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“Nervous, O'Grady?” Shaun looked up from the sights of
her rifle, in the process of checking its alignment once again. “No.”
She aimed for cool professionalism, but her tone betrayed a hint of a
squeak. Torres shook his dark head. When he
spoke, the toothpick clamped between his lips barely moved. “Listen,
it’s normal, okay. This is your first time going on a real mission
against the necros. Just remember not to let your fear interfere with your
job.” “Yes, sir.” He clapped her on the shoulder.
“You’ll do fine. Aim for the heart, brain, or spinal column, and
you’ll put ‘em down.” She forced a confident smile, wishing
the nausea churning in her stomach would disappear before they entered the
mansion. Three vans that had conveyed agents from the Necro sapien
Containment Agency lined the entrance to the mansion, leaving just enough
room for the men and women to slip through the wrought-iron gate, but not
allowing an easy escape for any of the necros who might be too young to
fly. Already, a priest in camouflage and a bulletproof vest was sprinkling
water across the sidewalk outside and around the entrance, while saying a
prayer. Once again, she checked the chamber of her rifle, reassured by the sight of the gleaming .50-caliber silver rounds. Silver wouldn’t kill a necro, but it slowed them down enough to allow an agent to make a second shot or lop off their head, if the first strike hadn’t hit a vital area. She repeated that crisply in her mind, reviewing her training. Six years of training, she realized with a start. Six years of her life had gone into becoming an agent, of working to be one of the elite who tracked down the necros and made the world a safer place for humans. Everything came down to tonight. It was her first live mission, and though she had been through countless simulations, Shaun knew it would be different once they were in the mansion. She cast dark eyes upon the towering
structure, reminiscent of the setting of a gothic novel. After being
hunted for so long, she was surprised the necros still clung to their old
habitats and ways. The mansion, perched high on a bluff on the central
California coastline, might as well have had a neon sign advertising it as
a vampire haven. The crumbling façade, single remaining spire, and air of
gloom gave it away as such, just as surely as the cold readouts on their
thermal imagining pinpointed more than twenty necros holed up inside,
waiting for sunset. “Move out.” Chief Gordy didn’t
bother to keep his command quiet. Any necro older than a couple of decades
already knew the squad had assembled outside. They could smell human blood
from three blocks away, even if their beating hearts hadn’t given away
their presence. This mission wasn’t about stealth. It was about
efficient extermination. Shaun tried to shrug off her
squeamishness now that the time was at hand to actually kill necros. She
knew they were dangerous and unpredictable, that eliminating them was the
only way to return society to the way it had been once upon a time, before
the necros made their existence known, but she had never killed anything.
That was a detriment to this job. “They’re already dead. You’re
giving them eternal rest,” she whispered under her breath as she fell in
line beside Torres, her partner for this mission. She double-checked the
cinch on her vest, which held the weapons necessary for close-quarters
combat with a necro: garlic
spray, holy water, a crucifix, and a Beretta filled to capacity with
silver rounds. The sheath on the side secured a lightweight katana sword
she had opted to use for the unpleasant task of cutting off the heads when
the necros were down. She had trained so long with the sword that it was
an extension of her left hand when she held it. The rifle was a solid, reassuring weight across her arm when she followed the line of agents moving toward the mansion in a slow jog. Shaun glanced at the sun, burning high in the sky, and took confidence from it. Only a master vampire would have no fear of its burning rays, and intelligence didn’t indicate there was one with this covey, so even if their team didn’t successfully eliminate all the necros, they would be forced to stay in the mansion until another squad arrived. At the front door of the mansion, one
pane of the French window was completely broken out. A spider had taken up
residence and built an intricate web in the abandoned space. It clung
serenely to its web as one of the agents kicked the door, which revealed
its age by splintering on contact with the heavy combat boot. As everyone else around her did the
same, Shaun turned on the miner’s light on her helmet and activated the
lights on each shoulder of her vest. The necros preferred pitch-black, and
any illumination she could get might mean the difference between finding
one before it found her first. Torres tapped her shoulder with his
rifle, giving her a wide grin around the toothpick, now showing fraying
from his teeth. “Kill ‘em all, Rookie.” She grinned in return, ignoring the
way her stomach turned over when she took her first step into the darkness
sheltering the necros. The silence surprised her. It wasn’t the furtive
silence of someone hiding, but the silence of a tomb. Truly, nothing
living moved in the space, except for the agents. With cautious steps, she moved
forward, conscious of the others fanning out, each team following their
assigned pattern of movement. Having Torres off to her left was
reassuring, but it didn’t hold back all her fear. Shaun’s sweaty palms
forced her to hold the rifle in one hand while blotting the other on her
flak jacket, before repeating the process. The darkness seemed to swallow her
whole as she moved deeper into the house. The lights on her helmet and
jacket did nothing to cut through the thick darkness. It seemed almost
supernatural. Surely, the black shutters on the windows couldn’t account
for this degree of obscurity? She jumped when a scream rang out in
the opposite direction she and Torres had taken. It sounded fully human,
and she had to resist the urge to turn around to flee. No way was she
going to let fear ruin her career, not after spending six years training
for this. Her stomach clenched when a door on
their right appeared. With a jerk of his head, Torres indicated they would
investigate. He held up his hand while communicating with operations.
“Torres here. Do you get any readings from the room O'Grady and I are
about to investigate?” “Negative,” said the cool female
voice on the other end. “The insulation in the rooms is preventing our
portable scanner from operating optimally. We have a call in to the Agency
to reposition the satellite, but it’s going to take thirty minutes.” With a shake of his head, Torres
moved toward the door, gesturing for her to keep close. The rifle was too
flimsy as she gripped it firmly, falling back to allow Torres to take
point. He tested the knob, and when it yielded, he shoved open the door
quickly, falling back to the side of the doorway, rifle extended. A hiss of disgust escaped Shaun when
she surveyed the carnage of what had once been an elegant sitting room,
decorated in Victorian style. Now, it was a dumping ground for the remains
of the necros’ prey. She forced down the bile churning in her stomach
and followed her partner inside, knowing they had to clear each room
before moving on. Her boots squelched when she stepped
onto the carpet, and she looked down reflexively, gagging at the pool of
blood she had stepped into. Pool, hell—it was a lake. Since the necros
wouldn’t have wasted that much, it could only have come from multiple
feeding happening at once. Echoing her thoughts, Torres said in
a low voice, “Must have been a feast.” “Their last meal.” Anger was
overwhelming her fear, especially when she made out the remains of a
pre-teen amid the pile of bodies stacked haphazardly near the fireplace. By focusing on her mental training,
Shaun managed to ignore the rest of the bloodbath around her and
concentrate on searching the room. She walked nearer the fireplace, aiming
her rifle up, and firing off three shots. The narrow, dark space would
have been a perfect hiding place for a necro, but none hid there. If one
had, it would have crashed into the fireplace upon a silver bullet
penetrating its flesh. The excruciating pain wouldn’t have allowed it to
maintain its mastery over gravity. They finished looking in the rest of
the nooks and crannies, and Torres directed her toward the door. He
followed behind her, pausing to sprinkle holy water on the knob and mark
the door with a red X from the spray can of paint he removed from his
vest, indicating the room was clear. Should any necros try to take refuge
there, the holy water would be a nasty surprise. Thanks to chemists of the
Agency, it would also turn the doorknob phosphorescent blue to let the
agents know the room might have been compromised. They went ten feet before discovering
another door. Torres again gestured he would take point, and she didn’t
argue. As a rookie, it was her duty to defer to his judgment. And she
wasn’t eager to go blindly into the room. Having the scanners fail was a
blow to their efficiency and placed all the agents in greater danger. He moved low and quick, checking the
knob. Upon finding it locked, Torres used his rifle to blast the door. As
it swung open from the kick he applied, he moved inside, hunkered into a
crouch. Shaun was right behind him. The inhuman shriek was their only
warning as two necros rushed them. Shaun grunted under the impact of one
knocking her to the hard wooden floor, losing sight of Torres in the
process. She screamed when the necro slashed at her face, barely missing,
its fangs protruding obscenely. Upon closer examination, as she
brought up her rifle to block it, Shaun realized the necro’s fangs
weren’t extra long. The flesh on its face had shrunk, just as it had
everywhere else. It looked more monster than human in its current state of
starvation. Although she had seen victims with her own eyes, this
vampire’s emaciated state indicated it had not received blood for quite
a while, or had subsisted on only a small quantity. It snarled at her, trying to wrench
away the rifle, so it could tear into her throat. She forced aside her
clinical examination, reminding herself a starving necro was even more
dangerous than one who fed regularly and was in good shape. The scent of
her blood must be driving it mad. Her fingers were slipping on the
rifle, and when the talons of the necro dug into her hand, she yelped,
accidentally letting go. The necro fell forward, unprepared for the
slackening of her resistance, and even as it geared up to feast on her
neck, she was reaching for the sprayer of garlic water, getting it even
with its eyes just as the fangs brushed against her carotid. She let loose
a steady stream, inciting terrible screams of agony from the necro.
Distracted and in agony as it was, she found it easy to roll away from her
attacker and gain her feet. Automatically, she scooped up her
rifle and turned to look for her partner, freezing when she saw him
battling a necro in better shape than her opponent had been. While
scrawny, this one didn’t appear to have been starved to the extent of
the other one. Taking a step closer, she leveled the
rifle at the necro’s head, able to identify this one as female. “Let
him go.” A cold laugh escaped through her
gaping maw, but that was the only response she gave. Her eyes never
wavered from Torres’s pulse pounding steadily in his throat, and her
hands remained firm around his wrists, holding him to the floor with what
seemed like a minimal expenditure of effort. “Shoot it.” At his words, her finger tightened on
the trigger. She made sure the red dot was centered on the necro’s head.
Everything was in place, without the necro paying any attention to her.
Now was the perfect time to shoot, before the woman pinning her partner to
the floor conquered her bloodlust and came after Shaun. Her hand trembled when she tried to
depress the trigger. Her finger slipped off, moistened with her sweat. She
blinked and repositioned on the guard, ready to fire. Except she
couldn’t take the shot. Mouth dry, Shaun tried again, but found her
finger wouldn’t cooperate. “What the fuck’re you waiting
for? Kill this fucking cunt.” His harsh words shocked Shaun back
into action, and she managed to fire the rifle, but didn’t compensate
for the kick. The shot angled away from the necro, causing the bullet to
lodge in her back instead. With a howl that was part rage and
part pain, she reeled away from Torres, frantically scrabbling at the
wound, as if trying to tear out the lump of silver that was no doubt
burning through her skin. Still feeling trapped in molasses,
she was slower to react than Torres, who gained his feet and decapitated
the necro with his sword in one smooth motion. For a moment, she stared at
the head as it rolled toward her, stopping inches from her feet. The
expression was one of terror, and she turned to throw up on the carpet. If
the necro had feared death, then how could it already be dead? Did it
matter if the body had undergone a transformation that mimicked death?
Would vampires be afraid of dying if they didn’t live, even if the
definition was different than the human race used? As she lost the contents of her
stomach, Torres dealt with the necro she had left blinded from the garlic
water, removing its head with a clean slice. “Buck up.” Although
insensitive, the words weren’t delivered harshly. He even patted her
shoulder as he walked by her. “There are more where those came from.” With a nod, pretending a certainty
she no longer felt, Shaun helped him examine the rest of the room,
determine it was clear, mark the door,
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