bringing the monsters down in one volley. Eile looked at the nest; the guards had killed the other creatures that had reached them, but at the cost of their own lives, leaving that part of the defense perimeter wide open.
"Eile, Sunny," Differel said, "go with Henry. Make sure he gets safely away. Raise him as your own, keep him safe, and give him all my love." And she started towards the breached nest.
"Mother!" Henry cried. "No! Don't leave me!"
Differel hesitated for only a moment, but Eile didn't. She raised the butt of her rifle and brought it down on Differel's back between her shoulder blades. Her head, shoulders, and arms snapped back at the impact, she pitched forward off her feet, and collapsed face-down, unconscious.
"Miss Eile!" she heard Aelfraed shout. Sunny had a wide, pop-eyed look of surprise, but she also wore a big dumb smile.
Eile tossed her her rifle; she caught it, crinkled her eyes, smiled, and turned to sprint to the abandoned nest. Eile picked up Differel and tossed her into the cabin like a sack of potatoes.
"Henry needs a mother," she told Aelfraed, "and she's better qualified ta teach him how to take over the Order." She looked him in the face. "Take good care of both of them."
Aelfraed betrayed no trace of emotion, but he nodded. "Yes, Miss. Godspeed to you and Miss Sunny."
Eile started to turn away when she heard Henry call out: "Aunt Eile!"
She turned back and found him on the edge of the doorway. They exchanged a quick hug, and when she pulled back she ran the fingers of one hand along his cheek.
"I'll miss you." Tears leaked out of his eyes.
Eile smiled as her eyes grew moist as well. "I'll miss you too."
Then she stepped back as Aelfraed pulled Henry further in. "Get outta here!"
Aelfraed nodded to the pilot, and the blades increased in speed. Eile moved out of the way and the helicopter rose off the ground. She caught a last glimpse of Henry waving at her; she waved back as the chopper flew off over the front of the house.
She blinked away the tears and saw a horde of monsters emerge from the secret stairwell. Turning, she dashed for the overrun nest. One guard had survived, and Sunny stood over him, firing a rifle in each hand, as he tried to get the machine gun working again.
"Behind us!"
"Right!" She turned to face the creatures charging at them.
"Feed me!" she told the guard and she picked up the machine gun. He nodded and held the belt so it would feed in straight. The weapon appeared undamaged. She cocked it and let loose with a stream of 12.7mm rounds into the horde pressing in ahead of her.
She lost all sense of passing time during the battle; all she knew was that at one point her companion had to thread a new belt. She made up the time shooting with an abandoned rifle. A second guard joined them; he supported Sunny, covering her when she reloaded. Although they died by the score, the monsters came at them so fast and furious that they crowded closer and closer. The other five nests fell one at a time in rapid succession. Eile realized it would be only a matter of time before they too were overwhelmed, and she wondered if they would get them before the incoming jets barbecued them all.
Thirteen creatures, six in front and seven in back, managed to break through to them. The guard supporting Eile took on three as Sunny and her companion dealt with theirs as best they could. The creatures bore her guard down and tore him apart. The feed belt jammed; she ripped it loose and used the machine gun like a club. A monster loomed over her; Sunny got between it and her, and rammed her Gerber dagger into its throat.
They stood back-to-back, waiting for the next charge. Eile saw that Sunny's companion had also been killed. The monsters ringed them in and surged towards them. At the same instant she heard the roar of the approaching jets. Nine came in from the west in three flights. One trio turned north and dropped its payload on the far end of the estate; a second held straight and fire-bombed the middle section over the lake. Both fireballs merged and became a conflagration. The third flight turned south and flew straight at them.
She and Sunny turned to embrace for one last kiss. As the monsters engulfed them she heard a thunderous explosion, saw a flash of brilliant light through her eyelids, and felt a wave of searing heat sweep over them all.
Then silence, darkness, and coolness, with only the feel of Sunny's body in her arms and the fading sound of her heartbeat. It was finished.
Two flights of three Westland Apache attack helicopters flew in ahead and scouted the estate to make sure there were no threats. Behind them followed a flight of three Westland Lynx utility helicopters, each armed with two .50 caliber door guns, rocket pods, and ground-attack missiles. Differel rode in the co-pilot seat of the lead Lynx. Three days had passed since the incursion; she had read the reports of the reconnaissance teams and noted that everything within the perimeter security wall had been destroyed, but she wanted to see for herself.
"Give me the tour," she instructed the pilot. He acknowledged her order and diverted to go over the estate from the north.
Not until they had arrived at RAF Marham, and she had recovered from the blow that Eile had given her, did she learn that after the incendiaries had been deployed, a second sortie had pulverized the grounds with high explosive ordinance. While she expected the estate to be a total loss, she had thought that she might be able to rebuild, but the bombing run had made that impossible.
As they headed south over the estate, she saw that the churchyard and Norman chapel had been destroyed, but miraculously the family mausoleum had survived. The motte and bailey and the oppidum no longer stood, but while the megalith had been damaged, it still looked intact. South of the lake, however, nothing remained except the manor. The boat house, stables, and gardeners' cottage had disappeared, and the military compound and the garage had been replaced by bomb craters. Portions of the four walls of the manor remained erect, but the roof and all three floors had collapsed into the basement.
As she surveyed the damage, she realized she had to decide what to do with the property. She still owned it, but it was useless to her as it was.
One part of the parking area in front of the garage looked intact.
"Set down there." The pilot complied, and she undid her belts to get out.
"As soon as I'm clear, take off and hover over the patio. I'll signal when I'm ready to be picked up." The pilot acknowledged her orders with a salute.
She hopped out, closing the door behind her, and sprinted off towards the house through the devastated garden. She stepped onto the porch, made her way to the patio, then up the steps onto the terrace. The north portico had collapsed and she tried to find a way through the jumble of debris to where the entrance to the great hall had been. As she clambered over a large block of masonry, she caught a glint in a crevice. Looking closer, she saw what appeared to be a piece of glass. Reaching in, she grasped a small frame of some kind and pulled it out to look at it.
It was Sunny's reading glasses. One arm had been broken off, one lens was missing while the other had cracked, and the frames were twisted and bent, but she recognized them instantly.
She had suspected they were dead; there was simply no way they could have survived, and if they had, they would have gotten word to her. But holding that piece of evidence in her hands, seeing it with her own eyes, finally brought it home to her: they were really gone.
Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled out down her cheeks. She closed the glasses in a fist and held them against her heart.
"Oh, bother, and I promised myself I wouldn't cry."
{Do not weep, My Master, they would not have wanted that.}
Differel jumped at the familiar voice in her head. "Vlad?!" It seemed almost impossible to believe.
A black column of shadow rose up out of the rubble and coalesced into the form of her servant. He stepped out of it and it flowed into his back.
"My Holy God! You're alive!"
"Well, I would not use that term, but essentially yes."
"But I don't understand; ho
w?"
He sneered. "You should know by now that being torn to pieces is insufficient to destroy me. I just needed time to gather enough power to recorporealate."
"Hmph. I can see you're hale and whole. I should have expected it." She paused and opened her hand. "But the Girls and Giles; they're truly gone?"
He managed to look somber. "Yes. They sacrificed themselves so that you, Master Henry, and the Order would survive."
"Do you know where they lie?"
He nodded. "I do."
She slipped the glasses into a jacket pocket. "Take me to them."
Vlad didn't say a word, he just dissolved into shadow and surged forward to engulf her. She felt the intense cold and sensory deprivation that traveling with him always produced, and then he reemerged into the normal world. She found herself below the level of the foundation, facing a slab of masonry the size of party dinner table.
"They lie together some twelve feet below that, along with dozens of the Order's guards."
She approached it as she climbed over the jagged piles of debris. She hadn't known what to expect when she came looking for their remains, whether she would find anything tangible, or even if she wanted to. It felt anticlimactic, and yet it also seemed somehow appropriate.
"I think this is a fitting dolmen, but it lacks something important." Summoning Caliburn, she made two perpendicular cuts in the shape of a cross, then knelt in front of the slab, holding the sword upright on its point. Pressing