End of the Line

by N. D. Roberts

  The most recent scout to report in left to get a good meal before she went back out into the snow. Olaf and Theor remained to contend with the final battle plans as sent by Sarah Jennifer.

  Theor’s brow was creased in concentration. “We can hold them off until dawn, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps,” Olaf agreed. “Still, we should—”

  The tent flaps were flung back, and a statuesque blonde woman with cheekbones that looked like they could cut diamond stormed in, her blue eyes flashing with anger. “There’s a disturbance in the Etheric west of the Mountain. That’s what’s drawing the damned Mad here!”

  The news knocked Olaf for six. “What do you mean, Mika? What kind of disturbance?”

  The ice maiden flung out her sword arm. “Come see for yourself. It cannot be described.”

  The Weres exchanged concerned glances before shifting. Olaf had the forethought to snag a radio in his mighty jaws before pushing his way out of the tent.

  Theor howled, scenting sickness not of this world coming from north of the mountain. Olaf smelled it too. He roared and grabbed Mika in his paws, tossing her up onto his back.

  Mika, to her credit, didn’t stab him. She grasped his thick fur and leaned into the wind as Olaf and Theor ran for the source, backtracking her path through the forest, flinging up the snow as their paws ate up the distance.

  They reached the Urai warriors’ camp on the western flank of the defensive line and pulled to a stop, spraying snow in a wide arc.

  Mika dismounted, and the Weres shifted back.

  The first thing they noticed was the lack of sound from the forest. The taiga was normally full of creatures of the night competing to be heard over one another.

  There was nothing, not even an insect.

  Mika didn’t need to point out the anomaly. Olaf and Theor looked up without saying a word. Neither of them had ever seen anything like the crack in the sky. It crackled with spitting energy, spilling dark, loathsome light that pushed away the night.

  “What is it?” Mika asked, her voice cutting through the silence.

  Olaf had no answer. Neither did Theor.

  “What do we do?” Theor murmured, a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature running down his spine.

  Olaf’s skin crawled as the utter wrongness of the anomaly seeped into his bones. “This is beyond us,” he told them.

  Without warning, a mental scream tore through their minds.

  “The Oracle!” Mika exclaimed.

  Olaf tossed the radio to Theor and dashed back the way they’d come, calling over his shoulder, “Call the major. I need to get to Lilith.”

  Inside the mountain, Lilith’s connection to Ezekiel was cut suddenly and without warning, leaving him alone to navigate Amelie’s storm.

  Lilith felt pain for the first time since she had been wrenched from her body and stuffed into the machinery that supported her consciousness. She cried out as the sensation of being pierced by icepicks penetrated her entire being.

  Every attempt to reach out to Sarah Jennifer, Esme, and Ezekiel was crushed by another wave of crystal-sharp pain as the entity attacking her severed her mental connections with brutal efficiency.

  Lilith had no idea where the pain was coming from or how she could escape it. She was helpless, her consciousness pinned and bound. Each second stretched out into eternity. Her efforts to break free only tightened the trap she was in.

  All she could do was scream.

  The cavern reverberated with feedback from the speakers as her voice ratcheted up in agonized octaves.

  Somewhere in the needle-sharp constriction of her mind, she heard familiar laughter. Barely able to think, she couldn’t pinpoint who the voice belonged to, only that she recognized it.

  Lilith screamed again, barely aware of the humans entering her cavern. A sudden memory sliced through the barrier of pain as her attacker laughed again.

  Her attacker was Kurtherian.

  As she had the realization, she heard a voice.

  Too late, Peace-Through-Superior-Genetics. Your heresy has earned you death.

  Olaf bounded up the mountain on four paws, his heart pounding as Lilith’s screams cut through the night. He barreled past the guards at the main entrance and pounded down the tunnel, still in bear form.

  Reaching the central cavern, his first reaction on seeing Pietro and the other recovered Mad surrounding the casing that held Lilith was that they had relapsed and were responsible for the Kurtherian’s suffering.

  He roared, rearing up on his hind legs to tear them limb from limb.

  They fell to their knees, faces upturned, and he saw through his rage that their eyes were not red and they were just as scared as he was.

  He pulled back his attack just in time, shifting on the spot. “What happened here?” he demanded, his tone sharp with anger.

  “We don’t know!” Pietro swore. “We heard her screaming and came up, but there is no enemy that we can see.”

  Olaf vaguely understood how the Etheric engine worked. He rushed to the wall and tore off the panel hiding the manual connections to the machine. Whatever was going on externally, this would give him a connection to her innermost psyche. “Get me a headset!” he commanded. “The drawers to the left.”

  Marlon was closest. He rummaged in the drawer to find one and handed it to Olaf. “Save her, please,” he begged. “She’s done so much for us. She doesn’t deserve this.”

  Olaf jammed the headset jack into the control panel and fumbled the headset on. “Lilith, can you hear me?”

  The cavern shook with her screams, but Olaf heard her voice, small and exhausted.

  “Help me. Laughter is killing me.”

  Over the Petersburg Estuary

  Ezekiel had lost his connection to Lilith suddenly.

  He knew his way home from here; that wasn’t a concern. However, he was left wondering what could have wrenched the Kurtherian out of his mind so abruptly.

  Below, the Mad surged toward the mountain in their thousands, drawn by the Etheric disturbance that felt to him like wearing wet socks on his soul even from this distance.

  He remained in place at the helm, sitting cross-legged as he had done since Lilith had contacted him to guide them over the storm Amelie and her people had created to slow down the hordes.

  His attempts to reconnect to Lilith had failed. Again he reached out, and his mental connection had all the efficacy of a grappling hook tossed two feet too short.

  “Did we lose them?” Kain called.

  Ezekiel left the answer to Caitlin. His stomach lurched as she abruptly dropped the dirigible twenty feet into a break in the storm.

  They weren’t losing the Mad. He hadn’t told the crew what they were heading into, trusting that the evidence of their eyes would inform them of the severity of the situation.

  Caitlin and the crew believed they were drawing the Mad, but even without the temptation of an easy meal should the dirigible land, the infected would still be moving inexorably toward Lilith’s haven.

  Ezekiel was wracked with fear for the people preparing to meet the hordes head-on. His hope was that Mary-Anne would be lucid when they arrived and that Esme would have the fix for her Madness ready so the vampire could join them in the coming battle. He heard Caitlin and Kain conversing quietly.

  “Do you think he’s okay?” Caitlin murmured.

  “He’s gotten us this far, hasn’t he?” Kain was not the voice of doom for once. “He’s even managed to keep Ma in check. Do you really think that now is the time to start doubting him?”

  Hope was a slender thread, fraying with the weight of reality.

  Ezekiel had expended untold amounts of energy keeping Mary-Anne under control, even going so far as to share his blood with her in an attempt to hold back the rising Madness after she had escaped from belowdecks and almost killed Caitlin.

  Luckily, he had pulled himself out of his mental connection with Lilith just in time and taken control of her the same way he had He
lena.

  Matriarch, the pain of losing Helena was a fire consuming him from the inside out. It gave him the determination he needed to keep pouring his energy into pulling Mary-Anne back from the brink each time she teetered on the edge of no return.

  The vampire was currently belowdecks, strapped to a bench since they’d passed over the former Danelaw. Every now and then, he heard the tinkling of the little bell Caitlin had given her to get their attention when she was lucid.

  The only thing Ezekiel could concentrate on was his fear for Lilith and the growing pull of twisted energy he’d picked up coming from his homeland.

  Caitlin took the dirigible back up above the clouds, cutting off their view of the Mad below.

  Ezekiel swallowed his pride and reached out. The connection he sought was faint, as though his mentor was farther away than he’d thought possible. He faltered, unable to say anything.

  Is that you, laddie?

  Esme’s no-nonsense burr warmed his heart despite his misgivings. Yes, he managed. It’s me.

  Well, it’s about damn time you got in touch! Are you in New Romanov yet?

  Ezekiel frowned. I thought you were in New Romanov?

  I’m not even on Earth right now.

  Ezekiel was quiet for a long moment. Esme, something is wrong with Lilith. I think she’s in trouble. There’s something going on there. I can sense something bad in the Etheric.

  There was silence, then Esme returned, concern coloring her voice. You’re right. She’s in grave danger. We’re on our way. How far out are you?

  Still a few hundred miles, he told her.

  Get there as fast as that bucket of bolts will take you, Esme instructed. We’ll meet you there.

  Ezekiel spent the remainder of the journey with anxiety twisting like snakes in his stomach.

  He forgot that Caitlin had his radio, not that it would help unless he put the insides back together. He spoke only to give her course corrections, guiding the dirigible toward the malignant energy he felt coming from New Romanov.

  The hordes of Mad thinned as they crossed into Arkhangelsk, but Ezekiel knew appearances were deceptive. He felt them advancing on Lilith’s mountain in huge numbers, hidden by the taiga.

  His companions had no connection to the Etheric to tell them differently.

  Caitlin leaned back with her hands still on the wheel, looking over her shoulder at Kain. “Can you see any?”

  Kain was leaning over the rail. “No more than usual. A small smattering here or there. I think we may have finally shaken off the bulk of them.”

  “Good.” Caitlin’s relief was clear to them all. “Good.”

  There was a moment of danger when they passed over Amelie’s position at the head of the estuary.

  Ezekiel sent a quick mental greeting to ensure the water mage didn’t have her storm take them out.

  Amelie’s reply was laced with laughter. Talk about good timing. You’re getting here just in time for the battle. There are Mad coming from the East and the South.

  There are more following behind us, Ezekiel warned. Don’t let up just yet.

  Good to know, Amelie told him.

  You could give us a favorable wind, Ezekiel returned. Lilith is in danger. She needs my help.

  “Whoa!” Caitlin called as the wind shifted.

  “Go with it,” Ezekiel told her. “We’re getting some help.”

  Thank you, Amelie, he sent.

  The tailwind provided by the trade mistress drove the dirigible on. They passed over the Northern Dvina and he had Caitlin adjust their heading again, turning them north-northwest and into the mountains.

  All too soon, the abandoned towns south of New Romanov were to their rear, and the peaks began to rise around them. Ezekiel opened his eyes. He knew this land by heart. It spoke to his soul. The snow and pines were the landscape that filled his dreams.

  In the near distance, Lilith’s mountain loomed over the rest, its purple-black body topped by a snowy cap that grazed the heavens.

  The dirigible sailed over the valley, getting ever closer.

  Ezekiel jumped to his feet. “Lower!”

  Caitlin obeyed, bringing the dirigible down as she steered over the foothills.

  “Lower!” Ezekiel commanded, his eyes blazing red as the urge to get to Lilith increased. He felt the Kurtherian’s pain but was still unable to connect from this distance.

  New Romanov was a speck beneath them.

  “Down!” Ezekiel roared as the reason for the pain that was wracking Lilith became clear. He sensed an alien entity in the malignant energy blanketing the mountains.

  The entity also sensed him.

  “Where?” Kain retorted. “It’s uneven as hell down there! Where are we supposed to land?”

  Ezekiel didn’t answer. He was fending off the alien entity, which was trying to gain access to his mind and magic.

  “Ezekiel!” Kain’s voice rose in frustration. “Can you hear me?”

  The storm suddenly cleared as they broke the wall of Amelie’s defenses.

  Below, Kain saw the vast army gathered behind huge icy ramparts in preparation for meeting the Mad coming their way. “What the…”

  Ezekiel didn’t hear him. He was concentrating on fighting off the entity. His attention only returned to what was going on around him when the wind, no longer controlled by Amelie’s people, battered the dirigible.

  “Down!” he yelled, the gale stealing his voice.

  Caitlin dropped the dirigible lower, narrowly avoiding crashing into the side of the mountain.

  Jaxon ran loose, barking as he darted from one side of the deck to the other. The faithful animal sensed the Mad.

  Kain caught the German Shepherd as the dirigible lurched under Caitlin’s inexpert control. “Slow down, Kitty-Cat! We can’t take this!”

  Ezekiel knew there wasn’t a moment to waste. “Down!”

  “BRACE!” Caitlin yelled as the wheel pulled out of her grasp.

  She caught the spinning wheel, almost being flung over the rail in the process. Somehow, she tamed it, bringing the dirigible back under her control before they crashed.

  She knew they weren’t going to get much farther. Something had given in the controls, and steering was not as responsive. Caitlin felt like she was wrestling with the dirigible rather than piloting it. She lashed herself to the wheel even as Kain tied himself and Jaxon off with a length of rope.

  They were losing altitude rapidly, and Ezekiel wasn’t doing much besides providing a red light on the deck as his eyes shone with expended magic.

  Whatever the magic was, it wasn’t being worked to save them from crashing.

  Caitlin heaved on the wheel, forcing the nose of the dirigible to point at a frozen lake in the valley below as Kain moaned with the nausea rolling his stomach.

  The dirigible hit the ice, and the sound of wood splintering filling their ears.

  Everyone was thrown to the limits of the ropes tethering them to the deck. Everyone but Ezekiel.

  The crew swarmed out from belowdecks as the dirigible began to sink.

  Ezekiel remained in place, his eyes still shining red as he redirected his magic and froze the surface of the lake before they could be sucked into its icy depths.

  He made his way to the deck, where he found Caitlin, Kain, and Jaxon.

  “We’re here,” he told them.

  Caitlin pulled her cloak tighter around herself. “What now?”

  Ezekiel pointed at the mountain. “We go save Lilith.”

  Without further explanation, he vaulted the rail and set off running across the ice.

  Caitlin looked at Kain in dismay. “How are we going to get Ma there without his magic?”

  “I’m not baggage,” the vampire snarked, emerging from the gondola. “I’ll walk.”

  Caitlin and Kain whirled at the sound of her voice.

  Mary-Anne smiled. “I’m not Mad. Not completely. Not yet.” She took a running leap over the railing. “What are you waiting for?” she cal
led over her shoulder. “Let’s go!”

  They caught up with Ezekiel just before he reached the road at the foot of the mountain.

  “Why the rush?” Caitlin asked with more than a little annoyance.

  “Can’t you feel it?” Mary-Anne answered with a shiver. “Something freaky is going down here.”

  Ezekiel waved them on. “We need to hurry. Lilith is under attack by whatever is causing the Etheric to feel so…wrong.”

  Having learned more about the Kurtherian on the journey, his companions were puzzled by what could attack her.

  “I don’t know either,” Ezekiel told them. He pointed out a group of people dressed in black uniforms at the foot of the mountain. “The Defense Force. Don’t do anything stupid. They have guns.”

  “Like Royland’s pistol?” Kain inquired.

  “No,” Ezekiel answered. “Weapons you couldn’t imagine existed in this world. But try to, knowing they can fire three rounds per second might persuade your wolf that getting into a dominance match with these Weres is a bad idea.”

  Before Kain could argue, the area was flooded with light from above.

  They all looked up as the Enora swooped overhead.

  “What the fuck was that?” Caitlin demanded.

  “A real airship,” Ezekiel told her, his anxiety doubling as the thought of facing his past became unavoidable. “The Enora. Sarah Jennifer and Esme are here.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I picked up Ezekiel’s Etheric signature as we came in,” Esme informed Sarah Jennifer as they exited the airship.

  Sarah Jennifer’s heart lurched. Don’t yell at him when you see him, she told herself sternly. “Enora, be ready to bring Amelie and her people in, please.”

  A tortured scream echoed from the belly of the mountain, cutting off the AI’s reply.

  “Lilith first, Esme. Ezekiel can wait.” Sarah Jennifer set off across the plateau at a run, heading for the tunnel.

  The two of them hurried to the main chamber, where they found Olaf and the recovered Mad surrounding Lilith’s casing. Olaf slipped the headset off and offered it to Sarah Jennifer with a severe expression creasing his features. “I can’t hear her anymore.”