and kill everything inside.”
“Victoria can stay with him,” Elsa announced. “I am stronger than she is and can carry more.”
Ciaran looked at Victoria. “Do you want to protest my plans?”
She gave him a sad smile. “Yes. No. I want revenge too, but does killing them have to be the only way?”
“Could her head fight back?”
“They’re feral. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
“That’s not an excuse for denying revenge. If you were killed by a bear or a shark I’d kill it too.”
She met his gaze and nodded. “May I suggest a compromise?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I won’t ask that we help them to, but any pokegirl that escapes the flames we can capture. The ones inside can still die.”
He frowned before gritting his teeth. “I can agree to that.” He looked at Ceres. “Why are you still here? Apparently they don’t like daylight and I want that place billowing clouds of smoke before nightfall.”
She nodded. “Elsa.” They left.
Victoria looked at him. “What are we to do?”
He’d returned to the building and was scanning it through is binoculars. “We watch and make sure they don’t leave. If they do, we follow them.”
A few minutes late his twee spoke again. I am not passing this along to the twees of the others, pending your approval. The barn is a nest for several Vampira and at least two Vampires. It was one of the Vampires who phased herself to match Eliana and killed her with what was probably an energy blade or a very sharp sword.
He glanced at Victoria, who was watching the building where Eliana had died. Why are you waiting for my permission?
The Vampira will have returned to their normal daytime torpor and are unlikely to flee the building at all if the fire is set soon enough. The Vampires may not flee either and Victoria might use this to argue knowing this and still proceeding will make your revenge nothing more than premeditated murder.
Ciaran gave a mental shrug. It is.
Yes, it is, but is that a reason to cause her unnecessary upset over it?
Keeping secrets from her will make her far more upset than my revenge will. “My twee just informed me that the pokegirls are Vampira and at least two Vampires. The Vampira will likely be overcome by smoke before they can wake up and the Vampires might not be willing to move into the sunlight to escape.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding. “You’re right, but if we don’t wipe them out or capture them they’ll eat everyone here and then move on to prey on some other people. Feral Vampires alone are extremely dangerous. With Vampira to command they’ll either kill or convert everyone they catch and they’ll catch almost everyone they encounter at night.” Her mouth firmed. “And every person they convert will just make the flock stronger.”
The technical term is a kiss of Vampires, not a flock.
Ciaran blinked and smiled suddenly. Kiss sounds too nice. It should be something violent, like a murder of crows.
I don’t make the definitions.
“Then we take them out?”
She nodded again. “We take them out.”
Two hours later the bed of the lorry had been loaded with a layer of scrap lumber and then a layer of mattresses and other foam filled items including some lifejackets Elsa had scrounged up from somewhere. She’d also found an old bucket and now it lay next to the lorry.
Ciaran nudged it with his boot. “What’s this for?”
She grinned. “I’m being optimistic.” She looked at Ceres. “Can you help me dig a trench under the lorry right here?” She indicated a spot. “I just need enough room to get the bucket under the fuel tank.”
“Any fuel will be pretty old,” Ciaran said doubtfully.
Elsa’s smile grew. “Yes, it will, but it will still burn and it will burn slower and produce more smoke because of it. It’ll also help to keep the foam burning for a while so the wood can fully ignite.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Ceres stated. “I intend to use napalm on the whole pile. It will burn more than long enough for everything to catch. However,” she continued as Elsa’s smile faded, “if you want to put more combustibles on it,” she shifted to her battle form and wedged her horn under the side of the lorry. She lifted her head and the vehicle came up high enough to expose the fuel tank. This thing is heavy so don’t loiter.
Elsa’s grin came back and she quickly slid the bucket into place and opened the fuel tank with an energy blade. The stuff that came out was a slurry of water, fuel and rust from the tank, but the smell told Ciaran that it should still burn. She jerked the bucket out of the way. “Finished!”
Ceres slowly dropped the vehicle and changed back to her taming form. “I hate Vampires,” she said cheerfully. “We had some in security. I was often picked to play snack because Command figured since my battle form was big I’d have more blood to share. One of them was a sadist and used to try to frighten whoever she bit by saying that she really hoped she could control her venom this time. It scared some of the others pretty badly. Then she did leave venom in a bite when she fed off of me and I had to undergo treatment to keep from becoming a Vampire. That was the final straw.”
“Did someone finally kill her,” Elsa asked curiously.
“The investigation after her death concluded that it was an accident,” Ceres said primly. Her smile was vicious. “Considering that I arranged her accident and I was given the investigation into her death, it was easy enough to conclude.”
Victoria stopped watching the building for activity and stared at her with a shocked expression. “What did you do?”
“She hardly ever did a complete check on her suit. I scratched a sealing surface and eventually the seal failed explosively while she was EVA doing a contraband sweep. She panicked and didn’t get a seal patch on the leak in time.” Ceres shrugged. “If she’d paid a little more attention to detail she’d still be alive today.” Her smile came back. “Well, no, she wouldn’t be alive, but I’d had to have been more creative in finding a way to kill her.”
Elsa upended the bucket on the pile of foam and wood. “All done.” She tossed the bucket away and pulled a sword longer than she was tall from nothingness. She leaned the sword on her shoulder and grinned at Ciaran. “And I’m ready for battle.”
“Is that the sword you hit me with?”
Elsa smirked at Ceres. “It is.”
“I thought you lost it. I didn’t know you could summon weapons.”
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”
The Tantrasaur nodded. “That is true. What is your battle form?”
Elsa smirked again. “Nasty.” She looked at Ciaran. “I only use it for real fights. If I’d known what Ceres was you’d have seen it when we met.” She glanced at Ceres. “And if we tangle again like that you just might see it then. I’ve acquired a healthy respect for that horn of yours.”
“Good,” Ceres said. “Let’s get that door open so we can shove this in.”
“Wait,” Elsa said. She licked her finger and stuck it into the air. “The wind is from west. We want to cut a hole in the wall so the wind is blowing into the building to drive the smoke inside. We roll the lorry inside and light it off. Then we cut a hole in the roof on the other side of the building and it’ll make the building act like a chimney and suck the smoke and heat throughout the whole thing.”
“It sounds like you’ve done this before,” Ciaran noted dryly.
Elsa turned an innocent smile on him. “I have no idea what you might be talking about, sir.”
“I want to hear that story someday.”
She laughed softly. “You will.”
Ceres frowned. “So we push the lorry to the left side of the building. The tires are rotten. Will it still roll?”
Elsa handed her sword to Ciaran, who struggled for a moment with the heavy and unwieldy weapon. She summoned her energy blade. “I’ll cut the rubber away and we can roll it on the hubs. It won’t roll easily, but it will roll.”
A short time later the lorry was in position. Elsa hopped up on the bed and used her energy blade to cut a lorry sized opening in the wall. She, Victoria and Ceres wrestled the cut piece out of the wall and dragged it off to the side while Ciaran kept watch. Inside the hole were part of a paddock for livestock and some old bales of hay.
Elsa took up the sword from where it rested on the bed and spread her wings. “I’ll cut the chimney hole while you push this in and get ready to ignite it.” She took off and headed for the other side of the barn.
Ceres lifted the front end of the lorry and shoved it into the hole until the bed was completely inside.
I have cut the chimney hole. I’ve got pokeballs and I’ll wait here in case someone tries to use this as an exit.
Ceres looked at Ciaran. “Shall I proceed?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
She changed to her combat form and lifted her head to spray a gelatinous amber liquid over the entire lorry from her mouth. Then she changed back, lifted the front of the lorry off the ground and shoved the vehicle completely into the hole. When she was done, she held out her hand and created a ball of fire in it before lobbing it onto the lorry. There was a whooshing sound and it ignited.
Ciaran knew when the mattresses began to burn because they put out huge torrents of black and gray smoke that were sucked into the building in the breeze. He looked at Victoria. “You’re more mobile than Ceres is. She can guard me if you want to circle overhead in case someone tries to make a run for it.”
Victoria looked at Ceres, who nodded. She smiled at him. “Thanks!” Then she launched herself into the air.
Ceres watched her go for a second. “We need to move back in case they try some kind of attack to put this out. I don’t want you caught in the effect.”
“How far?”
She took his hand. “Close enough that I can use my abilities to keep the fire burning, so not so far that you’ll miss the screams.”
His eyes were hard. “Good.” He took a deep breath. “When we’re done we can bury Eliana. I wish I could bury her in the Sullivan plot in Texas, but that’s not possible.”
She looked into his eyes. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Haven’t I told you that you can whenever you want to?”
“You did, but this is,” she paused, “potentially sensitive.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just say it.”
“We came out here so Victoria could learn to teleport. Once she can, we could return to Texas if her range is long enough. Elsa probably knows some ice magic that’s she is keeping as a surprise and she could freeze Eliana’s body until Victoria finds out if she can reach Texas.”
“If Elsa can freeze Eliana then I can also see if I can pay Theodora for transport,” Ciaran said thoughtfully. “Do you want me to ask Elsa or do you want to do it?”
Ceres blinked. “Why would it make a difference?”
“As far as I know, Elsa has never lied to me.”
Ceres cocked her head. “And she has lied to me before. I wonder if it is because she respects you more than she does me. The request should come from you.”
He nodded. Elsa, are you too busy for a question?
No, I’m not and, yes, I have and will lie to Ceres if I want to. He felt amusement at his surprise. The ears on top of my head work very well and you two aren’t that far away. I can preserve Eliana’s body. Would you like me to?
Please. She was a Sullivan and deserves to be buried on Sullivan land.
You are serious about that. Are we your wives?
We’d have to be married for you to be my wife. I’m not sure what I’d call our relationship, but you are a Sullivan as long as you are here.
He felt surprise from her this time. It is interesting how much that simple statement pleases me.
That is because it is not simple at all and deep down you understand that.
I think you are right. Eliana is a Sullivan and that is why we are killing these ferals.
That’s right. Anyone who murders one of us dies too.
Good. Now stop distracting me so I can pay attention to getting revenge.
Ciaran Sullivan
Victoria – Angel
Ceres – Tantrasaur
Elsa – Mazouku