Nosferatu

by Carl Sargent

  The passage led only one way, straight ahead to a pair of open metal doors gleaming with brilliant metal and glass. Tom had his machine gun aimed to blow away whatever was in front of him, but his finger couldn’t even reach the trigger. They all stood, stupidly, frozen. Serrin could feel the immensity of the thing, paralyzing his mind, holding him in its hand and amused by their hubris.

  “Excuse me, won’t you,” the figure before the doors said. He removed the white coat he was wearing and handed it to a red-haired elf who slunk out of the room behind him on all fours. Magellan gibbered and preened in the coat like a child who’d just been given a new toy. Luther ran a hand back over his bald skull, then gestured at them to approach.

  “Now, I feel better dressed to receive you,” he said, flicking a speck of dust from his immaculate gray Italian suit. “Oh, except for that ork. I do find orks most especially distasteful, to be frank. Magellan, will you do the honors please?”

  The elf dropped the coat and got to his feet, drawing a long knife from the inside of his jacket. Stealthily, as if creeping up on something unseen, he slunk forward and drove the blade clean through Mathilde’s belly and up into her heart. She dropped to the floor in a lifeless heap. The elf pulled the blade out and licked it clean, cutting his own tongue on the serrated metal as he did.

  Tom felt rage unlike anything he’d ever known. Furiously, it tore at the iron grip the nosferatu had on his mind and railed impotently against it. He could hardly see now, the anguish was so intense.

  Their feet moved without their willing it. A shambolic, pitiful trio, they lurched forward into Luther’s domain, aware of everything and able to do nothing but his command.

  29

  Niall watched the battle rage until Luther called the toxics from the earth. Toxic spirits bound into corpses, their fire and acid scorching everything, destroying anyone and everyone in their way. The magical barrier did not extend beyond the building itself. Filled with hate, the elf called spirits of the forest to rise up and destroy these abominations. He had his own power to summon things from the earth, and from the forests they advanced, destroying the toxic creatures, though several were themselves destroyed in the doing.

  Niall shook with fury and impotence. He knew he could still not enter the place; the iron defense held firm.

  “Wait,” the ally spirit said slowly. “There may be something. There may be a way in. Wait, Niall. Hold to the power now. Take everything left to you, and wait.”

  * * *

  The grip on Serrin’s mind relaxed, infinitesimally. His mouth dropped slightly; he realized he could move his facial muscles as he wanted.

  “Is that better? I think it would amuse me to talk with you,” Luther said contemptuously. “Please sit down.”

  He made their bodies sit down on one of the benches. Then he walked up and down before them, strutting, for all the world like an august lecturer before a group of slightly dense students on whom he is about to squander some nuggets of his precious wisdom.

  He took Kristen’s chin in his right hand and bent down to kiss her. Her face muscles contorted, unable to move away from him. Moving along, he squatted on his haunches to meet Serrin's gaze.

  “Quite a pretty one. Perhaps I might have my pleasure with her in front of you? Would that be amusing?”

  Serrin would have given his life to be able to strike the thing down at that moment. His head and heart filled with black, bitter hatred.

  “But, as you probably know, that wouldn’t be of much pleasure for me,” Luther smirked, getting to his feet again.

  “You can ask questions if you like.” Then he corrected himself. “No, from what Magellan has told me of you, that would be a waste of time. So, I will tell you what I have done.”

  “You fragging bastard,” Serrin managed to get through his lips.

  “Oh, do hold your tongue,” Luther said irritably. “I don’t have time to waste on trivial insults. In the next twenty-four hours the world will be forever changed—and you trouble yourself with insults? Be silent, I say.” Serrin’s mouth clamped shut.

  Tom felt something within him break irrevocably. Later, he was never able to put it into words that others could understand. It was something like plunging over the summit on a roller coaster ride, at the point where your guts turn inside out. The fury in him seemed almost to invert itself and in that instant he realized what the killing of Mathilde, and the threat to the girl, were for. He’s feeding on hate, Tom realized. That’s what he wants, to get our emotional energies as cranked up as he can, so he can take it all into himself when he kills us.

  He felt the fur on his back and the clamping at the nape of his neck. He knew that the meat body wouldn’t work, but he was outside even his own mind. He let it go. It wasn’t the same as before, when it had been passivity, surrender, awareness of something else, awareness of Shakala or the call of a dead zone where Serrin was hidden. This time, he emptied into nothing.

  He felt himself dissolving. For an instant, he panicked, and then he just totally let go.

  * * *

  “What is it?” Niall cried out. “It’s inside. I can reach it!”

  His astral body found the minuscule point of light and he wove a tiny strand of power to it, a thin pencil of light stretching into and through the barrier, drawing itself back to his body, through Luther’s barrier, creating a breach in the shield wall. He went back into his body and called to Mathanas.

  “Take it,” he said simply. “Go in through it.” He walked up to the shattered, blazing remains of the monastery, leaving Mathanas to weave his own magic. He took up the cauldron and walked through what looked very much like the gates of hell.

  * * *

  “It is theoretically impossible, of course,” Luther droned on. “It is not possible for a retrovirus to infect the germ line. That’s the point. A virus that has the effect of destroying key neural systems, those involved in will and volition, that’s easy enough. One that is engineered only to trigger such an effect when the genome lacks the metatype gene complex, that takes time. One that also goes back into the germ line and affects all future offspring is almost an impossibility. It took me nearly seventy years to create it.

  “That’s the wonder, the beauty of it. It will make humanity pliable, will-less, automata in perpetuity. There is no remedy. Gene therapy wouldn’t work because the neural damage is irreversible. Oh, well, perhaps certain neural substitution treatments might compensate, but they’re tricky to handle and the expense is enormous. Not feasible for billions of people. Especially when no one left would want to do it anyway.

  “The virus is irresistible. Stable, reasonably persistent, it lies dormant in a whole variety of mammalian vectors and is agreeably infectious. Samples will arrive with elven groups in twelve countries within six hours, though of course things are at a more advanced stage locally.” He pointed to the small metal boxes sealed on a table before him. One, Serrin noticed, had not been filled. Yet?

  “The next stage, of course, is to develop the virus to create variants that affect only certain metatypes. Then filth like orks and trolls can be pacified as well. Not that, in the interim, they’re going to be any kind of problem. They simply don’t have the intelligence of elves.”

  His eyes were flaring with his madness. For all the coldness and self-control, Luther’s inner fires were still alive. He stared at Serrin again.

  “Oh, you fool. Why didn’t you want to be part of this beauty? We can all be Princes now, we elven people. This is a joy, a wonder, a glory to behold. Now I know how the scientists felt when they saw the first mushroom cloud. I've been waiting nearly three centuries for my own people to be born into the world, and now I will lead them into the promised land.”

  He leaned back and clenched his fists, an expression of indescribable joy and peace on his face.

  Tom couldn’t scream as he needed to. Something was funneling into him, a burning fire that left him spinning helplessly in some place he didn’t even know existed. It fe
lt like his very soul was being shredded by diamond claws, his memories and emotions fragmented, his very personality rent asunder.

  “I’m going to free the world!” Luther screamed and lunged toward Serrin, to sink his bared teeth into the elf’s throat and drain everything of life and soul from him. Then he stopped, staring stupidly at the troll, his jaw dropping.

  Metal was extruding, flowing like liquid, from the troll’s skin. From his right hand came a stream of coldly molten, viscous steel dripping onto the floor. From the skin of the troll’s arms and legs seeped what looked like liquefied meat streaked with metal, also dripping and dribbling onto the floor. Luther was transfixed, unable even to comprehend what was happening as the spirit began to form from the body of the troll.

  “No, you’re not, Lutair.” A quiet elven voice came from the doorway. “You are not the Creator.”

  Niall took the golden vessel in his hands and pointed it up to the ceiling. The immense spirit, manifested as an implacable elf, took hold of the power Niall released and channeled it into a glowing line of force, striking up against a hundred feet of earth and stone.

  Earth and stone gave way. It simply vanished, leaving a huge hollow shaft reaching up into the air above. Luther stood below it, unable to comprehend it. Far above him, air solidified into a brilliant mirror. Streaming down the shaft came the reflected light of a summer’s dawn.

  Luther screamed, staggering away from the light. Blood welled up in his eyes and dripped from his ears and nostrils. From the elf’s cauldron, rippling light poured around the base of the shaft, gathering up the sunlight and driving it into the nosferatu.

  On its knees, the thing convulsed in choking coughs. It gagged up a great gout of black blood onto the floor before it, which hissed into the stone and corroded it. Flesh peeled away from the body, burning and steaming, its fluids vaporizing in wisps of acrid, stinking mist.

  Niall stood over the decomposing remnants of the nosferatu and chanted in Gaelic-Sperethiel. It wasn’t a dialect Serrin knew, but he spoke the basic elven tongue well enough to understand the gist. The elf was committing the remains of the soul to the Great Shining Spirits, calling on their protection and righteousness, calling down retribution on the soul, weaving gleaming chains of karma in which to bind it for many lives to come.

  The remains of the body shuddered in one last great heave and then lay still on its side. Only the skull and the great bones of the physical body remained within the ragged ruins of its clothes. Niall took a silver dagger from his jacket and drove it into the septum. The skull melted like butter where he struck it and then split in two. An appalling howl echoed around them before fading into an endless distance far above.

  Serrin’s gaze was still fixed, stupefied, on Niall’s power, when his body registered that he was no longer controlled. He fell forward, unable to stop himself, not an ounce of strength left. He rolled helplessly, ended up lying alongside Kristen, looking up at Tom.

  The troll was on his feet. The huge elven spirit was holding him, its arm around the troll’s great chest. Tom’s eyes and those of the spirit were locked in a lover’s embrace. Warm tears streamed down the troll’s face and he closed his eyes.

  He couldn’t remain upright without the help of the spirit at first, the strength from the implants lost to him, until life and growth poured into the once-ruined meat body. From being like a child, helpless and unable to stand, Tom felt energy, growth, every joyful and wonderful thing about being alive stream through his body, heart, and soul. The dead and pain-filled places inside flaked away as the metal in the meat had done when the spirit had poured into and through him. For an instant, he saw the face of Bear on the spirit and felt the huge paws around him. It was like being reborn a second time.

  Serrin’s hand twitched. Somehow, he managed to find Kristen’s and hung on to it for dear life. Then Mali's hands were on them both, healing and cooling, and they felt some semblance of strength returning to their bodies.

  Serrin managed to get to his knees and look up at Niall. He wanted to say something, anything, but where could he find the words? He just squatted with his tongue rolling around inside his mouth. He couldn’t have spoken even if someone had ordered him at gunpoint.

  He didn’t see the elf then. Kristen was on him, hugging him hard, kissing his face. She took his head in her hands and kissed him hard on the mouth.

  “I think we should go,” the elf said.

  * * *

  None of them could think about anything else as they made their way from the ruins. The effort of putting one foot in front of the other was great enough to demand every ounce of attention and willpower they had. Led by Niall and Mathanas, they somehow managed to negotiate the forest quicker than they’d ever have been able to on their own. Spirit power, Serrin managed to reflect. Movement. The spirit is altering the terrain.

  It seemed ridiculously incongruous when Niall opened the door of the car. Cars belonged to the real world. They weren’t ready to return to it yet. Tom sat in the front, rocking himself slightly to and fro.

  “Let him be,” Niall said. “He has much to come to terms with.”

  “Don’t we all,” said Serrin, almost to himself. There was so much they’d never understand. He turned to the other elf. “And just who are you?” he demanded.

  “It is better that you do not know,” Niall replied in a way that told Serrin he spoke true. “You might be killed for knowing.”

  Serrin was momentarily distracted by the sound of planes flying high above. Squinting into the sun, he was unable to see them through the car window. “Where has the spirit gone?” he asked.

  “This place must be destroyed utterly,” Niall said simply. “Mathanas is calling spirits of the earth to begin that. Then he will bring his own fire to raze all that is left.”

  “Look, just tell us who you are. From that accent I’d say you must be from Tir na nOg,” Serrin pressed him.

  “You must trust me,” Niall said quietly.

  “It isn’t about trust. I have to know.”

  “I cannot tell you.”

  Serrin was about to protest again when Kristen put a finger over his mouth to hush him. She looked hard into his eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter now. We’re alive. And we’ve still got to see about Michael,” she said.

  A look of pain passed over Serrin’s face. “Of course,” he said. “What’s wrong with me anyway?” How could he have forgotten about Michael? He got out of the car. Incongruously, he badly needed to take a leak. When he ambled back from his selected tree, Niall was waiting for him outside the vehicle. They strode quietly away a short distance.

  Niall was still watching him. “Some things I cannot tell you, but there are some things I must,” the elf said quietly.

  “I’m listening,” Serrin muttered, then followed as the elf gestured that they should walk a little ways.

  “The troll. He’s how I was able to get inside. Lutair had a magical barrier that I could never have penetrated. We got in through the troll.”

  “His name’s Tom.”

  “Tom, then. Look after him. He will be lost to the outside world much of the time for the next few weeks. When Mathanas channeled himself into him, he forced out all the rubbish in Tom’s body. The metal and the implants. The things that would not let him go beyond his own past. They’re gone now. Mathanas re-grew parts of Tom’s own body from what was left.”

  “By the gods, what is Mathanas?”

  “Well, now, that would be a very long story indeed,” Niall smiled. “Which brings me to my second point. You do not understand about you and the girl, do you?”

  “Kristen. Her name is Kristen, and I’m Serrin. She’s not the ‘girl,’ ” he retorted rather petulantly.

  “Yes, I know that. You do not see it, though, do you?”

  “See what?”

  “You have not been together very long this time, I know.”

  “How do you know? Wait, don’t tell me. It’s better for me not to know, right
?”

  Niall laughed. He took a silver flask of brandy from his jacket and offered some to Serrin. It was good; strong, rich, a real jolt he needed badly.

  “More or less. I had been watching you, at one point. But that was some time ago, and it is not important,” Niall continued. “But you and her; that is important. What did you experience when you first saw her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think carefully. What did you feel when you first talked to her for a little while?”

  “Um, it was strange. It felt like I knew her quite well.”

  “Well, that is a start,” Niall said. “But you have not made love with her.”

  “That’s none of your fragging business, you—”

  “Don’t be silly,” Niall retorted sharply. “It is obvious to anyone from the way she looks at you.”

  “It is?” Serrin muttered, his annoyance mixed with puzzlement.

  “Yes. She yearns for you, and yet you refuse to see it. There is a simple reason why you are unready. But I do not know how much I should tell you.”

  “That seems to be the usual story with you,” Serrin said testily.

  “I can let you know in two ways. I can give you just the details, or I can let you enter into it for yourself,” Niall said. “Up to you. It is more than I ought to do.”

  “Just tell me,” Serrin said, afraid of what this extraordinary elf might do to his mind. Niall seemed to understand that, but he made his own decision, deciding that the stubborn mage would not listen to words alone. He took Serrin’s head in his hands.

  Almost instantly the memories flooded over Serrin. He saw the skyline over the port with the sailing ships, felt the warmth from the winds over the azure waters, saw his own white robe, saw her beside him. He could hear no words, but he saw himself talking to her, jabbing with a finger as she wrote down what he was saying on a piece of animal hide, using a sharp reed as a pen. He had hardly registered the fact that she, too, was elven before the scene faded away. Then he saw himself alone, inside some gloomy straw hut in a damp darkness illuminated only by a beeswax candle guttering on the crude wooden table before which he sat. He sensed damp, smelly fur on his back, a hide covering him. An ornate iron plate and goblet were beside him, but he didn’t take in much more of his surroundings. The wretched feelings just spun around inside him. I can’t have her. She's been sold by her father into marriage with Declan and I can’t have her. Do I kill him or do I kill myself ?