Nosferatu s-14

by Carl Sargent

  "But why are they taken alive if they're then killed?" Serrin tried to reason, ignoring the genetics.

  "Because they must have value to whoever it is that's taking them," Michael said slowly. "It isn't money. It's not their genius-level intelligence either. It must be something directly to do with the allele. With the blood group."

  Serrin felt slightly sick for an instant. "What are you telling me?" he managed to say. "We're dealing with a slotting vampire or something?"

  "Something rather nastier than that," Michael confirmed. "I don't think garlic, Hail Mary's and hows-your-fathers can stand up to this one. In fact, if I'm right, he cannot exist. Which is why I'm waiting for Professor Richard Bruckner to call me. This should be interesting. I'll record the call and get Geraint to pass it along to one of his Oxbridge men in white coats. I don't know enough about this to verify it myself.

  "In the meantime, I'll investigate the ongoing paperwork for visas to the Zulu Nation. There shouldn't be any problem. It's the lack of shots I'm worried about. You can catch any one of a tremendous range of exciting and colorful diseases in Umfolozi and we won't have much in the way of protection against them. Tom says he can deal with most things, even things he doesn't know about yet. I still want to do my homework on emergency medical care, though. It could get interesting."

  He was still flying, buzzing with it all, "Kristen, you're going to have a problem in the Zulu Nation, huh?"

  "Yeah, I guess so," she said miserably. "But I'd be useful to you."

  "How?" Michael asked bluntly.

  "I know how to avoid button spiders the really dangerous ones. And the giant scorpions. I know which plants are safe and which aren't. I know what to buy to protect your skin against insects and to keep the bees off you if they swarm. I know what's smart to wear and what

  isn't." She would have gone on, but he stopped her, smiling.

  Half of it just wasn't true, and to come through she'd have to call in some favors and get a lot of help and advice really fast. But she didn't want to see these people disappear from her life as quickly as they'd entered it. And, while she hadn't been able to understand anything of what Michael had said, she had caught the word vampire and, crazily, that had excited rather than frightened her. She knew too much from the trideo and nothing about the reality of them.

  "But you don't have a passport, do you?" She shook her head. "And only the basics in the way of an ID?" She nodded.

  "Know any fixers who can fit you up with a good passport fast? Like, in a day?"

  "Why don't we just get her a real one?" Serrin asked. "She's entitled, surely."

  "Fine. And wait three weeks. Even with palm-greasing, a few days at the very least. That allows plenty of time for any interested parties to find us here and maybe even figure out what I've been doing if they have a good enough decker. We don't know what's shadowing us," Michael retorted.

  "I haven't been able to find anyone yet," Serrin said, thinking of his watchers and astral surveillance.

  "Which could mean that there isn't anyone only because they just haven't gotten to us yet, or else there's someone who's so good you can't see him. Either way, why sit here like a duck with a carton of orange sauce in its beak waiting for the guy with the gun?"

  "Very colorfully put," Serrin said sarcastically.

  "Quack," Michael grinned. "So, do you know someone, Kristen?"

  "I think so," she said, "but it won't be cheap."

  "Not if it's any good, it won't be," Michael replied. The telecom beeped; he went and took the call in the bedroom.

  "We need to go to Umfolozi to find the other mage they tried to kidnap," Serrin told Kristen. "He may be able to help. If he knows, or saw, something, if we can

  find out why they tried to take him, then we may get to the truth of who tried to kidnap me."

  "I know that," she said slightly impatiently.

  "How difficult will it be for you there? I just don't know about these things," Serrin mumbled.

  She hissed. "Zulu people don't like Xhosa," she said angrily.

  "But we're white. Won't it be worse for us?" he said, genuinely puzzled.

  "Are you kidding? The OV's are the best friends the Zulus have," she said. She was really only parroting what she'd heard about the proud eastern nation and the Oranje-Vrystaat. Never having been anywhere near either of those neighboring states, never having learned any history at any school, it was only what she'd heard on the streets. But she knew about the Zulus she'd seen in Cape Town, and they liked mixed-race faces about as much as she liked having her faced rubbed in drek.

  Michael half-emerged from the bedroom, the portacom clutched tightly to his ear. "Many thanks, Professor. This really does help with my dissertation. Yes, sir, I'll make sure to give Professor Malan your regards. Thank you again, sir. It's been most helpful." He flicked the off switch and threw the phone back on the bed. He smiled at having so successfully passed himself off as a Witwatersrand postgraduate.

  "That's the guy who isolated the Bruckner-Langer HMHVV strain," he gloated. "Says it isn't totally impossible for a metahuman to have the strain and somehow survive. It's never been known, but theoretically it's just possible. It would depend on, um, compensatory RNA-stabilizing polygenes and something to do with the CS-cascade system in immunology." Michael, for once, looked as if he wasn't entirely sure that he'd learned something properly. To Serrin, it was almost a relief.

  "So our man or our elf, to be more accurate could, just possibly, exist after all. When you have eliminated the possible, the impossible that remains is obviously the answer. It's simply a question of showing that it can happen, as Holmes would have said."

  "I don't think he did say it quite like that," Serrin complained, searching out the brandy in the fake mahogany cupboard.

  "Oh, box it. Just because you've got my deerstalker hat doesn't mean you can spoil all my fun," Michael mocked him. "Now all we have to do is to find our target. An elf nosferatu. Since I doubt that he lights it up in neon, we may have some way to go. Hopefully our Mr. Shakala can tell us something that will put our feet on the path.

  "We should go. Back to Indra's. I can't risk my deck there, but I don't want to stay here any longer than necessary. This place is just too obvious," the Englishman concluded, beginning to lock up his case. "Take the brandy with you. I might even take a little snifter myself. I've had a good day."

  He paused and gave Serrin and Tom a sly grin as he picked up the deck with a grunt. "By the way, Bruckner says that if such a creature existed, it's quite likely that he might have special requirements in the feeding department, though he couldn't be precise about the details. Now isn't that interesting?"

  He was halfway out the door. Serrin took Tom by the arm as the troll made to follow him.

  "You're very quiet, chummer," he said quietly. "What were you up to all day? Not a dereliction of duty, surely?"

  The troll's soft brown eyes turned to him. "Just something I had to do," he said non-committally, then followed Serrin out the door.

  Magellan realized far too late that they had gone. There had been no activity in the apartment during the morning and his watchers had told him nothing. Finally, he did the simple thing and changed into his uniform in the shoddy little hiding hole he'd rented for almost nothing.

  Ten minutes later, a nondescript Knight Errant security man knocked at the door of Michael's Soho apartment. When a second loud knock brought no reply, the man took a wafer-thin metallic card from an inside pocket and clipped it to the side of the retinal-analyzing maglock. After a second or two, the lock registered a positive ID and the door clicked open.

  He hadn't been able to disengage all the alarms; even

  just the attempt to do so would have been impossible, and would have alerted security. The motion sensors detected him in the doorway and the wailing alarm howled in protest.

  "Drek," he said in a voice that gave him away as an elf rather than a man. He made it to the service elevator in seconds and bypassed its deact
ivation with another gizmo, using it to speed down to ground level. When he got there, three large security guards had LMGs trained on the door.

  "For chrissakes get up there," he yelled. "There's some fraggin' mad ork with a bomb. Says he's going to blow the top floor off. Tox, I'm outta here, man!" He ran for it. The security men were uncertain just long enough for him to get to the corner before a spray of gunfire told him they thought it would be more convenient if he halted in his tracks.

  He made it to the autopark before they did and leapt onto his bike. He was away and down the ramp before they had time to shoot, which they couldn't risk doing anyway, not with the possibility of incoming traffic. He saw the barrier coming down, and the metal wedges coming up out of the road surface. He took a chance and hit the bump, crouched so low on the bike that he was able to shoot through with his head a few centimeters beneath the barrier.

  As he made his way into the anonymity of downtown Manhattan traffic, Magellan was angry at himself. He'd botched it, and now the elf would know that someone was watching, after all. But he also knew the birds had flown the coop. He set his mind to figuring out how to discover where they'd gone. They might be able to change their names, but not their metatypes. Airlines had to list passengers by metatype; a plane designed for a capacity of four hundred humans couldn't get off the ground with four hundred trolls on it. One elf male, one human male, one troll male, and let's hope they didn't take some patsy along for a free trip just to make up the numbers. But it was going to take time, too much time. He didn't want Jenna to know, and he had a horrible feeling she was going to call for an on-the-spot report before too long. Time to make sure my telecom develops a problem, he thought.

  Luther looked at them on the endless bank of screens. By now, the drug was in every one of them, coursing through their veins, through the blood-brain barrier. Its infiltrations would already have reached every part of their bodies.

  "The orienting reflex data," Martin said appreciatively. "Entirely normal. But the voluntary element of the late OR completely flat. It looks perfect. Muller's initial data can't be faulted. This is a straight replication. It's incredible. It works for all of them. There are no racial differences."

  "Show me the burn test again," Luther said simply. The video replayed before his eyes, the people withdrawing their hands from the hot iron, expressions devoid of any fear. That couldn't be faked.

  "Purely reflexive. The distance of retreat is proportional only to the degree of burn damage. There isn't any emotional response at all. Look at the steroid and sympathetic outputs," Martin urged him. Flowing lines with rising and falling curves were superimposed on the film of blank faces.

  "It looks right," Luther agreed. "This leaves only the scanning work. Set them up, Martin." He was fighting to control himself now. It would take at least two or three hours to conduct the sensitive NMR and PET scans of the brains of his subjects, precious time he begrudged before he could take this chemical and weave it into life. He couldn't waste effort preparing them for the scanners himself. He kept his pawns for just that kind of donkey work.

  16

  The mages who usually patrolled the site had long since retreated from the coming storm. Safe in the warmth of the mansion, they would be a mile away from the stones and rock of Rathcroghan in the howling winds of the night. Niall was alone save for his ever-present guardian.

  He felt Mathanas' cloak spreading around him, the powerful masking of the spirit hiding his presence from any scrying. Soon, the storm would be so strong that the sheer power of it would hide him anyway.

  He lashed a length of rope around one of the smaller, pillar-like rocks and knotted it around his waist. The physical force of the storm was threat enough in itself. It might be calm only a few miles away, but here the hurricane-force winds would be capable of knocking him over like a feather if he didn't take this simple precaution.

  Niall had always dreaded this time, just as anyone of his Order would. A mage who died trying to take into himself the uncontrollable energies of the storm would be lost in limbo. None knew what fate he might meet, what unknown plane he might be flung into, what eternal ordeals he might suffer. He had not expected to have to face this for many, many years; perhaps never in this lifetime.

  He had taken every precaution possible, cast every spell of defense and contingency he could call upon without draining himself. Now he could only wait for the surge and hold onto the enchanted golden vessel as tightly as to life itself.

  The shrieks growing in the wind were as tormented souls, felt as much as heard, ripping right through him. He hardly felt the rain driving into him in the teeth of the gale as the sounds grew louder and nearer. It was as if the

  Wild Hunt itself had been raised in all its implacable madness.

  As the force of it grew, lightning forked above him and the rocks began to glow with a blue nimbus of energy, pure power flowing into and through them. Wisps of raw magical energy drifted lazily between them, a ghostly spider's web of power weaving itself around him. He summoned every last ounce of will and determination and drew the pattern toward himself.

  As he held the cauldron, it felt as if razor blades were being driven under each fingernail, into the bones of his fingers, carving deeply into every sinew and ligament of his wrists. The pain was unbelievable, unimaginable, unbearable. He'd never dreamed that a body could hurt like this. There was no habituation, no release, no swooning, simply an overloading of sensation that grew and grew, ripping into him, tearing now into muscle and the long bones of his arms, rippling across his shoulders. As the elf bit hard into his tongue, trying to keep from screaming, blood dribbled from his mouth. His useless hands clung to the little gold cauldron and he tried to force the power down into it, out of the agony of the body and into the vessel, driving down this anguish.

  The searing sensation arced down his spine, through every vertebra. He felt himself forced back against the rock, knobbles of rock sticking into his spine and ribs, fighting for every breath now. The spider's web grew white, pulsing, filled with wild, crackling energies.

  Then he saw it. Nothing had led him to expect anything like this. An amorphous cloud of mist, blown together within the shrill whiteness, began to form into a larval, writhing form many meters in length. The worm-like thing struggled with its absurd, grotesquely under-sized arms to drag itself toward him, a great sucker-like mouth opening and closing in a grisly peristalsis. It radiated despair to him, wretchedness, the impossibility of what he was trying to do, the infinite release of abandoning the struggle against overwhelming pain and allowing the spirit to flee the tortured flesh.

  For a split second it almost overcame him. But Niall's despair changed within his own mind to an image of an

  endless chain of despairing humanity, a vision of what would happen to the world if Lutair was not stopped. His emotions changed to rage, and he forced the creature away from him with an effort of will beyond anything mortal. Impotent against him, the thing retreated back into whatever nightmare realm had spawned it.

  Niall now felt himself rising above his own slumped body, not so much forced into the astral as ascended into it. He saw the whole of the pattern around him and drew it down, through the focal point within himself, concentrating it, filling the cauldron to overflowing. It shone like the bright Dagda's own, but around it the darkness of the vengeful Morrigan herself grew and cloaked his body like a black glove.

  Then, like feeling the sun break through the clouds and begin to warm his face, he felt the presence of the spirit with him once more, searching for him, supporting him. He snapped back into his body, and was astonished at his own state. There was no pain, despite the blood on his hands and face. Not even any sense of fatigue. Within himself, Niall felt only power. It made him want to run forever, to go shouting down the stars with the sheer joy of it all, and at the same time wanting to be still, quiet, to save it, hoard it, to always feel like this. Blood mixed with salt as tears trickled from the aching corners of his eyes. He kne
w how very close he had been to death, and worse.

  "Hold this," Mathanas whispered to him. "You are very vulnerable now, because you feel so strong. This is not the time to act."

  The spirit held him and he felt pain return to his body. It was making him aware of the damage he had suffered, using its powers of healing on him; but making sure that Niall was not so intoxicated with his power that he became oblivious to the danger he was still in. He groaned as sensation returned to his chest and every breath felt like a tearing of his rib muscles. Even the touch of Mathanas, choosing to materialize himself just enough for the healing, was painful.

  "Yes, I understand," he gasped. "Where can we be safe?"

  The shimmering face of the spirit seemed to smile almost playfully. "You have asked me that these last six years," it said.

  "This is no time for jest," Niall said huffily, aware that he was on the point of breaking into exultant, joyful laughter despite the painfulness of his chest. He began to untie the ropes, groaning again with the effort. Somehow, he was going to have to walk away from here. Even with Mathanas' powers, that would not be easy.

  "I should have been an Arab sorcerer from the Arabian nights," he grumbled. "A flying carpet would be extremely useful right now."

  "How do you know you weren't?" Mathanas shot back. The spirit was obviously in a flighty mood today. Niall wondered how the storm might have affected it; it was something he hadn't given enough thought to before.

  "Let's worry about that later," Niall said, taking his first steps.

  "I cannot change the terrain here. It would be detected," Mathanas said as the elf almost stumbled over the small stones littering the ground. "It would leave a trail."

  "I know," Niall groaned. "And it's four miles to the car." He looked down at the cauldron, quite ordinary to the untrained eye, screaming with power to anyone who had the talent to penetrate its magical cloaking.