Crimson Stars - 8 (Patreon)

VIII. Safety

Inferno System

The entrance to the compound showed no sign of having opened in some time. Condensation had frosted over the metallic door set into the concrete wall, which I knew did not develop quickly. At least not naturally. The amount of condensation in the frozen tunnels of Dis was minimal, after all. Not negligible, for the air filling those tunnels was breathable and there was always some minimal off gassing from the ice, but it took months to add up to anything visible.

All the same, I remained on alert as I entered the passphrase into the keypad. There remained the small possibility of the frosting having been added artificially. However, the door cracked open with a hiss of warmth and no apparent toxic gases.

We slipped in, closing it behind us. Inside, I turned a crank to install a solid dead-lock. The only way to open the door from the outside would be with cutting tools. It added a nice piece of mind to the place.

The lock secured, we took off the outer portions of our clothing. My jacket was little more than a tattered mess, covered in dust from Minotaur, and I tossed it into a waste receptacle instead of bothering to hang it up. The boots were passable, though. Falx’s jacket was in similarly poor shape, with bullet holes peppering it. He seemed less able to accept simply tossing it aside, however. I made a note to throw it out when he was otherwise occupied, but focused on heading into the rest of the compound for the time being.

The interior design of the safehouse was dated, even with the slowly shifting fashions of vampires. I’d last had it decorated nearly two centuries ago and had not bothered to update it since. Still, it was comfortable, even if the cut of the furniture read as mildly tacky at this point. The main room was generously sized, sunken relative to the entryway. A stairwell cut yet lower, leading down towards the bedrooms and gymnasium. In case of an emergency, there was also an access point to a submersible capsule lower still. I was reasonably certain that, in the current situation, that would be little more than a delaying action if Szlachta’s forces found us.

With nothing pressing to do, I headed directly towards the kitchen. Falx followed me in silent alertness. Clearly he trusted the safety of the unit rather less than I did, not realising how many shell companies stood between it and my official accounts.

He seemed surprised when we entered a small, cleanly decorated (though outdated) kitchen. I opened one of the cupboards and found a number of bags of salty shelf stable snacks.

“Barbecue or borscht flavoured?” I asked, knowing which one I felt like at the moment.

“Pardon?” he asked, confusion dancing across his features.

Features that were either more handsome than I’d realised or nearly dying had lowered my standards slightly. Tired bewilderment certainly seemed to be doing him favours, though. It suited the softness to his face better than his attempts at cocky confidence.

“For veggie sticks,” I said, pulling out a borscht bag. “I figured that you were hungry.”

“I… I am, but—is now really the time to be—”

I opened my bag and pulled out a puffed stick of carbohydrates that may have once come from a plant one could pretend was a vegetable. I then ate it as Falx stared in confusion.

“Wait, why are you eating?” he asked. “You don’t need food…”

“It tastes good. I can do things that I enjoy, even if they are not needed for my survival. Be it watching a video, listening to a concerto, having sex, or eating salty junk food. Now, did you want one?”

“I… uh… barbecue flavoured,” he muttered, looking like he was still a little confused.

With a nod, I pulled out a bag and placed it in his arms. “You can make proper food afterwards. There are shelf stable meal packets in other cupboards.”

I then set out, over to the main room. Plunking myself onto the sunken couch, I gave the table in the middle of the lowered area a small kick and a screen emerged from the middle of it. On some level I realised I needed a shower, but I was rather too tired to get up again.

“Put the news on,” I ordered.

The screen lit up, flicking to my pre-set news channel. That was well within the capacity of the circuitry that was already awake in the safehouse. The actual brain of the complex would take some time to wake up, but I doubted I would need it.

The news itself was being hosted by a few overfed vampiric anchors, obviously burning through human resources to look alive for the cameras. It was not really the waste of humans that bothered me, of course. There was always a steady stream of criminals as well as the sickly wishing for an early end to the misery. The supplies were not limited, but the effects of feeding so often on one’s sense of self importance… that was what I did not approve of. Especially considering how vain those who fed so often usually started as.

Ah, but I was being distracted in my state of mental exhaustion. I had to focus on the substance of the reports. Red banners framed the screen as coverage still attempted to trace my ‘daring escape’ from the Minotaur execution theatre. Press conference footage showed tired looking military officials refusing comment on questions they were barraged by. Specialists were brought in to speculate wildly on minimal information.

Within half an hour I was fairly certain that the general public had yet to work out we had been to Seninătate. The actual authorities were likely already piecing things together, but they would struggle to trace us to Dis.

“How did you escape?” I asked Falx.

He was lurking in a corner of the living room, perched on a stool to watch the front entrance. All very tactically sound and utterly useless if the might of the new empress were actually thrown against us.

“Espada wasn’t able to shake her paranoia, even when you told her not to worry. She remained on edge enough to realise things had gone wrong before we were pinned down,” he said, blushing slightly and failing to meet my eye. “Seax agreed the primary mission was a lost cause and we decided to try to focus on preserving the—protecting you. However, Seax realised that was impossible in the immediate term and beat a retreat. It took a few days to find a way to fake our death and then some time longer to find a shuttle to steal.”

“Ah. Tell Espada she was right to have worried… I can barely believe my century of planning was undone by my idiot sister getting the hots for a ruthless military commander,” I said, leaning into the plush couch. “If I had known that butcher and her regiment were there…”

My mind began to stew and I tried to distract it with the last few veggie sticks in the now all but empty bag.

“If you do not mind my asking,” Falx began, in a quiet voice. “What did she do to warrant such a reputation? I had thought vampiric military philosophy rarely shied away from bloodshed.”

“There is war and then there is needless slaughter,” I muttered. “A minor noble had a little rebellion a few years back. Not a move against the throne, merely a protest over some idiot dispute with a slightly more important lord. Leállítás Sange was sent to deal with the matter. Whether she goaded the fool into a fight or they’d both stumbled into it is unclear, though I gather it was probably the former. What is clear is that she won. She forced him to retreat to his fortress. His brother then staged a coup, ready to hand him over, since the man was set to die either way. Leállítás negotiated to have them open the gate to hand him over, then sent in her forces to kill everyone in the castle.”

I took in a breath, speaking requiring air even if I didn’t. “She insisted that betraying a traitor showed the brother could not be trusted, and that it implied the entire house was rotten. That was how she began to build her reputation. All while behaving sickly sweet, despite often literally having blood on her hands.”

In his corner, Falx nodded slowly. It was giving him something of a picture of the enemy we faced.

I decided to leave him to it and changed the channel on the screen. Eventually I found a mindless bit of reality television. A number of humans competing to be turned by a vampire lord. The lord in question was no one important, but richer than most humans could ever dream to be. Not to mention there was the promise of agelessness.

The brainless ‘entertainment’(/stimulus) was an effective distraction from my frustrations. A full episode was able to end before Falx spoke up again.

“May I… may I ask what our plan is now?”

I slowly turned my face towards him, offering a lidded stare. “Languishing in apathy and defeat for a few years seems like an excellent plan to me, at the moment.”

He blinked. “Pardon?”

“I failed. The plan I spent most of the last century building collapsed around me in an utterly spectacular manner. If I show my neck anywhere in the Empire I am a dead woman. The best I can hope to do is hide until my sister’s rage becomes somewhat less focused,” I replied, eyes drifting back to the screen and its mindless display. “The most miraculous of theoretically plausible outcomes for the situations is that my sister somehow manages to fumble the throne so thoroughly that a new appetite for a coup is born and I have a chance to emerge from the shadows. If that reasonably unlikely outcome does not occur… then the winning strategy shall be cosmetic surgery to become unrecognisable and attempt to find some reason to live in obscurity.”

“What about your allies?”

“A bunch of greedy spiders who were willing to support me in exchange for favours if I secured the throne. They had no real loyalty,” I said.

“All of them?” he asked.

Turning up the volume on the entertainment unit I then replied ‘most of them’ quietly enough to be drowned out by the noise.

-

Falx eventually went to the kitchen, fetching himself some food. Meal in hand, he went back to lurking in his corner, staying on alert. I ignored him. His paranoia was useless in such a hopeless situation as ours. By the time we knew anything was wrong we’d have lost. There was no chance Leállítás would risk us escaping again. That would be far too embarrassing.

Seax had only been able to rescue me as Leállítás had believed all of my allies were dead. Now she’d have no such vain confidence.

“We should sleep,” I said, shutting off the screen.

“Pardon?” Falx asked.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“I… before the coup attempt,” Falx replied. “I think. I did not get all of the others’ memories with perfect clarity.”

“Then you need to sleep,” I said. “There are a few bedrooms. I shall be taking the master bedroom. You can have whichever smaller one you would like… unless you care to join me?”

I left enough emphasis on the suggestion to make it clear what the implication of that would be. It would have been good stress relief if he’d said yes.

“That… that would be unprofessional for a klivanion,” he stammered, blushing as he did so.

While he’d been trained in combat from birth it seemed his people skills were rather more lacking. That was, however, what I had expected. And had planned for. As such, I happily led him downstairs to pick out which of the three options he wanted. An excess of choice driven by past overconfidence as to how much I would have left in the way of allies if I ever had to retreat here.

“I dislike leaving you unguarded though, my lady,” he said, despite his exhaustion growing more visible.

“Then sleep, so that you don’t go and die on me, leaving me unguarded at all times,” I replied flatly. “That would be rather more inconvenient than having six hours a day where you might take a little longer to come to my side. The residence is quite secure, however. Do not worry.”

He gave a reluctant nod and then went into the bedroom. I headed over to the master bedroom, closing the door behind me. With his youthful nervousness I rather doubted Falx would dare to open the door unless there was substantial reason to, but I still wished to move quickly and efficiently. Especially in case it was Seax who woke in the morning.

Heading into the large closet, I found a drawer with a small number of accessories in it. While there were pince-nez sunglasses such as those I preferred to be found within, for my immediate plan I chose a single visor set that covered a maximum portion of my face. Shedding my tattered clothes, I pulled out an imperial special inspector’s uniform. The sort of outfit that people would likely remember seeing, but would be terrified to admit they’d noticed.

Before I dressed, however, I realised I needed to shower. There was simply too much dust from Minotaur upon me, even after all the hours. Regular humans could suffer lung damage breathing that in and it would raise some questions from any medical personnel treating them. Not to mention any found around a corpse.

So I slipped into the ensuite washroom and grabbed a quick and efficient shower. Then I dressed and slipped into a hidden passage that led back to the entry area. I simply did not wish to deal with any protective panic from Falx and needed to feed. I also needed to stretch my limbs, moving independently to prove I could. Falling into such utter dependency upon my last remaining klivanion was inexcusable.

At the entrance, I then slipped into the small garage, rolling a small ecycle from its charging berth. Unlike the utilitarian kart we had used to arrive, the ecycle was faster, more agile, and did something to repair my damaged ego with its sleek and efficient design.

I pulled down the long service tunnel at well above whatever the local speed limit was. All the same, the settlements were sparse on this part of Dis and the nearest settlement would be at least an hour away.

The speed of the tunnel air against my face and the peril of the sharp turns to join more regional service tunnels provided a thrill of—well, not being alive, as a vampire it had been some centuries since I truly met that description, but the thrill of existing, at least. The cold of it cut into even a vampire’s senses, further strengthening the rush of it all.

I zipped past a few smaller service lanes, ignoring the closer solar farms or the oceanic deuterium harvesters. Feeding too close to home was never a good idea when one was trying to hide.

Eventually, though, there were enough homesteads between myself and the safehouse that it seemed fair to hunt. I chose a service lane at random and raced down it. Hopefully whoever lived there would be alone. I could only feed on one soul in a session. Having to dispose of witnesses was such a waste of food.