Kardina

by Thomas Emson

  At last they entered a chapel-sized room. It triggered flashbacks to her childhood – going to church with her mother, singing hymns, praising God.

  But later, she’d turned her back on all that. She wanted adventure. She had been drawn to flashy men – drug dealers and gangsters.

  Nimrod flung her across the tiled floor. She came to a stop and sat up, dizzy, facing the altar. It was made of clay and stained with something. A dark liquid dried up.

  Blood, she thought.

  Next to the altar was a pool. The stagnant water smelled. Nimrod knelt at the water’s edge. He reached into the pool and drew water, splashing it over his face and his scalp.

  Aaliyah stared around the room. Portraits had been painted on the walls. The figures of women dressed in white. They were pale-skinned and dark-haired, their eyes red. They encircled the room, twenty-five on each wall. One hundred of them. The hundred brides of Nimrod. Just as Goga had said. She remembered the one with Nimrod in the arena. She had said something about Jake. About being lovers.

  Her stomach felt gripey.

  Nimrod groaned quietly to himself as he stared into the pool. Aaliyah took her chance. She started to crawl towards the door. Blood seeped from a gouge on her thigh, and her arm felt as if it were on fire. She could put no pressure on it. Her neck pulsed, and she felt faint.

  But she had to try.

  For Jake, she thought. Who’d let her fall – but it wasn’t his fault. Who’d let Nimrod assault her – but Jake couldn’t have done anything. Who’d abandoned her to death – but he would save her if he could.

  Or maybe he was the white witch’s lover?

  She let out a cry.

  Crawling, leaving a trail of blood behind her, she was nearly at the door.

  She broke into a smile. She could survive this. She could make it out. She had to have hope. She had to –

  Nimrod grabbed her leg.

  She screamed as he pulled her back into the altar-room. She clawed at the tiles, but her hands slithered through the blood she’d left behind.

  She screamed for Jake.

  Her eyes were fixed on the door as she waited for him to surely burst through it any second and rescue her.

  But he didn’t.

  And when Nimrod lifted her and slammed her on the altar, and then loomed over her, she knew she’d been deserted.

  Because there was no one else to do it, she cried for her unfulfilled life just as the monster mounted the altar and pinned her down.

  CHAPTER 93. MONSTER.

  IT was a terrible sight. One Alfred had hoped he’d never see again. But it was here. He’d come back from the dead. And he looked even more terrifying than Nimrod.

  He was covered in blood and dust from head to toe.

  In his right hand, he wielded the conjoined Spear of Abraham, and in the other, an ebony cane with a blade on the end. There was a pistol tucked into his belt, and Alfred was momentarily relieved that he wasn’t going to get shot. But that relief soon faded when Lawton came closer.

  One side of his face was bruised, and his eyeball seemed to be completely red, as if filled with blood.

  Alfred wanted to scream. He nearly pissed himself for a second time. He pointed the submachine gun at the spectre.

  “Can’t you just fucking die?” he said.

  “Not very easily, it seems,” said Jake Lawton.

  He strode towards Alfred, whose knees buckled. Lawton was a tough guy. He’d always been a tough guy. He was menacing and carried an air of “don’t mess with me” about him. But now, he was a hundred times scarier than he’d ever been before. He’d become a monster. An angel of death.

  And Alfred knew he was in trouble.

  “You think you’re passing?” he said, the gun trained on Lawton.

  “I know I’m passing, Alfred.”

  He kept coming.

  “I’ll shoot.”

  “I’ve been shot before. Six bullets in me already. Few more won’t make a difference. Do your worst.”

  “You might not be afraid of bullets, Lawton, but you come any closer and I’ll have Nimrod rip your bitch to pieces, you hear me? He’s in there now with her. I can tell him to stop. He listens to me. I’m a Nebuchadnezzar. I’m his… his master and his servant, Lawton. You hear?”

  Lawton was hesitating. He’d stopped. Alfred felt strong all of a sudden. His grip on the gun tightened.

  “See?” he said. “See who’s boss around here?”

  Lawton appeared to be thinking. He looked back over his shoulder. His eyes – or at least his one good eye – narrowed.

  And then he curled his lip and charged.

  Alfred panicked.

  He fired, but the bullets went astray because his aim was affected by nerves and the fact he was shitting himself.

  Lawton wasn’t stopping. He was coming straight for him. Alfred’s head screamed at him to run. But terror had frozen him to the spot.

  He fired again. The shot grazed Lawton’s shoulder, tearing a groove in the flesh. But it didn’t stop him.

  Alfred screamed and threw the gun at Lawton, who just batted the weapon aside.

  “Bye, Alfred,” Lawton said, and Alfred saw the cane jabbing at his chest and felt it break his skin and sink into him, and it was still in him long after Lawton had walked by. And then Alfred saw everything swim before him, his hearing dulled, he grew cold, and he thought, “Is this how I’m going to die?”

  And darkness enveloped him.

  CHAPTER 94. LIKE THEM.

  LAWTON ran up the slope, then into the corridor. He stopped for a second to get his bearings, checking out the fresco. Then he was off again, pulling the Spear of Abraham apart as he ran, taking both ends in either hand as swords once more.

  He bolted through an opening, and the smell of blood hit him.

  He stopped dead.

  It was an altar-room. The walls were decked in images of women wearing white. They were faded but he could make them out. And they all looked like Ereshkigal.

  Up ahead, the altar stood bloody.

  His heart pounded, and his skin crawled.

  “Aaliyah,” he said. “Aaliyah, are you here?”

  Something loomed from the shadows behind the altar. Something large and lethal. It took shape as it moved out of the darkness and into the light, and Lawton saw it. He saw the leathery skin, the powerful limbs, the sharp teeth, the vicious talons, and he saw the wounds on the creature’s scalp.

  Lawton glanced at his swords, which he’d carried with him for years.

  Now they’d come home.

  Nimrod stepped over the altar.

  It said something, a word that sounded like a growl at first:

  “Avram… ”

  Lawton held his ground. He steeled himself for a battle with this monster. He was tense all over, his hands sweating on the swords, his skin tingling. The voices still sang in his skull, and the pain was such that he had now embraced it – he did not think he could survive without it, without the adrenaline it released in his body.

  “Aaliyah, where are you?” he said again. “Where is she, you fucker?”

  Nimrod said something again, and once more it sounded more like a growl. He pointed at the bone swords in Lawton’s hands.

  “I brought them home,” said Lawton. “You want them?”

  He remembered Goga’s words:

  Make Nimrod one with himself again.

  The only way to kill him.

  He knew what that meant now. It had come to him. It made sense. He would make the monster whole again. And if these tusks could kill every other vampire, why wouldn’t they kill the father of vampires?

  The god approached.

  Lawton slowly kneeled.

  He rested one sword on the ground and scooped up a handful of dust.

  Nimrod growled.

  Lawton lunged, tossing the dust into the creature’s face. The monster reeled. Lawton grabbed the sword. Armed with both, he launched himself at the Great Hunter. The beast saw him coming and
swatted him away.

  Lawton went spinning. The world wheeled. He fell hard, hitting his head against the stone floor. He saw stars.

  The ground shook. He wondered why. Then he realized and he got his bearings.

  Nimrod was running towards him.

  Lawton scrabbled to his feet, dizzy, unsteady.

  The god loomed. His shadow fell across Lawton. Jake slashed wildly with his swords. Ivory sliced flesh. Blood sprayed. Nimrod howled.

  Lawton stumbled backwards, and came to a halt against the wall. He pulled himself together, fixed on his opponent.

  Nimrod snarled. Blood dripped from a wound in the Great Hunter’s hand.

  Is that all I did to him? thought Lawton.

  “What have you done with Aaliyah?” he said.

  He felt rage and pain. In his heart, he knew she was dead – or something worse.

  But if she were, he would not leave her in this underworld.

  You leave no one behind.

  You take everyone home, dead or alive.

  He cried out in fury as suddenly a world without Aaliyah became apparent.

  He leapt at Nimrod.

  The Great Hunter swatted again, but this time he missed, and his wayward attempt left his chest open for attack.

  Lawton drove the bone-sword into the creature’s breast.

  The huge pectoral muscle sliced open.

  Meat showed pink. Blood ran red. Bone gleamed white.

  The god screamed.

  Lawton rolled away.

  He’s killable, he thought. He’s flesh and bone. He bleeds. And these weapons can hurt him.

  Immortality wasn’t final, he realized.

  Death could get at anyone under the right circumstances.

  The god trembled.

  Lawton attacked.

  But Nimrod was faking. He swung round to face Lawton and grabbed him around the waist, lifting him above his head.

  Lawton looked down and saw the wounds on the creature’s scalp where the horns had been ripped out.

  They festered and crawled with insects.

  Lawton hacked at Nimrod’s arm, cutting into the flesh.

  The monster let him go, and he fell to the ground.

  He was up straight away, ignoring the pain, ignoring the dizziness. He leapt up on the altar. Blood was thick on the stone. He looked behind him, steadying himself – and there she was. She lay in a pool of blood. Her clothes were torn. He shouted her name and leapt down behind the altar.

  “Aaliyah! No!”

  Her eyes opened.

  He cried with joy and cradled her, but she groaned in pain.

  Blood came from her mouth, and from a terrible wound on her throat, and there was also blood between her legs – lots of it.

  Her eyes glittered.

  “Why did you leave me?” she whispered.

  “No,” screamed Lawton, “No, I never left you, I never – ”

  “Don’t let me be like them,” she said.

  “No, Aaliyah, don’t make me – ”

  Before he could finish, he felt himself being picked up by the leg, the world turning upside down, Aaliyah going further and further away.

  Nimrod started to swing him round violently.

  Lawton could hardly take a breath.

  Aaliyah’s face was branded into his mind. The pain it caused him made all his other agonies pale into insignificance. Her face represented all his failings –as a soldier, as a man, as a human.

  Nimrod slammed him to the ground, and for a second he couldn’t breathe.

  He thought he’d let himself be killed, be fed on, because if Aaliyah was going to be undead…

  Don’t let me be like them

  … then he would be too.

  He would not be the half-thing he’d become. He would be vampire. He would be what he hated most. But for Aaliyah, he would do anything.

  CHAPTER 95. SANCTUARY.

  London – 10.23pm (GMT), 20 May, 2011

  “TOO many vampires,” said Mei. Her small force wasn’t strong enough to take on the undead and the Neb militia. They were retreating – Mei, David, and Murray, along with some of her troops.

  They had fled up Wembley Hill Road. The streets were laden with panic-stricken people, confused Neb militia men, and hungry vampires.

  The group found refuge in a church, St Augustine’s, a red brick building at the end of Wembley Hill Road.

  At the far end of the room that they’d entered, Jesus hung on his cross over the altar. David looked at the Christ. He looked at him for hope, for salvation. Maybe now, at the end, there would be some kind of holy intervention.

  But none came.

  They armed themselves with plastic chairs and waited for the vampires.

  “Mum, are you OK?” he said.

  His mother hugged him. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  “Hey, don’t cry – we’re not dead yet.”

  She smiled at him, but there were tears in her eyes too.

  She knew they were as good as dead. He could tell.

  The doors buckled. The vampires, assisted by militia men with military vehicles, were breaking into the church.

  “We die here,” said Mei. “Good place to die, with Jesus.”

  She slashed the air with her swords.

  Mei was so brave. David looked at her in awe. She had always fought against the odds, ever since he’d known her.

  “We lose here, but we win in the end,” she said.

  Outside, a voice on a loudspeaker boomed:

  “We are regaining control of the streets. The insurgents are being rounded up. Good people of Britain, please return to your homes. There is an immediate curfew… ”

  “That’s Howard Vince,” said David’s mum. “He didn’t waste any time grabbing power.”

  Vince’s bellowing voice continued:

  “Point us to the traitors, the foreign gangsters, the Lawtonite rebels. Offer them no sanctuary, or punishment will be brutal. We must have law and order. I will execute anyone who breaks the law. The law is your friend. The traitors are the enemies of the law.”

  The church doors shattered.

  The vampires swarmed inside.

  David told his companions to retreat towards the altar, and he stood in the vampires’ way, brandishing the tiny piece of cloth he’d torn from George Fuad’s wrist. He felt naked with it against dozens of the undead. But they baulked, hissing at him.

  “Get out and leave us alone,” he said.

  A few of the vampires laughed at him. They skirted the walls, keeping well away from David.

  “No,” he cried out, “no, leave them – ”

  But the vampires were closing in on David’s mum, Mei, and the others as they huddled under Jesus on his cross.

  CHAPTER 96. THE LAST BATTLE.

  Hillah – 10.25pm (GMT + 3 hours), 20/21 May, 2011

  NIMROD swung Lawton round. The room whirled. Lawton felt sick. He wanted to puke. And just as he was about to, the monster let him go. He clattered into the altar, banging the back of his skull.

  Nimrod charged.

  Lawton lunged.

  He drove one of his swords into the wound on the Great Hunter’s leg, and then forward-rolled out of the way.

  The god bellowed.

  Lawton tried to get up, but his legs buckled. He was so weak now. But he had to keep going. He had to get to Aaliyah. He gritted his teeth and dug deep.

  He hobbled towards the altar, but Nimrod cut him off.

  The monster roared, plumes of smoke coming from his nostrils. His eyes burned with rage. He slashed and hacked at Lawton, forcing Jake to duck and dive and back away from where he knew Aaliyah was dying.

  I have to get to her, he thought. I can’t let her down again.

  He faced Nimrod and thrust with his swords. He sliced into the monster’s flesh. The creature seemed unconcerned by most of the blows. But now and again, Lawton’s weapons sank deep into the Great Hunter’s limbs, and his cries t
old Jake that the beast was hurting.

  And if you could hurt something, you could kill it.

  Lawton grew in confidence. His constant thrusts forced Nimrod back. The creature snarled, bearing its vicious teeth.

  Lawton thought he saw movement from behind the altar.

  Aaliyah.

  He glanced out of the corner of his eye. Nothing there. Shadows, that was all. And blood –

  The blow struck him in the belly. He sailed across the altar-room. As he hung in the air, he saw Nimrod bound after him. The tiles shattered under the monster’s powerful feet. Shards of clay spattered across the floor.

  Lawton hit the ground.

  Nimrod was on him.

  Lawton rolled just in time to avoid the monster’s foot as it stamped down hard on the tiles.

  Lawton rolled again as once more Nimrod tried to crush him.

  He rolled a third time as Nimrod again tried to stamp on him.

  Lawton came to a halt against the altar. The monster towered over him, Lawton strewn between the creature’s legs.

  The god reached down.

  Lawton rammed one of his swords into the Great Hunter’s crotch.

  Blood sprayed out of the creature’s groin, and he shrieked.

  The god writhed.

  Lawton rolled away and clambered up on the altar.

  “Aaliyah,” he said, reaching for her.

  But she was gone.

  A trail of blood led into the darkness beyond the altar.

  “Aaliyah!”

  Fury laced his blood. He turned in time to see an equally enraged Nimrod striding towards him. Blood ran down the creature’s inner thighs. Ribbons of skin flapped where his scrotum had been. But the injury wasn’t hindering the Great Hunter. He barrelled towards the altar.

  Lawton launched himself.

  He sailed towards Nimrod. He landed on the monster’s shoulders. He scissored his legs around the creature’s neck.

  Nimrod clawed at him, ripping his flesh.

  But Lawton ignored the pain.

  He was the one with wounds.

  He had to embrace agony. He had to invite it.

  Nimrod whirled around, trying to dislodge Lawton. But Jake wasn’t going anywhere. He looked down into the wounds on the Great Hunter’s scalp. They were putrid. Gaping holes of rotting flesh. Torn skin and dried blood.