Vampire Down (Blood Skies, Book 7) (34 page)

Smoke oozed from grates in the ground, broken grills and shattered manholes.  Oil eddied from pores in the buildings and leaked onto the streets.  A constant odor of death hung petrified in the air, old waste and rot and something cold and rancid like the breath of a dying man.  Beyond the glare of fires and dancing lights were miles of unending darkness, as if the city drifted through outer space.

In spite of the prevalent stench of death the place was full with signs of life.  These people, these aboriginal spell casters and wastelands warriors, had carved an existence for themselves in those ancient ruins.  Children peeked out from old shop windows or ran across the street while Cross was led down the wide avenue with his hands tied behind his back.  Just beneath the tang of decay he smelled roasted meat, wine and tobacco.  Crude paintings covered ruined blast doors, and concertina wire had been twisted to form fences holding in chickens and mules.  He heard voices and hammering, laughter and arguments. 

Up above in the sea of fog Cross saw crude dirigibles, Gol designed vessels retrofitted for subterranean combat.  Their turbines were smaller, their beds wide to compensate for the fact that they didn’t need to fly as high but could hold extra weight.  Various weapons were mounted along the edges of the short decks – an old Browning machine gun, a flamethrower, even what appeared to be a harpoon launcher – and the pilots and gunners kept their eyes alert and fingers near the triggers as they roamed the underground sky in search of potential intruders.

There was no question the people living there were desperate, and had fallen on the hardest of times.  Most everyone Cross saw was dirty and unkempt, dressed in mismatched garb and covered in dirt and grease.  The citizens of the hidden redoubt were as brown and dingy as the city itself, and like the complex they seemed to be bonded with the shadows, made slippery to the eyes by their suffusion in darkness.  They watched him warily, but he doubted he was the most fearsome thing they’d seen. 

They led him down wide lanes cracked by some long passed calamity.  Chunks of stone lay strewn along the sides of the roads, and many of the curved and irregular buildings seemed to be on the verge of collapse. 

Cross walked half-alive.  His throat burned from the caustic subteranean atmosphere – he imagined most of the people living there likely had some sort of lung disease or emphysema, but that was preferable to living somewhere on the surface where they’d be found and wiped out by the vampires – and his eyes were gummy from the constant layers of soot that seemed to drift through the air.  He fumbled on in dragged-out time, clumsy and stumbling. 

The warlock who led the party that had captured him was a tall, lean man with thin blonde hair and an angular face.  He looked familiar, somehow, but Cross couldn’t quite place him.  Like the other members of his party he wore no uniform or badge – indeed, what had allowed them to take the Coalition soldiers by surprise was their innocuous appearance, since they’d seemed like just another group of refugees ripe for slaughter.  Cross had watched the man use magic to massacre Scarn and his squad, and he saw a cold silver shine behind the warlock’s eyes, the glint of becalmed madness. 

The other men bore simple weapons, and quite a few of them were warlocks.  Cross sensed their spirits roiling through the air in a chaotic fog, a host of volatile female presences clawing at each other like a pack of wild dogs.  He wondered if accidents sometimes happened when the spirits behaved too violently towards one another, and he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn they’d lost more than a few of their own due to such spontaneous internal conflicts.

They led him towards the heart of the dismal city, a place easily twice as large as Thornn.  They crossed a bridge of pipes spanning a river of purple sludge.  Mounds of inhuman skulls – mostly Dracaj – were set at the intersections, and that deep in the city the structures were more industrial, bulging silos and pounding metal.  Sparks of excessive green light rendered the air ghastly.  Stinging wind from the district smothered him with the stench of smelted metal and raw fuel.

They turned a corner, and the band started to scatter off into the side streets.  The blonde man turned and regarded him.  Something about him bespoke of power and presence, and Cross realized the warlock was intentionally letting his guard down, allowing his captive to truly see him for the first time, as if he’d before been wearing some sort of heavy shroud.  His stony face was covered with stubble, and his thick blonde hair was pushed back in the semblance of a mane.

“Let him go,” the man said.  He looked at the warlocks and soldiers and shooed them away once they cut Cross’s bonds. “That’s fine, I’ve got him.”

“
What about his sword?” one of the warlocks asked.

“
He’ll need it.  For now, give it to me.”

Cross heard the whisper of the blade as it was handed off to the leader of the subterranean people.  The moment the man touched the weapon a jolt of cold shot up Cross’s spine like he’d been punched by an icy fist.  His eyes blanked, and for a moment all of his strength left him. 

In that instant he saw things he’d hoped never to see again: cities on fire, vampire warriors marching across fields of bone.  He saw a citadel by the sea, brightly lit by an icy moon stained with blood.  An ancient face of an ancient man, cold and uncompromising.  Darkness leaked from the borders of the sky.  Pale dancers on a vampire shore, looking out on gangrenous waters.  Ranks of dead soldiers repelled waves of fanged shadows. 

He was back in Koth, walking streets paved with human skin as he stared out at a dark and roiling sea.  Looking to the island, the place where the Old One had waited to try and turn him into a sacrifice.  He saw Snow, burning on the train.  Kane, his ruined body lying in the dark.  Danica, writhing in pain as her arm was cleaved from her body. 

He saw Shiv, staring at him with tears in her eyes.  Suffering near the ice, slowly tortured under the baleful gaze of the Maloj.

Those images blasted through Cross’s mind with the force of a storm.  He screamed, and the darkness shattered and smothered him like a black avalanche, swarming around and into him, filling his mouth and eyes and ears and burying him alive.

Cross came out of sleep and heard voices.  He thought they were human, but it was difficult to tell.

The light was green and murky, like he floated underwater.  Sound tugged at the edge of his mind, creaking metal, groans of motion.  The hard steel under his back was unstable.

He sat up, every muscle aching.  He blinked once, twice, tried to clear his eyes enough to see, but everything stayed out of focus.  The air tasted like grit and smelled of frost and dust. 

“What the hell...?”

“
You’re on a ship,” a voice said.  “But probably not the kind you expect.” 

Cross saw a vague outline, a watery silhouette moving through the murk.  He sat up straight, his spine tingling with fear.  He couldn’t see what was coming, so he clenched his fists and braced himself for a blow, flinching as the silhouette drew close.  Whoever the man was he stayed there, less than a foot away, holding something towards Cross. 

“Take it,” the voice said. 

“
What is it?” Cross asked.  “No offense, but I can’t see shit.”

“
Lucky for you it isn’t shit,” the voice said.  “Hold out your hand, you stubborn bastard.”

Cross hesitated, then did as he was asked.  He was surprised when he felt the familiar hilt of Soulrazor/Avenger in his grip, and a jolt of electric cold shot through his body.  He braced himself for the uncomfortable rush of visions and nausea, the vitriolic churning that spread through his gut like sick lightning.  To his surprise none of it happened, and after a moment of dizziness and disorientation his sight returned and he found himself holding the black-and-white sword and staring at the man he’d seen in the city, the leader of those underground people.  His vision seemed to be back to normal, and though he was still a bit disoriented he no longer felt like his face had been buried in a puddle of sludge. 

“Feel better?” the man asked.

“
That depends,” Cross said.  Dizzy or no, in a quick motion Cross stood and put the razor edge of the blade against the man’s throat.  His captor was surprised, but didn’t look terribly worried. 
That doesn’t bode well
, Cross thought.  “Are you going to tell me what the hell is happening?” he asked.

“
Sure,” the man said, and he turned away.  Cross let him go.  He noted the arcane aura around the stranger, and now that he had the sword back he sensed something else, a protective resonance with a particular thaumaturgic signature.  It was familiar even in its alien-ness, but it took him a moment to recognize it as the same power as that of the blades: Soulrazor, Avenger, Claw and Scar.  That power shielded the man, prevented Cross from learning too much.

Whoever he was, the blonde warlock was still dressed just like all of the others Cross had encountered in the city – green and grey fatigues, a dirty cloak, armor plates on his shoulders, elbows and knees, and a pair of Px4 Storms sat in holsters to his sides. 

“You have one of the swords,” Cross said.

“
Yes and no,” the man answered.

“
Well, that’s cryptic as hell, isn’t it?”

“
I get that sometimes...” the man said with a smile. 

The room was small and stained with rust and soot, some sort of hold or a cabin in the afore-mentioned ship, though there were no portholes or windows to give Cross any idea as to what sort of vessel they were in.  Dim bulbs from a swinging lamp in the ceiling bathed the room in jade light, and the buzzing of machines grew loud, then faded. 

“Who are you?” Cross asked.

“
My name is Lucan,” the man said.  Cross had to wait for a moment before the significance of the name struck him.  “It’s not my only name – recently I’ve been going by Arkus – but I thought you might remember 'Lucan'.”

“
Bullshit,” Cross said.  “You’re dead.  I saw you die.” 

I think. 
The memory was vague, from what seemed like a lifetime ago.  Lucan Keth had been a prisoner on the
Dreadnaught
, the Black Scar prison ship Danica Black and her cohort Vos had stolen in order to trade the powerful warlock over to her criminal brother Cradden in exchange for her then lover Lara Cole.  Lucan had battled The Sleeper, that aspect of The Black given monstrous form, trapped for ages between worlds only to emerge with a vengeance.  From what he, Danica and Kane had witnessed, Lucan had perished in that conflict. 

Cross had discovered that Lucan Keth was just an avatar for the power of the Pale Goddess, a distant entity who battled the vampires.  The Goddess had many avatars – Lucan, the Woman in the Ice, Korva of the Revengers, even the White Mother herself.  Cross still had no idea who or what this Goddess was supposed to be, but he had a feeling he was about to find out.

Lucan watched him, and laughed quietly. 

“
You’re every bit as disagreeable as your reputation suggests, Cross.  Or can I call you Eric?”

“
I’d rather you not call me at all,” Cross said.  “So are you going to explain to me what’s happening, or are we going to keep playing guessing games?”

“
What do you want to know?”

“
I want to know why a guy I saw battle The Black’s errand boy is still walking around,” Cross said.  “I want to know why the swords are telling me you have one of their siblings, when you claim not to.  I want to know where the hell we are, and where the hell we’re going.  And most important...”

“
...you want to know what I want with you,” Lucan said.

“
Now you’re catching on.”

Lucan smiled and walked towards one of the doors. 

“Come with me,” he said, and without waiting for an answer he opened the door and entered a long hall.  Cross hesitated, but followed.  The light in the corridor bent and shifted strangely, like the vessel had tilted sideways.  The corridor was crafted from dark metal and led to a narrow staircase, which ascended to more murky green light.  Cross followed Lucan up the steps and onto a deck lit by swinging thaumaturgic lamps.

They were on a ship – an airship, though one which moved with subtle motion through the subterranean air of The Ways, vast underground tunnels which connected ancient Crujian structures to places like Black Scar and the tunnels of Voth Raa’morg.

Chill subterranean winds smelled of burning and frost.  The floor was hundreds of feet below and layered with stalactites, while the ceiling was pocked with hundreds of crevices filled with shadows and massive iced webs. 

The deck was wide and clear, devoid of all but a few of Lucan’s wilderness soldiers.  The vessel was old and had little cover, so those few on deck used lengths of rope secured to the railing and iron hooks on the floor.  Crude rotary guns that looked at least 100 years old swiveled and watched the darkness around them as the ship creaked and groaned its way along the enormous underground tunnel.

“So how far...” Cross began, but his voice caught in his throat.

There was something wrong with the walls.  What he’d first taken to be curved stone was in fact an unstable sea of darkness, ebbing and bubbling tides of liquid shadow stuff that rippled and bulged like a black ocean.  Curls of liquid spat and popped and oozed down to the floor, and before his eyes the surface rippled and eddied.  Sinuous shapes moved on the other side, enormous swimmers made of spines and edges.  Their bodies twisted and ballooned like blowfish and their teeth were gargantuan rows of oily knives.  Those horrors pushed against the walls, which wouldn’t give.  Not quite.