by Jack Conner
He grabbed it. Her nails dug into his flesh and her shaggy weight started to pull him through the same hole from which she’d just slithered. She changed forms, and from the expression on his face she knew he wasn’t gawking at her nudity but her wounds. She felt faint. The snowflakes seemed to be turning black and they danced in spiraling geometric patterns all about. Very tranquil, very ...
A dead weight in his arms, Harry reeled her naked and bloody body onto the deck with him.
“Jesus,” he said, examining her wounds. Not only was her back blackened by a missile and cut by countless pieces of shrapnel, but her front was damaged badly from the impact and entanglement with the balustrade. He writhed out of his own bloody coat and draped it about her.
“Thanks,” she murmured. Consciousness flickered, but it was there. She felt his heat and smiled. “I love you,” she mumbled.
“And I love you,” he said, holding her close. “But now we’ve gotta get you someplace warm.”
She felt herself lifted up and had the sensation of his warm body and marching feet, then, with a smile, she gave into the black snowflakes, and darkness claimed her.
Chapter 12
In the end, Kharker was saved from the weapons of the thirty soldiers only because the troops looked up to see Ruegger and Jean-Pierre streaking out of the night towards them. Jean-Pierre smiled as the enemy began firing upwards and utilized his new powers, in conjunction with Ruegger, to turn the soldiers’ own weapons against them and to set the very ground upon which they stood on fire. It created the necessary distraction as the albino and the Darkling closed in on the Hunter.
“My boys,” cried Kharker, as they helped him to his feet. “You shouldn’t have risked it, not for me.”
“Be quiet,” Jean-Pierre said.
Ruegger squeezed the old werewolf-kavasari’s shoulder affectionately. The adopted sons hoisted Kharker off the ground by the armpits and bore him away from the soldiers, who were still dealing with the confusion Jean-Pierre and Ruegger had unleashed.
The albino smiled again as he saw Sophia flying towards him and called out to her. As he and Ruegger reached a good height, Sophia and Danielle joined them in the air. Danielle embraced Ruegger and kissed his cheek.
“You … you …” Sophia said to Jean-Pierre, or tried to, and he could tell by the set of her brows that she was livid but attempting not to let it out. “You could’ve been killed.”
“So could Khark.”
As her eyes drifted to the barely-conscious Hunter, her visage softened. She said nothing.
“Thank God you’re all okay,” Danielle said. “But what now?”
With an urgency that seemed to have been building up in him for some time, Ruegger said, “All of you, quick, back to the dragons! They’re vulner—”
Several rockets arced brightly through the air and struck Yazback. Sophia screamed, echoing the horror of the wyrm’s own howl, and started flying in the dragon’s direction. Jean-Pierre caught her wrist. As the beautiful pink Yazback fell to his death off the side of the mountain, another bright volley caught the albino’s eye. When he saw the target of the missiles, he flew off himself, only to be pulled back by Sophia.
“Don’t,” she whispered, just as one of the explosions took off Draekshar’s head. The sinewy white dragon—liquid red as much as gleaming white now—flew on for several horrible seconds before he started his last silent plummet to the ground.
Another volley raced out toward Majestica, but the crafty rainbow dragon had seen enough to know her fate and outmaneuvered the rockets as she darted off toward the west, toward the lowlands and the lake.
Sickened as he was by the death of his own steed and companion, as well as all the others, Jean-Pierre was glad that at least one of the dragons had escaped. At any rate, it was clear that Kharker wouldn’t be flying anywhere for the time being. They had to find a place to rest.
“To the north,” Jean-Pierre told the others, and they nodded, having reached the same conclusion: the northern tip of the mountaintop was the furthest from Subaire’s encampment.
As one, they flew, leaving the shouting of Subaire’s army behind. Jean-Pierre glanced back to see a messenger running up to the thirty soldiers that had meant to kill Kharker and deliver a message. They cast their shadow-strewn faces toward the coven, and Jean-Pierre could tell that, whatever order they’d received, they were none too happy about it.
The coven landed at the northern tip. Gently, Jean-Pierre and Ruegger lowered Kharker to the ground, where he breathed harshly, snortingly, as if each inhalation might be his last. The albino knelt beside him and thrust his wrist before Kharker’s mouth.
“No,” the Hunter gasped. “I’ll not weaken you, my boy.”
“For the love of life, Kharker, drink my fucking blood. You need it more than I do. Go on, drink.”
“I ...”
Ruegger knelt down, too. “You’re stubborn and prideful, Khark, but Jean-Pierre told me about your vow to kill only evil-doers from now on.”
“He did, did he?” breathed Lord Kharker, too weak to open his eyes.
“If he hadn’t, I might’ve just let you die out there.”
That roused Kharker, at least a bit. “And you call me stubborn! You’re so righteous you’re—”
“Quit it,” said Jean-Pierre. “Just drink.”
Still the Hunter hesitated.
“Go on,” urged Ruegger, a new stridency in his voice. “If you don’t, you’ll be the death of us all. The soldiers that attacked you, they’re coming this way. My guess is Subaire’s willing to sacrifice them in order to give her the time she needs to get the rest of her army down to the Castle. And we’re all damned weak, Khark. We need you up and functioning if we’re going to fight them off.”
Without another thought, Jean-Pierre bit into his own wrist and let the blood pour down Kharker’s throat. At first, the Hunter started to protest, but he stopped himself. He may be proud, but he wouldn’t let his pride get his boys killed. When Kharker was able to sit up, Jean-Pierre removed his wrist, only to have it replaced by Ruegger’s. The albino agreed. Kharker had nearly died out there, was still missing an arm and was riddled by a thousand bullet wounds. Blood from just one shade wouldn’t be enough to help him recover, and maybe not even blood from two—
As it turned out, both Danielle and Sophia also had to cough up some blood before Kharker could stand.
When the Hunter seemed alert enough, Jean-Pierre began to check his weapons. The others began to check theirs as well.
“Baby,” Danielle said to Ruegger, as she field-stripped her Colt .45. “Talk with Harry. Find out what’s going on down at the Castle. Subaire can’t have more than thirty troops herself, maybe less. And if Francois and the Castle forces were able to hold off the Libertarians, maybe we still have a chance.”
“I told Harry not to get involved with the fighting,” Ruegger said.
“And he always does what you say?”
Ruegger agreed. After a minute of psychic conversation with his mortal friend, he gave the bleak news to the rest of the coven:
“The Libertarians have won,” he said with a voice Jean-Pierre could tell was suppressing rage. “Roche Sarnova was taken down by a Collage, through the crater where ...”
As Ruegger reiterated what Harry had told him, Jean-Pierre’s heart sank. He reached blindly for Sophia’s hand. He thought of all the planning and scheming to save the Castle, all the hard choices ... only to find out now that, despite everything, Subaire and the Libertarians would win. Shaking with disgust, he jabbed a magazine into his Berretta.
The thirty soldiers drew near.
Studying them, Jean-Pierre saw that over half were burned and mostly naked. Only half still retained guns, and Jean-Pierre felt confident that their ammunition must be running low. A few rocket launchers thrust out, but he doubted that Subaire would sacrifice the shades that had enabled the dragons’ murders; indeed, she probably needed their telekinetic strength to get down to the Castle sin
ce taking the stairs would leave her army exposed for too long.
Most of the thirty carried sabers or swords, and many showed no other weapon. They were a ragged and beat-up lot, but Jean-Pierre knew that, once and not too long ago, they’d been Castle soldiers. Whatever their hardships and lack of weapons, these were experienced and cagey fighting men and women, and their faces were determined.
“Any particular strategy?” asked Sophia.
“We’re all weak, so try to avoid flying too much, or starting too many fires,” Ruegger said. “Rely on our strength and purpose. We’ve got to defeat these assholes so that we can stop Subaire and Malie and hopefully save Roche and Mauchlery, and everything that goes along with that.”
“Will someone please give me a fucking weapon?” Kharker said.
Danielle handed him her pistol-gripped riot gun and Sophia passed him a big double-edged silver knife, which Kharker jammed through his waistband. One-armed or not, the Hunter intended to do some damage.
“The main thing is,” Kharker said, “to finish them quickly, and completely. Stick together, and kill them all!”
The advancing troops stopped and fanned out. For a long moment, all that could be heard was the cold wind careening across the blackened mountaintop. Then Subaire’s troops fired their missiles.
The coven took to the air, flew over the loosely-strung line of soldiers and dove straight into the enemy.
* * *
“Damn it,” Sarnova said, as Francois lit his cigarette. “You should be up there.”
“To die like the others?”
Despite all Roche Sarnova’s urging, Francois had refused to leave. He could hear the sounds of rockets and explosions overhead and knew the war, the vision ... everything ... was lost. And his best friend, whom he’d lied to for thousands of years and ultimately overthrown, was dying. Damned if Francois was going to abandon him now, when Roche was really all Francois had left in the world.
“I will,” Mauchlery added. “If you die on me, I’ll rise to avenge your death. I doubt I’ll kill all the Libertarians, but I’ll wreak havoc before they bring me down.”
“No,” said the Dark Lord. “Damn it, you’ve got to live. If it’s true, if indeed we have lost and there’s nothing to do about it, then you’ve got to hide yourself somewhere and, someday, somehow, recruit those who share our vision. Kharker and Ruegger—they should be your first. The rest of the coven, if they’re still alive. You’ve got friends, Francois.”
“Perhaps. But I love only one.”
Roche made a sound, part sigh, part moan, but the fight seemed to have gone out of him. He fell on the Collage, sitting on the dead flesh in silence, and Francois knelt beside him. Together, they killed their smokes and tossed the butts down to the carnage below.
“Gods,” Roche said, and took a deep breath. “You know I love you, too, Francois.”
“I know.”
“Then I can’t allow you to kill yourself by avenging me.”
Mauchlery smiled. “Not much you can do about it.”
“But why? After all, you’ve lived thousands of years. Why not a few more thousand?”
“If I had a friend like you, I would. But with the world the way it is ... I’ve no desire to live in it, without someone to alleviate the horror of it all. Ironic, isn’t it, that the Libertarians, who were founded by a man devoted to peace and progress, are the ones that make me so bitter?”
“There’s more good out there than bad, Francois. And I’d like to think you were out there somewhere among that goodness, projecting the world in a positive direction, much like Ludwig tried to do. I’d like those to be my last thoughts, not you dying to avenge me. Die for love, not hate.”
“I will.”
Roche closed his eyes, and Francois wrapped an arm about his shoulder.
“Please don’t get yourself killed, my friend,” Roche said. “I can’t stand the idea.”
“Then wish me luck. Maybe I’ll vanquish. You never know.”
Roche issued a small chuckle. “If there is an afterlife, Francois, expect me to give you the cold shoulder for awhile. I’m sure I’ll still be quite pissed off at you.”
They sat and talked for awhile, about old times, the good and the bad, about their shared lives. Suddenly, they began making confessions to each other, little secrets they’d kept to themselves until now. Both were crying and laughing when the time finally came, when the Collage gave one great roiling surge and collapsed. Caught in a laugh, with tears flowing from his eyes, Roche listed to the side and rested his full, lifeless weight against Mauchlery’s chest.
Francois lifted his face up to the moonlight filtering in through the crater and roared.
* * *
“Jesus,” muttered Maleasoel, as Francois’s howl drifted up. “Here we go.”
The Libertarians had destroyed the eastern wall, sending most of its crumbling bulk into the chasm, and Malie’s soldiers were just now finishing up inspecting the ruins for survivors. They found none. Malie and Raulf, as well as several high-ranking members of her inner court, were discussing the specifics of their plan against Subaire and her Half when they all stopped and turned south toward the crater after the eruption of that sudden and bone-chilling wail of rage and anguish.
“Everyone!” Malie snapped. “Battle stations on the double and I mean MOVE!”
They hopped to it. All eighty-three survivors of the Libertarian Army (only eighty-three, she thought, out of well over two hundred to begin with) rushed to positions along the western battlement, preparing their weapons as they ran—too late.
Only a dozen soldiers had reached the western wall when Lord Francois Mauchlery shot out of the abyss to avenge the death of Roche Sarnova. He set the clothes of the Libertarians on fire and forced their own weapons to assault them even as they scrambled for protection among the battlements.
Maleasoel made no attempt to stay in the open with her besieged troops. Lackeys in tow, she disappeared into the western wall and ordered the soldiers that had made it there before her to follow. She raced past the dismembered and exploded corpses and up through the tower until she arrived at the fourth floor.
“Take up positions at the windows,” she ordered. “Fire your rockets at that damned kavasari and bring him down!”
They fired, but their volleys were easily tossed aside by Mauchlery, who continued to sweep over the heads of the fear-drenched soldiers.
Malie could only shake her head and curse.
Francois wasn’t content to simply ignite the clothes of his enemy. Once he saw the packs of missiles and the troops who bore them, he fixed his powers and detonated the weapons, killing a score of Malie’s troops in seconds. She howled in rage. Handfuls of flaming and naked troops reached the relative sanctuary of the western walls, and more charged after them.
Francois cut them off.
For the first time, he touched the ground, but only for the second it took to wrest a saber from the hands of a soldier. He used it to slice off her head, then butchered the next closest Libertarian.
Bullets rained into him, but he seemed impervious to any damage as he leapt through the air, his flaxen hair highlighted by the moon and his handsome face grave and splashed by fresh blood.
“Tell them to spare no ammunition,” Malie informed a trio of runners, who then brought word to the combatants.
Missiles Francois seemed to be able to divert easily, but bullets were another matter. Either they were too fast for him to deflect or he simply didn’t care. Malie thought the latter was the more likely; the Ambassador was self-destructing, she realized, and she would use this to whatever advantage she could.
When her message had been received throughout the tower and neighboring battlements, bullets pounded the kavasari even more fiercely, but more of the rounds struck the soldiers he hovered above than struck him.
“Fuck,” Malie said.
“Pretty much,” came a gruff voice from behind her, and she turned to see the unclad, burned, and bleedi
ng body of Captain Raulf D’Aguila. His only weapon was the broad, curved saber he was rarely without these days. He eyed her nudity and the burned parts of her skin, and she could tell he was only barely biting back a smile.
“Any suggestions?” she asked, rather tartly.
“He can fly. Well, so can I and the rest of the surviving jandrows.”
“He’d cut you down before you got in one cut of your blade—which, by the way, needs washing.”
He did smile then, revealing his plentiful needle-sharp teeth. “I think I’ll round up my brethren and see what we can do ... unless, that is, you have any contradictory orders.”
“No, Captain. Gather your men, but ...”
He hesitated. “Yes?”
“Be careful.”
He placed two fingers to his forehead and gave her a mock salute. “As you wish, my lady.”
He gave her a wink and left. She returned to the window. Below, Francois was still wreaking havoc. Some of the Libertarians fired back, but the majority crawled, burned and maimed, away from the blood-coated apparition of vengeance.
As she was watching the action, Maleasoel was struck by the fact that the Ambassador had yet to speak, to denounce those whom he considered responsible for his Castle’s destruction and his friend’s death. His silence only made him more ghostly and surreal. Malie supposed that his one great cry of agony had been all the vocalization he required.
Out of missiles to explode, he flew about chopping off the heads of individual soldiers and then dismembering them.
Slowly, the steady hail of bullets seemed to be slowing him. Several times, he had to pause, as if to orient himself, and as the deluge continued, he began missing the marks he tried for with the saber. But when he missed, he unfailingly struck again, and he never missed the same mark twice.
Heads and arms rolled across the blackened courtyard, now turning a liquid red, and all the while, rounds tore into the vision of fury.
Malie’s only hope was the creature’s self-destructive nature. At any moment, he could decide that enough was enough and simply fly away, but he never did, and never would. He would kill and kill, and kill again, until either the Libertarians were all dead or he was. But she knew, and she suspected that he knew, as well, that despite his awesome powers he was hopelessly outnumbered. As long as he continued carrying out his vengeance, he was doomed.