URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS
Chapter 10
Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos.
I know. It's a little short.
By the way, if you've never visited London, you'll have to trust me on what the various landmarks look like…
Something about that gesture makes me really reluctant to ask about what happened to the mini-SWAT team I saw huddled outside of the station the last time I was here. Kain peers round the corner, and his gaze takes in every tiny detail, from the litter in the gutter to the gradual paling of the sky in the east.
He does not look pleased.
He crouches down in front of me, making no move to help me sit up.
"Your people are weak and unskilled," is his professional opinion. "Where have you been? You smell of…"
That heavy-jawed, horned face leans in closer and sniffs.
"…Janos Audron," he snarls. "But not just that, something else, something…"
His eyes widen.
His bellow of absolute fury echoes through the alley. So much for keeping quiet.
"It has touched you! It has held you to its vile body and its scent marks your very skin, curse it!"
I do my best to become one with the pavement as the ripples of his rage roll over me like summer heat. With my ear pressed against the tarmac, I can hear and feel the vibrations of footsteps – heavy, booted footsteps – approaching fast. Sounds like not all the SWAT team left after all…
Kain has heard them too. As he stands again, turns, I notice several neat holes puncturing the fabric of his cape, and a few dark, scorched circles dapple his spine.
I guess I should have been more emphatic about them not shooting him, huh?
Kain sneers, a feline curl of lip, then grabs my arm and yanks me upright unceremoniously.
Why is he so angry that the demon-Janos touched me? I am less than the dust beneath his feet…but I suppose that in some odd way he sees me as belonging to him.
Oh, well. Like I said before. I may be the property of some bastard, but at least he's a big, strong bastard and the only harm I'm likely to suffer now is the harm he chooses to inflict on me himself. It takes the uncertainty out of it, which is always a good thing.
I'm starting to think like I did when I was with Gary. Oh, joy.
We're on the move again. My head is starting to ache. The morphine must be wearing off, and Raziel's destruction has certainly destroyed any trace of the happy painkiller-induced haze. Kain is stamping away down the street as if he knows exactly where he's going and doesn't need any interference from a sad, soft blood bag like me.
Maybe he managed to find a map while I was busy being sedated and kidnapped by demons.
My stumbling feet manage to carry me along in his wake. It must be almost four, and the city is coming to life. Newsagents are opening. There is traffic on the roads again, and HGVs are thundering past in a wave of smoke and noise.
We pass by people, too. Drunk people, still not home from a night out. Shift workers, either heading in or heading home. And of course, in London, those people who don't treat the streets as a transient home. Eyes from under blankets in shop doorways watch Kain with close attention as he stalks past, head high.
No-one says a word: no-one stops us.
It is moments like these that convince me of my true insanity. A vampire lord with bullet-holes in his spine and a raw red gash on his chest has walked through the early streets of London and has not caused so much as a shouted insult to be levelled at him.
Is it just that they don't see him, or that they don't want to see him?
But if that is so, what about Gary? What about the girls who tried to flirt with Kain in that club, shortly before he nearly killed me? What about the guys with the riot gear on who were crouched, so very afraid, by Kings Cross?
Oh, people see them all right. But is what they're seeing the same as what I see…?
My brain isn't strong enough to think about these weighty existential issues right now. It wants to sleep. And so, just as I once managed to make it all the way from my university rooms to the lecture halls without waking up at all in the mornings, I make it across London. Half-dozing on my feet, woken sporadically by stabs of pain from my knees and the jolt as my feet drop over kerbs and stumble on litter. My mind is caught in dreams and half-truths: I kick a broken bottle that in my dream is a long-ago football.
Kain is leading without faltering or stopping, as if following some internal trail of his own…and in my half-dream, I am very small again, holding onto my father's hand as he leads me through the amazing and yet terrifying aquarium that used to be housed in a building at the edge of the Thames.
That aquarium inspired my dreams and housed my nightmares. I remember that during one family visit, I slipped my father's grasp and ran off into the rooms near the back, that were dark and warm and labelled "Deep Sea".
He found me pressed up against the biggest, darkest tank of all, horrified but unable to look away as the giant octopus within crawled over the smooth glass, showing off all its awful underbelly, grasping beak-mouth, writhing suckers and tentacles…
I come out of my reverie at the sound of water, and the smell of mud.
Oh, my god.
How far have we come?
The Thames stretches out before me, a dingy ribbon of water the colour of…well…I'll say mud, to be generous. Early dawn mists are gathering over the city, and hang just above the river in curling clouds. Behind us, Big Ben tolls out four strokes, and such is my astonishment that I whip round, wildly, to check that Westminster is really there.
It is.
We are standing underneath the London Eye, that fabulous and expensive tourist gimmick, at which Kain is currently staring up at in utter disbelief. That long-ago aquarium used to be around here somewhere, and that big white stone lion that sits on the end of the Westminster bridge…it's been years since I walked along South Bank and past the Royal Festival Hall…
"What –"
Kain finally finds his voice.
"This!" he demands, taking in the vast arch of the London Eye's wheel, the hanging passenger capsules and the pale blue neon glow that surrounds it with one sweep of his arm. "What…IS this?"
He sounds genuinely surprised by it. I resist the urge to say, the world's biggest Ferris Wheel?
They probably don't have ferris wheels where he comes from.
"It's…it's a…"
Go on. Tell me what YOU would have said that would have made any sense. However, I am saved. He beats me to it.
"It is…a Wheel…"
The memory of that voice ripples through me and I go cold.
Join the Wheel, little soul…there's no escape…
Oh, no.
How on earth am I going to disillusion him about this one? Kain loves metaphors. Real-life metaphors are probably far easier to come by in Nosgoth.
Kain shakes his head as if trying to discourage flies, and seems about to interrogate me further on the subject of Wheels – but at that moment there is a heavy, wet, roiling noise, like someone stirring a big pot of treacle with a stick.
The Thames sloshes as if some vast whale has slapped its flukes down unannounced and the smell of mud rises from beyond the parapet. Kain glares suspiciously and stalks towards the edge –
"Kain!"
The vampire freezes, back upright and taut with sudden tension. The voice that hailed him by name quavers, frightened and unsure.
"You're…dead!"
"And you," says Kain in a tone purring with immense satisfaction, "are a bit premature."
The arch of the Eye framing him like an unholy halo, Moebius's pale, milky eyes flick from Kain to me as if searching for an explanation, but I am not looking at him anymore.
I am looking, with all the fascination of that eight-year-old girl in the aquarium, at what is currently bathing in the muddy depths of the Thames.