“Maur sees them,” the Gol said.
Danica nodded and opened the side hatch door, which ground open with a clang. The gelid night wind slammed into her face like a fist. Danica’s spirit wound around her protectively, warming her skin and hardening against her body in an almost invisible lair of red crystal.
She jumped down, Alvarez and Raine close behind her. Their boots sank in the muck, and the cloying stench of brine and gooey organic matter assailed her nostrils. Within moments the three of them were up to their ankles in brackish ooze and grey-green filth, a tar-like substance so thick with sediment it was almost like walking through sand. The airship pulled back a few hundred yards, enough that the engines didn’t kick up any more water or debris.
The three of them kept low, their weapons held ready. The torches along the railway had been enveloped by folds of toxic mist, and the train rattled off into the distance. Scant traces of moonlight pierced through the jade clouds. In spite of the moist swamp atmosphere the air was bitterly cold and still, and if not for Danica’s spirit slithering around them like a warm gel she knew they’d have been freezing from exposure. Strange beasts called in the distance, loons and marsh lizards, armored frogs and bugs the size of softballs, but luckily the cold made it so none of those creatures actually had the will or strength to move.
Their boots slurped in and out of the muck, and Danica’s fingers were starting to freeze by the time they made it to the tree-line, a twisted and dark topiary of lazy conifers that seemed to have lost their will and were sinking back into the swamp. Thick jags of rock protruded from the soil at the edge of the bank, and after they trudged along for a hundred yards they came to more solid ground. Thick vines lay strewn across the path, most of them leaking some milky phosphorescent substance.
They saw the Doj.
“Visual contact,” Danica said into the comm, and she heard Maur squelch back from the airship that he’d received the message. He wouldn’t bring the ship up until they’d negotiated.
The first Doj stepped out of the shadows, and it was a wonder he’d managed to stay hidden at all. Danica had encountered Doj before. Grissom, her former teammate, had been a half-Doj, and he’d towered over just about anyone else she’d ever met. True Doj, like the warrior-dame Wara of the Grey Watch, were close to twelve feet tall, mostly human but with less defined features, as if their great size carried with it a loss of finer details.
These were Deep Doj, and they were truly frightening. Some fifteen-feet-tall and as broad as two full-grown humans, the giants resembled men only in that they were vaguely the same shape. Their flesh was black and green, almost like tree-bark rendered beneath a layer of stone; their hands were thick, their faces grim, their eyes tiny pinpricks of white against their dark flesh. Their muscles creaked when they moved, and despite the chill they wore only loose battle-dress, armor-plated pants and shields that matched their massive hammers and 20mm cannons. Ancient enemies of the vampires and allies to humankind due to their perpetual exile from their home – like the other creatures After the Black, the giants were refugees from their own worlds, forever lost and displaced – the Deep Doj had defended the city of Ath as part of an agreement with the White Mother, but now that she was dead they roamed the wastelands on their own, keeping out of sight and only emerging when it served their interests.
Like now.
The Gol had been attempting to arrange an alliance with the Deep Doj for months, but the giants were incredibly reclusive and surprisingly difficult to find, and even after contact had been made the negotiations proved tense, at best. Three of them stood in the swamp clearing, their massive shoulders slumped, their great frames making it so they more resembled living mountains than creatures.
This deal of “Each side sends three members” to negotiate doesn’t seem as fair when you take it into account that one of them is as big as three of us.
“We’re here,” she said, allowing her spirit to translate her words. He was tensed around her, wound like a spring, and the nearly invisible armor he draped her in grew hot. Raine and Alvarez spread out, their weapons lowered. The three Doj stood motionless on one side of the wide clearing.
The noise the lead Doj made was almost a growl, a deep and rumbling sound like stones being scraped together. It took her spirit a few moments to translate the words.
“Yes,” it said. “And you brought the food?”
“It’s on board our ship,” she said. “Tell us.”
“No,” the Doj said. “Show you.”
Danica glanced at Alvarez, then Raine. They both nodded.
“Show us then,” she said. “Show us the way to Bloodhollow.”
The Doj nodded. Danica could have been imagining things, but she thought the giant was smiling.
THIRTEEN
PYRAMID
Year 35 A.B. (After the Black)
10 A.S.C. (After Southern Claw)
The river was dark, a paste of industrial sludge whose diseased flow cut across the dry red plains and under the decrepit bridge which led to Pyramid Station. Black totems marked the road to the outpost city, a monolith of salt-encrusted limestone and blanched armor plate. The sun burned down. The stakes to either side of the path were blackened wood set with old bones, carved masks of forgotten religions and cross-set blades from discarded weapons.
The sloped walls of Pyramid station ascended hundreds of feet to a bladed apex, a razored tower set with a blood-red light that shone when the sun went down. During the day that tower was blinding, a reflective citadel of molten glass which refracted dirty sunlight like a thousand mirrors.
Ronan approached cautiously. He’d been through the outpost plenty of times, and if he’d learned anything from his repeated visits it was that it was foolish to assume you knew all of the ways the Station could kill you. There was always a new way to die in the greatest free-trade city in all of the East Claw Coalition territories.
Open ports dotted the upper walls, entrances for the dozens of rigged airships which roamed the smoke-filled sky: old battered merchant vessels, pirate frigates, retrofitted warships used by mercenaries and scavengers. Watchtowers sat on the walls facing the northern wastes, lands that abruptly shifted from fields of lifeless white to fields of lifeless gold. The road to the city passed through the remains of old settlements, bones of marble and iron, brick and wood. Pools of brackish water and small pits of oil and mud covered the zones at the base of the city like festering sores.
Ronan shielded his eyes from the rising sun. The glare off both the city and the pale wastes had given him a headache, and his lack of sleep over the past several days was starting to wear him down. His katana weighed heavy in its sheath, and the G36G/1 slung over his shoulder felt like it had grown a few pounds heavier since he’d put it there. His tattered dark cloak and clothing were covered with grime and dust, and the cloth wrap he kept around his scarred face was heavy with ice and sweat.
The city loomed large in his sight, a monument of blasted stone. It seemed to shift in place as he drew close, a batholith hand-carved by the slaves of some alien society so it resembled a seat for kings. Thousands of runes carved in the outer walls seemed to flow together in a tide of dark ink. He entered the city through the wide northern gates, feeling like an insect walking into a web. Tan and green stone oozed steam and rivulets of scalding water.
Windows and doors had been set into the black walls of the tunnel-like entrance. Water was cast from open windows and spattered onto the ground below, not in the least deterring the hawkers and merchants who manned the stalls just inside the city. Guards cloaked in red and black intercepted all traffic coming into Pyramid, and Ronan found himself a victim of Ordinance 27 – due to a recent outbreak of lice all visitors were required to shear their heads, so before he could go in they took the clippers to him, reducing his thick black hair to a raise of stubble that reminded him of just how cold it was there in the wastes. Ronan caught his reflection in a varnished metal wall and thought the lack of hair made him lo
ok at least ten years older; he found himself rubbing the stubble continuously, as if the hair would grow back if he just kept at it.
Flashing neon lights illuminated clouds of steam and intoxicating gas. Pyramid Station was a maze of tight streets, narrow brass and copper alleyways that seemed to constantly rain tepid moisture. The air was thick with the smell of industry and exotic spices and food, and Ronan spent a few coins on some hunks of roasted goat-meat served on sticks and ate while he walked towards the black market district.
The noise was relentless. There were people everywhere, machines pumping fuel and fluids, metal gears and pistons, blasts of steam and explosive pressure, distorted music and shouts, the roar of turbines as ships docked in the ports above, the slide of metal as doors to massive passageways opened. Song carried from intoxicated voices.
Ronan passed through drifts of drug and tobacco smoke. People milled in metal canyons stained by oil and sweat and clogged with cooking vapors. He swam through crowds of vagabonds, tinkers, beggars, pimps, whores, hawkers, and what passed for the city guard, loosely organized East Claw Coalition regulars in black and tan uniforms who didn’t care a spit about what was happening around them. Everyone’s heads had been nearly shaved to the scalp, an androgynous sea of skin.
Abraham’s dingy shop was at the edge of the main thoroughfare, accessible only by using a sliding door guarded by a peep-hole and a gun port that allowed the blacket marketer to both see and shoot out into the street when visitors came calling with little fear of being injured in kind. Ronan leered into the peephole as Abraham’s familiar sunglasses popped into view; the dark man flashed his gold-toothed smile as he let the assassin come inside.
“Mr. Ronan,” he said. Abraham wore a black silk shirt beneath his open armor jacket, and he somehow made his worn-out flak pants look stylish. He wore no mustache but had a heavy goatee, and for a man who was almost sixty he was in amazing shape, especially considering the fact that he peddled drugs, outlawed arcana and anything else he could get his hands on.
“How’s it going, Abe?” Ronan asked.
“I’m livin’ the dream,” Abraham smiled. “I must say, you look like shit with no hair.”
“Thanks,” Ronan growled. “By the way, do you actually age?”
“I gave that up a long time ago,” Abraham smiled. “How long have you been in Pyramid?”
“Just got here,” Ronan said, and he set his pack on the ground.
Abraham’s shop was full with racks of weapons, piles of carefully sorted drugs, a plethora of stolen merchandise and a catalog of girls he could arrange private meetings with. The walls were bronzed and draped with black cloth, blocking out every window so the only available light came from flickering lamps. Ronan smelled incense and freshly baked bread – one of Abraham’s only vices was Pumpernickel, a loaf of which sat on the small table near the back of the room next to another gun vault that held his more expensive weaponry.
“Am I your first stop?” Abraham asked. “I’m honored.”
“You’re my only stop,” Ronan said.
“Don’t tell me,” Abraham smiled, holstering the Browning he’d answered the door with. “You need a sword.” Abraham flashed his gold smile.
“No,” Ronan said. “Information.”
“Uh oh,” Abraham said with a rough laugh. “That never bodes well when it comes from you. We need to make it fast, though, because, uh, I got a lady waiting for me.”
“Of course you do,” Ronan said with a wry grin. “When is that not the case?”
“This one is special,” Abraham said.
“They always are.”
Abraham laughed.
“Ronan, Ronan, Ronan...you know, I heard a rumor…” He motioned for Ronan to seat himself on a low black sofa, an ancient piece of furniture so in need of being re-stuffed it looked like it was melting. Ronan shifted his katana so he could sit without cutting himself in half. Abraham brought him a cup of steaming tea, which he sipped on thankfully, even if it tasted like dirty rainwater.
“What’s that?” Ronan asked.
“You took out Rage,” Abraham said. “That true?”
Ronan nodded.
“Damn,” Abraham said. “That was vicious.”
“I’m surprised you heard about that already,” Ronan said. The cup was warm against his hands, and the steam felt good on his chapped and scarred face.
“That hurts,” Abraham smiled. “You know I know people.”
“And things that aren’t people,” Ronan said with a nod. Abraham had contacts everywhere, and he was remarkably good at maintaining a low profile – he knew black market smugglers, high-ranking officers in the Coalition, members of the White Children, scavengers, bandits, even vampires and undead out of both the Ebon Kingdoms and New Koth. And if any of those contacts guessed at how much he knew, he’d be dead meat. “That’s why I came.” Ronan nodded at his pack. “There’s a bundle near the top of my pack that’s for you.”
“What is it?” Abraham asked.
“Take a look.”
“I trust you.”
Like hell you do, Ronan thought. He knew there was a full-bodied flame ghost in an overhead compartment, which Abraham’s witch girlfriend Ice had bound to his will a long time ago. If that wasn’t bad enough, Abraham was an ex-Southern Claw Hunter who’d served along the front lines in Blackmarsh, so he was more than capable of handling himself, and Ronan didn’t doubt there was at least a pair of bodyguards waiting in the next room.
“Gold,” Ronan said. “Two bars. Courtesy of our friend Rage.”
It was easy to tell when Abraham was pleased, because he always stopped smiling. He pulled his barstool away from the table and sat down on his hands.
“You have my attention,” he said.
“I’m looking for a girl,” Ronan said.
“I’ve got plenty of those.”
“Not this one. She’s going to Bloodhollow.”
“Then she’s insane,” Abraham said matter-of-factly. “Shit, you know that place is just a fuckin’ fairy tale. Why would you even…”
“The why is my business,” Ronan said. “But here’s the thing – the Marauders knew some other mercs who were going there. A black market dealer had set things up for them, and they said that dealer happened to be you.” He fixed Abraham with a cold stare. “What can you tell me about that?”
Abraham watched him, and after a moment he slowly removed his sunglasses. The air turned suddenly quiet.
“You sure you want to know this?” Abraham asked.
“I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t,” Ronan said.
Abraham pursed his lips. His voice was cracked, and he spoke in a measured tone – the tone he always used when things turned serious.
“How long we been friends?” he asked.
Ronan probed a painful tooth while he stared at the other man.
“I don’t have friends, Abe,” he said. “But we’ve known each other a long time.”
“A long time,” Abraham said with a nod. “A long time. And you know I would do anything for you.”
“Then tell me how to get to Bloodhollow,” Ronan said. “A girl’s life is in danger.”
“Suppose I said that’s too bad,” Abraham said after a pause. “Suppose I said some things are off limits. Even for you.”
Ronan watched him carefully. A beat of silence passed, and then another.
“Then I’d have to do something neither of us wants me to,” Ronan said at last. “And that would be too bad, so it would be easier if you just told me.”
More silence. Everything seemed to fade.
“All right,” Abraham said with a nod, and Ronan felt the air in the room shift moments before the flame spirit descended.
He knew the attack was coming, and his katana leapt into his hand. The weapon was so familiar it was like an extension of his arm. It wasn’t magical, but his training with the Crimson Triangle made it like magic in his hands. He knew the precise angles and areas to cut so he could ma
ximize damage to undead opponents, and he was just as adept at destroying the living.
The ghost rained down like molten jet. Ronan tasted burning air, saw pinprick white eyes in the roiling body of orange flames. His skin sun-cracked as heat washed down over him, a bed of fire and smoke. The katana curved upwards, seared straight through the elemental’s core and halved it. Ghostly screams echoed as flames seared out and skipped across the ground, catching on the black drapes and setting them alight. Unguent of the discarded wastelands soul washed over Ronan in a bitter tide.
Abraham had his gun in hand, and as Ronan had guessed a pair of bodyguards ran into the room, large men in dark leather armor, HK416s held before them. Ronan gazed through the flames. Everything slowed. The world bled grey, a haze of smoke and dust. He felt his heart beat like a hollow drum, dissonant and cold.
He’d entered the Deadlands without even intending to.
Ronan moved as if in a dream, his speed ten times that of his opponents. Abraham raised the shotgun but Ronan had already released a throwing knife which took his old friend in the forearm. The gun fell and fired, and shot ricocheted off the walls.
The HK416s ripped to life. Ronan moved out of their line of fire and behind the weapon racks, passing through the flames just long enough to feel his skin blister. Fire smoke filled the air, and even in the tight confines of the room it was easy to get lost in the labyrinth of shelves and smoke. Ronan reached out with his unnatural senses, found three heartbeats in the chaos.
A bullet glanced his shoulder, drawing blood but no pain. He caught sight of himself in a mirror moments before it shattered and saw a monster looking out through a mask of flesh, trapped and dead inside his own skin.
The world shrunk. There was just he and the flames and the shadowy heartbeats. Ronan’s arms swept up, sawing through the first man’s throat; he rotated the blade all of the way around the neck, cutting him from one end to the other, an orbiting slice that spilled blood and fatty tissue.
Walls of fire loomed in around them. Ronan crouched low, trying not to breathe in the smoke, but it was a struggle. He was in the Deadlands, and getting out wasn’t going to be easy.
Vampire Down (Blood Skies, Book 7) Page 18