Carpathia

by Matt Forbeck

  "Just like an Englishman," Murtagh said with a sneer. "bringing a crucifix to a gunfight. You're always fighting your last war, and you never realize when the game has changed."

  Quin stepped in front of Lucy, putting himself between her and Murtagh. The man laughed.

  "You should worry about yourself more than your lass there, boyo. I won't harm a hair on her head. She saved my life, didn't she?" Murtagh winked at Lucy. "Or at least you tried to. Too bad I didn't have a life to save."

  Lucy scowled at the man as she stepped in front of Quin. "You leave him alone," she said, holding her crucifix before her.

  Murtagh winced at the sight of the crucifix and readjusted his grip on his pistol. "Now don't go getting any fancy ideas in that head of yours, fair Lucy. I'd much rather not shoot you." He licked his lips, running his tongue past his exposed fangs, long and white. "I've much more entertaining plans for you."

  Quin stepped up next to Lucy, his crucifix held before him, forming a wall past which Murtagh could not pass.

  The man rolled his eyes at them both. "Yes, yes, very cute, but you misunderstand my intentions here, folks. I'm not here for you." He pointed the gun over Quin's shoulder. "I'm here to kill him."

  Quin glanced back to see Dushko standing in Murtagh's sights and glaring at him with utter indignity and defiance. The vampire spat on the floor between them, the spittle a thick red, and said. "So it's like that now, is it, Brody? Do your worst."

  Murtagh spoke to everyone in the room then. "You people here in the room – you breathers. This man proposed killing every last one of you. If you help me kill him instead, I'll let you live."

  "You're a damned liar!" Dushko said. "You'll keep them as cattle and feed on them at will."

  Murtagh winked at Dushko. "And what's so wrong with giving their lives a purpose?"

  "Death would be a finer mercy."

  Quin couldn't believe the two vampires were arguing over which of them offered a better deal: death or domination? He started to edge away from the line between the two of them and pulled Lucy along with him. He tried to catch Abe's eye, but his friend wouldn't take his attention off of Murtagh.

  "This is an abomination!" Captain Rostron said. "I order the two of you off my ship immediately. None of us have any intention of complying with either one of you, and we will fight you for both our freedom and our lives to our very last breaths."

  "How excellent," Murtagh said with a wild gleam in his eye. "And here I was thinking you weren't going to be any fun at all."

  Dushko spoke to the other vampires. "It's time for us to put an end to this."

  Murtagh appealed to them as well. "Damn right it is. Stick with me, boyos, and we'll end all this nonsense about going back to the old country and burying ourselves deep. Once we take the ship, I'm going to drive it straight into New York harbor – and then we start to feed. The entire city will be ours!"

  Dushko's jaw dropped open. "You can't be serious. You would jeopardize us all for the sake of sating your appetite?"

  "It's not us I'm planning to jeopardize, friend. It's time for the vampires to step from the shadows. We're at the top of the food chain, and it's time the human race found out."

  Dushko threw back his head, and his fangs jutted out from his mouth like those of a howling wolf. His hands formed into horrible claws, and his eyes filled up with a crimson red. "No. It's time to put you down like the rabid beast you are!"

  With that, Dushko launched himself at Murtagh. Quin pushed Lucy out of the way, and the older vampire hurtled past them, straight at his prey. Murtagh had time to squeeze off a single shot with his pistol before Dushko was on him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  The first class dining room erupted into a riot. As Murtagh and Dushko crashed into each other, the other vampires began attacking everything in the room that moved. Some of them seemed to have chosen to back either one of their leaders or the other, and these found foes on the opposite side and brawled amongst themselves. Others took advantage of the chaos to attack the nearest humans, tearing into them and feeding with horrifying abandon.

  Screams of terror rang throughout the room. Men and women fought for their lives and for those of their loved ones. Children scrambled under tables or joined the few adults able to flee, screeching and crying as they went. Blood flew everywhere and spattered everything.

  "Grab the captain," Quin said to Lucy. She did just that, reaching for the man and holding her crucifix before her to ward off the vampires who dared to venture in their direction.

  Most of the vampires seemed to give the fight between Murtagh and Dushko a wide berth. While they might be willing to pick a side in the battle, they didn't wish to get involved in the actual fight, perhaps for fear that they'd be ripped apart in the melee. From the vicious way in which the two leaders clashed, Quin could sympathize.

  Quin darted past Lucy and the captain and grabbed Abe by the arm. His friend had sat there, watching the fight with interest but showing no concern for his own safety. Quin hauled him to his feet and dragged him after Lucy and the captain, who were racing for the smashed-open windows on the dining room's starboard side. As he went, he held the crucifix before him like a shield, and the few vampires who veered in his direction moved off in search of easier prey.

  The captain climbed through the busted window first and then helped Lucy out after him. Quin pushed Abe out after her and then joined them on the Boat Deck. Sounds of mayhem trailed behind them as they charged forward up the open deck, weaving their way past the lifeboats from the Titanic that lay scattered there.

  "We need to get to the bridge," Captain Rostron said.

  "Why?" Lucy said. "What good will that do us? They can find us there as easily as anywhere."

  "True enough, Miss Seward," he said, "but it's not our own lives I'm worried about any longer. As far as I'm concerned, every man, woman, and child aboard this ship is already doomed."

  Quin sprinted forward and grabbed the officer by his shoulder, hauling him to a halt as they reached the bottom of the stairs that led down to the Bridge Deck. "I don't like to hear that kind of talk, sir," he said. "As long as any one of us is still breathing, there's hope. If surviving the Titanic taught me anything, it's that."

  Rostron shrugged off Quin's hand. "Yes, well, I suppose that's very comforting to all the people who went down with her, isn't it?"

  "They're not here to argue with you, captain," Lucy said. "So we'll just have to stand in their place."

  The captain put up his hands. "We are no longer on a passenger ship. These vampires have declared war on the human race, and there's only one way for us to win it."

  "What?" Quin felt a horrible chill shoot through him. A new round of screams erupted from the dining room they'd left behind. He gave the captain a hard look. "What do you have planned, sir?"

  Captain Rostron grimaced. "I thought we'd finished them all," he said. "You witnessed how many of them we ripped out of the Number Nine Hold and destroyed. But they seem to have infested the entire ship like rats."

  "But how, sir?" Lucy asked. "Where else could so many of them hide, even on a ship this large. They have to have slept through the day somewhere."

  The captain shook his head. "That's not the point now. It's clear that it's impossible for us to ferret out every last one of them. Even if we somehow manage to survive to the morning, they'll just crawl out of the woodwork the very next night. There aren't many solutions to a problem like this. Not many damn options at all."

  Quin and Lucy gaped at the man. Abe stared at him without a hint of expression on his face.

  Captain Rostron straightened his jacket and stared back at them with his chin stuck out. "I know my duty. I will do what must be done."

  Abe spoke then for the first time since the troubles had begun. Until now, he'd seemed to be sleepwalking through the disaster, a mere observer at the most horrible point of his life. "You're going to scuttle this ship." He seemed to be surprised to hear the words leaving his lips, as i
f he hadn't thought of them until he spoke them. "You're going to kill us all."

  The captain stiffened at this. "You heard those creatures in there. No matter which one of them wins, we're already dead. The best we can hope for is to take them down with us."

  "You can't do that," Lucy said. "We– we can't die like that."

  "You can't stop me," the captain said. Lines of weariness appeared on his face, and he loosed a deep sigh. "Yes, you two young men might be able to wrestle me to the ground and hold on to me until the vampires come to kill us all. What good will that do any of us?"

  "How do you plan to do it?" Quin asked.

  "I'll order the boilers blown." The captain spoke in a grim, clipped tone, as if reporting the fact that the deed had already been done. "It will take some time for the steam to build up until it creates enough pressure to explode, but when they go, the boilers will blast holes in the bottom of the ship. She'll founder soon after that."

  Lucy blanched, and Quin felt a shiver go through him. They'd just managed to survive another shipwreck days ago. He couldn't imagine having to undergo that again.

  "How long do we have?" Abe said in his absent voice.

  "It's hard to say. The boilers are designed to prevent just such a thing, of course."

  "What do we have at the least?" Lucy said. "An hour."

  "At least," said the captain. "Perhaps much more. There are many variables to consider, and my men will have to work hard and fast to make it happen."

  Quin felt sick. "How will you persuade them to do that? Isn't that tantamount to suicide?"

  The captain nodded. "They're sailors, and it's a dangerous world out there. We hear rumblings of war all across Europe, all the time. They knew when they signed on that it might come to this. They'll do their duty, or they'll die trying."

  Quin shook his head. "Seems to me they'll die either way."

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  When Dushko leapt for Brody, he knew the man would make him pay for it. The gun went off long before he could reach the Irishman, and the slug tore through his right shoulder, taking a good chunk of his flesh along with it. It didn't hurt much, but then there were few things that could make Dushko feel anything. A tiny bit of lead wasn't going to do it.

  Dushko had healed from worse wounds in his long years as a vampire. It seemed like someone always wanted a piece of him. As a brother to the wolf, he understood that the pack would often have a young pup in it that wanted the alpha's post and was willing to make a grab for it as soon as he thought he was ready. He had spent far too much of his time squelching such efforts before they got rolling, but Brody had proved to be an especially determined aspirant. Dushko had already decided that he would have to kill the man before this. It would only be a matter of time.

  Perhaps sensing this, Brody had stepped up to challenge him for the pack's leadership again, taking one last desperate shot at it. This time, one of them wouldn't be knocked down to lick his wounds and regroup for another attempt later. This time, one of them was going to die. Dushko was determined to make sure that it would be Brody who was destroyed, not him. Despite being shot, he still landed square on Brody's chest and knocked the smaller man to the ground. He pinned the bastard down with his legs and started laying into him.

  Dushko slashed out with a savage claw to knock the pistol from his foe's hand. He didn't know what kind of damage the weapon might do to him if a bullet found his heart or his brain. He might survive it. He might not. But he decided he didn't want to find out.

  "Smart boy, bringing a gun into the fight," Dushko said with a snarl as he slashed at Brody again and again, tearing chilled blood from the man's cold flesh. "You needed it. But now it is gone, and where does that leave you?"

  Brody disappeared then, transforming into a mist, and Dushko found himself kneeling on the deck rather than his foe. "Nicely done," he said, "for a coward. Bring your body back here, so I can tear it apart for you."

  Dushko got to his feet and saw that the captain and the others who'd orchestrated the destruction of so many of his people had departed. He scanned the room and spotted them – Rostron, Harker, Seward, and also Holmwood – climbing out through one of the starboard windows his vampires had smashed in. Deciding to ignore Brody for the moment, he started after those four, sure that they would be up to some sort of deadly mischief designed to finish the extermination they'd started earlier in the day.

  That turned out to be a mistake, because he didn't see Brody materialize behind him. By the time he heard the man it was too late.

  Brody had grabbed the captain's wooden chair and slammed it down over Dushko's back. The boy had gotten smarter since the last time he'd thrown down a challenge over the pack's leadership. He'd remembered that wood hurt a vampire a lot more than metal.

  The chair splintered across Dushko's spine, breaking into several large pieces. The impact sent the older man sprawling across the floor, his head spinning.

  "You've been in charge of our little family for far too long." Brody picked up one of the chair's legs and flipped it around in his hand to use it as a club. He brought it down against Dushko's skull as the other tried to push himself to his feet.

  Dushko felt fire explode in his head, and stars swam before his eyes. He groaned in pain and struggled to come up with the will to turn himself into mist, to escape in the same way that Brody had. It might be a cowardly thing to do, but turnabout was fair play. Besides which, he could not let this bastard win.

  Before he could manage it, though, Brody cracked him across the base of his skull again. He struggled to press himself up on his arms, but he failed and fell face first against the wooden floor.

  Brody grabbed Dushko by one shoulder with his free hand and flipped him over. Then he smashed him across the jaw with his makeshift club. "Not looking so good now, are you?"

  Brody sneered down at Dushko and smacked him with the club in the side of his head. This time, the chair leg broke apart from the impact. It took a while for Dushko's vision to clear, but he consoled himself with the thought that at least Brody would have to find something new to beat him with.

  When Dushko's eyes started working again, he saw that Brody had a long, meaty splinter of the chair leg in his hand, the end of which looked as sharp as a nail. The Irishman held it over his head with both hands wrapped around the top of it, and he brought it down hard and fast, right toward Dushko's chest.

  Dushko put up his arms to fend off the blow, but he didn't have enough strength or time to manage it. Brody's makeshift stake came straight down through his ribcage and pierced his heart. It went straight through him and blunted itself on the floor below.

  Dushko reached out to pull at the stake, but he found that his strength had left him. He'd spent so many decades stronger than anyone around him, and now he felt weaker than an infant. With the stake twisted as it was behind him, it would have taken a superhuman effort to dislodge it, and he no longer had such power in him.

  Brody stumbled away from Dushko and returned a moment later with his gun back in his hand. He pointed it down at Dushko's, aiming it right between the man's eyes.

  Dushko wanted to scream out for help, to beg for mercy, but he couldn't draw the air into his dead lungs. The stake had taken every bit of power from him, leaving him with nothing to negotiate his freedom or even his life.

  He glared at Brody with every bit of hatred he could muster, hoping that this simple act might give the man pause. Perhaps it would delay him until one of the vampires loyal to him could step in and save him. Maybe even one of the humans might do it.

  Brody pulled the trigger, and the bullet went right through Dushko's skull, splashing his brains out onto the deck beneath him. He emptied the rest of the revolver's rounds straight after it, leaving Dushko's head nothing but a bloody mash of red and white and gray.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  As the captain raced to the bridge, Quin stood there on the Bridge Deck with Lucy and Abe and wondered what they could do. "We still have time,
" Quin said. "This isn't over yet."

  "True," Lucy said. "We need to alert every living person on the ship and have them head for the lifeboats."

  "Right," Quin said, already striding toward the davit located on the starboard side of the bridge. It suspended a single, canvas-covered white lifeboat in the air above. "Abe and I can handle that, just as soon as you're safely away."

  Lucy dug her heels in and stopped cold. "Quincey Harker!" she said. "Have you lost your mind?"

  "It's women and children first," Quin said, taking her by the hand. "It's a maritime tradition. I can't help that."

  "It's chauvinism, pure and simple," she said. "I should never have let you talk me into taking advantage of it back on the Titanic, and I'm not about to repeat that mistake."