Void: Book Five of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  I returned to examine the circle. It had symbols reminiscent of things I’d seen before. A few moments of examination implied it was some sort of bastardized summoning and containment, but the layout was weird. It was a standard circle in that it was containing whatever was in the circle—Mary, presumably. The rest of it was only sort-of summoning. It might have been more of a beacon, calling for without compelling. I wasn’t sure what it was trying to call, but it seemed to be a kind of request for aid for keeping anything in the circle contained. Whatever effect the circle might have, its design probably wouldn’t affect me.

  Probably wasn’t good enough. I cut a gash in it with my sword and promptly cut Mary’s suspension rope. I lowered her carefully to the floor.

  “Ow?” she whispered, voice hoarse. My fingernails extended and I used them to cut her bonds.

  “Can you run?”

  “No. One of them broke a kneecap for me.”

  “Ah. So I see,” I agreed, freeing her ankles. “Anything life-threatening?”

  “Yeah,” she rasped. “Not immediate. Maybe some internal bleeding. Couple of ribs, I know.” She suppressed a coughing reflex and spat pinkish foam. I laid my hand on her chest and triggered the healing spell on my ring, diverting it from me, the wearer, to her. “We have to go. Now,” she insisted, while I focused on making the spell take hold.

  “No rush,” I countered, once it latched on to her. “We’re alone.” I considered how best to carry her without hurting her.

  “They wanted to know about my vampire overlord.”

  “Oh? Oh, I see. It’s daylight. They jumped you at dawn so they wouldn’t have to face your ‘vampire overlord.’ They assumed you’re human. Obviously, they didn’t get a briefing from Salvatore. Here, hold my gun. I’m going to carry you.”

  “They called someone. They’re expecting more people,” she added, as I picked her up, cradled her in my arms. She gritted her teeth and whimpered. “Could be here any minute,” she wheezed.

  “Lorenzo, perhaps?”

  “Doubt it. Probably called Lorenzo to get someone sent to them. He’s the spider, not part of the web.”

  “Okay. We’re out of here.”

  I edged sideways out the back door and hurried through the car lot. It was hard to tell where the car lot ended and the junkyard began until I realized the junkyard cars didn’t have faded prices on them.

  I jogged down the lane between stacked cars, minding my footing on the rough surface—something with treads crawled through here, probably a crane. The last thing I needed was to trip on something and land on Mary. Rather, it was the last thing Mary needed.

  We came around the bend to my getaway vehicle. Standing in front of it was the man I shot and stabbed. He regarded me with his good eye.

  “Okay, that was fast,” I noted. “Dead men aren’t known for sprinting.”

  “It’s a gift,” he shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t let you leave.”

  I put Mary down, gently, and stood to face him, sword out.

  “I’m not sure how you’re going to stop us,” I told him, and circled slowly to my left. He smiled slightly, hands open and empty.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Mary shot him in the head. His head snapped back as blood and brains spattered behind him. He went down.

  “Nice distraction,” Mary told me.

  “I try.”

  Then he got up. He had a neat hole above his left eyebrow where the bullet went in.

  “Okay, that’s new,” Mary observed, and unloaded the gun into him. Every round went somewhere important—heart, lungs, head, all the favorites. He appeared to have his footing, though, and took the hits like a champ. I noticed he didn’t bleed. He leaked. There was no heartbeat in there to pump blood out the holes.

  “How disappointing,” he said, his breath causing blood to bubble from the holes in his chest. “I expected something better.”

  Knowing I was dealing with something more than mortal, I flexed my eyes for other energies. He was a glowing figure of light, complete with shining, invisible wings spread behind him. My first thought was of the Lord of Light, and to wonder how he tracked me down.

  Then the creaking, grinding sounds alerted me to a more immediate problem. A stack of cars tilted our way, as though pushed by an unseen hand—or brushed by a giant, invisible wing. I saw them topple, made an instant evaluation, and threw myself over Mary.

  It wasn’t a ton of bricks, but it was easily a couple tons of steel.

  My first awareness was pain. Legs, ribs, back, shoulders, forearms, jaw, head—cracks, shards, and breaks. Deep, stabbing, throbbing pains.

  Terror and agony welled up like blood from a wound. I struggled to move, found I was bound tightly. Crazy visions of Johann, laughing, mocking me in my helplessness and suffering danced within my mind. I heaved against my restraints and failed. The pains intensified, sending lines like veins of acid and lightning through my flesh.

  A huge jolt jerked me about, slamming pains through my calves and forearms. I let loose a mighty bellow of agony; a wheezing cough was all that emerged. I tasted blood as I coughed. I opened my eyes, gasping, afraid I was once again in Johann’s playroom of pain.

  I was surrounded. No, that’s not right. I woke up looking down at a lot of people. No, it wasn’t that many people. Four? It looked like eight, but they were all twins.

  My eyes slowly uncrossed and their numbers halved. I was too relieved to care. I focused, mustering all my concentration.

  I was still in the junkyard. The sun held me in a particularly burning gaze. The toppled pile of cars was rearranged a bit and a crane towered to my left.

  See? I knew there was a crane.

  I was tastefully attired in nothing but wraparound steel cable, with a few giant nails as accessories. The spikes and cables kept me firmly in place on a cross made of railroad ties. It was particularly uncomfortable since the crossbeam was behind the upright post, forcing my arms back at an angle. The spikes went through my forearms, as expected, but for my legs, they spiked through my calves, between the bones, nailing them to the sides of the centerpiece. I expected to have my feet overlap with one spike going through both. Well, maybe the Romans were too cheap to use four nails per criminal.

  Even in my concussed and confused state, I had the strangest feeling, like I was about to die.

  I was well and truly out when they hammered spikes through my flesh. I’m moderately pleased about that, in a way. What woke me was the crane hauling the whole arrangement upright. The people guided it into a hole, put it in place, and signaled the crane operator they had it set. It dropped the final few inches. That was the jolt.

  Crazily, it seemed silly to be crucified so close to the ground. My toes almost touched dirt. I wondered if they already had a hole for vampire-killing crosses or if I rated a special crucifixion of my own. Still, if you’re going to kill a vampire, it seems oddly reasonable that crucifixion would be a good way to do it. I mean, there’s a cross. I assume they would do it at night and wait for dawn, but killing a vampire’s minion by crucifixion might have some significance. Maybe the local breed of bloodsuckers can’t transform the body into a vampire if it dies on a cross. Pity I wouldn’t get to find out for certain, what with my own upcoming pyrotechnic display.

  Come to that, what time was it? Were those shadows morning shadows or afternoon shadows? It was hard to tell because of broken bones, massive bruises, some internal bleeding, and probably a concussion. Oh, and the whole crucifixion thing. I lifted my head enough to look at the suns. They slowly merged into a single sun. I wondered if it was going to kill me or if the humans would beat it to the punch. Which would hurt more? It would depend on how they planned to kill me. Given a choice of deaths, I prefer something quiet and painless, but my options were limited.

  At least I wasn’t in Johann’s clutches. I felt moderately good about that, but the terror of being about to die still dominated most of my thinking. The rest of my brain found time to wonder why p
eople who don’t like me nonetheless want me naked. Mixed signals.

  “Nice to see you’re awake,” offered one guy, a tallish fellow with a squinty right eye. Maybe it was just from the desert sunlight. “I’d hate for you to die without knowing why.”

  “It’s mutual,” I rasped. My throat was very dry and I didn’t have the breath to continue. Punctured lung from broken ribs? It felt like it. That’s impressive. Breaking my bones isn’t like breaking human bones. It takes work. Like, say, being one of the vehicles in a six-car pileup. The rib wasn’t the only casualty, either.

  “Oh, you’ll find you have a hard time breathing,” he assured me. “Hanging on a cross kills from suffocation. Sometimes exposure. Rest assured, once you’re dead we’ll cut you down, burn you, and bury your ashes in consecrated ground.”

  “Thanks.”

  “’Thanks,’ he says!” He laughed. His friends laughed. Everybody laughed but me. Call me Pagliaccio.

  “Where’s Mary?” I tried to ask.

  “Come again?” He leaned closer and I tried to speak up.

  “Where is Mary?”

  “Oh, her. She’s mostly okay. Still being interrogated. You, on the other hand, killed four of our friends. We don’t have anything to ask you.”

  “Seems reasonable,” I agreed, and closed my eyes. “There’s stuff I don’t want to tell you.”

  He didn’t like that. I couldn’t see his reaction, but I could imagine him trading looks with his friends.

  “I have a question,” rumbled another guy. Broad-shouldered, wide-bodied—he was a big, powerful man slightly squashed in a funhouse mirror. “Why do you do it?”

  “Why do I do what?”

  “Serve them. The bloodsuckers.”

  “Good question. I’m starting to wonder.”

  “That’s new,” commented Number Three. He was a shorter, skinnier guy with some Asian in his ancestry. “All the ones I ever met died defending their masters.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” decided Squinty. “This guy’s killed enough. He won’t be doing it again.”

  They muttered a general agreement and started gathering their things.

  “You’re going to leave me here?” I asked.

  “Why not? It ain’t the ass-end of nowhere, but you could hit it with a rock. Nobody lives in Gulch anymore and the stacks of cars’ll hide you from the road. You can’t scream loud enough to be heard, neither. You’re going to hang here until you die, and then a while longer.”

  He poked me in the chest, hard. He knew where the broken rib was, the bastard.

  “I wish you wouldn’t die clean like this,” he stated. “I’d like to let you rise as a bloodsucker before burning you. Dying on a cross is too good for you.”

  “Want to trade places?” I asked. I coughed a bit and spat pinkish foam. I missed him.

  They finished packing up and left, leaving behind some parting gifts—two gut-punches and some spit, along with the impression they did not like the servants of vampires.

  They left me alone to die. This is a foolish thing to do, in my opinion. It gives the hero a chance to wriggle out of the deathtrap. Since I’m no hero, it gave me time to reflect with considerable anxiety on my upcoming fiery demise. I wondered if I could avoid it. My most obvious course of action was to activate the healing spell on my ring—whups, no ring. Besides, I used it on Mary and it would take a while to recharge. Okay, summon up enough concentration to put together a healing spell in a piddly-poor, low-magic environment while nailed to a cross, with a concussion, multiple broken bones, and what was probably a mild case of dehydration after half a day unconscious in the desert. And, in human terms, a nasty sunburn.

  Yeah, that might not work too well, either.

  I hung there, my injuries throbbing, and tried to concentrate on something besides my slow but certain journey to incineration. It’s hard to think when your inner monologue keeps repeating, “I’m going to die.”

  Fine. I’ve got one working arm and leg. Can I pull free? It’s only a matter of pulling my arm out of the loops of cable, but there’s a railroad spike or reasonable facsimile pounded between my forearm bones. All right, so, pull the spike out of the wood, first—except there are loops of cable holding my forearm tight against the wood.

  I’d try to work the spike loose with my tongue, but even if I turn my head and stretch, I can only lick the thing. I never thought I’d complain my tongue wasn’t long enough.

  If Mary and I survive this, someone is getting a stern lecture about underestimating professional vampire hunters. Probably both of us, once I tell Diogenes how to deliver the lecture. There’s a happy medium between being constantly on guard and enjoying yourself. We obviously veered a bit too far from being on our guard, which can shorten the potential time for enjoying ourselves. Overconfidence kills.

  My head hurt. At least there were clouds moving in. Maybe they would block some sunlight. Maybe the cloud cover of a good, solid rainstorm would keep me from frying in the sunset. And maybe the Pope would be annoyed at my polluting a perfectly good cross with vampire blood and drop by to un-crucify me.

  I hung there limply, trying to get a decent breath and ignore the way my head tried to expand with every heartbeat. Mary is captured, Firebrand is with Bob, Diogenes doesn’t know I’m in trouble, and pretty much everyone else is minding their own business.

  With the afternoon sun falling westward, I acknowledged I might need more friends.

  It’s said that no man ever truly comprehends the idea of his own death. I think that’s incorrect. We don’t want to, but when we come face to face with it—on a battlefield, in an electric chair, hanging on a cross—it’s hard to ignore. I can’t say I like it.

  Over the thudding of blood in my ears, I heard someone crunching down the road-path between the walls of cars. I lifted my head and turned toward the sound.

  The dead guy, the one Mary and I both shot, came around the edge of the cars. He was filthy, covered in dried blood and dirt. When his head was at just the right angle, I caught a momentary flash of sky through the bullet hole in his forehead. This did not reassure me in any way. He smiled and strolled to a position directly in front of me.

  “You look awful,” he told me, looking me over with his one good eye. The one below the bullet hole. I found it hard to make eye contact. My eyes kept looking through the hole in his head.

  “So do you.”

  “Touché. This body I’ve borrowed does have a few problems, thanks to you. Being buried in the desert did it no favors.”

  “Borrowed?” I rasped.

  “Yes. I have no physical form of my own.”

  I peered at him through narrowed eyes. My second sight wasn’t working very well, but it worked well enough. He wasn’t a human being, obviously. He was a creature of light wearing an empty and rather ragged human suit.

  “When I first saw you, I thought you were the Lord of Light. Now I’m not so sure. What are you?”

  “You would consider me an angel.”

  “An honest, true-blue, actual angel? Wings, harp, halo?”

  “You would consider me an angel,” he repeated. “Humans cannot comprehend the complexities of even one of the energy planes.”

  “And here I’ve already got a headache.”

  “I imagine.”

  “Do you often wear dead mortals to talk to vampires? Or were you wearing him before I showed up?”

  “We rarely wear an occupied body,” he told me. “And this may be the first time in all the ages of the world one of my kind has spoken with any demonic entity.” He gestured at his filthy body. “We seldom appear in any form of flesh, for any reason. You should feel honored.”

  “And I get this singular honor because…?”

  “Before you die, perhaps you might tell me how you came to be here?”

  “Here?” I echoed.

  “Oh, come now. A being such as yourself does not spontaneously come to be. How did you gain entry?”

  “Sorry. I don’t underst
and quite what you mean.” I coughed and spat some bloody foam. “Besides, I’m dying.”

  Thunder rumbled as the clouds rolled over the sky. I looked up for a moment and didn’t like what I saw. The weather didn’t look natural to me. There was an advancing line of fluffy clouds, slowly turning black, which wasn’t unusual for a storm front… but more of it was coming into view over the walls of stacked cars. It was rolling in from all directions, surrounding us, closing in. The open ring of sky was centered on the sun, like a molten eye gazing down at us. I didn’t like it.

  “Surely, you cannot expect me to believe you do not understand your own origin?”

  “Concussion,” I replied.

  “Hmm.” He stroked his jaw with one hand, rearranging the dust. I noticed he didn’t sweat at all, even in the heat. “I suppose damage to your brain could interfere,” he admitted. He touched my forehead with two fingers and my headache vanished. Sadly, while my head might be intact, my other injuries remained. “Better?”

  “Wow,” I said, blinking as everything came into sharp focus. “That’s impressive.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No, thank you…?” I trailed off, looking at him more closely. My second sight worked properly. I still don’t see souls when it’s daytime, but I can see many sorts of power. The corpse in front of me was certainly a corpse, but the white, bright thing inside wasn’t human. An angel? Maybe. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an angel. My first impression reminded me of the energy-state beings of Karvalen. It was a pity I’d be too dead to look at it closely after sunset.

  “I am Valan, of the eighth host of warriors.”

  “Pleased to meet you, I think. I thought you angelic types were supposed to guide, guard, and protect people.”