Black Scars

by Steven Alan Montano

  SIXTEEN

  SAFE

  The first thing they did was locate one of Tega Ramsey’s safe houses – Cross wasn’t surprised to learn that he had several – so that they could get food and supplies.

  As it turned out, Ramsey had been afforded a surprising degree of autonomy for a vampire slave, though he attributed much of that success to his innate ability to sow confusion. The bureaucracy of the Ebon Cities was no less dense than that of the Southern Claw. All that you needed to do, he explained, was understand the system well enough to use it your own advantage, which in Ramsey’s case meant using magical artifacts that he possessed to disguise the fact that he’d sworn fealty to more than one vampire, even though a slave was only supposed to be able to pledge loyalty to one. Evidently, Ramsey had found a way to forge the sigil of allegiance inscribed on a living servant when they pledged themselves to a vampire; the sigil acted as some sort of clearance, or pass. If Ramsey was ever challenged by a vampire or their servants, he would reveal the sigil of another master, which apparently meant that he was to be left alone. This, it seemed, allowed him a great deal of flexibility in terms of moving through different vampire-controlled territories and gaining access to various embassies and outposts.

  Cross didn’t completely understand how it all worked, but Ramsey was still alive, so it was safe to assume that he knew what he was doing.

  Ramsey’s safe house was an abandoned gas station in what had once been northern Nevada. It was a forlorn and desolate old structure in the middle of its own personal desert, a dark-soiled wasteland populated with shattered stone walls and sand-filled ravines and dark-bodied scorpions the size of cats. The air was hot and moist and tasted of lime. Grim clouds circled the station like predators.

  Inside of a grimy and refuse-filled interior, the group ransacked lockers, cupboards and sealed compartments in search of supplies. More than a few rats and squatters had made their home there in the recent weeks. Thankfully, most of Tega’s goods were well hidden behind locked doors and in sealed containers, so they found the essentials that they needed: food (mostly jerky, rations, and MREs), vacuum-sealed bags and steel canteens filled with fresh water, some clean clothes and armor, boots, and even some weapons, mostly small arms but also some knives, a pair of Remington 870 pump-action shotguns, and an M16A2 that was in good working order.

  “This place is filthy,” Cole complained as they sifted through the goods in search of what they needed. She looked and sounded better than she had before, though it was clear that it would be some time before she was anywhere near full strength. They’d washed with Ramsey’s spare water and now hauled what was needed back to the airship. The ship, it turned out, had some sort of problem with the power routing system, which meant that the vessel couldn’t fly for very long without needing to be shut down to prevent a power overload. It was the vampire equivalent of the engine overheating.

  “If I’d have known I was going to have such lovely company over, I wouldn’t have given the maid the day off,” Ramsey said. He rifled through bags of mixed ammunition, and he pulled out rounds they could actually use and consolidated them into boxes.

  “This place reminds me of my old apartment,” Kane said with a laugh as he hefted a roll of blankets onto his shoulder.

  “Me, too,” Cross snickered. It felt like it had been years since he’d called the apartment in Thornn his home; it had become a storage room for stuff he never seemed to need.

  “When were you in my apartment?” Kane asked with a smile.

  It took Cross a moment before he got the joke. He laughed.

  “Oh, you guys are a riot,” Cole snickered.

  Everyone gathered supplies in the safe house except for the unconscious boy, who remained sleeping in the back of the ship, just like he’d been doing ever since they’d escaped from Krul; Black, who stood guard outside of the building with one of the shotguns; and Ekko, who was back on the ship making repairs.

  Cross never would have guessed it, but not only was Ekko a qualified pilot, she was also a capable engineer. Prior to being a gladiator in Krul, she’d actually been a criminal who smuggled contraband and drugs back and forth between some less luminary Southern Claw cities, places like Kalakkaii and Glaive. Kane, on the other hand, had been a laborer, at times a dockworker, at other times a smithy or a construction strong-back. He’d even been a miner before he’d been taken hostage by a band off less-than-brilliant smuggling associates of Ekko’s during an ill-fated job that wound up landing both of them in Krul.

  “Are you done yet?” Black yelled at them from outside.

  “Do we sound done?” Kane hollered back.

  “You sound like an idiot,” Black responded.

  “Thanks, Dani,” Cole muttered. “That helps.”

  Cross suppressed a laugh as he hauled a bag of first aid supplies out to the ship. They’d landed and parked it near the pumps, as if they’d pulled up for some Premium gas.

  That’s how it used to work, right? Everyone had a vehicle, a truck or something, and they could drive wherever they wanted, and when they ran out of fuel they just stopped at one of these places and bought some more for a few coins? They didn’t have to position people on watch or scour for food. They didn’t have to wonder what was coming over the ridge and whether or not it was going to try and eat them.

  Cross could barely conceive of such a place.

  Black gave him a wicked look as he ran by. The land was dead and dark in every direction, all rough gravel and soil interrupted only by the silhouettes of low and distant hills or rock formations. The sticky wind blew clouds that were the color of fresh wounds across the sky.

  “You guys need to hurry the hell up in there,” Black said. She cast her eyes out to the distance, watching, waiting for something to appear.

  Cross chose not to say anything. He stepped into the vampire vessel and stacked the medical supplies with the other goods they’d already brought on board.

  The child lay fast asleep beneath some wool blankets. The lad was far too thin, and unquestionably malnourished. His cheeks were shallow and his eyes were dark with fatigue. He still hadn’t spoken a word to anyone; in fact, he’d only been conscious for all of ten minutes ever since they’d rescued him.

  Ekko was at the console, where she knelt down and looked into an opened panel of circuits and wiring. She had a grim and determined look on her face. Cross sensed and felt her frustration, just as he felt her struggle against her own instincts. She was Turning, slowly, and if she did so completely her mind would join the vampire collective consciousness. There would be no thoughts she’d be able to keep to herself, even if she wanted to.

  Of course, if she Turns, she likely won’t want to. She’ll be too busy trying to eat us.

  Under different circumstances, it would have made no sense to keep her alive. No matter who she was, or who she had been, once she Turned she belonged to the Ebon Cities. But this, without question, was an unusual circumstance. Something kept her from changing, at least at the moment…Cross was fairly certain the Turning should have already happened by now. Maybe, he reasoned, it was the shard of Lucan Keth’s ancient and primal spirit that lay embedded in her soul. Maybe it was the bond she’d formed with Cross and his spirit, even though he’d felt that connection weaken ever since he’d lost the battle against Danica Black.

  Whatever the reason, Cross felt reasonably certain they had nothing to fear from her just yet.

  But what about later, if Keth’s spirit leaves us? What then?

  Sensing his presence, Ekko sat up and looked at him. Her coal black eyes seemed to suck the light out of the room. Her short blonde hair was now darker than her skin, which had gone the color of milk. Strangely, she smiled, and she nodded at Cross. He nodded back, and left her to her work.

  What a fucked up world, he thought.

  The sky grew darker, and yet the temperature rose. Cross started to sweat beneath the old black shirt he’d found in the safe house, a dirty and old piece of fabric that
looked like it had been used to clean the grease out of an old engine, and yet it was still nowhere near as filthy as the soiled rags he’d worn in Krul.

  Black shot another angry look at him as he passed her by. He felt their spirits tangle in an air suddenly turned electric, sharp and bloody. Hate welled in him, and he felt his spirit feed off of it, just as she lent it fuel.

  “You killed him, you know,” Black said.

  Cross stopped.

  Ramsey had given him an arcane gauntlet, one of several he’d stashed away there. Cross smelled its circuits, and he felt the portable battery buzz where it was strapped to his upper arm beneath his shirt. His spirit swirled around him like a ghostly snake. He also had an HK45 at his side, but that wasn’t what he’d use if anything happened.

  He slowly turned around. Black’s face was set with anger.

  “You picked me to fight,” Cross said coldly. “You wanted him dead for shooting down your waste of a brother.”

  Black smiled incredulously.

  “Is that what you think?” she snapped. “You think it’s really as simple as all that?”

  “You want to tell me different?”

  “You want to do me a favor or go stick your head in the engine when we take off?” she said. “Screw you, Cross. You had me in that fight. You could’ve taken me…but you didn’t.”

  Cross bit back his anger.

  “Understand something,” he said quietly. “I needed you and Cole alive so that you could fulfill your end of the bargain and show me where to find the Woman in the Ice. And that’s it. There’s a lot more at stake here than you or me getting revenge.” He saw Dillon, saw him hanging there, but he pushed the memory away. “I weighed his life against thousands. It’s as simple as that. There was never really a choice.” He took a breath. It felt cold, and it slid down his chest like a piece of ice. “Faced with the same decision, he’d have done the same thing in my place.”

  Cross turned away. He only then was aware of the tears in his eyes.

  “Is that what you’re going to tell yourself?” Black asked him. Her words were suddenly quiet, barely audible over the rising musk wind. “Is that thought going to help you sleep at night?”

  “Nothing is going to help me sleep at night,” he said quietly. “Not ever.” He turned back around. “What helps you sleep at night, Black? What drowns out the screams of all of those inmates that you used to watch die every day?”

  Black looked past him, into the darkness of the cold stone hills. It would be full dark soon, and they still had a long way to go.

  “I got her out,” she said. There was an unmistakably bitter note to her voice. “I saved her. I saved Cole.” She looked at Cross. Her smile was bleak as a warm blast of wind lifted her blood red hair. “And for the record…she would not have done the same for me.”

  She turned away. Cross watched her for a moment, and then he went back into the station.

  “So, what, you just concentrate and…it changes?” Kane asked.

  “Let me show you,” Ramsey said.

  Ramsey, Kane and Cross carried the last of the needed supplies out of the safe house and towards the airship. All in all, they had several days’ worth of food and water, enough weapons to tackle a small army, and enough fuel to get the airship to the Reach and back, provided Ekko had made any headway with the power issue.

  Kane had a box of water bottles hoisted on his shoulders, but he set them down long enough to watch Tega pull back the sleeve of his red cloak and show a pale and fleshy arm with a dark rune inscribed on the skin. The rune bore the likeness of a bladed letter “C”.

  “That’s the sign of House Rane…Drake’s house.” Ramsey stared at it, muttered a couple of obscure and unintelligible words, and touched it. The sigil ran like ink down his arm, and then quickly reformed into a twisted serpent that gripped a sword. “House Karn.” Again. This time the mark expanded, then shrank into the shape of a skull with horns at its jaw. “House Mora.”

  “That,” Kane nodded, “is SWEET!”

  Cross laughed. It felt good to be out of Krul. Good to be out in open air, not in the confines of the dark, not ankle deep in murk and muck, not confused if what he saw was really happening, or if days had passed since the last time he’d known what was going on. The feel of the air on his face, the roll of the breeze through his hands, the feeling of turning around and being able to see for miles in every direction…

  You need to get it together, he told himself. You still have a job to do. And time is short.

  They’d only spent a couple of hours gathering supplies and making repairs. It was time to get going.

  Cross was about to say as much when Black called up the alarm.

  “Incoming!”

  Everyone stopped, petrified. Their reverie snapped. Dark riders appeared in the distance, a cluster of forms that spread out like a bloody ink stain across the dark ground to the west. The rider’s massive mounts tore the ground open with mandibles and claws. Enormous bodies writhed and burrowed through the dark soil. They were half-a-mile away, and closing fast.

  “Vath!” Black shouted.

  Ravenous zombies, intelligent enough that they banded into flocks and hunted together, rode out of the dark hills. This far west, the Vath acted as servants of the vampires, who used them to patrol the lowlands between the Ebon Cities and root out intruders.

  Dull thuds sounded in the murky air as the Vath launched organic projectiles. There had to be twenty or more Vath, plus their mounts, and they’d be at the safe house inside of a couple of minutes. Even at their current distance Cross heard their gargling voices and lunatic, bloodthirsty calls. The air darkened around them as they rode, stained by the shadows that leaked from their corrupted souls.

  Cross, Kane and Ramsey hauled the last of the gear into the open rear door of the airship as fast as they could. His heart was already pounding, and soon Cross’ limbs ached from running while weighed down with bags of ammunition and dried goods. The air seemed to suck the wind out of his lungs as he ran.

  Black covered them from the rear, while Cross ran inside. Ramsey yelled for Ekko to start the engines. She furiously locked down the fuselage and activated the complicated network of runes that started the launch sequence. The turbines slowly lurched to life with a sound like hammers on metal.

  Cross dropped the bags, snatched up the M16A2 and the vampire triple-barrel from the wall, and ran back out. He didn’t see Cole or the boy.

  That can’t be good.

  The airship stood on flat ground right outside of the gas station, next to a long strip of open land that gave them plenty of room to take off.

  Black fired the Remington at the approaching crowd of creatures, but she was too far away to do any real damage. The Vath drew to within a quarter of a mile, near enough that Cross could make out details he’d have preferred not to.

  The Vath were taller than humans. They were eyeless and ebon-colored creatures with oversized mouths filled with knife-like teeth. Their bony carapaces leaked black dust and soot that poisoned the air around them, and glowing runes covered their emaciated bodies like tattoos. Spindly fingers worked bladed weapons wrought of bone and iron. They rode enormous scarab beetles and giant wriggling black worms the size of warhorses, which they anchored themselves to with razor-wire reins and bone spurs. Their collective call sounded like the dying breath of some enormous creature, a lunatic dirge filled with warbles and gasps. Cross smelled their foul auras even from a quarter mile away – charcoal fumes and burnt skin, dry rot and animal stink.

  The two lead Vathian riders held their bone staffs high. Churning dark matter formed between the rods like a banner of black dust.

  Cross’ spirit folded around him and jarred his skin with raw cold. Black’s spirit waited in the air as well, ready, smoldering, powerful. The ground smoked at their touch.

  Kane and Cole were right behind them with weapons drawn. Cross heard the airship shudder and lurch to life. Exhaust kicked dark dust into the air, which turn
ed molten and hazy with heat. Arcane energies sputtered as the ship lifted a few inches off of the ground.

  “Go!” Black shouted.

  Kane and Cole stepped up and slowly backed into the ship, their eyes on the approaching riders. Cross waited. The black haze of the Vath coalesced, built, doubled and redoubled its size. They were working magic, but some primal elemental force that didn’t require spirits, pure shadow energies.

  Dark missiles raced towards the ship: dripping shadow projectiles, meteors of melting oil. Cross’ spirit burned his fingers as he sent her forward in a wave of corrosive daggers. The bolts of magic were blasted into liquid shards that smoked the ground where they fell.

  Black released her spirit into a folding wave of sharp stones, a strip of razor rocks that twisted and turned like a flock of birds before they spun through the air in the shape of a murderous propeller. The energies hacked dark bodies apart, and they fell forward into piles of broken shell and oozing worm flesh. The earth steamed.

  Inside of the airship behind them, someone screamed. Cross raced inside.

  The air burned dark behind him. Looming shadows formed faces and stretched across the sky. Danica sliced through them with whips of red fire. The air was gritty, and tasted of brimstone.

  Inside, Ramsey flew against the wall with a thud. It was the boy who’d thrown him.

  By the time Cross reached the melee, Kane had grappled the child with one hand and held a machete in the other. The boy clawed and spat at him, growled from a mouth of shadows and desperately reached for Kane’s face with a prehensile tongue covered in barbed and dripping quills.

  Cole was face-down on the floor. Ekko desperately tried to lower the floating ship so that she could help, since her gun lay just out of reach.

  “No, fly!” Cross shouted. He hefted the triple-barrel shotgun, and hesitated. There was no way he’d only hit the child if he fired, so he dropped the weapon and raced at them with his spirit wrapped around his hands.

  The boy kicked Kane in the groin, doubled him over, put long fingers into the big man’s hair and rammed his head against the floor. He turned Kane over, hissed, and pressed his talons against the man’s eyes.