Cronin's Key II

by N. R. Walker

  Then the voices were arguing, so many voices. Eiji and Jacques, Kennard, all of them arguing with Genghis, and the noise was becoming overwhelming. He tried to block them out, tried to concentrate on Cronin’s words, his touch, and as he lay there with his head turned, he could see Jorge crying and mumbling to himself, or was he speaking out loud, or just in Alec’s head? Alec wasn’t sure.

  Then, somehow, he remembered the watch. Fumbling with leaden hands, Alec reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out the watch that he’d given Jorge, that they’d taken from him to lure them all here.

  Jorge’s eyes widened when he saw what Alec was holding, and he started to smile. He quickly scampered across the floor, through the pillars of legs, and grabbed Alec’s hand, taking the watch before the tall vampire pulled him back.

  He thought he heard Cronin gasp, but everything swirled, he was so hot—too hot—and Alec knew this wasn’t going to plan.

  He knew his breaths were sharp and short. And numbered. He was burning from the inside out, the poison was leaching into every part of him. He had to tell Cronin one last thing. He had to tell him. He gripped Cronin’s hand and tried to speak. But he couldn’t get the air in his lungs to work.

  The pain and weight was too much, and he closed his eyes, needing every ounce of energy so he could say these last words. Cronin leaned in real close. “Alec? What is it?” It sounded like a tortured sob. His voice was burdened with the pain Alec felt.

  “Don’t,” Alec rasped. “Don’t you dare… don’t you dare let me die.”

  Alec could rest then, he thought, just for a moment. A tormented growl cracked through the air, and Alec didn’t hear any of the mayhem after that.

  * * * *

  Cronin saw it as soon as Jorge’s hand touched Alec’s. He knew what it was immediately: a transference of vision. He was holding Alec’s hand when Jorge touched him, using Alec as a conductor between them, allowing Cronin to see into Jorge’s mind. The briefest of moments, he saw it.

  Look with your mind. Like Jorge does.

  It wasn’t a jumbled mess like he would have assumed, it wasn’t split into different versions of Jorge. It was crystal clear.

  He wondered if he could use the cloaker’s powers to shield his friends, to protect them, or if he could use Genghis’ powers of persuasion against him. Cronin thought, for just one second, about delving into the madman’s mind.

  And then he thought of a much quicker way.

  Cronin pulled the pistol from Alec’s holster and without another word, he shot Genghis Khan in the heart, then the tall vampire who guarded Jorge. Both men crumbled to dust, and Jorge ran through the vampires to stand, hiding behind Cronin. Eiji, Jodis, and Jacques reacted immediately, arming themselves and crouching into defensive positions.

  “Cronin?” Eiji asked, not taking his eyes off the two remaining vampires. “What’s going on?”

  “It really was much quicker,” he replied. “Alec was right. It was never Genghis Khan. He was no more than a ruse.” Cronin turned to look at the Terracotta soldiers. “Look at them. They haven’t moved. Khan never controlled them like he thought he did. He was no more than a puppet.”

  “How do you know?” Jodis asked.

  “Jorge showed me in his mind. He saw him.”

  “Saw who?” Kennard asked.

  “Who’s been behind this the whole time,” Cronin said. “Alec was right all along.” Cronin simply aimed the handgun at two of the other vampires, who were suddenly very outnumbered. “Where is he?”

  A burst of laughter came from nowhere, then a vampire, shrouded with a dark hood, literally seemed to appear from thin air. His face was obscured by the hood but Jacques reacted immediately. He stood in front of Cronin and Alec, facing this new enemy with a stake in each hand. “He is the one who killed Mikka, the one Alec chased through the alleys of New York City.”

  The man laughed again and lowered his hood. He had olive skin and short black hair and a sinister smile. “My name is Rilind. I am the sole remaining Autariatae, and I am here to reclaim what is mine.”

  Cronin could not hide his shock. This man was Illyrian. Ancient Illyrian, the sole survivor from a coven that was eradicated, or so he thought. The Autariatae were known for their cruelty and savagery, even against their own people. “How is it so?”

  Rilind grinned at him, clearly pleased to have an audience. “I have certain skills. One in particular Cronin will not allow me killed for, isn’t that right?”

  Cronin growled low at him. “How do you know my name?”

  Rilind laughed, the sound echoing menacingly in the underground catacomb. “I know everything.” He looked pitifully upon Alec. “Listen to his heart, so labored and slow. His breaths are like last season’s fallen leaves when I walk upon them. So sad for you to watch him die.”

  A symphony of hisses and growls snapped through the air, but Rilind only smiled further. “As I watched my people die, you will watch yours. This key for all mankind will serve no one but me.” He sneered at Cronin. “You Celts should have stayed in your caves, Cronin, all those years ago. And believe me, when I’m done, you’ll wish you had.”

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now?” Eiji asked, his tone was low and threatening.

  “As my name suggests, Rilind is Illyrian for rebirth and regeneration. I am the only one who can bring the key back to life,” Rilind answered. “Long enough to make him mine anyway.”

  Cronin snapped out a growl and bared his teeth. His whole body shook with rage. “He’ll never belong to you.”

  “When you are dust and only he and I remain, he will belong to me. His power will be mine,” Rilind said calmly. “Or should I let you live a thousand years of hell, as I have done, so you may know how it feels?” The two other vampires moved to stand on either side of Rilind.

  Cronin concentrated on the other two for a second and told the others, “The woman is a mason, the man a cloaker.”

  Rilind quirked an eyebrow but his smile never faltered. “Does the leaper hide unbidden talents?”

  “The leaper,” Cronin sneered at him, “is tired of games.” Just then, Cronin felt a small hand on the back of his leg, Jorge’s hand. And his mind flashed with images of a dozen other vampires behind Rilind, all unseen, wearing cloaks, all standing still and silent.

  Cronin raised the pistol and shot the man beside Rilind, the cloaker. And no sooner had the vampire fallen to dust on the ground, then twelve other vampires appeared—the cloak that hid them, disappearing with their maker.

  Rilind looked smug. “Be careful with your aim, Cronin. If I die, so does Ailig.”

  “Do not call him by name,” Cronin hissed at him.

  Rilind laughed. “I am the only one who can give him life.”

  “You knew he would be born?” Eiji asked, though it really wasn’t a question.

  “Of course I knew,” Rilind scoffed. “I am from the Autariatae people. I was human almost a thousand years before you, young Eiji. We were mighty in power until the Celts took what was ours.” He scowled at Cronin. “My maker was more druid than vampire. He told me of my own power, how it would be unsurpassed until a human key would be born, fated to a Celt, no less. Told me when, where, everything. It was unfortunate I had to kill him before he told anyone else. I rather liked him.”

  The twelve vampires moved in formation behind Rilind, silent and autonomous, and the tables of favor and numbers were turned once again. Cronin was barreled with an array of different talents, all pertaining to different levels of the elements: water, fire, earth, and air.

  “You created Queen Keket,” Jodis accused Rilind.

  “And Genghis Khan,” Rilind added. “Both fools for power that would never be theirs.”

  “Why?” Kennard asked.

  “It makes sense to take out two of the biggest covens before I announce my return, don’t you think? Anyway, the Egyptians got what they deserved,” Rilind answered. “They killed my coven, as did Geng
his. And what little remained of us was made obsolete by your elders after the Black Plague had their fun.”

  “Fun?” Cronin spat.

  “What is it to live two millennia without a little sport?”

  “The life of my Alec is not a game!” Cronin roared. “Enough of this time wasting. Tell us what it is you require of him so he may live!”

  Rilind smiled, slow and spreading. “I thought you may never ask.” He waved his hand at the stone mausoleum behind him. It was large, some forty feet across, and resembled the brickwork of the Great Wall. “The ancient Chinese thought their first Emperor was the missing element, but they were wrong. Your human is the missing element, the one who completes my little game. Well, his blood does.”

  “His blood is killing him,” Cronin bit back.

  “And yet, it will give him eternal life when I save him,” Rilind said, tilting his head. “Or, he’ll die. Either way, it won’t matter to me.” He smiled again. “There are ancient forces at play here, Cronin. Forces so powerful not even our vampire ancestors could fathom it. The Egyptians and the Chinese were fools to think they could bear it.”

  Alec took in a ragged breath. His lungs sounded like they were liquefying, his heart was barely beating, and Cronin couldn’t take it anymore. “You speak of our vampire ancestors, of forces from long ago. If you will grant me but a moment, I will tell you what I know of men born of this day, like Alec,” Cronin said, his voice was eerily serene despite the turmoil and pain he felt inside. “He would often say we speak like poetry and have a quiet grace that only patience and time can allow.” Cronin smiled then. “He also has a saying, true from his time, you might find cementing in fortitude.”

  Rilind tilted his head again, amused. “And what is that?”

  Cronin took a deep breath and concentrated on the woman mason across from him. He transferred her talent with just his mind, and smiled. “Alec would say ‘Fuck this shit.’” And with that, Cronin threw out his hands and cast all the power he could muster against the vampires that faced him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Like a holocaust fallout, a wave of pure energy exploded outwards, turning the fourteen vampires facing them into stone—a coven of gargoyles sculpted in granite, faces frozen in shock and disbelief.

  Eiji and Jodis turned to look at Cronin first, their eyes wide and mouths open. Kennard, equally astounded, scoffed out a laugh. “Cronin! You said fuck and shit!”

  “Alec’s worn off on me,” Cronin mumbled, still staring at the statues in front of him. Oh, Alec. Cronin knelt quickly by Alec’s side and took his hand. His skin was cool and clammy, his breaths forced and rattled, his heartbeat was weak. “We need to fix him.”

  “How?” Jodis cried. She knelt at Alec’s other side and took his hand. “Alec, can you hear me. Alec, listen to me, sweet, sweet man. We’re going to right this. I promise you.”

  “Rilind had the power of regeneration,” Eiji said. “We could bring him back to life and make him heal him.”

  Cronin looked at Rilind’s startled stone expression and shook his head. “No. Jorge, you said the red hand would hold him and he’d have forever. What did you mean?”

  The little boy stared at Alec, and with the gentlest of touch, ran his finger down Alec’s cheek. “Jorge is sad.”

  “Yes, I know,” Cronin barked. “Jorge, he will die if we don’t hurry. The red hand? And forever in the stones. Blood and stone. What does it mean?”

  “Come, come,” Jorge said. “The silver river.” The little boy raced to the end of the circle platform and beckoned them with his hand. “Come, come.”

  Cronin scooped Alec up and carried him like a child. He was without resistance and slumped in his arms. He murmured a word, with barely a rattled breath. “Cronin.”

  “We’re going to fix you,” he replied, holding him a little tighter. “I swear it.”

  Jorge grabbed the stone plate and leapt from the platform and rounded the corner of the mausoleum. Fronted by sprawling steps reminiscent of Roman architecture, Jorge raced up to the huge doors.

  “Wait!” Jacques called after him. “Stop!” Jorge did, thankfully, stop at the doors. “It’s well documented this is booby-trapped with arrows and spears to fire upon anyone who enters.”

  The sound of stone scraping on dirt made them all turn. The Terracotta Army were moving, coming for them. This was their master, not Genghis Khan or Rilind who influenced them. This was their true master, and they would defend him of their own volition. They moved faster than the docile soldiers in the tunnel. These were the best of his army, and they were coming in fast. Cronin ran up to the wall beside the entrance. “Open the doors!”

  Eiji and Jacques kicked in the doors and quickly stood with their backs to the wall, grabbing Jorge and pulling him to safety before a slew of arrows shot out the doors. But it wasn’t the wooden arrows or stakes that concerned Cronin or the quickly approaching Terracotta Army. It was the cloying scent of what was in that tomb.

  Not rotting flesh—the body of Qin was long ago mummified—it wasn’t the stale air. It was the smell of mercury. A lot of it. Rivers of it. Silver rivers, as Jorge had called it.

  Mercury wasn’t harmful to vampires, yet from levels of the liquid metal never seen before, the fumes alone would turn Alec’s brain to mush, his organs would shut down, his bone marrow and blood would turn to soup.

  Jacques and the English vampires started staking the first of the soldiers who came at them, but there were too many of them. They started to swarm in, and Cronin knew he had no choice. He pulled Alec against him and ran inside. When all of them were in, Eiji and Jodis pulled the doors shut, and they turned around to see what they faced next.

  It was a huge crypt, fifty feet squared, with a stone altar in the middle and a mummified body presented atop it. It was surrounded by jars and furniture, weapons, statues and ornaments of jade, gold, and jewels glistened on almost every surface. But most beautiful and lethal were the rivers of flowing mercury. Untouched by millennia, slow and undulating, the silver metal flowed like water. Mapped the same as the watercourses of China, this remarkable tributary replica was the reason no human would open the tomb: the mercury levels were off the charts.

  “Here,” Jorge said, still holding the stone plate, it was almost half his size. He was seemingly oblivious to everything in the tomb. Maybe he’d seen it in his head before, Cronin thought, so he was not shocked by what he saw now. “Jorge take you.”

  Cronin followed Jorge as he ran, leaping over the streams of quicksilver toward the altar. It was only when he was almost upon it, that Cronin could see a circle of stone around the final resting place of Qin, China’s First Emperor.

  “The four ancient elements,” Jodis whispered, and she was right. There were four points around the circle: wood, water, metal, and fire.

  The soldiers banging got louder and the wooden doors creaked in protest. They were really running out of time. “Jorge?” Cronin yelled. “What does it mean?”

  The little boy’s eyes were all black again and he rocked back and forth. “Blue moon. Silver river.”

  Jacques took the stone plate from the boy, and he ran to the closest river of mercury. He submerged it into the silver liquid. “The Ancient Chinese elements are on this stone,” he said. He ran back to Cronin and put the stone plate on Alec’s body. “The other elements. Collect them!”

  Eiji lifted a wood stake from his thigh holster, and Jodis brought her hands together and with a great effort, formed a ball of ice in her hands and placed it carefully on the mercury-covered plate. Lars snapped his fingers and a small flame appeared. He collected an ancient coin, set it alight, and put it on the plate. Then Jacques took a blood bag from his backpack and, slicing it with his fingernail, poured Alec’s blood onto the plate. “The key’s blood in the center of the plate, all elements are brought together.”

  They each held their collective breaths and waited for a miracle to happen.

  Nothing.<
br />
  Nothing happened, at all.

  Alec sucked back a ragged breath and choked and coughed on the exhale.

  Cronin roared. “Jorge! It’s not working!”

  The boy shook his head and his eyes were clear. He spoke quietly and clearly. “Inside the stones. Not these stones but from where he came. From where his blood was born.”

  Cronin roared again and his whole body vibrated with anger. “Alec is dying in my arms, and all you have is cryptic riddles!”

  “No!” Jorge stood and yelled back at him with more fire and rage Cronin would have given the boy credit for. “Look into Jorge’s mind! See it! See it!”

  Inside the stones, from where he came. From where his blood was born. Cronin closed his eyes and concentrated on Jorge’s thoughts, and he saw exactly what Jorge saw. Cronin’s eyes flew open just as the wooden door smashed inwards and the Terracotta Army flooded in. “Hold on to me!”

  Everyone reached out and touched. Jodis picked up Jorge just as Eiji grabbed her arm, as the first of the soldier’s arrows slung through the air, and Cronin leapt.

  * * * *

  The air was so fresh and cold compared to the rank and humid catacomb in China, Alec convulsed in Cronin’s arms. “It’s almost time,” Cronin whispered, holding him tighter still. “Just hold on for a few minutes more, m’cridhe.”

  “Why are we here?” Kennard asked, as they all looked around. It was almost sunrise, the sky was showing off hints of light and glory, and they were surrounded by standing stones.

  “From where he came. From where Alec’s blood was born, Jorge said,” Cronin answered. “His father’s family is from Calanais. And these are the Calanais Stones, or Callanish Standing Stones, if you will. I would hazard to guess this is where the incubus in Alec’s bloodline is from also.” Jodis put Jorge on his feet and the boy beamed a smile that told Cronin he was right. Though he knew he was. He felt it in his bones.

  The Callanish Stones stuck out of the earth like broken teeth. Glorious and ancient, Scotland’s very own Stonehenge. A standing circle of fifteen stones, ancient, so ancient. Their meaning, their purpose, had been speculated about for thousands of years. And now Cronin knew. This is what they were for.