“While I will be expendable and perfect?”
“No. We send in the mercenaries through all the entrances but one. That will be their escape route. You wait for them to emerge. Thralls will either bring Kacper out, where you can dispatch them all, or he will die down there.”
“Unless he and his defenses mow down the mercenaries and run over their bodies to exit one of the other five ways.”
“Yes, unless that happens. But perhaps we can instruct the mercenaries to seal the exits behind them. Everyone must come out the one exit we wish or not at all.”
“That might work. Can you get the mercenaries here in the morning?”
Leif pulls out his cell phone. “If not, then certainly by the afternoon. This can be Kacper’s last moonrise.”
“All right. Let’s do it.”
I listen to him coldly arrange the arrival of a significant paramilitary strike force and then call Switzerland, rattling off bank-account numbers to pay for it all and get them mobilized. He has the kind of resources that Atticus used to have. We’re finished by midnight.
Twelve hours later I’m meeting the mercenaries at Stary Port with maps and objectives and warnings to look for booby traps and make sure no one gets out the way they came in.
“This ain’t the first nest we’ve cleared,” one guy says, probably the only American in the bunch. He bulges and glistens like an eighties’ steroid movie; all he’s missing is the stogie in his mouth, chewed up and tapered like a fresh dachshund turd. The rest of the mercenaries are square-jawed Euro lads who speak to one another in accented English.
“Fine. But it’s probably the biggest. Each squad leader has his breach address. You go in hot at thirteen hundred hours and either terminate all hostiles or push them to the single exit. Questions?”
There are none. They really have done it before, and they act like the paid professionals they are. They move out to their appointed positions and gear up. I get a nifty Bluetooth headset thingie so that I can hear what’s happening with Squad A. I just stroll into the front yard of the one house we’re leaving open, trigger the invisibility binding on Scáthmhaide, and hunker down near the door, out of sight of any windows. The silver reservoir of my staff is all filled up with energy, and the front lawn will provide all I need in real time.
The chatter of the mercenaries in my headset increases as one o’clock approaches. They copy and roger a lot of stuff and tell one another that everything’s five by five.
None of the other entry houses is in my line of sight, so I don’t see anything but a quiet working-class neighborhood, but I hear plenty through my earpiece when the breach happens. Commands to get hands up, knees down. Shouts of surprise, defiance, and a few quick bursts of gunfire, then shouts of “Clear!” as each room is inspected for hostiles.
Squad A waits for the other houses to report clear, and then they check for booby traps or security measures around the staircases—all accessed through the back of a closet in one of the bedrooms.
Once they’re satisfied, the second coordinated breach begins. They open the doors and descend those staircases, and the firefight starts early. There’s screaming and hissing and some dying going on, but I can’t tell who’s producing the death screams. I don’t know how well the other squads are doing, but the A team sounds like they are making progress.
Squad A finds at least two occupied coffins in one room and stakes the vampires sleeping inside them. They meet up with Squad C and proceed. No word on the others.
But the strategy is effective. I hear some cursing and noise from within the house. Thumps and the squeak of rubber soles on the floors, a heavy thud. Someone or perhaps many someones have come through the trapdoor. Silent and empty before, the house suddenly has loud tenants, cursing creatively in Polish and shouting at one another.
Panicked thralls. Lugging something awkward.
Clanking. The hollow rushing of hard plastic wheels on tile. “Go! Go!” someone shouts. The wheels whir toward the door, and I tighten my grip on Scáthmhaide in my left hand and draw out a throwing knife in my right.
The lock clicks, the door opens, and a gun barrel pokes out past my head. A pale human thrall steps out, quivering on adrenaline, eyes darting up and down the street but not on me, invisible behind him and to the right. I let him go. He turns and signals to the others that it’s clear.
A gurney rolls out with a damn heavy coffin resting on it and four anxious dudes guiding it with sweaty hands. They’re heading for a huge black SUV parked on the street. Behind them trails the rearguard, armed and keeping an eye on any pursuit from the mercenaries. I first throw the knife into the back of the vanguard, then attack the rearguard with my staff. A sharp whip against his wrists disarms him and maybe breaks a bone, and then I clock his jaw and he goes down with a squawk as the first fella cries out and tries in vain to reach the knife in his back.
The gurney guides whirl around, looking for who’s doing all the damage, but never see the knotted wood that smashes their noses and lays out three of them. The last guy runs and I let him, deciding to chase down the vanguard with the gun instead and make sure he doesn’t use it. I smash his elbow and his hand drops the gun as he screams, but I do pull out the knife for him before slapping the backs of his knees and putting him on the ground. He’ll be fine eventually.
That’s not the case for the slumbering occupant of the coffin. It’s a lovely clear day with full sun. I sheathe the knife and pull out my cell phone, thumbing the camera app. I open the coffin lid and snap a quick picture of the milk-white face before the sun starts to fry him and he wakes up to the sound of his own sizzling cheeks.
He screeches and sits up and I swing full force at him, taking him in the throat and knocking him back into the coffin. He can’t really die of a crushed larynx, but the hit does stun him for a few seconds more, letting the sun work its justice upon him. I back up, stepping over the thralls’ bodies, and block the door. The vampire vaults out a moment later and heads straight for me, visibly aflame and desperate for shelter. I think it’s going to be a simple matter of batting him away again, but he stops, picks up the gun of the rearguard, and points it right at me. He knows where I am; he can hear me or smell me if he can’t see me. And he pulls that trigger fast.