Military Mind

Military Mind

A Chapter by Alskar

  Kate and Varjak materialized in Glastonbury, on top of their old hideout. 
  Before they left the U.S. Varjak went to check on Julien after he’d arrived back in Italy - there had been a few minor signs of struggle, which made Varjak and Kate suspect only one thing.
  Julien had been kidnapped by the undead. Probably didn’t have enough time to implement his weapon. 
  But the decision was to keep the Necrosis Stone a priority - they weren’t going to let the trick of a bait fool them twice.  
  Two days after their ‘night’ together they made the decision to go, at last, back to Glastonbury. 
  There was an immediate response as they arrived.
  “You son of a b***h!” some familiar voice snarled, and there was a flash of red and yellow before Varjak disappeared. 
  Orientating herself, Kate turned and saw Camille on top of Varjak, auburn hair wild and eyes fierce.
  “Nice to see you too babes!” Varjak said, with a grin. 
  But it wasn’t going to wash this time.
  “You’re the f*****g Betrayer, all right!” she screamed, pinning him so hard to the ground Kate thought she’d break his wrists.
  “Camille, get off him,” she growled, getting over her shock and coming to Varjak’s rescue.
  She did - appearing straight in Kate’s face, her pixie face scorching.
  “And you’re just as f*****g bad, you stupid b***h! I love the fact your tight, sweet little romance is so f*****g solid that you waltz off into the sunset together, leaving all your own recruits behind and not giving us a second f*****g thought!”
  Kate was too stunned to speak. 
  Varjak was on Camille next, wrenching her back from Kate. Camille hadn’t been expecting it, and stumbled back a few metres before turning to stare at them, horrified. 
  Varjak stood firm next to Kate.
  Tristan made an appearance then, his head popping out of the facility entrance. 
  He blinked at Varjak and Kate, then frowned deeply, as he and two other survivors filed out of the hideout. 
  “So it’s you two,” he said thinly, as the four ganged together to face Varjak and Kate.
  “Yeah, it’s f*****g those two,” Camille hissed. “You know, I’ll have you know something. The reason I’m not in the army any more is because I was a stupid little girl who let my friend get killed in combat. Bit like you. Except I can’t forgive myself for it, and it’s my duty to make sure everyone is safe. But it was your turn to do that, Varjak, and you failed.”
  “We can’t even explain,” said Kate defeatedly, as Varjak looked ready to fight their corner. “I guess…we had a vague conversation about where we’d like to go together if s**t got bad. We said Verona, but we had no idea the ambush would happen - Hell, we ended up on two opposite sides of the world because we didn’t know what stupid Verona we meant. We didn’t plan to leave you all - we just got out of there, then Varjak got attacked and in the heat of it we ran.”
  “Not good enough,” Camille sneered. “Most of them died, I’ll have you know. As our leader, Varjak Swinton the Legend, you should have made more of an effort to get people out of there. But no - you were too concerned about Kate and yourself to care what happened to us, even me, even Tristan.”
  “That’s not true,” said Varjak, and, to everyone’s complete bewilderment, a tear shimmered off his cheek. “I cared about you all. It was hard not to, being stuck underground with you all for a year. I acted completely on instinct - the ambush was such a shock. They - all died?”
  He met Camille’s gaze. Too surprised to scold, she nodded slowly. 
  “Yeah. And a bit of guidance from you would have prevented that.” But her voice was losing conviction, and she tore her gaze away for a moment. 
  “I don’t know what I could have done, even if I had been leading,” said Varjak, quietly. “Told them all just to disappear, I guess. Subconsciously I assumed they would do that anyway.”
  Camille laughed shortly, and when her gaze returned everyone was shocked again to see tears on her face, too.
  “The only reason they didn’t,” she began, weighing her words heavily. “Was because they were waiting on orders from you. Maybe you could blame me for that, training them military style. Like little soldiers they stayed in battle until given the order to retreat.” 
  She wiped the tears away angrily with her arm, and Tristan wound his arms around her from behind. 
  Varjak was rigid. Kate held his hand and leaned herself into him as an act of solidarity, but inside she was confused.
  She would stick by Varjak no matter what, but Camille was right. They had put themselves as a unit before everyone else - when it boiled right down to it, Varjak and Kate sought for each other’s safety and no-one else’s. 
  “There’s nothing that can be said to change what you did,” said Tristan, curtly. “There must be a reason you’ve come back here, and by the looks of things it wasn’t to come back for us. Just tell us what needs to be done.”
  Varjak gulped.
  “We have heaps of information on the Necrosis,” he said. “In short we’ve narrowed down the possible locations of the stone to three. This is one of them. So you four can either come and help us, or not. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve given up, and I wouldn’t blame you.”
  “Help?” Nimue said sceptically, one of the two survivors. 
  Tristan released Camille, looking round at the two. 
  “We need to put our personal issues aside for this.”
  “But how did you even find out about the Necrosis?” asked Luke, the other survivor. 
  “When we were split up, I ended up in Italy and went to find Ben’s uncle,” explained Varjak. “It so happened he was studying ley structures and trying to find the stone himself. After some research he managed to wittle it down to three. We’ll apparently know if we’re near the stone.”
  “Who’s Ben?” Nimue started, but Camille waved her down. 
  “Right. That’s convenient,” said Camille.
  Varjak raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
  “It just is,” said Camille, shrugging. “Anyway, I suppose we’ll have to trust the information. So uh, how are we meant to know if we‘re near it?”
  “I don’t know,” said Varjak, as Kate released him as well. “I say we go mill around the Tor and see if anything happens. If not, next stop is Paris, then Athens.”
  “Paris,” said Tristan, smiling and shaking his head. “I’d put my money on that.”
  “Why?” asked Kate.
  “Why do you think the biggest congregation of undead are there?” asked Camille. “In fact I’m almost certain it’s there. Why didn’t we think of this before?” She looked at Varjak, viridian eyes dimming. A grin fought at her lips. “I think we’d be wasting our time here. I think that the Necrosis is in Paris somewhere.”
  “Paris is a big place,” said Kate. “We haven’t felt anything unusual there before, probably because we’ve never been close enough to it. So how will we know where to go?”
  “Catacombs,” said Luke, the answer falling out of his mouth like a half-formed thought. He shook back a black hair strand. “I’ve never been to France but I know about the catacombs. It’s a network of tunnels under Paris. The walls are lined with dead bodies.”
  Kate sucked air through her teeth.
  Understanding dawned on Varjak’s face.
  “Ah crap, hang on, you’ve never been to Paris?” asked Varjak. 
  “I’ve never been out of Britain,” Nimue piped in. 
  “You’ve both not been to Paris?” asked Tristan incredulously. Kate observed he had come out of his shell increasingly over the past year, even more so in these short few weeks since the ambush.
  Nimue gave a half-baked smile and hid behind Luke a little. “Sorry.”
  “Well, bother,” said Varjak, having returned to his usual self in the spirit of the occasion. “Could have done with you guys if the s**t hit the fan.”
  “Unless you get ambushed and become too troublesome,” muttered Camille, but only Kate heard. 
  “We’re happy to wait here, it’s what we’ve done so far,” said Luke, shrugging. “We’ll stay in the facility and keep ourselves low-key.”
  “Awk, I wanted to go,” Nimue whined, tossing her blonde hair.  
  “Well you can’t,” said Luke dryly. He smiled wanly at the others. “Just go. But come back for us this time, or we’ll come to Paris if you’re not back in a few days.”
  “Fair play,” said Camille, tiredly. “Tristan and I will come back for you, at any rate.”
  Camille nodded at Kate and Varjak. 
  “Right then. Paris?”
  “Yes,” said Varjak, beaming. “Let’s skeddadle.”
  “Hang ON,” said Kate, loudly. “We’re not appearing in random places! Make a meeting spot!”
  “Oh YES. What a smart wee lad you are!” Varjak ruffled Kate’s hair. “Luke! Where are the catacombs?”
  “Place Denfert-Rochereau, in the Montparnasse district.” 
  When everyone gave him blank stares, Luke reconsidered. “Er, south of Paris. But you’ve never been there anyway, have you?”
  “Still need to know where it is,” snorted Varjak. “Let’s appear at the Eiffel Tower. Then we’ll flit to Place Le-Thingy. It’s nearly night, so we’ll get away with it.”
  “Eiffel Tower, then Place Le-Thingy,” Camille repeated. “Right okay, let’s go.”
  With a look at Tristan, Camille disappeared. 
  Tristan disappeared a second later.
  Varjak was after him, and with a last ‘thanks’ at Luke and Nimue for understanding, Kate also left. 


© 2012 Alskar


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Added on April 26, 2012
Last Updated on April 27, 2012


Author

Alskar
Alskar

Edinburgh, United Kingdom



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