Nosferatu

CHAPTER 16

Namche rubbed the frost off the eyepieces of his oxygen mask and checked his global positioning receiver. According to the data he’d been given, they were close to the other two bodies.

“Not far,” he shouted, the words muffled by his mask. He wasn’t certain whether Tai heard him or not. The other man was leaning against the side of the mountain, obviously exhausted. Namche wondered if he would still be paid the remainder of his fee if Tai died and had to be left on the mountain.

They were approximately two thousand meters from the top of Everest. To the right was the Kanshung Face, a practically vertical mile-long stretch of rock on the north side of Everest. From the display he had seen in Hong Kong, it appeared to Namche that the two bodies they were after had been on top of the Kanshung Face and fallen. Instead of plummeting all the way to the bottom, it appeared as if the rope connecting them had caught on a spur of rock jutting out from the face and they were frozen in place, an adornment to Everest’s deadliness. He looked in the direction, trying to see through the blowing snow.

“There,” he yelled, pointing. The wind had shifted direction briefly, exposing the Face. The bodies looked like white lumps on the rock wall about fifteen meters away.

This time Tai acknowledged he’d heard by nodding.

Namche climbed up, checking over his shoulder to make sure Tai was following. They gained another thirty meters in altitude, then Namche halted. He pulled four pitons off his climbing rack and used a small hammer to pound them into the mountain, making sure they were in place. Then he secured a fifty-meter length of doubled rope to all four.

“You stay here,” he yelled to Tai. Tai nodded once more.

Namche tied himself off to the fifty-meter doubled rope, gathering the slack. Holding the loose rope in one hand and his ice axe in the other, he edged over a meter, arriving at the left side of the Kanshung Face. Reaching as far as he could, he slammed the point of his axe into the ice that covered the Face. Then, using that as his leverage point, he scrambled out onto the Face. He dug the toes of his crampons into the ice and began making his way across. It was precarious climbing and Namche didn’t allow his mind to dwell on the numerous lethal possibilities.

He moved quickly, staying in no position for more than a few seconds, afraid the thin sheet of ice would give way. He glanced down and saw he was now above the bodies. It was clear that their rope had caught on a small spur, less than eight inches long, that poked out from the mountain. Namche knew he’d have one shot at this.

Namche let go of the mountain and fell. As he went down he slammed the point of the ice axe into the mountain to slow his descent and to be ready for when he reached the bodies, which occurred in less than two seconds. His axe caught on the dead climbers’ rope and slid along until he reached one of the bodies, where it jammed against the attachment point of the rope on the body. Namche came to a jarring halt, breathing hard.

Using short nylon slings, he made sure both the dead men were attached to the rope he had brought. Then he leveraged the ice axe underneath one of the bodies, trying to break it free from the mountain. It detached with a last crack of ice, sliding down until it reached the end of the rope, where it jerked to a halt, then swung to the left, coming to a halt just below where Tai was.

Namche did the same with the second, except this time he made sure he was attached to the body. Once more he fell free for a couple of seconds, then he and the body swung over and came to a halt.

Namche put in more pitons, securing the bodies in place as Tai climbed down.

“What now?” Namche asked. He assumed Tai was there to collect something from the bodies. Perhaps a family heirloom? Or to perform some burial rite? Namche was surprised when Tai began lashing the two bodies tightly together.

“We cannot carry them down,” Namche said.

Tai ignored him. He opened his pack and took out what appeared to be a very thin blanket, which he wrapped around both bodies. Namche had seen that kind of blanket before — it was an emergency heater, designed to be used to rapidly raise someone’s core body temperature. Numerous thin wire conductors were woven into the material and attached to a power source, in this case a pair of lithium batteries Tai had in his pack. Once the blanket was tight around the bodies, Tai turned it on.

This confused Namche even more. What was the purpose of thawing out dead men?

As the blanket poured heat into the frozen flesh, Tai pulled something else out of his pack. A syringe and several plastic blood bags.

“What are you going to do?” Namche demanded, although he was beginning to get the idea. But the reason behind these apparently insane acts escaped him.

Tai continued to ignore him. He reached under the blanket and checked the exposed flesh of one of the bodies by the expedient method of poking it with the syringe. Apparently the body wasn’t quite ready yet as Tai turned his attention to what was left in and on his pack. He removed the two pieces of PVC pipe and unscrewed the ends. He pulled out a complicated mass of extendable titanium poles and Kevlar cloth from each. They connected together at an anchor point.

Tai turned back to the body and poked it with the syringe. The point punctured the skin and he searched, trying to find a vein. When he located one, he attached a small battery-powered pump to the line and began draining the blood from the body. Namche watched in horrified fascination. Tai drained the first body into four bags. Then he did the same to the second.

Namche watched, confused as to the purpose of Tai’s actions and what would happen next. As soon as Tai had the second body drained, he packed the blood bags into his rucksack. Then he unhooked his harness from the safety line.

“What are you doing?” Namche reached forward to grab him.

Tai connected a snap link on the back of his harness into the anchor point of the strange tube-and-cloth contraption, looked at Namche, smiled, and then jumped out into the clear air in front of the Kanshung Face.

Namche stared in shock as Tai free-fell. Then the poles on his back snapped out, spreading, deploying the high-strength cloth. A half mile below Namche’s position, the hang glider locked into place and Tai grabbed the controls, banking to the north and west, disappearing from view in the blowing snow.

Final checks were made, no glitches were found, and the countdown now moved into its final phase. A night launch was a bit unusual for Kouros; but Nosferatu had insisted, and since he was paying top dollar, the officials at the facility had been only too happy to agree. He was in launch control, in the VIP lounge, watching the procedures. He had been forced to pay a considerable amount of extra money to keep the launch information from being released, a particularly difficult task given this was the first manned launch ever performed outside of the American or Russian programs.

The overly attentive lackeys of the ESA were beginning to bother Nosferatu. Waiters hovered at his elbow, offering him champagne, and the luxurious buffet laid out at the rear of the room bustled with activity. He brusquely ordered everyone out of the suite.

The Ariane 5 booster, the X–Craft on top, was fixed in spotlights. A beautiful sight to Nosferatu, who had been at the forefront of spaceflight for many years, ever since the beginning. It was another of his objections to the Airlia — how they had hamstrung the human attempts to get into space. It was amazing that man had managed to make it to the moon and walk on it, an effort that had been rewarded with an intense push by the Ones Who Wait to make sure the space program went backward rather than forward. While science fiction writers had predicted that man would be much further ahead by the turn of the millennium, the reality had been a great disappointment.

The X–Craft design was simple but functional. He’d begun work on it many years previously and kept it as secret as possible to prevent interference from the Ones Who Wait. Over the years he’d brought in the best and brightest to work on certain parts, but he’d kept overall control of the development compartmentalized so that only the tiniest handful of people knew the big picture. Money had been no object.

The X–Craft was a delta wing craft, more arrowhead-shaped than the American space shuttle, and smaller. Its cargo bay could hold only one-quarter of what the American shuttle could, but it was one-tenth as costly to produce and fly. The crew consisted of a pilot and copilot. Additional personnel could be put on board if a crew pod was inserted in the cargo bay. For the moment, the cargo bay was empty except for two EVA space suits and special equipment they would need once they reached the derelict mothership.

Nosferatu had test X–Craft models flown in Australia and even achieved two successful landings of the craft that was now on top of the booster, flying it up on top of a 747 and releasing it. The Ariane 5 booster was proven with many successful liftoffs. As far as Nosferatu could predict, everything should work perfectly.

He was less certain of Vampyr’s actions.

His thoughts were interrupted by the final seconds of the countdown. The rocket ignited and began to lift. Nosferatu slipped on a pair of sunglasses to protect his eyes as the flame seared the night sky. He watched the rocket accelerate upward until he could no longer see it.

Time to move on to his next task.

“You are not welcome here.”

Vampyr had had a feeling that he would not be warmly greeted in Hong Kong. He was standing on the tarmac at the new Hong Kong International Airport, an island set apart from the mainland. His jet was behind him in a secure area, bathed in the flashing lights of security vehicles. The man who had greeted him with those five words wore the blue uniform of the Hong Kong police. There was some rank insignia on his collar but Vampyr had no clue what they meant.

Vampyr had a pack slung over his shoulder. Inside the pack were some goodies he had rigged — just in case. He had walked into too many strange situations not to prepare for the worst possible scenario.

“You are not welcome here,” the official repeated.

Vampyr decided to ignore him as he saw someone approaching, a man dressed in a very nice suit that must have come from one of the most expensive stores in Hong Kong. More important, everyone in uniform who saw him approach immediately adopted body language that indicated this was a man with real power.

“I am Chon. Deputy governor of Hong Kong. How may I be of assistance?” “He”—Vampyr nodded at the man in uniform—“says I am not welcome.”

“A misunderstanding,” Chon said. “Things have been most in flux recently as I am sure I do not have to tell you. We in Hong Kong have a long history of welcoming guests regardless of outer circumstances.”

Chon had been on Vampyr’s payroll for over twenty years. He held his high position through Vampyr’s influence. He had had only one task all those years — to keep tabs on Tian Dao Lin.

Chon snapped a command in Chinese. The area immediately around them was suddenly clear for a distance of twenty meters. Chon glanced to the right, along the east-west runway. The sun was hovering above the western horizon, a landing 747 silhouetted against it. “We do not have much time before dark. Come with me.” With that Chon turned and headed for the helicopter he’d arrived in.

Vampyr followed. The blades were powering up for takeoff as they boarded. The chopper lifted and headed toward Hong Kong proper, over forty kilometers away.

Since Chon hadn’t bothered to put on the headset on the ceiling over his head, Vampyr assumed he didn’t want to talk while in flight. They landed on top of a tall building set among a cluster of skyscrapers. Chon got off and headed immediately for a door without looking back. Vampyr followed. They descended a flight of stairs, then went into a room containing a large desk and bay windows with a commanding view of Hong Kong.

“Please be seated,” Chon said. Then he took the seat behind the desk and hit several buttons. Steel shutters dropped over the windows, cutting off the view. Vampyr placed the backpack next to the seat, facing the door behind them.

“This room is now Tempest proof,” Chon said.

Vampyr knew that meant it was supposed to be secure from all forms of bugging.

Tian Dao Lin was a very powerful man in Hong Kong, perhaps the most powerful. Some said he ultimately was in control of all the Triads. He also owned many legitimate businesses, just like Vampyr, Nosferatu, and Adrik. The most dangerous aspect of Tian Dao Lin, as far as Vampyr was concerned, was his inner core of Quarters. More than any of the other three Undead, Tian Dao Lin enjoyed breeding with human women and bringing offspring into the world.

Even Vampyr feared being attacked by a pack of Quarters. “What is the latest?” Vampyr finally asked.

“One of the Quarters, named Tai, paraglided off Everest earlier today. He is on his way here with a package.”

Vampyr nodded. Tian Dao Lin had succeeded in recovering the blood of the One Who Waits. The end had begun. “Do you know when he arrives?”

“In four hours.”

“Will we be able to intercept?”

Chon looked uncomfortable. “I have not yet been able to determine where Tian Dao Lin’s lair is. Every time we try to follow his people, they manage to lose us. He is most careful, and if one gets too close, then his inner circle makes that person disappear.”

Vampyr had anticipated Chon’s failure. “I am trying to discover the location by other means. Still, have your men try to follow the blood when it arrives. I want both the blood and Tian Dao Lin.”

Colonel Kokol felt the point of a needle enter his right arm but didn’t have the energy to react. He focused all his remaining power on opening his eyes. Once more he was greeted by the captain’s face looming over him.

“There is a problem. We did not stop them from removing what they stole from the archives. They escaped.”

Kokol forced his eyes open. He was lying on a cot in a mobile operations center. He could see soldiers and police scurrying about. For the moment, the two of them were left relatively alone. “What happened?”

“After they knocked you out — and left you for dead under the body of the soldier — the infiltrators made their way up the ramp, then through other tunnels and out the exit they came in. The Moscow police and SVD security tried to stop them and suffered heavy casualties in the process.”

“What did they take?”

“It appears a stock of old blood taken by the Russians from the Germans from Berlin at the end of the Great Patriotic War.”

“World War II,” Colonel Kokol muttered. “Who did this?”

“We have video from the entrance — they killed the guards on their way out, along with Pashenka, the SVD man who let them in. Police files indicate they are Mafia under the control of—”

“Adrik,” Kokol completed the sentence. Everyone had heard whispers of the head of the Mafia in Moscow. Nothing happened at this level in the city without his blessings.

“Yes.”

“Would blood stored like that still be viable?” Kokol wondered. “Why would they steal it?”

“I do not know, but twelve men are dead, so it must be important.”

Colonel Kokol swung his feet to the side and tried to sit up. The attempt caused a hiss of pain to escape his lips but he managed to get upright. “Do the police have a line on where we can find Adrik?”

“Yes. They’ve always known where his headquarters is. No one has ever had the power or the will to attack him.”

“We’ll see about that,” Kokol said, pulling a SatPhone out of his pocket.

With a slight burst from a forward thruster, the X–Craft decelerated as it entered the large cargo bay of the mothership. Another burst brought it to a halt, floating just above the deck and among the battered Talon spacecraft that had been knocked out of commission by the nuclear blast combined with the power of the ruby sphere that Turcotte had brought there from the cavern in Ethiopia. A hatch on the side of the X–Craft opened with a puff of escaping air and both suited crew-members exited, carrying large plastic cases in the zero gravity.

They split, going to different Talons. Each went inside, to the first Airlia body they saw, and opened the case, revealing syringes, blood bags, and the same type of battery-powered pump that Tai had used.

They quickly got to work, poking each body in different places to draw the little remaining blood that hadn’t drained out into space.

Vampyr’s reach was indeed long.

Kokol’s SatPhone rang and he listened for a moment, then held it out for the captain. “It is the premier.”

The captain stared in disbelief and took the phone. He listened for about a minute, his only replies “Yes, sir,” then closed the phone and handed it back to Colonel Kokol.

“And?” the colonel asked.

“We attack and destroy Adrik.” The captain spun on his heel and shouted orders. Soldiers jumped into vehicles and they raced into the city toward the modern office building that held the Mafia leader’s office.

Colonel Kokol, having survived World War II, the Cold War, and the end of the Cold War and the bitter departmental infighting after it, along with being Vampyr’s spy in Russia on Adrik for over half a century, decided to watch the assault from the command truck three blocks away. It had direct video feeds from each of the assault units, from cameras mounted on the team leaders’ helmets.

“Your optics are excellent,” Kokol observed, as they watched the teams surround the building.

“A gift from the Americans,” the captain said. “They’re supposed to be used by counternuke teams to keep track of our nuclear material and weapons.”

Kokol watched as the teams stealthily approached all the known entrances to the building, listening as the captain counted down to the breach.

At zero all the ingress points were hit.

Kokol was shaking his head within five seconds as no opposition was apparent on any of the screens. “It’s too easy. Something’s wrong.”

The teams had breached the perimeter of the building and were working their way in. Still no shots fired. Nothing.

Colonel Kokol turned to the captain. “I would pull the teams. Now.”

Two of the teams were working their way up stairwells, the elevators out of order as they cut the power to them. Three other teams were doing room-by-room searches of lower-level offices.

The captain leaned over Kokol’s shoulder. “I cannot pull them out. We must have revenge. Watch. We have other equipment from the Americans. Most efficient and useful.” He rattled something into his mike. One of the men with a camera stopped at a computer on a desk and pulled something out of his pack. It appeared to be a handheld organizer with a lead going to a floppy diskette, which he shoved into the A drive on the computer.

“We can take everything off the hard drive in ten seconds,” the captain said proudly. “It is being transmitted right here.” He pointed at a computer next to the monitors.

“I’m telling you that you’ve got a problem,” Kokol said. “The place is abandoned.”

“What?”

Kokol stood, looking across the monitors as the teams progressed deeper into the building. “Get your men out. Now!” He yelled the last word.

“I don’t—”

“Do it,” Kokol said. He turned to the captain. “Adrik is prepared for an attack. You’ve encountered no resistance, which means he’s letting you in. If he’s letting you in, then it can’t be good.” Even as he said the words, Kokol knew it was too late.

This was confirmed as a flash filled one of the video monitors, immediately followed by the feed blacking out. In rapid succession the other four feeds did the same.

The command and control van lifted off its right tires as the blast wave hit it, followed by the roar of the explosion. The van slammed back down, still upright, as debris from the explosion hit the side.

Kokol knew the entire team was dead. He felt it run through his body as surely as the shock wave had hit the van.

“The computer.” Kokol tapped the dazed captain on the shoulder. “What?”

“Check the computer.” “For what?”

“The download. What they tapped.”

The captain slid the seat over to the nearby computer as chaos reigned inside the command van, everyone shouting into radios trying to figure out what had happened. He looked at the screen and saw the small emblem indicating the information that had been transmitted by the team member just before the explosion.

Kokol doubted anything of value would have been picked up, but over two dozen men had just died, and he owed it to them to look. The hard drive data came up. He quickly scanned through it. Daily calendar. Interoffice. memos. Shipping. Time clocks. Phone logs.

Kokol backed up. He scanned the shipping logs for the last two days carefully. Kokol smiled when he spotted a rush shipment to Hong Kong.

He pulled out his phone and dialed a number, giving the address to the person on the other end.

Nosferatu and the team of mercenaries he had hired had taken off in two Huey helicopters with US Army markings from an abandoned airstrip in southern Colorado, where they had been awaiting his arrival. They were flying due south, low to the ground to avoid radar.

The town of Dulce was just south of the Colorado-New Mexico border, between the Carson National Forest and the Rio Grande National Forest. The terrain was full of mountains covered with pine trees. The town was on the forward slope of a large mountain. On the back slope was the entrance to the secret lab that Majestic-12 had established shortly after World War II.

The experiments there had been as varied as the human imagination, according to what Nosferatu had been able to learn, although much of it was still shrouded in secrecy. The United States government had done work on mind control using memory-affecting drugs and electronic dissolution of memory. Some of the work came out of Airlia technology and some from German scientists captured at the end of World War II and impressed into US service under Operation Paperclip.

This lab was also where Majestic had shipped the Guardian computer they discovered in Temiltepec in South America, the device that had corrupted the members of Majestic who had come in contact with it, giving them its programmed instructions to fly the mothership.

The team leader called out a time warning, indicating they were less than five minutes from the target. With a slight smile Nosferatu watched the men in the cargo bay don night-vision goggles. Human technology had finally started to catch up with a capability he’d had for thousands of years.

Nosferatu knew that the small security force posted at Dulce had no reason for concern. Their first indication of trouble came when the aircraft landed and the first thing off were flashbang grenades that stunned and blinded them.

Nosferatu had insisted on taking down the security force without killing them, and the mercenaries had agreed, seeing no point in committing murder if it was avoidable. They seized the stunned guards and quickly secured them. Nosferatu then exited the helicopter and followed one team down into the dig site.

The engineers who had worked on the site had dug a shaft straight down through the pancaked levels of the base, with an occasional side tunnel. A large crane holding a metal cage served as a makeshift elevator and Nosferatu climbed on board with four of the mercenaries as another took the controls of the crane.

The basket was swung over the shaft and lowered all the way to the bottom. This was where General Hemstadt had been running highly classified biological experiments for Majestic-12 before being co-opted by the Mission. The higher levels had taken most of the force of the foo fighter’s power beam. This level was relatively intact, as the intelligence reports Nosferatu had purchased indicated.

There was some debris, but they were able to move. They were in a hall that extended about sixty feet, ending in a dead end. There were several doors to the left and another corridor turning to the right. There were name plaques next to each door on the left indicating that those rooms were quarters for Sublevel 1 staff. Nosferatu passed right by all of them, taking the right turn at the end of the corridor.

He was in a ten-foot-long corridor that ended in a double set of doors with biological warning signs posted on them. Nosferatu walked up to the doors and pushed them open. A rough concrete floor angled down to a large cavern carved out of the mountain. The ceiling was twenty feet high and the far wall a hundred meters away.

There were several dozen large, vertical vats in the room. They were empty, but Nosferatu knew they had once held bodies. He looked to the right, where, according to his report, the Guardian computer had been stored. There was an empty space there now.

Nosferatu walked forward, past the tubes. Set off to the left was a bank of machinery set on two carts. What he had come for. At his signal the mercenaries began wheeling out the blood machines.

Vampyr’s absolute stillness caused Chon great anxiety. He felt the weight of his failure to locate Tian Dao Lin’s lair. And five minutes earlier his men had called to report — as he had feared — that they had lost the trail of Tai and the blood in the back streets of Hong Kong, where Tian Dao Lin’s power was absolute. Two of the trailers had been shot and killed, indicating the level of seriousness of whatever was happening.

“Sir—”

“Yes?” Vampyr waited.

“Perhaps,” Chon began, but he stopped when Vampyr’s SatPhone rang. Vampyr listened for a few moments, then hung up without saying a word. He wrote an address on a piece of paper and slid it across to Chon. “What is there?”

Chon read it. “An office building downtown. The Pacific Rim Bank Building.” Vampyr stood. “It is time to pay Mr. Lin a visit.”

“Are you sure—”

Vampyr’s glare caused Chon to bite off whatever he was about to say. He grabbed the phone and barked orders.

The faint beat of helicopter blades echoed down from the roof. Vampyr turned for the door.

“It will take a few minutes for—” Chon began, but he didn’t finish the sentence as the windows and steel shutters imploded, sending shrapnel flying through the room. A piece of metal caught Chon in the chest, ripping through, severing his spinal cord and killing him instantly.

Vampyr reacted instinctively, diving to the floor unscathed. He rolled away from the windows as he caught a glimpse of figures rappelling in on ropes suspended from the roof. A half dozen figures dressed in black with black balaclavas covering their faces were in the room. They all ran toward Vampyr.

Vampyr rolled under the first, at the same time pulling a short sword — his xithos from so long ago in Sparta — out of its sheath and getting to his feet, assuming a ready stance, the point of the ancient sword directed toward the intruders. One jumped at him and he swung, the blade slicing cleanly into the man’s shoulder, then diagonally through his body, coming out the opposite hip. The two pieces fell to the floor.

Everyone in the room halted. The remaining five bracketed Vampyr, keeping their distance from the sword.

“Where is Tian Dao Lin?” Vampyr asked.

No one replied and no one moved. Vampyr had never been a big believer in standoffs. He jabbed at one of the intruders facing him, then spun, sword extended and lopped off the head of the other. He began to advance on the others when the door to the office crashed inward and four more figures dressed in black jumped through, taking up positions. They were followed by an old man wearing loose-fitting black silk with red dragons on each sleeve. He took in the situation and held up a hand.

“Stop.” The old man took a step into the room. “Vampyr.”

Vampyr shifted the point of the xithos toward the old man. “Tian Dao Lin.” The old man nodded. “You were foolish to come here. You should have taken Nosferatu’s offer.” His Quarters took up flanking positions, slightly to the front of he who had made them.

“Nosferatu is weak and a fool who has been besotted by love all these years,” Vampyr said.

“Perhaps,” Tian Dao Lin said.

“Join with me,” Vampyr said.

“At the moment I see no reason why I should,” Tian Dao Lin said. “I have some of the blood and Nosferatu will have the technology needed. You have nothing.”

“I have Adrik on my side. With you, we will be able to get whatever we want from Nosferatu.” Vampyr backed up slightly, to a point where he was near the front of Chon’s desk, his backpack lying against the metal front.

Tian Dao Lin shrugged. “So he has been spying for you. I assumed Adrik was hiding something. The last report I had was that he had recovered what he needed to also.”

“He has. And he is with me, not Nosferatu.” Vampyr made a show of sliding the xithos into its scabbard, while, unnoticed, his other hand slid into his pocket. “You still have not made a proper proposition,” Tian Dao Lin said.

“True,” Vampyr acknowledged.

“Then I will have you killed.” Tian Dao Lin turned for the door.

Vampyr leapt backward, clearing the desk, and falling to the floor on the far side. Vampyr squeezed the detonator in his pocket.

The roar of the claymore mine secreted in his backpack was instantly followed by the sound of thousands of steel ball bearings ripping into the far side of the room, tearing through plaster, wood, and flesh and bone. Vampyr felt the air being sucked out of his lungs from the proximity of the blast on the other side of the desk and the shock wave moving away from him.

He drew his xithos as he got to his knees and peered over the desk top, his ears ringing. Blood, viscera, and parts of bodies littered the room. Two of the Quarters were moving, moaning in agony. Vampyr got to his feet. Cautiously he walked around the desk, being careful where he stepped. He lopped off the heads of the wounded Quarters with two swift strokes. He spotted a blood trail leading out of the doorway and rushed forward.

Vampyr’s lips split in an evil grin as he saw Tian Dao Lin trying to drag himself away along the floor of the hallway, his left leg almost completely severed from his body.

Vampyr went up to his fellow Undead and placed his boot on the practically severed appendage, causing the Chinese to scream in agony.

“You will survive this,” Vampyr said. “Indeed, the leg will grow whole again. But it will take many, many years. I know. But if you ally with me now, and come with me to the Haven, it will go much more quickly.”

Tian Dao Lin could only nod.

“Where is the blood you recovered?” Vampyr asked, leaning forward, putting extra pressure on the wounded leg.

Tian Dao Lin hissed. “In my helicopter.”

Vampyr sheathed his xithos. With one hand he picked up the wounded Undead and slung him over his shoulder. “Let’s go then.”

The two astronauts made their way across the scorched deck of the mothership’s hold and climbed into the airlock on the X–Craft. They carried with them all the blood they had gathered from the Airlia bodies. As Nosferatu had predicted, there wasn’t much, but what they did have was pure Airlia blood. They placed it in the X–Craft’s hold.

They sealed the airlock, secured the cases, and took their seats. With a few gentle puffs of power from the thrusters, they maneuvered the craft out of the hold and into space.