03 - Evolution

by Greg Cox

  “He was not to be harmed! Place him in my charge as we agreed, or you will pay for your deceit!”

  A chorus of metallic threats greeted his threat. Looking around, Marcus was surprised to find himself targeted by dozens of loaded crossbows. His jaw dropped as he realized belatedly that the Death Dealers took their orders from one Elder and one Elder alone.

  Viktor.

  “And you will learn your place,” Viktor said sternly. His voice softened as he strove to reason with the other Elder. “Your sympathy for this beast is foolish.” He gestured at the captured werewolf. “Your brother is entirely beyond your control.” Viktor shook his head. “It will be done my way.”

  Marcus swept his gaze over the weapons arrayed against him. His face held not a hint of fear. “You know well the consequences if you murder me… or William.”

  “If you so much as speak his name again,” Viktor warned, “you will have chosen that future for him yourself.”

  Was he bluffing? Surely he wouldn’t dare…? Marcus’ blue eyes were ablaze with fury. He scanned the implacable faces of the Death Dealers, but found no sympathy for his brother’s plight, nor any trace of the loyalty to which he, Marcus Corvinus, was entitled. He had no doubt that the warriors would open fire on him if Viktor commanded it. Turncoats! he thought venomously. He clenched his fists at his side. Traitors!

  He looked to Amelia for support, but found none to be had. Her beautiful face could have been made of porcelain for all the emotion it displayed. “There is nothing else to be done, Marcus. In time, you will understand this.”

  Never! he thought. Not in a thousand years! For a moment, he contemplated taking arms against the lot of them, Viktor and Amelia included. After all, he was older and stronger than them both. If he could just manage to liberate William from his bonds, the two of them might stand a chance of escaping Viktor and his treacherous jackals. They could escape into the sheltering wilderness and therein plot their revenge. I still have my own loyal vassals back at the castle, he reminded himself. They will not stand by while I am treated thus. William and I can still reign over the coven as we were always meant to.

  But, no… this was only a hopeless fancy. The odds against them were too great. It was two Elders against one, with over a dozen Death Dealers allied with Viktor as well. And, after his ordeal, William lacked the strength to retreat, let alone engage in combat against superior numbers. Although it galled his very soul to admit it, Marcus realized that this was a fight he could not win. At least not tonight.

  Scowling, he lowered his sword.

  “What is thy will, milord?” he asked, his voice fairly dripping with sarcasm.

  Viktor chose to ignore the other Elder’s impudent tone. “Imprisonment for all time,” he decreed. “Far from you.”

  He turned and strode away, confident enough in his guards to turn his back to Marcus. He gathered his lieutenants to him and began to make the arrangements for the disposition of the prisoner.

  Hatred smoldered in Marcus’ eyes. Tearing his irate gaze away from Viktor, he took one last look at his condemned brother. The vanquished werewolf sprawled upon the snow-covered ground, his mighty limbs rendered impotent by the chains wrapped around his furry body. The Fates alone knew when and if Marcus would ever lay eyes on William again.

  I shall not forget you, my brother, the Elder vowed. He wiped a blood-red tear from the corner of his eye. I will bide my time until our moment comes round again. No matter how long we must wait, someday you shall be free once more.

  And the world will tremble before us.

  Chapter Four

  Present day

  The abandoned mine was located in the rocky hills northeast of Budapest. A corrugated-steel door barred the entrance to the mine, which was built into the side of a hill. Rusty metal tracks led up to the sealed doorway. Security cameras monitored the approach to the mine. DANGER! NO TRESPASSING! a sign read in Hungarian. Selene ignored the warning, tramping through the snow up to the locked entrance. A full moon provided the only illumination, but Michael found that he could easily see through the dark.

  Another side effect of his new condition?

  The young American was still trying to process all the life-altering changes that had been thrown at him over the last few nights. Barely seventy-two hours ago, he hadn’t even believed in vampires or werewolves. Now he was some sort of a vampire/werewolf hybrid and caught in the middle of a life-and-death struggle he was only just beginning to comprehend, in the company of a lethal woman he barely knew. He had been shot, bitten, abducted, drugged, and nearly devoured since stumbling into that firefight in the subway station three nights ago.

  How did this happen to me? he wondered. I just want to be a doctor, that’s all.

  A pang struck him as he thought longingly of his dinky apartment in the city, and of his residency back at the hospital. Both were less than an hour away by car, but they might as well have been on another planet. His old life was over now. There was no turning back.

  It’s just me and Selene now.

  A high-tech lock protected the mine from intruders. Selene entered the key code, then pressed her thumb against a biometric sensor. The rusty metal door squealed loudly as she threw it open, exposing the interior of the mine. It was pitch-black inside, obscuring Michael’s view of what lay beyond. It had been Selene’s idea to seek out this so-called safe house, after they’d fled the lycans’ underground lair beneath the city. He assumed she knew what she was doing.

  I have to trust her, he thought. She’s all I have left in the world.

  A power box was mounted on the wall just inside the mountain. Selene flipped the switch, but nothing happened. The safe house remained as dark as before. She scowled in annoyance.

  Power must be out, Michael guessed. He wondered when was the last time anyone had visited this location. From outside, the mine looked as if it had been deserted for years. Appearances can be deceiving, he reminded himself, as I’m starting to learn all too well.

  Take, for instance, the leather-clad woman standing by the power box. Michael recalled the first time he had laid eyes on her, at that subway station downtown. He had been attracted to her immediately, but had thought that she was just another hot-looking European chick. How was he to know that she was really a kick-ass vampire assassin?

  I didn’t have a clue, he thought.

  She drew an automatic pistol from beneath the folds of her voluminous black trench coat. A light mount was attached to the stock of the gun. She pressed a switch and a thin beam of light penetrated the darkness. The search-beam fell upon… the face of an enraged werewolf!

  Oh, fuck! Michael thought. His brown eyes turned into molten jet-black orbs as he instinctively started to change into his hybrid form. Sharpened talons extended from his fingertips…

  But Selene was way ahead of him. She squeezed the trigger of her handgun and fired repeatedly at the monster. Gunshots echoed inside the mine, and the muzzle of the pistol flashed in the darkness as she emptied an entire clip of silver bullets into the creature.

  Would that be enough to kill the beast? Michael watched anxiously, waiting for the werewolf to either fall over dead or come charging at them. But the monster seemed to have no reaction to the barrage of silver bullets. Its savage face remained exactly where it was, its open jaws frozen in the same fixed expression. Ivory fangs glinted in the beam of the searchlight. Cobalt eyes stared glassily into space.

  Wait a sec, Michael thought. Something’s not right here.

  Selene appeared to have reached the same conclusion. She let up on the trigger and swept the beam over the unmoving creature before them. Michael saw now that the werewolf was hanging lifelessly in a cagelike apparatus at the far end of the chamber. Thick lengths of chain were looped beneath the monster’s underarms, suspending the body from the ceiling. A metallic harness was fastened around the werewolf’s neck and snout. Old wounds could be glimpsed through its shaggy black pelt. Its jaws were locked in a rictus of agony, not at
tack.

  No blood flowed from the multiple bullet holes Selene had just inflicted on the beast. She lowered her gun and glanced at Michael.

  “I may have overreacted,” she said, with just a trace of embarrassment in her voice.

  No shit, Michael thought. The werewolf was obviously long dead. Michael’s talons retracted back into his fingers and his eyes turned human once more. His heartbeat slowed to a less frenetic pace. Obviously, the dead creature posed no threat to them. Talk about a shock, though!

  He couldn’t help noticing how quickly he had started to transform at the sight of a potential enemy. He had changed without thinking, just as he had during that final battle with Viktor back in the underworld. Was his bizarre new existence already becoming second nature to him? The change had felt as natural as breathing, which scared him more than a little.

  Get used to it, he told himself harshly. This is who you are now.

  Easier said than done, another part of his mind answered back.

  Tucking her pistol back beneath her coat, Selene located a fuse box on the opposite wall. She opened the box and reset the tripped switches. A generator hummed somewhere deeper inside the mine. Fluorescent lights flickered to life overhead. The sudden illumination hurt Michael’s eyes and he blinked against the glare.

  The dead werewolf could be seen more easily now. Looking closer, Michael saw that the body had been hooked up to various pieces of sophisticated medical technology, including an electrocardiogram, intracranial-pressure monitor, Swan-Ganz catheter, a mobile X-ray unit, and your basic physiologic monitor, all top-of-the-line. Electrodes were connected to shaved portions of the werewolf’s anatomy. A crash cart held an emergency defibrillator, just in case the Death Dealers had needed to revive one of their lycan guinea pigs. A metal tray rested on a stainless-steel counter next to the open cage. Scalpels, scissors, forceps, retractors, hemostats, and other surgical tools were scattered atop the tray. He scowled at the obvious bloodstains on the instruments; maintaining a sterile environment was obviously not a priority. Anesthetics were conspicuously absent.

  Michael recalled the safe house he and Selene had briefly stayed at in the city, after their escape from the vampires’ mansion. Selene had mentioned that lycan prisoners were sometimes interrogated at such locations. From the looks of things here, those prisoners also got turned into guinea pigs on occasion—by vampire scientists looking for newer and better ways to exterminate their ancient foes?

  He felt a stab of sympathy for the poor, dead beast. Only a few hours ago, Michael had been strapped to an examination table himself, while Lucian extracted Michael’s blood for his own arcane experiments. The lycan leader had intended to use a unique enzyme in Michael’s blood to transform himself into an unstoppable werewolf/vampire hybrid, but his master plan had gone awry. In the end, Lucian had perished, and Michael had become the hybrid.

  For better or for worse.

  Selene lifted a portable hydrocarbon analyzer from the tray and inspected the digital readout. Michael couldn’t tell if the numbers meant anything to her. Despite everything they had endured together over the last few nights, he still found her beautifully sculpted face difficult to read. Most of the time, Selene kept her private thoughts and feelings locked up inside her, just as she probably had for hundreds of years. Michael wondered briefly just how old she really was.

  In theory, he was now immortal, too. Michael’s brain rebelled against the concept, even though he knew for a fact that Viktor and Lucian had been around since at least the Middle Ages. Would he also live for uncounted centuries? Michael couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around the idea. It’s hard to think about living forever, he mused, when people keep trying to kill you every few hours.

  Selene dropped the analyzer back onto the tray and examined the shaggy corpse hanging nearby. “This thing’s been dead for weeks.”

  “I don’t get it,” Michael said. He was still trying to learn the rules of this strange new world he was now a part of. “I thought lycans went back to their human form when they die.”

  “They do,” she replied. “This one’s been given a serum to stop the regression so that it can be studied in its wolfen form.”

  Michael remembered the drug Lucian’s flunkies had injected him with, to delay his own transformation into a werewolf. He wondered if the serums were related. “How can you tell?”

  She flipped the beast’s toe tag toward Michael. A notation read, Subject injected with 850 ml Thasarine to arrest regression.

  “Oh,” he said. What the hell was Thasarine? Michael had never heard of the drug before. “Not exactly your department, I guess.”

  “I just killed them,” she said bluntly. “I didn’t worry too much about their anatomy.”

  Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light, Michael was able to take a better look around. What had once been an empty mine shaft had been converted into a well-stocked bunker and safe house. Weapons lockers, packed with automatic rifles and handguns, lined gray concrete walls, along with file cabinets, workbenches, and numerous crates of ammo. One entire corner of the bunker had been taken over by what looked like a high-tech operations center, complete with computer consoles and plasma screens. A refrigerator hummed against another wall.

  The whole place reminded him of that safe house in Pest. Stepping away from the werewolf’s cage, he made a mental note not to let Selene handcuff him to a chair the way she had the last time. We’re sticking together this time around, whether she likes it or not.

  He toyed with the scalpels and forceps on the tray. The familiar tools comforted him in a way, providing him with a poignant reminder of his old life. Do vampires ever need doctors? he wondered. He remembered treating Selene’s injuries after that car crash three nights ago. For all he knew, he might actually have saved her life. Perhaps I can still have a career of sorts, if and when people stop trying to murder us!

  “How long can we stay here?” he asked.

  “Not long,” Selene said grimly. She led him over to the control center he had noticed before. Video screens mounted on the wall above the main console offered views of the grounds outside the mine. The night-vision photography glowed an eerie shade of green. A computer monitor resting atop a metal counter ran through a series of maps and status reports. “These safe houses are all linked together on one mainframe, with motion sensors revealing which ones are active. Someone could have picked us up already.”

  Someone being Selene’s fellow vampires, Michael realized. Thanks to him, she was now a fugitive from her own people.

  Turning away from the computer station, she started looking over the guns in the nearest weapons rack. She shrugged off her damp leather coat, revealing a lithe figure encased in skintight black leather. Dropping the coat on top of a waist-high metal filing cabinet, she cracked open a crate of ammo and began to reload her guns. Twin holsters were strapped to her thighs. A hunting knife was sheathed on her ankle.

  “Now that Viktor is dead,” she continued, “the hunt will be on for his killer. It’s only a matter of time before I’m found.”

  “But none of this is your fault,” he protested. “We have proof that Viktor lied. Kraven, too.” Kraven was a double-crossing vampire slimeball who had plotted to take control of the coven. Michael had only met him once, but was not likely to forget him, considering that Kraven had shot him in the chest with bullets filled with deadly silver nitrate. If not for Selene, Michael would have died there and then. “I have Lucian’s genetic memories.”

  Those memories, transferred to Michael when the lycan commander had bit him, had revealed the true origins of the war between the vampires and the werewolves. It was Viktor who had started the war—by executing his own daughter after she’d fallen in love with a lycan. As far as Michael was concerned, Viktor had fully deserved to have his head sliced in half by Selene.

  Surely the other vampires would take that into account?

  Selene didn’t seem to think so. “All that will be beyond useless if K
raven reaches Marcus first and kills the last remaining Elder.” According to Selene, one more vampire Elder was still residing in a tomb underneath the vampires’ mansion; she had done her best to fill Michael in on the intricacies of vampire politics on their way to the mine. “Kraven’s a coward. He’ll want to strike while Marcus is still vulnerable. He knows he’s no match for him awake.”

  Michael had experienced Viktor’s awesome power firsthand. He didn’t want to think about how strong this “Marcus” might be. Selene and I barely beat Viktor on our own, he recalled. I’m in no hurry to go up against another Elder.

  A thought occurred to him and he glanced at his wristwatch. Like the clothes on his back, the watch had been salvaged from a dead lycan on their way out of the underworld.

  “There’s only about an hour until daylight,” he said. “Can you make it back to the mansion before the sun comes up?”

  Sunlight was fatal to vampires, just as silver was to werewolves. Something the movies got right for once.

  “Just,” she said grimly.

  Michael didn’t like the sound of that. Joining Selene by the weapons cabinet, he picked out a couple of pistols more or less randomly. He wasn’t about to admit to her that he had never pulled a gun on anyone in his life, let alone shot somebody. He didn’t know the first thing about firearms. Then again, he thought, I’ve never been a hybrid monster before either.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get what we need and go.”

  Selene laid a restraining hand upon his arm. “No,” she said softly.

  Huh? Michael looked at her in confusion. What did she mean by that?

  Her eyes avoided his. She hesitated, obviously uncomfortable.

  “I’m going alone,” she insisted.

  Chapter Five

  The mansion was known as Ordoghaz in the local tongue, or “Devil’s House”. Located about an hour north of downtown Budapest, near the sleepy town of Szentendre, the imposing Gothic estate deserved its evil reputation, having served as the vampires’ lair since the days when Viktor had ruled over feudal Hungary with an iron hand. Freshly fallen snow blanketed the jagged spires and battlements rising above its looming stone walls. Majestic columns and pointed arches adorned its brooding facade. A cast-iron fence, equipped with spikes and mounted security cameras, guarded the coven’s privacy.