The Crucible: A Lawson Vampire Novel (The Lawson Vampire Series)

by Jon F. Merz

  “We’ll get off the train once we pass through that checkpoint. Got it?”

  Jack nodded. “You don’t think they’ll look up here, do you?”

  “Doubt it, but even if they do, we should be fine. Now let’s stay quiet and hope for the best.”

  Jack fell silent and I watched as the locomotive slowed even more. Eventually the entire train came to rest next to the building. It looked simple enough, but I could see a forklift and ramp leading down to a side road that snaked around to the right and into a tunnel cut into the mountain. That had to be the way to reach the installation where Talya was being held. Jack and I would have to sneak through there to reach her.

  And then I heard barking.

  Dogs.

  Jack turned toward me, a look of terror on his face. If the dogs smelled us, then not even the Cloak was going to be able to help.

  And Talya was as good as dead.

  17

  Dogs could smell vampires just as easily as humans. And it was a factor I hadn’t even considered. The big question facing us at that moment: did the Cloak mask our presence in ways other than just visual? And if so, what else? One way or another, Jack and I were about to find out. If the dogs could smell us without seeing us, then they would act strangely. Their handlers would no doubt sense something was wrong, even if they couldn’t see anything amiss. And that would lead to ever more attention being focused on us when that was the very last thing we wanted.

  Jack eyed me but there wasn’t much I could do at that moment. If we panicked then we’d be discovered. We’d already torn a piece of the Cloak back at the visa checkpoint. I didn’t want someone accidentally bumping into us and discovering our presence. For the moment, we were safe atop the train car. But that could change.

  As the train idled in the station, armed guards patrolled around the carriages and engine. The dogs with them sniffed at the wheels and under the carriages. I was glad I hadn’t even entertained stashing us underneath the train. For one thing, it would have been far too dangerous. For another, people hide there all the time…at least they do in movies.

  I tried to examine the tunnel entrance from where we sat. Two guards stood close to it, armed with QBZ-03s, better known as Type 03 assault rifles. The Type 03s looked vaguely reminiscent of Kalashnikov AKs. But the Chinese had been mass producing knockoff versions of AKs for years and exporting them to every kid with a few hundred bucks for forever and a day. They were pretty decent weapons. One of the Type 03 variants had an air burst grenade option, but I was glad to note none of these guys was armed with one.

  The roof of the tunnel had rows of lights illuminating the passageway, but it curved and I couldn’t see that deep into the tunnel. I knew we would need to get through it one way or another. My biggest problem was going to be not bumping into anyone. The tunnel was narrow; three people could maybe walk abreast. That didn’t leave us much room to maneuver, especially since Jack and I would have to move as one unit to avoid detection.

  The dogs moved down the train, ever closer to our car. They sniffed and barked but didn’t raise much of a fuss. Their handlers joked as they walked and seemed pretty unconcerned about finding anyone. This didn’t surprise me. We were fairly deep into China and who would try to sneak in when it was easier to get a visa and official permission? It wasn’t like we were back in the Cold War years, after all.

  Still, my apprehension grew with each passing moment. I wanted the train to start up again and move out of the station. Then Jack and I could jump off before it picked up too much speed, recon the area, and then decide on the perfect timing for an infiltration. I didn’t think it was too much to ask for.

  The lead dog, a black and gray German shepherd, lifted its nose and sniffed the air.

  I caught my breath.

  This is it.

  The dog took another whiff of the area and then tugged at its leash, dragging the handler closer to our car.

  Oh shit.

  Jack stiffened up next to me. I wanted to tell him to relax, that getting scared wouldn’t help us if we suddenly had to bolt, but there was no time. The other dogs were now acquiring whatever scent the lead dog had found and were getting excited as well.

  “What do we do?” Jack asked in the barest of whispers.

  I held my hand up to silence him. The dogs grew closer.

  I had to keep reminding myself that we couldn’t be seen. There was a chance the handlers would chalk the dogs’ excitement up to something else that was less threatening. Or maybe they’d ignore it altogether. Dogs could act up, couldn’t they? Surely the handlers knew this.

  Go away, I wanted to shout.

  The handlers had drawn their pistols now. I frowned. Great, now we were getting guns involved. Awesome.

  The dogs kept barking as they pulled ever closer to the rear car where Jack and I waited. It was getting to the point where I’d have to make a decision, one way or the other. But what to do? Run? Fight? Yeah, the guards might not be equipped with rounds that could kill a vampire, but that wasn’t the point. If we were discovered, then Talya was dead. And we’d have a whole lot more to deal with when Xuan Xiang got involved.

  The dogs strained at their leashes. The barking was now reaching a fierce volume. The handlers shouted at the dogs, trying to keep them under control. But the dogs weren’t having it. They’d been trained to smell out intruders and all of their instincts had been focused on that very idea. They had a scent and they weren’t going to give it up until they located the source of it.

  The source being us.

  I felt adrenaline flooding my body. My muscles were priming themselves. We were going to have to do this the hard way. I didn’t think we could outrun dogs even if we had the Cloak on. We’d have to take down the handlers, kill the dogs and anyone else who came to investigate. If we hit them hard enough and fast enough, we could finish them off and then bleed away from the scene before anyone else got involved.

  It was risky, of course, but we couldn’t simply sit there like we’d been treed. Sooner or later, someone would crawl up on to the top of the car and stumble into us.

  I nudged Jack. He looked and I slowly pointed out the lead handler. I would take him first while Jack stayed atop the car laying flat on the roof. I’d keep the Cloak while he was exposed. With any luck, I’d be able to kill the handlers and dogs and then get Jack down and back under the Cloak. I could tell he wasn’t crazy about the idea, but what choice did we have?

  I steeled my resolve as Jack slowly laid his body flat on the roof of the car. Easing toward the edge, I could see the dogs sniffing all around, their barks even noisier now.

  Here we go.

  Just as I was about to launch myself at the handler, I saw a black form dart out from underneath the railway car and sprint back down the track the way we’d come in. The dogs went nuts, roaring and barking and tearing at their leashes. The handlers shouted warnings at the fleeing person, but he was already a hundred yards away.

  The lead handler reached down and released his dog. The other handlers followed suit and three big German shepherds went racing after the fugitive. I had no idea where the guy had come from, but he was giving us an opportunity. The handlers and several soldiers went racing off down the track after the dogs and the man.

  I waved Jack back under the Cloak. We climbed down slowly and then stood on the gravel alongside the tracks.

  From where we stood, we watched as the lead dog hurled itself at the fleeing man. I expected it was going to be quick, but at the last second, the man pivoted and the dog skidded away. The man reached for a big stone and smashed it down on the dog’s head. Blood sprayed everywhere and the German shepherd lay still.

  But then the other two dogs slammed into the man and they all went down in a tangled heap. I could hear his screams as their powerful jaws tore at his exposed skin. Two shots rang out, but the dogs didn’t yield. They kept up their assault and gradually, the man’s scream fell silent. The air was filled with stomach-churning sounds of fles
h tearing. I shook my head and turned away. Jack did the same.

  There are some things you simply don’t want to ever witness. This was one of them.

  “Come on. That guy died and gave us an chance. If we don’t take it, odds are we’ll end up like he did.”

  We moved toward the tunnel. One of the guards had rushed to help the handlers, leaving only one guy guarding it. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. This might be the only train to come through this way in a week. With the military personnel being distracted, now was as good a time as any to sneak inside and see what the tunnel held within.

  “We’re going in?”

  I nodded. “Stay close and move when I move. Keep moving no matter what.”

  “All right.”

  We walked abreast as we approached the tunnel entrance. The second guard was turned to watch the nauseating spectacle down the track. As long as we kept moving, we could get past him and into the tunnel before he realized we’d even been there.

  We didn’t look at him as we approached. I kept us focused on moving and then we were past him and entered the tunnel, suddenly finding ourselves surrounded by the mountain. There wasn’t any noise in here to muffle our footsteps, so we had to be especially careful from here on out. The nature of the tunnel would no doubt magnify any sound and possibly cause an echo. The sooner we got through it, the better.

  The air felt cooler inside than it had out at the station. I suspected that we were also descending at a very slight angle. The ground seemed to slope downward. I wondered if this was a natural condition or intentional. Whoever had designed this installation had certainly taken precautions to make sure it was well concealed. After all, who would suspect a mountain in the middle of remote rural China?

  The tunnel curved and now descended at a sharper angle than it had before. The air grew progressively colder. But we kept moving all the time. I couldn’t detect any noises coming in our direction and I hoped we’d be able to get through the tunnel without running into anyone.

  We rounded another corner and then came to a dead end.

  Well, it wasn’t rock. Which I suppose was a good thing.

  But the giant metal door barring our way didn’t make me feel especially optimistic about our chances of infiltrating the complex.

  It reminded me of the huge blast doors they had in places like NORAD, able to withstand a nuclear blast, and still keep functioning. Most of those things were ten feet thick, built on huge steel springs, and remotely operated. That meant me being able to hack our way in was a pipe dream.

  The fact that there was a door there, however, meant someone had to be using it. Jack and I would have to wait until someone came through. Only then would we be able to get inside.

  I noted the presence of a biothermic scanner off to the right side. Step right up, lay your hand across the reader and gain entrance. And if you didn’t have access privileges, then it was likely that the entire complex would explode in alarms.

  It was too risky trying to get in that way. The answer, much as I hated it, was to stand to one side of the tunnel and pray that someone came through. Until that happened, there wasn’t a whole helluva lot we could do.

  I glanced at Jack. “Are you sure this is the place?”

  He closed his eyes and did his thing. When he opened them a few seconds later, his frown had deepened. “This is it. She’s here, Lawson. Talya is here.”

  18

  Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait in the cold tunnel for that long. From somewhere deep inside the mountain, we heard a low grumbling and then a whine followed by some sort of hydraulic hiss. Almost like a seal had been broken. It was then that the massive blast door in front of us started to swing open.

  Jack nudged me. I’d allowed myself a quick few moments of eyelid rest. I popped my eyes open and saw the door yawning wider with every second. This was the moment we’d been waiting for: entry into the installation.

  Two soldiers emerged, armed, but ambling and laughing as they headed toward us. I thought we might be crushed by the door before we were able to move, but then they continued past us and Jack and I came off of the wall. Just as we reached the door, it reversed course and started to close. We hustled through and then waited just on the other side until it was entirely shut again.

  For a moment, it seemed like nothing had changed. The tunnel on the other side of the door was exactly the same as where we’d been previously. The only thing that felt somewhat different was the air pressure. It was almost like we were in some sort of huge Tupperware container.

  Jack looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. I shook my head. Without knowing what was around us, there didn’t seem any point to risking conversation. I scanned the area, but saw no cameras. As far as I could see, there were no other detectors, either. The walls of the tunnel here looked the same as the part we’d just been in.

  I found it both a little weird and unsettling. If this installation was where Xuan Xiang was indeed holding Talya, and it was part of some super-secret project being undertaken by the Chinese military, then why was it so relatively unprotected? Sure they had guards outside the tunnel entrance. But once you got past them, you only had to find a way through the blast door. Unless they thought it was virtually impossible for anyone to accomplish what Jack and I had just done. Most people don’t think they have to protect against invisibility.

  Part of me wished it had been harder. That was what I was used to. Still, I couldn’t complain. The goal was to get Talya rescued and home safe, not worry about me feeling like things were too easy. And I should have been grateful for it since Jack was on his first real mission.

  The tunnel stretched ahead of us for twenty yards and then abruptly banked right again. We came around the corner and stopped short. In front of us, brilliant white light bathed an open expanse of polished steel plate lining the ground and the walls. It looked like some sort of futuristic habitrail. We couldn’t see very far into the light because it was so blinding. But I knew we’d have to be extremely careful going forward. Sound would echo if we stomped our feet on that metal flooring. I mimed a few things to Jack until he nodded his understanding and then we continued forward.

  As we approached the break between rock and metal, we heard footsteps coming across the metallic portion. Jack and I hugged the wall at the same time and saw a squad of twenty soldiers running toward us. The expressions on their faces told us that something must have been happening outside of the installation. Either that or we’d somehow screwed up and left sign of our passing. We could hear the blast door open again and close and then everything went quiet.

  Jack leaned close to me. “What as that about?”

  “I don’t know. But if there are twenty more soldiers outside, that means there are less in here that we have to contend with. Can you get a fix on where Talya is?”

  Jack shook his head. “Not an exact location, no. We need to find some sort of control room. I’d expect that would be where they have a layout of the facility.”

  It made sense. We moved off the wall and walked forward into the light. As soon as we got ten yards in, the lighting changed and became less blinding. We could see again and what we saw blew my mind.

  The mountain appeared to have been hollowed out completely and in the center of it, an enormous bottomless pit seemed to descend right into the bowels of the earth.

  “The Abyss,” Jack breathed.

  I nodded. It was certainly an appropriate name. Rings of lights descended into the pit, illuminating everything. The hole must have gone down for about a half a mile. And workers moved like ants in every direction. I saw carts being loaded with rocks and then dumped on conveyor belts that all streamed up toward where we were before disappearing into side vents.

  The amount of energy needed to run this place must have been incredible. Then again, China had an awful lot of money these days. Maybe they’d figured out a way to use all the material they appeared to be mining to pay for it.

  At the top where we s
tood, a ring of metal sat atop the Abyss with corridors branching off like a multipointed star in every direction. Either Talya was in one of those corridors or else she was somewhere down in the Abyss itself.

  Jack pointed across the pit to the opposite side of the ring. I looked and saw a huge bank of computers staffed by various technicians. They had to be monitoring everything that was happening in the Abyss. Here and there, guards roamed around but no one seemed too concerned about any sort of attack.

  Sooner or later, I was going to need a gun, though. I felt naked without one. And if the Cloak didn’t mask all of us, it was going to take a whole lot of firepower to get out of here.

  I happened to glance up and saw a whole other level to the complex. A metal catwalk was built over the Abyss and sitting at the very top was a helicopter on a landing pad. I frowned. How the hell did that get in here? Perhaps the top of the mountain opened? I shook my head. That was some sort of engineering feat if ever I’d seen one.

  “We need to get to that control area,” said Jack. “I can try to get access to their computers and see where they’re holding Talya.”

  I eyed him. “You speak Mandarin?”

  He shrugged. “I might have a passing knowledge of it. I thought you did, too.”

  Fixers routinely know a lot of languages. Mandarin wasn’t one I felt particularly strong in. Mess up a tone on a word and you’ve just called your mother a cow. That might be appropriate if you hate your mother, I don’t know. But what I did know is that tones are a royal pain-in-the-ass. I’d take Japanese any day of the week. Monotone for the win.

  It made sense that Jack would also have strong linguistic background. His ability and need to communicate with the spirit world would necessitate such a thing. I didn’t think that he spoke to ghosts in English if they happened to be from, say, Iceland.

  “All right, but we move slow.”

  Jack nodded and I let him take the lead. As we moved across the ring to the left, we had to avoid an oncoming soldier. Judging by his rank, he was an officer. The only weapon he wore was a pistol on his right side. But he had enough military ribbons to make me think we were actually in North Korea.