Chapter 14

There was a car outside and waiting for me at seven the next morning. Mum had come into my room and pulled my duvet off at six thirty, so I was up and breakfasted and about to reach for my phone when the doorbell rang.

I recognised him from the demonstration David and I had given – pang of hurt at the thought of David – but I didn’t remember a name or even if one had been offered.

“No Finn?” I asked more breezily than I felt.

“Er, commissioned officers don’t tend to pull driver duty, er, ma’am, er, miss. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Sarah’s fine too, if you’d let me know your name.”

“Er, Finley, ma’am, er, miss. Corporal Finley. We were told you’re acting captain as of today ma... miss. I’m sorry, Lieutenant Finn told me you prefer miss, but it’s protocol to address female officers as either ma’am or sir. I’m having a little trouble...”

“It’s alright, corporal. However, I am not, nor will you ever be, a ma’am, so if miss doesn’t work for you, I guess we’ll see if we can work with the third option.”

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Okay and, what is it? Stand – no sit – easy. Please I prefer my drivers relaxed.”

“Yes sir.”

“I thought I had a little flexibility about my time off.”

“I don’t know anything about that, sir. I was just told to fetch you.”

“I take it we’re going back to the dome?”

“Yes sir. It’s to become the base for the new company.”

“Oh, changes afoot.”

“Yes sir, we don’t hang about in the army. Once something’s been decided, it gets implemented pretty much straight away.”

“So does that mean we have a whole company on site now?”

“Pretty much, sir, but not our permanent contingent just yet. Mainly Royal Engineers putting the camp together. They made a good start yesterday, but you’ll see soon enough.”

We did indeed. We rounded a corner to find the entire college grounds plus a bit extra surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Guard towers stood at each corner and armed guard manned the entrance. I didn’t have anything that identified me as belonging on base, so it took a few minutes to find someone to vouch for me and provide me with the necessary bona fides. The someone pointed out a porta cabin type building which he said included office space for all us paranormal types, and suggested I stop by there first to change before finding the captain.

I did so and found that the someone had arranged for a few Irish dancing costumes in army colours along with several pairs of high heels. They had a similar action in the toes, but instead of dropping a sheath as my old ones had done, the heels rearranged themselves to give me the spikes and blades I was used to. A second kick of the toes hid the weaponry.

I changed quickly, appreciating the three bath stars on the epaulettes. That’s what Google had told me was the name of those stylised squares. I found my identity card in my desk drawer along with a dark violet beret sporting what looked like a pair of fangs as a badge. I took the time to perch it on my head It wouldn’t be practical for fighting, but I didn’t mind going full uniform for everyday stuff.

It was a long way from standard uniform, no matter how well it matched colour-wise, and I turned a fair few heads, most of which ended up with a smirk attached. It was a good job I still felt a little pissed off from the previous night, because it looked like I had a short teaching session ahead of me.

Following some competently given directions, I found the base captain standing in front of the dome arguing the toss with a bunch of beleaguered NCOs, most of whom I recognised.

“Captain,” I said just loudly enough to be heard over his rant as I approached.

“What the fuck are you?” he asked, rounding on me.

“Special Captain Sarah Geller,” I replied. “And I wouldn’t mind a little courtesy.”

“Yeah, well you’re all I fucking well need. First, I have a bunch of insubordinate fuckwits who won’t obey orders and now I have daddy’s little girl who likes to play dress up trying to pull rank on me.”

I began to see the reason why a car had been sent for me.

“I was under the impression we had the same rank,” I said with a strained smile. “I was also under the impression you’d been fully briefed about this place, so you should know when these guys tell you the dome doesn’t get touched, they’re actually following orders from considerably higher up the food chain.

“As for daddy’s little girl, perhaps you’d like to ask Lieutenant General Teal about me. He spent quite a few hours convincing my father to agree to me accepting this post. Despite my tender years, my unconventional uniform and my matching rank, I think you’ll find the army wants me here a hell of a lot more than it wants you.

“Now if the pissing contest is over, perhaps we could start over in a more civilised manner. In the long run we’re going to have to find a way to work together, so I’d prefer a more amicable relationship. If that’s likely to be a problem, we could always send it up the chain, except that won’t look particularly good on either of our records that we didn’t at least try to resolve this between us first.”

“I don’t have time for pretty little princesses who like to play at toy soldiers...”

I interrupted him with a spinning jump that ended up with one of my heels passing less than a quarter inch from his face.

“And I don’t have the luxury of pandering to a narrow-minded shit who can’t even be bothered to read and absorb his own orders. Or is it that you don’t believe what this facility is about?”

“What the fuck...”

“Is Lieutenant Finn anywhere nearby?” I asked the group of soldiers who’d been trying to reason with the captain.

“He’s in the dome, ma’am.”

“I prefer sir, if you wouldn’t mind passing it around.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Take us to him corporal. Captain, if you’d be good enough to follow me. And let’s try not to argue in front of the kids, eh?”

I stalked ahead of Captain Ignoramus into the dome. On a plus, the captain followed me.

“Lieutenant,” I called out, spotting Finn.

“Captain,” he smiled at me, then more reservedly to the guy following me, “Captain.”

“Do you have the prism dagger handy?”

“Being kept separated in a safe place ma’am.” I gave him a look. “Sir.”

“Right, I guess we do it the hard way. Can you clear the main floor and close the blinds for me please?”

“Yes sir.” He called for all crews near the melted centre to move out beyond the sniper positions then guided the captain to a safe distance.

I tapped the toes of my shoes to make them battle ready. They were a little more substantial than I was used to but not enough to upset me. The added weight might even come in handy.

The dome dimmed and an area began sparkling over the central part of the wreckage. Almost immediately, vampires began to leap through the gap. Just as immediately I responded by tap dancing my way up to them and swinging into a series of kicks and spins that saw heads rolling and bodies exploding into dust. I had a couple of dozen of them dispatched before their numbers began to overwhelm me and the snipers had to start chipping in. Finn took that as signal to open the blinds and let the sunshine back in.

The captain – the other one that is – looked somewhat ashen.

I walked over to him, my breathing returning rapidly to normal.

“Is that sufficient explanation as to why we can’t move the dome?” I asked.

“What were those things?”

“How ready are you to hear an explanation that sounds like it comes from a Tolkien novel?”

“You were...”

“Daddy’s little girl? Playing at soldier dressup?”

“No, I owe you an apology for that.”

“Accepted with thanks. Now, I appreciate you have a lot to organise, and I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but as I understand it, you’ve been posted here to keep all the day to day running of a base like this going whereas I’m here because I know more about those fuckers than most. I will quite happily leave you to the mundane stuff as long as you will accept a little guidance from me and the men under my command as to our special requirements. I don’t have a lot else to do right now, so I’ll happily traipse about the camp with you, however at present my, er, not quite uniform is earning me quite a few amused looks, so you may want to sit down in my office, or yours, and thrash out a few necessary compromises between what you want to do here and what you bloody well can’t.”

“Why was the dome built here? It makes it fucking impossible to put together a working camp.”

“The difficult we do at once. The impossible takes a little longer. Isn’t that how things work, captain? The dome is centred over the wreckage of a sixth form college that also happens to be the centre of a portal into a dimension filled with unpleasant creatures. Mainly vampires just now, but there’s worse out there.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I don’t know how heavily redacted your orders are, captain, but I believe they should at least be clear on the shit content.”

“They weren’t redacted at all. I just thought someone was pissing me about.”

“Which, I suppose, makes your reaction to soldiers perpetrating the same apparent rubbish understandable, as well as someone like myself coming along looking like a stripper-gram and trying to make out I have an equivalent rank.”

“You’re being a lot more understanding than I’d be.”

“Captain, we’re on the same side. At least I hope we are.”

“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”

“I’ll be eighteen next month.”

“Shit. I was still standing gate guard at that age.”

“You didn’t have the advantage of my particular skill set.”

“No, I guess not. Okay, so let’s go discuss this in your office.”

“Mind if Lieutenant Finn joins us? He has command over our first line of defence in there and he may have a few special requests.”

“I’ve already heard a few.”

“And hopefully you’ll be more inclined to agree to them now.”

He was. It was amazing how reasonable people could be after they’d been shown the impossible. It meant redesigning the camp around the dome, which meant placing some buildings in less than ideal places, but we managed it without having to extend the perimeter of the base or resorting to non-prefabricated buildings.

I insisted that accommodation be increased by at least fifty percent, which meant a few two-story buildings with consequently deeper foundations. It pushed us over budget, but a short email approved the extra.

In the end it was a productive day, ending with me changing back into civies and being driven back to my parent’s home. I wouldn’t be needed for a few days, so I made definite arrangements with Finn before heading home that only if he needed me, should he send the car. I wanted a few days R and R.

We used Stuart’s shop as a rallying point for new slayers. I used some of my time off base to help him set it all up, and was even nearby when the first of the newly roused potentials started arriving. That was towards the end of the week though. With the beginning, I joined him for a little training, specifically in my new gear, and helped him organise part of the shop into an office with his most relevant books easily to hand. He could do his research just as readily there as at the base and it meant we could we could filter out the wannabes from the genuine article without cluing them in to the existence of the base and the mysteries it hid.

Most new arrivals were girls, but there were a few lads too. I explained to them what had happened to me and gave them the option of trialling in a dress. That was enough to turn most away, but I could see the desperate hope hidden behind the masks of some of them and encouraged them to try out. The magic worked on them, albeit a little slower, and soon enough I had a couple of newly formed sisters to go with the couple of dozen who’d been born with the right equipment. They chose the names Violet and Caridad and became unofficially my seconds. Partly I think it was down to them having a clearer idea what I was going through, but partly it was down to them being a little more pro-active than the others. Maybe a direct consequence of our respective histories, but maybe just coincidence.

Stuart and Jen took on the task of training them and before long we had a dance troop to rival Mr Flately’s. Jen suggested we put on a few shows with me heading up the cast – after all, I was the original and most experienced. They went down a storm, especially as unexpected entertainment in the week running up to Christmas, and earned us enough spare cash to put me back in the accountants’ good books.

I’m not sure if that’s a pun or not.

We missed the axe and its capacity to open a large portal but made do with what we had. Finn designed a grenade with wooden shrapnel which we started dropping from drones on a regular basis. It was a bit hit and miss with an emphasis on miss, only taking out ten percent of targets, but the weapons budget was looking healthy, so we kept them going until the vampire population on the other side thinned to almost zero. It didn’t hurt that Finn’s snipers regularly shot through the smaller portals generated by the horn daggers with considerably more effect.

The dance tour meant I travelled to places I’d never had the opportunity to visit before, including several West End appearances in London. There were times I thought I caught sight of a brooding figure in the shadows, but whether or not that was imagination, David never approached.

With my new income and access to bigger shops, I was able to buy a few extravagant gifts for my parents and my friends, including some slightly less extravagant ones for the Slayerettes. Mum and Dad responded in kind, providing me with a whole bunch of girly stuff, including a bubblegum pink Mini Cooper S convertible, which Dad said was intended as my eighteenth birthday present, but since I’d be back on base before then, I should enjoy it now.

I didn’t even have my driving license yet, but Captain Masters – my partner in command at the base who’d been very pleased with the bottle of scotch I’d bought him – said he could arrange for driving lessons with one of the soldiers on the camp, and they’d have me driving in no time.

In fact he followed through with it by having my instructor delivered to my doorstep first thing on the second of January. It took us a couple of hours to get to the base that morning. At his suggestion, I’d changed into flats before settling in behind the wheel, then I’d amazed him with my coordination and quick learning, exploring a mixture of roads on the way to the camp.

For the next few weeks I started my day with a driving lesson, and put in for my test the day after my eighteenth birthday. Needless to say, army drivers didn’t have to wait long and I passed first time.

The early part of the year turned out to be a breeze. Finn’s war of attrition through the mini portal drove the vampires away and by mid-February, almost none of them tried to come through during the night. The battle then become not letting ourselves become complacent. I drilled with my slayerettes on a daily basis and Finn found ways to keep his guys sharp too.

The quad copter drones could fit through the smaller portal easily enough, but they lacked speed and range, so I ordered a few specials. They went through like missiles, but deployed wings on the other side. This and conventional fuel meant they could go much further and faster. They didn’t find anything for several days, but after a while, isolated pockets of different bad guys began to show up.

Including, at long last, a Fyarl demon.

It took a while to lure it to the portal, but that worked in our favour because its arrival coincided with my first slayer squad completing their training. They were as good as they could be without actual combat experience so it was good to give them this as an introduction.

It was bigger than the one David and I had defeated, which meant we needed contingencies, mainly in the form of a fifty calibre Gatling gun or two mounted high in the dome. They’d destroy the horns if we had to use them, which was not what we wanted, so they were to be kept as emergency backup.

Two dozen slayers working together was a joy to see. The Fyarl demon hadn’t a chance. My team formed a cheerleader stack early from which they launched me up between its horns, and from there it was just a lot of grunting and heaving on my part while the rest of the troop distracted it. It took all my strength braced between the horns over a ten minute period before one of them tore away at the roots.

The demon screamed, bleeding brilliant beams of light. I wasn’t about to be greedy. I didn’t have anything left to brace against to rip the other loose, so instead I leapt clear and called for the fifty cals to take over.

A couple of short bursts turned the remaining horn to dust. The shells that didn’t hit their target thudded into the ground, shattering the smooth surface and sending shards of obsidian in all directions.

I checked with my girls. One had misjudged an attack on the demon and been kicked halfway across the dome. She had a lot of bruising and several fractured bones. Three hadn’t been quick enough to avoid the shrapnel at the end and had various degrees of cuts, none life threatening.

I sent them to the medical centre where they’d hopefully show off their rapid healing.

I took the horn to Jen, who nodded appreciatively. This would take us to the next stage.

The portal it produced was large enough to drive a tank through, so we did just that, along with a large convoy of equipment big enough to set up a defensive base. I took my slayerettes through – minus the one with broken bones whose injuries hadn’t yet mended.

The air was thicker somehow and smelt of gunpowder. Temperatures were considerably lower than the global warming enhanced toastiness of home – even in mid-winter – which meant loose trousers added to our uniforms. I had them designed like stripper clothes, bound by Velcro so they could be torn off at a moment’s notice.

The long-range drones kept to the air, tracking the isolated threats we’d already noted and spreading steadily further until...

It was another army. Bigger if anything than the previous one and headed by another of the multi-eyed, mouthless horrors we’d faced before. The hoard was making its way towards our position.

The big guy noticed the drones and raised a clawed hand. Clouds formed from nothing in the sky and a bolt of lightning shot out, blanking the drone screen.

It didn’t really matter though; the lightning flare had drawn all our eyes and we could see the dust cloud on the horizon. They’d be on us in just a few hours.