20
DEAD WALKING
The three figures were positively tiny against the arching throat of the granite tunnel. From above, the floor of the cavernous expanse had appeared smooth but now they were properly acquainted with the a deluge of rubble collected in its throat over the millennia.
Boulders, sand and carpets of deep, thousand year old moss made the passage difficult to scale. The challenging terrain was interrupted by sheets of melted iron which sliced into the bedrock like growths of coral. If the vampire's brother and his legion of sand creatures were down here, they would have a hell of a time picking them out from the forest of rock.
Tesla eyed the chunks of iron warily. He knew what they were – fragments of a large meteor either naturally laid to rest or more likely dragged into the depths of a mountain for a reason. Forget treasure, the unassuming lumps of metal were worth a fortune on their own. Helen saw that look on his face and rolled her eyes. Ever the vampire.
Nobody spoke. Their torches were off, guided instead by their hands and feet scrambling for purchase on the rock. Helen struggled with her injured hand while her heart thrashed against her chest inducing a nerve-crunching headache. Three vampires – it was too much for a solitary Immortal to bear.
"Breathe..." Nikola murmured cautiously, climbing beside her.
She nodded but her mind was a writhing mess. At least one vampire had to die and soon. In the past hour she'd twice found her hand on the Browning in her belt. Its cold shaft could easily pick off one of the vampires next to her.
Nikola kept searching the walls and tunnel ahead for movement. A hundred or more sand creatures were somewhere nearby. He could smell their filthy, diseased bodies. The other vampire had his nose tilted to the air as well. They were close.
Tesla stared at the next rise of flat-topped boulders. The dim glow of the moss was unbroken over the polished surface. He shook his frozen hands, trying to get them to work properly. Where the hell were they?
To Nikola's left, the full-blood stopped. He was half a metre above, clutching at a particularly gnarled slab of meteorite, peering ahead. Something had caused him to hesitate. Nikola climbed up, perching on a smaller outcrop of rock.
"Well shit!" Nikola barely whispered, instinctively curling his claws into the rock for a firmer grip.
The ground flattened out ahead into a bed of river stones. Several hundred metres along this expanse was a figure silhouetted in the faint light. It was the vampire. There was no mistaking its towering form held so rigid it could have been part of the rock. Its arms were out at its sides, claws extended like sets of carving knives. The vampire's head fall back, tilting up at ceiling in prayer. A faint glimmer reflected off his two sets of fangs.
This vampire was not slender like the rescued vampire beside Nikola. He was a warrior. His broad shoulders were made for swinging swords and riding chariots. He'd found his old armour too – Nikola could see smooth, scale-like segments woven together over his shoulders with heavy links of metal.
A small stream of dust and pebbles rained down on Helen as she joined the two vampires. No – three, she realised, seeing the figure looming ahead. Her eyes dilated into large, black pits. This was her prey – her purpose. Instinct demanded she kill the strongest of the vampires to restore the balance and by a long way, this creature was it.
"What's it doing?" Nikola asked.
"Waiting," the vampire replied, calmly.
The brother in the distance lifted its head and slowly turned. Nikola could hear the rustle of its cloak and the thud of the leather boots against stone. It faced them, a pair of blood-red eyes glowing in the dark.
The Magoi screeched. Above, the mermaid thrashed in her tank, beating her firsts against the glass as the sound tore through her delicate telepathic link. She couldn't take it. Desperately, she clawed at her body ripping bloody lines down her arms and face.
Alarms blared. Heavy, automatic fire doors started to descend over the enclosures. One by one they vanished behind impenetrable grey walls. Will rolled out from underneath one moments before it crunched into the concrete.
"What the hell is going on?" he coughed the dust out of his lungs.
Henry was by the mermaid's tank, hurriedly feeding a sedative into the water. It took on a purple tinge, the mermaid jolting a few more times before her eyes closed and she drifted into sleep, sinking to the bottom of the tank. "Buggered if I know. The whole place is shutting down. Where's Biggie?"
"Feeding the birds, last I saw."
The pterodactyls whooped about the enclosure, gnashing their teeth at the emergency lights flashing along the ceiling. Cloned during one of Helen's more en-vogue phases, they flapped wildly over the sasquatch. He batted them away with a furry paw, making his way to the door. He closed the iron gates just as one of the creatures landed, curling its talons around the bars inches from his face.
"Told you 'id be troubl', didn' I?" Bigfoot grumbled, when the other two caught up to him.
"You don't think it's the Magoi – surely?" Will asked.
"Aw man that is not going to go down well with Ash," Henry added, shaking his head. "She wanted to shoot that thing moment we found it."
They all made their way through the sanctuary, clearing one security gate at a time.
"Where is she, anyway?"
"Probably down there with the damn Magoi," Henry replied to Will. "It'll take more than some fancy mind tricks to stop her putting a bullet through its camouflaged ass this time."
But Ashley wasn't down with the Magoi. She wasn't anywhere to be found and Druitt was not help. He'd been broadening his knowledge of the library all afternoon. Or so he claimed.
"Shut it up for Christ's sakes!" Will had his arms over his ears, staring at the glass enclosure with the shrieking creature.
"Screaming at the tech is not helping!" Henry spat back, both simultaneously trying to shield his ears and poke buttons on the computer board. The sirens abated first and then finally a thick smoke filled the Magoi's glass cage. Eventually the screaming stopped followed by a thud as it hit the floor, mercifully unconscious. Henry wiped his brow. "Blood-y-hell!"
They assembled in front of the cage, waiting for the smoke to clear.
"I wonder what that was all about..." Will said.
Bigfoot huffed. "Nothin' good."
There was no point hiding in the shadows. All three of them picked their way over the river stones, inching closer to the waiting vampire general. He was shrouded in darkness, an outline accentuated by glistening claws and two red points where his eyes should be. Nikola's eyes had never been red so either it was a 'full-blood' thing or a sign of a well fed vampire. Either way, it wasn't good.
Their vampire took the lead, striding up towards his brother. The two had not met since before the great killings. It was almost yesterday for one – aeons for the other.
As they grew closer, Nikola was awed by how young the larger brother, General Apries looked. No more than thirty, even with silver scars running across his bare arms, crossing bulging veins swollen by fresh blood.
'Brother... you look – well,' Apries sneered at his elder looking sibling. He spoke the ancient tongue of which Nikola only understood a little. 'I knew you collected things but this -' his red eyes wandered over the woman, '-is a jewel in that crown of thorns you call a home.'
It was a frosty reception but so far free of blood.
"What's he saying?" Helen leaned close to Nikola, not liking the way the vampire gazed at her.
He shook his head. "Nothing good – something about a crown and collecting things. I presume he means us."
"Not quite what we'd agreed."
"Indeed," he purred, flexing his fingers as if preparing to shift.
There was a drawn out silence until Apries continued. 'When I heard you in my head, I admit I was surprised.'
'These people have a creature,' the vampire explained. 'Its powers amplify our telepathy, to what end, I am unsure.'
Helen whacked Nikola in the side but he shook his head. "I don't know what's going on!"
The brother's considered each other, Apries speaking again. 'Immortals are still in the world, I guess that was to be expected. Do you know how many?'
'This is the only one I've seen.'
'She must know the key to Hollow Earth. An Immortal can always move between the worlds.' His sharp claws dripped with the moisture in the cave. More flurries of dust rained down as though the whole tunnel were unsteady.
Nikola stiffened, glancing at Helen. "I think they're talking about you."
"We should really run," she took a step backward but the ancient vampire snapped out of reality in a crack of thunder. A purple glow lit the cave, flaring again as Apries appeared, arm outstretched, claws inches from Helen's throat. She startled, stumbling over the river stones.
The vampire could smell her glorious blood – feel it pounding around her body, thumping faster and faster. Such torment. Such bliss. His claws uncurled toward her throat wantonly before he withdrew his hand. She was poison. A rose amongst a bed of thorns.
She was also young, too young to kill him.
The corner of the vampire's lip curled up when he heard the half-ling growl protectively.
"Curious," Apries spoke, this time in heavily accented English. He had not the centuries of practice of his brother. "Is it like this for you too? How can you stand it..."
Nikola did not answer him.
Amasis, still standing beside Tesla, raised his hand. "Careful brother."
Apries hesitated, red eyes locked on him. It happened so fast. He reached forward, wrapping his hand around Helen's throat and yanking her away from Tesla. Apries held her close, claws biting into her skin. Helen raised her gun but it was knocked easily from her gloved hands.
"Let her go!" Nikola fumbled for his gun, levelling it at the General. He looked over his shoulder to the other vampire but hit was impossible to tell which side he was playing. "I said put her down!" Nikola repeated, inching closer.
The vampire drew away from him. "By all means, continue if you want her throat ripped out."
Nikola stopped.
Another column of dust fell between them. Helen's frightened gaze flicked between Nikola and the vampire they'd brought along. Would he honour their bargain?
"Amasis, you bastard, come on!" Nikola hissed at the vampire beside him.
"Swear on her life, Mongrel..." Amasis replied, dark eyes darting to Nikola.
"I swear, I fucking swear!"
The general's confidence faltered. Was he betrayed twice by his brother? The answer was 'yes' he realised, as Amasis lunged toward him. Apries tossed the immortal to the side, ducking out of his brother's clawed swipe. He rolled and cut a blow upwards, landing it in the vampire's chest. Then another, harder this time. "If you want me this time, you'll have to do the work yourself!" growled Apries.
Nikola dragged Helen as far as he could, helping her sit. "Come on Helen, shake it off," he begged. He could hear the vampires trading blows behind them and it was already clear that Apries had the upper hand. Which didn't bode particularly well for them.
Helen shoved Nikola and grabbed the Browning, slipping the safety off. "We have to keep them busy," she hissed, using a nearby boulder to help her stand. "There's still an army down here."
"That's what's troubling me," Nikola replied, peering at the dark tunnel. It was too immense to pick anything but the largest features out. He clicked on his torch, shining it up toward the roof but it couldn't penetrate fifty feet. "Shit!"
Ahead, General Apries thrust his clawed hand into his brother's side, clothes tearing and growls erupting from Amasis who pushed him off angrily and followed with a crack of lightning arcing off his cloak. The General dodged it, hissing and brandishing his fangs.
'Two thousand years and you still want me dead? Wasn't my suffering enough!' Amasis stumbled back to avoid his brother's knife-like claws. Apries kept coming, hatred burning through his red eyes. 'You turned on your own kind – sided with the Cabal...'
Amasis shook his head, holding his bloodied arm as it healed. The vestiges of youth were draining from his face as he tried to heal. 'They were never meant to win,' he insisted.
'You were playing the humans and you lost.' Apries stopped for a moment, his claws held up in a moment of peace. 'It is not too late to turn the tide against them. Join me. I'm going to rebuild our father's empire.'
Amasis turned to look at the half-ling and Immortal scrambling back toward them, their tiny, fragile figures paling in comparison to the mighty, vampire built tunnel around them. Vampires were empire builders, preservers of the world's knowledge. Imagine what they could do if they had another chance. 'I want to – but...' He looked nervously at the darkness.
'What – Amasis?' the general demanded.
'Kill the half-breed – I'll find you again, I swear.' Amasis had just enough strength left in him to leave the world in an almighty crack of purple lightning. The sound boomed around the cavern, shifting a rain of dust from above. He was gone, leaving Apries hissing in shock.
"Bloody hell..." Helen gasped, finding herself and Nikola the focus of the General's attention.
The General didn't come for her. In a shadow of claw and fang, it wrapped its hand around Tesla and threw him through the tunnel. He bounced like a rag doll over the stones, his gun flying off into the darkness.
"Nikola!" Helen shrieked, firing off three rounds into the vampire. They clinked harmlessly off his armour.
Nikola rolled onto his back, gasping as his lungs fought for air. He titled his head away from a column of dust. He could have sworn he saw something move against the darkness above. There wasn't time to find out what as the general threw a large rock at him. The iron hit Nikola in the chest, breaking one of his rips.
He rolled over, spitting blood onto the stones. Nikola rolled out of the way in time to avoid another rock, smashing into the ground where he had been. He heard a shot from Helen's gun and a whistle of air as it sailed passed the vampire and missed his shoulder by inches. "Careful!"
Nikola stumbled to his feet then ducked, claws slicing the air above his head. Instinct lunged him forward, his firsts laying two heavy hits into the general's stomach between the armour plates. A casual swat from the ancient vampire's arm sent Nikola flying off toward the wall. Instead of hitting the unforgiving rock, Tesla landed in a mass of bony limbs that writhed beneath him.
"Oh god..." he whispered, as he found himself amidst a mass of sand creatures who sank back into the tunnel like a wave receding from the shore. There were thousands of them, waiting patiently to be called by their master.
His stomach turned in terror but it was too late, Apries had hold of his ankle, dragging him back into the centre of the tunnel.
"Now tell me, half-ling," Apries growled against the side of Nikola's face, his fangs cutting deeply into Nikola's neck and shoulder. "Why've you got the Immortal, hmm?"
Nikola stumbled, unable to hold his own weight on his broken ankle. It burned painfully as the vampire held up steady. "She's a hell of a looker..." he managed, blood running down the edge of his lip.
The vampire shook Tesla roughly, another crack of bone coming from his leg. "Can she open the door?!" he demanded violently.
"The – what are you talking about?" Nikola replied, in genuine confusion.
Apries dropped him onto the sharp rock then yanked him back to his feet and started dragging him down the tunnel. Tesla struggled, leaving a smear of blood over the stones.
Helen followed, picking her way along in the darkness. She could hear the sand creatures now, clawing over the walls and ceiling, dislodging dust as they moved. They didn't seem interested in her, creeping after their master instead.