Chapter 117 – What Buying Time Is Worth

The helicopter landed next to the tents. Diana got out behind the young sorcerer and moved away from the noise of the rotors. She had spent part of the trip back looking toward the forest.

'It must be my imagination…' Diana thought.

The evacuation was still underway.

'At least this time they're working fast.'

Ramos had barely gotten out when one of the officers came up to him.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, sir."

"Then come with me."

The man led him toward the main tent. Diana followed them with her hands in her pockets, the boy walking beside her.

She wanted to hear the explanation. After all, she'd had to go out and get him.

Inside the tent, the officer stopped next to one of the tables and turned to Ramos.

"What happened to the plane?"

Ramos took a while to answer. Diana watched the color drain from his face and saw him adjust one of the straps on his uniform, even though it didn't need it.

"I… it's… complicated, because one of the controls…"

"Sir!"

Someone came running into the tent. They stopped by the entrance, took one breath and pointed outside.

"They've detected a vampiric presence near the base."

Diana took her hands out of her pockets. The young sorcerer went still beside her. For an instant, the noise inside the tent died down. Several people stopped moving to look at the newcomer.

The officer reacted first.

"Speed up the evacuation. We take what's essential and destroy the rest."

One of the operators stood up so fast his chair fell over behind him.

The officer pointed at Diana.

"We need time."

"Yeah, I know."

Diana turned to the man who had raised the alarm.

"Which direction?"

"Along the road that comes in from the forest."

Diana looked toward the entrance.

They had gotten back barely a few minutes ago, and now there was a vampire approaching. She didn't much like that coincidence.

Ramos was still by the table, silent. Diana would have liked to ask him a couple of questions, but she heard the officer start handing out orders and decided it could wait.

Diana gave the young sorcerer a little pat on the arm.

"Let's go."

The boy followed her outside. Behind them, someone started yelling at people to stop loading one of the tables and deal with the equipment.

Diana headed toward the forest road.

"By the way."

The boy turned his head.

"What's your name?"

He took a moment to answer.

"Alfred."

"All right, Alfred. What's your specialty?"

Alfred looked toward the trees. Then he looked back at her.

"I like ice magic."

Diana nodded.

"And fire," he added. "Those are the ones I practice most."

"Perfect. I'm pretty good with water, so we can do something simple."

Diana raised a hand as she walked. A small sphere of water appeared between her fingers.

"With your fire we can make a cloud of steam to cover the retreat. We don't need to stay here and win a fight, just keep her from…"

She stopped.

Alfred took one more step before doing the same.

There was someone at the end of the road.

A girl with short white hair was walking toward the base. Her hands were empty and she was looking at the tents over Diana's shoulder.

Then she lowered her eyes to them.

'So she was the one following us…' Diana thought.

Diana let the sphere of water come apart between her fingers.

The girl kept coming.

She seemed far too calm for someone who had just walked into an enemy base.

The girl raised a hand, but Diana moved hers before she could speak.

Water appeared around her arms and spread out into several strands. Part of it froze with a crackle, forming long needles that hung in the air in front of both sorcerers.

Diana closed her fingers.

The needles shot forward.

FWOOSH!

The girl summoned a black spear. She held it with both hands and spun it in front of her body.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

The ice shattered against the weapon. Diana watched the fragments fall onto the road while the girl kept walking.

She hadn't even had to step back.

Diana frowned.

"I want to talk," the girl said.

Alfred raised his hands. Diana felt the mana building up beside her and moved aside a little to give him room.

A ball of fire appeared between Alfred's palms and grew very quickly. The heat reached Diana's face before Alfred had even finished preparing it.

The girl looked at him.

"Did you not hear me?"

Alfred fired. The fireball crossed the road. The girl threw herself to one side and started running.

The flames passed through the spot where she had been, but the attack didn't end there. A stream of fire kept pouring from Alfred's hands, feeding the spell.

The boy turned his body and the blaze followed the vampire. Diana watched her get clear again, dodging the fire while keeping the spear in one hand.

She was fast, faster than Diana had expected. Alfred was having trouble keeping up with her movements. Every time he managed to aim the attack at her, the vampire was already changing position.

Diana held out a hand.

'Let's see if this works.'

Diana could control water, and that creature's blood was still a liquid. She was curious to find out how much she could do with it.

Diana searched for the movement inside the vampire's body.

At first all she found was resistance.

Diana tightened her fingers.

The spell demanded a lot more care than lifting a person or moving water through the air. She had to find what she wanted to control, take hold of it and keep it still while the body tried to go on working.

Diana stopped noticing the heat of the fire.

'There.'

The girl was taking another step when one of her legs stopped responding.

The movement cut off all at once. She tried to catch herself on the other.

She couldn't do that either.

Diana felt the pressure pushing back against her magic and gritted her teeth.

"Now!"

Alfred didn't need to be told twice. He turned his hands toward the vampire and the fire hit her head-on. The flames engulfed her body and kept rolling down the road, kicking up dirt and dry leaves.

Diana kept her arm extended.

She had done it.

She could win.

She could win against those vampires!

The strain started to weigh on her shoulder. She felt her fingers wanting to close all the way and had to force them to hold the same position.

Alfred kept channeling the spell. The roar of the fire drowned out almost everything else.

Diana breathed through her nose.

'A little longer…'

Inside the flames she could make out the silhouette of that girl… still standing.

She didn't like that.

Diana had expected her to fall. Even if Diana was keeping part of her body immobile, she should have started to give way by now.

Then she saw her move a hand.

Diana swallowed.

The pressure against her spell increased.

She tried to reinforce it.

The vampire raised her arm and the connection broke.

Diana took a step back, as if someone had just let go of something she was pulling on with all her strength.

Diana's skin prickled.

'What…?'

The vampire was still inside the fire. Her clothes were burning. Even so, she shifted her grip on the spear and threw it, blunt end first.

"Alfred!"

The boy barely turned his head.

He didn't have time to get out of the way.

The butt of the weapon struck him in the chest and knocked him backward. Alfred lost his balance and his hands came apart. The stream of fire cut off.

Alfred hit the ground and the air went out of him all at once.

The spear struck the dirt beside him.

Diana turned toward him.

Alfred tried to sit up and ended up coughing, one hand pressed against his chest.

He was alive.

Diana looked back at the road.

The vampire stepped out of the flames still burning among the leaves. Part of her clothes had burned away. One sleeve hung in tatters, and in several places the fabric had come apart completely.

The skin that had been left exposed was burned, and so was part of her face. The ends of her hair had blackened and shriveled from the heat.

Diana stared at her.

'It hit her head-on.'

She had kept her still.

She had seen the attack hit her.

Alfred hadn't held back.

And yet that girl was still walking toward them. Diana saw the skin on one of her arms begin to recover.

The burns were disappearing as she walked.

A patch she had just seen damaged was covered in skin again, and by the time she moved her eyes to her face, that was changing too.

Diana stopped breathing for an instant.

She had heard that vampires could regenerate.

She had known it since before she accepted this operation.

But reading it in a report was one thing. Having someone in front of her who had just taken an attack that would have killed a person, and watching her recover before the smoke had even finished clearing, was something else.

Even her hair was growing back. Her clothes stayed burned. That was the only thing that didn't seem to be fixing itself.

The vampire raised a hand and plucked a scrap of still-smoking fabric off her shoulder. Then she let it drop.

Diana felt a small tremor in her fingers.

She had fought several of the monsters that were appearing in her world.

Some were enormous.

Others could take hits that would have destroyed a vehicle. But most of them kept accumulating wounds, got tired, lost mobility. What she did to them during a fight counted for something.

She had come across creatures capable of recovering in a similar way. And against those she had fought alongside a much bigger team.

Diana glanced sideways at Alfred. The boy had just managed to sit up, but he was still coughing. She looked back at the vampire.

'Can we win this fight…?'

The question appeared before she could stop it.

The vampire took another step.

Diana stepped back.

Then she heard several engines start up behind the tents.

The evacuation.

Diana gritted her teeth.

She didn't have to defeat the vampire. She only had to keep her there long enough.

She had started thinking about the fight as if that were the only problem, while behind her they were still packing up the equipment.

"Alfred. Get up."

The boy raised his head. Diana held out both hands. Water appeared in front of them and rose up, covering the road from one side to the other.

The vampire stopped advancing for an instant.

The mass of water froze.

KRRR!

The ice grew until it hid her completely. Diana let out her breath. The wall was thick, much thicker than the needles she had used before.

She didn't expect it to stop her for very long, but it could force her to go around it, or give them a few seconds to prepare something else.

Diana turned to Alfred.

"We have to…"

BOOM!

The center of the wall burst apart. Diana raised an arm to shield her face. Fragments of ice flew across the road and hit the ground all around them. Alfred ducked on instinct.

When Diana looked again, the vampire was on the other side of the hole. Her fist was extended, and she lowered it slowly. The skin on her knuckles was intact. Her face too.

If it weren't for the burned clothes, Diana would have had trouble believing it was the same person they had just wrapped in fire.

The vampire stepped through what was left of the wall. She was half naked, the remains of her clothes hanging off her body, but she didn't seem bothered by it.

She was looking at the two sorcerers.

Diana started to raise a hand.

The vampire pointed at her.

"Are you two going to talk, or do I have to kill one of you to make you behave?!"