Chapter Four: Infiltrator

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

    Allender Manor was peering out into the night with a few of its arched windows lit brightly when Corbin's red coupe rumbled up the driveway. The familiar car rolled to a stop near the front door where Talon got out in Corbin's likeness and walked up the stoop to the door with his keys in hand. She fumbled through them, trying one after another until she found the one which unlocked the door. Cautiously, she entered the manor undetected.

    Talon crept softly to the heart of the manor at the grand staircase which led up to the second floor of bedrooms. She scanned the opposing hallways which led away from the stairs, deeper into the great house, for any hint of activity. The slightly muffled sounds of something playing on a distant television gave her a direction, so she crept along toward the sounds until she stood silently outside of the entertainment room where the changing glare of the large flat screen television inside darted out into the dark hallway.

    After preparing herself with a steady breath, she removed a small pistol from her back pocket, then stepped into the room with it hidden behind her back. She found Gale snuggled up with her fiancé Ethan on a plush couch, watching a movie. Gale shifted away from Ethan, sitting up with a warm smile for the person she believed to be her brother standing in the doorway while Ethan concerned himself with using a remote control to pause the movie.

    Gale was about to say something when Talon whipped the gun around, firing two tranquilizer darts with hushed whiffs from the gun that found their marks in the thighs of Gale and Ethan. The unexpecting pair barely had time to react from the impact before they slumped limply back against the couch with stunned expressions which melted away, giving place to unconscious, drooping faces.

    Talon, still in Corbin's likeness, stood with the pistol drawn, enjoying a moment of pride in the execution of her work, then she moved in to secure her prey but stopped when she heard the floor creak behind her. She twisted around with the gun in her hand to find Shade standing in the doorway, staring in bewilderment. Shade's confused, dark eyes flickered from the lifeless bodies on the couch to the pistol in the hand of someone she believed to be her brother who looked at her with the gaping expression of someone caught red-handed.

    "Corbin, what's going on?" Shade questioned, noticing the darts stuck in the thighs of Gale and Ethan.

    With a surprisingly fast motion Talon swung the gun around toward Shade, whose eyes widened as she gasped. The pistol whiffed again, sending a dart straight at Shade who disappeared from the doorway in a blur, allowing the dart to streak through the doorway into the hallway wall. Talon frowned at the miss as she rushed to the hallway to look for Shade, but there was no sign of her anywhere. Again she steadied herself with a calm breath as she adjusted her grip on the pistol. Still in the disguise of Corbin's  likeness she began to creep alertly down the hallway, sweeping the area with careful glances.

    When Talon neared the end of the hallway, where it turned back toward the more open parts of the manor, she paused, anticipating an ambush by Shade. She hugged the wall near the corner and ducked down low to steal a peek into whatever was waiting around the corner. All she found was quiet emptiness, so she advanced cautiously into the next part of the great house with the pistol out front as she hunted her prey.

    After about her third step a zig-zagging blur streaked toward her. She fired dart after dart in an excited attempt to hit the oncoming blur, missing each time, until Shade reached her and wrestled the gun away. Shade tossed it away behind her as Talon assumed a defensive stance, ready for hand-to-hand combat.

    "What's gotten into you!" Shade demanded, angered and confused by the behavior of the person standing before her in the perfect likeness of Corbin.

    Talon swung at Shade, narrowly missing as Shade reflexively ducked away only to be chased with another punch, then another. The flurry of punches came at Shade with incredible speed, almost comparable to her own, but she managed to evade each one as she backed away, unwilling to counter against someone she believed to be her brother. Finally one of Talon's punches landed square on Shade's nose, rocking her head back and instantly watering her eyes while causing a trickle of blood to escape from one nostril. Talon paused briefly to display a cocky grin at the hit.

    Shade quickly wiped the falling blood away, then shook off the blow as she put up her fists for a fight. Talon's grin vanished as she once again began an assault of carefully aimed punches at her target. Shade dodged each one with blurry movements, waiting patiently for the right opportunity to counter. She seized a vulnerable opening in Talon's well disciplined attack and landed a somewhat restrained punch on Talon's face, causing her concentration to falter long enough for Corbin's likeness to ripple away briefly.

    Shade's eyes widened at the revealing sight, and realizing that the person before her was an imposter, she started at Talon with an aggressive assault of her own. Talon backed away, blocking some of Shade's blows but not enough. Shade had her reeling and staggering from  landed body shots in a matter of seconds, then she finished her off with a lightning quick leg sweep that planted Talon hard on her back against the wooden floor of the manor.

    Corbin's likeness faded away from Talon as she lay stunned and hurting on the floor, revealing the image of a young girl barely out of her teens. Shade took a knife from her boot as she straddled Talon and knelt down with her knees against Talon's shoulders to keep her pinned. She put the blade of the knife against Talon's throat, garnering a defeated grimace from her, as well as her undivided attention.

    "Who are you?" Shade asked sternly.

    Talon spat defiantly up at Shade, who jerked her head away to miss the uncooperative gesture. Shade pulled the knife away as she stared down into Talon's angry, resolved eyes. 

    "So, you wanna play that way huh..." Shade smirked, then she punched Talon into unconsciousness with a streaking blow. Afterward, she zoomed away to get some rope which she used to secure Talon's hands and feet, then she hurried off to check on Gale and Ethan.

    After failing to rouse her sister and Ethan, Shade removed the darts from their thighs and tried to position them on the couch so that they were resting comfortably. Then she put a call in to Amanda, who left her condo in haste and plotted a course straight to the manor. While Shade awaited Amanda's arrival she circled the bound and unconscious body of her prisoner as she tried reaching both Corbin and Lydia on their cell phones, with no luck.

    When several attempts at calling her younger siblings ended at worry-inducing voice mails, Shade shot off to the kitchen where she filled a large cup with cold water then zoomed back to Talon. Standing over the young girl, she doused her face with the water, then kicked her in her side as she gasped to life and grunted from the blow.

    "Where are they!" Shade growled, tossing the cup angrily to the floor as she continued to stand over Talon.

    Talon shook her head to rid her face of the water droplets that lingered, then she looked up at Shade with a knowing sneer that only infuriated Shade further. She kicked Talon again, harder, then knelt down and grabbed her by the throat.

    "Where's my brother and sister?" Shade demanded with a shrewd tone as she stared coldly into Talon's eyes and began to slowly choke her. "Where are they!"

    Talon gurgled and gasped for breath, but even as her face changed color from the loss of air there was no hint of submission in her defiant eyes. Shade grimaced in frustration as she continued to choke her prisoner until finally letting go just before Talon faded out. She stood and watched the young girl cough for breath on the floor for a few seconds, then she walked over to her feet and reached down to grab the rope that was tied securely around her ankles.

    "So you won't talk to me huh?" Shade said as she began to drag Talon away. "Well, someone's comin' who'll make you talk, and she's not nearly as patient as I am," she warned with a malicious smirk to herself.

 Twenty minutes later the urgent sound of tires screeching to a halt could be heard outside the manor. Amanda barged into the great house on a mission and quickly found Shade nursing a groggy Gale and Ethan in the entertainment room with freshly brewed cups of coffee.

    "Are they alright?" Amanda asked hastily, glancing over at the pair of lovers who struggled to remain conscious.

    "Yeah, they're just kinda loopy right now, took me a while to rouse them," Shade informed.

    Amanda shook her head in understanding, then stated after a concerned sigh,"I can't get Corbin on the phone."

    Shade turned away from Gale and Ethan with a restrained look of worry, then replied,"Me neither, or Lydia."

    Amanda tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "Where is she?" she asked direly.

    "In the basement, tied up," Shade revealed.

    Amanda flew out of the room with the chilling growl which only a vampire could make, and Shade went back to tending to her groggy patients. The trip to the basement took only a few seconds with Amanda's vampiric speed fueled by anger. She zipped down the stairs and flung the door to a small room open where she found Talon lying on the floor, squirming against her bonds until the sudden intrusion by Amanda made her pause. 

    Amanda wasted no time in stepping to Talon with an agitated snarl and scooping the girl from the floor with one hand and slamming her against the concrete wall of the basement. Talon moaned briefly in pain from the impact, but restrained any further proof of agony. She had been trained for such interrogations, and trained well. Amanda hissed and threatened Talon with her exposed fangs, but Talon just smiled uneasily.

    "I'm not afraid of you...vampire," Talon admitted.

    Amanda growled, then tossed her across the small room into the other wall where she hit hard and fell to the floor with a painful thud. Amanda walked over to her, staring down hard with the twisted face of her vampire nature.

    "Afraid or not, you will tell me what I want to know," the determined vampire assured through fangs.

    Talon spat a glob of blood at Amanda's feet, then looked stubbornly up at her. "Or what, you'll kill me? Then you'll never find out where they are," she taunted with a bloody smile.

    Amanda sneered at Talon's defiance, then walked calmly over to the door and closed it. Returning to her captive, she knelt down to lock gazes with the resistant young girl. Her demonic visage cast no fear over Talon, who stared angrily back.

    "You've endangered the lives of people I care deeply for, and unless you tell me what I want to know, it's going to be a long night for you," Amanda explained frankly.

    Talon didn't respond. She simply gritted her teeth in preparation for whatever was coming next. Amanda shrugged. "Have it your way then," she conceded as she embedded a clawed hand into Talon's shoulder and lifted her from the floor.

    

   

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net