Cross looked at him, and raised a finger to his lips.
A lantern appeared in the murk. Danica Black spurred the horse forward. They rode past rows of broken stone fence and between statues of half-eaten lupine warriors. Clumps of petrified clay littered the ground. The frost had gone gray with age. Cross smelled sage and animal musk.
The lantern bearer waited up ahead. He was a stocky and unshaved warrior with leather armor and a chain coat, and he wore a double-barreled shotgun on his hip.
He nodded towards an alcove behind him. It took Cross’ eyes a moment to make out the structure in the muted light – a temple that seemed to melt out of the shadows. The building was cylindrical and very tall, with crumbling columns and spiky protrusions that covered its shell like quills.
“Danica,” said a voice from the dark. It wasn’t the shotgun bearer, but a second man, a small and wiry individual with a goatee and a black pilot’s coat straight out of World War I. Cross thought the man looked like he should have behind the controls of a Fokker…he even wore aviation goggles. Cross couldn’t begin to fathom how the man could see anything in the impenetrable murk, unless those goggles were some sort of arcane implement. “You made it,” the aviator said with a broad smile. “Cradden was starting to worry.”
“Hello, Gregor,” Black said icily. “Killed any women or children lately?”
“Darling, you tease,” he laughed.
“Can we get on with it?” Vos growled.
“Lighten up, Vos,” Gregor said with the same salesman’s smile. “We’re all friends here.”
“Be that as it may,” Black said, “I’d rather take an acid bath than stand this close to you any longer than I have to, Gregor. So like Vos said…let’s get on with it.”
Gregor’s eyes moved to Lucan. The captive warlock sat stoically in the saddle, his eyes on something that wasn’t really there. Whatever the Revengers did to keep Lucan’s immense power contained seemed to reduce the warlock to a zombie-like state.
“Who are your friends?” Gregor asked Black.
“Prisoners, and my aides.”
“But only one vampire,” Gregor said with a sad shake of his head.
“I’ll discuss that with my brother,” she said. “And no one else.”
Gregor laughed again.
“You’re a bitch, Danica.”
“So are you, Gregor.”
“You go in alone,” Gregor answered.
Cross stretched out his senses through his spirit. The looming shadow that clung to the walls of Shul Ganneth didn’t feel as oppressive as it had before; it had receded to more of a background murmur of spectral white noise rather than a roar of black sound. All Cross heard now were distant whispers through the sonic fog.
Besides Danica’s spirit and his own was one more: a hostile female spirit with an incredible level of aggressive power. Cross could only surmise she belonged to Cradden Black.
If he’s the only one of his gang that’s a mage, at least that’s one advantage that we have. Cross wasn’t sure if that fact made up for how badly Cradden’s gang outgunned them, but it was a start.
“I can’t take all of the prisoners in on my own,” Danica said.
“That’s a sad story,” Gregor smiled.
“Just let one of us help her get the prisoners inside,” Cross interrupted.
“Yeah!” Kane added. “Don’t be such an ass-hat.”
Vos cracked Kane on the back of the head with a gloved fist.
“I was trying to help, you hemorrhoid!”
“My God, you’re stupid,” Vos snarled at Kane. “Do you want to die?”
Kane looked up at him.
“No? Wait…could you repeat the question…?”
“Shut up!” Black snapped.
For as often as they hit him, Cross thought, I’m starting to wonder if he doesn’t actually enjoy it.
Gregor looked at Cross.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Cross.”
“You work for Black Scar? You don’t look like a Revenger.”
“I’m not.”
Gregor and the shotgun carrier exchanged looks.
“Fine,” Gregor said after a moment. He pointed at Cross. “You can help her take Lucan and the vampire inside. Follow Keegan.” The lantern bearer took a step forward. “The rest of you will wait here with me.” He looked at Black. “I’d behave if I were you. If anything goes wrong, your dyke girlfriend is dead. Mercer is a hell of a good shot.”
“Who’s Mercer?” she asked.
“The sniper who gets to blow your lesbian bitch’s skull off if you screw this up. I’m only sad that I won’t get to do it myself.”
“Gregor,” Vos said. “I’d advise you to shut up.”
“Still got a crush on your boss, there, Vos?” Gregor laughed.
“Keep laughing,” Vos smiled. “I’ll be the one who kills you.”
“The dyke will go first,” Gregor laughed.
The look that Black gave Gregor would have killed a small animal. Gregor just smiled. He wore a number of knives in a harness slung over his aviator’s vest, and he had a pair of six-shooters secured in a hip-strap around his waist.
Black turned and nodded at Cross, and he took the reins of Lucan’s horse. Vos moved to secure Kane and Ekko.
“Take care of yourself, Chief,” Vos told Danica.
“You, too.”
Black rode ahead first. The vampire floated silently in her wake, a blazing beacon, and they followed the wordless Keegan into the temple structure.
Cross and Vos exchanged nods, and Cross led Lucan into the building. The lamp faded into the shadows behind them as he and Lucan followed Danica Black into a deeper dark.
SIX
TRADES
Cross’ and Danica’s spirits swirled and twisted around one another as the mages rode down the tunnel. Cross kept his as contained and as close as he could, but she was anxious and almost out of control again, and reining her in made his head throb and his eyes sore. She pushed with skin-chilling force as strong as a hard wind. Her incessant whispers drowned his senses. He could almost make out her words, and they were less than friendly.
The horses’ hooves clattered on the cracked stone as they rode the length of the rubble-strewn corridor. The walls were ancient crumbling sandstone decorated with hieroglyphs, which as far as Cross could tell were random and nonsensical: whorls and spirals and collapsing eyes, discs and curved fangs, moons that fell from idiot skies. The ceiling was just out of sight, a yawning strip of eye-numbing black, and the way ahead was a perpetual hole. The tunnel walls seemed to press in on them. Every sound was a deep and hollow echo.
Glassy frost reflected the light of the vampire’s chains, which lit their way with a flickering orange glow. Keegan walked a good distance ahead of them. Cross tried to remember the names and number of Cradden’s gang, which Black and Vos had given to he and Dillon when they’d put together their strategy outside of Shul Ganneth.
That prick we just met, Gregor. Syn, a swordswoman. Maddox, a Doj. Keegan the silent lantern bearer. A gunman named Taske. Cradden himself. And now this Mercer, who sounds like he’s a sniper. Hopefully Cradden Black doesn’t have any more surprise allies.
They came to a wide and open chamber, a massive courtyard surrounded by collapsing columns and dark alcoves. Felled statues of wolf gods and bits of broken rock littered the ground. Above them hung darkness so rich it could have been mistaken for a night sky, but it was just the underbelly of the cracked dome. The air smelled and tasted of mold.
Two men waited near the center of the enormous room. They rested against a massive stone wolf’s head that must have once belonged to a much larger statue; the stone bust lay cracked and on its side, half of its face smashed away. One of the men was a Doj, a mountainous and broad-shouldered humanoid nearly eight feet tall. The Doj’ muscles bulged beneath a brown flak jacket, and his tanned flesh was covered with tattoos and runes. The blade strapped to his back was nearly as long as
Cross was tall.
The second man was unquestionably Cradden Black. His resemblance to Danica was impossible to miss: red hair, sharp eyes, angular cheekbones, and a sour grin. Even with his tightly trimmed beard he was almost a reflection of her. He even wore black leather armor.
“Hey, Sis.”
Danica didn’t say anything. She stopped her horse a good twenty paces away from her brother and the Doj, who Cross surmised was the infamous Maddox.
“So…” Cradden said with a smile. “I get the silent treatment tonight?”
“What the hell do you expect me to say?” Danica snapped. “It’s taking all of my willpower to not shoot you in the face.”
Cradden nodded, and kept smiling.
“Who’s your friend?” he asked.
“Hired help,” she answered.
“Your hired help is a warlock,” Cradden said coolly. “Aren’t you, friend?”
“Cross,” he said. “I’m not your friend. But I am a warlock.”
Cross sensed Cradden’s spirit, which was hostile and close. It was fast and surprisingly stealthy for a female spirit, and it circled the room like a darting lizard. Cross held his own spirit in check, which he’d been forced to do a lot more than normal over the past few days. If he allowed her to manifest into a combat-ready form Cradden would sense it, and Cross didn’t want to start any trouble until they at least knew where Cole was. Cross sensed Danica exercise the same restraint with her own spirit, but, like Cross’, Danica’s was angry and on edge, and she only barely had him contained.
All three spirits in the chamber bristled at one another’s presence. They pulsed and prodded, tensed their ethereal skin and pricked each other with sharp tendrils of arcane power. The air was volatile. Cross felt like he stood near a pool of gasoline with an open flame in his hand.
“Hello, Lucan,” Cradden said to the captive warlock. “Do you remember me?”
Lucan Keth’s eyes opened, but only just. If he recognized Cradden Black, he made no sign of it.
“Why is there only one vampire?” Cradden asked.
“We had trouble. We crashed.”
“Yeah, I saw that…”
“Any idea how that might have happened?” Danica pressed.
“Nope.”
“You know, you could’ve helped us out. Bro.”
“It wasn’t my problem,” Cradden said with a shrug. “You were told to get all of the merchandise to us on time. That was your job. Sis.”
Cross lost track of Keegan. The shotgun-toting mercenary vanished after he’d led them into the courtyard. Cross scanned the area. He couldn’t remember if the man had moved on through the massive room, or if he’d turned and gone back the way they came. There were plenty of felled columns and statues and bits of shattered stone debris that he could hide behind in the chamber, but he just as easily could have slipped away into one of the alcoves, as well.
Cross manifested his spirit. Rather than gather her into a wad of volatile energy, Cross tried to slip her stealthily along the walls. If he could, he’d use her to locate Keegan, as well as any of Cradden’s other men who might be hiding nearby.
“Where’s Cole?” Danica asked.
“Where are my vampires?”
“I have replacements,” Danica said calmly.
“I don’t want…”
“Gladiators,” she said. “From Krul.”
Cross thought about that in the ensuing silence.
Wait…she must mean Kane and Ekko, Cross thought. Gladiators? Really?
Krul’s gladiators were the cream of the chattel crop. They were often engineered by morphorganic technology borrowed from the Cruj. If Danica was on the level, that meant Kane and Ekko were incredibly dangerous.
It also means she lied to me when she told me they were stowaways.
Cradden nodded his head in approval. He ran a hand over his beard, and then he laughed.
“God damn, Sis, it’s good to see you. You always know just what I want. Just like Christmas. Mom never had a clue…remember when you got me…”
“Where’s Cole?!” Danica demanded. Her voice was so icy it might have frozen the air. Cross felt her spirit coil like a snake. His spirit did the same, but he held her back. The air was alight with hostile energies that electrified the flesh and made the air as brittle as glass. It was as if three starving wolves had been released into a room with just a single piece of meat.
“All right, Sis,” Cradden said with a smile. “All right…Syn!” he shouted.
Cross couldn’t find Keegan. It was difficult to keep his spirit focused in that whorl of aggressive arcane energies. She was difficult to keep in check even on a good day, and Cross felt his control slowly slipping as the spectral tension mounted.
Two horses ambled out of a dark alcove behind Cradden and into the chamber. Both of the horses were black and difficult to make out. For a moment Cross thought the riders floated in the darkness.
Both of those riders were female. One, the captor, had long dark hair tied into a top knot, and a pale and anemic face. She wore leather armor beneath a long Hussar’s jacket that she let hang open, and she had a number of blades arranged on shoulder and belt straps. The most significant blade, a katana made from black metal, she held to the captive’s throat.
The captive was a short, pale woman dressed in dark clothing that was covered in grime and soot. Her feline eyes were frightened, and her dark hair was pasted to her skin by the gag wrapped around her mouth. Her hands were bound behind her back, and a number of discolored bruises on her face made clear how she’d been treated. She bit down on her gag and said something unintelligible.
“It’s okay, Lara,” Danica said. Something in her voice was almost ready to break.
“Let’s have them,” Cradden said.
Danica glanced at Cross. He stood just a few feet behind and to her right. The look in her eyes was almost desperate. Cross knew then and there that she would do anything to get Cole.
And that means trouble for the rest of us.
“You know if you do anything stupid,” Cradden said, “Syn is going to cut Cole’s head off. It’ll be quick, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be painless. And if Syn somehow misses – and she’s won’t – I’m sure Gregor told you about our shooter, Mercer. He’s out there somewhere…only you don’t know where.” Cradden smiled. “And he doesn’t miss.”
Maddox, the Doj, took a few steps forward. He was trying to gain position on Cross. He stood maybe ten giant’s paces away.
Cross casually moved his fingers behind his back. His spirit rolled against his hands like waves of crystal heat.
The horse whinnied, disturbed by something. Cross looked behind them just in time to see Keegan move out of the shadows with a machete in his hand. He had high ground as he crept along the edge of a fallen statue of what appeared to be a lupine mage.
Cross held his spirit ready. He knew he wouldn’t be able to channel her before Keegan’s machete split his skull, so instead he swung his shotgun like a club. The stock caught Keegan in his wide jaw and knocked him off of the statue.
Everything happened at once.
Danica’s spirit exploded in a torrent of cold wind, a flow of force that launched itself like a giant snake. It wrapped around Cole and shielded her from Syn’s blade, which bounced away from Cole’s neck instead of slicing straight through it.
Cross leveled his shotgun and fired. Syn and her katana exploded in a bloody spray, and the corpse fell from the rearing horse before the beast ran off into the darkness. Maddox and the other horse tripped each other up for a moment before the angry Doj hacked the interfering animal’s head off with his preposterously huge blade.
Cole was on the ground, held and cushioned by Danica’s spirit. A shot rang out in the dark, followed by another. Cross didn’t see where the first landed, but the second bounced away from Cole as it struck Danica’s invisible shield.
Mercer. The damn sniper.
Cradden howled with rage. His spirit lashed out
at Cole as a phalanx of razor blades. Cross channeled his spirit into a storm of wind, grabbed Cole and telekinetically pulled her away. Not seconds later a thousand sizzling blades sank into the earth where she’d been.
Dead voices pressed against Cross like cold steam. His lungs turned to ice and filled with frozen vapor. His spirit and Cradden’s spirit collided in a burst of obsidian shards.
Cross pumped the Remington and shot Maddox in the stomach. The giant doubled over and fell to the ground. Cross pumped another shell into the chamber and fired at Cradden. The pellets caught Cradden in the shoulder, throwing off his aim as he fired his own shotgun, but not by enough. Danica fell with an arm clenched around her ribcage.
The spirits tore at one another like spectral wolves. Keeping his spirit under control tore at Cross’ mind. The gnashing wraith-like teeth of arcane ghosts made the air brittle and explosive. Stones in the walls shifted in place and threatened to tear away, and the shadows bent unnaturally, melted into caustic darkness. The air throbbed and grew thick. The spirits’ power was too much: they pulled at the very fabric of reality.
We have to get them under control. They’ll kill us all if we don’t.
The world seemed to tilt. The walls bubbled and expanded. Shadows swam over Cross’ eyes. He heard a chorus of dead whispers, an incessant song filled with dry-throated voices. He felt sharp dust, like he’d breathed in a cloud of glass.
The spirits were tearing each other apart.
Cross stepped up to Cole, who still lay on the ground. She was conscious, but she had a deep cut over one eye, and blood poured down her face. He took Cole by the arm and tried to her on her feet.
A bullet took Cross in the back of his left thigh. Pain blazed through him like a wildfire, and he nearly fell. The bullet had been meant for Cole’s head, only he’d inadvertently stepped in the way.
God damn Mercer again, he cursed. The sniper fired on them from somewhere out there in the darkness, maybe from one of the many elevated alcoves that peppered the walls like dark honey combs.
“Run!” Cross yelled.
Black Scars (Blood Skies, Book 2) Page 7