The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Equipping the Strike Team

After a quick stop by his apartment to assemble another half dozen Shiva's and pack them and some ammunition into the back of the Xterra, Mordecai and Dee wove their way through the city to the vampire house.

Lash silently snarled as he looked over the latest reports detailing the results of the latest bush war between the clans and elements of the Brotherhood. Having already slaked his deadly thirst on the blood of their remaining werewolf prisoner and breaking his long day's fast, the Qos Viran commander had swiftly turned his attention to the reports, received just that evening.

They spoke of the Ventru, the Korlu and the Thanos, three of the night nations' eldest clans. The triumvirate had taken upon themselves the honor of facing the Brotherhood directly in the old cities of Europe, long the traditional territory of the vampires.

And, by the testimony of these reports, they had gotten slaughtered before the Brotherhood began its world-wide pull back! The big vampire barely resisted the impulse to tear the reports into shreds in his frustration, choosing instead to slam them down hard onto the table at which he was sitting. 

The Ventru were his clan, his brothers and sisters. And they were laid low by the weakest of the Brotherhood psionics, the battles so one-sided that the vampires might as well have not come to fight. They hadn't put up much resistance. For the effort that they were exerting, they might as well simply put their weapons down and kneel before their killers, baring their necks to have their heads removed.

"Kadasa!" Lash hissed in the vampires' tongue as he turned to stare out the kitchen's small window at the darkening sky. "Give me a weapon with which to strike deep into the Brotherhood's dark heart and I will take it, making the streets run red with psionic blood!"

Almost as if summoned, there came a knock at the door, the harsh sound echoing through the house on the heels of the big vampire's heated oath. Knowing that only a select few were aware that the Qos Viran had chosen this house as their headquarters while they fulfilled the vow to the Lilith Aizea in protecting the one known as Mordecai, Lash frowned. It could only be the humans McMaster and Duffy.

Stuffing his frustration into the back of his mind as he smoothly rose with the grace of his people, Lash strode out of the kitchen and to the front door. There he opened it with an equally smooth surge of his shoulder and arm muscles. And, much to his surprise, found himself facing a man easily his size and breadth.

"Commander Lash, I presume?" the big man rumbled, a broad metal case in his arms. At least, it looked metallic.

Lash took a startled step back, his mind racing frantically as he stared hard at the big man, a smirk playing on his handsome human face. Then, with the abruptness of an avalanche, he recognized him.

"Good to see you on your feet, Mordecai," he replied, stepping to the side as he worked hard to cover his earlier surprise. "Please, come in."

Despite his vow, Lash felt a hot surge of anger directed at Mordecai as the big man stepped past him, case in hand, the human McMaster in his shadow as she followed him inside. While his healer had said the big man was no longer an operational psionic, he still represented that hated race. It would be so easy to take out his frustrations on him, drain him of his very essence ...

"You look troubled, my blood sucking friend," Mordecai pointed out in his deep, powerful voice as he set the big case down onto the floor. "Let me guess: you just went over the most recent reports out of Europe detailing the latest results from your recent battles with the Brotherhood. And it's completely pissed you off!"

Kadasa! Again Lash paused in following the former psionic and his red haired associate into the living room, startled that Mordecai seemed to be walking in his very thoughts. Yet there was no telltale fire, no dizzying pain that spoke of psionic energies at work. So, how did he ...?