Carpathia

by Matt Forbeck

  Murtagh leaped into the air with Abe still in his grasp. They landed back on top of the still-stowed lifeboat, and it rocked beneath their feet on its davit. With a twist of his arms, Murtagh lifted Abe up over his head as if he weighed nothing more than a toddler.

  "Put me down!" Abe screamed. "Don't throw me back in that water! I can't take it!"

  With a mighty heave, Murtagh flung Abe into the night. Quin hollered in protest, and Lucy screamed as their friend spiraled high into the air and then arced down into the black and icy sea below. He disappeared with a splash.

  Murtagh spit out over the Carpathia's rail after Abe. "Looks like you were wrong about that too, boyo."

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Abe couldn't help but smile as he hit the water. His plan had worked perfectly. All he'd had to do was prod Brody about his past in front of others, and the man's temper had taken over and done the rest.

  Abe only hoped it had all happened fast enough. He'd known that once Elisabetta's head had separated from her shoulders, she hadn't been killed. If she had, he'd have been freed from her influence once and for all. The fact that he could still feel her pull on his heart and mind meant something of her had survived her decapitation, if only for a little while.

  That meant that Abe had one last trick in his pocket that he could pull to try to save Lucy and Quin and everyone else on the ship. He could become a vampire. All he had to do was die.

  When Elisabetta had come to him in the hospital, she'd already tasted his blood and left him to survive. She could have killed him then and there to finish the job. Instead, she chose to expose her throat to him, open a pulsing vein in her ivory neck, and force him to drink.

  It had been the most horrible thing that had ever happened to Abe, but he'd found himself unable to refuse. He'd swallowed every bit of her chilly blood as if it were mother's milk and licked his lips when she finally pulled away. Then she'd looked down at him with some twisted thing she might have thought resembled love in her eyes, and she'd explained to him what she'd done.

  "When I drank your blood, you became mine. That is why you could not scream for help when I entered the room. You didn't want to. When you drank my blood, I became yours."

  "You don't seem like mine," Abe had said.

  She'd smiled then, with the most warmth he'd ever seen on her face. "Not yet, darling. You're mine until you die, and when that happens, my powers become yours. No, you don't steal them from me. You become like me."

  "A vampire?"

  She'd nodded, and he'd not had the will to shudder with the horror he'd felt.

  The force of hitting the water meant nothing to Abe. The cold knocked the breath from him, but he wanted that too. He needed to get about the business of dying as fast as he could, and Murtagh had given him a flying start.

  He flashed back to the moment he'd been swept from the Titanic. The icy water had battered him against the ship and then dragged him under so hard and so fast that he'd been sure he would never see the surface again. Only a fierce determination to live, to survive against all odds, and force his limbs to keep moving, to keep swimming, to keep hauling him back to the surface, to emerge into the freezing air filled with the desperate screams of the drowning and the damned.

  He used that same determination now to swim in the opposite direction, down toward the bottom of the sea. He forced every last bit of air from his lungs as he went, which helped him lose buoyancy and made him sink farther and faster.

  He couldn't see a thing in front of him. The ocean by night was featureless and black. He thought his vision might be growing dark, forming into a tunnel closing in around him, but he couldn't separate the darkness without from the darkness within.

  At that point, Abe's natural instincts for self-preservation kicked in. His arms and legs tried to turn him around to move upward rather than down. His brain started to panic over the fact it didn't have any oxygen left to it. His lungs ached to breathe in any kind of air.

  He used that last detail to his advantage. He opened his mouth and tried to suck as much of the ocean into his lungs as he could. He choked on the icy fluid flowing into him, but that only made his body try harder to respire, and he sucked more salt water in.

  Soon everything turned black, and he began to sink farther beneath the waves. As he did, he hoped two things.

  First, he hoped that Elisabetta hadn't been killed quite yet. If she was destroyed before he died, then he'd be freed from her curse. At this point, that would be fatal, and he would have no chance to return.

  Second, he hoped that if he was about to become a vampire that the transportation would take place fast. There was no guarantee it would happen right away. If it took a long while, he might be too late to save Lucy and Quin. And if it took much longer than that, he might share in Elisabetta's ultimate fate.

  But then it was too late to do anything else but hope.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Quin threw himself at the lifeboat atop which Murtagh stood perched. He didn't know how, but he knew he was going to avenge Abe's death one way or another, and nothing was going to stop him. He just needed to get close enough to give Murtagh a fatal smack with his crucifix.

  The other vampires parted before him and gave him a clear shot at Murtagh. Lucy did a wonderful job of covering his back, but Murtagh didn't just stand there and wait for Quin to take him down. As Quin leaped up to grab the edge of the lifeboat's gunwale with one hand while still holding onto his crucifix, the vampire snatched up one of the lifeboat's oars again and swung it down hard.

  The oar caught Quin in the side of the head and sent him sprawling. Despite every bit of his being telling him to hold on to the crucifix, it went flying out of his hand, skipped off the roof of the bridge once, and disappeared over the edge. Quin gasped in pain and despair. He fully expected to be torn to pieces in seconds.

  Lucy appeared above him, though, holding her crucifix before her like a shield. The vampires who'd leaped at the now-vulnerable Quin backed off as fast as they had come at him, hissing like angry snakes.

  "Quin?" Lucy reached down for Quin's hand without looking at him, never daring to take her eyes off the vampires moving to surround them. "Can you stand?"

  Quin put a hand to his head and felt something wet and sticky. His fingers came away covered in blood. Despite that, he pushed himself to his feet and wobbled there for a moment as if the Carpathia had been caught in a violent storm.

  Quin opened his mouth to answer Lucy but then had to dodge an incoming oar blade again. It missed him and smashed into the roof near his feet, the entire blade breaking into long fragments. Quin scooped one of these up instantly, pleased to see it made for a passable stake.

  He turned and brandished his stake at the vampires closing in on him. Lucy stood back to back with him, keeping the vampires away as best she could by swinging her crucifix all around in front of her and to her sides. She couldn't possibly cover every angle at once, and Quin felt the loss of his own crucifix sharply.

  He should never have rushed at Murtagh. He had known it had been impossible to reach the man before he tossed Abe overboard, but he'd tried to stop him anyhow. He would have been smarter to have held back and stayed with Lucy, but he just didn't think he could bear watching his friend be killed without trying to do something. Now he would pay the price.

  Quin saw the oar coming at him again, and he readied himself to dodge another wide swing. It came straight at him like a spear instead, and the jagged end of it caught him right through the leg.

  Quin screamed in pain and clutched at his leg with his free hand as he fell down. The battered oar splintered in his flesh and then snapped off as he twisted away from it, leaving a length of wood stabbed into his outer thigh. Blood flowed from the wound, and the vampires surged closer, like sharks smelling their next meal in the water.

  Lucy stood over him, swinging her crucifix in a wide circle around her, doing her best to keep the encroaching bloodsuckers at bay. As she turned, the ones who wound u
p behind her lurched toward her, forcing her to keep moving to cover every possible angle in time. It would only be a matter of time before her luck or her strength gave out and one of the creatures managed to get close enough to knock her flying.

  Quin tried to get to his feet, but his injured leg wouldn't hold his weight, and he collapsed on the roof again. As he did, he saw Murtagh raise his broken oar, cocking his arm back to stab down at Lucy this time. Desperate to save her, Quin lunged between Murtagh and Lucy, prepared to take the spear through his chest if need be.

  As the oar jabbed down at him, Quin caught the shaft of it in his hands and managed to twist it just far enough so that the blow missed his chest and passed under his arm. He held onto it then with all his strength, hoping to deprive Murtagh of his weapon.

  Murtagh laughed and reversed his grip on the other end of the oar. Leveraging the shaft between his hands, he lifted the far end high up into the air – and Quin along with it. Quin hung on for his life, panic refusing to let him think of anything else he might do.

  With Quin dangling high in the air over the bridge, Murtagh shouted down at Lucy. "Drop that crucifix, Miss Seward, or I'll shake your friend here loose and make a meal out of him!"

  Quin winced in pain as he dangled from the end of the oar. Murtagh had swung him out over the Bridge Deck, which – when he glanced down at it – seemed dozens of feet below. He considered letting himself fall to the deck below, but the agony he felt in his leg with every movement forced him to hesitate.

  Quin looked back at the roof of the bridge to see Lucy standing there, staring back up at him. Tears streamed from her eyes as the vampires encircling her crept closer, their fangs exposed and ready to sink into her tender flesh. She held the crucifix before her still, but her arms had sagged. Her strength had begun to leave them even if her will to live still flared bright.

  "Don't do it, Luce!" Quin said. "Don't you dare!"

  "I love you, Quin," she said, her voice hoarse and raw. "I can't let you die." Her shoulders slumped, and she began to lower her arms.

  "No, Luce! No!"

  Quin couldn't bear the thought of the vampires tearing into her, but he didn't know what to do. If he let go, the fall might kill him, and even if he survived he wouldn't be in any shape to help anyone, much less himself. His grip on the oar slipped just a bit in the cool night air, and he realized then that he should quit fighting that and go with it.

  Murtagh let out a horrible laugh. "Make your decision, Miss Seward! What's it going to be?"

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  Quin loosened his grip just a bit and slid right down the high-angled shaft of the oar, the wood running under his armpit. He picked up speed as he went, and he put everything he had into a vicious kick from his uninjured leg. His aim was true, and he caught Murtagh right in the chin with his shoe.

  The vampire dropped the oar with a howl and staggered back along the interior of the lifeboat. He tripped on one of the rows of seats and went over backward into the boat.

  Quin leaped at the vampire and was on him in a heartbeat. He beat at Murtagh with his fists, smashing them into his face again and again until his knuckles were bruised and bleeding. The entire time, Lucy screamed for him from below, calling his name over and over.

  The fact that she could still scream spurred Quin on. If she still lived, then there was hope. He hammered at Murtagh, giving the man a murderous thrashing until his arms felt like lead and his strength was spent. He paused to take a breath as he looked down at his aching hands and felt the terrible pain still lancing through his injured leg.

  That's when Murtagh looked up at him, a vicious smile exposing his elongated fangs. "Are you quite finished?"

  With a single push, Murtagh flung Quin off of him. Quin sailed through the air and landed on the opposite end of the lifeboat. The impact jarred the wood still stabbing into his leg and knocked the air from his lungs. He tried to scream out in pain, but he had no air to manage it.

  Murtagh stalked over to him and glowered down. Without taking his eyes off Quin, Murtagh hollered down at Lucy. "Last chance, Miss Seward. You throw that bloody crucifix overboard, or I'll tear out Harker's heart and make you eat it."

  "Don't!" Lucy said in a voice cracked and raw. "I'll do it."

  Quin tried to sit up to protest, to shout at her to never surrender, but Murtagh stopped him by stamping his boot square into Quin's chest. Quin grasped the man's ankle and put every last bit of strength he had into twisting Murtagh off of his body, but he couldn't get the fiend to budge. He just cackled down at Quin instead, the laugh of a winner whose cruel fun had just begun.

  That's when Quin noticed something flapping about, just over Murtagh's shoulder. It was a bat, of course, and Quin's heart fell. He couldn't do a damned thing against Murtagh alone. What hope did he have against two of the creatures?

  The bat transformed into human form then, a still-soggy man with a familiar face, but for the lengthened canines that now sprouted from his furious face. Quin whispered his name with the little bit of breath he still had in his chest.

  "Abe."

  Murtagh's eyes flung wide in surprise as he heard Abe's form land in the lifeboat, behind him. Quin renewed his grip on the man's ankle, trying to make sure that Murtagh couldn't escape. He wasn't sure if it would do any good, but if he had any means of making what was left of Murtagh's existence short and brutal, he meant to take advantage of it.

  Abe lunged at Murtagh and hit him so hard that the entire lifeboat capsized from the impact. It toppled over in its davit, dumping the three men out of it to land on the roof of the Carpathia's bridge.

  Quin landed on top of Murtagh, which cushioned the fall, but only a little. The pain in his leg flared in protest, and he would have cried out in agony had the sensation not come so close to making him pass out. His hand went to the fragment of wood still spearing through his leg, and he found it soaked with his own warm blood.

  The first thing Quin saw as the black blotches vanished from his vision was Lucy still standing there with the crucifix in her hand. She'd somehow managed to keep the other vampires at bay until now, and she returned to that purpose again with renewed vigor. The fact that she not only still lived but continued to fight on gave Quin new hope. If she refused to give up on them, how could he?

  Abe had landed a few feet away from Murtagh and rolled toward the other vampires. They surged toward him now, sensing perhaps that he would be easy prey. Lucy leaped between Abe and them and slapped one overeager bloodsucker with the front of her crucifix.

  The skin on the vampire's face began to boil away immediately, curling away from the bones beneath like newspaper in a raging fire. He howled in horror and leaped into the air as his flesh continued to fall away from his frame. He disappeared into the night, his pitiful screams cut off only with the merciful sound of a splash.

  The other vampires hauled back then. They'd been getting braver about approaching Lucy, knowing that she couldn't hold out against all of them, not forever. The vivid display of her crucifix's power against them put caution back into their cold, still hearts.

  Murtagh shoved Quin off and scrambled to his feet, snarling like a rabid wolf and ready to meet Abe face to face. Abe leaped up, his arms spread wide and his fingers flexing out into claws. Lucy wavered between joining Abe in his scrap with Murtagh and keeping the other vampires off his back. Quin pushed himself to his knees and groaned in pain as he pulled at the length of wood still caught in his leg.

  A deafening explosion rang out in the night, and the entire ship shook.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  A fireball erupted near the middle of the Carpathia, spouting from the starboard side. The ship rocked to the port from the force of it, knocking everyone on top of the bridge's roof from their feet. A few of the vampires panicked and transformed into bats as they fell, then fluttered away into the night.

  The roar of the explosion echoed like thunder across the water. As it faded, the ship rocked back toward starboard, alrea
dy heavier from the untold gallons of seawater that Quin knew must be flowing into the gaping hole the explosion had produced in the steel-sided ship. He hoped that the men who'd overtaxed the boilers to the point that they could produce such a blast had managed to escape the engine room before their fevered labors had borne fruit.

  Murtagh stood on the listing roof and gaped at Quin, Abe, and Lucy in naked outrage. "What have you done?"

  Abe helped Quin to his feet with a clawed hand that Quin didn't hesitate to accept. He could put a little weight on his injured leg without it giving way beneath him, but only just.

  "It was the captain," Quin said. Despite the chilly air, the pain from his leg sent sweat running down his face. "He blew the boilers, just as he threatened. The Carpathia is doomed."

  "You bloody, damned fools!" Murtagh raged at them, his fists formed into white-knuckled balls. "Going down with one ship wasn't enough for you? You've killed us all!"