Arianna gingerly shuffled down the steps on her hands and feet like a crab, terrified that even the slightest vibration would send the stone tumbling. With clammy hands she reached out and watched in horror as it rolled over the edge. In a moment she had propelled herself forward with her legs and caught it like a rugby ball. She lay there breathing heavily with sweat and tears of pain stinging her eyes.
She stood back up and as she lifted the stone realized that a leaf shaped shard had broken off it and lay on the step. For a moment she feared that the whole thing would turn to chalk dust in her hands but it held.
Looking down, she saw the huge Unseelie was almost upon Isaac. Against her every instinct she turned away and ran as fast as she could up the steps.
27
Usher moved along the tunnels beneath Club Thorn. The air had chilled and the sickly yellow mist that had invaded the nightclub swirled around his feet.
Usher’s eyes had taken on a deep red hue as the Feral magic in his blood ignited. He was no telepathic sensitive like Ariel or Debruler but his blood prickled with electricity as he grew closer to the source of London’s burgeoning thaumaturgy.
The tunnel sloped deeper into the earth beneath the old city. Usher felt pinprick eyes burning into him as he passed. He knew that countless huddled Unseelie lurked in each alcove and rotting cellar, waiting for a chance to pounce. He knew they would not have to wait much longer.
Usher scanned each dark chamber with his pistol as he walked past. Nothing was attacking him. They were allowing him to pass because they knew where he was headed, and their waking queen had been promised a meal.
Usher was pretty sure how this would pan out but he had no choice. There had been no word from Isaac that the shield had been destroyed so as far as Usher knew, the queen of the dark was invulnerable to attack.
Usher realized that his 9mm pistol had only ten rounds and would have negligible effect on Lilith, Cornelius Fortune, or most of the other denizens in the deep. His Soulblade was strapped to his thigh and would have an effect. However he could only take on so many Unseelie before they overwhelmed him. So Usher took a deep breath and against all his military training put his pistol away.
Instead he unravelled the strip of leather that he had tucked into his bag, and took out the First Knife. There were a thousand potential fights down here in the tunnels, but only one that mattered.
In the oppressive silence beneath the club, Usher could hear his own heart beating in his ears. His breath puffed out in front of him and his muscles began to shiver.
He saw pale luminescent eyes regard him from the gloom of each chamber that he passed. They backed off into the dark, allowing him to pass. Usher was beginning to feel like a sacrificial meal being delivered.
Suddenly the yellow fog parted in front of him and Usher found himself in a wide carved chamber. Broken roman pillars propped up the ceiling and a dull brazier burned in the corner. The necromancer stood next to a plinth holding a black stone box. He was stroking it with one long bony finger.
“Come in Major. It’s quite safe.”
Usher stepped into the chamber. He could feel the raw thaumaturgy buzzing in the air.
“Your definition of safe and mine may be quite different.”
Cornelius shrugged his bony shoulders.
“I expect a lot of our definitions are different.”
Usher gripped the First Knife and took a step forward.
The necromancer began to laugh, a dry little chuckle.
“Ooh hello. Bringing out the big guns?”
Usher tried to control the adrenaline and prevent his hands from shaking.
“She’s not coming back. No matter what, she’s not coming back. Neither are you.”
The necromancer regarded Usher with his bloodshot corpse eyes.
“Major Usher, I appreciate your tenacity, but you are simply fighting for a dying empire. There has always been a ruling culture in the world. And a dominated one. It’s just your turn.”
Usher felt the fog close in behind him, sealing him in.
“She’s not coming out that box.”
Cornelius let his dry chuckle surface again.
“Major. She is already out the box. She’s standing over your right shoulder.”
Usher felt all the hairs on his neck prickle. A cold draft of air chilled him to the bone. He became aware of an emaciated figure standing in the yellow fog a few feet away from him. It was breathing shallow and shivering slightly.
Usher slowly turned, and looked at Lilith, the queen of the dark.
She was little more than an animated corpse. Raw nascent flesh had begun to wrap itself around her ancient bones like bandages and it gleamed wetly in the firelight. Her empty breasts hung like leather pouches and her greasy hair hung lank around a sunken face. Yet the eyes burned with the light of a long cruel life. Usher caught the stench of decay from her, like a body pulled from the river. Over the years he had seen bigger, stronger, more ferocious Unseelie. Yet he had never felt a sense of such pure undiluted malice from anything. Not even Cornelius Fortune.
The quivering corpse cocked her head and offered him a mocking grin. Usher wasted no time because he knew that he had none left.
In a flash he raised the First Knife in both hands and ran at Lilith, bringing it down hard towards her heart.
It was like striking granite. Whatever thaumaturgy protected her it caused the knife to glance off in a shower of sparks. Usher staggered back several feet and nearly toppled. At the last moment he caught the wall and steadied himself.
Well that was pretty much my best play.
Cornelius Fortune tapped his fingers on Lilith’s old sarcophagus.
“Well, I promised her takeout on her first night up, and here you are. Tuck in my Queen.”
Lilith shot towards Usher with a speed that he could scarcely believe. Before he could even raise the knife she had him by the throat and had flung him across the chamber.
Usher landed in a heap of broken masonry. He felt all the air leave his lungs and his ribs rattled. He tried to sit up but she was walking jerkily towards him, her long filthy fingernails scraping the wall.
Fortune called across the chamber.
“She’ll just tenderize a little, won’t take too long. Once she’s full we will get to work on using her power to create a whole new army of Unseelie such as have not walked the earth in ten thousand years.”
Usher managed to get to his feet just as Lilith clasped her bony fingers around his throat. She squeezed and Usher felt the world begin to go dark.
28
Isaac braced himself as the huge creature hit him with all its weight. He was lifted off his feet and felt the air knocked from him as he landed hard on the stone temple. He saw stars but through them shiny armoured legs were thrashing towards his face.
Isaac raised his Soulblade and parried on instinct. The sharp foreleg connected with the blade and sent a shudder up the bones of Isaac’s arms. He bobbed and weaved as the poisonous barbs curving from Anansi’s mouth snapped and reset like a steel trap.
The cold blue eyes regarded him with derision as he furiously rolled and lunged to avoid the myriad of body weapons that attacked him almost as independent creatures.
One of the forelegs caught Isaac on the shin and he felt it grind bone. He limped backwards, parrying as he fell, but Anansi was on him. Isaac braced his legs under the creature’s heavy torso and pushed upwards, drawing his pistol with his free hand and unloading the magazine into its soft underbelly. He knew bullets wouldn’t kill it but he just needed a second’s breathing space. Anansi gurgled and spat as the bullets exploded in bursts of yellow blood and it backed off enough to allow Isaac to stand. His pistol showed the working parts locked back and he knew there was no more magazines in his pouch. They both stood there for a moment, bleeding and sizing each other up. Then Isaac began to slowly back up the steps towards Arianna.
Anansi’s twisted parody of a human mouth grinned at him, showing tiny sharp
teeth, and the blue eyes mocked.
“Where are you going man-child? We’ve missed you in the web. Come back to us, you and your good lady. I will take all your fears away.I will drain the colour from your eyes.”
Isaac stumbled but caught his footing before he fell.
“I like my fears just where they are, black Yoda.”
Anansi moved from side to side, trying to find a way past Isaac’s guard. Isaac kept his Soulblade high, ready to hack at any limbs that darted his way. He moved carefully, step at a time, trying not to slip on moss or catch on a vine. Anansi was patient, knowing that Isaac was exhausted and bleeding. He was just waiting for him to fall.
Isaac felt the leaves slip from beneath his boots and suddenly he was on his back. His Soulblade fell from his hand and tumbled down the steps out of reach. Anansi waited for a second, leaned back on his long legs, and then darted forward for the kill.
Isaac gripped the stone with his fingers and tried to back pedal but there was no traction upon the moss. All he could do was wait until the fangs of Anansi reached him.
Arianna finally reached the crumbling crevice in the temple wall. A constant stream of hot air hit her as she stood at the entrance and with it the stench of rotten meat.
Fighting against her gag reflex, she stepped inside. She found herself on a high ledge looking down into the ruin that was the temple’s interior. It was gloomy, with only a few bright shafts of light shining down from broken masonry.
What caught her attention was the living thing that took up most of the floor and walls. Rather than the traditional World Tree that she had become accustomed to studying, this was more akin to a pitcher plant. A huge central pitfall trap pulsed in the centre of the temple, like a bulbous red mouth. Growing out from this in all directions were spiny purple and green vines that trailed the walls. It was like a thing of flesh rather than plant life. Blood and pus leaked from open sores across its limbs.
Unlike a true pitcher plant the central mouth was not a trap filled with nectar waiting to drown unlucky animals.
It was a void.
Arianna stared fixated into the hole in reality. It seemed to call to her, draw her closer, invite her to jump. She sensed intelligence on the other side, waiting for her in the Dark. She could feel its longing and hunger, the desire to push through the thin membrane and find itself on our world where it could feast and hunt.
The waves of raw dark thaumaturgy that pulsed through and out of the temple into the sky were overwhelming.
For a moment Arianna felt light headed, and she began to tip and lose her balance on the high ledge.
Far below, the pitcher plant quivered and waited to receive her, to suck her through whole to the Unseelie realm.
It would be so easy to sleep.
She shook her head and felt herself snap awake. Looking down into the maw, Arianna felt a wave of disgust. She glimpsed the true nature of the Unseelie realm for a moment and it was all she needed. Holding up the stone in both hands, she leaned out over the edge as far as she dared.
“Hey boy. Feeding time.”
She dropped the stone and watched as it fell down through the dust and shafts of light, straight into the gurgling fleshy maw of the mutated World Tree.
At first nothing happened, and Arianna just stood there watching in desperation.
Oh god please work.
Then the huge mass of life began to convulse. Fissures burst all across it, foul effluence running forth. It started to collapse in on itself, choking and spasming.
Arianna felt a sudden vacuum and was almost plucked from the ledge but she dug her finger into the cracks between the stonework.
Then, as if a plug had suddenly been pulled beneath the entity, it collapsed in on itself and twisted around, sucked into the tiny hole in reality that it had grown from.
Arianna fell to her knees as the last of her strength faded. She sat there on the high ledge breathing hard and feeling the air within the temple become cleaner by the second.
You’re done.
Her senses returned and she suddenly remembered Isaac. She forced herself up onto her feet and stumbled back out into the sunlight to help.
Further down the temple, Isaac lay there on his back. He was shaded from the heat of the sun by the looming shadow of Anansi. Sharp limbs were planted on either side of him like a chitin cage, and the wizened old creature was smiling down at him.
“Silly little creature.”
Isaac had no more fight left in him. The last few days had used up the last reserves of stamina he possessed. He was so tired and in pain that he was almost glad of the shade that Anansi’s body provided. Almost. He stared up at the creature and smiled grimly.
“Get on with it, ugly.”
Anansi drew back the barbs in his jaw like a crossbow being readied. Then he paused in thought.
“I might not kill you. I might just put you under the black sleep forever. You’ll be my little pet. The first thing I’ll do is make you kill your woman. You won’t even know who you are.”
Isaac looked up at the creature in defiance. He braced himself for the fangs to start eviscerating him.
Ok let’s give him the last words.
“I’ll tell you who I am Unseelie. I am Corporal Isaac Marlowe of the Special Threats Group. I won’t know sleep, pain or hunger until my job is done. But I will know who I am, black sleep or not. If you put me under, you’ll have to keep all your bug eyes open until the end of time. Because I’m with Empire One, sunshine, and we make monsters like you afraid of the dark. Now do your worst.”
Anansi grinned and used one sharp limb to force Isaac’s head to one side. He felt the terrible strength of the creature and feared that his skull would cave. His vision started to blur. Something registered in his fading brain. He could feel a rumbling in the stone beneath him. Suddenly his head was released and he could breathe again. Sitting up, Isaac saw that Anansi’s expression had changed. Isaac turned his head and saw Arianna standing at the broken fissure in the temple above. She was waving her arms and shouting to distract Anansi and the first thing Isaac noticed was that her hands were empty. The stone continued to rumble beneath him and the air quality around him had already clarified.
She did it.
“There’s one other thing about us you don’t know, Unseelie.”
Anansi was moving erratically from leg to leg, staring around at the shaking temple walls.
“We get the job done.”
Anansi’s blue eyes were wide.
“No. What did your whore do?”
Isaac suddenly noticed something lying next to him on the step. A leaf shaped blade chipped from the stone they had brought, like a shard of flint. Before Anansi could regain his composure, Isaac grasped for it and launched himself at the Unseelie.
Anansi tried to bring up his limbs to ward him off, but Isaac fought like a berserker. The stone cut into his hand but he plunged it again and again into the body of the spider god. Flames issued from the wounds and Anansi leapt back. He began a twitching dance as his legs thrashed, but within moments his flesh had ignited from the inside, and he blackened and burned with a sickening crackling stench. The legs gave beneath him and crumbled to embers and finally the blue eyes exploded in a mass of molten slime. The remains collapsed smoking onto the stone.
Isaac stood there holding the makeshift dagger, blood dripping from his palm.
Message delivered.
He felt himself begin to fall but in an instant Arianna was beside him and her arms took him gently down onto the blood stained stone of the ancient temple.
“Isaac. It’s done.”
Isaac lay there in Arianna’s arms, feeling the warmth of the sun and of his leaking blood. He smiled up at her and let the stone shard fall.
“Done, sweetheart.”
29
Lilith held Usher up by the throat. His boots kicked and scraped against the stone wall, desperately trying to find some kind of foothold.
With each desperate stol
en breath, the stench of her unwholesome flesh assailed his nostrils. He punched out at her with his fists but it was like striking a statue. He felt his limbs begin to sag and turn to lead.
Stay awake Usher. Keep fighting.
Somewhere at the end of a long tunnel Usher could hear the laughter of the necromancer. Like an inventor with his latest creation he was gleeful as a child to see Lilith up and animated. It all seemed like a long way off to Usher.
It would be so easy just to stop struggling. Just sink down into it, it will stop hurting so much soon. Can’t go on like this forever.
Usher gasped as he felt the fingers loosen ever so slightly. Lilith clearly had no intention of making this go quick. He felt a fetid breath on his face and a black tongue licked his cheek.
“Wake up.”
The voice was oddly sweet and melodic. It was the tone of a gentle queen from the throat of a skinless corpse.
“Uh…I’ve woken up to worse…but not much.”
Lilith smiled and her mouth was just an open bleeding sore. A worm fell from her lips.
“Little soldier. I have stood against armies of your kind, thousands of years before you were conceived.”
Lilith squeezed again and Usher felt his vision begin to darken. A part of him, a small part of him welcomed it. He hoped that his battered soul would migrate to find those of his family. Then they could finally settle somewhere far from these rowdy Unseelie neighbours.
“Don’t…underestimate the power…of a motivated soldier….”
Lilith let her long tongue slide out and caress his lips.
“Oh I never have. I’ve always kept a few of you around in chains. I get hungry in all sorts of ways.”
Usher felt the bile rise into his constricted throat.
“I’m kinda...dating someone…at the moment.”
The Last Line Series One Page 81