URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS

Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos and Crystal Dynamics

Here's hoping that FFnet has recovered from its minor spasm… ^_^

The only thing that's really occupying me as I drag my jeans up painfully slowly, is that I hope Kain doesn't want to go all that far.

There's just no way I can walk, you see. I can make it maybe a block or so, but that will be it, or risk being crippled for life.

Oh, but what's worse? my brain asks me sarcastically. You really want to take him on the Tube?

Kain says, "Quickly.", and that one word makes me move twice as fast.  He is staring at me. I would never have dared to ask him to turn around while I stripped off the ruined robe and underwear. So that's it. There's no going back to sanity now that Kain's seen me naked.

I don't think he's the slightest bit interested in whether I'm clothed or not. If he's not going to eat me, then really he's not all that bothered how I'm looking.

However, something about that one word suggests that he will start bothering about me if I don't get a move on.

I throw on the biggest sweater I can find and slip into my white trainers. There's still a faint brown stain on these trainers, from when I stepped in blood in Cattle Lane, months ago.

Why do I get the feeling that I should have bought black trainers?

Kain stalks out through the door, herding me in front of him with a swipe of his arm. I hobble before him, dwarfed by his shadow.

What is he going to do with me….?

There is no way my knees are going to cope with the stairs, and after Janos's little display I'm not sure I can face them anyway. I press the call button and Kain glares at me. I can tell from the look on his face that if a lift is going to be a problem for him, the Tube would be impossible.

So I'm quite understandably downcast when he says, half-way down to the ground floor, "You will take me back to where I first met you."

Oh no.

That's at least an hour away by train. He can't be…oh, no, he's never anything other than serious.

So I nod. What else can I do? Maybe when I collapse after a few streets he'll just kill me and have done with it.

The elevator doors judder open and Kain and I step out into the lobby. I'm ashamed and terrified of it, but I have to grab at his arm as I nearly fall opening the outer doors of the building. His skin is deathly cold and feels rough like rock. Kain grunts in a disapproving manner but fortunately for me, does not take offence. For all I know, human girls who dare lay one finger on his illustrious person without permission usually get thrown to the fledgelings.

I am adrift for a while in the safe harbour of his patience. Unfortunately, this is not a large harbour, probably enough room for a couple of fishing dinghys and a lobster pot, and when the storm rises again I'm fairly sure I will be swept away.

There are no sirens in the street, no police in the lobby. I crane my neck, trying to see into the stairwell. The body must have so far gone unnoticed.

Or maybe there is no body at all…?

It's just as my mind tries to buffer itself against the awfulness of the situation that I notice the thin line of blood seeping along the cracked floor tiles at the entrance to the stairway.

Nope. No comfort to be had here.

Kain drags me on, out into the open.

I take a deep breath of cloying London air, and let it out slowly through my damaged lips. Kain pushes me in the back in an unfriendly manner, and I take the hint, start limping towards the nearest Underground station.

It is now just a little before one in the morning, and the streets are ominously quiet. On a Tuesday night, I don't expect even that many clubbers are about.

Kain sniffs again, as if he really can't credit the carbon monoxide stink of the city, and pads along silently at my side, one set of massive talons encircling my wrist.

Wouldn't want me running off on him, would he?

Run? Hah!

I can barely walk. If I was running from Gary, I'd've wanted a good set of legs and a good ten-minute head start. Running from Kain would require not only good legs, but good trainers, good stamina, and a good three day's head start.

The Underground Station at King's Cross is much the same as any Tube station, really. Low ceilinged, dull, greyish. Escalators one end, stairs to the street the other.  At one a.m., also mercifully empty. If I wasn't so scared, I'd be almost pleased with myself for having walked this far unaided. It's amazing what the threat of being ripped open by an angry vampire will do for you.

I'm also reasonably surprised that we haven't been stopped. Dark it may be, but the police love to pick on suspicious things on the streets at this hour, and I think one bloodied prostitute and a massive, bare-chested vampire probably count as suspicious.

The ticket desks are unmanned, but the automatic barriers and vending machines are still very much active. My mind is just running over the possibilities of having to buy Kain a ticket when I realise he is no longer at my side. The sounds of a ticket barrier being kicked ruthlessly into inactivity thunder from my left.

Subtlety will get him everywhere.

I don't for one moment think that he understands how the gates work. I can only assume that he wanted to go through for some reason and it was (naturally) barring his way. It's not even as understandable as mindless vandalism. It's purely arrogance and power: I can do this, so there is no reason why I should not…

I walk over to where he is now examining a tube map with interest, and wait for him to notice me. Me, try and get his attention? I don't think so.

His chest looks miraculously healed. There's still an angry red indent over the heart side of his torso, which looks inflamed and painful, but the gaping hole is no longer there.

Wish I could do that. I wish it was that simple, you know? Okay, my own wounds will also heal, given time, but the wounds inside…wounds in the heart and the mind…they never heal. At least, not for me. I can remember every blow Gary gave me, every equally hard-hitting word, every night I cried for something I can't even remember losing anymore. Gary, and everything after him, has robbed me of my hope. And each time I remember it, the pain drags at me inside as if my heart has been squeezed in talons every bit as vicious as Kain's…

He must have felt my eyes upon the scar, because he reaches up, that same uncertainty as before flickering in his own yellow gaze, and covers it with his hand.

"What are you looking at?" he demands. "Take me back. Now."

I scuttle lamely down into the depths of the Underground, feeling all the while his angry stare on my back, and wonder what will happen if we god-forbid do meet anyone.

There's something not right down here.

Okay, it's the Underground at night. Not the most comforting of places to be, even when accompanied by the most terrifying thing currently resident on this earth (who is glaring now at a Cadbury chocolate machine as we wait for the next train) but still…

…it feels….wrong.

The air is warm from the tunnel as I stare into the dark, praying that the train will come soon. The Underground is like that: full of passages through which sudden blasts of warm or cold air hit you like a slap in the face. It is never still. Air is always moving, and my hair always gets an attack of static when I'm down here. The electricity running the trains, I guess. You can hear that, too, down here – it hums in the very walls and sparks fro the line as the trains pass.

There is someone else here, but far enough away down the platform that Kain's unlikely appearance is not noticeable. They're playing the game all late-night travellers play in London: if you see someone else travelling through the streets after midnight, no matter how sick, loud, aggressive or insane they may be, you ignore them in case they try and mug you.

The traveller's instinct probably saved that man tonight.

And yet…

I don't think I'm the only one who's uneasy down here. Kain is pacing again, but this is different to the clipped, angry pacing he was doing in my flat. This is alert, head-up, waiting-for-something…

The hum of electricity becomes almost unbearable. My already sore teeth ache as if caught in the backlash of a drill. Kain winces (obviously vampire ears and teeth are supersensitive…) and tries to say something, but it's lost under the screech of feedback that rolls out of the tunnel preceding the train.

My heart hammers. This is not right, not right at all. I've been travelling the Tube for weeks, and many times before in previous years. It's never sounded like this.

The train rattles out of the tunnel with a final burst of static and screech, and with my hands still covering my ears I look up to see Kain leap.

He leaps like nothing human could ever aspire to. From a flat-footed start he gains the roof of the train in scant seconds, makes no slip, just a crouched and perfect landing on the curved shiny surface.

What  now…? Is he attacking the damn train..?

But then I see the reason for his leap, and the looming form behind it. The Reaver is lodged in the metal roof of the carriage, and above it is poised a demon, chittering with irritation as Kain bares his fangs and roars.