It doesn't matter. This is one of her team and it doesn't matter.

She went to Harkes' wedding. Talked him down when he got cold feet. Listened to him blabber about his daughter's first poo. Her first words. Her first steps. Her first power stance. He turned his locker into a baby album. He has a wife and a kid who love him and he loves them. And after all that, after being there for eight years and putting up with his smitten honeymooning bullshit while the world is falling apart, she still wants to bend down and sink her teeth in. No matter the cost.

"Sergeant?"

A gust of umami flavour across her nose.

"Shut up," she snarls. "Shut your goddamn face and don't breathe on me."

Wren bites the inside of her mask. It tastes how soggy wool smells. She focuses on that. Breathes it in, plants her tongue against it, and the craving crests like a wave, then slowly passes. Her hands ache from keeping still.

Harkes watches her struggle. She ignores him. This is a tricky part. Blood can start gushing and if that happens....

Well, it better fucking not happen.

She slides the cannula off the needle and into the vein, then presses her thumb down hard to prevent any bleeding. Harkes flinches, but doesn't react otherwise. He's watching her very closely now. Who can blame him? She screws on the extension tubing and flushes the IV line. No puffing.

"Feel a burning sensation?"

He squints at her. "No, ma'am."

She tapes the cannula down and adds a transparent dressing. Take the tourniquet off. Secure the line. Dispose of the needle. It's like going down a list. Then she hooks it up to the HCIG and holds it between her head and shoulder like a phone. The final step? Time, date, gauge. The kit includes a marker and she scribbles it across his arm in case they're separated. Even Ashwood would be satisfied.

"Didn't know you could do that," Harkes says cautiously.

Wren spots an abandoned IV stem near the window and hooks it up. Then she can finally sit down on the bed. A wave of exhaustion washes over her. Deep exhaustion. Like she just ran a marathon while taking a three hour exam. She braces her hands on her knees and only then finds the long tear in her pants. The skin underneath is pristine and as white as a fish belly. There's no scarring, but panic still skitters underneath her stomach.

That sound again. Ripping cloth.

"Yeah, well." She slumps forward and counts back from 100. "Get some rest."

"Sergeant."

"What?"

Harkes firms his grip on his sidearm. "What if that G.O. is the reason...?"

"They don't make fledglings anymore."

He raises his eyebrows until they disappear inside his mask. "But what if this is different?"

"The end result is the same." She shoots him a look to signal this conversation is over.

Whatever he's going to say, he keeps to himself. But that doesn't mean he stops scowling in her direction. Fatherhood makes him a lot more compassionate than he should be out here. Every fledgling is someone's family. Everyone is a potential exception. Today's events only add fuel to the fire, but she can't afford to think like that. The final lesson of a parent is to teach their children how to die. That's what she plans to do. When this is over, she's going to die as herself. As Sergeant Wren Horan. Not as a pathetic, blood-starved shadow with no will of her own.

Someone knocks on the door. They make playful rendition of Shave and a Haircut.

Wren hands Harkes the throat mic and gestures for him to get on it. He nods, but his eyes stayed glued to the door. She slides off the bed soundlessly. It feels like the fabric of the universe is pulling towards whatever is outside. Like a bowling ball sinking into a mattress. Everything wants to fall in towards it. She has to consciously fight to keep still.

"Hello?"

The voice is high and sweet. Softly accented, but not something that can be easily placed.

"My mother said to find a police officer if I'm lost." A pause. A heavy breath. Maybe a sigh. "Well, I'm lost."

Harkes opens his mouth to reply, but she gestures sharply for him to shut the fuck up. His eyes burn into hers, then shift to the door handle. It's slowly turning.

"Something bad's happening. I'm scared. I don't know what to do."

Fingernails scrape along the wall and stops right where Wren is standing. She raises her M4 and waits.

More scraping. Wood squealing and snapping under a slow inexorable pressure. Then tiny brown fingers sprout out of the dry wall like saplings. A hand, a wrist, a little unmarred arm. Once the hole is about the size of an apple, the arm withdraws and is replaced by the wet glint of eyes. Bright as new pennies. Nearly aglow. Flickers of that odd red-fringed reflection like cat's eyes in the dark.

"Let me in, sister."

"Sister," Wren repeats slowly.

High trilling laughter. It's the laugh all children seem to have. "Help me?"

The smell creeps into Wren's awareness. The same cacophony of scents from the tunnel's entrance. Blood, perfume, cologne, different drinks and foods. It wafts through the hole.

This is their sadist, then. A vampire infected as a child. Wren's never seen one, but she's heard the stories. It explains the massacre by the tunnel. No one wants to shoot a kid. No one wants that shit on their conscience. Shooting masses of unarmed civilians as if they're enemy combatants is difficult enough. Shooting children is not a paradigm shift anyone wants, but it's the kind of compassion they can't afford anymore. Vampires are a walking bioweapon. No matter their age, shape, or size, the threat they present is simply intolerable.

So Wren swallows down the bile in her throat and squeezes the trigger. Even suppressed, the rifle is thunderous. Its recoil stuns her. The M4 is a familiar companion, but it's suddenly more explosive. More violent. Every movement inside this machine resonates through the bones of her hands. Muzzle flash nearly blinds her. She flinches like some amateur. The smell of gunpowder immediately burns the inside of her nostrils.

A loud shriek. That face vanishes from sight.

"No!" Harkes bellows. "What are you doing?"

Wren backs up until she reaches the gurney. Without taking her eyes off the wall, she kneels down so her head is near Harkes' ears.

"It's a vampire. It looks and sounds like a kid, but it's a vampire." She keeps her voice quiet and doesn't bother hiding how angry she is. "Don't you ever break silence like that again. Do you hear me?"

He keeps his head facing forward. "Yes, sergeant."

The door explodes off of its hinges. Wood bursts into thousands of splinters that pelt Wren like hail. She shields her eyes and moves to protect Harkes from the worst of it. He flinches and it tugs on his fracture. His breaths stutter, stop, then go fast and raspy. The more pain he's in, the stronger that umami scent becomes. It's hard for her to turn away from him. She manages to face this new vampire. But only just.

It is a little girl. Petite with long shining dark hair and wearing a slender gold and turquoise suit. Most telling of all, she's dark-skinned. Skin pigmentation reappears slowly after centuries of infection. It's why they call them the golden oldies. This girl could be well over a thousand years old. Certainly older than the Bowler. Wren looks into those bright penny eyes and knows it.

This creature, this—ancient child, holds up the mushroomed fragment of a bullet.

"Sister," the little girl says. "Why did you shoot me?"

Wren aims for centre of mass. "Step back."

The girl tilts her head. It's like the whole hospital tilts with her. "Wren. A little bird soaring on the back of an eagle." She smiles and her teeth are serrated and small. "I am Komali."

"Step back. I won't tell you again."

Komali laughs. "How young you are. I forget sometimes that we can be so young." She waves her hand like she's warding off a mosquito. "Oh, put that thing down. It only makes you look foolish."

This girl is small, but compact. All the powers of a vampire folded onto themselves like a steel billet. Wren weighs her options. The M4 isn't going to cut it. Not with a G.O. That leaves her with a Gerber and two flash bangs.

Another trill of laughter. Komali steps forward. "Thinking thinking. So much thinking. Mother turned a soldier and received a philosopher."

"Mother?"

"Yes. We share a maker, you and I."

Those penny eyes shine in the darkness. Witness to civilizations rising and falling. And yet, still insatiably curious. A dimple in the fabric of the world that draws everything in if only to see how breaks. 

Wren finally lowers her rifle. If she shoots a vampire right beside Harkes and his open fracture, a spray of blood will be unavoidable. Even a small spritz is in the air is enough of a contamination. The cruoris virus doesn't need much of a foothold to overtake its host. She might as well kill him herself.

"Come with me, sister." Komali takes another step forward and the universe bends beneath her weight. "I will take you somewhere quiet. We can speak freely. You can rest. Eat."

She hears the pop in her leg rather than feels it.

Wren sets her M4 on the bed. "No."

***

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