Burning (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #1) (15 page)

“
What happens to your clothes when you transform into the flying creature?”

Samantha laughed. “I’m as naked as the day I was born. Granted, I wasn’t born a giant vampire bat, but I’ve learned to roll with the punches.”

I grinned. She grinned, and we headed off to meet the others.

Chapter Twenty-five

We gathered in the great hall for a meet and greet that included a mug of warmed deer blood for Sam, and a hearty Swiss breakfast for the rest of us. I watched her drink, curious as hell. So did the others. She knew we were watching her and gave no indication that she was, in fact, a creature of the night feasting on blood. Hell, she could have been at a Starbucks, sipping coffee.

Finally, when we were done with nourishment, I said: “Okay, Sam. Showtime! But first, you need protective clothing.” I led her to the big bathroom off the great hall. “You can change in here. Take off everything and get into the suit and boots hanging in the bathroom. It’s a diving suit, or sharksuit, made of chainmail. Put sunscreen on your face, ears and neck. You can leave your other clothes in the bathroom to change back after the test.”

After a few minutes, Sam came out in the jumpsuit, gloves, and boots that we provided. She was carrying a tube of sunscreen.

“Since I can’t see myself in the mirror, and I want complete coverage with the sunscreen, can someone else put it on my face and neck?”

“
I will,” Ambra said. “Close your eyes.” And when Sam did, Ambra gently applied sunscreen, even under her eyes.

“
You’re all set, Sam.”

“
Thanks, Ambra. It’s night, so I don’t see the purpose of sunscreen, but...”

“
Trust us,” she said.

Sam raised her eyebrows. “Let’s do this then.”

I admired her bravado. I said, “Now, as you might have guessed, you’re wearing a custom-made sharksuit. We wanted to make sure you would be fully protected during the test.”

“
From sharks?”

“
Ha ha. From whatever sharp thing comes your way. Bullets cannot penetrate. Neither can daggers, nor swords. You can be bruised, but not stabbed.”

“
Lovely. Hopefully, the evil vampires won’t think of this.”

“
Even if they did, how the heck would they walk in it for any length of time? Let alone run?” I asked.

“
But if it was a shirt or even a half shirt, the vampire’s heart would be covered up. They could be wounded but not outright killed.”

“
Then let’s consider this all top secret.”

“
You’re trusting me with a lot of tech knowledge.”

“
You trust us, too.”

She nodded. “This would be heavy to wear every day, anyway, even as a half-shirt.”

“It would be lighter underwater because it is built up on top of a diver’s wetsuit with added buoyancy, but this, for all intents and purposes, is your body armor for the test. An enemy vampire wouldn’t be equipped like this unless they had foreknowledge and a lot of financial resources and months of planning time, as we have. These are custom made and they cost a lot.”

“
How much?”

“
Thirty grand.”

“
Okay. Not obtainable for your average vampire. What about my head?”

“
We have a helmet for you but you won’t put it on yet. Wait until before entering the trap area to put it on, so we can talk while we walk.”

“
Am I going swimming through a shark tank?”

“
No. We don’t condone animal abuse. You’d probably beat the hell out of a great white, anyway.”

She expelled a relieved breath. “I wouldn’t want to find out.”

“Relax. We’re not going to go all James Bond on you with shark tanks. It’ll be the normal stuff that kills vampires that we are testing in the trap.”

“
Okay, so...silver and sunlight. But it’s night, so...no sunlight to worry about.”

“
Actually, there’s more to your body armor.”

“
There is?”

Ambra wheeled over a clothes rack on which a big silver suit hung. “Ta da!” she said.

“It says NASA on it,” Sam said. “Hasn’t this been to the moon?”

“
I’ll take the Fifth Amendment.”

“
How did you guys get this?”

“
It’s better if you don’t know.”

“
Okay. Do I put it on over the sharksuit?”

“
That’s right.”

“
Will it fit?”

“
We hope so.”

“
I don’t need UV protection from a spacesuit. It’s night.”

“
No more hints, you wily vampire,” I said.

“
What do we do now?”

“
We go outside. You’ll be playing the part of a dangerous vampire who is trying to get access to the interior of the castle. You walk point, and you pick the entry that you want.”

We all went toward the giant double doors at the foyer.

“What if the vampire comes to the front door and knocks?” she asked.

“
It’s disabled for the duration of your visit, but we have a weapon at the front door, and at every door and window. We don’t have to open the door to deploy it.”

“
Multiple silver sharp things propelled through the air at the vampire standing at the door?”

“
Good call.”

“
Barbaric, but effective. Like high-tech Greek fire.”

“
Exactly. But now that we have the doors and windows secured, there are parts of the castle that are vulnerable to penetration.”

“
I walk point?” Samantha said.

“
Please.”

I handed Sam UV goggles and she put them on her head but not over her eyes yet. I carried a polycarbonate helmet with a UV-visor and sharksuit gloves for Samantha. I said, “Each of those protective devices only blocks ninety-seven percent of the UV light rays in the 300 to 380 nanometer range. We are using two of them, plus you have sunscreen on.”

Samantha nodded. “It’s night, so I’m assuming you have some sort of simulated sunlight.”

“
You’re right, but I’m not telling you anything you didn’t expect.”

“
I’m going to tape some photo-sensitive paper strips onto the spacesuit,” Ambra said. “If we did our job right, they will all be turned blue when you come out of the vampire trap.”

“
Whatever you say,” Sam said. “Let’s do this.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Samantha and I walked outside the castle, our boots crunching in the snow. Everyone else went back into the war room to watch the proceedings on the castle’s closed-circuit security cameras. Of course, only I would show up on camera. And Sam’s empty clothing.

“Sam, you have one job. Find your way into the castle.”

I grunted and kept up with Samantha’s long steps as she first circled the entire castle around the dry moat. I followed her, not saying anything, but I was secretly thrilled as she chose one of the five points of entry that we had tied into the vampire trap. All of the potential entrances led into the same end point, which would be death for any vampires.
Hopefully.
Of course, none of the weapons were live for the testing with Sam.

“
A secret entrance,” she said, as we entered a partially hidden opening in the castle wall that had brush piled in front of the wall. We both had to bend over to go through it.

I followed Sam into the dimness, turning on my infrared night-vision goggles as we stepped through the broken wall into the bowels of the castle. Through a hole at the bottom of the wall was a vertical space that had once been used by the household staff for cleaning out the garderobe, or pit toilet.

When she stepped inside the castle wall, she looked up at the old drip stains and said, “Charming.”

Samantha could see in the dark. She walked without hesitation and stepped over our carefully placed obstacles. She climbed the small set of stone stairs that was strewn with rat nests and rodent droppings. I followed. She used old metal ring handholds in the wall to work her way up inside the exterior castle walls into the tower that held the old privy room at the top. She gave no indication that the sharksuit weighed over fifty pounds. Hell, she could have been walking in workout gear, for the effort she was putting into it.

Anyway, I dutifully followed her up the stairs, my body hugging the wall. I didn’t touch any of the rings in the wall, since some of them were keyed to weapons deployment. I think Samantha realized that and left off using them, too.

Smart girl.

She paused every few steps and looked around, as if looking for evidence of my booby traps. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end every time she paused near a booby trap.

I saw her skip touching one of the ring handholds in the wall. It was one that would’ve triggered a barrage of pure silver nails launched from a mini-trebuchet into a vampire’s chest—for the safe test with Sam, I had it set up with Nerf darts instead of silver darts. But Sam didn’t even touch that handhold. I wouldn’t find out why until later.

The winter wind whistled through the old tower like a low moan. A fat rat scurried past our feet on the narrow steps, squeaking an alarm, which started a bunch of other rats squeaking back at it. Sam didn’t flinch.
But I sure did
.

“
I can sense your fear,” Sam said. “So can they.”

“
Uh-huh,” I murmured as the rats cleared off the stone stairs and went downward. We went upward, Sam leading the way, step by step. There was no railing to protect us from falling. Sam didn’t look down as we ascended. I made the mistake of doing that.
Once.
Down at the bottom of the small stone stairs, tiny red eyes glowed in the dark and I could make out the forms of dozens of rats, watching us climb. Looking through the infrared night-vision goggles was like looking at a horror movie set.

Many steps later, about three stories up, we passed the opening for the stone chute that had once channeled the excrement until it slid down the wall and made a nasty pile at the bottom for the serfs to shovel up and take away.

Finally, we reached the top of the steps and Sam turned herself sideways. She slid through a space between two walls that took us into an old privy room that was both windy and cold. There was a stone seat with a hole in the middle, and a long way down if one were to use the seat for its intended purpose.

Above, ravens flew in and out through the holes in the tower roof and cawed at us. Now we were on their turf. My sense of smell was always acute and their acrid droppings made my eyes water, even inside of my helmet. I resisted the urge to take it off and rub my eyes.

I was stunned when Sam decided that she was going to climb an old ladder to the roof. That was not part of the route and I held onto the bottom of the ladder, hoping it would hold her weight. She flung open the trap door and ducked, in case anything went flying at her. I followed her up a moment later.

Next, she went down the narrow corridor that now looked like it led into the occupied part of the castle, but in truth, it was sealed off from that part. Well, mostly. There was barely an entrance and you had to know where it was to get in.

We were now getting to the part with the mirrors. I knew that Sam wouldn’t reflect but I would, so I lagged behind her a little ways. She looked at me suspiciously. “The corridor looks different behind us.”

I was silent. It was an optical illusion done with mirrors, to make it look as if there was a wall behind my back, instead of a corridor.

Sam cautiously went ahead and I stayed behind her, to stay out of the mirror reflection. She wasn’t transparent, but she didn’t reflect. She crashed through a very thin mirror and then the simulated sunlight came on and blasted the photosensitive squares of paper taped to the spacesuit.

She tried to run forward, past it, and a barrage of Styrofoam darts launched and hit the chest area of her suit. I flattened myself against the wall while Samantha tried to run back the way we had come but was confused by a holographic projection of unyielding stone wall where there was a corridor.

She closed her eyes and reached out. “I feel air coming in and not a wall.” She walked into the draft with her eyes closed and accidentally touched a wall.

Her touch on the wall triggered another volley of Nerf darts into her chest area and turned on more simulated sunlight bulbs until the whole area was illuminated by blinding simulated sunlight and Nerf darts littered the floor.

“That was a very tricky illusion. If those Nerf darts were silver, I would be dead now.”