by Jack Conner
Howling, he ran through the putrid throng, splitting open and severing heads where he could, using his fist and feet as often as the blades.
He felt complete release. Freedom. He lived for battle.
The zombies sensed his audacity and never moved against him unless they had others to back them up, and gods knew there was never a shortage of others. Just the same, he plowed through their ranks, slashing and kicking. He grabbed a gun off the corpse of an enemy, then fired into its friends’ heads until it jammed. Tossing it away, he snatched his saber (which had been hovering) out of the air and hacked through another neck.
The zombies shot him, too, and stabbed him, but he kept on going. Sometimes he fought alongside Jean-Pierre or Sophia—these were the moments he cherished the most—but more often they were lost in the chaos and were forced to fight individually.
Fins rose from the floor.
So the Sabo wasn’t dead yet, after all. Junger and Jagoda had probably just exited its consciousness and drained it of their strength, thus giving the coven the impression that it, and they, were dying. All to fool the coven into walking into a trap. The Laslo-Collage had just been meant to delay them so that everything could be made ready for their arrival. Junger and Jagoda liked a show.
Just then, the zombies parted like a curtain, and on the other side were Jean-Pierre and Sophia, fighting back to back. No wonder the deaders had backed off. Three kavasari were too many, taken all at once.
“Kharker!” said Jean-Pierre. A broken blade shot out from his hip; it looked like a zombie had struck him and then had the sword snap clean off.
The Hunter joined them, and a clearing created itself, as the zombies stepped back and debated among themselves the best way of attacking now. In the relative silence, Kharker could still hear the endless clanging of Ruegger and Amelia dueling it out.
“I say we get them on the run,” whispered Sophia, aiming a bloody sword toward the nearest group of zombies. “Herd ‘em back to the tunnels.”
Kharker nodded. “Ruegger could use our help after.”
They charged the nearest wall of zombies, hacking and kicking and shoving. It had the desired effect: the wall moved backwards, in the direction of the closest archway. Kharker sensed the other deaders to the sides and rear advance on the backs of the kavasari, and he wheeled about to discourage them.
It was then that he saw Lyshira.
Barreling out of the forest of chains and cages of the upper reaches of the room, her brilliant blue, gold and red scales catching the torchlight in lurid display, she angled directly at the leader of the charge: Sophia.
Kharker roared a warning to Jean-Pierre and Sophia, but too late. The beautiful wyrm bloomed from the forest of chains too fast, her hungry mouth already open in greedy anticipation. In a mere second, Lyshira would be holding Sophia in her terrible jaws.
For the merest instant, Kharker hesitated. He could let Sophia die. Part of him wanted to. She had claimed Jean-Pierre’s affections in a way only Kharker had before. Not even Danielle had claimed him as fully. If Sophia died, Kharker could have Jean-Pierre back, provided they lived. They could return to the old ways. No more of this Vegetarian bullshit. They could be—
Lord Kharker leapt into the air and intercepted Lyshira before she reached her mark. He cried out as she closed her jaws about him, impaling him with her long sharp teeth.
“I should’ve known,” Kharker muttered, and plunged his saber into Lyshira’s eye before the dragon drew him into her mouth completely … and began to chew.
Roche, my friend, here I come.
Chapter 17
“KHARKERRRR!” Jean-Pierre cried, watching his mentor consumed by the zombified dragon.
Sophia grabbed his arm. “We’re trapped, baby.”
Unwilling to move his head from its fixed point, he took in the fact that the army of deaders was closing in rapidly. Not afraid of two weakened and distracted kavasari, they gathered for the kill. He felt no fear, however. He could withstand them, drive them back, butcher them till the army was reduced to ectoplasm. But he had no such desire.
“Lyshira must die,” he said, and shot into the air, a sword in each hand.
“Jean-Pierre!”
“You bitch!” he said as he neared the beautiful serpent, who was trying to remove Kharker’s blade from her eye. She seemed to smile when she saw Jean-Pierre, though, and slithered gracefully through the air to catch him.
He heard Sophia join him in the air; a great chorus of zombie outrage erupted from the ground. She reached his level and flashed him an enigmatic look—whether in sympathy, annoyance, fear or some combination he couldn’t tell. In any case, he was glad to have her with him.
“He sacrificed himself for me,” Sophia said, and it was almost a whisper.
“For us.”
Then Lyshira was upon them. Coiling and spinning like a snake, her claws scratched the air and her wings billowed gorgeously.
Jean-Pierre and Sophia dove toward her ever-elusive, coiling flank, their own blades a blur. Together, the albino and his daughter hacked and cursed at the wyrm. Lyshira whipped her head around and snapped at them.
If they made even the slightest miscalculation, Lyshira would have them for dessert. Already, he could see, she was much stronger and more vibrant after having ingested (the very word chilled him, and spurred him on) Kharker’s flesh and blood. In all likelihood, she was a kavasari of a sort now, too.
“Jump on her,” said Jean-Pierre, and leapt on Lyshira’s backside, sticking himself on a few of her spinal horns in the process.
Seeing his move and realizing its advantages, Sophia almost made it by his side. Instead, she landed on the golden underside, where handholds were fewer. Nonetheless, she clawed her way up, panting, and joined Jean-Pierre.
“Good thinking,” she said.
“Let’s hope.” In this case, he’d realized, utilizing a kavasari’s powers was no advantage at all. Quite the reverse, as it was impossible to kill a flying, nimble dragon, while you yourself were flying as well. Like a poor swimmer trying to grasp a twenty-yard eel in the ocean. But now, on Lyshira’s back, they could simply climb up to her “neck” and put their swords to—
Before they could get in position, Lyshira whipped her head around.
Snap.
Jean-Pierre and Sophia darted, each going a different direction. Lyshira’s jaws crunched closed on empty air, spraying spittle.
“For Kharker!” said Jean-Pierre, and Sophia repeated it, as the two positioned their blades.
“God damn you both!” howled Lyshira with her last breath.
The blades took off her head and sent it hurtling down to the zombies. Her body lost momentum, and Jean-Pierre and Sophia hopped off, hovering.
“We avenged you, Kharker,” Jean-Pierre said.
“Let’s help the others.”
Sophia led the way toward Danielle and the others, surrounded by zombies, but before the two could reach them, Jean-Pierre heard strange flapping noises, dry and leathery. The noises originated from hundreds, if not thousands of—
There! And there! And ...
“Fuck,” groaned Sophia.
The sight filled Jean-Pierre with the same hopelessness he heard in her voice. Out of every archway, legions of quasi-pterodactyls gusted out like the grim harbingers of death they were, and from every beaked mouth came the incessant chant of “Die, die, die!” But this time it wasn’t—Jean-Pierre knew it wasn’t—the Sabo speaking. The thousands of bright-eyed parasites were under Balaklavian control once more.
The time for play was over.
* * *
Ruegger, mainly oblivious to the chaos enveloping the rest of the Feeding Room, kept a careful focus on his opponent. It seemed to him that they must have been dueling now for hours, but Amelia showed no signs of flagging—and why should she? She was a zombie, a marionette, though with the benefit of the real Amelia’s knowledge and skills. Did puppets tire? No, but their masters could. Unfortunately, Junger
and Jagoda showed no symptoms of fatigue. Ruegger, however, was quite exhausted, both physically and mentally.
Parry, thrust. Parry, thrust. Lunge, slash, block, dive, roll. Fly through the air, spinning around her, their blades flashing and dripping gore.
It was an endless battle. Perfectly mechanized, practiced moves, like a chess game—and like two chess masters, each knew how to strike and defend. The only deciding factor would probably be simple exhaustion.
Amelia was stronger, quicker and more ruthless—but not by much. She may have been a kavasari for over a century now, may have had all that time in which to explore, perfect and exploit her skills (and it showed), but back when they’d both been vampires he’d been the stronger of the two, even though he’d been the younger. And he was no weakling now. He held his own, if just barely.
She’d scored so many hits on him that, when fighting on the ground, the blood jetting from him literally caused him to slip in his own juices. Sometimes he actually went down, escaping only within a hair of his life.
The holes he’d poked through her bled little, and he didn’t know whether this was a trait of aged kavasari or zombies, or a combination of both. Regardless, she’d scored on him far more than he’d done on her, and his reflexes and timing were gradually diminishing.
He constantly talked to her, reminding her of the eighty years (a human lifetime) they’d shared together, all that time they’d loved each other. Somewhere in her, he knew, lived a spark of her true self, and he figured his best chance of coming out of this thing alive was to bring that spark to the surface. So far he wasn’t having much success.
“Remember the Homestead?” he asked, dodging a thrust. “Remember after we built it you grew scared of the crocodiles?” He smiled, caught in the memory. “Only after I coached one to gather some wildflowers in its mouth and deliver them to you did you get over it. You laughed. Remember, Am—remember?”
“I remember, darling,” she said, lunging past his defenses and sticking him in the bladder, then retreating. “I remember all those times, all those fucks when you took such special care—your foreplay I remember could last a week! Then the slow, gradual procession to the true masterful rollicking fuck. I remember smiling and crying out your name, thinking you an idiot the whole time. You believed you could make me come! God, what delusions. I laughed at you behind your back. Did you know? That’s what I remember. I laughed and laughed!” As if to illustrate, she laughed and thrust her sword.
Sweat flying, he blocked it.
“Damn it, Junger and Jagoda, let her go! If you want me dead, do it yourself. This ...” he looked at the thing his beloved had become “... this is too much.”
“Sorry, Darkling,” one called, “but we find this much more amusing.”
Ruegger fought on. Eventually, of course, the inevitable happened. Weakened beyond the point of endurance, he slipped on ground which had been made muddy by his blood and went down.
Amelia struck. Her blade descended straight towards his neck. He threw up an arm to block the blow, and she lopped his arm at the elbow. He tried to rise, but she planted a boot on his chest and ground him into the mud. He drove his scimitar towards her, but she deflected the blow, sending his blade spinning thirty yards away.
“No,” he gasped. “Amelia ...”
She raised her sword for the final blow. As she was about to bring the sword down, her eyes seemed to see him for the first time, to really absorb that she was about to kill her former beloved. Visibly, she hesitated. She sucked in a ragged breath. Then, slowly, her eyes drifted from Ruegger’s many wounds to his own eyes. All of a sudden, her face screwed itself up.
“Amelia,” he said, this time more clearly; she’d stopped grinding him into the mud and he could breathe.
“Ruegger,” she rasped. “My love. What have I done to you?” A sense of urgency overtook her and she lowered the blade, reversed it, and placed the hilt in his weak right hand. “Please, while I’m still me. Finish it.”
“Amelia, you’re here. It’s been so long …”
“Yes, and unless you use this time right now to do what you must, it will be much longer before we meet again. So, please … Noah … finish it.”
She bowed her head, craning it so that her neck showed, long and elegant and vulnerable. Swallowing, he brought the sword about in a tight arc. Her head went flying and her body, as if in a final embrace, fell on him.
When he was able, he rose to his feet, staring down at the ruins of the woman who had been his reason for living for nearly half his life and his excuse for killing for another ninety years. Not a day had gone by that he hadn’t thought of her, and now this.
His black eyes rose to meet those of the demons on their elevated cages.
“Why?” he said.
Both jackals beamed.
“Because it was Art,” Junger said.
“And why did you release her?”
“We withdrew from her mind because she was about to kill you. We couldn’t let that happen.”
“What? Why? You’ve got all you want now.” His gaze flicked to the battle where Danielle and the others fought the zombie horde. “You don’t need me any longer,” he added, then, suddenly, got it. “Ah.” Wistfully, he shook his head. “I’m the Dark Lord now, aren’t I?”
“Indeed,” said Jagoda. “And so, you see, we don’t have it all. You must declare one of us your Heir. This must be a formal passing of power.”
He studied them. “One? Wouldn’t the other grow jealous and kill the other for the crown?”
They actually laughed. “You know nothing of us,” said Junger. “We are one and indivisible. It matters not who you formally crown. We will rule together, for we have no choice.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t,” said the other, throwing an amused look at Junger. "You’ve no conception of what we are—and, I’m afraid, you will never know.”
Ruegger looked toward the battlefield once more. “I want none of the others harmed. You don’t need them, do you?”
“Oh, we do. At least, we need one or two, to serve as witnesses and legitimize the proceedings. We would think Jean-Pierre and Kharker the most reputable witnesses; the rest are expendable. Sadly, Lord Kharker is dead; we’d intended to kill the Ice Queen, but he intervened.”
“Kharker’s dead?”
“Killed by a dragon, no less. He would’ve approved, we think.”
Stricken, Ruegger sank to his knees, dropping the sword in the dirt.
“Oh, look at the poor thing,” Junger said.
“What will life be like without his precious Kharker?”
“Ruegger, if you crown us, we’ll spare your friends. If not, you shall all die and we’ll find some other way of legitimizing our authority. But we will. We certainly don’t want the Sangro Sankts after us, and in order to save ourselves from them we need to be the Dark Lords. Officially.”
Ruegger hesitated a long moment. “Go to hell,” he said. “You’ll never get your power from me. You’d corrupt the whole empire, pollute the world. You’d be the ... to use a word ... spiritual death of us. The Community. Never would we be able to establish Roche’s Jerusalem. Humankind would want us exterminated, and rightly so. No. If it means my death, then so be it. I’ll not make you kings. If there is an afterlife, I’ll at least be able to look myself in the mirror there.”
They frowned, but their ill mood proved short-lived. In fact, they seemed almost incapable of melancholy. They were too smart to be stymied for long.
“And your friends,” purred Jagoda. “Would you have them die, as well?”
Ruegger gnashed his teeth. Think, Ruegger, think.
Nothing. His mind was blank, his powers expended. He couldn’t see a way out of this. Of course he didn’t want his friends to die, not for his principles. He wouldn’t condemn them simply because he was a self-righteous jackass. But, then, would they feel any differently about bestowing crowns on the bastards’ heads? He knew they w
ouldn’t.
Junger, grinning, his tribal tattoos and tusks lending him an even more hellish aspect in the torchlight, made an expansive, friendly gesture with his hands and said, “Here, Darkling. We’ll clarify the issue for you.”
Ruegger heard a scream—Danielle—issue from the tumult of the battle. Almost immediately, her voice was lost and Ruegger sprang to his feet, sword in hand, and took a step forward.
Suddenly, directly between the two pedestals of the Balaklava, a gigantic mud-shark erupted from the ground. Its mouth exploded in gore and in the scattering mist of blood and flesh stood Danielle, captured as Ruegger had once been—but she was now too strong for the parasite and it hadn’t taken her but a few seconds to kill it. Even as its body slumped to the ground, she took flight—
Jagoda seized her by the neck and drew her to him, holding her tightly. While she cursed and writhed in his grasp, he relieved her of her blade and tossed it into the far recesses of the chamber. She flailed in his arms, but it was to no avail. He was too strong. Her eyes found Ruegger, and he saw relief and love in her face.
“Rueg,” she said.
“Dani.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” said Junger. “But my brother, Ruegger and I were just having a discussion. Perhaps, dear, darling Danielle, you can be of some value. We want Ruegger to either make us his Heirs or abdicate the crown to us.”
“If he does the latter,” said Jagoda, “we’re prepared to spare his life. And the rest of yours, too.”
“Yes,” said Junger. “This is our new decision.”
Danielle glanced from Ruegger to Junger and tried unsuccessfully to twist her head about to look at Jagoda.
“Don’t give them the throne,” she said, turning back to Ruegger.
“I hadn’t intended to.”
“Then on to the former point,” said Junger. He gave Danielle’s head a violent yank. Ruegger cried out. When Jagoda released Danielle’s head, she slumped in his arms, breathing harshly.