by Tim O'Rourke
I felt Calix close his hand around mine again, as if to drag me back to my feet.
“Ow!!” he shouted, shaking his hand as if he’d just received an electric shock. He looked at me with dead black eyes. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“It’s magic,” I said, springing to my feet and releasing another surge of energy back down the tunnel. This was followed by the sound of screeching vampires and the shattering of bones.
“C’mon, this way!” someone shouted from the darkness.
Calix and I looked back in the direction it had come from. Rea was standing with the lighter in one hand and a gun in the other. Her top lip was rolled back into something close to a snarl as she fired wave after wave of bullets over our heads at the remaining vampires that raced and scampered along the walls and ceiling toward us. Trent and Rush stood on either side of her, the ends of their guns flashing bright with each bullet that thundered from them.
Calix and I raced toward the others. The vampires were so close now that I could hear them spitting and hissing. I felt one of their claws swipe just inches from the side of my face. I turned and screamed, shooting my hands out before me. Then it was gone, flying backwards down the tunnel as two more of those bolts of luminous energy pounded into it. I looked front to see Calix reload his gun in a blur of movement, then start firing all over again. When his gun was empty once more, he turned his back and raced away with me at his heels. The tunnel veered to the left and we dashed around the bend.
“I’m out! I’m out!” I heard Calix shout.
“Take this,” I heard Rush yell from the darkness. A pistol spun through the air, glinting like a streak of silver lightning. Calix snatched it from the air, then was spinning around again and blasting away at the last of the vampires that were within touching distance of me.
“Run, Julia! Run!” Trent boomed.
I looked up to see Trent and Rea standing at the foot of a length of rope that swung from a hole in the ceiling at the end of the tunnel. Rush was already half way up it. He swung back and forth as he hoisted himself upwards and toward the hole and his escape. Holding her lighter in one hand, Rea gripped the swaying rope with the other.
“Faster, Julia!” she shouted. “Faster!”
Making fists with my hands, I propelled myself forward. In my desire to get away, I was unaware of the vampire scuttling overhead until it grabbed hold of me with its claws. It snatched me upwards, my legs performing a frantic scissor-like motion beneath me. I screamed as the vampire sunk its razor sharp claws into the flesh covering my shoulders. The creature’s claws slid into me like lengths of iron that had been forged in a seething pool of molten lava. I tried to raise my arms to force the vampire from me and back down the tunnel, but the pain was agony and my arms just hung limply at my sides. The vampire pulled me up into the darkness, its jagged fangs just inches from my face. Black blood oozed from its gums and splattered my face like hot acid. Its eyes were little more than two black pits bored into its white skull.
With the pain in my shoulders now excruciating, I kicked wildly out with my legs. But my efforts were futile and the vampire knew it. Running its black and pointed tongue over its blood red lips, it lunged at my throat. The tips of its fangs scraped over the soft curve of my neck before its head suddenly jerked backwards and away from me. A gaping hole had opened in the centre of its face and through it I could see down the length of the tunnel and the other vampires racing along it.
“Fucker,” I heard someone say from below.
I glanced down to see Calix, gun smoking in his fist as he pointed it up at the vampire who had hold of me. The gun thundered in his fist again, before the vampire shot backwards through the air. Its claws slid from within, leaving me to drop through the air like a stone.
I felt a set of strong arms take hold of me before I crashed into the tunnel floor.
“I’ve got you,” I heard a voice whisper in my ear. I glanced up to see that it was Trent who was holding me in his arms.
“Up the rope!” Rea shouted, coming forward and pulling me from Trent’s hold.
I cried out in pain as I could still feel the burning sensation that the vampire’s claws had left behind.
“Take it easy, Rea,” Trent said. “She’s injured.”
“And we’re all going to die if she doesn’t get up that rope. Julia can tend to her wounds later. But first let’s get out of here alive,” she said.
“I’ll be okay,” I mumbled, staggering away toward the rope that swung back and forth in the gloom. From over my shoulder I heard the sound of more gunfire and the dying screams of vampires. Screwing my face up in pain, I raised one hand, slipping it beneath my coat and the sweater I wore. I pressed my hand flat to my shoulder. I felt my flesh there begin to tingle and prickle as the jagged tears left by the vampire’s claws started to slowly heal.
“Up the rope,” I heard Rea shout again.
Still in pain, and with my wounds not yet fully healed, I grabbed the rope. Gritting my teeth, I placed one hand over the other and started to hoist myself up it. About halfway, I lost my grip and slipped back down the rope. Before hitting the ground, I felt two strong hands on my butt. I glanced down to see Calix’s hands on me.
I glared down at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Saving your scrawny arse,” he said, cupping my butt in his hands and pushing me back up the rope. “Now quit complaining and enjoy the moment.”
“There is nothing remotely enjoyable in having my arse gripped by you,” I shot back at him.
“We’ll see,” he said.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I said, hanging from the rope and feeling nauseas with pain.
Before Calix had the chance to answer me, I felt a hand brush against my injured shoulder. Fearing that it was another vampire, I glanced up. But it wasn’t the hideous face of a vampire I was staring into, but Rush’s.
“Take my hand, Julia,” he said, reaching down through the hole.
Wincing with pain, I raised my hand, letting my fingers fold around his. His grip was strong and he started to pull me upwards. Glancing down into Calix’s upturned face, I said, “You can take your hands off me now.”
Grinning, he let his hands linger a moment longer. Smiling back at him, I swung out with one leg, the heel of my boot crunching into his jaw.
“Oops!” I smiled down at him. Calix stumbled backwards and Rush pulled me up through the hole.
“Are you okay?” Rush asked, lying me down on the snow covered ground.
“I just need a moment,” I said, the sound of gunfire from below almost drowning out my words. It had stopped snowing and the air was crisp and cold, the night sky star-shot. Screwing my eyes shut, I placed my hands to the claw marks that covered my chest and shoulders. Brushing my fingertips over each of them, I felt them slowly heal one by one. The new skin that covered them prickled like the flesh had once been burnt. I knew that the sensation would pass in time. For now it felt like I’d been scrubbed with stinging nettles. Pulling myself up and brushing snow from the seat of my pants, coat, and hair, I could see that Rea and Calix had climbed from the hole. From above ground I could see that the hole looked like it might have once been used as a well. There was a metal grate that Rush had thrown open so we could make our escape from the tunnel.
Rea was standing with her back to me and firing her guns down into the hole to beat back the remaining vampires so that Trent could climb the rope and make his escape. I glanced at Calix and he was nursing a split lip. Blood trickled from it and down onto his chin. Had I done that? Probably, I thought as he glared back at me then turned away. Trent appeared out of the hole and Rush dragged him to safety. Rea kicked the grate over the hole, then threw the bolt so the vampires were trapped below ground. For now at least.
“Is everyone okay?” Trent asked, looking at me. His clothes were streaked with dirt, blood, and grime as we all were.
“Okay,” I nodded, my skin still burning beneath my coat. I
glanced in Calix’s direction again to see him wipe blood from the corner of his mouth. I looked away.
“Good, because we don’t have time to sit and lick our wounds,” Trent said, before setting off across the field we now found ourselves in. With the muffled screams of the vampires coming from beneath the grate, we followed Trent once more in the direction of Maze.
Chapter Eleven
We found ourselves looking out from a crop of trees that Trent had led us to. We had run through the snow for what seemed like hours. In places, the snow had lay in thick drifts and our progress had been hard going. Every muscle in my legs ached and throbbed. A stitch burnt in my side. So I was glad then, when Trent finally brought us to a stop. Each of us stood gasping in lungfuls of freezing cold night air. It had started to snow once more, but the trees overhead offered some shelter. Although the falling snow slowed our progress, I was glad of it, as I knew it would cover our tracks that we had left behind. The vampires would definitely know of our existence now and I wondered if word had already gotten back to Maze. Trent stood at the treeline and peered into the distance. I followed his stare.
I could see what looked like a church spire. Through the driving snow it looked like a long, thin smudge on the horizon. While Rea stood propped against a nearby tree and smoked, and Calix and Rush stood facing the direction in which we had come, checking for any vampires that might have followed us, I approached Trent.
“You look lost in thought,” I said. “What are you thinking?”
“What to do next,” he said, staring out across the snow-laden fields. “Do you have any ideas?”
At first I was taken aback that he would even ask for my council. After all, he was in charge of this expedition.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, thrusting his huge hands into his pockets. Snow drifted down from the overhanging branches and settled on our heads and about our shoulders.
“And what might that be?” I asked.
“You’re wondering why I seek your opinion.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
He looked at me. “You were right back there, about that farmhouse not being deserted. You were also right about us not to be so eager to use our guns. We could’ve killed those children – we could’ve killed you.”
“I thought that all humans were fair game,” I said, turning to meet his stare. “I thought werewolves didn’t shy away from killing humans.”
Trent sniffed in the cold night air and looked back out over the fields and in the direction of the church in the distance. “We only killed humans if we had to. It’s a matter of survival. Those human children were no threat to us.”
“But if I hadn’t been there with you, you would have killed them, right?”
“We’re not like the vampires,” Trent said. “I was as shocked as you to learn that the vampires had created a human farm to breed them. Any humans the wolves might have killed got in the way…”
“How stupid of them – if only they had all known,” I sniped. “Perhaps they should have just given up and let you take their home – their world.”
“We were trying to save their world,” Trent said, snapping his head sharply back in my direction.
“So all of this – all this devastation, death and destruction – was just an accident?” I shot back. “You and the vampires have been at war for millennia. Why bring it into the human world?”
“Because the vampires were going to take the human world as their own,” Trent said. “Why should they have it? Why should we spend our existence banished beneath the mountains – forging an existence in caves like animals?”
“But what has been left behind isn’t worth having,” I said. “Don’t you see that? Between yourselves you’ve destroyed the world that you so wanted to conquer.”
“Not conquer,” Trent said with an adamant shake of his head. “To be free in.”
“And you call this freedom?” I scoffed.
“Spending an eternity hiding out in the mountains in the caves below ground isn’t freedom either,” Trent said. “Anyway, what does this war have to do with the Wicce? Like you said, your race now lives happily in another layer.”
“Have you and the vampires been so blinded by your own arrogance and lust for power that you’ve forgotten that what you do in this layer effects all supernatural beings?” I asked in disbelief. “Your war has sent tremors throughout the supernatural world. The layers are starting to shift and move – they are becoming unstable and on the verge of collapse.”
Trent raised an eyebrow at me. “So is that why you have been sent? Do you really believe that you – one lone witch – can bring peace to this world?”
“I have to believe it,” I said. Now it was my turn to look away into the wind and driving snow. Soft flakes pelted the side of my face and the wind blew my long, black hair about my shoulders. “I have to find a way to bring peace to this world. To find an end to this war.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” Trent asked.
“Plan on doing what?” someone said.
We both spun around to discover that Rea had moved away from the tree where she had been taking shelter and smoking a cigar.
“How the five of us are going to survive here when we are so outnumbered by the vampires,” Trent said, steering the conversation away from what we had truly been talking about.
“We find more wolves, of course,” Rea said. “There must be wolves like us in England…”
“No,” I cut in.
“Sorry?” Rea frowned.
“No more wolves,” I insisted.
Rea sucked deeply on her cigar and staring at me through the smoke, she said, “And why not?”
“Because you’ll become an army,” I said, “The wolves will gather around us. Any that are left in England will seek us out. They will want us to attack the vampires…”
“Instead of negotiating, you mean?” Rea almost seemed to sneer.
“I didn’t come here to fight.”
“You were doing a pretty good job of fighting back in that tunnel,” Rea reminded me.
“I haven’t come here to fight your war for you,” I said. “I’m not going to take anyone’s side.”
With a knowing smile spreading across her face, Rea said, “Everyone has a side that they fight for – even if it’s just their own. No one likes to lose.”
“The only people to lose out in this world have been the humans,” I said.
“And what about those two children?” Rea said. “I don’t see them. If you wanted to save the humans, where are those two children now? You left them back there to the vampires – you left them to die.”
“They’re safe,” I said.
“Really? How?”
“It’s magic,” I told her.
“I don’t believe in magic,” Rea said with a patronising smile.
“And that will be your downfall,” I muttered, walking away.
Chapter Twelve
“You look pissed off,” Calix said.
After my conversation with Rea, I’d decided to spend some time alone. I thought I’d slipped far away enough from the others so as not to be found. But I was wrong. I looked up at Calix as he made his way through the trees toward me.
He slouched against a tree trunk near to where I stood, arms folded across his chest. “Are you pissed off because I shot you?”
“No,” I said.
“Because I grabbed your arse then?” he asked with a grin.
“No.”
“So you didn’t mind me grabbing your…”
“What do you want, Calix?” I sighed.
He touched his mouth with his fingertips. “I want to know why you kicked me in the face back there.”
“Because you had your hands all over my butt, that’s why,” I shot at him.
“So you did mind,” he smirked.
“Look, this is all very interesting, but I don’t have time to stand here talking to you,” I said, stepping away from
the tree and heading back toward the others. As I marched past him, he grabbed my arm, spinning me around to face him.
I tried to pull my arm free, but his grip was firm. “I saved your life back there in that tunnel. That vampire was about to sink its teeth into you…”
“So what you’re saying is, that I should show my gratitude by letting you grope me?” I snapped.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying,” he said, holding me so close to him that our noses were almost touching. I could feel his hard chest against mine, and his warm breath against my face. He stared into my eyes as if trying to read me somehow. I eased myself backwards – just an inch.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I just want to know why you have to be so difficult?” he said, his black eyes never leaving mine.
I matched his stare. I wasn’t going to be intimidated by him. “Me difficult? It’s you that’s been hard to get along with.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“Waking up on the boat half-a-goddamn times to find you spooning me…”
“I was just trying to keep you warm – be friendly that was all,” he said.
“You call prodding me in the back with a hard-on being friendly?”
“Like I said, I was cold. Things just started to stiffen up a bit, that was all,” he smirked.
“It’s not funny,” I said, pulling away.
He pulled me back toward him, fingers vice-like about my arm. “What about when we came ashore and I tried to help you out of the boat – you nearly bit my head off.”
“I didn’t need any help. I think I can climb out of a boat without yours or anyone else’s help,” I said. “Now will you please just let go of me.”