That gave the vampire a short laugh as she started patting the kid’s head. “Are you sure about that?”
“Being raised by–”
“Not Zoe, cute though she is,” Serena said, giving the kid a final affectionate pat. “Sarah. If it is dangerous for me to move, someone completely ignorant will find it most perilous indeed. What will she do if she runs across a clan of hostile vampires when she is barely a few days old.”
Wayne grimaced. He had read books on vampires, as had most everyone–they were a very popular creature for some odd reason. None of the books he had read were guides on how to survive as a vampire, just information. He doubted any guide-type books would exist in a world where the Elysium Order was so well-regarded.
“Incidentally,” Serena said in a slightly angry tone, nodding towards a masked Sarah slowly making her way back to them, “your
“Sister.”
“That’s wonderful news!” The anger vanished from her voice as if it had never been. “Your sister is an August. One of the ones who just woke up as a vampire, based on me never having seen her before. I don’t know if or how she is different from regular vampires, but it is something to keep an eye on.”
“Noted,” Wayne said as he watched his sister.
Sarah no longer clutched at her stomach. Her arm wasn’t quite back to normal, but it was visibly on its way. Vampires’ regeneration was something special. Despite her elbow being far more damaged than Wayne’s arm, he was willing to bet that hers would be back to normal first.
“You alright?” Wayne asked.
“Fine. I just…” Sarah shook her head. “Let’s just leave. What’s the plan.”
Wayne shifted his weight to one side.
“Wayne. What is the plan?”
He shifted again.
“Please tell me you didn’t charge into the city with no idea on how to get out.”
“I figured we could wing it. That normally works out for me.”
Sarah tried to rub her forehead only to hit the visor of her mask. “How have you not been caught already?”
“I’ll have you know that I’m very skilled at what I do. My forging skills got me in with no problem.”
“Wayne,” Serena said, aghast, “you’re a criminal?”
Keeping his attention on his sister, Wayne ignored the finger running down his chest. “Three ways,” Wayne said, “find some helicopter. Surely even a town this tiny has a hospital or news station with some flight capabilities.
“Second, we could try going out the way I came in. That relies on the checkpoint not having found out that my papers were forged. Additionally, finding a way to contact them and let them know that it is me without getting my head shot off might be a good idea.
“Lastly,” Wayne frowned at Sarah, “you tunnel us out.”
“Those are all terrible,” Sarah said with a huff. “Especially the last one.”
“Yeah, yeah. I had a fourth plan. Basically amounted to hailing the nuns and hitching a ride with them. A good number of them are trained to teleport.” He glanced between Sarah and Serena. “Probably not useful so much anymore.”
“Quite,” Serena said in a clipped tone, lacking all her previous banter.
“Do you even know how to pilot a helicopter?”
Wayne shrugged. “Can’t be that hard. There’s a stick right? Push it forward and the thing goes forward, back and it goes back.”
He’d seen a few movies involving helicopters. They didn’t look too impressive. Though they did have an unnerving tendency to explode. That shouldn’t be a problem here; during his scoping out of the military, he didn’t notice anything that looked capable of taking out air targets. With enough altitude, all the ground forces should be easily avoided.
“Right,” Sarah said. Her opinion of that plan was plain in every word. “That plan is off the table.”
“Oh? Through the military blockade it is. I hope they’re friendly.”
“Don’t worry Wayne,” Serena said once again in her husky voice, “I can handle anything mere humans can come up with.” After a playful wink, her tone turned serious. “But we should wait until nightfall. Unless the smoke extends well beyond city limits, your sister and I will have trouble in the sun.”
Wayne nodded. “I could use a nap.”
“Me too,” Sarah said with a long yawn.
Did vampires even need to yawn? A leftover trait of humanity or some idiosyncrasy with how she just woke up as one?
A moot point at the moment.
Zoe tugged on Serena’s shirt. Without even a word of communication between the two, Serena hefted Zoe up on her back. Once settled, Zoe rested her head on Serena’s shoulder.
Possibly mental tricks of the Blacksky vampire reading the younger kid’s mind. He suspected manipulation for a moment before remembering the vehemence with which she spoke of the ‘mindless’ thralls.
In retrospect, Wayne had probably left Zoe and Serena to their own devices far too much if he wanted to prevent any sort of attachment forming from the former to the latter. A kid wouldn’t understand the dangers of a vampire. Her mother might have been a mage, but that didn’t mean that she had any lectures on the creatures.
