Spliced

A few minutes later they all stood gathered in the hallway. Fred led them towards the elevator. Indi gave Zephyr an excited look. He returned a polite smile. Indi was far too enthusiastic about everything, even for him.

Somehow they all managed to fit into the elevator. Just. Wolf accidentally elbowed Cat and she gave him a dark look. He ignored her. Cat was always giving everyone dark looks.

Fred pushed a variety of buttons. Indi watched closely, trying to catch which ones he pressed. This elevator was less smooth than the last one and she estimated they moved about two levels in a downward direction.

The doors opened and they stepped out into a hallway made completely of concrete. At one end, a flight of stairs wound their way upward. At the other end, was a grey door. In front of it the hallway turned sharply to the left. About half way back along the hallway three soldiers were gathered around something on the floor. As the group moved closer, the soldiers departed, giving them a nod of acknowledgement as they passed.

A mound of flesh lay before them. Bones, jutted out of the pile at unnatural angles. It was too fresh to smell like anything bad yet. There was just a light note of metallic iron in the air. Indi hesitated briefly, until Falco put a gentle hand on the small of her back. It wasn’t the body that got to her so much as the smell of the blood. She and Wolf both had a stronger sense of smell than the others, but for a vampire the smell of blood wasn’t just stronger, it had an entirely different flavor to it. A sweetness, a savoriness, a complexity that drew one in. Like sniffing a fine wine. Indi knew this had been a person, and that something or someone had killed them, but it had also been ages since she’d eaten. So she was hit most suddenly with a horrible mixture of hunger and guilt, and just the tiniest drop of curiosity. What had happened here?

Kass, meanwhile, was struggling with flashbacks of her own. The mess of the body reminded her of some of the things she’d seen several years back during the peak of the Vampire wars. Back when she’d lived in the remote permanently snow-covered territories of the very far north. Making new vampires through transfusion had been, and still was in many places, an illegal, painful, and gruesome process. It happened occasionally, even now. Being a vampire allowed for enhanced skills and the condition wasn’t mutually exclusive with being a Witch. However during the Northern Vampire wars the process had become dangerously common as the local vampires had sought to increase their numbers in an attempt to push back against the persecution of their kind.

Newly created adult vampires often lacked the self control of their natural born counterparts. Normally, a vampire might simply leave their victim unconscious but alive with temporary neck bruising or as was more common these days, they would skip the interaction with the person entirely and legally purchase their blood from local blood bank. Some vampires preferred the personal touch and took their blood directly from consenting volunteers or licensed sellers. A few, like Indi, chose to forgo it entirely, sticking to animal meat cooked rare. For Indi, it was less of an issue since she was half Witch by birth, although she still felt some of the withdrawal effects. A full vampire who chose to survive on animal blood alone would often suffer from extreme lethargy. The less intelligent the blood donor, the less effective the blood was at enhancing a vampires abilities, or for most vampires even reaching baseline functionality. However, the less blood a vampire consumed the less addicted they were and the better they fared when supplies were low. It was a delicate balancing act.

Frenzy was a risk for newly made vampires and for vampires who were in withdrawal. In its extreme a vampire experiencing Frenzy would not simply suck the blood. They would go beyond and tear into the flesh. They could rip their victims apart, and leave flesh hanging off the bone. Sometimes in their rush, they wouldn’t even drain the corpse fully. It wasn’t the usual way a vampire would leave their prey. It had been something common to those Northern vampires though, just due to the sheer number of new vampires they had created and the speed at which they had done it. In times of war sometimes desperate measure were sought.

Kass knew that better than anyone. Playing both sides at various times, and armed with a sniper rifle she’d hunted specific high profile targets in an attempt to bring the fighting to a halt. But nothing is ever that simple and in the process she’d found herself taking out innocent targets both in self-defense and in order to prevent further bloodshed elsewhere. War was dirty, no one came away clean. Some didn’t come away at all, including Kass’s husband and one of her children. She forced the memories back and tried to focus on the moment at hand. ‘What sort of animal could have done this? Dare she voice her theory with Indi standing right next to her?’

Cat’s face was unreadable. She appeared unaffected. Indeed, she had seen worse before, and her thoughts strayed not to vampires, but to creatures of a darker nature, creatures that haunted dreams and only rarely ventured into the physical realm. She frowned. There was one thing that bothered her though.

“It looks like they’ve been through a meat grinder and then spat back out.” She commented. The remains had been chewed but not swallowed. Whatever had done this either didn’t like the taste of this particular person or it killed simply for sport.

Indi must have caught on to what Cat was thinking as she said “I guess this creature isn’t big on eating meat.”

Amanda frowned “There’s chewed up body right in front of us.”

“Exactly” Indi replied.

Amanda didn’t look any more enlightened.

“Well it killed them, it chewed them, and then it spat them back out” Cat explained “that’s not exactly eating.”

“Like there’s a difference,” Zephyr stated.

“There’s a big difference,” Cat replied.

“Why do you think it killed them?” Wolf explained to Zephyr. “Not for food obviously so it was probably for sport.”

“Or it felt threatened” Sirius suggested.

“Maybe” Indi shrugged.

“I see you’ve all come to the same conclusion that we did” Fred said. “That this was not done by a person.”

“I’m not sure that’s necessarily a foregone ...” Amanda started to say softly.

“What do you think did it?” Cat asked Fred, interrupting Amanda as she spoke.

“We don’t know. That’s your job here this weekend. Find out what did this and if possible stop it from happening again.”

Indi took a step forward to study the body. Her movement startled a small furry blood-soaked rat which darted out from beneath the body and ran off down the hallway. Indi stepped back briefly startled “oh!”

Kass gave a squeal as the rat ran past her. She leaped sideways, practically into Sirius’s arms.

During the Northern Vampire wars, torturing captured spies for information had been common practice. Something else that the North had in abundance was the rats. Kass had never personally experienced the creative kind of torture that had emerged from the combination of those two things but she had seen it done to others and she shivered at the memory.

Indi recovered almost immediately and went back to studying the body ignoring the rest of the commotion that the rat had caused.

Kass, now blushing bright red, and still wary in case there were more rats, untangled herself from Sirius’s arms.

A jovial laugh echoed from behind them. Mark had been stepping out of the elevator when the rat had appeared. As he walked towards them he spoke out to Kass.

“How are you going to get rid of some monster,” he gestured toward the pile of remains on the floor “if you can’t even handle a little rat?”

“You’ve never seen a rat eat its way through live human flesh” Kass replied as she smoothed her shirt down in an attempt to regain her composure. “They do, you know, if they’re desperate enough.”

Mark expressed a look of curiosity. Then his face took on a darker tone. “There are lots of rats around this place. They’re probably the most harmless thing down here.”

“They’re still creepy.” Kass replied.

Mark nodded. He leaned against the wall, and studied the group for a second. “So you guys all friends or just work mates?”

“Friends, more or less” Amanda replied with a wary glance at Kass. Her eyes found Cat and she added “And relatives.”

Cat didn’t miss much, least of all an opportunity to test people. “and enemies.” she added with a smirk in Amanda’s direction.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Amanda asked, recognising a bait but unable to resist it.

Cat shrugged. “Just the expression on your face when Kass jumped into Sirius’s arms. It didn’t look very friendly.”

Amanda stared daggers. Cat, who also knew better than to mess with Amanda, ignored all warnings and decided to push her just a little bit further.

“Sirius , on the other hand, didn’t seem to have a problem with it at all” she added “Neither did Kass.”

Cat was excellent at picking out the things that bothered a person, taking them, folding them, and throwing them back like an origami plane. She made an art form out of it. Kass’s friendly relationship with Sirius bothered Amanda, and Cat was getting her claws into it.

But Amanda seemed to have regained some self-restraint and replied in a clear, and firm tone “That’s enough.”

Cat wasn’t even halfway done however, so she turned her attention on the weaker target instead. “Is that enough for you Kass? You having fun?”

Kass bit her lips and, blushing a light pink, refused to meet Cat’s eyes.

“Cat” Sirius warned.

“Leave her alone Cat” Amanda sighed as if she’d lost the energy to argue.

Cat was silent only for a moment before her sharp mind thought up another snarky retort. “Didn’t exactly jump to your defense did he?” Her eyes jumped from Amanda to Sirius and back again.

Amanda opened her mouth to respond.

“Amanda” Sirius warned.

Amanda looked at Sirius and frowned. “You’re warning me?” she asked, with a hint of anger.

“You don’t need to respond” he replied.

“Why not? She is right isn’t she?”

Cat’s green eyes widened. She hadn’t actually expected Amanda to say that out loud. Suddenly the game didn’t seem quite so fun. She had meant it as a game hadn’t she?

“Look guys, perhaps you could continue this later.” Mark interjected. While they had been arguing he had been speaking quietly to Fred. “Fred has some other work he needs to do so I’m going to take over for him and show you to the guest kitchen while we get some people take this body up to the morgue.”

‘Up to the morgue. There was a phrase you didn’t hear every day.’ Zephyr thought.

“Shouldn’t we study it a bit more here first?” Indi asked, still crouched by the body. “Or get some pictures, we might miss or disturb something if we move it.”

“The soldiers can take some pictures, but we should get moving.” Mark’s eyes starred off towards the end of the hallway for a second seeing something no one else could. “This isn’t exactly the safest place to be hanging around at the moment. Fred just wanted you to see what you’re up against.”

A chill went through the group and they quickly followed Mark back to the elevator as Fred walked the other direction.

“What’s on the floor above us?” Indi asked as they all piled back into the elevator.

“Bathrooms, swimming pool, gym, some more guest rooms, things like that.”

“Why aren’t we staying on that floor?” Falco asked just as Indi exclaimed “swimming pool?!”

“I doubt we will have time to swim Indi” Falco told her before Mark could reply.

“Why not?” she inquired.

Mark gave a snort. “No one else has survived long enough to.”

“Well I’m an optimist.”

Mark gave a laugh. The kind one gives the average child when they declare their career goal to be creating world peace. “To answer the other question” Mark continued “you’re not on that floor because the higher floors are safer at the moment.”

“Did you even bring a swimming suit?” Amanda asked Indi.

“Yup,” she responded with a smile.

“Indi bought her whole wardrobe” Falco said. The he directed his attention back to Mark “What do you mean the higher floors are safer?”

“I did not bring my whole wardrobe!!” Indi insisted “it wouldn’t fit.”

Falco gaffed “you got that right. It probably wouldn’t fit if we had a moving truck.”

“That’s not true.” Indi tried to put her hands on her hips but there wasn’t room so she settled for crossing her arms instead and attempted to portray her best angry expression. It wasn’t something she was very good at and it merely had the effect of sending Falco into a fit of suppressed giggles which in return made it even harder for Indi to maintain a serious expression.

Mark waited patiently until they were quiet before he continued.

“We’ve had less… incidences on the upper floors. None, in fact, above the one we were just on. However they have been moving upwards. You should be fine on this floor but just in case I suggest you keep mostly to your rooms.”

The elevator doors opened and Mark led them out. They were now a floor above where the body had been found.

“I thought we were here to kill it?” Cat inquired.

“Yes but you don’t need to take any more risk than needed” Mark replied.

They all spilled out into another concrete hallway. Opposite the elevator were two doors, which from the sign on the front were obviously bathrooms.

Despite the good signage Mark pointed them out anyway. “… and that way,” he indicated to his left, “is the guest kitchen and a small lounge.” He began walking swiftly to the right. “We have one stop to make before I show you to the kitchen.”

They followed behind passing by a metal door, slightly ajar. A glance inside revealed it to be the pool and gym. Further along the hall Mark stopped outside a double silver door with a keypad. He glanced at them, covered the keypad so they couldn’t see and keyed in a string of 6 numbers. Indi tried not to smile again. The keys on the security pad played different tones. Combined with the movement she could see it was easy to tell which keys he had pressed. She committed them to memory.

The door slid apart to the sides. Cat raised an eyebrow. Inside the room the walls were lined with weapons. Shelves and shelves full of them. Anything you could imagine from handguns that would fit in a purse to rocket launchers you wouldn’t want to stand near, let alone hold when they were fired. Cat, who made a hobby of fixing and improving guns to the point that some people paid her for it, was undoubtedly impressed.

“This is our weapons room,” Mark said simply.

“You guys get all these, what do you need ours for?” Cat exclaimed.

“It’s just a safety precaution” Mark replied “We like to control what you have. We’re going to issue you with something you can use that doesn’t bother our head of security.”

“Really?” Cat raised an eyebrow. She didn’t seem convinced that he meant it.

“I’d feel a lot safer with my own gun back” Zephyr mumbled.

Mark ignored him, opened a nearby drawer and pulled out a handful of…

“Stun guns!” Cat frowned and rolled her eyes. “Like that’s going to do a lot of good.”

Mark sighed. “As far as we can tell normal weapons don’t seem to affect the creatures anyway. These stun guns have a wider range. We thought you could try them out for us.”

“Or your guys just have really bad aim,” Kass mumbled under her breath so Mark wouldn’t hear her.

“You haven’t tested them?” Wolf asked.

“You’ve got your magic worst case” Mark replied “be thankful we left you with that, and only because it’s hard to effectively and safely limit that. Security nearly had a field day us wanting to let a Firestarter into the complex”

“Why did they?” Sirius inquired.

Mark glanced to the side as if he wasn’t supposed to reveal that much information “It seems the creatures do not like light.”

“Light?” Cat repeated.

Mark continued “they seem to have a habit of turning them off… without touching any light switches”.

“Great” Cat drawled sarcastically.

“Anyway there’s not much point asking me, I’m not the one who makes the rules.” He handed them each a stun gun.

“So we’re supposed to kill some creature that nobody’s ever seen, with nothing but a simple electric shock?” Cat asked.

“Did you say people have taken shots at it, meaning they saw it?” Amanda asked.

Mark shook his head. “They took shots at something in the dark, but nobody saw it.”

“What about the guy downstairs?” Amanda asked.

“What guy?” Mark looked at her confused.

“No,” Indi replied guessing what Amanda was getting at. “He was probably in the dark too and it wouldn’t work anyway.”

“But he felt it.” Amanda replied.

Indi looked worried. “How would that make it any better for him?”

“What wouldn’t work?” Cat asked confused. She wasn’t the only one. There were uncertain looks all around.

“Raising the dead” Indi replied. “It’s cruel and chances are he didn’t even see anything.”

“You mean the corpse we just saw?” Cat asked.

Indi nodded and Amanda shrugged.

“From the state it was in?” Cat asked looking at Amanda “Could you even do that?”

“Not humanely.” Indi argued.

Amanda looked at Wolf questioningly.

“I’m sorry” Wolf replied “but even if I had the tools I agree with Indi. It would not be nice to bring something that far gone back to life, even temporarily. It’s also a risky operation requiring great sacrifice.”

“Not so great if it’s just short term.”

Wolf shook his head. “I’m not certain I could do that with spells, we’d need a Necromancer and several animals and even then, you’d be lucky getting something coherent and safe resurrected. It’s not worth trying.”

“Well anybody got any better suggestions?” Amanda asked.

Cat glanced up at the weapons that surrounded them. With a devilish grin she said “I think we should load up on ammo and hunt this creature down.”

“You can’t.” Mark said “I told you, bullets don’t work and we’re not allowed to issue you with anything more than a stun gun.”

“Or the people who have tried so far can’t shoot straight. You did say they were shooting in the dark.” Cat replied voicing Kass’s thoughts.

“Maybe we should try to figure out what it is first?” Wolf suggested.

“Or send the Firestarter after it” Cat grumbled. “We don’t need to know what it is. We just need to kill it and since it doesn’t like lights...”

“Without knowing what it is we’d just be risking injury, or worse” Wolf told her.

“We have tried setting traps. Traps where it could not have possibly have avoided being hit,” Mark added, interrupting Wolf and Cat’s debate. Cat looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate more.

“And?” she asked when he didn’t say anything.

“And nothing. They didn’t work. We’re pretty sure it could not have escaped uninjured but we’ve seen no sign of injury. Unless it walks through walls…” he trailed off.

“Maybe you missed something” Cat replied.

“We didn’t miss anything.”

“Well I’m going hunting” Cat said simply and walked around the room selecting her choice of weapon. “Where do you keep the ammo?” Cat asked Mark.

“You can’t leave here with those” Mark replied standing in the doorway. His eyes however gave him away, flicking to a particular draw. Cat smiled and pulled at it only to find it was locked.

“Where are the keys?” she asked.

Mark shook his head. To his credit he stopped his fingers before they flew to a set of keys on his belt. But sharp eyed Cat saw them shimmer reflectively and that was enough. She pointed her stun gun at Mark and fired. While he writhed in pain on the floor she bent down and extracted the set of keys. It took her only a few seconds to get what she wanted form the drawer.

“Cat” Sirius warned. But Cat stepped over Mark, out the door, and headed off down the hallway.

Amanda knelt down to help Mark. “You alright?” she asked as he recovered.

“You better find her before security does,” Mark replied sitting up.

Sirius gave a nod and left to chase after Cat.

He caught up to her outside the elevator.

“Cat” he called as he walked to ward her. “What are you doing? You think they’re going to let us leave here if we accomplish the job through injuring one of their men. What’s gotten into you?”

Cat sent him a leveled look. “I got tired of them playing games.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed”

“So? How is that your problem?”

“I’m your brother”

“Really, now you want to play big brother? Well you lost that chance the day you walked out.”

Sirius looked hurt. He still hadn’t completely forgiven himself for fleeing home when he was 16 and leaving Cat with their ill-tempered father, so of course how could he expect Cat to? Still they had discussed it at length over the last several years, ever since Cat had driven into town over half a decade ago. He thought she was at least done giving him grief about it. After all, she hadn’t mentioned it in some time now. She was normally testy but not this testy, and it wasn’t just today. The whole past week she’d seemed moodier than usual.

His face softened. “Cat what’s up?”

She shrugged and shook her head as if she didn’t know herself. “Nothing.” Waiting for the elevator had calmed her down a bit at least.

“How about we go back to the others. Head to the lounge. Have that briefing and maybe eat some food. Then we can come up with some ideas.”

She sighed. “Takes too long.”

“I promise you it won’t. Chances are with some food and a good plan it may actually be faster, not to mention easier, and safer.”

They eyed each other for a bit.

“Alright fine” she replied finally “but on one condition.”

“What?”

“I get to keep my gun.”

Sirius exhaled “I’m not sure Mark is going to like that, but maybe we can convince him, politely. Come on.”

Without another word to one another they walked back to the others.