38

HUMANITY IN A GRAIN OF SAND

The mountain purred, humming underfoot and rattling the makeshift table where the rescue team huddled all wrapped up in ski jackets and army-issue sun glasses. Their firearms were beside them in the snow, sticking out like burned matchsticks. Declan stood, stretching his considerable frame before looking toward Henry with his trademark, 'I don't like the sound of that' expression used far too often in the presence of Magnus.

Eyes locked on Declan, Henry picked up his radio nervously. "Ash – Ash come in."

"Still here but Henry – we lost a vamp. Amasis is missing his better half. No sign of mum yet."

"I'm comin' down there!" he moved towards the spare rope coiled on the ice. His feet struggled for purchase on the icy surface and inevitably he slipped and hit the ground with a definite thump. "Nah – I'm okay."

"No you're bloody not!" Ashly hissed as loud as she dared. "There's somethin' else in this cave. Henry," she paused, the crackle of the radio scratching at the air, "I think it might be dad."

Fucking Druitt the psycho, Henry thought to himself, clutching the radio in his fist. Declan wandered closer as another gust kicked up a fine haze of ice. It hit Henry square in the face..

"Foss, I have some news from the Sanctuary that you're not going to like but it."

"Half a vampire?" Henry offered warily.

Declan's face fell. "How'd you...?"

The mountain rumbled again, thick sheets of ice cleaving away from the rock. They fell silently, sinking through a persistent layer of mist that hid the valley. Henry was tempted to transform and let his layers of downy fur keep him warm. He couldn't say he was sorry that a vampire was dead – it was simply against his nature but he worried about Ash. Nobody knew what Druitt was capable of, not even Helen. The odds were split between him throwing in the towel amidst a storm of blood and having a tea party with the corpses of his kin.

"Oh yeah – that worked. Ship fixed." Nikola didn't sound too happy about it either. The great beast was shaking from within. Its huge engines had started to churn for the first time in thousands of years, vibrating against the rock with a surge of magnetism that make Nikola's skin tingle. They sounded like they needed a good dousing of grease but there was no chance in hell that he was going to delve any deeper into the innards of the ship.

Tesla glanced back at the shaft. The cold silver didn't look particularly inviting but there weren't a lot of ways out of this place.

"Nikola! What took you so long?" Helen grabbed the thin man under his arms and hauled him out of the shaft. "You've looked better..." she added, running her hands through his dust and grease laden hair.

Nikola batted her hand away and gestured at the creature. "What's it doing?" he whispered.

"I have no idea. As soon as the ship came alive its been in its chair, playing with the displays like a drug addled teenager with the new Grand Theft Auto."

The creature had dozens of layered screens hovering in the air in front of it – all of them alight, changing rapidly as it tapped its claws at the virtual images.

"Presumably it's doing a system check in preparation for take off," Nikola took Helen by the arm. "Which means that we really need to leave unless you're planing on an inter-stellar space flight. I don't know about you but I doubt we'll find the in-flight service particularly thrilling." They were probably the pack lunch.

"This time, I agree with you. That damn thing gives me the creeps even if I am distantly related to it." Helen whispered. She eyed the door. "Shall we?"

"Ay..." he grinned, carefully stepping around the screens in the middle of the room until they reached the passageway. The creature made no attempt to stop them, transfixed by the waking spaceship. There was a moment's hesitation when Nikola felt his heart skip, his rubber boot screeching against the sloped surface of the corridor but the creature didn't flinch. "No farewell then – can't say I'm not a little hurt and-"

"Nikola, get up that bloody hallway!" Helen chided, nudging him sharply. The ground shifted underneath them, throwing them against the wall. "Quickly."

Apries perched high on a surge of rock. His leather belt was studded with small throwing knives tearing at their holdings as he shifted. The three-foot sheaths strapped to his hips were empty – their engraved swords already heavy in Apries' hands, aloft against the darkness. His dark eyes grew wider, pupils eating away his blue iris until there was nothing but a scarlet rim. He was hunting something.

Purple light curled around his waist.

Apries rolled, throwing himself from the rock to safety. John appeared, his boots crunching straight through the ice. He laughed sardonically, gazing over the edge where the vampire lunged for his swords which were scattered in the rubble. The creature was on its back, fear stinking the air.

"You're faster than your brother," John complimented it, twisting the edge of his curved blade into his fingertip. Blood welled up at the point. John was momentarily transfixed by it, smearing it along the metal before catching is reflection. Another vampire had given him the scar that ran from lips to his ear. "Mind you, he was always more of a scribe than a prince. Still..." he tilted his head again, quite content to let the vampire re-arm himself, "it's been a very long time since you've seen a fight. I wonder if your skill survived your imprisonment?"

"Why are you doing this?" Apries hissed. "I have never sought you out. Though, if I had known your mind was entangled with darkness I might have. Your humanity corrupts you." He turned sharply, certain he'd felt something behind him but there nothing but a cold abyss. "I've met creatures like you – experiments between races. You are a fragment of us. A shadow."

A voice purred behind Apries. The Immortal was hidden in the darkness, pressed up against the cave wall.

Apries bowed at John, then sank into the black, letting the Immortal lead him around the edge of the cavern behind the boulders and ice where they'd be safe for a moment. There was another purple flicker in the room as Druitt tried to find them but it was unstable, the light crackling.

"He is Death," the Immortal hissed, as though his voice were part of the ice.

"Where have you been?" Apries crouched down behind a boulder.

"Oxford," the Immortal replied. "I returned to the university, in particular, their library. I recognise him, not from Oxford but before that. Long before. While you were sleeping in your tomb, Druitt was slipping through time, wiping out my race to force us to hunt yours."

Apries thought of all the death that his species had endured. Every night he was back in the desert, standing on the crest of a dying dune watching the sands turn red. Was this man there? Did he walk the streets of the ancient world, killing?

Apries raised his weapon, peering around the boulder where he'd heard a noise. It was a woman, kneeling behind a pillar of ice. He nodded to the Immortal and then threw a small stone at her. Ashley startled, spinning with her weapon raised. Apries drew his finger to his lips – then pointed at the flames by the door. Druitt was strutting between them, waiting for his prey to emerge.

"John?! What an unpleasant surprise..." Nikola frowned as he and Helen emerged from the tunnel. "What are you still doing here? The place is collapsing!"

Helen took a step away from Nikola, scanning her torch around the cavern. Bits of the roof were constantly shaken free, falling onto the icy floor. It looked as though it were snowing inside but it was just blown in from the holes in the wall. Helen eyed John. There was blood barely dried on his leather coat and a few, fine splatters over the side of his face.

"We have to leave," Helen added carefully. He was killing again – if not whores than something else. "There's a ship about to lift out of this mountain. It'll destroy everything."

"Ship? Well – I knew you and Tesla were up to something but Helen..."

"It's a long story which I'm happy to share wit you over tea," she kept her voice calm and soft. There was something wrong with John. He was twitching, sweating and those eyes – they were not entirely his. "Come on."

The blade cut through the air, resting a hair shy of Tesla's thrhoat. He startled but did not move, glaring. "Did I offend you?"

"Your existence offends me..." John replied, tilting his head like a mad raven.

"John, put it down. I don't have time for your ancient grudges. We can pick it up back at the Sanctuary." Helen moved but Tesla did not.

"Ow... careful with the blade, Johnny," Tesla swallowed when he felt it cut through the first layer of skin. A line of blood trickled down, joining the dirt and grease already staining his skin. "Seriously, knock it off."

John twisted the blade slightly. "This is familiar," he purred. "When was it – 1889?"

"Something like that." Tesla remembered every detail of the day he'd been left on the floor of the poor girl's house with her in pieces beside him, a stunning ruin to humanity. The monster that leered over him that day was identical to Old Johnny Boy, leering at him from the other side of the blade.

"John, please-"

The ground shook violently, knocking Helen off her feet and into one of the marble pillars. Her torch smashed on the ground and was then obliterated by a falling rock. "Urgh," she leaned forward, holding her head, blood running through her hands.

"Helen!" Nikola leaned toward her but John's blade was sharp. Tesla growled, claws unfurling and those blue eyes of his turning black. "I'm not going to ask again, John."

Crack.

Both men veered sharply as a bullet exploded from John's shoulder, splattering bits of him over Tesla's shirt. John touched his wound curiously. It didn't hurt. The drug Amasis injected him with had made him a god.

Nikola spied Helen's daughter standing in the half-light on the other side of the cavern. Her gun was cocked and ready for another shot, aimed at her father. Nikola went for John's knife, lunging at him with claws and -

They both vanished in a swirl of purple. Nikola screamed but in the nothingness between time and space there was nowhere for the sound to go. The purple glow that drowned out everything. John had the vampire by the chest, dragging him along. As quickly as it began, it ended. Nikola was released and fell onto a stone floor with a puff of dust.

"Stay!" John commanded – then vanished, leaving Tesla stranded.

"Mother fucker..." Tesla muttered, alone in the dark – god knows where.

"Oh Zimmerman..." Kavanaugh sang his radio, shaking the plastic thing when it crackled. "I've got something you're going to want to see."

"What now? Another rock out of place – scorch mark in the stone?" came Will's reply. The only thing worse than being hyper-observant was dealing with a detective who thought they were hyper-observant. So far, every interruption from the detective prowling around the old quarry under the Sanctuary was something Will had already noticed. Irritably, he flicked through the report. He was on the floor in Magnus's office trying to get his head around a slew of ancient texts relating to the Kashmir mountains.

"Give me the fucking radio!" Tesla growled, invading Kavanaugh's personal space with raised claws.

The detective calmly nudged him back with a hand on his chest and instantly regretted the sticky blood smeared over the vampire. "Nah. This is more of a walking cliché that could use a shower."

Will's head fell with a sigh. That could only mean one thing. "You better bring him here..."

"The hell happened there?" Nikola pointed a claw at the bloody mess on the rock not far from where they were standing.

"Gift from your old college buddy," Joe replied. "You should be thankful he only dropped you off. Amasis wasn't so lucky. Poor bastard, we think he was still alive."

"What happened to my promised shower?" Tesla wasn't allowed to sit on any of the furniture in Helen's office. He was left towering over Zimmerman, claws on hips and not a glass of wine in sight.

"You can shower after you've been debriefed," Will replied calmly. The bite on his leg itched constantly and he'd heard nothing but fragments from the rescue team in the mountains. "All I know so far is that there's a fight going on over some ancient tomb in a mountain that's about to break apart."

Joe handed Tesla a glass of scotch. Tesla held it up to the light, inspecting it for a few minutes as though he had all the time in the world.

"Telsa!"

"The mountain is not breaking apart," he drawled, sipping his drink.

"What's it doing then? Localised quakes – avalanches every few minutes. Let me guess, some huge-ass vampire tomb. Buried pyramid? City made of actual gold... You gotta give me something." Tesla refused to answer any direct questions regardless of how ludicrous. "Why are you being deliberately evasive?" Will sighed, throwing down a parchment scroll. "You and Magnus – even Watson when he's in town. Every time we come back to vampires it's the same locked files and closed doors. Seriously, it's not that big a secret. You all got trashed in college and decided to shoot vamp blood. How am I supposed to help if I don't know what the hell is going on?"

"Calm down junior," Tesla roamed over to the fire to begin defrosting. "All you need to do is get ready to mobilise that rescue team because Helen's going to need it. Johnny boy's gone mad trying to kill everyone. My guess is it's something to do with that drug Amasis was experimenting with. I could have told him that John's a useless lab rat. He should have used you instead."

Will blinked slowly at the vampire. "Go have your shower," he hissed. The vamp wasn't going to be any help until he was ready.

"So... what do you think?" Joe asked, closing the door after Tesla left.

"That I wish there were no more bloody vampires in this world. Why isn't he helping? I know he's an arrogant prick but his consistently redeeming quality is his dedication to Magnus."

"Revealing the truth of what's going on down there is unlikely to help Magnus. He told you what to do to help her, in his eyes, that's being useful."

"You're keen to defend him. He's not especially nice to you."

Joe shrugged. "I profile the criminally insane – Tesla fascinates me. He walks a fine line. I think he wants to rule the world to save it and that cannot be said of many psychopaths."

"Yeah well I wish he'd leave the ruling of the world to the democratically elected governments of the world but that's just me."

Tesla didn't shower. He rolled up his sleeves and forced the lock on Henry's lab – half falling into the room.

"You!"

He was surprised by the roar that came from behind Henry's desk. A mound of fur glared at him, lifting a paw and jabbing it angrily in his direction.

"Morning," Tesla replied innocently, strutting into the room.

Bigfoot was far from pleased to see the meddlesome vampire. "LOCKED ME IN THE WINE CELLAR!" he bellowed. To be fair, that was true.

"Only briefly," he shrugged, pulling up a chair. "Most civilised beings would thank me. Ah, you've saved me the trouble of hacking the puppy's systems. I need to send a message to the rescue team in the mountains."

Bigfoot's enormous eyes narrowed. "What sort of a message?"

"Say again?!" Declan gaped at his radio. "Bloody hell. Oy!" he turned to his crew. "Tesla says we gotta move this bird!"

"Tesla?" Henry was still guarding Ashley's ropes. "Isn't he in the mountain?"

"Don't ask, Foss – just do."

"What about Ash?"

"If Tesla's right, she's not going to be needing those ropes. Come on!"

The ship beneath the mountain was burrowing its way free. The engines roared – its incredible thrust cracking the basalt and quartz. Huge sections at the base of the mountain were sliding away leaving angry, black scars in the ice caps. The other mountains rang in sympathy, shedding their sheets of ice in avalanches that washed through the valleys.

"Get us out of here!" Ashley shrieked at Apries and the Immortal. They were standing there being completely useless. "Mum..."

"I'm all right," Helen replied, wiping the blood from her face. The gash in her forehead had already healed although the constant shaking of the ground did nothing to curb her nausea. "We have to leave. This whole mountain is going to collapse any minute now." The ground was cracking up underneath them, fissures spewing gas and dust.

"We cannot," the Immortal shouted over the roar of rock and ice. "There is a magnetic storm beneath our feet. If we try we could end up anywhere – or in pieces. If Druitt and Tesla made it they will not be coming back."

"The old fashioned way, then," Helen held onto one of the marble pillars. "Just like old times?"

Ashley rolled her eyes as they set out into the crumbling tunnel.

"The place is really going to hell!" Declan yelled from the chopper. It had taken flight, hovering near he top of the mountain where the small opening in the ice was growing.

"How long can we stay here?" Henry peered through the open door.

"Not long, Foss. Don't think that's going to be a problem. This place isn't exactly taking its time."

John landed in the snow – on the wrong peak. He frowned. Ahead a helicopter hovered in front of a dissolving mountain, whisked about in the wind. He could already see a metal sheen poking out from beneath the ice. The ship was taking form, shaking off it's rock prison.

A moment later, the helicopter was filled with a glaring burst of purple light.