Ghost brought up the rear. Once upon a time, Jack would never have turned his back on Ghost, but their fates had become more intertwined than ever. They might have been opposite sides of a mirror — dark and light reflections of one another — but if the mirror shattered, it would be the end of them both.
They moved in silence, though Jack felt sure that if they were awake, the vampires would hear even the lightest footfall.
And the leeches would smell them.
Chilled to distraction by the thought, he almost collided with Callie as she stopped short, holding the lamp up to the cave wall. When he saw what the light revealed, all other thoughts were driven from Jack's head. He didn't know enough about the inland Tlingit tribes to know if their ancestors had used cave paintings to record their history, but that was precisely what they were looking at now.
Not the Tlingits' history, however.
The vampires'.
They had moved perhaps sixty feet into the gently sloping cave, the foul meat stink growing stronger than ever. They were far enough inside the cliff now that they had left the reach of the sun far behind, and here was what Jack imagined to be the true entrance to the vampires' lair. The walls on both sides were painted with images that bridged the gap between pride and horror — figures on horseback, men fighting with knives, huge white bears tearing a human figure apart, a large man holding a woman in the air above him and drinking her blood as it poured from a wound in her chest. And more. So many more.
The images were crudely drawn in a brownish tint that flaked at the touch — the vampires had used blood to tell their story. Callie moved the lamp around too quickly for Jack to get more than flashes of most of the hideous images, but he noted the presence of animals other than the bears. This would not have troubled him save for one rudimentary painting that showed a hawk tearing at the face of a man on horseback. He wondered about that hawk, and what it meant. He didn't like the implications.
If the vampires could fly after them . . .
Louis, he thought, you and the Reverend better be ready with that dynamite.
Sabine touched the small of his back. He relished the contact, but also got the message. Tapping Callie, he gestured for her to move along. She might like to learn more about the vampires — they were her prey, after all — but outside the cave the precious hours of daylight were dwindling. Jack figured they had two and a half hours before sunset.
Something shifted in the darkness behind them and Sabine and Jack turned, guns at the ready, only to see Ghost's golden eyes reflecting back the lamplight. Somehow, though he maintained his human guise, in the quiet closeness of the dark cave he seemed more like a monster than ever. Jack was glad to have this monster on his side.
Callie lost her footing. Without a free hand to catch herself, she went down on her knees on the jagged limestone floor. Jack heard a muffled grunt and watched as she hung her head, fighting back the pain. He took her arm and helped her up, thinking what a miracle it had been that she hadn't reached for purchase and accidentally shattered the lamp against the wall. If the vampires had been awakened by the noise, Ghost was the only one who might have a chance of making it out.
"Son of a bitch," Ghost whispered.
Jack swung around to glare at him for breaking the silence of the cave, but then he saw the fear in Ghost's eyes at the same time he heard Sabine make the smallest of sounds in her throat. He turned back in time to see Callie lowering the lamp to illuminate her trouser legs, and the dark patch of blood blooming on one knee.
Determined, sure now that their fate — whatever it might be — was already written, Jack took the lamp from Callie and handed it to Sabine, so that Callie could draw her other pistol. He hated putting Sabine in the lead, but there was nothing else to be done.
Sabine did not hesitate. They moved forward, less worried about being quiet than before. If the scent of Callie's blood did not rouse the vampires, the scuffle of a boot certainly would not. Another twenty-five feet ahead they came to a fork in the cave, but a bit of exploration revealed that the left path led nowhere, and when they retreated and started along the right-hand path, the smell of dead things grew stronger. Another half dozen steps, and they found the first vampire.
It lay curled in a fetal position against one wall of the cave, leaving just enough room for them to step past. The Tlingit man was as still as death, but there was a potential about his pose that promised pain and darkness.
Jack shuddered, a profound dread clutching at him. He had been so focused on the moment, on every step and the silence around him, that he had shut out the awful weight of malice in the air. His senses were recoiling from the presence not just of this creature, but of others sleeping deeper. Now that he had allowed himself to feel it, the repulsive taint of evil that filled the caves dragged at him.
Sabine started to make her way around the sleeping vampire. Gripping the shotgun tightly, Jack followed.
A minute or so later they began a steeper descent along an even more jagged path, and the cave began to widen. The stillness made Jack want to scream just to break the silence. Picking his steps carefully, he peered into the dark corners. The cave broadened so much that the lamp's weak light barely reached the walls, and yet Sabine picked up her pace. Jack knew that her sense of Lesya's presence must have grown stronger.
The ceiling rose out of sight as they entered the vast cavern. Darkness crushed down on them, its weight palpable, and the horrors it hid exuding dreadful menace. Sabine paused and lifted the lamp higher, trying to angle the light, and Jack stiffened when he saw the glint of white fur.
All around the cavern.
Jack blinked and took a step back, bumping into Callie as he frantically tried to count the motionless, unbreathing polar bears sprawled on the floor, on ledges, and in corners. There were dozens — dozens! — and other vampires besides. Some of the dead things had been wearing the faces of men when the sun came up and pushed them into this bizarre dormancy. There were other animals, too. All told, there must have been forty or fifty of them.
There were also corpses. They ranged in stages of decomposition from days old to leathery decay, and they were the source of the stench.
Sabine took a few steps forward, lamp held up. Some of the vampires still had their eyes open, but they stared dull and lifeless, unseeing. For just a moment, Jack wondered what the hell he had been thinking, coming here . . . wondered if Sabine had enchanted him in some way far more profound than how Lesya had used magic to manipulate him. Then he saw the profile of the woman he loved, the exhaustion and fear in her expression — and the hope as well — and felt ashamed.
Angry with himself, he started forward, passing Sabine, searching for a path through the vampires and their victims. When he heard movement ahead, a kind of scratching noise, he froze again. If the vampires were truly dormant there should be only one reason for sounds coming from ahead of them. Jack turned to Sabine and beckoned for her to hurry with the lamp, and when she reached him and held it up, they found the source of the strange sound.
The slender, nude female figure lying at the center of the cavern looked like nothing human. Surrounded by a quartet of pale Tlingits who would return to dark life the moment night fell, she seemed for a moment to have been carved from wood and decorated with vines and leaves. But Jack knew better. The bark-like patterns on her skin, and the small shoots, leaves and flower blossoms on her flesh, were no fanciful ornamentations. Nor were the vines that had grown from her arms and legs and belly mere artful fakery.
This was Lesya, daughter of the spirit of the wood. If Sabine was a sea witch, Lesya was surely some sort of forest witch. In her own forest, where her power was greatest, she maintained an illusion of humanity, but away from that center of power she could not hide her true appearance entirely. And the vampires had been feeding on her, drawing her power for themselves.
One of them had his cheek laid across the meat of her calf, puncture wounds showing clearly that he had been drinking of her blood w
hen sunrise had pushed him into hibernation for the day.
Jack, Sabine whispered, but her voice was in his head. He turned to see that she had begun to weep, her face filled with both longing and empathy.
He glanced at Ghost, gestured with the shotgun, and together they picked their way around the dead and the undead, careful not to crack bones beneath their boots, moving as fast as caution would allow. So focused and wary was he that he was almost upon Lesya when he saw that her eyes were wide open. She was staring at him in silence, pleading for rescue.
Jack aimed the shotgun directly at the heart of the vampire who lay across Lesya's leg. Ghost knelt to examine the vines that had sprouted from her prone form and saw they were stuck to the floor of the cavern, wound in amongst bones and the vampires' rotting victims. He shot Jack a questioning glance, and with a nod Jack urged him to action. They were running out of time.
All around them, the vampires remained motionless, not so much as the twitch of a finger or the ruffle of polar bear fur to indicate that they were anything other than eternally dead.
Ghost hesitated. Jack watched his nostrils flare and lips peel back in a silent, fang-baring snarl as he prepared himself to act. Then the once-pirate slid his hands beneath Lesya and lifted her, gently at first, and then with more force, tearing and snapping vines whose motion disturbed bones and skulls with a dry, chuckling clatter.
Callie swore beneath her breath, moving in a circle, pistols at the ready. Ghost rose behind her with Lesya splayed across his huge arms, and he stared down at the strange creature they had come to rescue. Jack could not make out the look in his eyes.
As Sabine held the lamp high and Ghost started back through the cavern, Jack began to smile. This was going to work.
They hurried back the way they had come, less concerned now about the noise of their footfalls. Jack's heart thundered in his chest and his hands were gripped so tightly around the shotgun that his knuckles hurt, but still a kind of elation began to rise in him. If Louis and the Reverend had done their job correctly, they would blow the entrance to the tunnel and trap the vampires inside. Even if the monsters could dig their way out, it would take hours at the very least. By then they would be back in Lesya's forest, where her power and strength would be restored. It might even be morning by then, and they would have bought themselves an entire day to get back to Dawson and begin to prepare the people there to take their fight to the vampires.
These thoughts filled his head as he rushed through the narrowing cave, watching his footing as best he could in the shadows and the lamplight. Callie was right in front of him, Sabine ahead of her, and Ghost led the way with Lesya in his arms. He caught a glimpse of her in the jumping light, saw her weakly raise a hand to trace sharp branch-fingers along Ghost's cheek.
That touch distracted Ghost. It was the only explanation Jack could imagine for what happened next. Ghost stumbled over the vampire they had first passed on the way in, a heavy boot slamming into the undead Tlingit's side. He lurched forward, twisted as he fell in order to protect Lesya, and crashed to the cave floor.
Sabine froze, with Callie and Jack behind her. She held the light up, and all of them watched as the vampire began to stir.
No, no, no, Jack thought. They'd come so far!
"Sabine, go!" Jack said in an urgent whisper.
Lamp firmly in hand, she stepped over the vampire. It lolled its head back and inhaled deeply, catching her scent even though it was not fully conscious. Then it opened its eyes, grinning horribly, its mouth was impossibly large.
Callie bent low and shot the leech point blank in the temple with a silver bullet, blowing blood and black, ossified chunks of brain out the other side of its skull. The shot was loud in the cave, echoing off of the walls, and Jack knew that if a kick from Ghost had woken this one, the gunshot might well wake the others.
"Run!" he snapped.
Showing his inhuman strength, Ghost rose to his feet as if Lesya were no burden at all and bolted along the cave, his footfalls loud. But noise no longer mattered. Callie and Sabine followed as quickly as they could without stumbling, and Jack raced after them, glancing over his shoulder, ready at any moment to turn and fire his silver buckshot into anything that might already be pursuing.
The light ahead brightened sooner than expected, and Jack narrowed his eyes against the dimming sunlight. He heard Ghost snapping at the Reverend and Louis, and then Sabine adding to the chorus. He saw Callie spilling out of the cave mouth ahead of him, saw her turning to aim both guns back inside, right at him. Behind him came shuffling, and then a roar that grew into a furious cacophony as the vampires they had woken barreled up the cave's throat.
Jack burst from the cave, turning sharply to stand beside Callie, expecting at any moment the glimmer of white fur from within. He glanced to his right at Louis.
"Light it, damn it!" Jack shouted.
"It's lit!" the Reverend called, and only then did Jack see him off to the left of the cave mouth, beyond Callie, a flaming brand still in his hand.
Sabine grabbed his wrist and tugged him after her, and then they were all running. The lamp crashed to the stony ground behind them and shattered, forgotten as they fled down the cliff-side trail in search of cover. Just ahead was the corner they'd come around when they'd first spotted the limestone cave, but as they ran, Sabine faltered, the weakness of the past days finally catching up with her. Jack bent, lifted her over his shoulder, and kept running. With him carrying Sabine and Ghost carrying Lesya, it was Callie who reached the corner first and turned to shout at them to hurry.
Jack heard a roar behind him. It rose into the air with such strength that he knew the vampires must be at the cave mouth. He turned and saw one of them there, the polar bear's huge form silhouetted in the shadows inside the limestone cave. But it did not emerge. The cave mouth was still bathed in the fading daylight and the monster could not venture out. It began to shrink, transforming before his eyes into a thing of evil, like a man but not a man. Its red eyes glared from the darkness, pale skin ghostly.
It looks so hungry, Jack thought.
The dynamite exploded, knocking Jack backward. He slammed to the ground and Sabine spilled from his shoulder, sprawling on the stony trail. The next roar came not from the vampires but from the cliff itself, as countless tons of limestone gave way and the cave collapsed in upon itself. The ground shook, dust boiled through the air and caught the setting sun, and boulders bounced over the cliff edge and down toward the stream. The sound was muffled in Jack's ringing ears as they scrambled to their feet and stood there, swaying, with Sabine leaning her head against his shoulder.
Callie began to whoop in celebration. Jack stared at her for a moment, then began to laugh. He turned toward the others to share their victory, but behind the settling rocks and the explosion's echoes was another sound.
Another roar.
"Son of a . . ." the Reverend began.
They all stepped out from behind the outcropping and looked up above the sealed cave entrance. Forty feet up the cliff face was another dark slit in the limestone. The roar turned into a cry that was half caw and half screech, and then the largest hawk Jack had ever seen swept out into the air, curving around and drifting straight for them. A second hawk followed, both of them uttering that shrieking, furious cry.
Jack had seen the blood-inked cave paintings of the Tlingit vampires. He knew what these were. There was another way out of their lair. He swore loudly, raised the shotgun, and took aim, even as Callie did the same with her pistols, waiting for the right shot.
Then he saw the flames.
"Callie," he said, "wait."
The hawks were on fire, their feathers igniting in the sunlight. In seconds they were crashing to the stone path, turning from birds to undead men even as their bones blackened and their flesh turned to ash.
"We've got maybe an hour and a half before the sun goes down," he said urgently, still looking at the smoldering ruins. "We have to get Lesya back to her forest. They
caught her far from home, where her magic couldn't protect her. We get her back there, maybe she can keep us alive."
"There were dozens of 'em in there!" Callie said. "Once the sun goes down, out in the open, we're dead."
"Jack's right," Sabine said. "If we can get her to her place of power, she can protect us. And I can help."
"It took us three times that long to get here," the Reverend said.
Ghost laughed, his voice rough as gravel. "Well, at least we got a head start. Let's make the best of it."
They ran, knowing that in order to survive they must outrun the night.
Chapter Thirteen - The Dying of the Light
They ran for their lives. Down from the cliff face, across the ridge, splashing through the stream, stomping across marshy ground they ran, aware with every step that the dying of the light would bring down death upon them.
The Reverend and Louis took the lead, scouting ahead for any dangers that might hamper their escape. Callie brought up the rear. She had waved them all on ahead, and with a glance Jack knew what she planned — she would be the first to face the monsters. She had come all this way, spent so long hunting and killing them, and in a way she had been waiting for this for years.
Ghost carried Lesya, Jack and Sabine following behind. "We have to survive," Sabine said.
"We will."
"We have to!"
Jack glanced sidelong at his love, but she was looking ahead at Ghost and Lesya. There was a longing in her eyes that Jack was not sure he had ever seen before, and it took him a few moments to realize why. Sabine's eyes looked so old. Her beauty was a constant, but the look in her eyes as she gazed upon someone who might be a sister to her carried the weight of every unknown decade she had existed. Ghost bore someone who could shed light on Sabine's past, and explain so much to her that she had never been able to understand.
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