The Key was unguarded, ready to be taken.
Movement dragged his gaze away from the Key. A tall lithe woman with long dark free-flowing hair, stepped across the threshold into the vault. She was dressed in a close-fitting black jumpsuit, a lightweight black leather coat draped her shoulders and swirled around her knees. The gore-soaked blade in her hands was instantly recognizable - the Red Dragon.
Armitage!
Cornelius Crane emerged from the shadows in the sunken antechamber. He was wearing a dark suit beneath a black leather trench coat. He momentarily doffed a dark-gray fedora hat and ducked to clear the low entrance of the doorway. He strode into the vault, his gaze arresting on the Key for a brief moment before flicking upward to lock upon Arthur at the opposite end of the chamber.
Arthur snapped the Black Dragon into guard position above his left shoulder. The naked blade gleaming majestically in the electric lantern light. Against either of these opponents he’d have taken his chances, but against both together? He tightened his eyes for a moment, the only way he was going to escape this vault alive was by finding a way through the two most dangerous vampires in existence. He summoned the wild Ramp into veiled existence, its coiled power able to be unleashed in an instant. The wild Ramp rode strong emotions, welling forth from a place deep within. Blue fire suffused his nerves and muscles. A dry smile curled the edges of his mouth, his gaze watchful and alert.
Crane drew his weapon. The long bastard sword clearing the scabbard at his waist with a sibilant hiss. He held it with his right hand, the dusky blade slanting down across his body from right to left. The length and heft of the weapon a perfect match for his vampiric speed and strength. His brown eyes widened in avid interest, he smiled and said, “Mr. Slayne, I presume. You have answered the last question posed by Michelangelo in his secret notes - what is the final ward guarding the Key of Ahknaton?” he nodded once. “Such assistance should not go unrewarded. Yes, I think a quick rather than a slow death will do.”
Armitage flicked her sword, fresh gore painting the nearest wall in a thin red ribbon. The blade vanished before reappearing in guard position above her left shoulder. A slight smile graced her sensual lips. Her vivid blue eyes studied Arthur, her gaze as relentless and cold as an advancing glacier.
Crane raised his right eyebrow; it was all the signal Armitage needed.
Three things happened at once.
Crane swapped his sword to his left hand, the smoky-gray blade angled point first at Arthur. He blurred toward the pillar, his right arm outstretched, his long fingers grasping for the Key of Ahknaton.
Armitage leaped, wall running to Arthur’s left. She shifted the Red Dragon to her left hand. The gleaming blade arcing down like a silvery thunderbolt.
Arthur had a single reckless chance to win the Key and his life. He drew the wild Ramp to fruition, cobalt fire racing along his limbs. He blurred toward Crane. Taking advantage of the polished marble floor, he leaned back, sliding feet first toward Crane’s boots. With his right hand held high, he feinted toward Crane’s blade with the Black Dragon.
The vampire king leaped into the air to avoid Arthur’s attack.
Sliding beneath Crane’s leap, Arthur swept the Black Dragon back against Armitage’s savage strike. His katana met the Red Dragon with a ringing blow, blade scraping against blade without sparks, neither weapon able to consume its sibling’s edge.
Armitage passed behind him, her sword deflecting away.
Above him, Crane was falling toward him, his great blade slashing down.
Arthur’s right foot spun in a wide arc across the floor. Pivoting on his other foot, his left hand rose up, sweeping across the top of the marble pillar. His head swiveled; Crane was closest, Armitage advanced upon him from behind. He snapped the Black Dragon up again, grinding the meteoric-iron blade against the vampire king’s descending sword.
The blades met, scraping against each other without sparks. Crane’s blade was the equal of his own. The tips of his outstretched fingers brushed the Key - sending it spinning away. The momentum of his right-foot kick curled him upright on his left foot. Pushing forward in a single movement, his left hand clenching on empty air, he sprinted toward the open doorway.
A pair of thuds reverberated behind him; Crane’s boots landing on the polished stone.
Armitage advanced through the vault in a whisper of displaced air.
Arthur instinctively jerked to the right, a thrown blade slashing past him. The Red Dragon embedded itself to the hilt in the dark wood of the vault door; a thunderous crack of violated oak echoing throughout the maze. Blurring through the doorway, he flung his left hand out, slamming the heavy door shut behind him. The silvery blade of the trapped katana, a gleaming dragon’s tooth protruding into the sunken antechamber. He leaped, landing in the upper tunnel. He severed a pair of thick ropes. The Black Dragon, flashing in the soft light of the lanterns. The giant flagstone crashed back into the floor with a reverberating thud. It was wide and heavy; it’d taken a dozen strong men with ropes and pulleys five minutes to lift it ten feet off the floor.
It would slow the vampires by a matter of seconds.
Seconds, Arthur hoped would be enough for him to escape. He ran for his life, reaching the streets beyond the boundaries of Vatican City a couple of minutes later. He pulled to a halt in a darkened alleyway, his sword drawn, peering into the street lamp lit gloom behind him. His eyes searched the rooftops for the slightest movement but only still shadows and gloomy outlines greeted him.
He took a deep breath and sighed. Father Rossi was dead, his gutted corpse passed in the maze as he’d made his escape, another member of the Order of Thoth lost to Armitage’s blade. Arthur’s eyes narrowed with disgust. He’d escaped with his life, but the Key of Ahknaton had been lost to the vampires. The bitter ashes of defeat and failure choked his throat - he could barely draw breath into his lungs.
Slamming his sword into its scabbard, he turned away, disappearing like a wraith into the shadows.
* * *
“Wisdom is borne on two vessels; one is joy and the other is sadness. Both must be honored or both will be lost.” - Gang Wu
* * *
Boston, April 26th, Eighteen years before the present, 23:12
Arthur Slayne stood on a parapet overlooking the Massachusetts General Hospital.
The night air was filled with the tang of a late spring shower. A Nokia mobile phone began ringing a couple of yards behind him. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned down at the multi-story obstetrics wing across the street. The black clouds decided at that moment to begin their next shower and light drops began to wet his dark, unruly hair.
Gang Wu spoke behind him, “Arthur, it’s William - you have a grandson, they’ve named him Anton after Anna’s father.”
Arthur sighed with relief, Anna’s labor had been long and hard. She’d insisted on a natural birth, trusting in her Ramp genetics to ease the process, but there had been difficulties and the birth had dragged through the afternoon and into the night.
Arthur, Gang Wu, Jonathan Thunder-Axe, and the recently married Francis and Juliette Mirovar had kept watch from the top of the building across the street. Anna and William Slayne had been hidden within Boston for a year under the aliases of Anna and William Smith. The five people watching from above, like guardian angels or flesh and blood gargoyles, were the only ones who knew the truth.
A truth the Order of Thoth must never discover. It wasn’t enough for Ramin Kain to frame him for the murder of his friends, George Madison and Mary Creeley, to see him exiled from the Order, to corrupt an institution he revered. No, Kain had come after his family. He’d given their location to the vampires, and they had barely managed to survive an attack by an overwhelming force.
The vampires hadn’t counted on Francis Mirovar, Gang Wu and himself visiting his children that night. It had been bloody mayhem, but the extra forces had ensured the survival of all instead of the death of William and Anna. It was dangerous to be
a Slayne, and the current leadership of the Order would stop at nothing to eliminate everyone associated with his name.
Arthur’s assembled friends had helped him move Heaven and Earth to keep Anna and William safe by hiding them. His new grandson would probably never know the Ramp, the abilities would skip a generation while the corruption of the Order of Thoth burnt itself out, or destroyed the Order altogether. He would do what needed to be done to provide for the following generation. He would ensure they would own the legacy of their powers.
He’d initiated a plan to kill Crane and Armitage and destroy the Vampire Dominion. It would take another twenty years to mature. He closed his eyes thoughtfully; about the same time his new grandson would take to reach adulthood. Anton would have no part to play in the destruction of the Vampire Dominion. No, his role was to remain hidden and carry the Slayne line forward. It would be Anton’s children who would emerge back into a world vastly different from the current one.
Arthur turned around, dropping down from the parapet to the concrete roof with a single step. The others stood in a line in front of him, he clapped Gang and Jonathan on the shoulders and grinned as he looked around at his friends. “Let’s find a bar and celebrate.”
The birth of his grandson was the only bright light in an otherwise dismal year. A drink with the finest the Order had to offer would round out one of the proudest days of his life.
Chapter One
“Lions adapt their hunting strategy to the specific vulnerabilities of their prey - and so do I.” - Chloe Armitage
* * *
New York City, South of Brooklyn, September 10th, 23:45
James Haley checked the homeless man he’d abducted forty-five minutes earlier.
Finding someone who wouldn’t be missed was just another Panopticon search targeting the least number of social connections. The man was a habitual loner who made a perfect solution for James’ current mission. He was propped up against the left-side rear wheel of James’ black SUV. The vehicle gleamed beneath powerful lamps running in two strips down the length of a small warehouse. The site was privately owned through a string of holding companies that ultimately led back to Shadowstone. The warehouse had been kept spotlessly clean and well maintained for years, but had never been used - until now.
James pressed his fingers against the man’s throat. His pulse was steady, if a little weak. He was not the healthiest subject to shoot with a sleeper dart, but it was more important that no one would come searching for him.
He’d operated with minimal forewarning of the new mission. His last meeting with Chloe in his office had ended less than two hours earlier. He’d spent ten minutes setting a number of tasks and searches running in the Panopticon, and then driven his car to the warehouse south of Brooklyn. She’d wanted a means of fast transport for the chameleons. A drone, newly delivered to Shadowstone was on its way, and would arrive in another five minutes. He’d retracted the warehouse’s roof-hanger doors, revealing a rectangular gap twenty yards across and twice that long onto the city-lit night sky.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” James whispered in a matter-of-fact tone as he wiped his fingers clean on a handkerchief. He followed up by wiping his prints off the man’s neck with the same cloth, before putting his leather gloves back on. There was every chance there would be nothing left of the man by tomorrow, but James was nothing if not thorough in covering his tracks.
He briefly pressed his lips into a thin line. It was a small mercy the man would never wake from the sleeper dart. He was a reward, of a sort, for the chameleons. Small mercies were best, no man wanted to be torn apart by a predator. It was better the nameless man should never wake up and be confronted by such horror.
James acknowledged he was undoubtedly a killer, perhaps even a murderer, but he wasn’t cruel - no, never cruel.
He walked around to the back of the SUV, and lifted the tailgate. He reached inside and flicked a switch on an electronic control. A thin, choking cry emanated in perfectly rendered sound from the car’s audiovisual system. Thirty seconds later, it played again. The sound file had been extracted from Chloe’s TAC helmet after her first encounter with the chameleons. He’d no idea what the sound meant but it sent a shiver crawling up his spine whenever he heard it.
James stepped away from the SUV, brushing imaginary dirt from his gloves. The cry was alien, and yet seemed to carry a plaintive sense of loss, overlaid with an implacable need for vengeance. The implicit threat was palpable. The cry continued to play twice a minute on a continuous loop, raising the short hairs on the back of his thick neck with each rendition. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was carrying an uprated .45 caliber Glock within a shoulder holster beneath his suit jacket. The ammunition was a Shadowstone special load designed for maximum damage to unarmored flesh but he figured if he needed to use it, he wouldn’t survive the night.
He snorted in a moment of self-derision. His choices had rendered his survival into a day by day proposition. He’d thrown his lot in with Chloe and he’d see it through to whatever end. It was too late to waste time second guessing past decisions. He scanned the entrances. They were all locked, except a large garage roller door that opened onto an alleyway behind the warehouse. The bright illumination within the warehouse spilled through the broad doorway into the gloom. He was at an obvious disadvantage standing in the middle of a large, well-lit space while anyone could be watching unseen within the thick shadows shrouding the far side of the alleyway.
The alien cry sounded again.
A bead of sweat appeared on James’ brow and he reflexively wiped it away. The waiting was the hard part. He checked his watch, only three minutes had passed since he’d started playing the recorded sound. He glanced back at the alleyway behind the warehouse, where the hell were they?
The darkness beyond the roller door thickened into terrifying solidity. The first chameleon emerged from the shadows like gray smoke congealing into a living nightmare. James’ jaw dropped, then he clamped it shut. It was all he could do to avoid reaching for his gun. Chloe had expressly warned him to avoid drawing a weapon. Any overt show of aggression would invite deadly attack. He took an involuntary step backward, then held his ground, his pulse thumping in his ears. The memory of what the chameleons had done to nearly twenty armed gangsters uppermost in his mind.
The creature advanced a dozen feet. It stood close to eight feet tall, heavy through chest, shoulder and thigh. It’s skin, a mottled blend of grays and bone-whites rolled over thick muscles bunching and releasing with coiled power. Its coal-black eyes, filled with a shallow wariness resting over unfathomable depths, flicked with cold deliberation about the nearly empty warehouse.
A second monster stepped from the shadows. A half-foot shorter than the first, it moved to the right, sniffing the air briefly before locking its spine-chilling gaze on James. Its shadow-filled eyes drifted lower by a fraction of an inch - staring hard at his throat. A thin line of clear drool escaped past rows of bared teeth, dropping in wet splats on the pale concrete of the warehouse floor.
For a second, James’ mind froze, then kicked frenziedly into gear. Where was the third? There were supposed to be three. He dragged his gaze off the two chameleons he could see, his instincts screaming at him to run. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and scanned the warehouse - there was nothing to see.
The choking cry sounded again.
The two chameleons snarled, hissing their obvious displeasure.
James’ hand flew into the rear of the SUV and switched the recording off.
The creatures fell into silence, watching him balefully, their muscular tails lashing slowly behind them.
A thin ripping screech erupted from the right-side front corner of the SUV. James jerked away to his left. His right hand reflexively reaching into his jacket for his gun. He stopped himself from drawing it just in time, the two chameleons had ducked their heads and appeared to be on the verge of charging forward.
A third chameleon
ghosted into view to the right of the SUV, dragging a single talon along the side of the car. The SUV’s skin had been hardened with Shadowstone ceramic armor; it flaked and shattered, giving way before the creature’s black talon like it was made of tinfoil. The chameleon’s gaze locked on his own. Its jaw gaped open, revealing rows of serrated teeth. A thin line of clear drool leaked past the creature’s gleaming teeth, splashing in fat drops on the concrete floor.
James guts curdled and clenched. He’d never experienced anything quite like this before. Here was a creature that not only looked upon him as prey, but was superbly equipped to hunt, kill and eat him, and his vaunted combat skills meant nothing against such a foe as this.
The third chameleon took a step forward, and said with a voice that was surprisingly human, “Offer insult? Why play this death call?” It cocked its head near one-hundred and eighty degrees to the left, “Foolish man.”
“I’m … I’m sorry,” James stammered. “It’s what Chloe provided me to call you with.”
The creature stood up to its full height, easily eight feet tall and pinned James with a glare. “Your master … night stalker, blood thief … chose poorly.”
The silence stretched, broken only by James’ pulse drumming in his ears.
The creatures raised their heads as one, apparently noticing something beyond what James could sense. The chameleons blurred and then vanished.
“What the hell!” James growled. Although half-relieved by their sudden absence, what if Chloe showed up now? The chameleons were gone, and he was left standing around with his thumb up his ass. “What a clusterfuck.”
James shook his head, the prospect of using the chameleons as some sort of ally filled him with dread. He frowned and shook his head; this was the first decision Chloe had made that he didn’t understand. The creatures were too powerful to control, how could she ever hope to bend them to her will?
The Crane War Page 2
