Dawn of Chaos: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Caitlin Chronicles Book 1)

by Daniel Willcocks

  Kain growled and opened his mouth to talk but was interrupted by Dylan.

  “If you’re looking for a monster, look to your right-hand man. My sister did what she needed to do to survive.”

  “Enough!” Trisk said, his voice authoritative and booming. A dark shadow passed across his face and Dylan fell silent, shaking with rage. “Your sister betrayed the very town that raised her. She disobeyed a command, and will be killed the instant she’s sighted. I don’t care if she’s with a vampire or a motherfucking Weredragon, she crossed the wrong governor.” He turned his attention to Kain, though his words were still aimed at Dylan. “And besides, if you’re looking for a monster, you’ve been sharing a bedroom with one for some time now.” He withdrew the taser from his pocket and advanced on Kain’s cage. “Isn’t that right?”

  Kain stood in the center of the cell and squared off against his enemy. He held his head high, knowing his ribs and hip bones stuck out, giving him the look of a sheet of elastic stretched over a matchstick skeleton. “You know nothing of monsters.”

  The governor smiled, clearly relishing the challenge presented him.

  “I’ve ensured the guards don’t interrupt me on this occasion. The last thing I’d want to do is get halfway through forcing your change, only to have to stop again. Was it painful? Is it painful when you turn?” Trisk looked greedy, almost hungry. He licked his lips, and his finger twitched over the button. “What creature do you turn into when you transform?”

  “I turn into your mum.”

  “Wait…what’s going on—”

  Dylan’s interjection was cut short when the governor laughed as he pressed the button. The prongs fired off the taser with a metal coil. Kain moved with such a speed that they hit nothing but air, plopping impotently onto the floor.

  His would-be tormentor’s laugh cut off and he took a step back. He looked down and stood transfixed as if he couldn’t believe his luck. At the side of the cage was a wolf close to four-foot in height. Its eyes glowed amber, and its teeth were bared.

  Trisk clapped his hands in delight. “How wonderful…” he muttered, staring in awe. Even Sid and Ace peeked around the corner to get a better look. “Marvelous. After all these years of searching, of second-guessing myself as to whether your kind truly existed…here you are.”

  “Truuueeee. Truuueeee. Aaaand heeeere I coooome,” Kain growled, advancing slowly on the governor.

  “Oh, come now. Even a Were can’t make it through these bars.” The man knocked on the metal with his fists. “They’re solid iron.”

  “Iiiiif oooonly soooomeoooone haaad the keeeey,” Kain replied, nudging against the door with his nose. The doors screeched on their rusty hinges. Trisk’s eyes grew wide with alarm as he realized that the gate hadn’t been locked at all since his arrival.

  Kain knew he was terrifying in his wolf form. His hair raised on end as he reared up on his haunches. He wanted to tear the governor to shreds, to rip at his throat and destroy him. Over the years Kain had accumulated more than his fair share of blood on his hands. But dehydration and hunger had taken its toll, and there was a slight doubt in his mind that he’d have the strength to bring down the massive man before him and escape.

  Trisk turned to the guards and began to run. Kain was faster, darting past the behemoth, weaving between the stunned guards in a matter of seconds, and disappearing up the stairs. The sun burned his eyes as he surfaced, but he could see the parapet guards all turn in alarm.

  One way down, I guess, he thought as he launched himself off the wall and landed with a thud in the marketplace below, disappearing quickly into the shadows.

  Chapter Ten

  Abandoned Airship, Silver Creek Forest

  She heard her stomach rumble a long time before she was even aware that she was hungry. Despite the late hour, the forest was warm, and the sky was speckled with stars.

  Caitlin took a seat beside the glowing embers of the fire and rubbed her hands. They felt raw, a sign of a hard few nights of training with Mary-Anne. Callouses had formed quickly, and a blister at the juncture of a finger and her palm looked fit to burst. It didn’t seem to bother her none. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she felt…powerful.

  They had taken refuge out in the woods. After a short conversation, they had agreed that there was no going back, at least for now. There was no guarantee that the governor, riled up from yet another failed attempt at capturing Mary-Anne, wouldn’t send all his forces in one swift wave to apprehend them both.

  As Caitlin was learning from a vampire who refused to drink human blood anymore, there was only so much they could do in a fight. The governor would be sure to send his men in droves the next time he attempted to ensnare Mary-Anne.

  Caitlin supposed she should be worried or at least concerned that she now had a mark against her. She would undoubtedly be a target for the man whose authority she had flouted.

  Yet she wasn’t.

  Something had changed, now. Even in simply taking time away from the Creek and seeing more of the outside world, she found her mindset shifting. Life beyond the walls wasn’t half as scary as she’d been taught to believe—well, maybe not with a vampire at her side—and she couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the things they had already found of the old world.

  Take now, for instance. Caitlin looked around and marveled at the corpse of the old airship. At some point during the Second Dark Ages, the thing must have fallen from the sky. Maybe from some great battle of pirates, Weres, and Vamps, in a time when the world was different. When people traveled, relocated, and moved without fear.

  The ship had smashed down on its belly, opening a hole in the wooden frame that yawned like the mouth of a cave. Over the years, the forest had done its best to claim the structure, now covered in moss and insects, but it was actually the Mad that Mary-Anne and Caitlin had to clear before they could use it as an adequate shelter. Their fire burned within this protective shield, warming them without drawing attention to themselves.

  That had been a training session unlike any other. Mary-Anne had joined in on that one. The two had made quite a pair.

  “Any word on food yet? If I get any hungrier, I’m going to take to chewing tree bark, and a mouth full of splinters is the last thing I need,” Caitlin called as if to no one. She knew Mary-Anne was off hunting and would hear every word but had no idea how far she had gone.

  As if on cue, Mary-Anne returned with a rabbit held by the ears in each hand. She was panting and out of breath.

  “Will this suffice, your highness?” Mary-Anne said, taking a sarcastic bow. “Or should I see what further delicacies I can find that fit her tastes?”

  “They look perfect,” Caitlin said, giving the embers a blow to stir up the fire. She picked up some sticks and began trying to fashion a spit, but every time she attempted to skewer the rabbits, the sticks broke. “What took you so long?”

  Mary-Anne took the hares off Caitlin, picked up a stick, and stabbed it effortlessly through from butt to brain.

  “Jesus, bet he’s never taken anything that far up his ass.”

  Mary-Anne chuckled. “Have you?”

  “Nope, but Hendrick has, thanks to you,” Caitlin replied.

  Mary-Anne wiped a tear of laughter from her eye and turned the carcass over, watching the blood spill onto the forest floor. After a long sniff, she seemed satisfied and revealed her fangs. She chomped into the rabbit and began sucking.

  “Why do you waste so much blood?” Caitlin asked, fascinated—and a little queasy.

  Mary-Anne wiped her mouth. “Force of habit, I guess. I want to be sure that there’s no Madness in the blood of the animals I eat.”

  “Animals can catch the Madness? I’ve never seen that before,” Caitlin said.

  “Neither have I, thank the Queen Bitch.” Mary-Anne rocked back her head and looked at the stars. “Lucky, really… But even though it’s never happened, I don’t trust that it never could. There was a time when I could snack on
humans with little consequence. But these days, it’s worth neither the risk of humans discovering my existence nor the risk of draining blood tainted with the Madness.” She sniffed the rabbits once more and her nose wrinkled. “These should do just fine.”

  They cooked the meat over the fire until it was crispy, the fatty juices spilling and spitting into the fire.

  When she’d finished the first rabbit, Caitlin licked her fingers and cocked her head.

  “What? What is it?” Mary-Anne asked.

  “You’re not exactly what I expected from a vampire, y’know?” She watched Mary-Anne carefully in the firelight, the flames throwing shadows over her face which danced and frolicked in the night.

  “You’re not exactly what I’ve come to expect from humans,” Mary-Anne replied, a softness in her voice. “Courage, boldness. A burning passion to do what’s right. You don’t see that a lot these days. It’s been so long since I’ve last seen any glimpse of honor.” She paused, contemplating her next sentence. “Even if you’re hardly aware of it yourself.”

  Caitlin grabbed her sword off the floor beside her and placed it on her lap. She stroked the blade idly. Just a few hours before, it had been covered in the blood of the Mad who had adopted the airship as home, but now…well, it had cleaned up rather nicely.

  “Who says I’m not planning on killing you?” Caitlin winked. She caught her own reflection in the sword and didn’t recognize the woman staring back at her. “Who says I’m not using you for your training so that I can find a way to deliver you back to the governor?”

  “I wouldn’t doubt that’s a factor that may have crossed your mind. After all, that was your brother who was fighting alongside you, no? The handsome man with the dark hair?”

  Caitlin nodded. “How could you tell?”

  “I’ve been around long enough to know these things. The fearful sideways glances. The way you both stand. The way you both look. It’s textbook.” Mary-Anne took a deep breath. “But, no. You wouldn’t kill me, there’s more to you than that. I can’t explain it, but there’s so much more in you than that. There’s so much of myself that I see in you too—well, a young me, anyway.”

  Caitlin sat up straight, throwing her empty skewer back into the fire. “You keep saying ‘honor.’ You keep talking about ‘honor this’ and ‘honor that,’ but I can’t see it. What is so honorable about abandoning your brother and running off with a vampire?” Her head lowered.

  “Because I know that we’ll be going back there.”

  Caitlin’s eyebrows lifted.

  “Oh yes, Caitlin. What do you think I’m training you for? So that we can frolic out in the wild and live carefree amongst the Mad? No. Your decision in my home was tough, but that’s what honor is. It’s making the tough decisions even when you know it could turn those you love against you. Your brother is a strong man, he’ll be able to look after himself. You believe that, right?”

  Caitlin thought about it a moment. At the time, it had seemed entirely instinctual. Ultimately, somewhere deep down, she knew that the governor’s eye of death was on her, not her brother. Whatever happened, she was the disposable one. Dylan was the head of the rangers and therefore offered more value to Silver Creek. Sure, his return might ruffle some feathers, but had Caitlin returned empty-handed, she would have died, not her brother.

  Mary-Anne stared at Caitlin from across the fire and smiled. “Though you don’t see it now, you have honor in you, Caitlin Harrison, and I plan to draw that out and dawn a new age of change in this Mad-infected world. My family is dead. All my people are hiding or dying. We cower in fear from humans, every vamp scared to death of accidentally ingesting the Madness through human blood because, believe me, it’s far worse for a vamp to turn than a human. The Madness affects our nanocytes differently. Makes them rage and burn like a firework. We’re a dying breed, and it won’t be long before vampires and Weres truly fall into myth.”

  “Nano-what? Caitlin asked, trying to take all this in. “How do you know all this?”

  “Because I have lived for hundreds of years. I have seen cities grow and empires topple, and with every fall, there comes a rise. Your governor’s men awoke my slumber after decades of watching the world fall into Madness, and I think it’s time that that Madness comes to an end.” Mary-Anne stood then, rising taller than Caitlin had ever seen her. At that moment, she looked like a queen of legend, a beacon of power and terror.

  Caitlin smiled, feeling inspiration flooding through her, positivity and hope that things could get better; that they stood at the dawn of the rebirth of humanity. “But how do I fit into this? You’re a vampire. Surely you’ve got more chance of accomplishing this than I do? I’ve seen you tear the heads off the Mad as if they were toys. Why can’t you just run around at night and destroy all the Mad until the disease is gone?”

  Mary-Anne looked once more at the sky. “Because you think one vampire can lead the charge? You think that eradicating the Madness is the end of it all? No, my dear. It’s much more than that.

  “The Madness is just a part of the disease. A conduit which has allowed evil and dictatorship to spread. Bandits, thieves, governors have all used the fear tactics of the Mad to keep people like you and your brother in hiding. To step on the little man. To dominate and to abuse. If we want to end all this, we must bring civilization back into the world by ending the injustice. Ending cruelty. Ending famine. Ending it all.”

  Mary-Anne grabbed Caitlin’s shoulders. “And it’s you who is going to lead the people into the light. It’s you.”

  “Me?” Caitlin said.

  Mary-Anne nodded. “The age of vampires and Weres is fading, Caitlin Harrison. It is you who must end this Age of Madness.”

  Caitlin wasn’t sure what to think at that moment. Sure, she had lived most of her life feeling as though there was more out there that she could be doing. More than living the daily routine and following in the footsteps of her mother while Dylan followed in the footsteps of their father.

  She had watched people out in the street with their ragged clothes and their mud-covered skin. Beggars alongside the streets of Silver Creek, desperate for food and change, leapt back into the shadows through fear of torture and death the minute the governor’s men appeared.

  She had seen the injustice of Trisk’s quarters and his store of fine trinkets and ornaments. He lived a life of luxury as the people of Silver Creek fed off nothing more than the basics.

  And now, she had a chance to change all that. To not only work with a vampire to clear the woods of the Mad but to liberate the town and help bring in a new era, one in which their world could be filled with something more. Perhaps, she reasoned, one in which she could deliver the one thing she’d begged for her entire life.

  Hope.

  Caitlin stared into the deep pools of Mary-Anne’s eyes. The centers were as dark and deep as a well, the irises a vibrant green. At that moment, she understood what she was being asked to do and let go of any reservation that she might have had. If they were to go down this road, then they sure as hell needed to become a team.

  Caitlin needed all the help she could get.

  “Well, then,” she said, her resolve set. “What the fuck are we waiting for?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Abandoned Airship, Silver Creek Forest

  They made something of a base out of the fallen airship.

  At first, they had spent a night looking for more stray Mad to further Caitlin’s training, remaining alert for anywhere else that might constitute a good hiding place out in the woods. But there was nowhere satisfactory, and every time, they ended up returning to the ship.

  Mary-Anne made a home out of the hull, plugging up any holes or gaps that had been made that might have let sunlight leak in during the day. She slept in a wardrobe that had fallen to the floor—presumably when the damned thing had crashed some years back.

  During the daytime hours, Caitlin caught what sleep she could but found herself so curious and driven by the thing
s she was learning, and by the need to find out more of what she didn’t know of the world, that she couldn’t settle. She explored the ship, finding guns and weapons far beyond repair but with fascinating shapes and markings. She’d hold a gun—rusted and slick with moss—and aim it straight in front of her, pretending that the ship was being boarded by Nosferatu and feral Weres and that it was her job to take them all down.

  Mary-Anne told Caitlin of legendary battles and of a vampire queen who had traveled from overseas to protect New York from an invasion led by her brother. This feat which had earned the vampire respect and an unimaginable gift from the Dark Messiah himself.

  Kids’ stories, Caitlin had thought as Mary-Anne told the tale. Though a big part of her had always wondered, until a short while ago she hadn’t believed in vampires. What else did she not know?

  “Keep your mind on the task at hand,” Mary-Anne said, interrupting Caitlin’s thoughts. A sharp jolt of pain shot up her arm.

  She looked down and saw the mark Mary-Anne’s sword had left—a thin gash with blood now dribbling freely from the wound.

  “Hey! If you wanted a suck job, all you had to do was ask.” Caitlin joked but felt slightly uncomfortable as Mary-Anne licked her lips at the sight of her blood.

  “No. I do not feed on friends. It is my one rule. Especially now, when food is scarce and I can’t trust myself to hold back.” Mary-Anne lowered her sword, suddenly looking more tired than she had in days—if that was even possible.

  “Then we need to find you some food.”

  Mary-Anne nodded. “Agreed.”

  They traveled far that night, with Caitlin riding on Mary-Anne’s back again. She used the stars to navigate, imagining the small villages which Mary-Anne had told her might still be dotted around the forest. These small outposts paled in comparison to Silver Creek but were full of sturdy men and women who could hold their own against the attacks of the Madness.