by Phil Tucker
Lee turned slowly from McKnight as if pulled against his will by Theo's gaze, and stepped up next to Selah. Stared across the narrow stream that separated them from Theo. The vampire stood but ten yards away, a silent shadow. "Who is that?" he asked, breath ghosting out before him.
Selah didn't answer. Theo was staring at her. His eyes were hidden in shadow beneath his brow, but she could feel his gaze lying heavy upon her soul. The foul taste of his heart came back to her lips, and she felt her gorge rise in protest. I will come after you. I will hunt you. I will seek to eat your heart. His last words echoed in her mind and she shook her head, unable to answer.
Lee raised his revolver. He did so without rushing, and aimed it at Theo. Who continued to ignore him. For a second, they all stood still, a frozen tableau, and then Lee lowered his gun and turned to McKnight. Moving with unnatural speed, he took out a hypodermic, opened a pouch in which serum capsules were held, and slipped one in. McKnight focused on him and began to shake her head. He ignored her and jabbed the needle into her shoulder, holding her tight with his other hand. Pressed down the plunger and then tossed the capsule away.
Selah registered all this dimly. It was as if she and Theo stood on a shore of their own, the shore of a great black lake under a moon ten times as large, and the others were ghosts lost in the fog. Their eyes were locked. Pain keened within her. For him to be brought to this. For him to look at her with such cold hunger. She knew exactly what he was doing. Knew why he wasn't attacking, and that knowledge sickened her.
McKnight groaned, coughed, and then spat. More vampires began to drift from the forest edge to stand arrayed behind Theo. Three at first, then five, then seven. They were silent, their grins and splayed fangs moronic when contrasted with Theo's intensity. Selah tore her gaze away. "How long till dawn?"
"Dawn?" Gordon looked reflexively toward the sky. "Another four hours."
Selah shook her head. Calm fury had descended upon her. "We have to move." It felt futile to say so. They were dead. She would fight, oh, she would fight to the bitter end. But with The Dragon himself hunting them through these damned woods, they didn't have a chance.
"McKnight?"
"Fuck you," the Sergeant said, her voice low with curdled anger. "How dare you?"
"Good girl. Let's go." Lee whipped around and raised his gun, aiming it at exactly where Theo had stood. He was gone.
They all scanned the far riverbank. The other vampires were dispersing, retreating toward the tree line, but of Theo there was no sign. He had simply vanished. Lee grimaced and put up his weapon. He clapped McKnight on the shoulder and began to jog forward, feet crunching in the snow. Selah took a shaky breath and followed after, fighting to dispel the cold that gnawed at the edge of the Serum. And the pain, she realized. The pain was still there. Hidden, masked, but smoldering beneath the surface. She was still hurt. The Serum wouldn't last forever. She wondered which would come first--the pain or the end.
They moved. The world was a morass of shadows and moonlit patches of snow. As a group, they trudged forward, all of them but the comatose Dominique powered now by refined vampire blood, riding high on Blood Dust in its purest form. It kept them alert and focused long after they should have degenerated into shambling and exhausted wrecks. They maintained a steady pace, Lee taking point, Gordon powering after, his tree trunk legs shoving snow aside so that Selah and McKnight could follow in his wake.
After ten minutes, they left the stream where it plunged into a small waterfall, crossing it at a narrow ford with long leaps and followed a sharp decline that led them down and into the woods beyond. Into a thick stand of fir trees, the ground underfoot only dusted with snow that lay like icing over the matted fir needles. Selah felt eyes upon the nape of her neck and knew that she was being examined; she forced herself to remain focused, however. To not look wildly around. To concentrate on Gordon's broad back and keep running.
The first attack came suddenly as they crossed an open field of snow. It was small, a ragged trapezoid of open space marred by boulders, and as they coursed across it, moving ever downhill, the wave of thralls came. Selah felt relief. Their yips and laughter meant they came alone. Lee put on speed, and they broke into a sprint, racing between the rocks as the thralls converged upon them.
Running all out, the sound of her breath almost blocking out everything else, she saw a large man leap down from a boulder to crash into Gordon, knocking him and Dominique sprawling into the snow. Selah didn't think. She reached down and snagged a great branch from the ground, adrenaline giving her strength, and as she passed where Gordon wrestled with the vampire, she swung with all her might like a mounted polo player. The end of ponderous branch cracked against the vampire's skull and he went over. She ran on. McKnight would help him up. They couldn't stop. If they did, they were dead.
Gunfire. A scream of anger, then a bloodcurdling one of pain. Selah ran on. Around a great rock twice as tall as she was, and there was Lee, grasping one vampire woman by the throat, arm outstretched to keep her at bay even as a second was driving him to the ground, hissing her fury to the night sky. With a cry of desperation he tripped, and fell.
Chapter 14
Selah came in low and hard and swung her branch right at the second vampire's head. It shattered, dry splinters exploding everywhere, and the vampire sagged over. Selah crouched and grasped her by the throat and then leaped up, so that she raised the vampire woman to her feet and then crashed back down two yards away, driving her head against a rock. It cracked with a sickening wet sound, but that didn't stop her. The vampire's eyes gleamed wetly in the light of the moon, and face distorted by desire and hunger, she raked out with her hand and clawed Selah's face open.
She tried to pull away, but the vampire held her close. She lost her balance and fell onto her, one knee driving into the snow, the other into the vampire's stomach. The woman was pale-skinned, so much so that she seemed to almost blend into the snow, her hair a streaming filthy mass of once golden hair. Narrow features contorted with the bestial nature of her emotions, and both hands locked fast on Selah, one clasping a fistful of clothing, the other clamping cruelly onto her shoulder. Her mouth opened wide, fangs gleaming, she went to pull Selah into her embrace.
Basic, primal fear swamped Selah. She pounded her fists into the vampire's face, punching her as hard as she could three, four times. Nothing. There wasn't enough strength in her body. Straining to keep away, she dug desperately through the snow, searching for a rock, something to bash the woman's face in. Nothing. Just icy cold dirt. Down she went, inch by inch, the vampire raising her mangled head.
Selah let out a cry, half fear, half fury, and brought her head down sharply against the vampire's nose. She felt the cartilage break, saw white light for a split second. The woman's hand released her shoulder and wrapped around the back of her neck, and when Selah straightened, she lifted the vampire right off the ground. The weight was too much and she fell forward, onto her. She felt the vampire bite into the side of her neck.
The world drifted away. Everything grew dark. Silence. The crunch of snow and labored sound of panicked breath fell into the void. The pain across her cheek and jaw, fresh and livid and raw. The fear that consumed her, the resolution to fight on. Layer by layer, these emotions and desires fell away, until only she was left, still and vulnerable, without walls, only barely conscious of herself as Selah, suspended in the void, still and waiting.
The sound of her heart. It echoed about her, filled the night, seemed to reach up to where the stars should be, resonated so powerfully that the universe seemed to echo it back. A beat that nations could march to war to, a summons, a demand. Her heart, vast and unstoppable. She listened to it, wondered, and then slowly began to fall.
The sensation was unmistakable. Faster and faster she fell, dropping through the night, the tempo of her heartbeat growing faster in turn. Down and down, until she was a bullet speeding through nothingness, a knife through black velvet, until far below, she espied a lake. Still
and vast and with a surface like ebon glass, she fell toward it, heart racing, beats now a blur, a crescendo of might, and the water's surface came rushing up toward her, her reflection perfect on its surface. There was a moment just before she hit when she saw her face, and her eyes were wide and black and deeper than the void.
Selah awoke, came to, and sat up with a gasp. Cries and yells filtered back into her mind and she looked around. The vampire lay beneath her, arms wrapped around her chest, face creased with pain and confusion. Bloody tears were running from the corners of her eyes and down her cheeks. The febrile power of the Serum was gone, and in its place was a deeper strength, a madder power, a more incendiary source of lethality. It had been so long. So long since she had felt this. Genuine vampiric might. Selah stood. Brushed snow carefully from her hands and looked up at the sky.
A fight was raging around her, but she couldn't quite focus on it. Not yet. She knew she had to, but the moon, its light, it called to her. The sensation of the wind across her skin, made raw by the cold. The distant sound of the trees, the canopy sighing as the wind shook it. The taste of blood in her mouth where she had bitten her tongue. Her body, incandescent and light. It felt wonderful. That taste of immortality. It had been too long. True, it was but a pale shadow of what she had felt in LA, but it was more, so much more than the Serum.
Selah looked down at the blonde vampire. She had drawn her knees up to her chest and was looking at Selah with startled vulnerability and terror. Selah shook her head, smiled almost sadly, and then buried her foot straight through the vampire's neck, crushing her vertebrae and ending her unlife before she could see the blow coming. The force of the blow jarred Selah right up to the hip.
She looked around. Lee was only a couple of yards away, dodging and weaving between three vampires, a knife in hand. He moved with admirable speed. Selah watched, and then stepped forward and entered the dance. She was as fast as the vampires, perhaps a little faster, but it wasn't as it had once been; she couldn't simply overwhelm them with greater power. Instead, she caught one unaware, snatched her outstretched hand, and with all her strength, whipped her around, leaning back and away as she used the vampire's momentum to send her crashing into the great boulder that reared behind Lee.
The other two vampires spared Selah a glance and Lee took his opportunity. He buried his knife to the hilt in the throat of the largest, and then tackled the third as he leaped at Selah. They both fell to the ground, but Selah piled in, and between the two of them they overpowered the vampire and broke his neck.
Selah rose smoothly to her feet and helped Lee rise. He was panting, blood gleaming across his chest and from a wound in his neck. The two vampires writhed at their feet. They would soon heal and rise, pulling the knife free and knitting their bones together. They had to keep moving.
"You...?" Was all Lee could manage. He took deep, sharp breaths and studied Selah. She nodded, not feeling winded, and they both hurried back around the boulder to where McKnight and Gordon were fighting off three more. Lee and Selah fell upon them by surprise, and in moments, they were taken down.
They stood in panting surprise and silence, bodies twisted and strewn about their feet. Gordon was hunched over, hands on knees, spitting blood. McKnight swayed and staggered and caught herself with an outstretched palm on the face of a boulder. Selah felt her pulse pounding in her head, a dull blotto beat like a hammer being swung at a sheet of iron. Lee touched his hand to his head and his fingers came away smeared black with blood. They stared at each other, fighting for breath, recovering from the sheer abruptness of the violence.
"Where's Dominique?" Selah looked over the bodies. Once, the sight of corpses strewn across mucked-up snow like this would have turned her stomach. The sight of a near-decapitation would have made her run. Now, she looked past each atrocity in search of her friend, too numb and calloused to care.
"There," said Gordon, straightening with a wince. Something seemed to be wrong with his left hip, and he took a tentative few steps forward. Selah looked where he was pointing and saw Dominique lying in a snow bank. She walked over and crouched down next to her, muscles already growing stiff in the cold, sweat cooling over her back. She pulled Dominique up, and brushed snow from her face. She pressed two fingers to Dominique's neck and bit her lip. The pulse was weak, erratic.
"We need to give her the Serum," she said. Turned to look at the other three. The moonlight painted their shoulders, the top of their heads and noses silver. The rest was in shadow.
"We've only got two ampules left," said Lee. His voice was flat, quiet.
"She's not going to survive the shock and cold if we don't. And I don't think Gordon can keep carrying her. Can you?"
Gordon took a deep breath and exhaled a dragon's plume of vapor. "I could if I had to."
Selah sniffed and looked around the edges of the clearing. Downslope, a wall of aspens reared thin and tentative, their naked boles forming an insubstantial skirt before the more solid wall of pine trees beyond. She squinted. Was that a figure standing within the forest? A darker shape, a person, perhaps, watching them. Theo?
"Come on. We don't have time. We have to keep moving." She extended her hand to Lee. It didn't shake in the cold. He stared at her, eyes flat, and then brought out the small carrying case. Unzipped it, thumbed a fat red ampule out from under its elastic restraining band, and socketed it into a syringe. He ignored her hand and stepped over, lowering fluidly into a crouch. Held the needle up to the night sky, squeezed out a few beads of crimson, and then pulled Dominique's jacket and shirt aside to reveal bare shoulder. Without preamble, he jabbed the needle into the muscle and squeezed the Serum slowly into her body.
"He's watching us," said Selah.
"I know." Lee withdrew the needle and tossed it aside. It sank into the snow bank and was gone. "You know him?"
Selah nodded. "The Dragon."
A vertical line appeared between Lee's eyebrows. "Great. I thought he was your friend?"
"Was." Selah fought the urge to look over her shoulder. To search out that form hidden in the aspens. "I ate his heart to regain my humanity. Now he wants to kill me."
Lee stared at her. "You what?" She watched him struggle to make sense of what she had just said. Then he laughed, a short, sharp bark of fierce amusement and despair. "I don't blame him. Jesus."
Dominique was starting to stir. Her head was lolling back and forth, eyelids fluttering. Selah shifted so that she could cup her head better. She wanted to defend herself, explain what had happened, why. How awful it had been. How even being forced to discuss it somehow cheapened the sacrifice Theo had made. But she bit down on the words. Some things couldn't be explained. Instead, she focused on Dominique. Brushed her hair back from her face.
The vampire's power, she suddenly realized, was already fading. She looked at her hand, held it out. A minute tremor shook it. Selah realized that she was feeling the cold. How--? Then it hit her. Blood Thrall. She turned and stared at the fallen bodies. They weren't true vampires. Somehow. More like cheap copies. Before, the swap of power would have lasted all night. For it to be fading already...
"Something in the woods," called out Gordon, voice tight.
"We know," said Lee. He rose to his feet, facing downhill toward the aspens. "He's watching us."
"Selah?" Dominique's eyes finally opened and focused on her. It was hard to tell in the light of the moon, but her dark brown eyes seemed to have grown darker, the whites now clouded with smoky gray.
"I'm here," said Selah. "Come on. You're all right. We have to move."
"I had a dream," said Dominique. "A strange dream. You were in it."
"No," said Gordon. "Not down there. Over there."
Selah rose to her feet and hauled Dominique up too, slipping an arm around her waist. The other woman shivered violently. She stared at Gordon. He was pointing toward where they had come, not down at the Aspens. Turning, she and Lee stared at the thick line of trees. Something large was emerging from between the trun
ks. A blot of night, hunched and inhuman. It was too much.
Primal instincts kicked in and Selah began to run, hauling Dominique along with her. "Go! Move!"
Lee and Gordon fell in next to her, McKnight but a pace behind. Nobody wanted to stay in the clearing. Nobody wanted to give that thing a chance to emerge into moonlight. They pounded round the boulders, leaped over still twitching bodies, and then Dominique started to run by herself, adrenaline and serum mixing in her blood to form an unstoppable cocktail. They ran, and within moments they were back in the trees.
Lee pulled ahead. He had drawn his revolver and ran as lightly as a deer, looking as if he could run until the end of time. Selah and Dominique were right behind him, McKnight and Gordon at their heels. Tightly bunched, they followed Lee as he led them through the dappled shadows and patches of moonlight. The going was clear. They could hear was their breath loud in the night air, could smell the harsh green scent of the evergreens, and taste the air as cold and raw in their mouths as crushed ice.
Lee broke away to the right, crouched down as he slid surfer-style down a loose scree of sharply-inclined snow and gravel. Selah and Dominique came right after, Dominique falling onto her ass only to be plucked back up onto her feet by Lee and hauled into motion once more by Selah. Over a fallen tree trunk, denuded of bark and as cold as iron to the touch, then along a narrow path between rocks and trees. The sky intermittent overhead, the snow crunching beneath each stride, Selah hoped against hope that she wouldn't plunge her foot into a hole and wrench her ankle.
Then the trees parted and they broke out onto a road. Selah staggered to a stop, caught Dominique in her arms, and turned as they others came barreling out. Two narrow lanes, powdered with snow, anonymous between the thick flanks of fir trees. The moon was clear and brilliant overhead, the sky devoid of clouds.