Chapter 7 Cora
The hostile patrol picked us up at three in the morning.
We were forty minutes into the refuel when Renn keyed the radio.
"Cora."
"Renn."
"Movement. Three miles north. Mounted, six riders. Closing slow."
"Vampyren?"
"Three Vampyren. Three humans. Anti-Council. Hess's outriders."
The cold thing moved through me that I had not felt since Vegas. The cold thing was different from fear. The cold thing was what my body did when it had to count under pressure and the pressure was the pressure that did not allow miscounts.
"How long."
"Twenty minutes. Maybe twenty-five. They are not in pursuit. They are sweeping the corridor. We are downwind of them and they have not yet picked up the scent. They will pick it up when the wind shifts. Wind shift is about fifteen minutes out."
"Close to the storm."
"Yes."
"Drew has the night."
"Drew is at the basement door. I can see him from my position. He has been watching the north line for ten minutes."
I keyed Drew.
"Drew."
"Cora."
"Renn has the outrider count."
"I heard."
"Threat assessment."
"Three Vampyren, three humans, six total, mounted.
The Vampyren are warrior-class, not scout.
They are sweeping. They will engage if they pick us up.
Three-on-three on the Vampyren side is the fight Renn and I can take.
The human irregulars are the question. Cruz has the heavy.
Cruz can take the humans if the trucks hold position and Cruz has cover.
The cover is the Dairy Queen wall. The wall is concrete-and-cinder, which is the cover I want. "
"You've thought about this."
"I have been thinking about this for forty minutes."
"Forty minutes ago Renn was not on the radio."
"Forty minutes ago I had picked up a scent shift to the north that I had not been able to identify. I held the threshold because the percentage was sixty-eight. Renn confirmed it at ninety-eight."
"Drew."
"Cora. I will tell you the next time the percentage hits seventy. I have heard you on the threshold. The threshold is mine to hold. Tell me what you want me to do."
"Cover the basement entrance. Sylvia inside the basement with the medical pack. Cruz at the south wall of the Dairy Queen with the heavy. Renn and you at the north line."
"Copy."
"Renn?"
"Copy. North line."
I looked across the lot. Drew was already moving.
Not running, walking, the way Vampyren-cohort warriors moved when they were taking position.
He had the rifle slung. The blade at his hip.
The carving, I knew without looking, was in his coat pocket.
The stone was in the same pocket. The Steinbeck was in the foot well of the lead truck.
I went to Sylvia.
"Sylvia. Basement. Now."
"Cora. The field kit is open at the third truck."
"Pack it. Move."
She packed it. She moved. The medical pack went into the Dairy Queen basement, behind the cinder-block half-wall that the post-invasion local survivors had used as an additional structural support when the roof had partially given.
Sylvia disappeared behind the half-wall. Her voice came back: clear.
Cruz set up at the south wall. The heavy, a salvaged SAW Cruz had been rebuilding for two years from parts pulled out of Camp Pendleton in year three, went up on the tripod.
Cruz had the bandolier across his shoulder.
He had four hundred rounds. He was not going to need four hundred rounds.
The presentation of four hundred rounds was the point.
Bandit cohorts and anti-Council irregulars both responded to the visible-rounds rule: the more rounds were visible, the less inclined a six-rider mounted patrol was to test the position.
The Vampyren in the patrol would not be deterred by visible rounds. The Vampyren would be deterred by Renn.
I went to the lead truck. I climbed in. I left the door open. The driver's-side gun rack had two carbines and a spare clip. I took one carbine and one spare. I went to the basement entrance.
Drew was at the basement entrance.
He looked at me.
"Cora."
"Yes."
"You are not on the north line."
"No."
"You should not be on the basement entrance with me. That puts the lead and the night watch in the same kill zone if the patrol breaches."
"I know."
"Cora."
"I am the lead. I make the call. The call is that I stand at the basement entrance with you.
The reason is that if Renn goes down and you go down and the patrol breaches the south wall, somebody has to get Sylvia and the pack out of the basement and into the second truck, and the somebody is me.
I cannot do that from the north line. I have to do it from here. "
"That is a good reason."
"Yes."
"You have made better reasons in worse situations."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"Are you scared."
"Yes."
"Of what."
"Of the same thing as you. The count."
"Yes."
The wind shifted.
It came on the back of my neck before Renn called it on the radio.
The wind came down from the north and the storm-front pressure brought with it the smell of dust and ozone and something else, something the wind was carrying that I did not have a name for.
The scent must have been the patrol. Drew's nostrils flared. He did not move.
The radio crackled.
"Cora." Renn. The flat warrior voice. "They picked it up. They are turning. Six riders, dead on us. ETA eight minutes."
"Copy."
"Drew."
"Renn."
"You take the right-flank Vampyren. I take the left-flank and the center. We hold the north line until they break formation. They will break formation when Cruz opens. If they don't break, we engage at fifty yards."
"Copy."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"You know the right-flank fighter. You will recognize him when he closes. He is from my old unit. His name is Verel. He was the cohort's third blade before he turned anti-Council. He is good. He is faster than me. He is not faster than you."
"How do you know."
"I have watched you walk the perimeter at Mojave at dawn for nine months. You move faster than I do when you do not think anyone is watching. Verel is fast. You are faster. Take him low. He has a left-side weakness from a scar he took at Vegas in year two. Take the left-side. Down quick."
"Copy."
"Drew."
"Yes."
"He was a friend."
The radio was quiet for a moment.
Drew said: "I will take him quick."
Renn said: "Thank you."
The radio went dead.
I looked at Drew.
Drew was looking north.
"Drew."
"Yes."
"Renn just thanked you for killing his friend."
"Yes."
"Drew."
"Cora. Eight minutes."
"Right."
I went to position. Carbine up. Sight on the basement entrance, half-turned to cover the south flank.
Drew was on the north corner of the Dairy Queen, prone in the gravel, rifle braced on a chunk of concrete that had been part of the drive-through window in 1998.
Renn was at the north wall. Cruz at the south. Sylvia in the basement.
Eight minutes.
The wind kept up.
The barometer kept falling.
Somewhere east of us, the storm that Renn had been tracking was building.
The pressure drop was now sustained at fifty miles an hour on the falling line.
The supercell was eighteen hours out. By the time we needed to move the convoy, the storm would be at the eastern edge of the Oklahoma corridor.
We would be running at the same speed as the front.
The front would catch us somewhere in Missouri.
That was tomorrow's problem.
Tonight's problem was six riders.
* * *
The fight took four minutes.
I did not see most of it. I was facing the basement entrance and the south flank and the carbine was up and the patrol came in from the north and the noise hit me before the visual did.
The percussive sound of the SAW opening, Cruz on the cinderblock wall, the bandolier doing its work; the higher crack of Renn's rifle, three shots in two seconds, the warrior-cohort burst pattern; the lower crack of Drew's rifle, two shots, one second apart, and then a silence on the rifle line that meant Drew had moved off the rifle to the blade.
I heard Verel hit.
I did not see Verel hit. I heard him. The Vampyren warrior body when a Vampyren blade went through a key Vampyren artery made a sound that humans did not make.
The body knew it was a body, and the body knew the Vampyren way, and the body produced a deep low exhalation that was not a scream but was the sound of a Vampyren warrior accepting the cut at the same instant the cut arrived.
I had heard the sound four times in my life.
The first three times had been at the Urbana raid. The fourth time was now.
I closed my eyes for a half-second.
Opened them.
Stayed on the basement.
Cruz's SAW cycled three more times. Two human bursts, one Vampyren burst. Cruz was alternating, the way a Marine alternated when he was managing three discrete targets at varied range.
The patrol was breaking. I could hear it in the cycling pattern: Cruz had the longer bursts on the Vampyren targets because the Vampyren targets did not stay down without redundant rounds, and the shorter bursts on the human targets because the human targets either stayed down on the first burst or they were not coming back from the position.
A scream. Human. Male. From the north line.
Cruz's voice on the radio: "South clear."
Renn's voice on the radio: "Center down. Left down."
Drew's voice on the radio: "Right down."
A pause.
Renn: "Sweep."
The Vampyren-warrior sweep took ninety seconds.
The sweep was the post-engagement protocol where the cohort verified each downed target had not partially survived.
The protocol existed because Vampyren-warriors had two hearts and a Vampyren-warrior with one heart still beating was a Vampyren-warrior who could still kill you if you turned your back too soon.
The sweep was quiet. Two more rifle shots. Renn finishing the work. Then Drew on the radio.
"Verel down. Confirmed."
Renn: "Copy."
Drew: "Renn."
"Yes."
"I took him low. The left side. Down quick. He did not feel it past the first second."
"Thank you, Drew."
"He was your friend."