War

Anacostia went back from her little run to talk to Izadora, the necro teacher.

She interrupted her in her lesson she was giving to the new graduates. “Iz, can I talk to you for a sec, it’s really important” she whispered so the alumni couldn’t hear her.

“Yes, for sure.” The teacher answered walking to the door, she grabbed the handle and looked at her class “Read the first chapter of the book and find the best way to grow mushrooms out of dead being” she instructed before turning to Anacostia.

“I let Ramshorn go as we convince and I followed her, she’s back with the spree. I didn’t recognize the woman on the porch, but the place is guarded, we cannot enter it.” The sergeant explained.

“It’s okay, we have the location, we can start from here then we’re gonna see if we tell Alder or if we take care of it ourselves.”

“Any news?” Anacostia asked

“No, except the mycelium turned black before” the sergeant nodded as she remembered Izadora telling Alder that the giant mushroom in the basement of her facility changed from white to black.

Izadora continued “Well, it acted weird the black almost disappear entirely. I don’t have any explanation for it”

“Did you tell that to someone else?”

“No, not yet”

“Let’s keep it secret for now” Anacostia recommended “Alder will be back soon, I should go.”

“And I should get back to my class” Izadora glanced at her door “be careful okay? If Alder knows what we are hiding, she’ll accuse us of treason and the sentence for that is death”

Quartermaine left a small smile appear on her face, “I know Iz but I don’t really trust Sarah anymore, not after what she did to the President” she declared leaving the hallway so the teacher could get back to her class and her to go greet the general.

Anacostia walked to the other part of the base were all the helicopters and planes where put and waited for the helicopters to come back with her young private in it.

Alder’s helicopter arrived back at Fort Salem with the rescued Tarim inside and her biddies too.

Alder get down first then ordered to some of her officers to lead the Tarim to a building the military reserved for them on the base.

She then walked to her office followed closely by all of her biddies, so by Tally too, to know of the new events that happen on the base while she was away and also to organise a speech.

But Quartermaine stopped her “General, where are the Bellweather unit” she asked not noticing the way older Tally right in front of her.

“Craven…” she said in a stern voice looking at her right where Tally stood proud with a lot of wrinkles.

“Craven?” Anacostia asked in disbelief as Tally nodded. “What happen?”

“The camarilla killed one biddy which weakened the General, so I took her place” the redhead with white hair explained.

Anacostia turned to Alder “Do you want me to look for another recruit so you can free Craven or is it too late?”

Tally looked surprised “We can get unbiddied?” she asked in a little voice that almost none of the others had heard her.

Alder faced the new biddy “usually you can’t but as we did not do the whole ritual, it is a possibility” the General admitted as she pivoted “you can look for a new one Quartermaine, I want to know when the next recruit is ready so I can reorganize my planning. Any other news?” she added.

“Yes ma’am, Scylla Ramshorn escaped just before we could transfer her to the Caribbean prison” Anacostia said trying to keep a straight face so the general couldn’t tell she was lying.

“How is that possible?” a pissed Alder barked.

“She uh- she knocked me out” Anacostia tried to act embarrassed for having been beaten up by a college student.

“We’ll talk about that later, I need all the base reunited, I have to announce something” Alder declared finally leaving for her office.

When all the auditorium was full, Alder stepped on the stage with the biddies, walked to the centre and began her speech.

“Dear witches. We already were at war against the Spree, you may have heard about my last mission to rescue the last Tarim. We thought that the spree was killing those people but we were wrong, it wasn’t the Spree. It was the Camarilla’s doing, our ancient enemy has return with a new technology. They have created boxes in which they but some of our vocal cords to use our powers against us.”

Izadora and Anacostia sat in the front row next to each other.

Izadora turned to her friend “so the last Spree attack wasn’t an attack but a warning” she stated.

“It appears so” Anacostia replied as she kept looking at Alder.

“In the Tarim basin, we lost amazing soldier but also a really promising unit, the Bellweather unit who just graduated, Abigail Bellweather and Raelle Collar lost their lives honourably by the hands of the enemy while trying to save a kid. The last member of this unit, Tally Craven gave up her youth for me, that’s why I’d like to give medals to the Bellweather Unit.”

Tears streamed down Anacostia’s cheeks, Raelle and Abigail were supposed to come back to age her prematurely and now they’re gone.

“The funerals will be held tomorrow.” Alder finished going down the stage.

As the general and her biddies arrived at their apartment, Alder received a call from Anacostia telling her that the next recruit was ready for being biddified.

Alder set the ceremony in the afternoon because she had a meeting with Petra Bellweather that she couldn’t refuse.

A few moment later, Petra entered the room.

“Hello general” Alder said

“How come I learn about my daughter in the same time as everyone else, why didn’t you tell me before?” the angry Bellweather yelled receiving shushes from the biddies even from Tally who looked surprised of what she just did.

“I’m sorry Petra, we didn’t had time to tell you personally” Alder declared in a firm voice.

“I want to see her body” Petra ordered.

The biddies shook their head and Alder spoke “It’s not possible”

“How’s that?”

“The bodies couldn’t be retrieved, the territory was full of Camarilla’s” Alder tried to find excuses “plus, there was a bomb, I really doubt we could have find them”

“You didn’t retrieve my daughter body because of a suspicion of not finding anything?”

“Know your place Bellweather, I’m sorry for your loss but I’m still your superior on this base, I’d like you to treat me as much.” Alder explained.

Petra Bellweather left the general’s office in a fury slamming the door behind her.

Alder turned to Tally “Private Craven, you can go back to your dorm and pack all of Bellweather’s stuff for her mother and Collar’s for her father please, and in the same time pack yours, as soon as you find your youth again, you’ll go to war college.” The general explained.

Tally went right to her dorm where she found Gerit waiting for her.

“Tally?” the young man said surprised.

“What are you doing here Gerit?” the redhead asked.

“You look old…” he let out before trying to answer the question “I just heard Alder’s speech and I was worried about you, so I wanted to make sure you were okay”

“Shouldn’t you be with Hilary right now?”

“I wanted to apologize about that too” Gerit added quickly.

“You don’t have to apologize, all you have to do is leave, I want to be alone.”

Buttonwood left the dorm leaving Tally finally letting go crying for the loss of her sisters in Abigail’s bed.

Tally was soon joined by Anacostia who asked told her that they were preparing the ceremony and that they will have to go join Alder in a bit.

Anacostia saw that Tally was in her head and not with her, she sat next to the private and asked if she wanted to talk.

Tally shook her head but said “The bomb came from Abigail and Raelle, I’m sure they’re still alive but Alder doesn’t want to look for them” Tally sobbed.

“Did you use your power to notice that?” Anacostia wondered as she knew Craven was the best seer of her promo.

“I couldn’t, I was too tired from my biddification” she stated apologetically.

“It’s not your fault, if they are still alive, they’ll find their way back don’t worry” Anacostia stood up “Come on, it’s time to go”.

The ceremony passed perfectly, Tally felt guilty to have her youth back by taking the youth of a 12 year old kid. As the ceremony ended, the general invited all her biddies and Tally to eat.

Tally was surprised to learn that it was the biddies that ate for Alder but in the same time, she was starving so she ate whatever was in front of her.

As Tally finished her plate, Alder turned to Anacostia “Any news about Ramshorn?”.

Tally’s head jump up “Scylla?”

“I’ve sent soldiers to locate her, general. As soon as I have some news, you’ll be the first to know” Anacostia stated.

Alder looked please at the response, but before she could add anything, her assistant came in with a phone in her hands.

“Sorry to interrupt ma’am, but I think you’ll want to take that it is from the base near the Tarim basin”