To Spite Another God Pt. 09

A few chuckles came from the room.

"I was only half joking," she said.

***

And what about you?

Oh. I have the much worse job.

Mina looked down at the small chunk of Aresite. It was kept in place by a small bit of netting that was itself nailed into the table. The wind being created above it was a constant, slow howl -- a tiny storm that caused papers to flutter and her hair to move around her cheeks, while Jonathan and several of their human allies watched. The humans had been picked because they were the best metalworkers -- and they were both watching the Aresite as if it was some thing that might come free and slash their faces off.

"Is this going to be safe?" Jonathan asked.

"I sure hope so," Mina whispered, softly.

She grabbed onto the Aresite. The feeling of a part of her palm suddenly being cut off from the gravity of the Earth was...shocking. It was as if the bones, flesh, and skin of that part of her hand had begun to tug upwards, straining against the rest of her flesh and her bones. Her hand ached and strained and she gritted her teeth as she felt the strain throbbing through her entire body. She worked, before she could rethink this.

She pushed the Aresite into her mouth and she swallowed. It tumbled against her throat and she actually felt herself growing new muscles, tightening flesh in a way she had never had to do before. The pressure against her brain was shocking, a tiny chunk of her skull trying to rush upwards against the rest of her body. Then it was in her belly and she trembled, her entire body quivering as she focused her entire being onto the Aresite -- and then she tore into it. It was a complex chemical, but it was still a chemical, merely a non-sentient chunk of matter. And so, her vampiric powers were able to flay it apart, teasing it out into component and component and component, their flavors blazing inside of her mind. And she found, after a few seconds, it had been reduced down to the components that made it up...and that reduction caused the gravitational forces to stop, allowing her body to relax.

"Now..." She whispered, holding up her hand, then focusing and reversing the reduction -- and she opened her mouth and the Aresite popped from her mouth, shooting up past her nose and parting her bangs, before it impacted into the ceiling with a clink. She smiled, then looked at the others. "It's steel and glass, just...etched very fine." She grinned, excitedly. "Fine enough that it would take...it would take machines many many many times more precise than ours."

The metalworkers looked irritated. "So, we can't make it."

"Oh, you can." Mina grinned, showing her fangs.

The metalworkers exchanged glances.

"I-If it helps," Jonathan said. "being a-"

The metalworkers were already tugging the collars back, their mustaches not concealing their smiles.

Mina caressed Jonathan's back. "Shall we usher Mr. Dan and Mr. Eder into their new lives?" She murmured, then cupped one of their backs, drawing him in close and sinking her fangs into his throat. Blood gushed into her mouth and she drank and she drank and she drank and she drank. Jonathan, his cheeks burning, stepped up to the other gentleman, opened his mouth, closed it, opened it, then closed it -- and only when Mina drew her mouth back and shot him a look did he finally, at last, bite down on Mr. Eder's jugular.

As the two men began their transformation, Mina brushed her hands through her hair, her grin playful.

"Nice and hard?"

Jonathan, his cheeks flushed, stammered. "O-Only by watching- I mean, no! I mean...Mina!" He blushed as she laughed and beamed at him, then kissed his cheek, leaving a bright, bloody red mark.

***

The vampires returned -- and as they returned, they came with news of fragments of each army of Europe -- hidden here, hidden there. When there was a lieutenant and a platoon in hiding, their uniforms tattered, their bellies sticking to their ribs and their rifles without a single bullet, they returned with them in tow, often by pushing their bodies to the limit so that they could carry so many men and material through the air through any means that they could. Others found lager groups -- some were even holed up in towns that had not yet been smashed by the Martians, and those sent officers as emissaries.

The Martians attacked twice as this meeting grew.

The first time, they came in the day and swept through the air in a chevron of five Flying Machines, soaring towards the town. They fired Black Smoke at range, but Mina had predicted that. She had asked three of her vampires to take the form of large bats before the sun had risen, so that they would be able to leap into the way of the canisters. The canisters detonated against their bodies -- bruising them terribly and sending them crashing to the ground, but the smoke expanded outwards a good two or three miles away from the edge of the city -- rendering it ineffective at its goal of killing humans.

And when the Flying Machines got closer...

Well.

The vampires had salvaged two working heat rays and, through some experimentation, they had determined where electrical power could be pumped in to create the deadly ray of coherent light that they used. With power from the turbine engine that they had constructed in the fortress and powered via a single vampire in the form of a fast running wolf, those heat rays lanced out and seared through the wing of one of the Flying Machines -- and that was enough to send the other four sweeping away and rushing off, before they might take more casualties.

Humans with rifles and Lucy went to investigate -- and found that the Flying Machine had not been piloted by a Martian, but rather, by another one of those humans that had been converted by Mars. She had been badly banged up -- and so, some vitae album was given to her, healing her busted rib and broken leg. George had taken upon himself to quietly liberate her, and had spent an hour and a half speaking to her, kissing her wrist gently, murmuring in her ear, until she was on her back, her thighs wrapped around his hips, his hands caressing along her bald head as he made love to her.

She reported that the Martians were using the resources sent their way by salvage operations across Europe to build and build and build...

And they were converting more and more humans to operate those machines every day.

The second came attack, again, during a sunny day. Mina knew it was a bright, sunny day because she was sitting outside when the attack came -- seated at a folding table, surround by men with guns, and trying to not lose her temper.

"So, we'll be fighting our own kind, huh? We had this exact problem in the last war."

Mina sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest and Field Marshal Schlieffen nodded and puffed on a cheap cigarette as he sat across the table from an increasingly furious looking Frenchman of middling years. Schlieffen himself was a narrow faced, scarecrow of a man who looked as if he had lost almost a hundred stone in the past few months alone, leaving him even more jowly and scowly than he had been before. His uniform was as close to spotless as Mina might have expected, considering the situation that he and his men had been in -- meaning that it was merely close to a total tatters.

"Your people?" General Fosch asked.

"Yes." Schlieffen puffed on his cigarette. "Free shooters. They tried to keep us from Paris, and they didn't manage it then. These free shooters won't keep us from London."

"They're not snipers," Mina said, slowly, carefully, her German in the hazy middle ground between her rough beginnings to her fluency -- and each word she spoke would make it more and more fluent. "They're being controlled by the Martians directly. You need to understand, these men from Mars? They're not like men from Earth. Not just in their tools and their looks, but their very minds. They're all a singular intelligence, chained together and able to communicate instantly between one another."

"Hurm. Sounds unlikely," Schlieffen muttered.

"What is the Bosch saying?" Fosch asked Mina, in French. Her French was impeccable.

"Nothing of import, General Fosch," she said. "I just need the two of you to tell me what you have and if you're willing to work together."

The two Generals were the only leaders of their level that Mina's vampires had been able to find. Lucy had brought Schlieffen, having found him and an entire German army, dispersed through the hills of Bavaria. Despite how much of an intense prick she thought he was, Schlieffen had clearly grasped certain strategic issues and concerns that the Martians had brought with them almost instantly and worked to conceal his troops. Fosch had been found by George near the northern edge of Spain, where he and Spanish troops had managed to dig into the mountainous terrain there and conceal themselves as well. Schlieffen had been brought with a few of his under-officers -- all German -- but Fosch had come with several Spanish officers, though none had been higher ranked than a colonel.

"I have two divisions -- forty thousand men." Schlieffen said. "We're being fed by local farms and requisitioning, but even that is hard. We have artillery, machine guns, cavalry, and enough rifles and bayonets to hold a line."

"And you?" Mina asked Fosch.

Fosch sighed. "One division -- the majority of my army was destroyed outside of Paris by that horrid Black Smoke. The Spanish suffered just as badly -- one and a half of their divisions met up with our survivors and we've been surviving through ever means we can. We have machine guns and some light pieces -- mostly quick firing 75s, which have served us well. They're fast and accurate and we've knocked three Flying Machines from the air with them."

Mina's eyebrows went up. "Excellent..."

"I have a question, though," Fosch said, slowly. "Who are you? I...have seen what it is your..." he paused.

"We're vampires," Mina said.

"I know, it just feels absurd to say!" Fosch exclaimed.

"Tell, the Frenchman that while he seeks to grapple with obvious material realities, I have questions..." Schlieffen muttered around his cigarette.

Fosch glared at the German -- even if he didn't speak the language, he clearly was going off tone of voice and expression and was not happy about it. "You're vampires," he said, slowly. "And you can fly, and carry great strength, and yes, even, drink blood and take new shapes. So, what are your plans with my men? You speak of bringing us together to fight these Martians, but if it means giving up our immortal souls so that you can turn us into beasts-"

"You will not become beasts!" Mina said, shaking her head. "In fact, most of your men shouldn't even become vampires -- they're skilled at fighting with bullets, blades, explosives, yes?" She nodded. "We need those weapons too -- it'd be better if we kept the vampires into the civilians, who can then focus entirely on learning that. The Martians have weapons that can hurt us -- only if we all work together can we overcome them before the Port is used to bring millions more of them to Earth."

The Generals listened to her -- once she had repeated it again in German.

"We won't be commanded by a woman," Schlieffen said.

Mina grabbed onto his throat and picked him up.

A cackle came from the sidelines -- and a clatter of weapons being drawn as the German officers drew their weapons. Mina's arm actually trembled a touch, as she had merely her human strength when she was exposed to the light of the sun. But she had learned a trick from Aleera: When dawn had come, she had made sure to shift herself to a human form...yes...but she had corded her muscles as tautly and as strongly as she could. It was purely natural human muscle power that hefted Schlieffen up, and she could only maintain it for a second before she dropped him back into the chair.

That second was enough.

He thumped down, gasping, wheezing.

"You were saying?" she asked.

The German rubbed at his throat -- while Fosch laughed.

"A genuine Joan of Arc!" Fosch exclaimed.

"Mina! MINA!"

Mina turned and saw that Jonathan was sprinting towards her, almost tripping over his feet, his binoculars in his hand.

"Mina! An attack!" he pointed. "Coming from the north!"

Mina and he ran -- followed by the Generals -- to the edge of the city. There, Mina took the binoculars and put them to her eyes. She swept her gaze along the horizon and saw that the Martians were indeed coming...but, again, it was something different. They weren't hundred foot tall tripods that charged across the ground at incredible paces. Instead, they were...low. Scuttling, like crabs. She trained the binoculars upon them, then frowned as she watched the vehicles apporach.

It had four legs, which churned up the ground as they ambulated across the terrain of Europe with incredible, eerie speed. Rather than stepping over obstacles, they crashed through them if they were flimsy, like small trees or fences...or flowed around them if they were large, like houses or thick walls. Their main body was a boxy compartment of thick Martian metal with a slitted front. They lacked tentacles -- but instead had a pair of heat rays, mounted on swiveled pitons and...on their fronts, they had what appeared to be...

"Are those Maxim guns?" Mina whispered, then handed the binoculars to Fosch, while Schlieffen used his own set of binoculars.

"Yes," Schlieffen said, lowering his binoculars.

"Why use Maxim guns?" Jonathan asked. "We're immune to bullets. Usually"

"But our human allies aren't," Mina said. "And...we're not if we're in sunlight..." She frowned, but even that felt wrong. "Or the Martians are up to something sneaky."

"What is your plan, then, fraulein?" Schlieffen asked, looking at her with clear derision in his eyes.

"...it's not my plan, actually..." Mina said, smiling. "It was Mr. Wells."

The first of the machines reached the concealed flags -- cunning placed around tree branches, hung from small fences. The machines were arranged in a line, and there were about twenty of them in total. Mina, behind her back, crossed her fingers and hoped against hope that this would work.

Jonathan shouted. "Now!"

Back at the fortress, George, likely with a huge smile, levered down the plunger on their jerry rigged detonation devicve.

There was a short pause.

Then-

The entire horizon detonated. Smoke and flames roared upwards, shooting up into the air. One of the machines was tossed upwards, then brought smashing down onto its top. Others were dismembered entirely. The remaining that had not been destroyed -- and to Mina's horror, that made almost ten of them in total -- continued forward, rushing despite their casualties. Each of them showed some damage, but none was enough do more than slow them down.

"A mine! Excellent!" Schlieffen said, cheerfully. "And what was your next plan?"

Mina flicked her tongue along her lips, then focused. Lucy! Now!

The machines had, by then, come within two hundred yards of the rubble barrier that marked the edge of the city -- and their heat rays were already on. Brick burst. Flames caught. A roof behind the fortress collapsed inwards as the heat stressed it terribly.

And the wolves burst from their hiding places -- led by Lucy, with two other vampires flanking her sides. Each of the wolves carried between their jaws a large satchel charge. They sprinted towards the machines, which were unaware of their approach until the wolves tossed with their heads -- and the charges smashed into the backs of the machines and detonated with a roar and flash of light. Three machines burst apart from their backs, and Mina winced as she saw a head flying into the air -- a severed, human head.

The remaining machines stopped in their firing -- and split into two groups. Four tried to swivel around towards the wolves, but Lucy had already dove into the ground, burrowing into the native Transylvanian soil, followed by her companions. Mina focused, and transmitted everything she saw to Lucy, trying to fill her mind with the image of the landscape...even as the other three machines continued forward, their heat rays seeking for damage, their Maxim guns chattering -- and as the bullets slammed and whined by overhead, she felt a blazing rush of...

Pain? Aversion?

Fosch ducked low, then blinked, sniffing. "Garlic?" he exclaimed.

Oh those bastards, Mina thought. Then she shouted. "Antoni, NOW!"

Antoni and the humans that were on the heat rays pushed their heat rays to the edge of their rooftop cover.

One of the Martian machines hissed, then bubbled, then laid still -- a smoking hole burned right into its armor. The other two stopped, swiveling around, trying to find where the weapons fire was coming from, even as Antoni cried out: "Enjoy hell you bastards!" And then the second of the Martian machines was destroyed -- this time, far more dramatically. It exploded, the heat ray clearly having touched off something in its engine. The third started to walk backwards, tilting its heat rays back on their pivots.

Lucy burst from the ground behind it, sailed above it, and dropped a satchel charge on its head.

As the machine exploded and Lucy landed, looking very smug in her black furred form, the remaining Matian machines turned and started to rush away. "Aim for their legs!" Mina called up in Polish -- and one of them stumbled, then crashed to the side. The hatch popped open and a Martian controlled human started to run away, panting. Fosch drew his pistol, frowning.

Two wolves bore the human down, and then started to drag the kicking, struggling man back towards the city.

"So, we have a prisoner, then?" Schlieffen asked. "How do you interrogate them? Do you have some...power?"

Mina smirked.

"Something like that."

And then, almost before it was over, she realized...

She had just won her first battle. With idea from George, Lucy, Antoni, and a half a dozen of the humans -- all of them working together, with predictions and guesses about what it was the Martians might have thrown their way. They had not predicted the full shape of things...but they had still been ready enough to send the Martians running.

"We did it..." She whispered.

And, for reasons she could not determine, she began to cry.