Chapter 7 #3
“Stay here,” the guard said to Morn. Morn did a casual little 360, showing them the whole view of the place.
There was a pile of bodies in one corner behind him, near the backdoors of the house.
There was blood everywhere. That was about it.
Mark breathed deep, his desire to save those girls like a horrible itch he wanted to scratch.
The guard went up to speak quietly in Drake’s ear as he lazily eyed Morn. He was clearly fancying himself as some nihilistic new Vampyren king. Mark had heard about incidents like this back on Vampyr. But they were supposed to be better than this now. They thought themselves better than humans.
They were kidding themselves, he thought.
“You want to join me,” Drake said, with the same flat affect the guard had used.
He had the air of someone who had already so debauched himself he couldn’t feel anymore.
Mark suspected he was guilty of other crimes just as great as his attack on the creche.
All kinds of things went down without the Council knowing about them.
They had been right about one thing; Drake was a symptom of a system that was failing rapidly.
“What will you do for me? Other than provide me with another mouth to feed. You look a bit like a runt.”
“My prowess makes up for my size,” Morn said easily. He turned a little. Mark thought he was looking at the girls.
Mark had taught them too well. They cared too much perhaps.
“Don’t get distracted,” Mark muttered now, wishing Morn could hear him.
“You like what you see?” Drake drawled.
“Yes. They’re from the breeding pit?” Morn said. “I haven’t been in ages.”
“Take one,” Drake said. “Whichever one you want. But don’t unchain her. Take her now.”
“Shit,” Mark said, the human word jumping from his mouth without a thought.
Morn was hesitating. There had been a time when he wouldn’t have before he’d served under Mark. He would have raped one of those girls without a thought. He wouldn’t have even considered it wrong.
Now he hesitated. Yet Mark found himself kind of proud that he was hesitating.
“Is this so I’ll prove myself?” Morn said, with a snort. He was trying to turn things on Drake, but his tone was already giving him away. “I don’t need to prove myself to you. But if you don’t mind, I could use a drink.”
“He’s trying to negotiate,” Mark muttered. “He’ll see through it.”
“Who sent you?” Drake said on the monitor. “The Council, of course. But what unit?”
“I told you,” Morn said, even as he made his way over to the girls. “I left my unit.”
“No,” Mark said. It was as if he could already see the future. “No…”
“Of course, you did,” Drake said.
Morn had been about to take one of the girls to feed on but it was too late for that now as Drake took a great serrated blade from his belt and smoothly reached around from behind him and slit his throat, the blood gushing in great torrents.
From the perspective of the camera, a blade had just appeared in front of his face and blood now spurted all over the lens.
But he didn’t stop there and sawed his way through.
The men in the van groaned and Mark closed his eyes, not particularly wanting to see the sight of Morn getting his head sawed off from his point of view, even as his screams echoed in the van.
Morn’s body fell to the ground, the camera catching the leering faces of Drake’s unit, a flash of the sky, and a splash of blood.
Fuck.
Mark moved fast, leaning over to thump his hand on the back of the driver’s seat. “Go! Drive! Now!”
With a squeal of its tires, the van pulled away and peeled off down the street, away from Drake and his men and Morn’s head on the monitor now rolling across the pavement and into one of those mysterious human swimming pools.
Well, this was going to be fun to report to the Council.
* * *
“Where are we, Markole?”
The van was parked in front of a big condo in The Loop.
It had taken a little time, but he’d managed to track down Crystal’s roommates even though they’d moved a block over to a bigger building.
It wasn’t unit business but given the day he’d had, he figured he would treat himself to doing something for Crystal about now.
“It won’t take long,” he said grimly.
It hadn’t been an hour yet and all he could see behind his eyes was the gush of that bright red blood arcing in a fountain from Morn’s neck; that crimson red against the cerulean sky as his body had toppled over, his screams high and piercing.
What a stupid misadventure. Morn had been young and eager to head into danger on Mark’s orders. Now he was dead.
He wished for a moment he could be harder like other Vampyren. Maybe then he would care less that one of his men had died.
Mark jumped out of the van and left the door open, taking off his leather vest so he was only wearing his black, cotton undershirt. Someday, he thought idly, this war might be over. No more heavy leather uniforms that stuck to your sweaty skin. What a day that would be.