Back from the Undead

by DD Barant

  “I dreamed about Cassius.”

  “This should be interesting,” Charlie murmurs, going back to his paper.

  “I dreamed…” I stop, and shake my head. “Most of the dream was pretty ordinary—a little non-linear, sure. But right at the end it turned into a real nightmare: Cassius transformed into some sort of vortex, and he was talking gibberish. Words that almost made sense but not quite.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad,” Eisfanger says around a mouthful of eggs.

  “It was how it felt, more than anything. I was terrified. There was this feeling of impending doom. I woke up covered in sweat and shaking.”

  “How I start every day,” Charlie says. “You know, being your partner and all.”

  “Oh, you’re in great form.”

  “Thanks. See what a good night’s sleep will do?”

  Eisfanger looks at me curiously, seems about to say something, then changes his mind and drains half a glass of orange juice in one gulp instead. “What’s our next move?”

  “We wait for Stoker to get back in touch,” I say. “He got us down here, he’s not going to just vanish now.”

  “Unless he gets himself killed,” Charlie points out.

  “Yeah, but with Stoker that’s always a concern.” I finally get the attention of our waiter and some more coffee. “And he’s proven extremely hard to kill.”

  We finish breakfast. Charlie makes arrangements to have the car fixed, Eisfanger holes up in his room with some technical manuals, and I watch daytime TV.

  By the time Stoker gets in touch it’s late afternoon. He calls me on my cell and starts the conversation with, “How’d you like the chance to do a little target practice this evening?”

  “On whom?”

  “The bottom feeders who are holding the pire children.”

  I’m sprawled on the bed enduring an old rerun of Gilligan’s Island—oddly unchanged even when done with pires and thropes—and now I sit up. “You’ve found them?”

  “I have. Mr. Zhang was most cooperative. For a while.”

  Even though Zhang was a criminal lowlife who was perfectly willing to sell me to the highest bidder, Stoker’s remark sends a chill through me. I have to keep reminding myself that he’s still a sociopath, one who’s murdered dozens of men and women because they weren’t human in his eyes. That’s often how serial killers view their prey.

  “You’re sure?” I ask.

  “I do need to verify the information, but it’ll have to be done quickly. You could help.”

  “How?”

  “Meet me here at eleven o’clock.” He rattles off some GPS coordinates and I jot them down. “Bring Charlie, wear something stealthy, and come armed.”

  “In other words, show up the same way I always do for our meetings.”

  He chuckles. “Meetings? Funny, that’s not how I think of them.” He hangs up. I frown at the phone, then put it down.

  The car isn’t back from the shop yet, though Charlie says it’ll be done by tomorrow—he’s only having the glass replaced, so it’ll at least be drivable. We shouldn’t need it, anyway; the address Stoker gave me isn’t far from the downtown core, and we can easily walk there.

  At just over a thousand acres, Stanley Park is bigger than Central, skirted by more than five miles of seawall and holding half a million trees. On my world, it was a beautiful, well-tended place to stroll beside the ocean or under conifers hundreds of years old.

  In a world filled with lycanthropes, it’s something else.

  The seawall is nothing but jagged black coastline and a few isolated stretches of rocky beach. The park itself is first-growth rain forest, deep and primeval. The only trails are those made by the residents, who are secretive and fiercely protective. It’s considered untamed even by Vancouver’s Wild West standards, a slice of wilderness populated by only the most solitary and vicious of packs. It’s like a demilitarized zone, one where the only law is that of survival; the last time the city tried to bring it under control was almost thirty years ago, when they attempted to reopen the road that used to run along its eastern border. They gave up after fifteen days and thirty-two fatalities on the construction team.

  And the coordinates Stoker gave us are right in the thick of it.

  There’s no fence around the park, just a wall of dense vegetation broken by the occasional opening of a trail. It edges right up to the city itself, but I note that all the buildings closest to the tree line are heavily fortified, more like bunkers than anything else. Despite the park’s lushness there are few windows facing it, and the ones that do are barred and at least two floors up.

  We’re not stupid. Eisfanger has supplied us with NSA stealth charms, making Charlie and I nearly invisible to supernatural hearing or smell. We can still be seen, but we plan on staying out of sight as much as possible. Plenty of cover in the forest, after all.

  While Eisfanger is having all kinds of trouble with my ammo, he had none with designing and building me a silencer for my Ruger. It looks much like a regular one—a long tube attached to the end of the barrel—but it’s based on magic, not science, which in this case means it’s a lot more efficient. I can take out a target while making less noise than a mouse clearing its throat.

  We’ve also got a trap detector, a clever little sorcerous gadget that looks like a bundle of black feathers sticking out of a leather pouch. It isn’t made to sense trip wires or deadfalls or anything like that—it operates on the assumption that any trap will have a spell attached to it preventing it from being accidentally tripped by the one who set it. I’ve got the pouch clutched in one hand, because if it finds itself in the presence of such a spell it’ll silently pulse. The trails themselves are said to be reasonably trap-free, but once off them you have to navigate through any number of tribal territories.

  Charlie and I are both wearing camo outfits to help us blend in. I bought mine an hour ago in a shop off Robson Street, while Charlie brought his own with him. I’m surprised his doesn’t have double-wide lapels.

  We step off the trail as soon as we’re around the first bend. It’s weird; I can still hear the noises of a major city—the traffic, the boats in the nearby harbor, the occasional plane overhead—but all my other senses are telling me I’m far, far from civilization. The air is rich and piney; the darkness is close to absolute. I let Charlie take the lead, on the assumption that his T. rex instincts, however buried they might be, are still sharper than my hairless monkey ones. Besides, he’s got the GPS.

  We travel slowly, carefully. Gradually my eyes adjust and I can at least make out the dim shapes of tree trunks, boulders, and fallen logs. We stop every now and then when we think we hear something, but I can’t tell if it’s just nerves on our part or someone else trying to be as quiet as we are.

  We can tell when we cross a border from one territory to another. Not only is the smell of thrope urine strong enough for even my unenhanced nose to detect, there are also more visual markers.

  A row of skulls stares at me, just above eye height. One nailed to each tree, facing the same direction, a procession of bony sentries extending as far as I can see in either direction. They’ve got some kind of symbol marked on them in bright red, an X with horns jutting from the top and fangs from the bottom.

  The spell detector doesn’t twitch. I hope Eisfanger remembered to charge its batteries.

  We make our way deeper. Our objective, thankfully, isn’t actually right in the middle—it’s closer to the western edge. The park itself juts out into the bay, surrounded on all sides by water except a narrow bottleneck to the south, where we entered. We only have to cross two more tribal boundaries before we reach our destination, and luck seems to be with us; we don’t run into any trouble.

  We reach the exact coordinates Stoker gave us. It’s a massive redwood stump, as thick around as a missile silo, its jagged top twenty or so feet above us; I’d hate to see the storm that brought this giant down. The fallen trunk is largely rotted away now, the moonlight shining d
own on it through the breaks in the canopy overhead making it look like the abandoned remains of some ancient, organic pipeline.

  “Up here,” a voice whispers. Stoker, perched on top of the stump like a predatory ape. He’s dressed all in black, obviously preferring the ninja approach to the commando.

  The trunk has plenty of handholds, saplings taking root in the redwood’s corpse. We climb up and join Stoker. The top of the stump is only half jagged, the rest as smooth and even as a chain-saw cut.

  “We’re here,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Where to now?”

  “Like you said,” Stoker replies. “We’re here.”

  He taps out a complex rhythm on the surface of the stump. There’s a noise like wet cardboard tearing, and a hole spreads out at Stoker’s feet like a huge, empty eye opening. A dim green light glows inside.

  Stoker climbs in, his feet apparently finding the rungs of a ladder I can’t see. I’d like a little more intel before I jump into the fray, but Stoker isn’t leaving me much choice. I follow him, and Charlie brings up the rear.

  It’s like descending the conning tower of a submarine. The bottom is a good thirty or so feet down, definitely below ground level. The tube is machined steel, lit by small green lights, and bottoms out in a chamber around the size of a boxing ring. There’s a large steel door in one wall, and nothing else.

  “What—” I start to whisper, and then the steel door opens and an Asian pire steps through it. He’s clearly a guard—dressed in night camouflage, a spidery compound bow slung over his back, a headset plugged into his ear. He’s as startled to see us as we are to see him.

  Me and Charlie, anyway. Stoker takes his head off with a single swipe of a machete I hadn’t even noticed he had. The head hits the floor with a dull thud, the body collapsing beside it. It barely decomposes at all—our guard hasn’t accumulated much of a time-debt in his undead life. He looks around eighteen.

  Stoker doesn’t hang around and offer an explanation. He ducks through the open door, pausing only long enough to snag the guard’s headset, and we’re forced to follow.

  Long, narrow corridor, slightly better lit but still dim. The air is close and damp, like a musty basement. Poor ventilation, suggesting that this is a pire stronghold. Odd—Stanley Park is mostly home to thropes.

  I grab Stoker by the arm and yank. It’s not enough to force him to stop—he’s a big man, all of it muscle—but he does anyway. “Sit-rep now,” I hiss. “Or Charlie and I are leaving.”

  “Bad idea. Protocol is to seal the operation if there’s an incursion, which means kill anyone who isn’t supposed to be here and send out sniper patrols to eliminate possible backup. You wouldn’t get far.”

  “Far from what? Where are we?”

  “A very bad place.”

  He shrugs off my arm and keeps going.

  The corridor comes to a T-intersection. Stoker goes left, not hesitating—he knows where he’s headed. We come to another door, also steel, more like the hatch of a ship.

  The headset crackles to life. A few terse words, spoken in what sounds like Japanese. Stoker calmly replies in the same language, unsealing the door at the same time. The “Hai” he gets in response seems reassured.

  We cross the threshold onto a gridded catwalk. Beyond the steel railing is a large chamber, three stories or so in height, spread out beneath us. It’s filled with transparent cubicles stacked floor-to-ceiling along the walls and in several neat rows from one end of the room to the other.

  The Japanese have something called capsule hotels. Small cubicles, stacked one on top of another just like this, each one containing a foam pad, a small TV, an inset light, and an Internet connection. They cater to people who need nothing more than a place to sleep for eight hours—often businessmen too drunk to go home. Minimum comforts, maximum efficiency, very Japanese. Sometimes, due to their size, they’re called coffin hotels.

  But these aren’t coffins. They don’t hold pires or corpses. Each one houses a human being, and the transparent tubes pulsing with crimson that trail from them make their purpose all too clear.

  Stoker’s taken us to a blood farm.

  There are technicians in white hooded containment suits tending to several of the pods, fiddling with the controls that no doubt regulate how much product is being produced and the vital signs of the occupant. All very clinical and sterile, more like a high-tech winery than a blood factory. Mad science, sure … but mad science done with pride.

  “I am going to kill every single person connected with this,” I say calmly.

  “That’s why we’re here,” Stoker says, and unslings his bow. He nocks a sharpened wooden shaft, draws the bowstring, and puts the arrow through the heart of the nearest technician. The anti-contamination suit puffs out for a second as the pire’s flesh turns to dust, then collapses to the floor.

  Things get a little crazy after that.

  Stoker gets two more before he’s noticed. The remaining technicians find cover fast, and raise the alarm. Stoker’s headset explodes with rapid-fire Japanese as their security forces try to figure out how many invaders there are and the best way to deal with us. I keep expecting to hear some kind of siren go off, but the only sound is the low-pitched humming of machinery and the excited chatter of the radio.

  Stoker turns it off. “They’ve stopped broadcasting useful information, which means they’ve figured out we can hear them. They’ll be flooding in here any second—we need to spread out and take them at the choke points: here, a door at the far end of the chamber, and another on the second tier of the catwalk system, halfway down and to the right.”

  There’s no time to argue—but Stoker isn’t giving me commands, he’s giving me options. “Charlie, stay here and keep anyone from cutting off our retreat. Stoker, take the entry on the second tier. Both of you provide covering fire—I’m heading for the far door.”

  We move.

  I go down the stairs quick as I can. I’m faster than Charlie but Stoker might have been a better choice; I have no idea what’s going to pour out of that door on the other side of the room, and he does.

  But I’m tired of being led around by the nose. Whatever lies beyond this room is no doubt important, and I want to get to it before Stoker does—no matter what’s in my way.

  I hit the base of the stairs and head for the center aisle of capsules. There’s a white-suited technician crouching around the corner, and he throws his hands up in terrified surrender when he sees me.

  “Stay down and you might live,” I snap. The aisle is deserted except for Mr. Scaredy-Pants—

  He jumps me.

  Even though I’ve been here for a while, I still sometimes forget that people here have absolutely no fear of my gun. All the tech sees is a human woman carrying some kind of funny metal toy—why wouldn’t he attack?

  I slam into the wall of coffins with a grunt. The tech, naturally enough, is trying to get a forearm under my chin and against my throat. I can see a broad Asian face behind the faceplate of the white hood, and the beginnings of a smile.

  I shoot him in the belly. The barrel’s angled up, so it goes through his heart. Behind the plastic visor his features dissolve, leaving a skull with a much wider grin.

  “Joke’s on you,” I mutter, and sprint for the end of the aisle. I can see the far left-hand edge of the door Stoker was talking about, but I don’t have a clear view from this angle.

  I’m halfway down the aisle when the door begins to open.

  I immediately dodge as far to the right as I can, optimizing my field of fire, and squeeze off three quick rounds. They slam into the door with a shockingly loud noise, and kinetic force shoves it closed again. That gives me a few more precious seconds to lunge for the end of the aisle, where I can flatten myself against the left-hand stack of cubicles and shoot whatever comes through that doorway.

  For a moment, nothing does. The door itself is large and metal and painted a flat white. It has no window. The bullets have made three very large dents in it, bu
t carved teakwood with silver tips doesn’t have a lot of penetrating power and tends to shatter on impact.

  Something thumps against the coffin, right next to my ear. I whirl around, feeling horribly exposed, but see nothing behind me.

  Another thump. I realize it’s coming from inside the coffin.

  They’re made of some thick transparent polymer. The occupant is faceup, head toward me. I can’t see the face, only the top of a skull shaved down to a bristly crew cut. The head lifts up, no more than an inch or two, and thumps down again. I suspect that’s the total range of movement the entire body has.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Charlie and Stoker are both wreaking destruction; I can hear the clash of metal on metal and the battle cries of the pire guards—but that soft, insistent thumping somehow seems louder than anything else.

  And then it’s joined by another.

  And another.

  And another.

  It’s a room full of telltale hearts, all quietly, urgently beating away. All of them tapping out the same message.

  Let.

  Me.

  Out.

  They know I’m here. I thought they’d be drugged or lobotomized or were under some kind of enchanted sedation, but they’re aware. Locked in their coffins, blood draining out of them with every pulse, knowing they’ll never see sunlight or breathe fresh air again.

  The door still hasn’t opened. There’s a security camera over it, and it gives me a tiny bit of satisfaction to blow it to pieces. Then I march over to the door, try it—locked—and shoot the lock until it stops being one. I yank the door open.

  Empty corridor. Fluorescent lighting, tasteful carpet, pastel walls. The hallway of a medical building, professional but trying not to be threatening, the architectural equivalent of a bedside manner. Doors down either side.

  I go right to the end. There’s a staircase leading up behind a fire door, and I suspect this is where all the medical technicians that weren’t in the main room ran to when they realized they were under attack. I find an upright metal coatrack in one of the offices and use it to jam the fire door, staving off any possible reinforcements from outside. Then I do a thorough, careful sweep of every room, finding about what I expected: offices, labs, a locker room, all of them deserted.