by Masha Dark
“What’s going on there?” frowned Pavel.
“Don’t worry about it, he’s just raving about something,” she muttered. “I think his brain’s cracked from watching too much TV.“
Dalana landed gently on the roof of the mansion, feeling the weight of the sword that was resting in the sheath on her back. For the present everything was going smoothly – she had parked the car, reached the wall and cleared the Sentinel unharmed. The only thing that made her uneasy was the trail of Dolon that Dalana had noticed in the sky on her way here.
The West Wind has returned.
And he has brought a new disaster.
Dalana diligently spun her thoughts of disaster around and thrust them deep into her consciousness. She couldn’t think about that right now. The kun-mus would scent her agitation.
Crouching close to the roof like a cat, Dalana meticulously probed the entire perimeter of the room that would be her point of ingress. The room seemed empty and relatively secure.
It seemed strange to Dalana that there was not a single living soul on the entire territory of the mansion besides the master and his Sentinel. The guest house, where a whole staff of servants had been living, was now suspiciously empty. Had Soigu suddenly decided to dismiss all his personnel, right down to the cook?
Dalana cautiously flared her nostrils, taking in the cool evening air. It smelled of blood. The weak, but all the same palpable aroma lingered over the lair of the kun-mus. Had he really thrown off so much reserve that he was dragging his victims right here to the house where his wife and child lived? Dealing with such a ravening predator would be anything but simple. She was going to have to earn that two million dollar bonus.
Dalana lowered herself to the nearby window. Suddenly her keen hearing caught a sound coming from beyond the boundaries of the grounds. A car was evidently approaching the main gates of the mansion.
“Well…that which is begun in God’s name never ends in evil,” said Volsky. “Let’s begin the operation.”
After she landed in total darkness on the second floor of the mansion, Dalana tried to suppress the disquiet that had overtaken her. The thick, sweet-sharp odor of blood that permeated the air inside the house excited and disturbed her, but it was something else that troubled her. For the last several minutes Dalana had been persecuted by the feeling that her secret was out, that the kun-mus was aware of her presence and was now simply playing with her like a cat plays with a mouse. The crusaders who had just shown up out of the blue did not at all add to her good cheer. Dalana didn’t know if it was Fate’s will or simple coincidence that her path and the path of the humans from the Coalition had crossed once again, but it seemed strange to her that CRUSS had chosen this night to arrest the ‘dangerous special offender, the werewolf Alexander Soigu’. Sadly, Dalana had neither the time nor the opportunity to feel out the mind of one of the agents who had taken her by surprise.
But it seemed that stages D and E of her plan were in dire need of immediate correction. Dalana was practically hissing from vexation. How could she kill the kun-mus now? She would not have the luxury of wasting three hours waiting for the poison to weaken the shell of the monster. If only…
At that moment there was an ear-splitting scream outside.
“What the hell is going on there?” whispered Volsky, turning pale.
Marisa realized that it was Arvid who was screaming. After a few seconds his cries broke off. Marisa watched as the gates in the solid wall smoothly swung open.
“Pavel, what the fucking hell?” she said slowly.
The only reply she got was Special Agent Volsky’s bewildered stare.
Those children are impaling themselves on the Sentinel, guessed Dalana.
So her plan might not have to be altered after all. The Sentinel might not leave anyone alive.
Walking stealthily, Dalana step by step stalked towards the drawing room where, as she had expected, the kun-mus was. There were no lights on in the room. Dalana hoped that the monster was sleeping. There was no way she could know for sure. Dalana was unwilling to encroach so deeply upon the consciousness of the kun-mus – it was too fraught with consequences.
Holding the poisoned dart at the ready, Dalana slipped through the partially opened door to the drawing room.
He was here. Sleeping right on the floor. Small, thin, and half dead.
“Ha!” said a voice behind Dalana. “It seems we have ourselves an uninvited guest! This’ll liven things up a bit.”
The moment the lights flared on, Dalana realized that the mousetrap had snapped shut.
You’ve been caught in a snare, little birdie.
Turning quickly towards the voice, Dalana launched the dart.
Soigu opened his mouth wide in astonishment, and then he simply pulled the dart from his chest and broke it in half.
“Come in, come in,” Soigu said to Dalana. “I’ve been waiting for half an hour. You were cooling your heels on the roof for quite a while.”
From outside came yet another bloodcurdling howl, and then another and another.
“My little baby boy is taking care of them,” said Soigu, grinning carnivorously. “But of course I won’t give him all of them. I’ve left at least three for myself. There’s a pair there that I really want to get my hands on. I’ll make sure those two get an especially long and painful death. But why don’t you have a seat. I still have loads of time – you can help me pass it.”
Dalana despaired as she looked at the creature that was standing opposite her. He was grinning, baring his white, as yet still human teeth.
“No,” Dalana whispered in a hoarse voice.
“Sit,” said the creature imperiously and then he continued his speech on the extrasensory level.
Yes, you are not mistaken, Daughter of the Red Family. I am he, before whom tremble nine eastern and eleven western Tengri. I am he, who remembers the moon in the empty sky and the bare earth under the rays of the red sun. I am he, who, having torn the Fabric of the Worlds, appeared here to tread underfoot the moronic precepts of the contemptible little humans.
The creature let out a savage, booming laugh, and Dalana succumbed to his mental onslaught, collapsing onto the floor.
The creature continued his tirade inside Dalana’s head.
I am he who is known by a thousand names, but whom you have known since birth and whom you fear more than death. I am Arkhan! The Thirteenth Mankhus of the Underworld!
CHAPTER TEN
1.
Hoc age!
Do it!
(Roman exhortation)
Marisa stood stock still as if hypnotized – five human bodies contorted into the most inconceivable poses were caught in the grass, inexorably flowing outwards and becoming a monstrous, gelatinous mass.
Just like Rus….
“God, what the hell happened to them?” asked Graham, who was practically crying.
Marisa stepped towards the lawn.
“Don’t step on it!” roared Stefan in a completely insane voice. “The grass, that’s it! Don’t walk on the grass!”
“Get back!” snapped Volsky and he pulled Marisa away – she had been just about to bring her foot down on the pernicious, verdant expanse.
Marisa shook off her entrancement.
“Thank you,” she stammered.
“I saw it, I saw it all,” Stefan panted through shaking lips. “It was the grass, it killed them…”
Then Marisa saw that all the surveillance cameras were turned towards them.
“Pavel,” she said in a low voice, trying to attract Volsky’s attention.
“I know.” Pavel nodded bitterly. “He knew from the very beginning that we were coming. He was waiting for us.”
Suddenly Marisa heard something in her head, something that was unmistakably an order:
COME TO THE HOUSE, DON’T STEP ON THE LAWN.
And instantly her body turned towards the mansion as if it was subject to another’s will.
“Pavel,” Marishka managed to get her words
out through disobedient lips. “Something is happening to me.”
Spread out on the floor, Dalana calculated her strength. The likelihood of escaping from this captivity was negligible. The creature Dalana knew as Arkhan was too strong.
Arkhan, like the other twelve Magni, his brothers and sisters, was immortal. It did not seem possible that Arkhan could be deprived of his life, not by any means, even the most refined. The only conceivable way would be to destroy the human disguise of this ferocious, ancient god of the Underworld. But she still had to come up with some way to kill this shell, which Arkhan had pulled over himself like a summer suit. The poison was useless.
Dalana realized that she would probably not come out of this fight the victor. Stage E was nowhere in sight. Dalana did not know of a single living creature who had gotten mixed up with such Underworlders. Even the Tengri avoided them. The baker’s dozen of Magni rightfully considered themselves among the most terrible creations in the entire Underworld. Bearing in mind the diversity and might of the creatures that lived there, Dalana, who had never before encountered Arkhan or his siblings, assumed that a balefully bloodthirsty omnipotence lurked under that human layer. She had heard many times over the years that he deprived all of their last hope for survival… All. But not her. Dalana resolved to fight for her life to the bitter end.
“Chances are we won’t be able to escape,” she suddenly heard a child’s voice say behind her. “But we should still risk it. It’s better to die fighting than to allow him to gnaw at us like grilled chicken.”
Dalana gingerly got to her feet and stared at the owner of the voice. He was sitting on the floor next to the fireplace, with one leg placed under him at a strange angle.
“Hello,” she greeted him. “If I understand correctly, you’re his son?”
“Yes,” confirmed the boy. “My name is Jan, and I am his son. His and mama’s. Mama was a human. He killed her when she tried to protect me. He’ll return soon – he went for the humans from ‘Cross’.”
Dalana could not help smiling when she heard how he pronounced the acronym of the Coalition, changing the ‘u’ to an ‘o’.
“There are four of them,” Jan continued. “The lawn monster killed the others. But I recognized you. You’re that X-Man I heard two days ago, aren’t you?”
Dalana examined the boy with interest. He was small and weak…but all the same he was the biological son of a Begotten of Old. Even if he was a half-blood.
Can you hear me? asked Dalana, switching to mental communication. If you can, nod.
Jan nodded.
And can you reply?
Yes. But it’s pointless; he’ll still intercept us.
Do you know how to conceal your thoughts?
Yes, but not for very long. He’s much stronger than me.
This is the plan. When he returns try to distract him so that he can’t hear me. And then I will try to deprive him of the ability to move. Then we’ll go from there.
I read you. But I can’t promise that I’ll succeed. I think my leg is broken – at least, it hurts terribly.
The most important thing is not to give up beforehand, okay?
“He’s coming,” murmured Jan.
Dalana concentrated, readying her body and her mind for the coming battle. She hoped to cut off the monster’s head with her first swing. The question was, how quickly would it grow back? And how long could the boy hold his attention? She would need to use the captured humans as a diversion.
The door to the drawing room swept open, and Dalana beheld Soigu again. He was not alone. Three young men and a young woman walked into the drawing room with him. Dalana instantly recognized the woman as Marisa Sukhostat.
“My friends!” Soigu exclaimed theatrically. “New guests have arrived. Now you can get to know each other.”
Realizing that she couldn’t waste any more time, Dalana bridged the distance to Soigu in two leaps, pulled the sword from her back and swung it at the monster’s neck with all her strength. The head came loose from the torso for a split second but almost immediately began to grow back.
Marisa recognized the dark-haired vampire at the very moment she savagely swung her blade with the intention of taking off Soigu’s head.
Marisa’s first desire was to lodge all her remaining ammo into the vampire. Marisa’s hand jerked, but it could not take her gun out of its holster. Marisa’s body, which had until just now been under the werewolf’s power, was not yet obeying its owner well.
Marisa watched in amazement as the freshly severed head grew back almost in the blink of an eye. The monster’s retaliation was not far behind – the werewolf simply threw both its arms forward and struck a pulverizing blow to the vampire’s face. She flew back several meters and fell, bathing the floor with blood from a jagged wound on her forehead.
“This is for you, you bitch,” swore Graham as he whipped out his gun and unloaded the clip into Soigu’s back.
Soigu turned and, grinning broadly, moved towards Graham.
“In the head, shoot him in the head!” yelled Dalana, pressing her palm to the wound.
Soigu grabbed Graham and with one sharp movement ripped the boy in half. His slippery intestines spilled out onto the floor at Soigu’s feet.
In a violent frenzy, Volsky, Marisa and Stefan fired at the monster from three sides. From the corner of her eye Marisa noticed the boy – the son of the fiend – who was desperately trying to squeeze his back into the stone of the unlit fireplace. She realized that a stray bullet might hit the boy – he was in the line of fire. But she kept pressing down on the trigger until she heard the dry clicks that indicated the clip was empty.
Volsky and Stefan were trying to reload their guns quickly, but the monster, with a bloody stump instead of a head, launched itself at Stefan. They crashed down to the ground together.
“Ah, you devil!” yelled Volsky, futilely aiming his gun at the monster.
Stefan was underneath.
Dalana watched the fight through the bloody fog covering her eyes. Her vision, which had been lost for a while after Arkhan struck her, gradually returned.
I’m sorry. I can’t, The boy’s words flashed through her mind.
“Indeed,” grumbled Dalana aloud.
The headless Soigu-Arkhan succeeded in getting up first. It seemed he felt fine even in such a state. The missing piece of his body had been reduced to individual clumps of skin and bone that dangled around gaping wound of his neck. That which had been his head before now resembled a monstrous ruff collar.
Arkhan seized the crusader by the belt, lifted him up off the floor and tossed him right through a closed window. The glass broke and the man’s body flew outside together with a part of the window frame.
The monster now started striping off pieces of its own flesh. The two humans and the two non-humans observed this nightmarish process of transformation with horror.
He’s throwing off his shell, Dalana realized.
In the meantime her vision had already returned enough that she could readily move. Springing to her feet, Dalana darted towards the exit.
Marisa, who had her gun trained on the monster as it unmercifully ripped itself to shreds, saw the vampire bolting for the door. Without hesitation she swung her gun to the side and fired into the chest of the dark-haired bitch.
The shot hurled the already weakened Dalana even further towards the wall. She bellowed from pain and frustration.
“What are you doing?” yelled Volsky.
“That’s the vampire!” Marisa screamed hysterically. “She’s the one who killed Rus!”
“You idiot, we’re all going to die now!” exclaimed Dalana, regretting that she couldn’t reach the wretched girl.
“But at least you won’t be getting away,” roared Marisa hoarsely.
I should have killed you at the airport when I had the chance, thought Dalana.
“Die, freak!” Pavel cried rabidly, and he flung himself at the fiend.
He discharged his gun at poin
t black range several times, but the monster, which now was just a shapeless mass with four appendages, managed to use one of those appendages to tear the gun away from Volsky.
Marisa realized that he’d torn it away together with Pavel’s arm. Volsky, pressing his remaining hand to the fountain of blood that surged from the wound, took a few steps to the side and fell over.
“Pavel!” yelled Marisa in a sinking voice.
“Don’t go to him, you fool!” said the vampire.
The girl glanced at her. The vampire was leaning against the wall, obviously not in good shape.
“You won’t escape,” said Marisa in a faltering voice. “Do you hear me? If you so much as twitch…”
Dalana ground her teeth.
“You know, I could have done away with you and your barbaric boyfriend, but I decided to let you live because I love beautiful things. I’ve paid for it.”
“I’m going to kill you, bitch,” replied Marisa and she aimed at the vampire’s heart.
“Don’t you worry,” Dalana said indifferently, jerking her head towards the monster. “It’s the end for both of us now.”
Marisa turned her head around, following the gaze of the vampire. At the same instant she realized that the dark-haired beast was right. It really was over for both of them.
Dalana regarded Arkhan hopelessly. The monster’s transformation had been achieved successfully and now he stood before his captives in his true form. As Dalana had suspected, he was a formidable and abominable creature with fangs, claws, scales and a misshapen penis that dangled between his curved, muscular legs.
“So, the first act is over,” said the monster, growling deep in his chest. “Now the really fascinating stuff begins.”
Arkhan glanced contemptuously at Volsky’s body lying on the floor.
“Such little children you are, thinking this would be as easy as putting down a herd of pseudo-vampires. You thought it would be as easy as ‘I came, I saw, I shot’, right? You thought to yourselves, I’ll just vault over the wall, pluck the door from its hinges and presto – I’m counting my money all the way to the bank!”