The Gorge glided into view past the porous, charcoal moon off the port bow. A lone red speck in a black ocean of stars. It was stationary despite all appearances, a common deception with distant objects in space. One of many examples of the criticality of advanced scanners.

  If Teresa wished it, she'd be in the cruiser's ventral hangar about now. And in her comfy little bunk not soon after that. The curt search for Toran had taken a slight toll, and she could most certainly use some rest.

  And yet still, she held the shuttle's throttle back. Eager for a few precious minutes more devoid of wolves. Free of their foul stench and fouler mouths. Undisciplined. A terribly unruly bunch despite their militaristic veneer. They had, and would evermore remain the animals with which they shared a name.

  Though, Soren at times amused her with his non sequitur ridiculousness. Rather orderly aside from the wild hair. There was something attractive about him, abstract aspects that she couldn't yet put to words. A mystery that only made the dull lustful ache more magnetic.

  Perhaps? When their species again came to blows, and the wolves were finally put down forever?

  She'd keep him as a pet.

  The cockpit door at her back opened with a cold breeze, loud and sharp. Where a slinking shadow stepped through its threshold—grew larger, drew nearer with the elegance of a panther.

  Until it undramatically morphed into her brother Jo?o like mist, before he plopped rather bitterly into the adjacent chair. Robes black as death, still under an oath of self-imposed silence.

  He placed an ornate bowl on the foldout table set below the controls, filled to the brim with Blood Chili—seasoned with a variety of colorful spices. Chaluen was chief among them, her favorite. A wonderful scent that made Teresa's fangs ache with envious hunger.

  "I take it you're still upset? Since you didn't offer me a bowl? Fine. But this silence is childish."

  "Upset?" Jo?o refused to meet her eye, and instead opened a packet of freeze dried cheese to sprinkle on the smoky meal. "I was upset when we were assigned to this mission. I was upset when we crashed landed on that moon ten years ago. That word falls vastly short of my mood now."

  Teresa sighed in order to hold a retort at bay, she desired peace not more conflict. "It's been centuries, Jo?o. And he had it coming. What else need be said about it?"

  "You're the one that brought it up, and I know he deserved it. But some people, some moments of opportunity are irreplaceable. That is where my residual ire originates. How hard is that to comprehend?"

  "Why it matters so strongly is where I find difficulty. You would've killed father that night too, don't lie. If, you hadn't drank yourself into a frenzy on the blood of Barbary corsairs."

  "Time, little sister, we did and will always have time." He turned at last, face blank yet rigid with its signature frost. "You could've waited. I deserved to watch the life drain from his eyes, even more than you. And we both damn well know it."

  Teresa stared, then nodded quietly, in order to avoid further argument rather than agreement. Perhaps he spoke the truth. Maybe his reasons were greater than her own. She hadn't kept count. Nor could she recall if she had.

  Her eyes refocused on the void ahead, two titian reflections on the transplast, as memories long buried washed over her. Like tidal waves. Gentle. Cold. There was an ocean of time between that fateful night and now, but her mind carried her back swiftly as the wind.

  Perhaps she'd brushed the damnable edges of the Veil?

  A scene formed in her head, of the very distant past back on Earth, where she'd earned the blood-soaked moniker of:

  The Turk.

  The year was 1535, aboard one of the many vessels campaigning under King Charles's flag—en route to Halq al-Wadi, and their destiny in the soon-to-be-sacked city of Tunis.

  Lightning and thunder crackled overhead, kin of the same caliber of elemental violence.

  Boom! Crang! Foosh!

  Coastal bombards and culverins pierced the atmospheric ensemble—crude metal missiles that splashed into the tumultuous Mediterranean waves. A sea both alive and eerie. Bloody and cold.

  The moon ruled the sky above, a pale spherical omen that flickered between droplets of salty rain. Triumphant over the cowardly sunset in full retreat on the horizon.

  From coast to coast within the Gulf of Tunis's expanse, the vengeance of Europe drew ever closer. A coalition of cork oak warships that bobbed in formation, purposed with culling Ottoman aggression once and for all.

  Or so they had hoped.

  "They've got us hooked, Captain! Too close to use the falconets! The bastards are coming aboard!"

  Captain Baltasar Nunes, their father, a killer of renown stood behind the helm. Ill-tempered, and garbed in an umber brigandine littered with weapons. Tall, with hair both wavy and white—too young for the odd hue, too old for a mane of such length.

  "Fire the swivels men, cut what lines you can, but prepare to spill blood on our own ground! Yours and theirs!"

  "Aye!" replied the motley crew, a decrepit gaggle of Portuguese mercenaries that called the galleon home. Kempt, but dirty. Professional, but unruly.

  The ship became a bloody abattoir when the Ottomans boarded—a horde dressed in ochre tunics and baggy trousers. The lovely clash of falchions and kilij echoed off the hollow deck in a battle of the ages. Limbs fell. Men died. And the night filled with screams.

  Two ideologies with an undying hatred for one another.

  Sem Perd?o was this galleon's name, a filthy place Teresa had once called home as well. When she was but a child covered in fish guts and scars, with few moments of happiness weaved throughout a tapestry of abuse. A long youth stained by the wrath of her evil and drunken father.

  The twins had escaped their father years ago, but presented themselves weeks prior to Tunis. Confused, with nowhere else to turn. A familiar cage was still familiar. They had run away as children, died in the African brush as adults, only to return as powerful creatures of the night.

  A fact that unsettled the crew but not their father, a fact that emboldened his lust for power and blood. Now he possessed what most mortals could not: two vampir at his beck and call.

  For a little while at least.

  Baltasar kicked open the wooden door with whiskey laden breath, stalked into the twins' cabin deep within Sem Perd?o's belly. A square box with a tiny mattress and half-rotted vanity.

  "The accursed sun has set at last. Time for you to make yourselves useful!"

  They'd been asleep on the floor. Peaceful. Warm. The fact that his voice could stir them where battle had failed spoke volumes. Teresa's back was to the splintery wall, head propped on Jo?o's broad shoulder. A dark blanket shielded them both in a cocoon of precaution, lest a well-aimed cannonball expose them to sunlight.

  Baltasar ripped away the wool chrysalis with a greedy tug. A perfect representation of the man's selfish tenure at fatherhood. His rugged frown greeted them, along with two long scars that formed a crooked cross. The skin of his face worn tough by years of wind and dirt.

  His cruelty with words hadn't changed upon their return, but not one hand had been raised since. At the time, Teresa naively thought it was a newfound respect for their worth and ability. That he'd finally treasured his progeny in some terribly wicked way.

  But now knew it'd been entirely out of fear.

  "What would you like done?" Jo?o rose in one swift motion, visage hard as a tombstone. "This task you speak of?"

  "Eager to kill, boy? Good. Culverins are holding back the fleet, the closer we get the easier we are to sink! We've had to retreat half a league due to losses. The Capitán-General is willing to wait until the next wave, but when they arrive we'll be forced to take our chances with the artillery. I have another idea."

  Teresa finally stood, and pulled a doublet over a thin shift tucked into her pants, a taupe tunic with drawstrings and angled collar. Then came her leather baldric with a frog to match, the former kept the falchion in place on her back, the latter a parrying dagger at the hip.

  Her brother's gear was not dissimilar aside from the weaponry. A six-foot montante that stopped just shy of his brow. Thin, but long. Kitted with flukes and guard rings. Deadly in the hands of humans, and a circuitous cleaver of flesh in those of a vampir. She'd thought it ridiculous until it cleared a room in one swing.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "You are to swim ashore, and destroy the western flank of coastal guns. Target the earthen batteries if able, but focus the stone embrasures. Set them ablaze. The Capitán-General is set to target the eastern flank, but I want him to see those guns aflame and be compelled to change tactics."

  Jo?o tilted his head. “He’s writing off the west because of the shallows there. Even if every gun goes silent, I doubt he’ll commit more than a token force.”

  "That's more than enough. And the low water is a concern for larger vessels, not caravels and chalupas. They can offload troops while we target the city from a safe distance. But those guns must go first."

  "Wait a moment?" Teresa scoffed, hand firm on her hip. "Swim ashore? The water is probably filthy and dreadfully freezing. Can't we simply take the batel, and slip past the Ottomans unseen? It is night, isn't it?"

  "You'll do as instructed," Baltasar seethed with a scrunched nose. "The lightning would give you away, and I do not want the batel damaged. It was a gift from Governador Cunha. You will be compensated with aplenty silver, and fresh...food."

  "Hmm, so you'd rather your children be damaged in this gift's stead?" asked Jo?o flatly. "I know you can't tell but I'm wearing my most shocked expression."

  "Save your remarks for your sister! You two can heal, take care of yourselves. That boat cannot. Now go, damn you. Before the sun rises yet again."

  They crept topside. Into the howling wind of the storm. The wooden floor creaked with every inch, each step over the trail of dismembered bodies. Baltasar's newest crew had fiercely defended their infamy, for there were far more dead Ottomans than Portuguese.

  Even with that notoriety in mind, the men typically scurried from the twins' path, but battle had drained them of fear. They skulked about like dutiful zombies, drenched in blood-tainted sweat as they heaved bodies overboard.

  The frigid Mediterranean kissed her face as they dove into its clouded turbulence. Through a frenzy of well-fed sharks and rebellious waves. Clothes soaked to the marrow as they tread onward.

  She'd often heard tale of the sea's exquisite clarity and unmatched beauty. Romantic. Fantastical stories. But whatever wonder it once possessed had been marred by the night, storm, and war.

  Their vision slowly bettered with an ethereal glow. Diaphanous and white. Night's dreaded darkness made inconsequential—two speedy silhouettes that swam along in a muffled blur. Manatees of death that waded under the anchored Ottomans. Hungry and eager.

  The water was a maze. Shadows. Planks. With countless bodies adrift. A shallow cavern seated a hundred feet down peered up at them with an empty wink. Murky and soulless. Teresa's eyes sketched faces in its rocky contour, imaginative ghosts borne of an idle mind.

  After a dozen minutes, bubbles began to gush from their lips, lungs stiffened behind the ribs. Vampir still required air, but the stores of oxygen in their hollow bones delayed the need. Though prolonged absences drained them of intrinsic strength.

  They'd need to replenish their energy upon arrival.

  Unlike the caricatures in fiction, it was only imperative to feed once or twice in the span between full moons. Lest they turn to winged, mindless beasts. Every drop in excess was due to situational strain like now, or a peckish snack of impulsivity.

  It was now shallow enough to walk, and Jo?o gently broke the surface—waited, then signaled her up. With their heads inches out of the water, salted air flooded into their grateful nostrils. Four yellow eyes peered at the rocky beach ahead in judgment. Searched. Studied.

  Their blind estimate on their position had ended better than expected, the enemy at the western flank wasn't too afar.

  In an ideal world, each gun here would fall silent, and every man would die. But they'd long since come to know the extent of their power. Such a feat wasn't an impossibility per say, but certainly an inefficient, lengthy and needlessly dangerous risk.

  "Two stragglers patrolling the outer edge of the beach. Awfully dark over there," teased Teresa. "Shame if someone were to kill them."

  "I'd prefer banking left along the brim of that outer mound. Can slink into the midst of the guns from there."

  "Too exposed."

  "It's a flattened beachhead. In Africa. Everything is out in the open."

  "Open? Like your skull if you don't carefully select your next words?"

  They turned to face each other slowly, twin smiles an almost perfect mirror. A genuine moment of love that made Teresa ache, worsened by the knowledge that this day would fold into the blur of a dark and damned future.

  But enough of the mushy shit. It was time to kill things.

  "Fine," she said, soft and coy. "Mound it is."

  They crouched and moved, the sand shifted beneath their weight and the surf hissed goodbye. Jo?o took the lead without a word—the instincts of an older sibling manifested in a loose but primed posture.

  Teresa had known his murderous methodology better than anyone. Still did. He was counting heartbeats. Breaths. Coughs.

  The mound was a smear of earth and sparse grass. Not real cover. Not safe in the slightest. Just enough to hide two silhouettes and avoid the inattentive eye. The sort of place men ignored because of its tactical uselessness.

  Teresa approved in hindsight. Complacency was an awfully powerful ally.

  They traced the brim of the mound in the shadow that clung to it despite the moon’s light. Cannons began to fire anew far to the east—the result of the Capitán's impatience no doubt. Each distant volley faintly shook the ground and ran up her legs.

  Two lanterns bobbed ahead. The same men from before. Bulbs of amber that cut the dark as their dull voices came closer.

  The twins slowed, their weapons just itching to unsheathe. Jo?o lifted two fingers and Teresa stopped entirely. Instantly. She trusted his intuition. Breath shallow, and senses alert.

  The patrol walked past the nearest embrasure—a cramped stone shack with a phallic iron gun aimed seaward. Teresa eyed it for a moment longer than necessary, coiled for the precise moment to strike.

  But Jo?o moved first.

  One moment the nearest patrolman was complaining in Turkish, something about wet hosiery and his wife. The next, his lantern hit the ground as Jo?o clamped his mouth, a phalangeal cage of silence from which no scream could escape.

  His neck snapped with a crunch. Easy. Wet. The body met the sand before it knew it was dead, and Teresa took his friend within the same breath.

  Her dagger sliced into the meat between his ribcage, angled to miss bone and strike heart. She felt the man stiffen, smelt his breath, filth. Looked into his watery brown eyes as his breath hitched. One last time.

  When she withdrew, she eased the bloody corpse down with something that resembled kindness.

  Jo?o snuffed out the lantern with a boot, then they at last entered the embrasure. Warmth bled from within. Firelight. Six voices formed a hoarse blend of Turkish and Arabic drivel.

  “…telling you, these Christians are crazy. No other fleet would've pushed this close. Not so quick anyhow.”

  Another man chuckled. “Sane men don't conquer cities. We better watch our back—?”

  Her falchion cut the first across the back, steel ate his shirt and hit spine in a deep stroke. He collapsed onto the powder crates without a sound.

  Jo?o seized the second by the throat as the man fumbled for a horn, twisted, then drove his montante into the man’s gut. Bone cracked. He followed with a downward thrust that pinned the oozing corpse to the stone floor. All dead within mere moments.

  Teresa stepped past the bodies and climbed the stone lip to peer out at the coast. At more guns than she’d remembered.

  They stacked clay jars near the rear of the embrasure—thick-walled pots meant for oil and munitions, then packed them tight with gunpowder. Just enough to cripple the bed of a bombard, so it couldn't aim in any useful direction.

  They tied each jar shut with the clothing of their latest victims, and measured crude fuses by feel rather than sight.

  Things went rather quickly after that.

  One embrasure at a time. Step. Kill. Plant. Move. They preferred to remove the human element first, set the pots, then detonate them in succession. It made their escape less messy.

  Some died laughing, unaware of the coming blades. Others mid-prayer. Once, a boy barely a man died without having tasted the bread at his lips. He'd looked so innocent, and truth-be-told, it had bothered her in the days after. A little.

  But they never had, and never would leave loose ends.

  By the time they reached the last gun, the western coast was a silent graveyard. Teresa crouched beside Jo?o outside the embrasure’s door, two gargoyles surveying their good work.

  “Ready?” she whispered.

  Jo?o glanced at the dark horizon, at the rain turned mist above their heads, then back with a grin that was all teeth.

  “Wake up!" he yelled, so loud and sudden that she almost jumped back.

  "Keep your voice down! What's the—?"

  "Teresa! Wake the ever-loving fuck up!"

  The words echoed from everywhere now it seemed, cut through the rain like a knife through silk—

  Her mind lurched into the sky like a supersonic ghost. Soared upward from the past, and back into the brick wall that was the future.

  An irate chorus of scanners greeted her. Clamorous and shrill. A lone red speck ahead drew closer with alarming speed. Hull lights. Docking scars. The Gorge, no longer distant, but a bulk of looming durtanium.

  Jo?o was already on the controls, fingers tight around the yoke as he hauled it back. Emergency thrusters flared, then buckled the shuttle hard enough to spill blood chili all over them.

  The warning tones screeched even louder, then slowly, gradually, pathetically, the ship came to a soft halt.

  Nobody spoke for a moment or two. Maybe an hour even. She hadn't felt this wholly incompetent in a long while. Jo?o's jaw was tight, his eyes sharp. Liable to say any number of rightfully livid and nasty curses.

  But he didn't. He rarely did. Not with her anyhow.

  “Hope whatever fantasy you were indulging was worth both our lives,” he said flatly. Not angry. Just factual. "Stay awake this time."

  Teresa blinked. Once. Twice.

  The residual memory of the sea fell away. The rain. The guns. The forthcoming explosions. Tunis collapsed inward like a bad dream. Disappeared like the moon at dawn. Iron kissed her tongue, and she realized she'd bitten her own lip. A thin, nearly bloodless incision with her front left fang.

  Teresa exhaled, slow and deliberate, then turned in her seat to face him. Really face him. The centuries in his eyes. The patience on his handsome brow.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, as sincerely as she ever had, then turned back to resume their flight.

  Jo?o studied her in the corner of her eye, calm and cool, then too returned his gaze toward The Gorge outside.

  ...

  "...I know, little sister."