Shadows 2: The Half Life

by Graham Brown

  Laughter echoed down the dark corridor, as if this had been Drake’s plan all along.

  But Christian was not without strength. With a mighty kick, he blasted the barred gate from its hinges and sent it flying across the stone floor. He charged down the tunnel only to have another gate slam and then another and one more.

  Breaking through these, he continued on until the ground shifted and the stone walls moved together. Now he was caught in a box of granite.

  Sickening laughter came again from the other side of the wall.

  “When will you learn?” Drake mocked. “You will never defeat me. You have only the strength that I chose to give you. This, you cannot break me with.”

  “Don’t fool yourself,” Christian called back. “I have more strength than you guess. No wall you build can keep me out.”

  With a surge of adrenaline he could scarcely control, Christian slammed into the granite wall with his shoulder. Cracks appeared in the mortar and several of the stones moved. Dust puffed from the gaps like dragon’s breath.

  Seeing this, Drake’s laughter died and Christian charged once more, crashing through the blocks, smashing them outward like a battering ram.

  Drake stood in surprise. In awe. In fear. He turned, ran, and leapt over a chasm, dropping to a lower level of the dungeon and racing into one of the tunnels that led deeper into the catacombs.

  Christian raced to the edge intending to follow.

  “Wait,” a voice called.

  He stopped and turned. A woman in a shimmering gray dress was standing on another level. Light spilled from a door behind her.

  “Elsa?”

  Elsa was dead, long gone from this world. Was this another trick of Drake’s to delay him? Or was she real?

  “Why are you here?” he shouted.

  “I’m here to help you,” she said, calmly. “Follow me.”

  “You shouldn’t be here. He’ll harm you again.”

  “He can’t hurt me anymore,” she said.

  “He’ll use you against me,” Christian shouted. “To break my will.”

  “Your will is your own,” she corrected. “But you need to be shown the path. Follow me.”

  He was confused, furious. “I don’t need your help anymore. I know the path. It leads to Drake and to the end of all this misery. Now leave!”

  The light vanished and Elsa with it. Christian regretted it instantly. But he didn’t hesitate. Not now. Not after all this time.

  He leapt into the chasm, landed on the lower level and began to run. The tunnels divided and twisted back on themselves. Dead ends turned him around and burning torches blew out in rapid succession, as if a living wind had raced by them in the dark.

  Christian continued forward, but at each turn he became more lost. He saw shadows in the dark. Priests. Angels. Demons. Enemies and friends and those who straddled both lines. He was losing Drake. Losing the race.

  He charged forward, running faster and faster, until suddenly the ground was gone from beneath him and he was falling.

  He fell through the darkness and woke up at his kitchen table with a visible jolt.

  “Are you alright?” a kindly voice asked from across the table.

  The words came from a frail looking woman in a wheelchair. Ida Washington, a Professor at Columbia University and Christian’s only living friend. Ida’s brown eyes exuded a warmth he could scarcely remember. Her skin was like caramel with a few freckles and age spots thrown in. Her black hair had the slightest touch of gray. And her spirit was unbreakable. At times he wished his own spirit was as strong.

  “I think I was dreaming,” he said.

  She cocked her head to the side. “I thought you told me, your kind don’t sleep?”

  Your kind. What else could she call him? The Fallen. The Undead. The Nosferatu. Christian was one of lost souls who’d become trapped in the void between worlds, neither truly alive nor dead. Unfeeling in many ways, but driven on by the only emotions left to them: pain, envy and fear. They did not age, and though the few humans who knew of their existence sometimes called them immortal, that was a misnomer. They could die. In fact, most of them did, either at their own hand or the hand of the Church.

  “We don’t sleep,” he said. “I’m not sure what just happened.”

  A wry grin curled across her face. “You don’t have to pretend, Sonny. Students fall asleep in my class all the time. I try not to laugh when their heads clunk on the desktops. Apparently, I’m not the thrilling speaker I used to be.”

  Christian smiled; another thing his kind wasn’t known to do. At least not with warmth and feeling. “It’s the journal,” he said, nodding toward an ancient book on the table in front of them. “It’s putting me to sleep.”

  The Journal of Hunters had come into his possession through a priest he’d met in New Orleans. A man who’d been tasked with hunting both him and Drake and all those who had been taken under the curse of the Fallen. It told the secrets of the Ignis Purgata, the Holy Order of the Righteous Fire. It described what they understood, or thought they understood, about the Fallen.

  It told of methods to hunt, trap and destroy. It contained prayers and rituals designed to keep the powerful minds of the Nosferatu from overtaking those who attacked them. It held the text of letters written by Drake begging forgiveness for the evil he’d done. And it explained the rejection of his plea. Forgiveness was not for demons, but only for human kind.

  And yet, the most interesting part of the ancient journal suggested that the issue was not yet settled.

  A prophecy had come to the church—from a demon no less. It told of an angel that would bring forgiveness. If the angel was successful, the curse would end and the Fallen would no longer suffer in the dark, nor plague society as they did. But it was not a prophecy with a clear outcome. At all points in the writing the future could divide. Success or failure. Life or death. Healing or pain. All were in the offering it seemed. Those involved would have to fight for one outcome or another.

  A month prior, that prophecy had begun to unfold, heralded by the arrival of supernova in the night sky that some had called the Midnight Sun.

  Many of the Fallen had been drawn together in the city of New Orleans, including Drake and his most trusted lieutenants who wished to destroy the angel before it could reach its full strength. The hunters of the Ignis Purgata came as well, to kill all the Nosferatu they could find. Christian was there too, searching for this angel and caught in the middle.

  The stage had been set for a clash that would change the future one way or another. But as fate would have it: things turned out differently than anyone expected: no angel had appeared. Elsa had been killed in its place and Christian had nearly managed to destroy Drake and his Brethren. Though Drake had escaped badly wounded.

  “The prophecy is false,” Christian said.

  “And you know this…how?” Ida asked. “Just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “I would feel it. I would feel a change. The only change I felt was with Elsa. And once Drake killed her, the light was gone. If there was an angel it was her, and she’s dead now.”

  “Then why did the old priest give this book to you?”

  “Because he wanted me to destroy Drake,” Christian said confidently. “That’s how this ends. It’s always been how this has to end. The curse came from Drake. The Ignis Purgata hunted him because he’s the head of the snake. If he’s killed, the rest of the Fallen will either die or be released.”

  “Spoken like a man,” she muttered under her breath.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You might be cursed and trapped in the void, but you’re still thinking with a particularly male point of view. Have to fight fire with fire”, she said in a mocking, man-like voice. “The only way to fix things is to destroy them.”

  He could hardly believe it, but he almost enjoyed when she made fun of him. It made existence somewhat more be
arable. It didn’t change the truth, though. “And how do you see it?” he asked.

  “The prophecy says forgiveness would arrive when shadows are seen beneath the Midnight Sun,” she began. “You’ve seen that. A once in a lifetime experience. Even your lifetime.”

  “Actually,” he said. “There was a supernova in 1064. The Chinese saw it.”

  “Was it like this one?” she shot back.

  Not even close, he thought. The 1064 supernova was a just a bright star in the sky. The more recent one lit up the night like a dozen full moons.

  “It says, the angel is born blind and weak,” she continued, reading from notes she’d taken. “Perhaps it’s a child, like Christ, in a manger somewhere. Do you think you’d feel the power of such a being?”

  Christian considered this. Despite his name and the intricate way in which the Fallen were bound up with the crucifixion of the one Christian’s believed to be the Son of God, he was wary of religious answers and history. He’d grown up in the Roman Empire when Jupiter and other gods of the pantheon were worshipped. He’d seen Christianity rise and replace them, seen wars and brutality from every sect and religion on earth ever since. Nothing changed.

  He was about to say something snide, when a stern look from Ida told him that would be going too far. She went to church every Wednesday, Friday and twice on Sunday. She believed. She was waiting for a glorious body, healed from the paralysis she lived in and unbroken in the Christian version of heaven.

  “Don’t you sass me,” she warned.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “But you were thinking it,” she said. “If you were my child I’d wash your mouth out with soap.”

  “You’re very strict,” he said, almost laughing.

  “My point is,” she continued, “you might not need to destroy. Perhaps you can save others instead, by helping this angel. By guiding it.”

  “I’m telling you, Ida, it doesn’t exist.”

  She sighed. “You’re sure of that?”

  “When you’ve lived without mercy as long as I have, you learn not to buy it cheap,” he said.

  She sat back and folded her arms. “Hmmm,” she said, sounding disappointed. “So tell me how you see it. Why did the leader of a holy order, charged with your destruction, hand you two of their most sacred relics?”

  Christian was ready for this. He’d been thinking about this question for a long while, wondering why Simon had trusted him.

  “The hunters of the Church have cornered Drake at least twenty times over the last thousand years,” he said. “None of them survived; most were cut to pieces, some were even turned to darkness and made into vampires who toiled at his side. I think Simon realized that no human can stand before Drake. I think he knew from our clash in Cologne that Drake and I are enemies, so he cast his lot with me. His own men killed him for it. They murdered him in the church for believing I could help. After a show of faith like that, I will not let him down.”

  “So you’re going after Drake?”

  “I have to,” he said. “Now, while he’s still weak and reeling from whatever Elsa placed on that stone blade.”

  “Going alone then?” she said, eyebrows up.

  “I can’t exactly take you with me.”

  “I wasn’t referring to me,” she said. “I was talking about what Simon wrote on the last page.”

  She flipped the journal open to the last written page where a bookmark had been placed. Christian didn’t need to look. He knew what it said.

  Ida spoke the words: “You’re our only hope. But you are not alone, my midnight son.”

  Christian remained still. This passage baffled him. In fact the whole journal was like the labyrinth in his nightmare. It seemed contradictory and confusing. It seemed to suggest one thing and then another, looping back on itself and offering multiple paths, none of which were clear.

  Maybe if half the journal hadn’t been drafted in various codes and from different hands it would have made more sense. Ninety men had led the Ignis Purgata, including Simon. All of them had written something. Half of them had used ciphers and puzzles to hide their real thoughts.

  “Truth is,” he said. “The journal hasn’t helped at all. It’s only delayed me, like Elsa in my dream. While we sit here trying to extract some implication from these cryptic pages, Drake is getting further and further away.”

  “So you don’t wonder about that passage?” she asked.

  Of course he wondered. Did it mean there were others in the Church who thought as Simon did? Others who believed in the prophecy and might enlist Christian’s help against Drake? He doubted it. And after what happened to Simon, if there were any who thought his way, they’d have to be fools to reveal their true feelings.

  “I don’t know what Simon meant,” Christian said. “I only know that I am alone. And I’m going forward alone. Everyone who’s helped me, trusted me or loved me has been killed in this war.”

  “Not everyone,” she pointed out.

  “I worry about you every day, Ida. And while you’re part of this now, I won’t risk anyone else. I’m going to find Drake and destroy him on my own. And then—finally—this will end.”

  “So you think you can take him?” she asked.

  “I wounded him in the swamp. I could feel it. He was burning inside. Burning with an icy fire. He’s weaker now than he’s ever been. If I find him before he regains his strength, I can finish this. I know I can.”

  Ida nodded and closed the book and looked at him with a scowl of disappointment. “So you don’t want my help,” she said. “You don’t care for my cooking –which sort of makes sense, since you don’t eat—and you’re not interested in what this journal might really have to say. Which makes me wonder why you even brought me over here in the first place?”

  There were several reasons. One was to protect her. If Drake became aware of Ida, he might have sent someone to harm her. Though Christian sensed that hadn’t happened.

  “I do need your help,” he said. “I need you to go to Washington to find the woman I saved. The FBI Agent I turned.”

  “Ah,” Ida said. “Agent Pfeiffer.”

  In the swamps after the battle, Christian had come across two members of the FBI. One of Drake’s disciples had attacked them savagely. The male agent was dead. But Kate Pfeiffer was still alive, though she was rapidly bleeding to death. She begged for help and for a chance to see her son again.

  In a moment of weakness he’d acted. He wasn’t even sure the term ‘saving’ could be used, but he’d prevented her from dying by injecting her with the venom of the Fallen. The toxin had done its unholy work: healing her wounds but poisoning her soul. Now she was now dying in slow motion, and soon she’d begin to feel the lust for blood.

  “I should have let her die,” he said. “But I didn’t. Now she’s going to have to deal with the change. With the pain of the fall and everything that follows.”

  “Won’t she just become like you?” Ida asked.

  “It’s not that simple,” he said. “Even though she’s tough, smart and has at least an inkling of what’s happening, she still has no idea what’s coming.”

  “You called it the Half-Life.” Ida said.

  Those who hadn’t experienced the Half-Life could hardly fathom the transformation process. The depths of anguish snapped the minds of many long before the transformation was complete. As the color seemed to drain from the world around them and feelings of anger, rage and bitterness usurp all else, life took on a blackened, meaningless state, like a forest after a fire; silent and empty. Only life never came back unless it was stolen by draining the blood of others.

  After they hit bottom, the clock starts ticking. Those that make it through six months usually survive in their new shells, but most die by their own hand in some dark space, broken and alone.

  And among those who survived, the good suffered the worst. Truthfully, the ability to not feel, to be a sociopath in human form lent itself very well to the dark life of t
he Nosferatu. But for those who cared and loved and cherished, they either forswore the blood of others like Christian had and lived with the pain, or they did terrible things and suffered the guilt of the darkened soul, turning life into hell itself.

  “It doesn’t happen instantly,” he explained. “It takes months for the mortal body to die, and the immortal to emerge. She won’t understand it. She can’t. And she won’t survive without guidance.”

  “And just how am I supposed to help with that?” Ida said, rolling her eyes.

  “Right now, she’s probably in denial,” he explained. “At some point, she’ll stop fighting it and start to believe what I told her, however impossible it seems. When that happens, she’ll seek me out. The change forces it on us. All who are turned search for their masters. I even sought Drake out seventeen hundred years ago. You’ll tell her you know how to find me. At some point, that’ll be the lifeline she needs.”

  Ida pondered this for a moment. “Is she going to be dangerous?”

  “Only to herself.”

  “What about that thirst for blood thing?”

  “It won’t hit her for months.”

  Ida seemed less than thrilled. “Okay, Sonny,” she said. “I’ll do it for you. I have a feeling you’re just getting me out of the way, but it’s good to know you care. ”

  He did care. Although it seemed that everything he cared about in this world was quickly killed and taken from him. He feared Ida might be next, but with Drake wounded and on the run, this was his chance.

  “You be careful,” he said.

  She pushed back from the table. “Between Drake, those churchmen who want you dead and being on the FBI’s most wanted list, you might need to take that advice yourself.”

  Christian nodded, but it was only lip service. He didn’t have time for caution. He needed to move forward and do it quickly. He’d seen no angel. No salvation in the swamps. No forgiveness for the Fallen. Now he’d try his own plan. And the chips would have to land where they may.

  Chapter 2

  West Africa

  The night stars were brilliant in their luminescence, like diamonds on a sheet of black velvet. Staring up at them, Drakos could not help but be impressed by the celestial beauty and infinity of the heavens.