Habeas Corpses - The Halflife Trilogy Book III

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  Likewise Dante Inferno (don’t you just love the names vamps come up with when they rename themselves?) and Blackstar Sabertooth. Only Dante and Blackstar weren’t asking any questions. They had come to do me the favor of explaining how it was with The Deads and The Hammers, the two major vampire street gangs in the city. They weren’t looking for anything from me and I shouldn’t be looking for anything from them.

  I told them pretty much what I told everyone else that night: I was just looking to get acquainted for now. No promises, no pitches, no deals—just a little turn out on the dance floor and we’ll do lunch at a later date.

  My next appointment was from out of town. The representative of the Northern Wilderness Clans arrived in traditional Native American garb. Her buckskin dress, leggings, and moccasin boots were adorned with beads, bones, and shells. Her eyes were as black as her hair and implied age far beyond her appearance as a maid of, perhaps, seventeen summers.

  “Morning Star,” she addressed me, bowing low as she approached the throne.

  I promised myself to replace the furniture before continuing with tomorrow night’s appointments. While the Doman of New York City couldn’t very well conduct business from a folding chair or ensconced in a giant beanbag, the throne motif was a little too surreal for my tastes. Eventually I was going to succumb to the growing urge to bellow “Off with their heads!” as the audiences progressed.

  But for now: “Greetings,” I said, glancing down at the typed itinerary, “Wah—wuh—”

  “Please, call me Wendy.” She smiled and her teeth were as bright as the moon in her brown face.

  I returned the smile. She was a delightful contrast to my previous audience with Hackle and Jackal. “And please call me Chris.”

  She sat upon the chair across from me as her ancestors might have sat around their council fires, cross-legged with her feet tucked under her.

  “Tell me of your clan, Wendy.”

  “My people are the Forest Folk and the Spirits of Water, Wind, and Stone.” Her fingers fluttered. “I do not speak for them, I speak on their behalf.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I am not their leader. Some tribes have their own, others not,” she said, gesturing with her hands. “We each have our own ways. In one way only are we all alike.” Her hands were eloquent and I wished I could divide my attention between her words and her gestures so that I might attend to both. Unfortunately I was tired and my earlier blood loss was taking its toll.

  “We are the Spirit Peoples, bound to Mother Earth in the secret places. We swim in the lakes and rivers . . .” Her fingers were schools of fish wriggling through shallows and rapids. “ . . . we creep through the tall grass, lurk at the edges of the glen . . .” she said with a stealthy palm, “ . . . we rest between the stones, and leap upon the high places . . .” Her hand swept up and my head lolled back as my eyes tried to follow its trajectory. “ . . . we soar with the eagle . . .” My eyes fluttered and then cleared as I beheld the great mountains to the west, beyond the Alleghenies. “ . . . we bathe in the fountains of the dawn and move across the land at the speed of night . . .

  “Do you see?”

  “Yes,” I murmured, the outlines of Bokwus, Hino, and Adekagagwaaa appeared in the background as the shadow-shapes of the Ohdow, Chenoo, Nagumwasuck, and Inua passed through earth and tree and brook and stone.

  Mother Earth is our flesh and bone, Mother Nature our blood and breath.

  We are tied to the land.

  We are of the land.

  As long as the land is well, we are well.

  “Well . . .” I mumbled.

  But the land is being poisoned. The land is polluted with a cancer.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind—down in the root cellar, actually—a little voice was clearing its throat and suggesting I take a step back. It was also warning me about getting involved in public health concerns.

  An enemy has come among us, a fierce and terrible enemy!

  High up, among the cloud-wreathed mountain peaks, a castle appeared.

  He has brought his dark sorceries upon the land and has poisoned the streams and fields with his potions and elixirs. He has snared the Forest Folk and twisted their offspring into demonic shadow things—just as he has made twisted things of his own shadows.

  He destroys in the name of life. He distorts and corrupts the ladders of time and task. He mangles the forms of creation in his unending combat with the Creator.

  There were things in the water with extra eyes, no eyes, feelers, and worse.

  Things in the forest that gave birth to abominations, things that should not have lived but did.

  Things that were kin to Yog-Sothoth and the Nameless Ones.

  Things that were hungry in obscene ways.

  That mocked God and spat in the face of sanity.

  Darkness, once more, was coming upon the face of The Deep.

  He is The Mangler, also called Nikidik, whose True Name is nearly forgotten. The inhabitants of his first kingdom have passed through the Gates of Fire or of Time and few survivors remain who remember the horror of his reign, the foul designs of his Master.

  We ask you to gainsay him!

  His power has grown in the secret years that passed since he was presumed dead. But he did not die! He became fruitful and multiplied!

  Soon he will be Legion!

  It was as if a great shadow overcast my mind. Through the darkness I caught glimpses of victims waiting in long lines, and of fires and pits and dark smoke dissolving the sun. White flakes falling in a parody of snow on warm summer afternoons. Steel tables and surgical tools and notebooks bulging with data on what the human body might endure and what the human mind might not.

  You must withstand him, kith and kin.

  You must destroy him in all of his parts so that no portion of his works may remain or return.

  Let no hostage deter you.

  Do not let Death bind you.

  Trust in the unborn and the undying.

  Why . . . me . . . ? He seems far away . . . beyond the borders of my demesne . . .

  Your demesne lies between the borders of light and shadow. And his hand is stretched out toward you, even now.

  Awake . . .

  My eyes snapped open and I was momentarily dazzled by the light in the room.

  The chair across from me was empty.

  The guards appeared to have dozed off. They were on the floor, leaning back against the wall or slumped over on their sides. Deirdre was snoring. Kurt’s chin had dropped to his chest.

  “I see the Four-fold Man,” wrote William Blake, “The Humanity in deadly sleep / and its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow.” I wondered how Blake would have rendered our little naptime into scansion and verse.

  “Can it get any weirder than this?” I muttered.

  You’d think I’d learn to keep my big fat mouth shut—even the rhetorical questions get me nothing but trouble. The problem was I didn’t even have a clue as to how much trouble I was in before the door opened again.

  Two large toy soldiers marched into the room.

  “Large toy” sounds a little oxymoronic—like “jumbo shrimp” or “military intelligence”—but these apple-cheeked, white-trousered, red-bloused, black-capped automatons were the size of children. Or dwarves.

  They goose-stepped in with their spike-bayoneted muzzle loaders strapped across their backs and each carried a small chest in his white-gloved hands. The chests were as identical as the pair transporting them. As they drew closer I could see that they more closely resembled miniature caskets—coffins, about fourteen inches long and shaped proportionally with ancient brass fittings.

  The little soldiers came forward and placed the little caskets on the floor just inches away from my feet. They then saluted and turned and marched back out of the room.

  I stared after them and then down as the door closed behind them. Someone had used a wood-burning stylus to inscribe the same words in Ger
man on the lid of each casket:

  Schlüssel zum Erfolg ist verfügbar

  Rough translation: “The key to success is at hand.” This made a wee bit more—if not complete—sense when I picked one up. It was locked. To prevent someone from getting in? I wondered.

  Or something from getting out?

  The ceremonial gifts from the clans and families were all carefully X-rayed before being delivered to me so I figured it couldn’t be too dangerous. But if the key was at hand, it wasn’t immediately evident. I set the mini-coffins aside for later examination: my next two appointments had arrived and I had a roomful of protectors to wake up.

  * * *

  Kurt was loath to leave me but he needed to find out what had happened to his much vaunted security systems. He particularly wanted to know why his backup team hadn’t come running when the hidden cameras showed us passing out.

  I waved him off, assuring him that we could fall asleep equally well, with or without him. That neither reassured him nor improved his mood. He muttered into his lapel mic while Deirdre resumed her smirk. After all of his high-handedness, she was enjoying the fact that his security had fumbled the ball twice in one night and both times it had happened on his watch. Kurt was learning that I wasn’t an easy guy to protect.

  Come to think of it, maybe I should take note of that issue, as well.

  The door opened and a young woman entered. She looked like a fresh-faced, well-scrubbed college sophomore or junior reporting for her first internship. She wore a baggy pullover of midnight blue over a pair of tight black slacks and sensible, comfortable shoes. Her chestnut hair was pulled away from her face and dropped into a ponytail of Clydesdalean proportions. She preceded a big, dangerous-looking vampire whose fangs actually curved over his lower lip. Worse, he was a mouth-breather. The tux that barely fit him didn’t do anything to suggest an air of sophistication, it was actually counterintuitive. His long black hair hung to his shoulders in twisted greasy locks. He had more hair on his knuckles than I had on my chest.

  They were an odd pairing, this vampire and his human servant. Or maybe he was simply bringing his lunch to work.

  Kurt headed for the door. “Spook and Carol will take my place until I get back,” he said over his shoulder. “Be careful. And don’t be a pain in the ass.”

  Yup, Kurt was finally learning what my security detail really entailed after all this time.

  I turned to the big vamp as the door closed behind my majordomo. “So, Spook, huh? I’m guessing you weren’t ever in the CIA.” I gestured to the empty chair on my right. “Have a seat.”

  The coed stepped up and sat down. “I’m Spook,” she said with a smile, “that’s Carol.” The big vampire moved to her side.

  Oboy.

  I turned to the two vampire envoys that were waiting for their appointment to begin. One wore a skullcap, the other a shemagh. Both wore beards. “And you are . . . ?”

  * * *

  The Aluka and the Oneida were a treat, of sorts. Their numbers were the smallest among the clans as they never sought to bring others to their state of damnation. Vampire Jews or Muslims had to be made by vampires who had no stake in either religion. No pun intended.

  The more orthodox Jews and devout Muslims who woke up undead invariably tried to destroy themselves. Their beliefs wouldn’t permit them to continue their existence as an unclean thing. Where their doctrines forbade suicide, many found clever and elaborate ways to exploit scriptural loopholes and have “accidents.” Sometimes they would force fatal encounters with overwhelming numbers of other unclean monsters. Only a few of those on either side of Father Abraham’s family tree found ways to reconcile themselves with their newfound thirst for blood.

  You might suppose those survivors would wage holy (or unholy) war on the other side of the Middle East equation. Surprise! Their most violent clashes were heated arguments over the definition of kosher blood and whether the uncircumcised and the infidel fell within the proscriptions of lawful prey. As long as they weren’t inclined to blow each other up I was happy. Don’t fix what ain’t broken, I always say.

  Next.

  Carmella Le Fanu wasn’t a treat, she was the entire candy store.

  Tall and elegant, she was graceful, projecting an aura of irresistible beauty with almost no effort. Which meant she was at least a hundred years older than me though she appeared to be somewhere between her second and third decade. She sat across from me, looking me up and down as if she was the one in the candy store, while her brother did the talking.

  Valentine Le Fanu was the poster boy for those who like romance novels with teeth. His hair fell about his shoulders in silky waves like a dark curtain. He wore ruffles and lace beneath a velvet frockcoat and his skintight breeches tucked into expensive riding boots at mid-calf. He had a pretty-boy face made less girlish by a strong jaw and intelligent eyes that suggested that he was no fool nor did he tolerate any gladly.

  “As much as I would love to see the Polidori Clan reduced in influence and prestige,” he was saying, “I feel that it is only fair to warn you that Yuler was most likely acting at another’s behest.”

  I did not take advantage of his timely pause to ask “who?” I merely smiled and waited.

  “There is a vampire named Cairn who makes no secret of his ambitions to rule the city. He has been responsible for a number of political assassinations over the past fifty years. Lately he seems to have turned his attentions to the most powerful among the clans and we suspect he seeks to turn the clans against one another, starting a civil war that would destroy the demesne from within.”

  “If he presents such a serious threat,” I asked, “why haven’t you dealt with him before now?”

  “Because they don’t know who he is,” Spook said from the chair on my right.

  “Why, Darcy,” said Carmella, also speaking for the first time, “still awake? I thought it was long past your bedtime.”

  “I’m sorry, Carmella. I wouldn’t have interrupted if I’d known you were actually following the conversation. You were staring so hard at Domo Cséjthe that I thought you had drifted off into some little daydream.”

  “Vampires don’t daydream, my dear.”

  “How sad for you. Sleeping must be so much more boring for you than it is for me.”

  Carmella opened her mouth to reply but Valentine laid a hand on his sister’s arm and said: “She is but a kitten, Mella; do not play the ball of yarn for her.”

  Deirdre leaned over and filled the ensuing silence: “You’re Darcy Blenik?”

  * * *

  “When Kurt mentioned your name I assumed you were a vampire,” I said climbing into the passenger seat of the tram.

  Spook—aka Darcy Blenik—climbed behind the steering wheel. “Oh, Uncle Kurt. He thinks of me as one of them since I am family.”

  “Uncle Kurt?” I stifled a yawn: it was getting close to dawn.

  “Well, he’s actually my great-great-great-grandfather but it’s so much easier to close the multigenerational gap and call him uncle.” We started off down the tunnel with a jerk. “Carol,” she called over her shoulder, “send a note to maintenance and tell them either the battery isn’t holding its charge or we’ve got an intermittent short somewhere in tram two.”

  “Yes, miss,” he rumbled from the seat behind me.

  “So, what is it that you do around here?” Deirdre asked her.

  “Not a whole lot, actually. Whatever chores Uncle Kurt gives me to keep me out of trouble. I’ve kind of been at loose ends since my father died.”

  “You were the speaker at the podium, this evening,” my Chief of Security observed. “You were making the presentation with the security video.”

  I looked and could see it now: with her hair piled on top of her head and wearing an off-the-shoulder evening gown, she had appeared to be much older.

  She nodded. “Yes and I must compliment you, Ms. . . . ?”

  “Just Deirdre, dear. I left my last name behind with my past life.” />
  “Well, Deirdre, you handle yourself well in a fight. It was a shame to edit out some of those moves but Uncle felt it best to make Domo Cséjthe appear as formidable as possible.” A pause. “I also met you at the airport.”

  “You were the chauffeur,” I said, mentally putting the moustache, goatee, and mirrored sunglasses back on her face.

  “Call me Spook,” she answered agreeably.

  “Call me Chris.”

  “Oh no. Uncle would insist on proper formalities with the Doman. One half of maintaining respect is in observing the formalities.”

  “I’m not big on formalities.”

  “So I’ve been told.” She turned the tram down a side passage. “What I haven’t been told is how you are both human and wampyri. Are you dhampir?”

  “Technically, no.”

  Deirdre was perplexed. “Dompeer? I’ve known a couple of occasions when Cséjthe has put a real damper on the festivities . . .”

  “A dhampir,” Spook explained, “is the son of a vampire. That is to say, conceived by a wampyri father and birthed by a human mother. He is born with attributes of both the living and the undead. By tradition he’s the perfect vampire hunter.”

  “My parents were human, my condition—”

  Suki yowled loudly in cat form and Deirdre hastily interrupted. “I think the details of Chris’s condition are best left a little hazy, at present. The less that is known about his strengths and weaknesses, the better his chances of surprising his enemies.”

  “Of course,” our driver said. “You certainly surprised Yuler tonight. And I daresay a great many others. Of course your reputation was quite formidable even before the evening began. If Cairn has sent assassins after you in the past, he will most likely be a little more thoughtful before doing so again.”