Going Under Ch. 03

Sara did not know what to add. She wanted to know all she could about Cate, but it was still taking time to sink in. Things she had previously thought to be fantasy had been revealed to be based in truth. If she told anyone she had been lying chatting with a vampiress they would have told her she was drunk or stoned or, at best, had been working too hard.

"So where do I fit in?" Sara asked at length. "Shall I beg my old job back at the embassy?"

"You can if you like though there's no need, I am paid well, more than enough to support the two of us."

"Okay." Sara accepted that as an option, though being a kept woman did feel a little uncomfortable. "But what would I do all day? Well, I guess I'll start sleeping then too, so we'll have time together."

"Yes, that happens, it will be awkward, but you'll adjust."

"Okay, then, what will I do all night, if you've got work to do? Do I just sit here or in some club waiting for you to come back, until one night, you don't? I have little idea what a vampire's lover does, let alone the lover of an ex-vampire."

"We've always used humans, we have our bands of servants. People who for various reasons work for us. But that wouldn't seem right. You and I should be equals."

"We can hardly be that, you're stronger, faster, more alert than me..."

"But I'm not going to be able to get a suntan." Cate joked lightly.

"No." Sara fell silent.

"I wondered if you wanted to return to where we first met."

"The underground station?"

Cate nodded. "Not the location, but how we met, what we were doing. You fought off the lycanthrope so I could shoot him down. You forget that without you being there, and acting instead of gawping, I would have been destroyed. It is rare for someone with my kind of mission to work alone."

"But you do." Sara said a little hesitantly, trying to conceal her excitement at what she guessed Cate was suggesting.

"Well, since the Prague Spring I have. It can be difficult to trust again when you've been betrayed."

The atmosphere between the two of them was heavy. Sara felt she had to speak. "Erm, I, er, well, I have to confess I would rather we died together in a hail of bullets than for me to lose you again." Sara stuttered, shocked by the reality of her words and the strength of the emotions they revealed.

Cate just stretched forward and sealed their pact with an intense kiss that felt to Sara like cream melting on her lips, but with her body hanging suddenly out over a precipice. Cate jumped to her feet. Quickly Sara grasped her hand and looked up into her lover's eyes. There was to be no more discussion, Sara had a new job.

Cate bustled back into her bedroom and Sara clambered to her feet.

"Have you kept up the aikido since you've been in Moscow?" Cate called.

"No, I've not really thought about it." Sara said as she followed Cate into the bedroom.

"Well, you've got the time now. I've got the address of a club over in Zyuzino, a female sensei, does sessions for women's self-defence. I've thought of going myself, now I have a reason. I'll also introduce you to Ulrich Heyse, he'll get you into tae-kwondo. You need something a bit harder like that as well." Cate span into a roundhouse kick, her bare foot stopping close to Sara's cheek.

"Sounds good." Sara said, smiling, pleased that she had been confident. This felt empowering and exciting.

"But, tonight'll be down the shooting range. Dan Crowley runs the best private one in the city. He's worked with us for years. He's a good port of call for any hardware too, though I know he sells to anyone: ìycanthrope, vampire, gangster, terrorist. He keeps the different clientele very separate. You'll like him, he grew up in Seattle. I know you're pretty hot with a pistol, but we want to get you on to something a little heavier, at least AK-47s, 74s, that kind of thing. In Moscow they're your 'Saturday-night specials'." Cate continued as she pulled open the wardrobe and began running through the shiny black clothes inside.

As Cate lifted down first one then another rubber catsuit, Sara felt the tingle she had forgotten. She realised that in accepting Cate's suggestion of being her skirmishing partner she was accepting dressing like her too. Much of vampire life seemed to about presenting the correct image for what you wanted achieve, and now she recognised the significance of the shiny, skimpy dresses that Tatiana had got her into wearing. Those had been the clothes of a woman accessible to, usable by, whoever wanted. The outfit Cate was laying out was sexy in such a different way, a strong, a powerful way.

"First I just thought that you liked these clothes because they had a gothic flavour, then because you had some kind of kink, but now I see there's a practicality too."

"Most certainly. Have you ever tried washing lycanthrope's blood off of wool?" Cate responded soberly but then her tone lifted. "Don't do down the gothic aspect, you're not going to meet anyone more gothic than a Victorian vampiress."

Sara smiled and stepped forward, to stand beside Cate and shed her silk robe. She picked up the rubber catsuit watching it ripple in her hands, smelling the rich aroma. Cate had talced the interior and in moments Sara was balancing awkwardly sliding the rubber up one leg and then soon after, along the other. She loved how the shiny, clinging material so changed her. Every contour was exposed but transformed. Sara loved the sense that she was donning an alien skin. Soon she was easing her arms into the sleeves. Her breasts were aroused, excited in anticipation of the latex encasing them. Slowly, lusciously, Sara slid the zip closed, sealing her body into its glistening skin again.

"Right, cinchers are for nights out, this is for work." Cate said.

Sara let herself be dressed as Cate pulled the overbust corset, itself coated in black rubber, around Sara's middle. It was rigid, pushing up her breasts, pulling in her midriff, but not extremely. Sara slid the silver cross she wore down the front and it sat snugly against the interior of the corset. Cate buckled the three straps and then tapped the corset.

"That's the best kevlar money will buy, plus a few of our own compounds in the mix. It will stop most bullets and certainly blunt any stakes someone might fancy trying to plunge into you. You might not be Kindred, but they'll not take that risk."

"Thank you." Sara said simply and gave Cate a kiss.

Sara turned to her boots, and it was not many minutes later that Cate and Sara were sisters in shiny black, their catsuits clinging to their bodies, their bulletproof corsets in place, and their footsteps sounding with the heavy tread of many-buckled boots. Sara reached for the leather coats, tossed one to Cate then eased into another herself. She strode to the mirror and admired herself. She felt taut with a thrill, this was her declaring so much, her sexyness, her closeness to Cate. Cate came behind her, wrapping her hands around Sara's waist and resting her chin on her shoulder.

"I can see you." Sara chirped.

"Of course. Some of the myths about vampires are certainly just myths. How do you think we keep ourselves looking so good if we have no reflections? And how would that work anyway? We bend many laws of biology, but defying physics too? I can't bend light or stop it bouncing back any more than the next person. And becoming mist? How practical is that? One gust of wind and your vampire parts are spread all over the district or sucked into the nearest air conditioning vent."

"I wouldn't want that." Sara said, twisting in Cate's grip, but in moments her words were stopped as she yielded to Cate's tongue penetrating into her mouth. "Mmm," was all she could now say.

Cate's hands gripped Sara's firm bum, tugging her close into her so their mounds pressed tight. Sara's pussy lips knew only two layers of rubber separated her from those of lover. Through the rubber, she could feel her warmth, or was it simply her own reflected back? Sara was unresisting as Cate swayed a little apart from her and stretching her hand between Sara's glistening thighs reached for that end of the two-way zip and began teasing it open, exposing a slice of her bum and then as it passed beneath her and up the front side, her loosening pussy lips too. Sara reached down and stopped Sara tugging the zip any further, it could not get higher than the base of her corset anyway. Grasping Cate's hand, Sara mimicked what she had done, and in moments both women stood their rubber-coated breasts bare centimetres from each other and the sex of both of them exposed, with nothing to stop the penetrating fingers that soon assaulted them.

Sara gasped, rising on to her tiptoes as her body collided with Cate's. Their hands squirming, thrusting into each other's sodden pussies, found a welcome in each. Their heads twisted back and forth, their faces in pursuit of each other's as their tongues flicked out to find their target and mingling with the other. Sara was heady with the growing sensation between her legs combined with the heavy scent of Cate's sweat blended erotically with the shiny, skin-tight rubber. Their bodies were entwining, and Cate slipped a booted foot behind her lover's legs, to pull her in, to reel her tighter against her body, so, soon there were so many points of contact between their rubber-clad bodies. It did not take long for Sara to rise close to climax.

"This is you." Cate whispered, spinning Sara so she could see their profiles reflected. "This is you." Cate repeated.

Those simple words send a quake through Sara's body as she realised what she had become, a lesbian dressed so erotically as part of her everyday life, thrusting her fingers deep into her lover and being so mutually pleasured. The recognition of what she now was, what she could do just because she enjoyed it, took Sara to the highest level. Her eyes were filled with a blinding light and the world around faded away, all that existed in those instances were her sense of herself as she was, and of the lover, her sound, her taste, her scent, the feel of her, and as her sight cleared, Sara's vision of her. The two women fell into each other, each quivering and shaking against the other in ecstasy, clinging on as best they could to stay upright as orgasm took them.

Part Two

Sara followed Cate up from the small underground car park; enjoying the matched heavy sound of their boots on the concrete. They had come across town in a new black BMW which Sara had no idea where Cate had got it from and had not asked. Similarly she had little idea of what the building was that they were now coming into. Driving along the street Cate had suddenly turned down a ramp and they had waited only briefly before a barrier lifted and they were inside. Sara guessed that this had to be Dan's shooting range as Cate had promised. At the top of the stairs they zig-zagged through dark corridors until emerging into what looked like a waiting room for a car mechanic's. Behind the counter was a muscular black man, looking like the archetypal US sergeant-major, though maybe a touch shorter and certainly smiling a lot more than Sara would have anticipated.

"Catherine. Good to see you." Dan said, stretching forward for a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for hooking me up with Karamzin, that's been such a good working relationship. He's got his house on the Black Sea, and I've got more hardware than I could've secured in a year before."

"That's great. I always said you can rely on me."

"Don't I know it." Dan said and then looked around Cate at Sara. "And you're Catherine's new partner. Cool."

"Erm, yes, I'm Sara." She replied awkwardly stretching forward to shake Dan's hand, very self-conscious of how he was seeing her dressed this way, and what he was implying by 'partner'.

"Yes, Sara's new on my team. She's a human, but you can trust her as you would me."

"Hang on. I've heard a bit about you, you're the one who killed Cyprian while Cate here was sleeping."

"And she baled me out when Ryszard had me pinned in a corner." Cate chipped in proudly.

"So, it's not just sexual." Dan said with a smile.

"No." Sara responded with hardness.

Sara had no idea who she had shot at in the alley, let alone that she had killed him. Then again he had to have been a werewolf, could you be charged with killing a mythical creature? It was all still too bizarre to properly think about.

"I hear you deal with both sides, ours and the lycanthropes." Sara jibed, going on the offensive.

"Lady, I'm in a restricted market here, I have to deal with who I can, human, Kindred, Pack, ghoul, banshee, you name it, if you come in here, you don't cause me any trouble and if you've got roubles, then I deal with you, okay?" Dan smiled again, to indicate that he did not mean it harshly.

"Well, if that's sorted, we're fine." Sara said disarmingly.

Sara recognised she was new in this game. A few months ago she would not even have known how to tackle a black market arms dealer, let alone be trading with one along with her lesbian vampire lover.

"Yeah, I know, it's sometimes difficult to make it all compute." Dan said.

Sara looked at him a little startled, and wondered if he had some of his own special abilities. He just smiled back and it became another thing she was going to let drop.

"So, down to business. You're hunting down Maciej and you want Sara here to be tooled up. She's got a bit of practice with revolvers, the odd shotgun and that spare Walther of yours, but you want to be familiar with a wider range of hardware?" His gaze switched from Cate to Sara as he spoke.

Cate glanced over at Sara as if waiting to use her response as a final test.

"Certainly. Cate was talking about some assault rifles."

"Well, we can certainly let you have a run on some of those here tonight. AK-74s are two a penny in Moscow, I'll throw you a couple free for the Karamzin connection." Dan said, his voice tapering away as he disappeared through the door behind him.

A few moments later, Dan returned with a green canvas bag which he plonked down on the counter. He unzipped it and pulled out a sub-machine gun.

"I've got something else you might fancy, Heckler & Koch MP5K, very popular with special forces, reliable, compact, good capacity. With that length you can keep it tucked beneath your lovely coat and fire from the hip." Dan explained.

"And for you, Catherine, just as you asked for: a Glock 17." Dan tossed a large pistol over to Cate who caught it with a swift movement.

"Great. I'll give a go now." Cate headed to the door to the left.

"Fine, I'll tool up Sara here, while you're playing, then send her through."

Cate disappeared from sight, into what Sara guessed was the shooting range. Meanwhile Dan was pulling ammunition boxes from the bag.

"Right, these are your standard silver tipped rounds. Werewolves' bodies can reject rounds made from other metals and heal from the injury, but with silver they take damage like a normal person would from simple lead slugs. Don't forget though, in wolf form they are big and tough, well in either form in fact. Many say Rasputin was a were-bear and that was why his assassins had to poison and shoot him, bash him round the head and shove him in a frozen river before they even thought they'd killed him."

Sara just nodded as Dan pushed the boxes of rounds towards her. In the background she could hear the repeated fire that she took to be Cate's new pistol.

"Given that Cate's credit is good here, I can let you have a few of these too." Dan pulled out a smaller box of pistol rounds and took one out. "These are dum-dum rounds, hollow but filled with silver nitrate, the liquid form of silver, so it gets into their blood stream. You even just wing a lycanthrope with one of these and while they won't die immediately they'll be being poisoned with this stuff flowing round their bloodstream and few will hold out for more than a couple of minutes."

"What about rounds for killing vampires?" Sara asked in a flat voice.

Dan looked up and raised an eyebrow, but was faced down by Sara's stare. He turned back into the room behind him and returned with a few more boxes. "Well, for vampires you have carbon rounds." He took out one of the bullets tipped in dark black material. "You need to hit the heart or the solar plexus. Hits elsewhere will cause harm, but won't stop them dead. These are more armour piercing than the silver rounds as vampires tend to wrap their vulnerable parts in armour." He tapped the corset Sara was wearing. "But it means they don't spread on contact, so the wounds will be smaller." Firing at a vampire needs a lot more accuracy than at a lycanthrope."

"And carbon? The modern version of a stake, I suppose."

"Most certainly, we've got crossbows of all sizes if you want to put a stake through them, or a silver bolt if aiming at a werewolf. Yes, carbon, it's the basis of organic chemistry, chemistry of life, and the one thing vampires are not about is life." Dan explained as he opened another box. These held rounds with glass tips and an filled with a luminescent liquid. "This is bottled daylight. These were developed as tracer rounds, they give off ultraviolet light. It's not as powerful as daylight itself, but it's certainly going to do harm to a vampire when this is shining out from within them. We've got flash grenades that work the same."

"Right."

"So, you want some?"

Sara shook her head. "Not for now, but there are some vampires who if I meet them again I might be looking to use this kind of stuff on. I guess you sell this stuff to lycanthropes."

Dan shrugged. "You forget, vampire culture is very much about the clans, they're no different to mafia families, always trying to wipe each other out. So, I can make some money selling to them to kill each other with."

"Where's this stuff made? I don't expect normal armies have much call for it."

"Well, many authorities feel getting this stuff on to the streets helps keep down the numbers without them having to do much else, so a lot is deliberately leaked out. It comes from factories within the Arctic Circle, during the summer months when the days are so long, it means they have less time to defend against lycanthropes or vampires attacking. The Russians have a place on Novaya Zemlya, the Americans at Point Barrow, the Canadians at Port Radium and there's a private place outside Thule in Greenland. They're closed most of the year, hidden away on bases left over from the Cold War."

"This can come in handy if you're cornered, standard hunting knife, just with a silvered blade."

Dan rested a belt with a short sheath and the kind of knife Sara was familiar with her cousins owning, on the table.

"You know handguns are illegal in England these days, well you'll find a lot of fighting in London is hand-to-hand stuff, knives, stakes, swords even. So don't neglect such things, as from what I know of Catherine, she gets dispatched everywhere and I guess you'll be wanting to go along."

Dan packed away the anti-vampire rounds while Sara buckled the sheath's belt around her waist.

"You know what really damages vampires?"

Sara hesitated guessing if this was a trick question.

Dan took Sara's lack of response as a prompt to continue. "It's faith. All that stuff about crucifixes and holy water is partly true, but it's not the whole story. For most people if they pick up a crucifix it's just a bit of jewellery. They may think they are a believer, but once a week dozing off in church is not faith. In contrast, any item that someone with true faith owns, will damage a vampire.

"I've heard of priests, real believers, steaming through a crowd of vampires, because the touch of their fingers, their clothes, their crosses, their sweat, all of it was deadly to the vampires. And it doesn't have to be solely about religion. Cate will tell you about back in 1917 when many a vampire was killed by someone burning with revolutionary fervour and later there were those who saw Stalin almost as a god, they had faith so they were just as dangerous.