URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO AREMS
Chapter 7
Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain was created by Eidos.
The train will move off.
The train is going to move off.
Oh my god, what am I supposed to do?
Kain bellows again, a furious, coughing snarl that echoes from the rounded walls. He drags the Reaver from its place with a spray of sparks, and whips the sword around in a vicious arc.
The demons…they have a name…
My brain fails me. It's happily able to tell me how to tie my shoelaces and that chocolate in Tube station vending machines is overpriced, but it can't supply me with a name for that snapping clawed horror…
…may begin with H….
Kain's clawed feet thump on the metal and the demon gives an unearthly screech.
"Stand Clear of the Closing Doors," admonishes the automatic announcement, and it's then that I make my decision.
I scramble onto the train just as the doors slide closed, and lie on the metal flooring listening to the thumping and scrabbling of a really good fight going on just above. The train glides off smoothly, heading for the tunnel.
"The next station is Angel," the train's automatic announcer informs me as I lie face-down on the dirty carriage floor.
About to go into the tunnels.
Should I have told him to duck?
Why am I doing this?
I could have lain on the floor at Kings Cross and waited for the police to come and get me. Why am I doing this stupid, crazy thing?
The roof above me abruptly punctures: the distinctive curved blade of the Reaver waggles almost comically about through the rent for a moment, then one of Kain's hands punches through the gap as if the roof is made of rice paper.
He is not doing that. He cannot be doing that…I knew he was strong, but…
Kain rips his way into the carriage with no more effort than if he were unwrapping a Christmas parcel , and drops down by my side looking pleased with himself. The blade of the Reaver hits the floor just in front of my eyes.
Someone's pleased because they've got their sword back.
I can't help it: I have to look up through the hole to see if the demon was a vision or reality: neither I hope.
A slow drool of some dark, stinking liquid is starting to dribble through the punctured roof. A few drops of it hit my face as I look up, and I struggle to control my retch impulse. I drag my fingers through my hair in distress, encounter the dried blood from Janos' hands earlier, and gag.
My eyes are pricking with tears about to fall. But Kain is glaring down at me in complete disgust, and I swallow hard, several times.
The first rule of predators – always take the weak ones first.
With this thought lodged firmly in my forebrain, I grip the handrail and haul myself upright. My knees have not yet swelled beyond movement, thank god.
Kain says, "How much further?"
He does not look like someone to whom the reply "About fifty miles" will be welcome.
It's almost a relief not to have to answer him as another demon-leg punches through the weakened roof and flails wildly about, obviously trying to get at us.
It catches and trips the emergency alarm in the carriage. The lights go out: the train slams to a halt so fast that I am thrown hard against the sides of the carriage. Kain snarls in the sudden darkness, and his eyes reflect like a cat's as the emergency lighting struggles to kick in. My head hits the doors hard, too hard – will my skull fracture?
I feel very sick…somebody help me, please, I think I'm dying…
Dying.
There are an awful lot of candles.
Funny, I always thought I'd be forgotten at my funeral. But someone must have remembered, because the room is bright, almost cheerful, with a yellow, dancing candle-light.
No flowers, though.
In fact, if I'm dead, how come I'm still in so much pain?
The ceiling of the crypt looks well-decorated and old. I never made a will, but if I had done I would've asked to be buried. Even in death, cremation scares me.
So many candles…the flickering shadows are almost hypnotic. I could just lie here…sleep…it will all be all right…
That feeling jolts me out of it. I know that feeling too well. Concussion. I have concussion. Mustn't sleep. Must…move…
It's one of the first things they tell you in A&E, when you go in with a concussion. It was the only time Gary actually took me to the hospital himself. I wouldn't stop sleeping. Kept dozing off and was hard to rouse. He thought he'd brain damaged me.
So…not dead, then.
Like it was to Kain, this comes as somewhat of a surprise to me.
I move a leaden hand, and my heavy, shock-clumsy fingers grip a handful of something soft, silken.
Feathers.
I manage to loll my swollen head to one side, and try to say "No…", but all that comes out is a whistling gurgle of disbelief.
No. Not here. Not now…
Janos lies next to me on the slab, his face locked in an expression of pained resignation. His deep eyes are closed: his lips slightly parted to show a glimpse of fang. His chest is the same as Kain's was – a ravaged horror, heart taken by force.
There is no smell of blood, or decay. Only the candles, a waxy heat smell, and, as I struggle to move away from the beautiful corpse, the musty scent of feathers and aged fabric.
Janos has been lying here – how long? Caught in limbo for eternity. And here I lie with him, close enough that I can see the ragged edges where he broke his claws duelling with the Sarafan, close enough that I could be his twin. I must be improving – for although I am not happy to be here in Nosgoth (further proof that my sanity will never now be recovered) I find that Janos does not scare me so much, lying here, as he is, comatose.
It must be meeting Kain again that did it. Better the devil you know? I don't think so. As far as vampires are concerned, Kain has never behaved like anything but the devil to me, and Janos? Almost an angel.
Kain. Good point.
If Kain did not bring me – if I somehow got here alone this time – how do I get back? And where is he, anyhow? Is he right this minute massacring a whole squadron of riot police back at the Angel Islington?
I think I'd rather be here.
Wait.
Someone's coming, coming click-click-click in from the mausoleum's outer chambers. I struggle to move my sluggish body, not wanting to be caught here with Janos at my side – especially if it is Vorador who comes…
Click-click-click…pause. Click-shuffle-click-shuffle-drag.
Even the footsteps sound weary, and disillusioned.
Raziel walks through the doorway, holding something in one hand that moves, pulses unnaturally of its own accord. That something he holds as if it means the very world to him – as if it has cost him everything he holds true and dear to get it. It must be, of course, the Heart of Darkness, the relic that can bring Janos back from the dead. I'd been on my way to find it in Avernus when I ran out of time to play.
He no longer looks as if vengeance consumes him. Those pale incandescent eyes are open, yet downcast. His ruined wings hang at his back as if they've served their purpose and will soon shrivel and drop like leaves in autumn.
Raziel, have you given up at last…?
I watch him approach, and as he does it finally all comes together and I moan, half in pain, half in realisation.
Janos's heart. Kain's heart.
Only one heart, really. Can't live two lives.
Raziel must have taken the heart from Kain's living (living? Are undead ever classed as living?) body and…
…and then what?
Maybe it's the concussion talking, but I am caught in a quandary now. If Raziel has defeated Kain in battle, then I may be in some serious, serious trouble. Raziel always used to be the good guy, the wronged, the bearer of righteous indignation. He was the one I could identify with: his life was full of apparently purposeless wrong, done to him by forces far beyond his control.
But now it seems from all my gameplay and all my speculation, that he has a genuine choice.
Fight, or flight?
Raziel does not look like he is going to run away from the truth any longer. For good or bad, he's going to find out why he's lived three lives – why he's suffered as he has.
Redeemer, destroyer, pawn, messiah….
I envy him the fact that he's at least going to know. It's more than most of us can ever hope for.
But if he has changed so much…
My head droops, wanting to give in and sleep, and it's just as I'm fading back into unconsciousness that I hear him say, in completely genuine surprise: "Rhianna…?"