Gazing at the monster with rapt enchantment, Sergei realised his Master had not abandoned him – he just hadn’t the room to change properly in the big apartment. The devil form had only been the beginning. The dragon was Cú Roí’s true form.
Go now, Sergei. Do my bidding, or die. There was no affection in the dragon’s mind voice. Sergei turned and used all of his preternatural speed and agility to throw himself behind the kitchen counter before the penthouse was flooded with intense heat.
The first time he looked back up, the counter was on its side and the dining area was a blackened and charred wreck. The windows through the other side of the room, where the naked woman had been stood, had vanished, and the metal frames glowed a dull red. A violent cross wind whistled through the apartment. The black creature with five legs was still standing, though most of the top of its globular body had been blasted away. Slowly, it collapsed to the side. It hit the floor and splashed; the darkness that formed it dribbling away into cracks and shadows. There was no sign of the other Barghest.
Damballah was gone. The girl appeared from behind a burning tree shrieking her hatred at the dragon, which hovered outside. More fire washed in, and Sergei was forced to duck back under cover.
Now he was cornered by his own Lord. The female kept materialising from dark corners to howl at his master. Sergei could not quite comprehend how she was making it here and there. Something to his side emerged from the shadows and threw itself at him. He caught the girl in one steely hand and pushed her snapping fangs away from his face. Something inside him stirred. The monster that had entered him when he was bitten finally awoke. He felt his own change like a dream. It hurt. It hurt a lot, but it was a sweet agony that aroused him. He roared his own glee as he wrestled with the vampire, his therianthropic lust revelling in the fight.
The girl was strong and was obviously used to overcoming her prey through that alone. She fought with the grace of an alley cat. Pure ferocity might have seen her through against a lesser opponent, but Sergei was ex-KGB, a Cold War remnant: a mercenary captain of lethal skill. Her flailing arms were easy enough to catch and twist. In the end, he was too experienced for her. She made some weird eyes at him and he felt a mild tugging at the back of his mind, but he shrugged it off, putting it down to the change that was sliding over him.
Panicking, she pulled back towards the shadows, and Sergei felt his grip on her arm loosen as her flesh became insubstantial. Instinctively, he pulled her out from beneath the counter. Dancing firelight that shimmered hazily through plumes of smoke fell upon her, and shadow became flesh once again. The girl thrashed around madly, hissing all the time, and Sergei used his strength to twist her wrist. She yelped, and the struggling stopped.
Looking down at his arm, he saw it was covered in thick black fur. Muscles bulged beneath his pelt. His tongue licked out over long sharp teeth. The Master was at the window, his great lithe body undulating in the air, four massive scaled limbs hanging below, tucked up and streamlined. The great mouth opened. Sergei thrust the girl to the floor and leapt back behind the granite counter.
Heat and flame roared around him, like hell itself was rolling through the apartment. When Sergei looked back, there was no trace of the girl. The fire had wiped her from existence. You did well. Now go. Find Mark Jones.
Sergei went, his blood singing in anticipation.
When he reached floor thirty, Mark was ambushed by four Ifrit warriors. He had no idea where they had come from and he didn’t care. It was a short, brutal fight, and Mark initially came off worse.
Flames racked his body until he was nothing more than a shrivelled husk, skin blackened and eyes melted in his head. He collapsed, the clawed stubs of his fingers still gripping Camulus tightly. A heavy boot came down on his forehead and he felt his skull fracture and split. The black sword dug into his back beneath the assault. The pain was incredible, and for a moment, he nearly lost consciousness.
He beat it in the end, though. Pain was nothing new to Mark, and he was well practised in the arts of containing it and channelling it. Quickly, the flesh of his body regenerated. His skull swelled, and his eyes re-formed just in time for him to see one of the Ifrit, its flaming eyes roaring in their sockets, reach for Camulus.
Mark wrenched it up, and the tip of the blade took the Ifrit in the stomach. The Ifrit groaned and doubled over. Boiling blood splashed onto Mark’s face, and gouts of fire leapt from the wound. Mark pulled Camulus out and slashed upwards. The creature staggered backwards out of the way and then stumbled to its knees. Mark pushed himself to his feet, already whole again, though his clothes were burned rags, streaked in blood and the charcoal residue of his own skin.
Stepping forwards, he slashed the head from the injured Ifrit. It died, and its body combusted immediately. The other Ifrit backed away uncertainly. Mark brushed ash from his chest.
They were ill-equipped to deal with an immortal carrying an immortal-killing sword. The fire they washed him with barely slowed him, the claws they raked over his body only galvanised him, and Camulus took three more lives in quick succession. Mark stood amongst the ruin of their smouldering corpses for a few seconds, and then he carried on upward.
When he got to the fortieth floor, he found it ablaze and treacherous. Screams came from a corridor that led off from the stairwell. Mark hesitated, but only for a moment. He ran into a narrow corridor with apartments leading off it. The doors were all nailed shut.
Camulus smashed through the doors like they were paper. In the first room, he found a woman lying in a state of disarray, naked and pinned to the floor by the huge mass of her pregnant belly. She reached an imploring hand out to Mark. Black smoke was filling the room from somewhere. He stepped forwards to help her and then stopped. She was doomed. The thing in her stomach would kill her if the smoke did not. At least with the smoke, her passing would be peaceful.
Turning, he ran back into the corridor, ignoring the sob-choked begging of the woman he left behind. The next room was the same, and the next and the next.
By the time Camulus tore through the fifth door, Mark was beginning to give up hope. This time though, the woman in the birthing room was on her feet, the pregnancy developed but not debilitating. She waddled past Mark, barely looking at him, and staggered off towards the stairwell.
Mark thought about going after her. She was infected and the thing in her stomach would kill many if it got free. Then he decided against it – let her take her own chances, he thought. There may still be women in these rooms who had not suffered the ministrations of Cú Roí: if he could save them, maybe he could save some small part of Annaea.
It was ridiculous, he knew. Tabitha was dead, but he needed something, anything, to ease the pain of his failure. He went through the sixth door, determined to do what he could. The room was on fire. Smoke heaved around the walls, and the paint on the ceiling bubbled and spat. The furniture to Mark’s right was an inferno, and the windows at the rear were blackened and cracked. A woman stood facing him, her belly swollen and heavy, a large kitchen knife clutched in her right hand.
‘You aren’t going to take my baby,’ she hissed, her voice filled with insane rage, her eyes wild and wide. She threw herself at him, and Mark brought Camulus around automatically.
He shouted with horror as the sword bit deep, and her warm blood splashed across his hands and face.
The Tower at Dusk was dark and quiet. Ifrit could be seen moving around in the distance of Kilmanoi’s Hall. Several fires burned, but after the hell of the ORC-infested Tower at Dawn, it was easy for the group to navigate back to the Ring that would return them to Manchester.
‘Why is it so quiet?’ Cam wondered out loud as they walked.
‘The Unseelie Court used this place to access Earth,’ the Maiden said. ‘Now, with the magic dying, fewer and fewer are going through. They tend to restrict themselves to the higher levels and the top of The Tower. We are perfectly safe, as long as we stay quiet.’ It was good advice and the small group took it,
lapsing into silence as they headed back to the portal that would return them to Manchester.
Gartside Street was just the way Rowan remembered it – a mess of roadworks. It was good to be back home, even if home was in the tight grip of a shitstorm. He shivered in the December cold and looked up into the bruise of dusk. A haze of dark cloud, laced with a throbbing orange glow, was smeared across it. He frowned. That wasn’t cloud … he wrinkled his nose. ‘Can anyone else smell burning?’
Grímnir grunted something in his musical language, and then the big Jötnar walked towards Deansgate with the Maiden at his side. Rowan looked at Cam questioningly.
‘He says,’ Cam coughed and started speaking in a low growl. ‘“Let us get moving. My time is now.”’ The Elf rolled his eyes theatrically. Together they walked after him.
When they reached Deansgate, Rowan’s mouth dropped open. ‘Oh my God!’ he said. The words weren’t sufficient. Manchester was on fire.
The top half of the Beetham Tower was blazing. A giant plume of smoke stretched up to the sky, turning it black and angry. Flames shot from the windows near the top. Rowan could only imagine the inferno that raged inside.
Beside it, the Great Northern Warehouse had ignited. The entire roof was subsumed beneath roaring red flames that lashed twenty feet into the air. Rowan had seen similar trails of fire before in movies; it looked like the building had been hit by a napalm air strike.
Behind the Great Northern Warehouse, more smoke climbed into the air. Rowan looked left and saw other buildings along Deansgate burning merrily, too.
In front of him, shop fronts were cracked open and the goods inside were being quickly consumed by fires so bright that he had to shield his eyes against them. The heat was immense; Rowan felt sweat popping out on his forehead.
The sound of an angry ocean came to their ears. It was the sound of half a city burning. ‘What caused this?’ Rowan asked. The Maiden pointed up into the bleak, apocalyptic sky.
Between pillars of roiling black smoke, a bird swooped in the final flush of the setting sun. Slowly, his eyes worked out the distance and he squinted. ‘What is it?’ he asked. As if in answer, the object sent a stream of fire down onto the buildings below it. Something went up in a mushroom of flame. They heard the dull thud of the explosion from where they stood.
‘We have to get to the Beetham Tower,’ Cam said grimly. The fingers around the dragon head of his tattoo twitched as Cam reached up and absently kneaded the shotgun slung over his shoulder. Rowan watched as the thing above them flapped its immense wings and flew towards them. As it got closer, he began to truly appreciate its size. He also began to make out details.
‘Good God, it’s a dragon,’ he said flatly. ‘Why am I surprised?’
‘It is Cú Roí,’ the Maiden said.
‘You knew he could turn into that … thing … and you didn’t tell us?’ Cam said accusingly.
The Maiden didn’t answer.
‘Listen, guys, I don’t want to be a killjoy or anything,’ said Rowan, ‘but in the world of Top Trumps, that thing’s got solid tens all the way down. We might push a seven or eight if we’re lucky. The army’ll flatten it eventually, and it’s too late to save much of the city. If we go up there after it, we’re dead. We haven’t got a hope in Hell. Let’s be sensible.’
Grímnir asked Cam something in his language, and the Elf spoke back. Rowan got the feeling that he was translating. Grímnir said something else and Cam turned to Rowan. ‘He says, “You do not strike me as a coward, human,”’ Cam said in a mock deep voice that earned a disapproving scowl from Grímnir. Cam shrugged apologetically.
Rowan bridled. ‘There’s bravery and there’s suicide. We walk into that tower, and we’re going to burn. If we get to the top, it’ll most likely collapse on us. Even if it doesn’t, there’s no guarantee that thing will come anywhere near us, and if it does, we’ve not got a snowball’s chance of surviving, let alone of beating it.’
‘Have faith, Rowan,’ the Maiden said. ‘The time of greatest dark is often the moment we shine the brightest.’ She smiled at him and then followed Grímnir, who was already walking towards the Beetham Tower.
Rowan looked at Cam. ‘You see the fantasy book nonsense I’ve got to put up with?’ Cam asked.
‘What do we do?’
‘I’m going with them. You should go and look for your sister – that’s the only reason you’re here. Autumn said she escaped.’
‘And you trust him? Besides, I’ve got nowhere else to look. My sister’s probably up there if she’s still alive.’ Rowan felt a rush of deep fear at the idea that Tabby might be dead. He pushed it away. ‘She is still alive,’ he said to himself defiantly. ‘She has to be. I suppose I’ve got no choice.’
Cam laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ve always got a choice. I’ll look for her, Rowan. If I find her, I’ll do everything I can to bring her out safely.’
‘Yeah, well I appreciate it. But you might need an extra pair of hands. I’m coming along. I must be mad.’
Cam said, ‘I’m glad.’
‘The moment I find my sister, I’m out of there, though. I’m not scared of anything, but a dragon? I’m outclassed.’
‘I understand. Come on, they’re getting ahead.’
They caught up with Grímnir and the Maiden who were stood in front of the entrance to the apartments. Grímnir was a step or two ahead of the Maiden, his face turned up to the smoking ruin of the building. His tattoos coruscated in firelight diffused by smoke. His beard and hair were wild and elemental, his limbs thick and strong. Rowan thought he looked like a Norse god, ready to take his wrath to his enemy: Thor, ready to fight the Midgårdsormen. For a second, he believed he could probably win as well.
As Grímnir started towards the entrance, the smudged heavens were blotted out by the wings of the dragon. Its roar shook the earth, and glass fell from broken windows high above. Rowan looked up at the glittering red body and knew instinctively that if he set foot in the building, he would die. He pictured Tabby, alone and frightened somewhere above him. He pictured himself on the motorbike, fleeing the mansion.
Taking a deep breath, Rowan followed the three immortals into the smoky ruin of the dragon’s lair.
Sergei ran through the silver darkness and revelled in the power of his limbs. He was finally complete. No longer just a man with a talent for death, now he was Death. A god amongst men. The sound of screaming came from all around but he didn’t care. The Master was with him, deep in his head, guiding his rapacious glee; spurring him on and driving his bloodlust.
A pregnant woman lurched out in front of him. Sergei wondered idly how she had escaped the birthing rooms even as he dragged a razor-sharp fingernail across her belly, spilling the Barghest to the floor. It was a small beast compared to its brethren: an aborted thing of writhing slime and wailing flesh, but it still turned upon the woman that spawned it and drove its worm teeth into her chest, tearing at her left breast and burrowing through to her heart. The woman embraced it as she died.
Sergei laughed at her demise, spitting a wad of phlegm onto the parasitical mass. His human form returned, unbidden – he still couldn’t control it properly. Angered, Sergei kicked at the mewling Barghest and it snapped at his toes. He laughed again as he ran onwards.
Strength and hunger drove him through the dark corridors. Ahead, he heard a shout of pain and he altered his course, moving towards it. Ducking down a narrow passage, he sped through the chaos and into a wide room that was on fire.
Before him stood a filthy, blood-covered man holding a silver sword. A second sword with a black hilt stuck out above his right shoulder. At the man’s feet lay a butchered woman, her belly thrashing with another Barghest’s death throes. Sergei clenched his fists in the anticipation of violence. His jaw distended and his teeth elongated; thick black fur sprouted on his face. Sergei roared, and the man lifted his eyes from the corpse.
‘First, you feel confidence,’ the bloody man said in a calm voice. With a sligh
t thrill, Sergei realised it was Mark Jones, dirty and haggard. The anticipation of killing his former employer and gaining his Master’s praise sang in his veins.
Sergei threw himself forwards, his fingers cracking as they became talons, his ribs bending and his spine breaking as the change took him. His thin frame swelled to monstrous proportions.
He cannoned into Mark. His talons ripped bloody gashes across his chest, and he drove Mark’s body to the floor with his altered weight. The silver sword spun from his victim’s hand and clattered into the pyre. Sergei’s bear’s muzzle ripped into the cartilage and gristle of the man’s shoulder.
Wrenching left then right, he pulled away a great gobbet of flesh, practically decapitating his victim, and savoured the spurt of thick blood that sluiced his mouth and drenched his nostrils in a copper mist. Sergei stepped back to swallow what he had won, and lost himself in the flavour. Turning back, jaws open, he snapped at where Mark’s arm should be. Clashing jaws closed on nothing.
‘Now there’s doubt.’ Again, the voice was calm, almost soothing. Sergei spun to find Mark whole and unharmed beside the fire. The skin around his neck was pale and clean compared to the filth covering the rest of his body. The silver sword still lay in the fire, the other one still sheathed across Mark’s back. He didn’t reach for it.
Confusion was quickly replaced by the doubt Mark had suggested. The change suddenly deserted Sergei. He felt the brawny muscles of the beast fading into his normal, narrow frame. Mark watched the transformation coldly, then took a step towards him.
Sergei reverted to what he knew best; he dropped into a fighter’s stance and waited for Mark to come within reach. The blade of the Russian’s hand caved in Mark’s throat. A kick knocked Mark back into a pile of flaming furniture, and the stench of burning flesh wafted up into Sergei’s eager nose.
‘There’s your doubt, dolboeb!’ he swore in Russian. ‘I’m going to eat you medium rare!’ Even as he shouted, Sergei realised he was salivating.
Immortals' Requiem Page 42