Ancient Blood: A Novel of the Hegemony (The Order Saga Book 1)

by Brian McKinley

  The maze.

  The entrance to the damn thing was only a couple hundred feet from this wing of the house. Sebastian had a plan. He knew the others would come after him, at least he assumed they would, straight forward fellow that he was, so he was taking the fight to the place he knew best. Somewhere he could split people up, surprise them and fight them on his terms. Did he expect to survive? Not really but he wanted to take as many with him as he could.

  I’d only cleaned up two or three of Sebastian’s hunting victims in my time here but it was enough for me to feel a sense of poetic justice in turning the tables. I knew the maze. Not as well as Sebastian but better than any of the other Hegemons. As I ran across the grass, I traded my assault rifle for the stunner. Bullets would hurt him but I’d be better off incapacitating him and finishing him at my leisure.

  As I reached the entrance, I saw Ash leading a group of soldiers out of the security bunker toward the house at a fast jog. I also spotted groups of commandos in body armor and face paint moving toward the house. DeWinter’s guys. Once they got organized, they’d put together some sophisticated tear-gas bombing of the maze and thermal-imaging helicopters leading their Vampyr SEAL team right to the target. The sensible way to take out somebody like Sebastian.

  I didn’t want sensible, I didn’t want to share the credit with anybody else and I sure as hell didn’t want to be a bystander again. I wanted a chance to beat him one on one. I wanted back some of the self-respect he’d been beating out of me since the moment we’d met.

  I debated for a few seconds about whether I should turn the lights on or leave them off. There were good reasons for both but I decided that I’d do better if the place was lit. Sure, Sebastian had trained this way but why leave him the advantage of his superior night vision?

  I flipped the switch and hurried into the maze.

  Once I got through the first two turns, I slowed down and watched my surroundings. My only plan was to head for the center of the maze and let Sebastian find me. I had no illusions about trying to track him but I hoped I’d be able to see him in time to fire, or if I was lucky, he’d realize it was me and come out to taunt me as usual.

  He’d know somebody had come in because of the lights, so I just crept along and kept my senses alert. I moved down corridor after corridor, jumping at the slightest sound and pointing my stunner at every shadow.

  The maze is one hideous place.

  I couldn’t help noticing all the little pits, bloodstains and scratch-marks in the stone walls, as well as the occasional bone of some forgotten victim lying in a corner. So much death and suffering, for what? A blood-stained monument to one man’s madness? A once decent man’s struggle to lose himself the way his victims became lost? No, that wasn’t it. The maze wasn’t what Sebastian wanted for himself. It was how he saw his situation: trapped in a complex, impossible place from which he struggled to escape. Had he ever secretly hoped that one of his human victims would make it out alive, to give him some hope for his own chances?

  I heard something land behind me and whipped around—

  In time to see Sebastian spring up out of his crouch and snatch the stunner right out of my hands! I stumbled back a step as I grabbed for the rifle slung over my shoulder but it swung away as my fingers tried to close around it. Tossing the stunner, Sebastian’s hand shot out to clutch my throat with a crushing grip. His thick, yellow nails had grown into talons.

  He looked terrible. Crusted blood from the various wounds he’d suffered over the last hour stuck up clumps of his grown-out hair while plastering other sections down. He’d ditched his tunic and moccasins, leaving only his loose leggings to cover himself. The bloodshot quality of his eyes I’d noticed the night before had gotten worse, his canines were extended and his whole body shivered despite the sweat that streamed out of him. His right arm hung trembling at his side and I got the impression it still wasn’t healed from the bone crushing Jade Tiger had inflicted.

  He yanked me up onto my tip-toes and sniffed me. His eyesight must have gotten worse than I’d imagined. “Only thou?” His speech was thick, like a drunk trying not to slur his words. His extended fangs only added to the difficulty.

  He sent me to the ground with a shove and turned up to address the three-quarter moon, just visible over the halogen lights. “Draco? DeWinter? Iago! Geoffrey!”

  Sitting on the dirt floor, I felt my blood begin to boil. “Only you?” he’d said. Nobody was ever gonna believe I was the one who got Jade Tiger up in time. When I was remembered at all, it would be as the guy who tagged along behind Caroline and got himself shot. The also-ran, the sidekick, the comic relief.

  Tough luck, asshole, I’m all you’ve got. I pulled my rifle and pumped three rounds into Sebastian’s gut.

  He screamed but it came out sounding high and strangled because his throat tightened up and he bent forward. I remember the feeling well from my own gunshot experience. I started to stand for the finishing shot and that was my mistake.

  Before I’d made it halfway up, Sebastian flew into me, knocking the rifle away and slamming me into the stone wall. We fell to the ground and he was everywhere at once, growling, stabbing me with his claws, punching me with his fists and biting at me. I ducked on instinct and his teeth ripped out a hunk of hair that would otherwise have been my eye.

  I rolled and tried to push him away from me but he was like an enraged bear. All I could see was his huge silhouette above me with the lights glaring down all around it. His smell was a wild, musky scent with a ripe, sickly-sweet undertone. I’ll never forget that odor. I’d smelled it coming from my mother’s pores during the last months of her life in the hospital. It was the smell of rot, sorrow and death.

  He leapt up and down on me, crushing me into the ground, knocking the wind out of me and I felt as helpless as I had watching my mother that last day. Sebastian reared back and slashed with his claws. Inside my helplessness lay the rage that always accompanies it, that hatred of my impotence and futility I’d known so well all my life. I managed to get my arms up, taking a few slashes on my hands for my trouble and still some of his swipes got through to rip gouges in my chest and face.

  The rage built in me to a point it had never reached before, a point of needing to fight back, of craving retribution so desperately that I would die to achieve it. I growled deep in my throat and fixed my concentration on the shadow above me until it was the face of my stepfather, my mother’s M.S., Sebastian, Valmont, Wilkes and every half-remembered school bully I’d ever had. I remembered his injured arm and after a few failed attempts, locked my arms around it during a swipe.

  I twisted and pulled with everything I had, feeling the bones grind together inside the quivering meat. Sebastian howled and pounded my arms, then ducked in and sank his teeth into my forearm. I barely felt it but if I didn’t stop him, he’d begin drinking and growing stronger while I weakened.

  I slipped one of my arms free and punched the side of his head again and again to no effect. I felt him pulling the blood from my veins, slurping it down to repair his injuries and looked around. His injuries! His position on me left his stomach vulnerable. I could just make out the healing bullet wounds surrounded by mountains of bruised tissue. I punched down there, then opened my hand and worked my fingers into the wound in a way that allowed me to grip—

  Sebastian’s whole body bucked and he shook his head back and forth as he squealed, tearing the already wounded muscles of my forearm but I kept squeezing until he let go. He yanked his head away from my arm and reared back for what I knew would be a strike at my neck but as he lunged down at me, I brought my head up to meet his, smashing his nose with a head-butt!

  Without a single coherent thought except the imagined sensation of Sebastian’s hot, thick Vampyr blood gushing down my throat, I pulled myself toward him, jaws wide. Because of a last minute movement of his head, I connected with his face again rather than his throat but that made no difference.

  I bit down and felt my teeth sink into th
e bloody flesh of his cheek. I bit harder as he jerked his head to the side and tasted a delicious trickle of blood as a large strip of skin pulled free from his face! Growling and gasping for breath, the silhouette rolled off of me, while I lay licking the blood from my bloody prize and barely resisting the urge to chew and swallow it down.

  I had to finish him now or else—

  “This way!” a voice bellowed from elsewhere in the maze. “I have the scent!”

  Draco. He’d gotten his hunting party together, after all.

  I rolled onto my knees as Sebastian jumped to his feet, head scanning for the direction of the voice and pulped nose trying to inhale something more than his own blood. The sudden move was too much for his abdomen, however. The breath exploded out of him as he hunched over to clutch his torn midsection.

  Glancing to my right, I saw my assault rifle lying only a few feet away and scrambled up to grab it. I turned and leveled it just as Sebastian stumbled forward to stop me. I pressed the barrel to his forehead and tightened my finger on the trigger … and got my first clear look at him since we’d begun.

  Blood and chemical sweat dripped from every inch of him. His eyes were wild and uncomprehending, rolling around to take in everything at once. Through the huge flap of skin I’d torn away from his face, I saw the muscles and teeth on the left side of his jaw. The rest of the skin sagged like melted wax.

  I’d done that.

  I thought back to the last few minutes and couldn’t believe my own actions. It was like the night before when Sebastian brought out that victim and I’d killed him without a thought.

  Was this how the descent started for Sebastian?

  What the hell was I even doing out here, anyway? What was I trying to prove? I’d risked dying, leaving Caroline alone and grief-stricken, just to settle some petty grudge against this poor, doomed bastard? To reclaim my masculinity? Get a pat on the head from Draco and be a big man in The Order for fifteen minutes?

  I remembered the contentment and wholeness I’d felt after my brief contact with the Goddess. I’d done what I could and let myself accept it, I’d been in the company of the woman I loved and let myself enjoy it. Hell, I’d been able to laugh at what we all thought was the end of the world because, deep down, I’d known it wasn’t the end. That’s what I needed to reclaim, not temporary satisfaction for my wounded pride.

  I lowered my rifle.

  Sebastian watched me in wary confusion. I had no way of knowing whether he’d just attack me again but for some reason, I didn’t think so. We could both hear the sounds of Draco and his hunters coming nearer. Turning the rifle around, I held it out to Sebastian.

  “Here,” I said. “Go down fighting.”

  His newly-healed nose sniffed at the air between us and the rifle itself. Slowly, his good hand reached out and took it. He darted back as soon as he had it, holding the rifle by the barrel like a club. Then, baring his bloodstained teeth in a savage grin, he struggled up to the top of the wall and dropped down to the other side.

  Time for me to get back to Caroline.

  * * * * *

  I decided to continue to the center, where four corridors led into an open square featuring a statue on a pedestal. Sliding the statue to one side revealed the secret passage back to the wine cellar. If the people there hadn’t already been let out, I could fix that while heading up to the kitchen for a blood pack or two.

  I heard gunfire a few corridors back as I turned the last corner and saw the statue that guarded the secret passage. I wondered if Sebastian was winning but had my doubts. If he hadn’t gotten the Guaiwu, Draco would have enlisted some of DeWinter’s commandoes.

  As I reached the center, something appeared wrong with the statue. After another few steps, I figured out what: it was already slid aside to reveal the ladder to the passage.

  I heard a whistle as something sliced my cheek open.

  Slapping my hand to the wound, I turned to find Jean-Paul Valmont leaning against the wall, his rapier tracing lazy swirls in the air.

  “I hoped you would come this way if Sebastian didn’t finish you,” he said. He chuckled at my surprise. “Oh, I’ve joined Sebastian on a hunt or two over the years, so I know my way around. Now, then, I believe we’ve left an item or two unfinished between us.”

  I groaned and continued for the ladder. By the time I’d taken two steps, he crossed the distance between us and I found the blade of his rapier pressing against my throat.

  “You are a very ill-mannered young man. Do you think I came all the way out here just so you could walk away from me again?”

  “Do you think I give a fuck?”

  He moved into my sight but kept the blade in position. “Give a fuck? Perhaps you shall, at that. I gave your repressed little mommy one, after all, so you could say that I’m owed.”

  I was getting used to his little games by now but the remark still burned. “Then go back to your little mommy and living sex toys.”

  “My pets are dead,” he said with a shrug. “C’est le vivre. I told them to go along quietly when Sebastian’s men came but they thought they could handle a superior opponent. A sentiment you seem to share.”

  “Do you try to talk like a movie villain, or are you just cheesy like that?” Buffy would be proud.

  He smiled but it was a little tight. “I am of the flamboyant ilk, yes but perhaps you are right and I should cut to the quick.”

  “I’ve already told Caroline and Ash everything about your little secrets, so killing me will only get them revealed,” I said, surprised at how steady my voice was. Despite the strange abilities I knew he had, his unnatural strength, his position and his sword at my throat, I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I hated him but I wasn’t afraid of him.

  “As opposed to keeping you alive, which will somehow protect them, non?”

  “I promised Flea we wouldn’t reveal them to anyone else. It was the only way she’d let us out of the brig.”

  He studied me with the practiced disdain of a Los Angeles Maitre’d. “She was fool enough to believe such a promise and you are fool enough to keep it?”

  “More for her sake than yours but yeah.”

  He whipped the sword away from my neck and moved into my personal space, doing that tasting-the-air-with-his-tongue thing again. “Still so unmoved? I can tell those little chinks haven’t sucked on you this time, so where is that famous passion of yours?” He grabbed my chin, hard and I could see desperation rising to the surface behind his playful mask. “Did Sebastian piss on your high spirits when he beat you to a pulp? Is that what I’m seeing?”

  The misinterpretation made me smile. “Maybe I’m just enjoying the view from the moral high ground.”

  His eyes narrowed to slits and he shoved me backwards onto the ground. “You’ll find no satisfaction there, boy.”

  Valmont had some kind of ego problem with people who ruined his illusion of irresistibility. His interest in me stemmed from the fact that he hadn’t been able to bend me yet and didn’t understand why. He wouldn’t want to kill me until after he’d cracked me. He may look like a sissy, give attitude like a queen and dress like the love child of Marilyn Manson and Liberace but his ego is still all male.

  He strode a few paces away before turning coy again. “Since Sebastian proved too much for you, why not give me a try? Seeing as how circumstances have denied me the pleasure of watching the world plummet into chaos, I’m prepared to give you this opportunity to have your shot at me. There’s a pistol in your right leg pocket. Bring it out. Your gun against my sword, first to yield plays Pupil to the winner for a period of a lunar month.”

  He swished his sword and dared me with his eyes. What was his “passion” as Jade Tiger had called it? The answer came immediately, desire, lust. He wouldn’t have had any opportunities to feed since the meeting started. His offer was tempting, as he knew it would be but I didn’t think I could beat him with a gun.

  “Sorry,” I told him, getting up. “Not interested.”

&
nbsp; The blade whipped hard to the right. “Not interested in avenging your beloved? You’ll wish you had, in the nights to come, when you realize how she still longs for my touch, how I come to her again and again in her moments of darkest fantasy and how any pleasure you can give will forever be measured against those brief moments when every molecule of her unexceptional form burned with an ecstasy as bright as the sun!”

  That brought my rage back. I fought against it, telling myself that it was what he wanted and it would only encourage him but I still felt it creep up out of my belly and wind its way into my veins.

  I moved for the ladder again but Valmont followed and pressed his advantage. “No witty riposte this time? Surely that notion had already occurred to you? I found her so wet and ready a whore, that your rather limp response to the affair convinced me you’d all but given up on her—and if you so much as take hold of that ladder, I’ll drain you on the spot and leave your savaged carcass as evidence of Sebastian’s final victory.”

  He meant it. Preferences aside, he wasn’t going to let me walk away from him this time. I’d beaten my rage against Sebastian just minutes before, I could hold back now. I would not let myself think about fighting him. I would not entertain the smallest fantasy about killing him.

  “Come, now, let’s be honest,” he said, licking his lips in anticipation as his nostrils flared to inhale the feelings coming from me. “Isn’t that why Iago found it so easy to inflame your homicidal intentions? Because you saw Caroline for the cuckolding, manipulative little cunt that she is? No? Then, why this reluctance to defend her tarnished honor? What kind of man won’t even stand up to defend the woman he claims to love?”

  He’d moved in very close and pushed at my chest with his fingers to emphasize his questions, another tactic to irritate me into wanting a fight. I forced myself to think about Caroline, my mother, the Goddess and what they would want. Simple. If I couldn’t succeed by fighting, then I shouldn’t fight. Words were just words, after all.