On a Darkling Plain

by Unknown Author

  Fresh pain ripped through his torso and leg, staggering him. After another stride, a wave of terrible weakness flowed through his muscles and his eyes went dim. He could feel his internal organs swelling and bursting like balloons. He experienced a sensation he’d half-forgotten, the desperate need to gasp in a breath, but he couldn’t make his petrified lungs inflate.

  And suddenly he understood what it meant. Thirty years ago, drugged and delirious, his veins and arteries emptied and his heart falling silent, he’d cheated death by becoming a vampire. Now Nature was taking its due. The alternate reality of human science and common sense was rending the immortality out of his body, transforming him into the shriveled, decay-ridden corpse that it had always intended he should be.

  No/ he told himself desperately. I’m not dying! What I’m feeling isn’t real! Somehow holding total, crippling dread at bay, he lurched on, finally reeling against the black door.

  He tried to grip the knob, but he couldn’t make his stiff, aching fingers close around it. He stumbled back a step, then hurled himself at the raven panel.

  Weak as he felt, perhaps he actually still possessed inhuman strength: when his shoulder hit the door, it flew open and struck the wall with a boom. Now completely off balance, he collapsed across the threshold onto the floor.

  After a few seconds his head cleared, and his accustomed strength came flowing back. Profoundly grateful, he sprang to his feet.

  Had anyone been alarmed by the sound of the door crashing open? There was no way to know. He’d just have close it again and hope for the best. He hastily proceeded to do so and then turned to examine his surroundings.

  He was standing in a living room stuffed with dark, massive furniture, much of it upholstered in red velvet. A white marble statue of a Kindred in medieval clothing touching a kneeling woman’s brow — a tableau that reminded Dan of Jesus healing the sick — stood in one corner, while a companion piece, the same vampire with his fangs buried in a struggling man’s throat, occupied another.

  Musty-smelling tapestries, depicting scenes of knightly battles, a stag hunt and courtly love, adorned the walls. Surrounded by such antiques, the big-screen TV and the stereo system were jarringly out of place.

  Dan listened. He didn’t hear anyone stirring, so he crept on, into a formal dining room. The places around the long table were set with embroidered linen napkins and a variety of gold and crystal goblets, but no plates or flatware. Beyond that chamber was a hallway, and as he glided into it a faint odor tickled his nose. It was like the smell of old, crumbling paper mixed with exotic spices.

  Warily he peeked through the next doorway he came to. On the other side was a spacious office, with a drawerless, glass-topped desk on which sat a PC, a phone, a disk caddie, an open ebony box of Turkish cigarettes, and a jade ashtray. The source of the peculiar odor was in the corner: a table on which lay a child-sized, brown, withered, motionless figure. Someone had stripped the brittle bandages away from its head to reveal the sunken, eyeless, noseless, long-dead countenance beneath.

  Dan hesitated, uncertain whether to enter the room. The mummy looked inert. Truly dead. But as with the Samedi, such appearances could be deceiving. Finally, losing patience with his own timidity, he slipped inside.

  The mummy didn’t move. Keeping a wary eye on it, he sat down and booted up the .computer. The initial screen asked him to enter a password. Frowning, he tried Tremere, Warlock, magic, Camelot and Merlin. None of them did the trick.

  A dry chuckle, so faint that no human could have heard it, rustled through the air.

  Dan jerked around in his swivel chair. The mummy hadn’t moved. Nevertheless, he was all but certain it was what he’d heard. Reminding himself that he was also an undead entity and therefore shouldn’t feel so spooked, he swallowed and said, “Who are you? What are you? Some kind of Kindred?”

  The mummy chuckled again. The sound made the small hairs on the back of Dan’s neck stand on end. “My name is Sesostris, little spy, and no, I don’t share the blood of Caine. Would that I did, to walk free and strong like you! In life, in the Two Kingdoms, I was a mage of sorts and an advisor to kings. I helped Kamose drive out Apophis. Beyond the Shroud, my role has been much the same. I served the Beggar Lord until Durrell bound me inside this husk and so made me his slave.”

  Much of what the spirit said had gone over Dan’s head, but he thought he grasped the essential point. He stood up, strode to Sesostris’ bier, and raised his fist over the mummy’s head. One blow would surely pulverize the desiccated creature’s skull. “If you try to hurt me, or yell for help, I’ll kill you.”

  Sesostris made a spitting sound. “Are you so afraid of me, then, vampire? Surely 1 don’t look as if I can bound off this table and overpower you, and you hear just how loudly I can ‘yell.’ I’m not a sentinel, I’m a research tool, no different from a reference book or that contraption on the desk. And that’s as well for you, because your threat holds no terrors for me. I yearn to be released from this vile existence. I want to return to Stygia.”

  Dan paused for a moment thinking that over, and then said, “If I tore the mummy apart, would that set your spirit free?”

  “It would,” Sesostris whispered.

  “Then how about a deal,” said Dan. “If you help me find out what I need to know, I’ll cut you loose before I leave.”

  “I see by your aura that you’re honest, after a fashion,” said the mummy, prompting Dan to wonder fleetingly how a thing with no eyes could see anything. “Very well, it’s a bargain.”

  “Then answer some questions for me,” said the Kindred.

  ON-AlWj!KUNCTuffi

  “Who’s Durrell?”

  Sesostris didn’t laugh, but somehow Dan could sense the ancient creature’s amusement. “Don’t you even know that? You’re standing in his haven. You were sitting in his chair.” Dan grinned. “Just like Goldilocks. I guess it does seem weird, but no, I don’t know. Tell me, please.”

  “Sebastian Durrell is the Tremere Regent — their term for the master magus of a city — of Louisville. He also owns a controlling interest in the garden of earthly delights above our heads.”

  “Is he masterminding the war against the Kindred of Sarasota?”

  “Indeed he is,” Sesostris said. “And he’s rather worried that either his Lord — his superior in the Order of Tremere

  — or the prince of Louisville will find out about it before he brings it to a successful conclusion. He’s convinced that neither one would appreciate his initiative.”

  “Why did he start a war in the first place?” asked Dan. “What does he hope to gain?”

  Sesostris hesitated. “I’m not entirely sure,” the mummy said at last. “He doesn’t always confide in me. Not that he anticipated a spy creeping into his lair to interrogate me, but I’m afraid that my attitude isn’t as sympathetic as he’d like. I do know that Roger Phillips is influential in the councils of the Camarilla, and generally advocates policies of which Durrell disapproves.. And I know that the Toreador of Sarasota have immense wealth. If my master could seize Phillips’ throne, or failing that, arrange for a collaborator to do so, he could take much of the treasure for his own. Yet I suspect there’s more to it. For some reason, Durrell believes that his triumph will serve to further his quest for greater magical power. Like most magi, he’s obsessed with learning new and greater sorceries.”

  Dan wondered if the other Methuselah, Melpomene’s opposite number, had promised to teach Durrell new magic

  in exchange for his cooperation. Ultimately, he supposed, the Tremere’s motives mattered far less than whatever plans he’d made. “Are Durrell and his main assistants all living here in these tunnels?”

  “They are.”

  Dan blinked and shook his head. “Then... hell, I’ve got them. My job’s finished. I can pass along the information, the Toreador will stage a sneak attack —” Suddenly frowning, he faltered. Sure, he knew the truth, but could he convince anyone else to believe it? Would the high-
and-mighty undead aristocrats of Sarasota assault other members of the Camarilla on the word of a despised Caitiff and a supposed diabolist like himself? Maybe, but he’d rather approach them with some kind of corroborative evidence in hand. “Did Durrell keep any kind of records pertaining to all this?’

  “His journal,” replied Sesostris. “In the machine.” The mummy sighed. “When he first captured me, he used to write it by candlelight with a quill pen.”

  “Do you know the password?” asked Dan.

  “Scorpio,” Sesostris said. “The moon sign under which he was reborn a Kindred.”

  Dan dropped back into the swivel chair and typed in the word. Sure enough, the screen shifted to a list of files, one of which was labeled Journal. He opened it, skimmed a section of text near the end, and found it to be all he could have hoped. Durrell not only discussed his designs on Sarasota, he even named the non-Warlock allies, mercenaries and dupes from whom he’d assembled his makeshift army.

  The spy grabbed a disk and, having copied the file onto it, ejected it and thrust it into his jacket pocket. Rising, he said, “You’re a real friend, Sesostris.”

  “Not so,” the mummy said.

  Dan’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “I told you, Kindred,” Sesostris answered, his shivery whisper an odd blend of gloating malice and regret, “that Durrell enslaved me. My will is not my own. I cooperated with you to hold you here until the demon-bound, my fellow servant, could answer my call.” At that moment the luminous, fiery-eyed figure that Dan had encountered in the magi’s library stepped into the office doorway.

  Dan’s fingers twitched with the urge to draw his automatic. But he still didn’t want to make a lot of noise and attract every Tremere in the place. He suspected that the demon-bound was a formidable hand-to-hand fighter, but then, he was pretty tough himself. Emerging from behind the desk with fists raised to strike or block, he edged toward the creature. Its features slack and expressionless, arms dangling at its sides, it shuffled to meet him.

  As soon as Dan got within range, he snapped a kick at the demon-bound’s crotch. Suddenly moving fast as lightning, the glowing creature parried the attack. The force of the contact threw the Kindred off balance. Stumbling, he barely managed to avoid a counterpunch to the face.

  Okay, Dan thought grimly, now I know. It might be as strong as I am, and its hands are just as fast as mine. But the way it lumbers around, maybe its feet aren't. It’s between me and the door, but if I could get around it, perhaps I could outrun it. He faked a shift to the left, then dodged right, stomp-kicking the demon-bound in the knee as he darted around it. Bone cracked.

  For an instant, lunging toward the doorway, Dan thought the maneuver had worked. Then a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him backward.

  The vampire used a judo throw to tumble the demon-bound over his shoulder and slam it onto the floor. The creature retaliated by seizing his ankles and jerking his legs out from under him. Grappling, tearing at each other, the two combatants rolled back and forth across the carpet.

  Dan tried striking at what, on a mortal or even most

  Kindred, would be vulnerable areas: the groin, solar plexus, throat and eyes. Such blows neither elicited an involuntary defensive reaction, nor, when they landed, caused the demon-bound incapacitating distress. Evidently it lacked the reflexes that a skillful fighter like Dan could have used to fake it out, and it apparently was incapable of feeling pain. Since the tattooed monster wasn’t targeting Dan’s pressure points — maybe it didn’t know how — that pretty much reduced the wrestling match to a test of raw strength.

  As he battered and wrenched at his opponent, a crimson tide of fury swept through Dan’s mind. Berserk now, snarling, he extended his fangs and bit at the demon-bound. The creature’s blood was too hot and tasted foul, but he kept savaging it anyw'ay.

  They wrestled for perhaps two minutes, ripping flesh and breaking bone, neither quite managing to strike a decisive blow. The demon-bound’s body grew hotter and hotter, until every touch of it covered Dan with blisters and burns.

  And then it burst into flame.

  Terrified that the blaze would consume him, Dan struggled to break the demon-bound’s grip. Finally the monster’s arms loosened. Frantically the vampire wriggled out from underneath it and then saw that the fire had already spread to his clothing. Screaming, he roiled across the floor, smothering the flames. Seemingly indifferent to its immolation, still intent on subduing him, the demon-bound started to crawl after him, but burned to a motionless black stick figure before it could reach him.

  Dan knelt on the smoldering carpet, shuddering and reflexively gasping for breath, his broken ribs beginning to knit and his cuts to close. His burns started to heal as well, but more slowly; fortunately they were superficial. Gradually his instinctive dread of fire faded, and he started thinking rationally again. He had to get up and get out of here. Durrell could show up at any time, or Sesostris might be able to summon some other monster. Reminded of the mummy’s existence, he glanced over at the table and then gave a start of surprise.

  Sesostris was gone. The ancient magician had lied about not being able to walk, too.

  Dan leaped up and dashed back through Durrell’s apartment. When he yanked open the black door, he saw Sesostris tottering down the corridor to the library. Bits of the mummy’s body flaked away with every lurching step.

  Steeling himself against another attack of magical fear, Dan ran into the hall. Nothing happened. Maybe the spell only kicked in if a stranger moved toward the door. He grabbed the mummy and slammed it against the wall. “You son of a bitch,” he growled. “Let’s see how far you can go after 1 tear your arms and legs off.”

  “Don’t stop there,” Sesostris said. “I want this prison destroyed. Free me! Please!”

  Dan snarled. The ancient creature had betrayed him. Why should he do it any favors? But then he realized that it hadn’t really needed to tell him Durrell’s password. It could have stalled him until the demon-bound arrived without giving up a thing. Perhaps in a way it had tried to help him, as much as its bindings would allow. Feeling like a soft touch, a sucker, he dug his fingers into Sesostris’ head and ripped it apart. The mummy’s skull crumbled like a stale saltine.

  Dan hastily dusted his hands, wiped his gory mouth on his sleeve and checked his pocket to make sure that he still had the disk. Then, the blood thirst that was the inevitable consequence of rapid healing already drying his throat, he skulked back through the Tremere haven toward the exit.

  Suspicions amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, they ever fly by twilight.

  — Francis Bacon, “Of Suspicion"

  Laurie Tipton sat in the security station — a stark, square, gray room smelling of industrial cleanser — studying the black-and-white TV monitor. Every few seconds the picture changed, bringing her another view of mortals eating com dogs and cotton candy, standing in line for flume rides, tilt-a-whirls and other attractions, or rushing from place to place, probably eager to experience as much of Camelot as possible before it was time to go home. The anarch reflected sourly that most looked as if they were having a lot more fun than she was.

  She supposed that she wouldn’t have minded her tedious job so much if this bastion of the Anarch Movement had turned out to be what she’d expected. What Wyatt in his enthusiasm had led her to expect, though she shied from thinking about her disappointment in those terms. The implied criticism of her dead friend made her feel disloyal.

  But it seemed weird that the vampire resistance would control a zillion-dollar business like Camelot. That was something she’d expect of the elders of the Camarilla, who were generally acknowledged to hold the reins of power in both the kine and Kindred worlds. Nor did she understand why so many of the other undead inhabiting the facility seemed secretive and aloof. Sometimes she almost felt as if they were laughing at her behind her back. By the same token, she didn’t comprehend why Durrell, the anarch captain who’d brought her
, Felipe and Jimmy Ray to the park, seemed so convinced that Dan was going to show up here.

  Dan. Shifting restlessly in her chair, she grimaced. She hated the murdering bastard. How could she not? But there was more to her feelings than that, because she’d liked him so much at first. Like nearly every other vampire — or mortal male — she’d known, he’d tried hard to come across as tough, but she’d sensed a terrible aching loneliness inside him, the same feeling that had tortured her before she met her other friends. It had made her like him instantly, and even now made her flinch from believing him a traitor. She guessed that she really was gullible, loyal to a fault. Even in the Haight in the Summer of Love, when everybody was supposed to love and trust everybody else, people had told her as much.

  But she couldn’t grasp why Dan had done what he had! If he was an agent of the Camarilla, why hadn’t he moved to destroy the other members of the anarch cell? Not for the first time, she toyed with the notion that Wyatt’s poor, dying familiar had been confused about the identity of its master’s slayer; but try as she might, she couldn’t buy that either.

  She realized that, lost in thought, she’d stopped watching the monitor. Conscientiously she focused her eyes on it again. She just had time to register a familiar silhouette before the picture changed.

  Crying out in dismay, she lunged for the control panel on the desk before her. One of Durrell’s associates, a snotty guy who usually wore a black leather vest, had taught her how to use it, but after that first night she hadn’t had the occasion or the inclination to fool with it. Still, after a moment’s fumbling, she managed to flip back to the previous view.

  The monitor showed her a rangy figure with light-colored hair striding through a crowd of tourists milling in front of the Sir Lancelot’s Tourney equestrian stunt show. By now he’d nearly reached the edge of the picture, but, frantically pushing buttons and flipping toggle switches, she manage to make the security camera pivot after him and then zoom in for a close-up.

  She’d been right. The guy was Dan. His mouth was set in a grim line, and he kept glancing from side to side. His hair needed combing, and he had dark stains on his jeans and jacket which might be bloodstains, scorch marks, or both.