Necropolis

by James Axler

  After all, they could find another more intact corpse to inhabit once they’d finished killing Kane and Lyta.

  She pulled the trigger on the rifle, despite the bent and crushed barrel. As soon as the round struck the obstruction, the damaged tube ruptured, turning the vampire’s hand into a ragged mist of blood and fluttering pieces of tissue and shattered bone. Lyta didn’t let go of the damaged weapon, but pushed on the attack, ramming the stock hard into the side of her foe’s head. Bone crunched as steel met skull, but the vampire swatted out with its remaining hand, hurling her a dozen feet across the ground, where she skidded to a halt.

  That was not comfortable, and she realized that her left arm was raw from where her sleeve had torn and where the pebbles and gravel in the dirt had torn off the top layer of her skin. Lyta gritted her teeth and rolled to a sitting position. Her hand dropped to the .45 in its holster.

  The handgun hadn’t done much when Kane had used it, but Lyta refused to roll over and quit just because she didn’t have the right tools on hand. She stiff-armed the pistol and fired at the vampire that had tossed her aside so casually. The impacts of her bullets drew its attention away from something just out of Lyta’s peripheral vision, and the creature snarled at her. Then it tumbled backward, struck by something large and heavy.

  In an instant, she realized that it was one of the other vampires. She shot a glance toward Kane, who was still in mid-spin, slashing across the chest of another of the reanimated corpses. Lyta saw that he didn’t use the staff as a sword, rather more as a club, but even with the hammering strokes, he certainly had more than enough force to keep the horrors at bay.

  Lyta looked back toward her two adversaries and saw one of them making for her, slavering hunger in its dimly glowing eyes. She triggered the pistol, grasping the weapon with both hands, holding it as tightly as possible.

  At least one shot stuck, dimming one of those reddish lights glinting in the face of the awakened corpse, and the thing clutched at its broken head. Lyta took that as a brief moment of victory, and then Kane grabbed her by the wrist.

  “Move it!” Kane grunted. His breath came rapidly, in harsh wheezes; his hair was matted damply to his forehead. This was the look of a man who’d been through the exertion of a lifetime, and there was a spark of emotion in his eyes that spurred Lyta quickly to her feet. She wouldn’t give up the fight, but if there was the call and the room for retreat, she wasn’t going to hesitate, either. She took off, racing into the forest, into the direction that Kane pointed. Her legs thrust, sending her into two yard-long strides, legs kicking her toward the depths of the jungle. Kane’s own feet stomped through the forest behind her, staying close, a comforting presence.

  The trouble was, with Kane following her, the vampires would be able to track them much more easily. Any comfort that she’d gained from his presence disappeared swiftly.

  All her firepower had been utterly useless against them. Kane’s use of the ancient artifact that Brigid had demanded not fall into the hands of Neekra and the vampires had barely held them at bay. And now they were on the run from creatures who showed incredible speed without the benefit of solid-limbed bodies and who had nearly overwhelmed them in the space of a few moments.

  Nearly overwhelmed—emphasis on nearly, Lyta thought as she charged through the forest, weaving and moving as quickly as her legs could take her. She bounced off trunks, and her legs tore branches and long grasses. There were moments when she felt as if she were a human pinball, banging through the jungle. Luckily, with adrenaline surging through her bloodstream, she didn’t feel the bumps and bounces, didn’t worry about sticks or stalks slicing her shins, and she was keeping loose and limber so that rather than colliding, she rolled along a trunk rather than plowed right into it.

  Lyta would be hurting later, but so far she’d escaped a broken bone, maybe because she wasn’t so much charging ahead, regardless of obstacle, but flowing. Any bit of resistance, she rolled to where she was deflected and continued on.

  The explosion hammered at Lyta’s ears, and for the first time in what felt like a year, but actually was more like twenty seconds, her footing failed her and she plowed into the ground, all scraped palms and jarred knees, spitting out leaves and bark from where she’d gone went through a shrub face-first trying to arrest her fall.

  Lyta glanced back and saw smoke billowing, watched trees sway, then topple and heard the horrible keening she’d heard earlier when Brigid had set off detonations. Whatever Kane had done, it must have been pretty good, because nothing scampered through the smoke. Could the lone blast have peeled off the pursuit?

  Kane didn’t appear to want to hang around and find out. He hooked her under her arm and dragged her to her feet, and they were on the move again. This time, she watched her step better. When a tree came up between her and Kane, she shrugged herself free and ducked around the trunk, meeting up with him on the other side. Neither of them stopped as they ran.

  Lyta finally sagged against a low-hanging branch. She flung her arm over it and used it to support her as she gulped down air. Kane’s longish hair matted down on his face, which was a mask of perspiration. Yet even as he rested, he watched the forest, blue eyes cold, sharp, alert. The exertion didn’t show in his ragged breaths, just in the sheen of sweat that glimmered as the first rays of the dawn cracked over the horizon.

  “Sunrise,” Lyta gulped. “That’s good, right?”

  “If you believe the legends,” Kane answered. His voice was strained, the only sign of exhaustion other than his wetness as he struggled to maintain even breathing and replenish any oxygen spent from his bloodstream in the rapid departure.

  “How long—”

  “We’ve gone maybe two miles,” Kane answered.

  Lyta nodded.

  Kane finally allowed himself time to relax, leaning against the trunk of the tree. He brushed his forearm across his forehead, shaking off droplets. He squeezed his eyes shut, swallowed, then stood up. “We’ll need shelter and water.”

  Lyta nodded. “And more grenades?”

  Kane looked down. He still had his handgun in its holster, but the rest of his belt was barren, save for the remnants of torn pouches.

  “I snagged one off of one of the reanimated thugs,” Kane told her. “Figured it couldn’t hurt to try one. They stopped.”

  “Brigid scared them, hurt them, by blowing up a tree, too,” Lyta mentioned. “I heard it. They screamed when splinters blew out of the tree.”

  “Splinters. Shrapnel,” Kane mused. He didn’t feel like heading back the way they’d come. It was still too dark, too shadowy, and the chances that the vampires might not need to hide from the golden rays of the sun was still too untested to be certain.

  “Maybe wood hurts them, at least when they’re not in their corpses,” Lyta said.

  Kane nodded. “It makes sense. They definitely cried out in pain.”

  “I’m not really sure now, but when I was touching that staff, I was able to hear things. It was like I could see things as they happened. I know that Brigid impaled one on a splintered tree branch,” Lyta said. “At least, it was certain in the sense of a dream. Now...with the sun coming up...”

  Kane looked at the staff, still firm in his left hand. “Yeah. This stick does that to you.”

  “Makes you doubt yourself?” Lyta asked.

  Kane nodded. “Why did it choose me?”

  “Maybe it knew you wouldn’t abuse it,” Lyta returned.

  Kane curled his lip. “Too damned trusting.”

  Lyta, however, glad to be alive, didn’t agree one whit.

  * * *

  THE CRACKLE OF GUNFIRE, spread across a half of a minute, maybe more, fell down the corkscrew hole into the depths of the earth, reaching Thurpa’s ears and raising his attention. Grant, Brigid and Nathan took notice, too. No one uttered a sound, but they knew tha
t somewhere above, at least one of their companions was alive and fighting. None of the vampires that had been sent up were returning to sound the alarm, and the prisoners waited, biding their time.

  There was silence.

  Thurpa was tempted to hold his breath until the other shoe dropped, but he didn’t want to pass out and look like a fool. Besides, if he held his breath for a response, for a sign of vampires crawling back with either captives or excuses, things would go more in his favor the longer he had to wait. It would mean that Kane and the girl, Lyta, weren’t overwhelmed.

  And if they were free, then those two could come back.

  It also meant that the gelatinous horrors were not invulnerable, invincible. They could be beaten, and the four prisoners could stage their own escape.

  As long as there was no news, there was hope.

  So Thurpa stayed quiet. He didn’t look anxiously toward the others. Rather, he stilled himself, meditating, giving himself a chance to better attune his eyes and ears to the surroundings. He looked for ways out, weaknesses in those guarding him.

  And then he noticed the silhouettes stalking just beyond the firelight. He made out the amber, snake-slit eyes of his brethren. Durga, the fallen prince, had not come alone. Others had come, and a cold dread slithered through Thurpa’s veins, down his throat, slowly constricting his belly with icy strength. Thurpa had thought he was the only one who had been sent on ahead to Africa to coordinate with the Millennium Consortium, but these men had the unmistakable eyes and heads of Nagah.

  The Nagah had been fashioned in a semblance of their Annunaki gods, most especially Enki, who’d crafted them into the beings he wished to follow him. As such, the cobra, a respected part of Indian society, had donated genetic material to the hybrid between man and god.

  Unlike the lobotomized Igigi of Enlil, named the Nephilim, the Nagah were to live by their own morals, not the whims of their master, not in a mental limbo of robotic existence with his whispers in their mind. The Nagah were at once fearsome and beautiful, and they were viewed as a benign race in the mythology of the region. Their wisdom was matched by their speed and strength, and their bites were a match for any demon. The cobra men were mighty warriors and wise council at once.

  And yet something seemed off about the figures standing in the darkness, huddling in the shadows. None of them stepped forward. Not one of them approached Thurpa, wondering why he had turned against his prince.

  Indeed, they stood at quiet, perfect attention.

  Thurpa frowned. Nagah warriors had discipline and could stand easily in silence, but this seemed eerie, unnatural.

  “Are you fretting over the behavior of your brothers?” a familiar voice whispered in his ear. Thurpa turned and met Durga’s cold, unblinking glare at a range of mere inches. Thurpa tried not to show how startled he was, but his reflexes betrayed him, and he jolted a step backward.

  “I don’t think those are my brothers,” Thurpa said. “You chose men who would follow you, not zombies.”

  Durga’s smirk was sly, almost imperceptible, but Thurpa spotted it readily, even in the dim light thrown off by the underground hut’s small lamp spilling its orange and amber glow through the doorway.

  “Durga wouldn’t choose people who could think for themselves,” Grant said. “I mean, a few minutes with us, and you showed us much more humanity than he’d want.”

  “Silence, ape,” Durga snarled. He pushed Thurpa back and walked closer to the hulking Cerberus captive. “If I wished for your opinion—”

  “You don’t wish for the opinions of humans,” Grant countered. “So come down off your high horse.”

  The corner of Thurpa’s mouth twitched with a smile he tried everything to dispel. If there was one thing that the young Nagah could appreciate, it was Grant’s turn of phrase.

  “It will be interesting to see at which point your bravado dies,” Durga mused, circling Grant.

  Grant followed Durga with his eyes. The Nagah prince’s intimidation sloughed off of him. The droop of the man’s gunslinger mustache enhanced the deepness of his frown. There was a flicker of disdain in Grant’s eyes, but there was also a wariness in his stance. Thurpa could make out that Grant’s feet were perpendicular to each other, allowing him to brace himself with just a slight movement or to hurl himself into action.

  Even without his hands being free, Thurpa had no doubt that Grant could unleash prodigious damage with a shoulder block, a snap of his knee or even a head butt.

  But Grant held his ground. They were surrounded by the things that Durga wanted to pass off as Nagah. Thurpa had seen the Kongamato clones, and obviously Durga had made these drones, Nagah in form only, not in mind or spirit.

  If Grant made a hostile move, those mindless thugs would fall on him, and each of them was equipped with deadly fangs, loaded with venom, maybe even stronger than what a normal Nagah would have. After all, Durga had had no compunctions about altering his own physical nature when he had access to the source of the cobra baths. “Improving” on the basic Nagah is what Durga would see as necessary while alone on the continent, no matter what his goddess promised him in terms of power.

  Just the same, if they went after Grant on their own, which Thurpa doubted they would, they’d end up being torn apart by a skilled, dangerous man who didn’t fear chains or fangs. Still, Durga had wooed Enlil, and, according to Brigid’s stories while they’d traveled, Enlil had supplied Durga with Nephilim, who he had refashioned to resemble Nagah, and whom he’d had murder helpless people in a wave of terror that kept Durga’s name alive.

  Thurpa tried to tamp down the seething anger he felt for Durga. The fallen prince had abandoned him, left him to take near-fatal punishment.

  And why?

  Even Brigid couldn’t come up for a reason for that.

  Thurpa’s nerves were raw from abandonment, just as his body was sore from his recent capture. So the young Nagah outcast held on to that anger, that negative energy. He could turn it into strength, hone his nerves into an edge, to keep himself ready to escape and fight for freedom. But he’d hold his temper, bide his time. He’d wait for Grant or Brigid to make the first move, to provide leadership for their escape.

  Thurpa prayed to Enki that it wouldn’t take that long.

  Chapter 12

  At noon, with the Zambian girl Lyta in tow, Kane returned to the Mashonan militia’s camp. There, they scrounged for weapons. Along the way, they checked out the area where Kane had thrown his grenade the night before. They saw that he had struck a tree, blowing off a two-yard stretch of bark and splinters.

  It certainly would have created enough wooden shrapnel to cause harm to their vampire pursuers. So, the things didn’t like wood. But was that vulnerability applied to their naked forms, without the shell of human flesh they appropriated? Or did it apply to their stolen skins, as well? Kane didn’t think so, not unless that wood somehow transfixed the blood vessels that the creatures accumulated.

  Blood vessels, or the chambers of a dead heart and/or brain.

  A stake through the heart or decapitation were known methods for returning the dead to their eternal sleep, perhaps because of the entities that took up residence within those vital organs. It made sense to Kane. If you were to control a corpse, the two places where you could animate it from would be the nervous system and the circulatory system.

  Again, Kane’s thoughts returned to Kakusa, the disembodied entity whose cellular strain was trapped within a series of simple yet gigantic monocellular organisms that resembled unholy hybrids between octopi and garden slugs, or, as Grant had pegged them, gigantic balls of snot.

  These particular balls of snot, however, had managed to wrestle three grown men and Brigid into captivity. And one of those three was Grant, six foot four and heavily muscled, with even more combat experience than Kane himself.

  They were
under the command of an alien entity who could wear any human’s skin and remold herself into whatever she felt was the standard of attraction. And Neekra’s new body was indeed beautiful, alluring and frightening. She’d been the purest of darkness and inhumanity while she’d rested between his ears, psychically imprisoning him. It was only when his will had surged to the point where he was about to utterly destroy her presence in his mind that she’d morphed into something that could elicit a modicum of sympathy from the vengeful Kane.

  Kane had realized that it was a mistake, but she was already inside and had plucked that string, that bit of humanity that saw a chance for redemption in others. She’d also aroused his natural human desires, his interest in her as a powerful mate, one who could provide for him as much as raise his status. It was ancient code wired into the male mammal, nothing that would appeal to his higher consciousness, especially since he knew the true horror that was Neekra.

  Kane was not unfamiliar with femme fatales. Indeed, he’d encountered enough of them to know that selling the female of the species short was a quick ticket to an early grave. Some of these “hell bitches” might not even allow enough remains to throw into a grave. From the charismatic and draconian Erica van Sloan to the dark goddess Lilitu, Kane’s respect for opponents from the “fairer sex” was high, at least his respect for their deadly skills and powers, if not their ideals and methods.

  Over the morning, on their walk back toward the Mashonan camp, Kane had filled Lyta in on the journey that had brought them to this deadly tableau. Kane was rarely certain how any of the information he provided to newcomers about the adventures of the Cerberus outcasts would be accepted, but the young woman with him had just encountered gelatinous creatures whose existence hearkened back to the darkest legends of vampires and demons. The concepts of cloning facilities, a network of matter transmission units scattered across the planet and that there was an ancient race trying to reconquer the earth were all accepted, albeit with some stunned blankness in her features.