by S T Branton
“You’re lucky to be alive,” someone said.
I jerked my head up and as my vision greyed out, I almost puked again. The smoking man stood and gazed down at me. A cigarette burned between his fingers.
Immediately, I saw red. “You fucking prick! Where the hell were you?” The words were as venomous as I could make them but still weak.
He took a slow, insolent drag. “You were supposed to wait for me.”
If I’d had the strength, I might have murdered his ass on the spot. “We waited for fucking hours!” I yelled hoarsely. “Until we couldn’t take it anymore. This whole shitty, stupid mess is your fault, asshole. I hope it rots you from the inside out.” The tirade exhausted me, but I refused to let up. “We lost everyone. Do you not understand that, or do you simply not care? I’m the only one who got out. I’m all that’s left. I hope it’s what you fucking wanted, you dogshit bastard.”
He merely stared at me, continued to smoke nonchalantly, and allowed me to shout until I wheezed.
At last, after I’d put my head down to catch my breath, he said, “It is my fault. But not for the reasons you think.”
“What…the hell…does that mean?” I stared at him from my prone position on the wet bank while I fought for both strength and control. I felt like I’d been beaten with a thousand baseball bats. My leg was a constant harsh drumbeat in the background.
“I was wrong,” he said simply. “I believed you were strong enough to defeat Delano. Needless to say, you are not—not now. I admit I underestimated him. He has assimilated more power than I ever imagined possible. For my miscalculations, we have paid a high price.”
“I paid,” I growled. “You didn’t lose shit. Not a man down, not a hair out of your gnarly-ass beard. I paid for it all.” That last image of Deacon flashed across my consciousness, and I forced it deep down into a mental lockbox.
“Yes.” The smoking man nodded. “And now I know the truth. I have seen what we truly face.”
I propped myself up on my elbows and spat out dirt and gravel. My mouth tasted like I’d licked the inside of an old well. “I can beat him,” I croaked. “I can.” But the conviction was no longer there. I didn’t need to be told that I hadn’t come close.
He responded with another nod. His eyes were trained on me, illuminated by the moonlight. They were an icy, pearly blue.
I have said it so many times, Marcus piped up suddenly. Still, it bears repeating. There is nothing—not a single thing in any realm, god or human—that compares to the beast that Delano has become.
“Oh,” I mumbled. “You’re still here.” The sentences sounded waterlogged and miserable, but I felt great relief.
Victoria, if water was all it took to separate us, you would never have made it this far.
I laughed weakly. The effort hurt my chest. “Jerk.”
“There is a way,” the smoking man said. He lit a new cigarette although I hadn’t seen him toss the last butt. “It is a last-ditch effort. A Hail Mary, if you will.”
“Now you break out the cryptic comments,” I said with a frown. “What kind of swamp-alien code-speak bullshit is this?”
He gave me a look equal parts stern and amused. “There is no code, only a destination—one where no human has set foot for millennia.” He slipped a tablet out from under his coat, set it down on the grimy bank, and nudged it toward me. I craned my neck to look at the screen.
A map?
I frowned again and shot the smoking jackass a puzzled glance. He puffed out a white cloud in response. Grumbling a little, I pulled a hand free and pinched the screen to zoom out. My fingers left dirty wet streaks on the glass. A word showed up beside my thumb.
Nepal.
I zoomed out some more. The Himalayas. The marked location seemed practically dead center amid the famous mountain range.
“What the fuck?” I asked.
I received no answer, and when I looked up to ask again, the smoking man had gone.
“Damn it to hell,” I said and pounded my fist in the river muck. “I am over this shit.”
After a few moments, I gathered my strength and stood. I put the tablet under my arm, not caring that my sopping clothes dripped all over the screen. He’d at least been considerate enough to slap a waterproof case on the thing.
My head hurt. My face hurt where Delano had slapped me. My leg really hurt, and the ache was deep down in there like the bone was made of pain. There was definitely a part of me that had been beaten to the core back there at the temple. But a bigger part—the part that kept me walking—knew I had no choice. I’d failed too hard and left too much behind. Yeah, I was fucked up six ways to Sunday. I’d gotten the shit kicked out of me publicly.
But I was determined to get back to the temple, no matter what. Delano had something that belonged to me.
Chapter Sixteen
The wet cold seeped down to my bones as I stumbled half-blind through the burned-out field and away from the monstrous, towering outline of Delano’s mountain. My soaked clothes plastered against my body and left an erratic trail of water droplets behind me. Ice crystals had already begun to form along the strands of my hair. I couldn’t feel my toes, my fingers, or the tip of my nose.
It felt as wrong as hell to be headed in this direction. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to turn around and haul ass back to the temple. The memory of Deacon splayed out on the plateau, the Gladius Solis poised to strike his heart, was seared into my mind’s eye. I wanted to save him. I needed to save him.
It hurt beyond description to know I left him behind. But I also knew it was the only way. I had undeniably had the shit kicked out of me—and the painful truth was that Delano hadn’t even had to try. No way could I simply run back there and expect things to go differently the second time around. Somehow, I needed to gain the upper hand.
Deacon could be dead for all I knew. Delano’s intentions weren’t hard to guess. I directed all my attention ahead and tried to shove those thoughts from my mind. Soon, I’d return for him and he would be right where I left him. It was the only reality I could bring myself to accept.
The festering rage kept me warm on my way through the barren winter night despite the cold air that knifed through my lungs. My face withered into a semi-permanent scowl. I glanced at the tablet still clutched in my numb hands. Fuck the smoking man and his damn cigarettes. Fuck Nepal, fuck the Himalayas, and fuck the incessant throb of the wound in my leg.
The elaborate strategies of the past that we’d pored over for hours had all gotten me jack shit. It was time to revert to sheer simplicity. Brute force. All I needed was backup—once I had it, we’d come back in, guns blazing, and we wouldn’t leave until Delano was dead.
I could barely see my own hand in front of my face as I dragged my injured leg through the pitch-black field. Still, I had a decent sense of where we had started and where I needed to go to get back there. I staggered wearily through the darkness, closed my eyes, and shoved all my concentration into simply moving forward. No thoughts and no feelings were allowed. There would be time for that later.
The two-mile approach felt like ten during my retreat. I relaxed a little when I felt the snowpack beneath my feet. One more mile to go. I wouldn’t be home free, but I’d be a hell of a lot closer.
When I heard the distinct crunch of footprints in crusty snow, I grimaced. “I’m already fucking running away. What more do these assholes want?”
But whoever it was, they were in my way. I dropped into a crouch and crept a little closer as I strained to see what lay ahead. Two humanoid shapes moved purposefully across the snow, obviously patrolling the perimeter. I didn’t recall encountering anyone out there on the way in. Maybe Delano still tried to stomp me out while he knew he still had the chance. Like the coward he was, I thought acidly.
But instead of the Gladius Solis on my hip, what I had was a busted leg and clothes that had now almost frozen to my body. Even I wasn’t crazy enough to try this fight. I turned with every intention to a
void this particular encounter. My shitty balance on that wounded leg, however, had other plans. Before I really had a chance to comprehend what had happened, I was on my face atop a rough pillow of ice crystals. The patrolmen were on me by the time I managed to roll over.
They were standard-issue vamps and their greyish skin held a washed-out look against the winter landscape. Each grabbed hold of an arm and shoved me deeper into the snow.
“Look at that,” one of them said and grinned until his fangs caught the watery moonlight. “It’s been a long time since we found a little snack wandering around these parts.”
The other one chuckled. He leered into my face. “It’s about damn time. I’m starving.” He lifted a skinny hand and brushed the crystallizing strands of hair out of my face. “I bet a pretty thing like you has some sweet blood running through those veins.”
I spat at him. Although valiant, it was a weak effort and he simply laughed again. His buddy suddenly grabbed him by the shoulder. “Hey, wait! I know you.” His eyes burned with pure, vicious greed. “You’re the one Delano is looking for!”
“Well, maybe he should’ve killed me on the first try,” I answered.
They yanked me to my feet. As soon as I had some range of motion back, I twisted away from their grip and lashed out with my fists. The vamps were quick, but even in my current condition, I managed to be faster. The knuckles on my right hand connected solidly with a jawbone. The guy’s head snapped back.
He growled. “When I’m done with you, bitch, you’re gonna wish we were allowed to kill you.” His narrow, bony shoulder jammed into my stomach and briefly knocked the wind out of me. I kicked as hard as I could. The toe of my boot struck bone, and I immediately kicked out again.
The first vamp cursed. “You damn devil woman! Be a good girl now and come with us.” He struck me across the face so hard I saw stars and the color leaked out of my vision for a second. I felt all my limbs go slack. He hitched me forward and prepared to throw me over his shoulder. As he lifted me by the waist, I rammed my knee up into his chest and he buckled. I might’ve followed suit, but his buddy caught me by the back of the jacket.
“It looks like someone ought to teach you a lesson,” he sneered. His fist landed under my left eye, but instead of recoiling like he expected, I seized his wrist and broke it. He released a howl of pain. I held on to his arm even as he tore at me with the claws on his good hand and raked trails of blood down my cheek. Finally, I planted my foot into his ribs and he careened backward to drop into the snow. The broken wrist flapped uselessly at his side.
I now stood over him, my boot poised to crush his chest. For a couple of seconds, his bloodshot eyes registered the uncertainty and the fear to which I’d become accustomed. But his expression flipped instantly. Without warning, he grabbed my leg with all the strength he could muster and anchored me in place.
“What the—” Caught by surprise, I wavered. The joint of my knee twisted and a searing pain blazed through the cap. “You son of a bitch!”
I lunged forward to throw my weight down on his heart, but the other goon leapt onto my back from behind. We both toppled forward. A crack was quickly followed by a weird, raspy groan and I found myself face to face with a brand-new corpse.
The vampire under my boot had gotten his chest reshaped after all.
I rolled onto the ground and thrashed furiously to escape the second vamp. He was a tenacious bastard and had driven his claws into the backs of my shoulders like meat hooks. Fortunately, at this point, I was practically frozen solid from my trip down the river and I couldn’t feel much of anything—even the momentary agony in my knee had numbed—until a clammy hand wound around my throat and tightened its grip.
A new wave of panicked adrenaline surged through me. I threw myself back against the rock-solid dirt in an attempt to bash his head in or snap his neck, whichever happened first. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I grew impatient and simply smashed the back of my head into his nose as hard as I could.
The hand on my neck finally loosened and he sprawled backward onto the snow. I sat up, gasped, then turned and pinned him down.
“You’ll never get away,” he slurred through the torrent of blood from his broken nose. “Delano has his whole army looking for you. They’ll smoke you out like—”
I snapped his neck mid-sentence, struggled to my feet, and stumbled away into the darkness. The brief rush of energy I’d felt in the fight ebbed fast. Drops of blood scattered behind me. My eyelids felt heavy and I knew I was at the end of my rope.
Press on, Victoria. You do not have far to go. Marcus spoke his encouragement calmly but there was an urgent undertone. He knew as well as I did that there was no way I’d be able to take Delano on in this condition. I’d had my shot and I failed. I blew it. The only place left for me to go was back to the truck. All the reinforcements in the world couldn’t help me now.
The one thing Delano wasn’t able to take away from me was the nectar in my veins. By the time I finally saw the trucks still parked where we’d left them, the worst of the bleeding had more or less abated. The cold still dragged my every movement and the cut from the Gladius Solis continued to throb, but the rest of me at least hurt a little less. I climbed numbly into the driver’s seat and fumbled for the key. I didn’t expect to find it, but there it was, tucked deep in my pocket. I frowned at it for a moment and wondered how the hell it had stayed put, especially during my little raft trip downstream.
After a few bemused moments, I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and shoved the key into the ignition. The engine grumbled for a moment or two but it turned over reluctantly.
What is your next course of action? Marcus asked. He sounded like he didn’t think there was much left to do but tactfully left those thoughts unspoken.
“What else?” I pulled the smoking man’s tablet out of my coat. The screen blinked on, still set to the map he’d shown me. “I’m going to the fucking Himalayas.”
Chapter Seventeen
The drone of the tiny airplane’s propeller filled my head as I sat in the back and made every effort not to look out the window. Strong winds buffeted the craft from every side. The sky was nothing more than an ocean of grey mist and huge, heavy raindrops spattered against the glass. Once or twice, I swore I caught a glimpse of a far-off flash of lightning.
The seat restraints were tight across my lap and chest, but I still pitched and rolled with every gust. My stomach constantly threatened to auto-eject out my nose. I hadn’t eaten at all that morning, and for once, I was glad. I was also relieved that there were no other passengers besides me—not that there was much room. The only empty seat was right beside me, squeezed in alongside the opposite window. It was hard to imagine that the plane could carry the weight of another person.
The aircraft dipped to the side and almost knocked me horizontal. I clutched the seat straps for dear life and shut my eyes tightly. Up front, the pilot and co-pilot chatted back and forth in a language I didn’t even recognize. The glow of the cockpit dials provided the only light, and that wasn’t much. I tried to pretend that they sounded confident, like everything would be fine and they’d done this crap a million times, but there was no way to disguise their agitation. Brief periods of silence were shattered by bursts of nervous talk, and switches flipped intermittently.
None of it reassured me at all.
We nose-dived a little. My stomach jerked and went into freefall for two seconds. In the privacy of my own head, I pictured Namiko’s face and half-jokingly cursed her. Without her strategic networking, I wouldn’t be flying toward Tibet, inching ever closer to the mythical mountain range where I was headed. But I also had her to thank for this shaky spin in a tin can with two guys afraid of mountain weather. She’d had to promise them extra payment to get them to agree to the trip at all.
That should have been my first red flag.
I continue to be astounded by the miracle of human flight, Marcus said, his voice full of wonder.
; The plane bucked on a vicious air current. One of the pilots uttered something that sounded a hell of a lot like a curse. I swallowed the newest wave of nausea.
“That makes one of us,” I muttered. “At least you’re having fun.”
I have found that many potentially lethal experiences are much more enjoyable after death has already occurred, he said cheerfully.
I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. “There’s a sentence I never expected to hear.”
It was hard to focus on Marcus’s lighthearted banter. Every creak from the airplane’s metal body made me think of nuts and bolts raining down into the clouds while our structural integrity decreased by the minute. The thought that I might soon plummet to earth only heightened my urge to puke. I was fairly sure there’d be no river to cushion the impact this time, and no creepy smoking man to reorient me.
Namiko was most generous to procure passage into the mountains. Marcus blithely held up his end of the conversation, ignorant to the fact that we hurtled through a storm, probably surrounded by mountains, and that if we veered even slightly off course, we’d die in a fiery crash on the side of some lonely peak, never to be found.
“I wouldn’t call it generous,” I said, my teeth clenched. “I mean, okay, I would. In the sense that she didn’t have to do it. But this wasn’t what I had in mind when I asked.”
The plane—which had listed at a sickening angle for at least five minutes—finally righted itself, and my whole body went limp from the release of massive tension. I flopped my head back on the headrest, my eyes still shut, and breathed a little easier.
Namiko had done her best in a bad situation. I knew that. I had arrived at her resistance base in the Bay Area after a few harrowing days of dodging Delano’s minions as I worked my way west. I scrounged food wherever I could find it but otherwise, never left the truck. To stop driving meant to think about the situation in granular detail, so I only slept when I couldn’t force my eyes to stay open any longer.