THE QUESTERS, PART XXII

How?

How could it have happened?

We - Venom and I - sensed nothing. Yes, there was a strong sense of danger, but it was general and we had felt it ever since we set foot on this damned island. But we felt nothing specific as something effortlessly slipped into the middle of our pack and killed Beck.

That should have been impossible.

Except it wasn't.

Smit was in shock as he cradled Beck's body. Then, after a long and frozen moment, Smit gently set her down and then vanished into the dark. We heard him let out a long and haunting cry.

We caught a glimpse of the endless fury in Smit's face just before he left. He was seeking a mad and lonely revenge and we were sure that would destroy him.

*He'sss becommme one with hisss ancessstor,* Venom whispered to me mind-to-mind.

I wasn't exactly sure what that meant. And Venom seemed to pause to consider his words.

*Sssabertooth wasss a primal hunter,* Venom eventually 'spoke' into my mind. *To have hisss power - to invoke hisss ssspirit - would make sssomeone a preternaturrral tracker.*

I considered that strange name - 'Sabertooth'. The Giant in Red Iron had used it, but I'd never heard it before and wasn't sure who or what the Juggernaut had been referring to. And that raised other questions. What long-lost pasts had Venom experienced? Did anyone really know how old Venom was and what he'd seen back in lost days that are now all-but forgotten?

*Will he be able to find Dracula?* I asked.

Venom said nothing.

*We should pursue this,* I added.

I could sense Venom's agreement.

"What about the others?" I continued.

"There isss no reassson to get themmm killed."

I silently agreed. Then we leaped up to the cavern roof and began moving from cover-to-cover, between jagged outcrops and overhangs.

We couldn't follow Dracula. But Smit was possessed by his ancestral spirit. And we could follow him.


"Rahne?" Faye asked uncertainly. She was standing close behind me with her hands on my shoulders. Faye was trying to keep track of me while also keeping an eye out in all directions.

Just to my right, hovering two yards off the cave-floor and surrounded by slowly orbiting iron-studded stakes, Rose was also keeping watch. After Beck died, Faye and Rose immediately came to me. We were the pack-within-the-pack. We kept together while our larger pack fell into disarray.

At our feet was Beck's body. After letting out a hunter's cry, Smit had disappeared into the darkness. As near as I could tell, he was after Dracula. But if Smit found the King of the Vampires, I was sure it would mean Smit's end.

"Dammit, Jonah," Alexander muttered angrily as he scanned the darkness. He was obviously worried about his friend.

Jonah and Venom were gone. They'd simply vanished. As near as I could tell, they had gone off ahead. I suspected they were following Smit.

I'd also lost track of Ed and Lockheed.

On the surface, far overhead, the Spider Legionnaires continued their battle with Dracula's forces.

We were falling apart. I'd underestimated Dracula and those who had followed me were paying for that.

We could retreat but the scent of that was foul and filled me with despair. We'd injured Dracula and learned so much about him and his schemes. We were so close! And if Dracula survived this battle, he would be fore-warned and it would all have been for nothing!

But right then, deep in the island caverns, we were within Dracula's center of power. We could fall back and try again - or perhaps simply retreat back to the mainland.

No matter how distasteful, I had a responsibility to those who'd followed me. So I opened my mouth to give the order to pull back.

And then there was a blinding flash of light...


Venom and I were well behind Smit, deliberately keeping our distance. But as we watched, a vampire and two ninja came out of a side-passage and began stealthily following Smit. Another vampire approached from ahead. They obviously planned to catch Smit between them.

Venom let out a soundless sense of eager anticipation. Really, the damned thing just likes to kill.

Then Venom and I fell in behind the trio who were also behind Smit. Just before the vampire that was ahead of Smit made his rush, we attacked the rearward trio.

We were on the rearward vampire before it had time to sense us. My tongue whip-sawed around its torso, binding its arms to its sides and cutting deep gashes. Black spikes of armor pierced it as we jammed our short-swords through the vampire's neck. Then we scissored its head off. One of the Hand ninjas was very fast. He stabbed at us and we responded by spinning in a quick, mid-air, twirl that turned his attack into a minor graze along the length of our right arm. As we fell, I kicked out at the lesser of the two ninjas. His head snapped violently backwards and we heard bones break.

We webbed the second ninja as he desperately wiggled, and dragged him along with us as we dropped. We hit the rocky cave floor together and more bones broke.

Ahead of us, Smit was done killing the vampire that had been the other part of the ambush.


The Old One had appeared to me.

"How ya doin', Rahne?" he asked quietly.

We were near the crest of a mountain - almost at its peak. The Old One was sitting on an outcrop of bare stone, his feet crossed at the ankles as he looked down a long cliff that bottomed into a misty, tree-filled, valley. The long drop was dizzying.

"I... I'm not sure," I replied shakily. When the spirits drag you into their realm, it's unsettling. And... damn it... I was worried about my friends! I had to get back to them!

The Old One was dressed in rough leather armor, like a common ranger. Reaching into a large belt pouch, he pulled out a pair of yellow apples. He handed one of them to me as he began munching on the other. I automatically began eating my apple. In a fight, every little bit helps.

"I have to..." I began.

"You have to shut-up and listen," the Old One told me briskly. Then he threw his apple core off the cliff. It fell a long ways. I never saw it hit bottom.

I dropped what was left of my apple at my feet. It rolled away, eventually also going over the cliff edge.

Over the Old One's shoulder, I could see a line of dark and brooding clouds. They were approaching us with unnatural speed. There was a low rumble of the Storm Lady's thunder.

"We've never been closer to killing Dracula than this," the Old One said in an almost conversational tone of voice. "Not even when I was alive. But being close isn't the same as tagging your target. I won't hold it against you if you don't think it's possible and pull the plug on the mission, but I'm not the only old bastard who wants Dracula and his kind gone."

I'd never heard the phrase 'pull the plug', but I think I knew what the Old One meant by it.

"If we go on, everyone following me might die," I said softly.

"There's already been death," the Old One told me. "And there's gonna be more. Welcome to being in charge, Rahne. It's a bitch."

The storm finally engulfed our mountain. Cold, hard-driven, rain washed over us. It was becoming hard to hear what we were trying to say to each other.

"I need to go back to the others," I half-shouted, trying to be heard over the storm. It was the only thing that I was sure of.

The Old One stood up. To my surprise, I realized that I was actually eye-to-eye with him, and I'm not a very tall woman.

Rain drizzling down his face, the Old One cocked an eye skyward. "The little lady needs a hand," he growled to nobody that I could see. "Which means it's time to bust rules."

There was an other-worldly rustle around us. Other powers were present beside the Old One. It seemed to me that they were conferring.

There was a strange, metallic, scent and a buzzing in the air. I felt a tingling sensation all over my body as flickers of blue-white light began dancing around us. And then a lightning bolt hit the peak of the mountain. That was no more than few dozen yards from the ledge where we were standing.

The noise was deafening and the earth seemed to rock and shudder - for some reason, I was dazedly reminded of a woman in orgasm. But the blazing light didn't die away as much as it seemed to go on and on.


Smit was on one knee as he sniffed at the cave floor.

*Can you smell anything?* I mind-growled at Venom.

Venom cracked open a dead ninja's thighbone and began sucking out the marrow. At least it wasn't from the undead ninja.

*Nothing,* Venom mind-sent laconically.

*Why hasn't he noticed us?* I asked as we eyed Smit.

*He knowssss we're here. He just doesssn't care.*

I sighed. *Smit's not coming back from this, is he?*

Venom dropped the thighbone fragment and then smashed the ninja's head against a rock. Brains spilled loose and Venom gathered up a fistful.

*Assssuming we ssssurvive, we'll have to kill himmm,* Venom said flatly.


A woman's voice chuckled.

With a groan, I opened my eyes and looked around. Then I painfully climbed to my feet.

I'd tumbled down the mountain, but somehow survived the fall. I was in the forest at the foot of the mountain, laying next to a rain-swollen pond that was being fed by a fast-running stream. Far overhead, the peak of the lightning-struck mountain glowed dull red - like iron under a smith's hammer. Above even that, the storm-clouds twisted and raged. However, the rain had stopped.

There was no sign of the Old One. But on the far side of the pond was a kind of shrine that I'd seen before. It consisted of a wolf's skull atop a semi-circular cairn of piled-stone. A cross had been carved into the brow of the wolf skull. Those shrines are rare and you only find them in wolf-haunted wilderness. They are dedicated to one of my ancestors - the sainted Lady of Wolves after whom I was named.

I was hurt from the fall and ached all over, but I could feel my body steadily knitting itself back together.

There was something hot around my neck. Groping under the neck of my tunic, I pulled loose my neck-chain and its two amulets. The amulets were both crosses, yet still quite different. One was the symbol of Mjolnir - a tiny hammer of Thor that I'd carried around my neck for most of my life. The other was the Old Faith crucifix that a Red Devil-Monk had thrown to me back on that Nyack dock. Both amulets were warm beyond body-heat.

I kissed both symbols and then looped the chain around my wrist. "Who's there?" I asked as I looked around for whoever had laughed.

There was another ghostly chuckle. And then something came up from the pond.


Smit was back on the hunt. Frustratingly, Venom and I still couldn't sense what he was following.

But Smit himself was another story. We could only dimly see, hear, and smell him, but we could make him out. His scent was now different - there was a big-cat tang about him, something like a mountain lion or the monstrous long-toothed beasts of the southern forests. His fully yellow eyes were dull enough that even they gave nothing away.

*Ssstrange daysss,* Venom 'said'. He sounded amused.

*What?* I asked distractedly. If I wasn't careful, I'd lose track of Smit.

*You knowww the world hasss gone mad when Sssabertooth and Wolverine are coooperrrating.*

But I wasn't listening. Another presence was teasing my mind.

"Ed?" I called out in surprise. The Lockjaw was capable of limited mind-seeing and he'd been in my mind before. I could tell that he was looking for me.

Ed didn't reply with words - he can't as near as I can tell. Instead, what I felt coming from him was a sense of satisfaction. He'd been looking for me and he'd found me.

There was another pause. As quickly as Ed had touched my mind, he was gone. I had the feeling that he was communicating with something else.

Meanwhile, Smit was on the move again, working his way deeper into the cavernous dark. Yet that didn't bother me.

Somewhere above Venom and I, there was the sense of heat in the darkness. And then the darkness turned red. Part of the cavern ceiling was melting. We hastily scrambled away.

The red above us turned white as molten rock dribbled downward and splattered onto the rocks beneath. And then a tiny and blazing form fell from the roof. Half way to the bottom, it spread its wings, spraying loose the splatter of the stone-melt that coated its form.

And then Lockheed glided toward us.

*Wwwelcommme,* Venom sent calmly as we automatically lifted our arm like a falconer.

Lockheed circled us in midair as the blackness of Venom shifted and squirmed around my body. Then he arrowed onto my arm, grabbing it in clawed hind-limbs as a wing wrapped around our torso. Lockheed was still agonizingly hot and I could feel our skin scorching under his touch. The only reason I didn't scream was because Venom didn't allow it.

The stink of our burning flesh was in the air and Venom and I staggered as Lockheed crawled onto our shoulders. But Venom reformed himself around the small dragon that had flattened himself against our back and the pain drifted away.

Venom began to laugh and I joined him. Eventually a third voice - harsh, hissing, and reptilian - joined us.

The game had just changed.


A woman's arm jutted out of the pond, but I could see nothing of whoever was beneath the dark water. The arm was smoothly muscled and clad in a purple, elbow-length, glove. She was holding a long-sword, gripping it so that the length of the sword was parallel to the pond's surface. The sword had cut her hand and blood was streaming down to her shoulder, before finally entering the water.

The sword was simple... battered and and made of an oddly deep-black steel that was without adornment. It looked like the simple, well-used weapon of a common Wilder or Folk warrior.

The Folk used to have a thing called 'Kings'. They were high noblemen who ruled vast territories and populations - far more than what the more violent and argumentative Blood could ever manage. I found myself thinking that the weapon was perhaps something that a king might have wielded. Then I wondered why that thought had even occurred to me.

I carefully waded into the pool, purposely not peering into its depths. When I was chest-deep, I slowly leaned forward, reaching gingerly for the weapon. Some of the woman's blood had become a slick on the surface of the pool. It stained my buckskin jacket.

Then the chain around my wrist suddenly jerked forward. almost pulling me off-balance. The amulets were straining eagerly, pulling the chain taut.

They were seeking the sword.

Leaning further forward, I touched the back of the hand that was holding the sword. Meanwhile, the amulets clicked against the weapon and began to scrape along the length of the blade.

Something changed, and now the woman's arm was clad in dark armor, with an improbably white gauntlet and a hint of red at the shoulder. Unable to help myself, I glanced down into the water. I could see a swirl of purple hair - afloat, drifting, and tangled. A pair of deep-blue eyes were looking up at me. They seemed both determined and amused.

There was a smile. And then the Lady gave me her sword.

After that, she was gone and I was left standing in chest-deep water, holding her weapon. I hefted the sword into a stray shaft of daylight. The two amulets were no longer hanging free. Instead they were now seemingly attached to the blade, just above the hilt.

Then, still in my hands, the sword turned to ice-cold water and gushed over my arms. My hands, wrists, and forearms were left tingling.

That wasn't really surprising. After all, I don't use a sword. And the Lady who was helping me was familiar with all blades.

Gasping from the cold, I opened my claws with the usual 'snikt'. But they were different. They were metallic.

I looked in wonder at my claws. The Lady's sword was now a part of them. A part of me.

"Thank you," I whispered.