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Title: the end of the world (as we know it)
Author: alyse
Fandom: Blade: Trinity
Pairing: Abigail Whistler/Hannibal King
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 51,562
Warnings: Highlight to read: violence, illness, involuntary vampirism.
Summary: When the vampire virus starts to develop a resistance to the Nightstalkers' Daystar weapon, Abigail is left watching helplessly as King has to fight not just for his life, but for his soul and his sanity.
Masterlist: AO3 :: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
-o-
Previous Part: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
-o-
It took hours before King finally sank into an exhausted doze. His face was still far too pale in the harsh light of the single fluorescent light overhead, and sweat beaded his forehead. Her eyes felt gritty and her limbs heavy, weighed down with the same exhaustion that had taken King. She shouldn't sleep - even if she hadn't been gripped by the fear that King would still need her, would die if she took her eyes off him for a moment, it wasn't safe. But she was battered and bruised, heartsick and broken, and in the end it was just another battle she lost.
She only closed her eyes for a moment, stirring back into wakefulness when King shifted position in her arms. She blinked blearily, her limbs stiff and sore, and then King exploded into movement, surging upright and knocking her on her ass.
For a second, she was too shocked to do anything but stare up at him, her mind reeling. His fingers were digging into her upper arms, pinning her to the floor as he loomed above her. His skin was even paler now, his eyes glittering golden in his bloodless face, and he was staring down at her expressionlessly, the look in his eyes vacant. Her heart raced, fast and furious, as he tilted his head, his lips parting as though he was going to kiss her again.
White fangs flashed, sharp and terrifying, and she finally got with the programme, tensing up and trying to buck him off her. She failed, and that was even more terrifying, the fear sending the adrenaline coursing through her as she tried again, desperately trying to free herself.
He'd kill her if she didn't, and that would just tear him apart.
For a long, horrifying moment, he hung over her, his gaze fixed on the pulse beating in her neck as she fought to escape, and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, he let go.
She rolled over onto her front, gasping for air, her heart still pounding out a staccato rhythm in her chest and her fingers hooked into claws, digging into the concrete she half-stumbled, half-dragged herself towards the silver blade lying abandoned where their tormentor had left it.
Only when her fingers had wrapped around it did she turn and look for King.
He was pressed up against the wall opposite her, his palms flat against the brick, and he was watching her, his eyes wide and lost. She scrambled backwards, the hand holding the knife shaking, until she also hit the wall, the entire length of the room between them.
King looked away, swallowing, guilt and pain flashing across his face. She'd have gone to him anyway, in spite of the fangs, if hunger hadn't followed straight after them. He licked at his lips, a dry, nervous move that didn't do anything to calm the ferocious racing of her heart.
"You should probably keep that close," he said, his voice rough, as if his throat was dry and sore. Maybe it was. She should have listened more closely when Sommerfield had talked late into the night about the physiological changes that the vampirism virus wrought.
She'd make sure she'd listen to Caulder from now on. Assuming that there was a 'from now on'.
She eased herself down, forcing her heart rate to slow and her fingers to relax until it was no longer painful to hold her weapon. She should put it down, show King that even now she trusted him, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, not when he was still watching her with eyes washed clean of any humanity.
Besides, she'd made him a promise and she should reassure him that she was willing to keep it, even if she had no intention of choosing herself if it came down to a choice between the two of them.
She drew her feet in, but even the sound of her bare soles scraping along the concrete floor sounded too harsh and loud in the silence that had fallen between them. King tilted his head again, still focused on her, eerily quiet. She wasn't used to King being quiet - even ignoring the vampirism, it left her on edge.
King finally looked away from her, clearing his throat awkwardly.
"How long before someone rides to the rescue?" he asked.
She didn't have an answer for him, not one that would prove true, and the silence stretched out between them until King shuffled awkwardly, looking back at her again. It finally forced her into admitting, "I'm not sure how long we were out. And I think they moved us, so... it might be a while. I don't..." She trailed off, trying to think it through. "Without Hedges to hack back into the satellite once they changed the access codes..."
No trackers, she meant, and he nodded as though that was the answer he'd been expecting. But he'd stopped looking at her, staring at the wall instead as though that would give him the answers he sought. "Keep that knife close," he repeated, and there was steel in his voice this time, leaving no room for doubt or argument.
She couldn't argue with him anyway, even though she wanted to. It would be a lie, and she didn't make a habit of lying to King. Except...
"They'll come," she said.
-o-
They didn't.
-o-
She didn't know how long they'd been locked up now. She'd long since lost track of hours, days. It couldn't be weeks, not without any access to water. She was parched, beyond parched, her tongue like sandpaper in her mouth and her throat filled with razor blades. The hunger was more manageable in comparison, but there was a throbbing pain behind her eyeball and that didn't bode well for her continued good health. Her poorly treated muscles had stiffened, but she was reluctant to keep active, not when King was so on edge. She didn't want to admit it, but anything that didn't draw his attention to her had to be a plus.
King was pacing again, keeping to his side of the room but still stalking up and down like a caged tiger.
Stalking, she thought bleakly, seemed the right way to describe it. There was something in the fluid way that he moved, something predatory and intense that contrasted with his normal graceful lope. He'd been at it for hours, unable to keep still, and if she was thirsty - and thirsty didn't even come close to describing the lack of moisture in her mouth - then how much worse must it be for him? The newly turned usually fed quickly, she knew that much, but how long they could go without feeding... That was something she wasn't quite as sure of.
She should be. She'd always focused more on the hunt than she had on anything else, too reliant on everyone else having the answers she didn't. If they ever got out of here, she was going to fix that, make damned sure that she knew everything there was to know about vampires, not just everything she thought she should know.
So here she was, stuck watching him, ignorant and on edge and unable to hide it any longer. She was too tired and too drained, the exhaustion dragging her down and slowing her reactions. Forget refusing to defend herself from him at the cost of his life - if he lost control now she didn't think she'd be able to defend herself.
He made another turn, his fingernails dragging along the wall as he walked, beating out a tattoo that only set her hackles further on edge.
"They're not coming," he growled, his pace picking up. "We need to get out of here."
"You've already tried the door. Several times." She kept her voice even, not wanting to antagonise him, not when he was this unstable. "There's no other way out."
He spun on his heel to glare at her, only dropping his eyes when she pressed her back more firmly against the wall, her fingers tightening instinctively around the handle of her weapon. She swallowed, forcing her fingers to relax. King wouldn't hurt her if he was in his right mind. She had to keep telling herself that.
She'd just wasn't sure that he was in his right mind anymore.
She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and trying to centre herself.
"Don't fall asleep!"
She started, rubbing her hands across her eyes and briefly considered lying, but there was no use denying it. She couldn't stay awake for much longer, and she fucking hurt, her nose still puffy and swollen, making it difficult to breathe.
She ignored it, instead asking him tentatively, "How are you...?"
"How am I doing?" he asked, bright and bitter. "Well, let's think about it for a moment. I'm a vampire again, after almost three years off the juice. The thirst is getting more and more difficult to control, and the woman I -"
He broke off, swallowing down whatever he'd been about to say. And then he was back to pacing, fingernails scratching against the wall.
Maybe to make sure he didn't move away from it.
Chills ran up and down her spine, and they weren't the good sort. Her scalp was prickling, the hackles on the back of her neck rising. Telling herself that it was just instinct, a biological response to a perceived threat, didn't help when the threat in question was King.
"I can smell your blood." The brightness had gone from his voice, but not the bitterness. This time it was dark, overlaid with things she didn't want to examine too closely. Hunger was only part of it. "Do you have any fucking idea how it feels to be able to smell you and only be able to think about how hungry I am." He let out a harsh chuckle, one that was stripped of any amusement. "You should have used that knife when you had the chance."
Her heart skipped a beat hearing the barely suppressed anger in his voice. She also hadn't missed the implication that she wouldn't have a chance now.
He paused in his pacing, turning to look at her again. She could see the indecision across his face and then he took two steps towards her, making her shy away from him instinctively before she could think better of it. "Give me the knife."
"No."
His lips curled up, revealing his fangs. "Give. Me. The. Knife."
She shook her head mutely, refusing to give up on him the way he seemed to be giving up on himself. He lunged for her, but she was expecting it or something like it. She didn't use the knife, not even when he gripped tightly hold of her shoulders and pushed his face so close to hers that she could see the speckles of brown still lurking behind the gold in the depths of his irises.
He hesitated, conflicted, and then he grabbed for her wrist, hissing as his fingers brushed against the silver blade she held.
She threw it away, ignoring it as it clattered against the floor several feet distant from them. He stared at her, stunned and appalled.
"What the fu-"
She reached up and caught hold of his face, sliding her palms over his cheeks and holding him there when he tried to pull away, staring straight into his eyes and refusing to back down. "Do you have any idea what it would do to me to have to kill you?"
"Abby -"
"No." She put as much force into the word as she could and it stopped him in his tracks, the expression on his face relaxing into the kind of desolation that broke her heart all over again. But he stopped fighting to get away from her, and that was what she wanted, needed. "I promised that I wouldn't let you hurt me. I didn't promise that you could use me to commit fucking suicide. Or that I'd stand by and watch you kill yourself. For God's sake..." Her voice cracked. "You're all I have and I am not going to lose you. So you don't fucking well get to quit on me now, you hear me?"
For a second, she thought he was actually going to argue with her, but even with the vampirism virus coursing through his veins King was smarter than that. He nodded. Reluctantly, maybe even a little despairingly, but he nodded.
He touched the back of her hand briefly, the light pressure of it pushing her palm more firmly against his cheek for a moment, and then he moved back, her fingers slipping away from his skin.
He went back to pacing, his hand once again pressed hard against the stone work, letting it anchor him in a way that Abby couldn't.
She watched him for a long, long time before she finally reached for the knife again.
-o-
She couldn't fight the exhaustion any more and finally she slept, on and off, falling into a light doze that left her aware on some level of King's movements. So when he stopped abruptly she was startled back into wakefulness, although it took an uncomfortably long period of time before she could focus on him properly.
He was standing in the middle of their makeshift cell, his face tilted up towards the ceiling above them.
"Someone's coming."
She blinked at him blearily for a second, her mind struggling to catch up, and then she slowly pushed herself to her feet, her bruised muscles protesting.
King had already headed towards the door and she followed him, struggling to keep some distance between them when she was still fighting the need to touch him, to reach out and make sure he was still with her, in every sense of the word.
"How many?" she asked, not sure whether he'd have an answer for her. While she knew that vampiric senses were enhanced, they'd never been able to determine by how much and she'd never wanted to ask King directly, knowing how much he hated talking about the specifics of his time with Danica. He much preferred painting it in broad - and coarse - brush strokes.
He paused for a second, listening intently, and then shook his head, making sure to keep his distance.
He was a lot better at it than she was.
She strained her ears, struggling to pick up what he'd already heard. She was about to give up and simply ask him when she finally caught it - the faint sound of footsteps outside their door. She moved back several paces, glancing around desperately for somewhere she could stay out of sight, just in case, but there was nowhere.
In the end, it didn't matter. The door was flung open before she could react.
She'd been hoping against hope for Caulder or Sullivan to pull a miracle out of the hat and actually track the pair of them down, satellite or no satellite, but today was just full of disappointment. She didn't recognise the man in front of her, but she knew the type, even if the gun in his hand hadn't already given him away.
Familiar. And he wasn't alone - another lurked behind him, hovering nervously as he eyed her and King. She shouldn't feel as weirdly satisfied about that as she did.
The first one took a step into the room, scowling and gesturing at her with his weapon, forcing her further back, away from the door. His eyes darted between her and King, and while he couldn't have missed the fact that King was now a vampire, he didn't look at all surprised. He must have expected it, which told her that he wasn't just any familiar, but one owned by the vampire who had turned King.
He should have been more careful, but perhaps he spent too much time in the presence of well-fed predators and had grown lax and fat on their leavings. He turned his back on King, and that was the last mistake he ever made.
She knew that some vampires were able to move a little faster than humans, but King moved faster than she'd ever seen him, grabbing hold of the first familiar as soon as his attention was distracted. He yanked the man's head to one side and Abby was already moving, heading towards the other familiar as he let out a yell and pointed his weapon at King, before she realised what King was going to do.
Stiff or not, her momentum knocked the second familiar down and she had the knife at his throat before he could get back up again, holding it there and keeping her eyes fixed on his face. It meant she didn't have to watch as King killed his companion, but it meant she saw every single, horrific second of it reflected on the face of her prisoner.
The first familiar kept screaming, his voice dying down to a gurgle as King continued to feed. And she could hear King, growling low in the back of his throat, the sound clear even over the death throes of his victim.
No. Not victim. She couldn't think of it in those terms, not and stay sane. He'd asked for it. Familiars never did have a very long life expectancy, no matter what they thought when they signed up.
The gurgles died off slowly, first to a low moan and then to silence, but she kept her focus on the man beneath her, pressing her knife into his neck hard enough to cause small beads of blood to well up, red against his skin. One drop grew big enough to slide across his throat and drip down towards the floor, and her skin felt tight, her head too big for her body, as she tried desperately not to think about what was happening only a few feet behind her.
The body hit the floor behind her and only then did she move, pushing herself slowly to her feet as she staggered away from the man now shaking and weeping on the floor, begging for the mercy his master hadn't shown Carruthers or Henderson. Or King.
"Please," he burbled, looking between Abby and King as though either of them was supposed to give a fuck. "Don't kill me."
She'd kicked his gun halfway across the room before she'd pinned him down, and she picked it up now, tucking it in the waistband of her pants before she turned back to face him. King had moved as well - he was now standing over the familiar she'd taken down. It was instinctual to take a few steps forward before she slowed, an automatic response to the equation of vampire plus human equals threat, but she couldn't bring herself to stop King, not if he needed this. Not if it was a choice between him and the bastard on the ground.
She just couldn't bring herself to watch.
But King didn't feed on him, not right away. He simply reached down and hauled the snivelling familiar to his feet, picking him up easily. He'd always been strong, even before he'd been turned, six foot two of sheer muscle. He slammed the familiar into the wall, holding him there while he stared at him, full of predatory intent.
"Where are we?" King growled, shaking the familiar when he didn't answer immediately. The threat was implicit in every move he made, not veiled behind good humour the way it always had been. "And why the fuck did you come back?"
The familiar was gibbering in terror, his teeth chattering together hard enough for Abby to hear it from where she stood, but King didn't let up, baring his fangs and snarling until the familiar finally caved.
"We were told to collect you," he stammered, staring at King, half-hypnotised with fear. "Once you'd killed her." He didn't even spare Abby a glance, which didn't seem to sit well with King. "Bring you back if you..." He swallowed, hard and heavy. "If you survived the biological weapon."
He meant Daystar. It was strange to hear of it in those terms instead of as salvation, the way the Nightstalkers thought of it, but then it hadn't saved Carruthers or Henderson.
"Why?" she asked. He tore his attention away from King long enough to give her a blank look, his wits obviously shattered.
"She asked you a question," King said mildly, but his fingers dug more tightly into the man's throat, causing him to gasp and choke.
"It's killing vamps everywhere," he finally got out past the grip of King's fingers. "But not these ones. So if they turn anyone, there's a chance their offspring will survive. And they need the numbers."
King nodded thoughtfully, the look in his eyes growing distant as he puzzled it out, and then he twisted his fingers, snapping the familiar's neck as easily as Henderson's had snapped.
The sound went through Abby like a thunderbolt, and she watched wordlessly the familiar's corpse crumpled to the floor. When she met King's eyes again, his were defiant, just daring her to say something. She swallowed down the bile that had started to rise in her throat and stared at him for a long moment, picking her next words with the utmost care.
"Does he have a phone on him?" she asked.
-o-
Thank God for familiars and their expensive little toys - the phone she'd fished out of the dead familiar's pockets had come with a range of apps, including GPS. Whether that was because he'd got lost a lot or because his masters wanted to know where he was, twenty-four seven, she didn't know and cared even less, but at least it meant that Sullivan didn't have to do anything clever with cell phone towers to find out the location of this particular hellhole. He wasn't anywhere near the hacker that Hedges had been.
When she finally got hold of Caulder, she hadn't given him the chance to get a word in edgeways, talking over his relief tersely and with as few words as she could get away with. Her hands were shaking as she held the phone up to her ear, and she limited herself to telling him where they were, that King needed medical assistance and to bring a van, something with blacked out windows if he could get it. He hadn't asked any questions, not after she'd told him that Henderson and Carruthers were dead. He'd just gone quiet for a moment, and then told her that he'd be there.
Caulder was far from stupid and he certainly wasn't naive - he probably already had his suspicions about just how King was injured, but she couldn't bear to confirm them over the telephone. The questions would come later - there was no doubt about that - and there'd be plenty of time then to explain exactly how fucked up their op had gone.
She'd just have to make sure she was ready for it - as if she could ever be ready for something like this.
When she'd finished talking to Caulder she ventured upstairs, the familiar's gun a welcome weight in her hand as she searched all of the rooms one by one, limping slightly as she moved through the building on bruised and bloodied feet. She found a sink and drank straight from the faucet, gulping down the ice-cold water gratefully. She'd regret it later, when it sat in her stomach like lead, but for now she barely noticed the flat, metallic taste of it as it rushed through the ancient pipes. All she cared about was how it eased her throat, how it finally satisfied the thirst that roared through her, making it difficult to think.
Now they were both quenched, and that was a thought to shudder at.
The sun was already up when she finally made it to the ground floor, and she cursed the sight of it under her breath - as if she didn't have enough to deal with already. It meant that King had to stay downstairs, trapped in the dark, while she secured the perimeter, and he wasn't any happier about that than she was.
He was less happy, in fact. At least up here, she could stop for a moment and catch her breath, let the horror of their situation wash over her. Over her and then ebb away - she couldn't afford to cling to it, not when they were a hell of a long way from being out of the woods.
She focused on the practicalities, letting the act of planning push everything else back down again - the fear, the worry, the grief. Getting King into the truck was going to be fun. She should have told Caulder to bring blankets, something to cover King's head, hide him from view, and not just from the sun's rays. She should have warned Caulder what to expect, but how could she when she could barely find the words herself?
She should have... She should have...
First, clear the rooms, then fall apart. It sounded simpler than it was.
When she was sure that they were as safe as they could be, she settled down to watch for Caulder from the window. Maybe it was cowardice to leave King down there with two dead bodies, but then at least down there he was safe and she was...
She refused to think 'safe', but she'd never been that good at lying to herself. Instead she leaned against the window frame, positioning herself so that she could see out but stay hidden. Her body felt like lead, weighed down and uncooperative, and she was so punch-drunk with exhaustion that she almost missed the unfamiliar truck turning the corner. She tensed up, her finger tightening automatically on the trigger, but she should have realised that it was the cavalry - it was big, black and unsubtle, just the way King liked them.
Thinking about King just made the hurt flare through her again, like the numbness was wearing off. It prickled through her skin like frostbitten fingers and burned at the back of her eyes. She took in deep, shaky breath, letting it out slowly until her hands stopped shaking and her heart rate had slowed down to the point where it was just racing. Practicalities. She focused on those again, compiling a little list in her head. It was short and brutal, and not particularly comforting. First get King into the truck, then get him back to base, then get him cured. Easy as one, two, three.
The cure would work. It had to - the alternative was unthinkable, and so Abby wouldn't think it.
-o-
Sullivan had spent ten years in the military before he'd run into an enemy that didn't die unless you put a silver bullet in them. He'd seen his fair share of fuck ups, engagements gone awry, intel that wasn't worth the fucking paper it was written on.
Figured that the Nightstalkers would have their own version of FUBAR, but he had to hand it to them. When they fucked up, they really fucked up.
"What the hell happened?" he demanded of Whistler, trying to get her attention as she rooted through the back of the truck before yanking the tarp off the top of his weapons stash. He damned well better not get stopped by cops on the way back, not when 'in plain view' really fucking meant it, but he suspected that wasn't why she was bitching about the windows not being tinted. It didn't help that she looked like three shades of warmed over shit - her face was puffy and bruised and she moved like someone had kicked the crap out of her, probably because someone had. If the cops stopped him with her looking like that, he'd be fucked even before they spotted the weapons in the back.
"Henderson and Carruthers are dead," she stated, as cold blooded as always. Like she thought Caulder wouldn't already have told him that. She didn't even have the fucking decency to look at him while she said it, heading back into the abandoned office block without a single backwards glance.
He trotted after her, swallowing down his resentment at being dismissed so easily. That didn't mean he was going to let it go entirely - so what if she didn't take any shit, except maybe from King? It was about time she learnt the same about him.
"And?"
She paused in the doorway, one hand pressing against the door so hard that her knuckles turned white as she finally turned back to look at him.
"They turned King."
Jesus. He took a second, examined the horror of the thought and then let it go. King was an asshole, but he didn't deserve this. No one did, but there wasn't much point in fucking grieving over it. Life was a bitch and so, it seemed, was Whistler.
He compartmentalised it, slammed the lid down, got moving.
"What's your plan?"
"Plan?" She stopped, turning on him, too close for comfort - hers if she stepped any closer. "Get him back to base, give him the cure. That clear enough for you, or do you need a map?"
He jerked to a stop, eyeing her warily. Snapping wasn't her style, no matter how cold she could be sometimes and no matter how bad she was hurting. Now that he took the time to look at her - really look at her - she was so tightly wound she was almost vibrating with it. It didn't sit well on her - Whistler was normally the poster child for cool. In fact, more than once he'd thought she had ice running in her veins instead of blood - that would plain exhow she'd avoided being eaten by their less than friendly neighbourhood vamps.
But she sure as hell wasn't calm now. As well as being puffy and bruised, her face was dirty, smeared and stained even though it looked like she'd tried to wash the worst of it off, and her eyes were bloodshot, wide and wet.
Shit, she'd been crying and he'd never been able to deal with women crying. His ex-wife could testify to that.
He hesitated, searching in vain for the words to say, but it was pointless. Whistler was already moving again, like she couldn't stop or she'd start thinking, and he got that. He'd seen the same thing in different faces in the field, usually when they knew they were about to get their asses shot off.
He turned his head to look at Caulder, who had followed them into the building, but Caulder had hesitated as well, the expression on his face conflicted. Sullivan couldn't blame him; the newly vamped were vicious fuckers at the best of times, the hunger overwhelming any morality they might have had as human. He couldn't really see that King would be any exception. He wasn't sure the man had any morals at the best of times.
Except... Whistler still hadn't been eaten and that didn't make any kind of sense. Maybe she'd been smart enough to stay away from King for once, kept him locked down under the threat of her staking his ass. But somehow he doubted it. She'd never seemed that smart when it came to King.
He shot another quick look at Caulder, raising his eyebrows in a distinct 'what the fuck' way, and this time Caulder sighed, something heavy and heartfelt. Damn, looked like it was down to him to make the decision and he fucking hated doing that, but before he could open his mouth, put voice to his disbelief, Caulder simply shifted his bag to his other hand and followed in Whistler's wake, shoulders set stoically as he braced himself for whatever the hell they were going to find.
Shit. He'd never expected to live long but he'd been banking on not dying as a result of friendly fire, and it wasn't like he and King were friends anyway. But if Whistler had finally lost her ever-loving mind, it looked like he was the one who needed to keep a sense of proportion about things.
He drew his weapon and followed after the pair of them.
Whistler led them down to the basement of the building, where two corpses were neatly stacked outside the door. The unlocked door. It didn't reassure him any that one of the corpses had its throat ripped out, but his questioning look at Whistler was completely ignored. Figured. He sure as hell wasn't going to holster his weapon, no matter how hard Whistler frowned when she saw it. He stared her down and she looked away first, pushing the door open with her fingertips before walking gingerly into the room.
The caution she showed was at least something, and he was relieved to see that it extended to Whistler keeping her distance from King. Or maybe it was King keeping his distance from her. He couldn't tell which, but either worked as far as Sullivan was concerned.
Of course, all of that was a secondary concern to the sight of King, tall, pale, and well and truly under the fang.
He'd seen vampires before, of course. Even up close and personal. But it was somehow different when the vampire in question was someone he used to know. He didn't miss the fact that King didn't have that starved, newly vamped look about him, half-cadaver and all pissy attitude.
At least it meant that King didn't seem that interested in ripping anybody's throat out - anybody else's throat out - which was a plus in Sullivan's book. It wasn't difficult to figure out why - the corpse outside the door was mute testimony the fact that King had already fed, but that didn't mean he wasn't still hungry. Sullivan had seen the newly turned before now and it always ended the same way. Once the vampire virus had finished destroying their haemoglobin, they were frenzied with thirst, driven insane by it. In short, they were brutal, violent killers, reduced to little more than animals until they'd fed until satiated.
"What happened?" he asked again, because he wasn't willing to let it go, not yet and maybe not ever. "Henderson and Carruthers are dead..." He made a little 'give' gesture, scowling when Whistler and King exchanged a long look instead of answering his question straight away.
It had a distinct air of them comparing stories, and that wasn't doing anything to lower Sullivan's blood pressure any. Or make him think this was a situation he wanted to be anywhere near.
Once again, it was Whistler who shut him down. "We need to get King back to HQ," she said. Her tone said that she wasn't prepared to discuss it any further, but there was no way Sullivan was going to let it slide as easily as that.
"You want us to get into a small, enclosed space with someone who's just been turned into a vampire?" He didn't bother to hide his disbelief. He expected Whistler to bristle, come back at him with a curse or fist, but she let him down on that front, simply staring at him blankly and saying nothing.
King shifted position, the soles of his boots scraping against the floor. When Sullivan glanced across at him, his fingers flexing automatically around the butt of his gun, King wasn't paying him any attention. All of his attention was focused on Whistler, and Sullivan wasn't convinced that was a good thing. Maybe that was why he persisted, that and the fact that he really didn't fancy his chances being shut up somewhere small with a new vamp the size of King.
"Damn it, Whistler..."
He took a single step towards her, stopping dead in his tracks when King let out a low sound, something rumbling and full of menace. The hairs on the back of Sullivan's neck rose, prickles running up and down his spine as he turned his head slowly, gauging the distance between him and King. He was pretty sure he could shoot King before King closed in on him.
He just wasn't certain.
"He killed Carruthers and Henderson in front of me," Whistler said suddenly, her voice quiet and lacking its normal hard, icy edge. She sounded very young, lost and afraid, but Sullivan wasn't willing to take it on trust, not when there were still goose bumps running up and down his arms, and not when he wasn't entirely sure which 'he' Whistler was referring to. For all he knew, she could have meant King had done the killing, and the thought had his palm tightening again around the butt of his gun, fingers sliding surreptitiously back down towards the trigger. "I thought he was going to kill me, but..."
King shifted again and Sullivan watched him out of the corner of his eye, wary of any sudden moves. But all King had done was look away from Whistler, as though he didn't want to hear what came next, or didn't want to see it.
Whistler swallowed, her hands unconsciously rubbing at her arms where she had goose bumps to match Sullivan's own.
"He..."
"He turned me, locked me in a room with Abby." King sounded bored, and for one brief, fiery moment, Sullivan hated him for it before King's next words ripped that feeling away again. "He wanted me to kill Abby, or Abby to kill me." King shrugged, still not looking at Whistler.
Of course, he wasn't looking at Sullivan either, which was a plus.
"Why?" Sullivan didn't try to soften the question. There was no point pussyfooting around it.
"He hates us," Whistler plain eed. "He wanted us to suffer. And..."
"And this was the worst thing he could do," King completed when the silence stretched out because Whistler couldn't - or wouldn't. "Got to say, it's not lacking in imagination. Several points for style, minus several million for being a dick."
Only King could joke about something like this, but then he was a Grade A dick as well. Nothing King would do should surprise him. But when he looked more closely at King, King's mouth was pinched, stress lines radiating from the corners of his eyes. He wasn't anywhere near as laid-back as he was trying to project. He was freaking the fuck out, and Sullivan supposed he couldn't blame him for that.
After all, he was freaking Sullivan the fuck out, too.
King caught him watching, his eyes flashing angrily for a moment before he damped down whatever he was feeling and raised one sardonic eyebrow in Sullivan's direction.
"You holding it together?" Sullivan asked him roughly, not sure why he was even bothering.
"Well, it could be worse," King said. "I could have been turned by a deranged harpy again. On the other hand, I'm now forced to question my sexuality."
He sounded like King, but Sullivan wasn't reassured by the strange light in his eye or the strain showing clearly in his voice. He hesitated, debating whether the risk of transporting King back to HQ in his current state was worth it. But in the end, there was only one possible outcome.
If he didn't agree to this, he was pretty damned sure Whistler would shoot him.
-o-
King hadn't ripped any of their throats out because, as Sullivan had already guessed, he'd ripped out the throat on the corpse Sullivan had seen. A familiar, Whistler plain eed, only she hadn't shared that little nugget of information until they were already half way back to base, and only then because Sullivan wouldn't let King's need to feed, and what that could mean for them personally, drop.
She'd lapsed into silence after she'd admitted it, staring out of the window at the early morning streets passing by and refusing to engage Sullivan any further. He'd always wondered what the hell she saw in King and now he knew - she could be just as big a dick as he was. The only thing that stopped him from verbally ripping her a new one was Caulder's intervention. Laid-back Norwegian or not, the man didn't take any shit, even if it was sometimes difficult to take him seriously in those sweaters.
King had stayed uncharacteristically silent in back, although that could have had something to do with being muffled under several layers of tarp. Even silent, he'd hardly stayed out of mind as far as Sullivan was concerned.
He only relaxed once they had King safely stashed in their small, temporary infirmary. It wasn't ideal - they'd never expected to deal with any casualties when they'd chosen this as their temporary base of operations - but there was only one door in or out and King was far enough away from Sullivan this time that he was pretty sure he'd be able to shoot first and take King down if needed.
Somehow he knew that King hadn't missed that. Neither had Whistler, but of the two of them, she was the only one who seemed concerned.
Caulder was fussing with vials and syringes, muttering to himself under his breath. Sullivan tuned him out, all of his attention focused on King. King, on the other hand, seemed to have tuned everything out - he'd settled himself on the single examining table and was staring up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused. But the aura of calm he was projecting was clearly fake. There was sweat beading his forehead and upper lip, and his fingers were twitching, flexing and then relaxing over and over again. The only thing he wasn't doing was mouthing off, and that was just another sign of how fucked up things were.
Whistler wasn't moving it all. She'd settled herself within arm's reach of King, which was a real mistake as far as Sullivan was concerned, but she'd wrapped her arms around her knees and was focusing on King and only King.
That lost look was back in her eye, and Sullivan looked away, uncomfortably aware of just how young she was.
"You feeding recently will have complicated things," Caulder said, tapping the side of the syringe with his nail, which meant he missed King's flinch. Sullivan hadn't, but in the grand scheme of things it didn't mean that much. "On the one hand, it means we do not have to focus as much on controlling your thirst, at least not in the short term. But on the other -"
"I'm going to be spending the next three days puking my guts up," King completed. He was aiming for bored again, but he missed it, the tension clear in his body and written across his face. "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, and a shitty one it was, too."
"Well, that was because it was spandex." Whistler gave a small half-smile, ignoring the fact that she'd startled Sullivan. He didn't think he'd ever heard Whistler crack a joke before, certainly not one that sounded like one of King's. Or any other kind, come to that. Maybe he'd imagined it - her smile faded as rapidly as it had appeared, but it seemed enough for King. His fingers finally stopped their incessant flexing and he turned his head to face her, stretching his fingers out towards her, a barely-there gesture that she seemed to understand anyway.
She reached across to him, wrapping her fingers around his and squeezing gently.
Huh. He'd wondered, but he hadn't thought he was right. And even if he was right, it was still a stupid fucking thing to do.
"This will sting a little," Caulder warned, leaning over King, the needle catching the light for a moment before it plunged into King's arm. King flinched again, his fingers tightening around Whistler's, knuckles whitening.
But he stayed irreverent, at least on the surface. "Doesn't really compare to having my throat savaged," he said. "But on the other hand, ow."
Caulder let out a small huff of laughter, sliding the needle back out with practised ease. "I will get you a bucket."
"Thank you. You're a peach."
Sullivan settled against the door jamb, crossing his arms and watching King and Whistler over the top of them. He was planning to stay there for the long haul when Caulder beckoned him out of the room. He followed reluctantly, casting a last look back at the couple in the corner.
"Is it safe to leave her alone with him?"
Caulder gave him a long, steady look. "Did you listen to their debriefing?" he asked, and Sullivan wondered irritably when he'd started to pick up the lingo of warfare, or stopped assuming that Sullivan knew more about it than he did. "They were locked together in a room for more than two days while their captors waited for him to kill her. That obviously did not happen, and I fail to see why you think it would happen now."
"Experience," Sullivan grunted. "That what you wanted to talk to me about?"
Caulder shook his head, his expression turning even more morose than usual. "Did you hear what else Whistler said?"
Sullivan gave a little helpless shoulder shrug, not sure what he was supposed to have missed.
"Daystar didn't work."
He'd picked up on that, but other than the fact it was going to make things a little more interesting, he didn't get why it was so important. He'd never been comfortable relying on a weapon he couldn't see or feel, so if they needed to start using traditional weapons again, he had no objection.
But what he hadn't picked up on before now was that Caulder wasn't surprised by Daystar's failure. Thinking back, though, certain things started to make a little more sense, like the fact that sometimes they'd had to stake vamps after deploying Daystar, although that was usually because they just hadn't been dying quickly enough for Sullivan's taste, by which he meant that they hadn't dropped dead instantly. Caulder had seemed interested in that at the time, but again Sullivan hadn't paid it much mind. Dead was dead as far as he was concerned - whether that was at the end of a stick or a biological weapon made little difference to him. "That why you wanted samples?"
Caulder shrugged, suddenly looking old. "It was always a risk. Sommerfield engineered the antivirus to adapt to Drake's blood, knowing that that would provide a sound basis for attacking many of the different strains of vampire virus that have mutated over the years since he first founded the vampire race."
Yada, yada, yada. Sullivan had never met one of the tech guys yet who didn't like yammering on about their particular fields of study, and he was including all of the docs working alongside the Nightstalkers in that. But there was one word in Caulder's technobabble he honed in on. "Many," he repeated, watching Caulder's reaction keenly. "But not all?"
"No. Not all. Viruses adapt. That is why they survive, and the vampire virus is no different. It was always a possibility that some vampires would be immune to Daystar, and that they would spread that immunity. It is no different from MRSA or other infections that are now resistant to our best antibiotics. It only takes a few bacteria to survive due to mutation and then..."
"And then we've got a fucking problem." There was more - Sullivan could tell that from the expression on Caulder's face, and he let out an impatient breath, wishing - not for the first time - that the people around him would just get to the damn point already. "What else?"
"Sommerfield engineered Blade's serum as well the mechanism to deliver it. She also designed the antivirus used to cure King and Abraham Whistler."
"And?" Sullivan asked impatiently, although he had a sinking feeling that he was beginning to understand what Caulder was getting at.
"Daystar built upon that work. If Daystar is no longer effective against all strains of the vampirism virus..."
"And if King got bitten by someone Daystar didn't kill, there's no guarantee that the cure will work on him the way it has in the past?"
Caulder nodded, his expression grim.
"Are you going to tell them?"
Caulder gave him a look. "Neither of them is stupid, Sullivan," he said, his tone slightly exasperated, or as exasperated as Caulder ever got. "And both of them have been fighting vampires for longer than you or I. I would be surprised if the thought had not already occurred to them."
Somehow, Sullivan doubted that, and not because he had any doubts about how smart King or Whistler were. He didn't believe that Whistler was thinking coherently about anything at this point - he'd finally pinpointed the look in her eyes that had been bothering him. He'd seen it before, more times than he'd cared to admit. She was shell-shocked, still reeling and not yet at the point where she was assimilating data into the whole picture. King, he was less sure of. There was a brain behind that mouth, but he'd seen denial often enough in the field to know that there was a good chance that King was suffering from it, too.
"Okay," he said, nodding slightly as he pulled his thoughts into order. "No point in borrowing trouble. We'll just have to cross that bridge if we come to it."
And with their luck, he thought dourly, the bridge would already be burning and they'd all fucking drown.
-o-
Next Part: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
Author: alyse
Fandom: Blade: Trinity
Pairing: Abigail Whistler/Hannibal King
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 51,562
Warnings: Highlight to read: violence, illness, involuntary vampirism.
Summary: When the vampire virus starts to develop a resistance to the Nightstalkers' Daystar weapon, Abigail is left watching helplessly as King has to fight not just for his life, but for his soul and his sanity.
Masterlist: AO3 :: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
-o-
Previous Part: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
-o-
It took hours before King finally sank into an exhausted doze. His face was still far too pale in the harsh light of the single fluorescent light overhead, and sweat beaded his forehead. Her eyes felt gritty and her limbs heavy, weighed down with the same exhaustion that had taken King. She shouldn't sleep - even if she hadn't been gripped by the fear that King would still need her, would die if she took her eyes off him for a moment, it wasn't safe. But she was battered and bruised, heartsick and broken, and in the end it was just another battle she lost.
She only closed her eyes for a moment, stirring back into wakefulness when King shifted position in her arms. She blinked blearily, her limbs stiff and sore, and then King exploded into movement, surging upright and knocking her on her ass.
For a second, she was too shocked to do anything but stare up at him, her mind reeling. His fingers were digging into her upper arms, pinning her to the floor as he loomed above her. His skin was even paler now, his eyes glittering golden in his bloodless face, and he was staring down at her expressionlessly, the look in his eyes vacant. Her heart raced, fast and furious, as he tilted his head, his lips parting as though he was going to kiss her again.
White fangs flashed, sharp and terrifying, and she finally got with the programme, tensing up and trying to buck him off her. She failed, and that was even more terrifying, the fear sending the adrenaline coursing through her as she tried again, desperately trying to free herself.
He'd kill her if she didn't, and that would just tear him apart.
For a long, horrifying moment, he hung over her, his gaze fixed on the pulse beating in her neck as she fought to escape, and then, suddenly, unexpectedly, he let go.
She rolled over onto her front, gasping for air, her heart still pounding out a staccato rhythm in her chest and her fingers hooked into claws, digging into the concrete she half-stumbled, half-dragged herself towards the silver blade lying abandoned where their tormentor had left it.
Only when her fingers had wrapped around it did she turn and look for King.
He was pressed up against the wall opposite her, his palms flat against the brick, and he was watching her, his eyes wide and lost. She scrambled backwards, the hand holding the knife shaking, until she also hit the wall, the entire length of the room between them.
King looked away, swallowing, guilt and pain flashing across his face. She'd have gone to him anyway, in spite of the fangs, if hunger hadn't followed straight after them. He licked at his lips, a dry, nervous move that didn't do anything to calm the ferocious racing of her heart.
"You should probably keep that close," he said, his voice rough, as if his throat was dry and sore. Maybe it was. She should have listened more closely when Sommerfield had talked late into the night about the physiological changes that the vampirism virus wrought.
She'd make sure she'd listen to Caulder from now on. Assuming that there was a 'from now on'.
She eased herself down, forcing her heart rate to slow and her fingers to relax until it was no longer painful to hold her weapon. She should put it down, show King that even now she trusted him, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, not when he was still watching her with eyes washed clean of any humanity.
Besides, she'd made him a promise and she should reassure him that she was willing to keep it, even if she had no intention of choosing herself if it came down to a choice between the two of them.
She drew her feet in, but even the sound of her bare soles scraping along the concrete floor sounded too harsh and loud in the silence that had fallen between them. King tilted his head again, still focused on her, eerily quiet. She wasn't used to King being quiet - even ignoring the vampirism, it left her on edge.
King finally looked away from her, clearing his throat awkwardly.
"How long before someone rides to the rescue?" he asked.
She didn't have an answer for him, not one that would prove true, and the silence stretched out between them until King shuffled awkwardly, looking back at her again. It finally forced her into admitting, "I'm not sure how long we were out. And I think they moved us, so... it might be a while. I don't..." She trailed off, trying to think it through. "Without Hedges to hack back into the satellite once they changed the access codes..."
No trackers, she meant, and he nodded as though that was the answer he'd been expecting. But he'd stopped looking at her, staring at the wall instead as though that would give him the answers he sought. "Keep that knife close," he repeated, and there was steel in his voice this time, leaving no room for doubt or argument.
She couldn't argue with him anyway, even though she wanted to. It would be a lie, and she didn't make a habit of lying to King. Except...
"They'll come," she said.
-o-
They didn't.
-o-
She didn't know how long they'd been locked up now. She'd long since lost track of hours, days. It couldn't be weeks, not without any access to water. She was parched, beyond parched, her tongue like sandpaper in her mouth and her throat filled with razor blades. The hunger was more manageable in comparison, but there was a throbbing pain behind her eyeball and that didn't bode well for her continued good health. Her poorly treated muscles had stiffened, but she was reluctant to keep active, not when King was so on edge. She didn't want to admit it, but anything that didn't draw his attention to her had to be a plus.
King was pacing again, keeping to his side of the room but still stalking up and down like a caged tiger.
Stalking, she thought bleakly, seemed the right way to describe it. There was something in the fluid way that he moved, something predatory and intense that contrasted with his normal graceful lope. He'd been at it for hours, unable to keep still, and if she was thirsty - and thirsty didn't even come close to describing the lack of moisture in her mouth - then how much worse must it be for him? The newly turned usually fed quickly, she knew that much, but how long they could go without feeding... That was something she wasn't quite as sure of.
She should be. She'd always focused more on the hunt than she had on anything else, too reliant on everyone else having the answers she didn't. If they ever got out of here, she was going to fix that, make damned sure that she knew everything there was to know about vampires, not just everything she thought she should know.
So here she was, stuck watching him, ignorant and on edge and unable to hide it any longer. She was too tired and too drained, the exhaustion dragging her down and slowing her reactions. Forget refusing to defend herself from him at the cost of his life - if he lost control now she didn't think she'd be able to defend herself.
He made another turn, his fingernails dragging along the wall as he walked, beating out a tattoo that only set her hackles further on edge.
"They're not coming," he growled, his pace picking up. "We need to get out of here."
"You've already tried the door. Several times." She kept her voice even, not wanting to antagonise him, not when he was this unstable. "There's no other way out."
He spun on his heel to glare at her, only dropping his eyes when she pressed her back more firmly against the wall, her fingers tightening instinctively around the handle of her weapon. She swallowed, forcing her fingers to relax. King wouldn't hurt her if he was in his right mind. She had to keep telling herself that.
She'd just wasn't sure that he was in his right mind anymore.
She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and trying to centre herself.
"Don't fall asleep!"
She started, rubbing her hands across her eyes and briefly considered lying, but there was no use denying it. She couldn't stay awake for much longer, and she fucking hurt, her nose still puffy and swollen, making it difficult to breathe.
She ignored it, instead asking him tentatively, "How are you...?"
"How am I doing?" he asked, bright and bitter. "Well, let's think about it for a moment. I'm a vampire again, after almost three years off the juice. The thirst is getting more and more difficult to control, and the woman I -"
He broke off, swallowing down whatever he'd been about to say. And then he was back to pacing, fingernails scratching against the wall.
Maybe to make sure he didn't move away from it.
Chills ran up and down her spine, and they weren't the good sort. Her scalp was prickling, the hackles on the back of her neck rising. Telling herself that it was just instinct, a biological response to a perceived threat, didn't help when the threat in question was King.
"I can smell your blood." The brightness had gone from his voice, but not the bitterness. This time it was dark, overlaid with things she didn't want to examine too closely. Hunger was only part of it. "Do you have any fucking idea how it feels to be able to smell you and only be able to think about how hungry I am." He let out a harsh chuckle, one that was stripped of any amusement. "You should have used that knife when you had the chance."
Her heart skipped a beat hearing the barely suppressed anger in his voice. She also hadn't missed the implication that she wouldn't have a chance now.
He paused in his pacing, turning to look at her again. She could see the indecision across his face and then he took two steps towards her, making her shy away from him instinctively before she could think better of it. "Give me the knife."
"No."
His lips curled up, revealing his fangs. "Give. Me. The. Knife."
She shook her head mutely, refusing to give up on him the way he seemed to be giving up on himself. He lunged for her, but she was expecting it or something like it. She didn't use the knife, not even when he gripped tightly hold of her shoulders and pushed his face so close to hers that she could see the speckles of brown still lurking behind the gold in the depths of his irises.
He hesitated, conflicted, and then he grabbed for her wrist, hissing as his fingers brushed against the silver blade she held.
She threw it away, ignoring it as it clattered against the floor several feet distant from them. He stared at her, stunned and appalled.
"What the fu-"
She reached up and caught hold of his face, sliding her palms over his cheeks and holding him there when he tried to pull away, staring straight into his eyes and refusing to back down. "Do you have any idea what it would do to me to have to kill you?"
"Abby -"
"No." She put as much force into the word as she could and it stopped him in his tracks, the expression on his face relaxing into the kind of desolation that broke her heart all over again. But he stopped fighting to get away from her, and that was what she wanted, needed. "I promised that I wouldn't let you hurt me. I didn't promise that you could use me to commit fucking suicide. Or that I'd stand by and watch you kill yourself. For God's sake..." Her voice cracked. "You're all I have and I am not going to lose you. So you don't fucking well get to quit on me now, you hear me?"
For a second, she thought he was actually going to argue with her, but even with the vampirism virus coursing through his veins King was smarter than that. He nodded. Reluctantly, maybe even a little despairingly, but he nodded.
He touched the back of her hand briefly, the light pressure of it pushing her palm more firmly against his cheek for a moment, and then he moved back, her fingers slipping away from his skin.
He went back to pacing, his hand once again pressed hard against the stone work, letting it anchor him in a way that Abby couldn't.
She watched him for a long, long time before she finally reached for the knife again.
-o-
She couldn't fight the exhaustion any more and finally she slept, on and off, falling into a light doze that left her aware on some level of King's movements. So when he stopped abruptly she was startled back into wakefulness, although it took an uncomfortably long period of time before she could focus on him properly.
He was standing in the middle of their makeshift cell, his face tilted up towards the ceiling above them.
"Someone's coming."
She blinked at him blearily for a second, her mind struggling to catch up, and then she slowly pushed herself to her feet, her bruised muscles protesting.
King had already headed towards the door and she followed him, struggling to keep some distance between them when she was still fighting the need to touch him, to reach out and make sure he was still with her, in every sense of the word.
"How many?" she asked, not sure whether he'd have an answer for her. While she knew that vampiric senses were enhanced, they'd never been able to determine by how much and she'd never wanted to ask King directly, knowing how much he hated talking about the specifics of his time with Danica. He much preferred painting it in broad - and coarse - brush strokes.
He paused for a second, listening intently, and then shook his head, making sure to keep his distance.
He was a lot better at it than she was.
She strained her ears, struggling to pick up what he'd already heard. She was about to give up and simply ask him when she finally caught it - the faint sound of footsteps outside their door. She moved back several paces, glancing around desperately for somewhere she could stay out of sight, just in case, but there was nowhere.
In the end, it didn't matter. The door was flung open before she could react.
She'd been hoping against hope for Caulder or Sullivan to pull a miracle out of the hat and actually track the pair of them down, satellite or no satellite, but today was just full of disappointment. She didn't recognise the man in front of her, but she knew the type, even if the gun in his hand hadn't already given him away.
Familiar. And he wasn't alone - another lurked behind him, hovering nervously as he eyed her and King. She shouldn't feel as weirdly satisfied about that as she did.
The first one took a step into the room, scowling and gesturing at her with his weapon, forcing her further back, away from the door. His eyes darted between her and King, and while he couldn't have missed the fact that King was now a vampire, he didn't look at all surprised. He must have expected it, which told her that he wasn't just any familiar, but one owned by the vampire who had turned King.
He should have been more careful, but perhaps he spent too much time in the presence of well-fed predators and had grown lax and fat on their leavings. He turned his back on King, and that was the last mistake he ever made.
She knew that some vampires were able to move a little faster than humans, but King moved faster than she'd ever seen him, grabbing hold of the first familiar as soon as his attention was distracted. He yanked the man's head to one side and Abby was already moving, heading towards the other familiar as he let out a yell and pointed his weapon at King, before she realised what King was going to do.
Stiff or not, her momentum knocked the second familiar down and she had the knife at his throat before he could get back up again, holding it there and keeping her eyes fixed on his face. It meant she didn't have to watch as King killed his companion, but it meant she saw every single, horrific second of it reflected on the face of her prisoner.
The first familiar kept screaming, his voice dying down to a gurgle as King continued to feed. And she could hear King, growling low in the back of his throat, the sound clear even over the death throes of his victim.
No. Not victim. She couldn't think of it in those terms, not and stay sane. He'd asked for it. Familiars never did have a very long life expectancy, no matter what they thought when they signed up.
The gurgles died off slowly, first to a low moan and then to silence, but she kept her focus on the man beneath her, pressing her knife into his neck hard enough to cause small beads of blood to well up, red against his skin. One drop grew big enough to slide across his throat and drip down towards the floor, and her skin felt tight, her head too big for her body, as she tried desperately not to think about what was happening only a few feet behind her.
The body hit the floor behind her and only then did she move, pushing herself slowly to her feet as she staggered away from the man now shaking and weeping on the floor, begging for the mercy his master hadn't shown Carruthers or Henderson. Or King.
"Please," he burbled, looking between Abby and King as though either of them was supposed to give a fuck. "Don't kill me."
She'd kicked his gun halfway across the room before she'd pinned him down, and she picked it up now, tucking it in the waistband of her pants before she turned back to face him. King had moved as well - he was now standing over the familiar she'd taken down. It was instinctual to take a few steps forward before she slowed, an automatic response to the equation of vampire plus human equals threat, but she couldn't bring herself to stop King, not if he needed this. Not if it was a choice between him and the bastard on the ground.
She just couldn't bring herself to watch.
But King didn't feed on him, not right away. He simply reached down and hauled the snivelling familiar to his feet, picking him up easily. He'd always been strong, even before he'd been turned, six foot two of sheer muscle. He slammed the familiar into the wall, holding him there while he stared at him, full of predatory intent.
"Where are we?" King growled, shaking the familiar when he didn't answer immediately. The threat was implicit in every move he made, not veiled behind good humour the way it always had been. "And why the fuck did you come back?"
The familiar was gibbering in terror, his teeth chattering together hard enough for Abby to hear it from where she stood, but King didn't let up, baring his fangs and snarling until the familiar finally caved.
"We were told to collect you," he stammered, staring at King, half-hypnotised with fear. "Once you'd killed her." He didn't even spare Abby a glance, which didn't seem to sit well with King. "Bring you back if you..." He swallowed, hard and heavy. "If you survived the biological weapon."
He meant Daystar. It was strange to hear of it in those terms instead of as salvation, the way the Nightstalkers thought of it, but then it hadn't saved Carruthers or Henderson.
"Why?" she asked. He tore his attention away from King long enough to give her a blank look, his wits obviously shattered.
"She asked you a question," King said mildly, but his fingers dug more tightly into the man's throat, causing him to gasp and choke.
"It's killing vamps everywhere," he finally got out past the grip of King's fingers. "But not these ones. So if they turn anyone, there's a chance their offspring will survive. And they need the numbers."
King nodded thoughtfully, the look in his eyes growing distant as he puzzled it out, and then he twisted his fingers, snapping the familiar's neck as easily as Henderson's had snapped.
The sound went through Abby like a thunderbolt, and she watched wordlessly the familiar's corpse crumpled to the floor. When she met King's eyes again, his were defiant, just daring her to say something. She swallowed down the bile that had started to rise in her throat and stared at him for a long moment, picking her next words with the utmost care.
"Does he have a phone on him?" she asked.
-o-
Thank God for familiars and their expensive little toys - the phone she'd fished out of the dead familiar's pockets had come with a range of apps, including GPS. Whether that was because he'd got lost a lot or because his masters wanted to know where he was, twenty-four seven, she didn't know and cared even less, but at least it meant that Sullivan didn't have to do anything clever with cell phone towers to find out the location of this particular hellhole. He wasn't anywhere near the hacker that Hedges had been.
When she finally got hold of Caulder, she hadn't given him the chance to get a word in edgeways, talking over his relief tersely and with as few words as she could get away with. Her hands were shaking as she held the phone up to her ear, and she limited herself to telling him where they were, that King needed medical assistance and to bring a van, something with blacked out windows if he could get it. He hadn't asked any questions, not after she'd told him that Henderson and Carruthers were dead. He'd just gone quiet for a moment, and then told her that he'd be there.
Caulder was far from stupid and he certainly wasn't naive - he probably already had his suspicions about just how King was injured, but she couldn't bear to confirm them over the telephone. The questions would come later - there was no doubt about that - and there'd be plenty of time then to explain exactly how fucked up their op had gone.
She'd just have to make sure she was ready for it - as if she could ever be ready for something like this.
When she'd finished talking to Caulder she ventured upstairs, the familiar's gun a welcome weight in her hand as she searched all of the rooms one by one, limping slightly as she moved through the building on bruised and bloodied feet. She found a sink and drank straight from the faucet, gulping down the ice-cold water gratefully. She'd regret it later, when it sat in her stomach like lead, but for now she barely noticed the flat, metallic taste of it as it rushed through the ancient pipes. All she cared about was how it eased her throat, how it finally satisfied the thirst that roared through her, making it difficult to think.
Now they were both quenched, and that was a thought to shudder at.
The sun was already up when she finally made it to the ground floor, and she cursed the sight of it under her breath - as if she didn't have enough to deal with already. It meant that King had to stay downstairs, trapped in the dark, while she secured the perimeter, and he wasn't any happier about that than she was.
He was less happy, in fact. At least up here, she could stop for a moment and catch her breath, let the horror of their situation wash over her. Over her and then ebb away - she couldn't afford to cling to it, not when they were a hell of a long way from being out of the woods.
She focused on the practicalities, letting the act of planning push everything else back down again - the fear, the worry, the grief. Getting King into the truck was going to be fun. She should have told Caulder to bring blankets, something to cover King's head, hide him from view, and not just from the sun's rays. She should have warned Caulder what to expect, but how could she when she could barely find the words herself?
She should have... She should have...
First, clear the rooms, then fall apart. It sounded simpler than it was.
When she was sure that they were as safe as they could be, she settled down to watch for Caulder from the window. Maybe it was cowardice to leave King down there with two dead bodies, but then at least down there he was safe and she was...
She refused to think 'safe', but she'd never been that good at lying to herself. Instead she leaned against the window frame, positioning herself so that she could see out but stay hidden. Her body felt like lead, weighed down and uncooperative, and she was so punch-drunk with exhaustion that she almost missed the unfamiliar truck turning the corner. She tensed up, her finger tightening automatically on the trigger, but she should have realised that it was the cavalry - it was big, black and unsubtle, just the way King liked them.
Thinking about King just made the hurt flare through her again, like the numbness was wearing off. It prickled through her skin like frostbitten fingers and burned at the back of her eyes. She took in deep, shaky breath, letting it out slowly until her hands stopped shaking and her heart rate had slowed down to the point where it was just racing. Practicalities. She focused on those again, compiling a little list in her head. It was short and brutal, and not particularly comforting. First get King into the truck, then get him back to base, then get him cured. Easy as one, two, three.
The cure would work. It had to - the alternative was unthinkable, and so Abby wouldn't think it.
-o-
Sullivan had spent ten years in the military before he'd run into an enemy that didn't die unless you put a silver bullet in them. He'd seen his fair share of fuck ups, engagements gone awry, intel that wasn't worth the fucking paper it was written on.
Figured that the Nightstalkers would have their own version of FUBAR, but he had to hand it to them. When they fucked up, they really fucked up.
"What the hell happened?" he demanded of Whistler, trying to get her attention as she rooted through the back of the truck before yanking the tarp off the top of his weapons stash. He damned well better not get stopped by cops on the way back, not when 'in plain view' really fucking meant it, but he suspected that wasn't why she was bitching about the windows not being tinted. It didn't help that she looked like three shades of warmed over shit - her face was puffy and bruised and she moved like someone had kicked the crap out of her, probably because someone had. If the cops stopped him with her looking like that, he'd be fucked even before they spotted the weapons in the back.
"Henderson and Carruthers are dead," she stated, as cold blooded as always. Like she thought Caulder wouldn't already have told him that. She didn't even have the fucking decency to look at him while she said it, heading back into the abandoned office block without a single backwards glance.
He trotted after her, swallowing down his resentment at being dismissed so easily. That didn't mean he was going to let it go entirely - so what if she didn't take any shit, except maybe from King? It was about time she learnt the same about him.
"And?"
She paused in the doorway, one hand pressing against the door so hard that her knuckles turned white as she finally turned back to look at him.
"They turned King."
Jesus. He took a second, examined the horror of the thought and then let it go. King was an asshole, but he didn't deserve this. No one did, but there wasn't much point in fucking grieving over it. Life was a bitch and so, it seemed, was Whistler.
He compartmentalised it, slammed the lid down, got moving.
"What's your plan?"
"Plan?" She stopped, turning on him, too close for comfort - hers if she stepped any closer. "Get him back to base, give him the cure. That clear enough for you, or do you need a map?"
He jerked to a stop, eyeing her warily. Snapping wasn't her style, no matter how cold she could be sometimes and no matter how bad she was hurting. Now that he took the time to look at her - really look at her - she was so tightly wound she was almost vibrating with it. It didn't sit well on her - Whistler was normally the poster child for cool. In fact, more than once he'd thought she had ice running in her veins instead of blood - that would plain exhow she'd avoided being eaten by their less than friendly neighbourhood vamps.
But she sure as hell wasn't calm now. As well as being puffy and bruised, her face was dirty, smeared and stained even though it looked like she'd tried to wash the worst of it off, and her eyes were bloodshot, wide and wet.
Shit, she'd been crying and he'd never been able to deal with women crying. His ex-wife could testify to that.
He hesitated, searching in vain for the words to say, but it was pointless. Whistler was already moving again, like she couldn't stop or she'd start thinking, and he got that. He'd seen the same thing in different faces in the field, usually when they knew they were about to get their asses shot off.
He turned his head to look at Caulder, who had followed them into the building, but Caulder had hesitated as well, the expression on his face conflicted. Sullivan couldn't blame him; the newly vamped were vicious fuckers at the best of times, the hunger overwhelming any morality they might have had as human. He couldn't really see that King would be any exception. He wasn't sure the man had any morals at the best of times.
Except... Whistler still hadn't been eaten and that didn't make any kind of sense. Maybe she'd been smart enough to stay away from King for once, kept him locked down under the threat of her staking his ass. But somehow he doubted it. She'd never seemed that smart when it came to King.
He shot another quick look at Caulder, raising his eyebrows in a distinct 'what the fuck' way, and this time Caulder sighed, something heavy and heartfelt. Damn, looked like it was down to him to make the decision and he fucking hated doing that, but before he could open his mouth, put voice to his disbelief, Caulder simply shifted his bag to his other hand and followed in Whistler's wake, shoulders set stoically as he braced himself for whatever the hell they were going to find.
Shit. He'd never expected to live long but he'd been banking on not dying as a result of friendly fire, and it wasn't like he and King were friends anyway. But if Whistler had finally lost her ever-loving mind, it looked like he was the one who needed to keep a sense of proportion about things.
He drew his weapon and followed after the pair of them.
Whistler led them down to the basement of the building, where two corpses were neatly stacked outside the door. The unlocked door. It didn't reassure him any that one of the corpses had its throat ripped out, but his questioning look at Whistler was completely ignored. Figured. He sure as hell wasn't going to holster his weapon, no matter how hard Whistler frowned when she saw it. He stared her down and she looked away first, pushing the door open with her fingertips before walking gingerly into the room.
The caution she showed was at least something, and he was relieved to see that it extended to Whistler keeping her distance from King. Or maybe it was King keeping his distance from her. He couldn't tell which, but either worked as far as Sullivan was concerned.
Of course, all of that was a secondary concern to the sight of King, tall, pale, and well and truly under the fang.
He'd seen vampires before, of course. Even up close and personal. But it was somehow different when the vampire in question was someone he used to know. He didn't miss the fact that King didn't have that starved, newly vamped look about him, half-cadaver and all pissy attitude.
At least it meant that King didn't seem that interested in ripping anybody's throat out - anybody else's throat out - which was a plus in Sullivan's book. It wasn't difficult to figure out why - the corpse outside the door was mute testimony the fact that King had already fed, but that didn't mean he wasn't still hungry. Sullivan had seen the newly turned before now and it always ended the same way. Once the vampire virus had finished destroying their haemoglobin, they were frenzied with thirst, driven insane by it. In short, they were brutal, violent killers, reduced to little more than animals until they'd fed until satiated.
"What happened?" he asked again, because he wasn't willing to let it go, not yet and maybe not ever. "Henderson and Carruthers are dead..." He made a little 'give' gesture, scowling when Whistler and King exchanged a long look instead of answering his question straight away.
It had a distinct air of them comparing stories, and that wasn't doing anything to lower Sullivan's blood pressure any. Or make him think this was a situation he wanted to be anywhere near.
Once again, it was Whistler who shut him down. "We need to get King back to HQ," she said. Her tone said that she wasn't prepared to discuss it any further, but there was no way Sullivan was going to let it slide as easily as that.
"You want us to get into a small, enclosed space with someone who's just been turned into a vampire?" He didn't bother to hide his disbelief. He expected Whistler to bristle, come back at him with a curse or fist, but she let him down on that front, simply staring at him blankly and saying nothing.
King shifted position, the soles of his boots scraping against the floor. When Sullivan glanced across at him, his fingers flexing automatically around the butt of his gun, King wasn't paying him any attention. All of his attention was focused on Whistler, and Sullivan wasn't convinced that was a good thing. Maybe that was why he persisted, that and the fact that he really didn't fancy his chances being shut up somewhere small with a new vamp the size of King.
"Damn it, Whistler..."
He took a single step towards her, stopping dead in his tracks when King let out a low sound, something rumbling and full of menace. The hairs on the back of Sullivan's neck rose, prickles running up and down his spine as he turned his head slowly, gauging the distance between him and King. He was pretty sure he could shoot King before King closed in on him.
He just wasn't certain.
"He killed Carruthers and Henderson in front of me," Whistler said suddenly, her voice quiet and lacking its normal hard, icy edge. She sounded very young, lost and afraid, but Sullivan wasn't willing to take it on trust, not when there were still goose bumps running up and down his arms, and not when he wasn't entirely sure which 'he' Whistler was referring to. For all he knew, she could have meant King had done the killing, and the thought had his palm tightening again around the butt of his gun, fingers sliding surreptitiously back down towards the trigger. "I thought he was going to kill me, but..."
King shifted again and Sullivan watched him out of the corner of his eye, wary of any sudden moves. But all King had done was look away from Whistler, as though he didn't want to hear what came next, or didn't want to see it.
Whistler swallowed, her hands unconsciously rubbing at her arms where she had goose bumps to match Sullivan's own.
"He..."
"He turned me, locked me in a room with Abby." King sounded bored, and for one brief, fiery moment, Sullivan hated him for it before King's next words ripped that feeling away again. "He wanted me to kill Abby, or Abby to kill me." King shrugged, still not looking at Whistler.
Of course, he wasn't looking at Sullivan either, which was a plus.
"Why?" Sullivan didn't try to soften the question. There was no point pussyfooting around it.
"He hates us," Whistler plain eed. "He wanted us to suffer. And..."
"And this was the worst thing he could do," King completed when the silence stretched out because Whistler couldn't - or wouldn't. "Got to say, it's not lacking in imagination. Several points for style, minus several million for being a dick."
Only King could joke about something like this, but then he was a Grade A dick as well. Nothing King would do should surprise him. But when he looked more closely at King, King's mouth was pinched, stress lines radiating from the corners of his eyes. He wasn't anywhere near as laid-back as he was trying to project. He was freaking the fuck out, and Sullivan supposed he couldn't blame him for that.
After all, he was freaking Sullivan the fuck out, too.
King caught him watching, his eyes flashing angrily for a moment before he damped down whatever he was feeling and raised one sardonic eyebrow in Sullivan's direction.
"You holding it together?" Sullivan asked him roughly, not sure why he was even bothering.
"Well, it could be worse," King said. "I could have been turned by a deranged harpy again. On the other hand, I'm now forced to question my sexuality."
He sounded like King, but Sullivan wasn't reassured by the strange light in his eye or the strain showing clearly in his voice. He hesitated, debating whether the risk of transporting King back to HQ in his current state was worth it. But in the end, there was only one possible outcome.
If he didn't agree to this, he was pretty damned sure Whistler would shoot him.
-o-
King hadn't ripped any of their throats out because, as Sullivan had already guessed, he'd ripped out the throat on the corpse Sullivan had seen. A familiar, Whistler plain eed, only she hadn't shared that little nugget of information until they were already half way back to base, and only then because Sullivan wouldn't let King's need to feed, and what that could mean for them personally, drop.
She'd lapsed into silence after she'd admitted it, staring out of the window at the early morning streets passing by and refusing to engage Sullivan any further. He'd always wondered what the hell she saw in King and now he knew - she could be just as big a dick as he was. The only thing that stopped him from verbally ripping her a new one was Caulder's intervention. Laid-back Norwegian or not, the man didn't take any shit, even if it was sometimes difficult to take him seriously in those sweaters.
King had stayed uncharacteristically silent in back, although that could have had something to do with being muffled under several layers of tarp. Even silent, he'd hardly stayed out of mind as far as Sullivan was concerned.
He only relaxed once they had King safely stashed in their small, temporary infirmary. It wasn't ideal - they'd never expected to deal with any casualties when they'd chosen this as their temporary base of operations - but there was only one door in or out and King was far enough away from Sullivan this time that he was pretty sure he'd be able to shoot first and take King down if needed.
Somehow he knew that King hadn't missed that. Neither had Whistler, but of the two of them, she was the only one who seemed concerned.
Caulder was fussing with vials and syringes, muttering to himself under his breath. Sullivan tuned him out, all of his attention focused on King. King, on the other hand, seemed to have tuned everything out - he'd settled himself on the single examining table and was staring up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused. But the aura of calm he was projecting was clearly fake. There was sweat beading his forehead and upper lip, and his fingers were twitching, flexing and then relaxing over and over again. The only thing he wasn't doing was mouthing off, and that was just another sign of how fucked up things were.
Whistler wasn't moving it all. She'd settled herself within arm's reach of King, which was a real mistake as far as Sullivan was concerned, but she'd wrapped her arms around her knees and was focusing on King and only King.
That lost look was back in her eye, and Sullivan looked away, uncomfortably aware of just how young she was.
"You feeding recently will have complicated things," Caulder said, tapping the side of the syringe with his nail, which meant he missed King's flinch. Sullivan hadn't, but in the grand scheme of things it didn't mean that much. "On the one hand, it means we do not have to focus as much on controlling your thirst, at least not in the short term. But on the other -"
"I'm going to be spending the next three days puking my guts up," King completed. He was aiming for bored again, but he missed it, the tension clear in his body and written across his face. "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, and a shitty one it was, too."
"Well, that was because it was spandex." Whistler gave a small half-smile, ignoring the fact that she'd startled Sullivan. He didn't think he'd ever heard Whistler crack a joke before, certainly not one that sounded like one of King's. Or any other kind, come to that. Maybe he'd imagined it - her smile faded as rapidly as it had appeared, but it seemed enough for King. His fingers finally stopped their incessant flexing and he turned his head to face her, stretching his fingers out towards her, a barely-there gesture that she seemed to understand anyway.
She reached across to him, wrapping her fingers around his and squeezing gently.
Huh. He'd wondered, but he hadn't thought he was right. And even if he was right, it was still a stupid fucking thing to do.
"This will sting a little," Caulder warned, leaning over King, the needle catching the light for a moment before it plunged into King's arm. King flinched again, his fingers tightening around Whistler's, knuckles whitening.
But he stayed irreverent, at least on the surface. "Doesn't really compare to having my throat savaged," he said. "But on the other hand, ow."
Caulder let out a small huff of laughter, sliding the needle back out with practised ease. "I will get you a bucket."
"Thank you. You're a peach."
Sullivan settled against the door jamb, crossing his arms and watching King and Whistler over the top of them. He was planning to stay there for the long haul when Caulder beckoned him out of the room. He followed reluctantly, casting a last look back at the couple in the corner.
"Is it safe to leave her alone with him?"
Caulder gave him a long, steady look. "Did you listen to their debriefing?" he asked, and Sullivan wondered irritably when he'd started to pick up the lingo of warfare, or stopped assuming that Sullivan knew more about it than he did. "They were locked together in a room for more than two days while their captors waited for him to kill her. That obviously did not happen, and I fail to see why you think it would happen now."
"Experience," Sullivan grunted. "That what you wanted to talk to me about?"
Caulder shook his head, his expression turning even more morose than usual. "Did you hear what else Whistler said?"
Sullivan gave a little helpless shoulder shrug, not sure what he was supposed to have missed.
"Daystar didn't work."
He'd picked up on that, but other than the fact it was going to make things a little more interesting, he didn't get why it was so important. He'd never been comfortable relying on a weapon he couldn't see or feel, so if they needed to start using traditional weapons again, he had no objection.
But what he hadn't picked up on before now was that Caulder wasn't surprised by Daystar's failure. Thinking back, though, certain things started to make a little more sense, like the fact that sometimes they'd had to stake vamps after deploying Daystar, although that was usually because they just hadn't been dying quickly enough for Sullivan's taste, by which he meant that they hadn't dropped dead instantly. Caulder had seemed interested in that at the time, but again Sullivan hadn't paid it much mind. Dead was dead as far as he was concerned - whether that was at the end of a stick or a biological weapon made little difference to him. "That why you wanted samples?"
Caulder shrugged, suddenly looking old. "It was always a risk. Sommerfield engineered the antivirus to adapt to Drake's blood, knowing that that would provide a sound basis for attacking many of the different strains of vampire virus that have mutated over the years since he first founded the vampire race."
Yada, yada, yada. Sullivan had never met one of the tech guys yet who didn't like yammering on about their particular fields of study, and he was including all of the docs working alongside the Nightstalkers in that. But there was one word in Caulder's technobabble he honed in on. "Many," he repeated, watching Caulder's reaction keenly. "But not all?"
"No. Not all. Viruses adapt. That is why they survive, and the vampire virus is no different. It was always a possibility that some vampires would be immune to Daystar, and that they would spread that immunity. It is no different from MRSA or other infections that are now resistant to our best antibiotics. It only takes a few bacteria to survive due to mutation and then..."
"And then we've got a fucking problem." There was more - Sullivan could tell that from the expression on Caulder's face, and he let out an impatient breath, wishing - not for the first time - that the people around him would just get to the damn point already. "What else?"
"Sommerfield engineered Blade's serum as well the mechanism to deliver it. She also designed the antivirus used to cure King and Abraham Whistler."
"And?" Sullivan asked impatiently, although he had a sinking feeling that he was beginning to understand what Caulder was getting at.
"Daystar built upon that work. If Daystar is no longer effective against all strains of the vampirism virus..."
"And if King got bitten by someone Daystar didn't kill, there's no guarantee that the cure will work on him the way it has in the past?"
Caulder nodded, his expression grim.
"Are you going to tell them?"
Caulder gave him a look. "Neither of them is stupid, Sullivan," he said, his tone slightly exasperated, or as exasperated as Caulder ever got. "And both of them have been fighting vampires for longer than you or I. I would be surprised if the thought had not already occurred to them."
Somehow, Sullivan doubted that, and not because he had any doubts about how smart King or Whistler were. He didn't believe that Whistler was thinking coherently about anything at this point - he'd finally pinpointed the look in her eyes that had been bothering him. He'd seen it before, more times than he'd cared to admit. She was shell-shocked, still reeling and not yet at the point where she was assimilating data into the whole picture. King, he was less sure of. There was a brain behind that mouth, but he'd seen denial often enough in the field to know that there was a good chance that King was suffering from it, too.
"Okay," he said, nodding slightly as he pulled his thoughts into order. "No point in borrowing trouble. We'll just have to cross that bridge if we come to it."
And with their luck, he thought dourly, the bridge would already be burning and they'd all fucking drown.
-o-
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