The Black River (The Complete Adrift Trilogy)

by K. R. Griffiths

  He returned to Dan, still kneeling in the corridor with his dead wife, all the energy for screaming having left him, along with the light in his eyes. He didn't look up as Edgar approached, slipping on the black blood that stained the floor.

  The black blood.

  Edgar stared at it, and then at Dan once more.

  War was inevitable, and if the texts were to be believed, Dan Bellamy was the only person in history who had been able to kill a vampire.

  "You have to survive," Edgar whispered in a voice that trembled. "You have something the world needs, you hear me?"

  Dan didn't respond. Didn't even blink.

  Edgar searched his mind furiously, desperate to come up with some means of getting the broken man off the ship.

  The idea arrived like a bolt of lightning, striking Edgar and electrifying him. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way to survive the destruction of the Oceanus. A chance at least, but it required Dan to leave his dead wife behind and get moving.

  Edgar didn't think he could persuade Dan to move, no matter what direction he suggested. The man knelt in the pool of gore that spread through the dark hallway, paralysed among the remains of his wife and the creature that had killed her. He looked resigned, like he had chosen to meet his end right there.

  Dan stared straight ahead; seeing nothing and apparently unable to hear Edgar shouting at him to get the fuck up.

  Edgar grunted, and grabbed Dan's collar, hauling him to his feet. When he started to drag Dan away from his wife's corpse, Dan suddenly came to life, thrashing and struggling, desperately trying to break Edgar's grip.

  Edgar released him for a moment, and swung a heavy fist into Dan's jaw, knocking him into pliant unconsciousness, and threw him over his shoulder like an old rug.

  He set off, as fast as the shaking floor and his injured right leg allowed, making the only play he had available to him, and over and over in his mind he repeated a mantra until he even started to believe it. Just a little.

  This isn't how it ends.

  38

  Pain.

  He hadn't experienced it in so long that he had forgotten what it felt like. Had almost forgotten that it existed at all.

  Everything was fire, but that concerned him little. His kind didn't burn. Some speculated that the fact that they were impervious to fire meant they had been born in what the humans called Hell, but it was no more than speculation. There was some knowledge so old that even his ancient species could not access it.

  He hauled himself up from the debris that had threatened to bury him, and examined the source of the pain. His left arm was gone, torn away by the concussive blast of the human weapons.

  He shrieked, but there was no response, and when he calmed his thoughts and reached out with his mind, he understood why.

  He was the only vampire left on the ship.

  Two brothers dead.

  The loss felt deeply, like a part of his mind had crumbled to dust. The presences that had walked alongside him throughout the endless centuries snatched away.

  Was the ship a trap all along?

  He could scarcely believe that. After centuries, the humans had been domesticated entirely, serving his kind without question. It made no sense for them to ensnare him in a floating trap and execute him. They had too much to lose.

  And yet here he was, pulling himself from the rubble with his remaining arm, weakening as thick blood oozed slowly from the stump where the other had been. His blood moved like treacle, powered by a heart that beat rarely, but the end result of the steady flow was unmistakable. Unavoidable.

  He was dying.

  The humans had reneged.

  But why? Why now?

  The world lurched and tilted dangerously as distant explosions rocked the vessel, and he had trouble balancing himself, but he made his way up through the collapsing floors quickly, following the scent of blood.

  Vampire blood.

  When he discovered his brother's fallen body, his first instinct was to laugh at the stake protruding from his dead kin's chest. The humans, apparently, still believed in their archaic fairytales.

  When the initial surprise settled, though, he saw the stake for what it was; for what it represented.

  A human being had stood in front of a vampire, and had struck it down.

  There was an Hermetic in their midst. As far as he was aware, there hadn’t been one of those in centuries. Not for so long that their existence had become a myth amongst his people. He thought that was a little ironic under the circumstances, but more importantly, it changed everything.

  Was that why they now fired their weapons at the ship? Had the discovery of one who could resist lent them such confidence?

  Surely not; the humans had carried out the sacrifice exactly as instructed. They had let his brothers and himself feed until they could stomach no more. Thousands had died.

  The presence of the Hermetic was an accident of fate. The humans probably had no idea that one among the passengers on the vessel was so important. It was nothing more than chance.

  Divine intervention.

  He sneered, and pulled the wooden stake from his brother's heart, tossing it aside. He felt no sadness, really. Quite the opposite: the loss of his brothers was an outrage that would be met with brutal retaliation.

  War.

  His ancient lips twisted into a grin, revealing rows of teeth stained red with human blood. There had been war with the humans in his youth, and his kind had been endangered.

  So few of us, so many of them. Always more and more; growing exponentially. Short lives and frantic breeding.

  The creatures were pathetic; utterly oblivious to the futility of their existence. Their lives nothing more than whispers in the darkness. If they had the intelligence to understand what they were, humans would be grateful that something out there deigned them important enough to be labelled food.

  The truce had made his people strong. Prepared. There hadn't been a vampire death in millennia, and they too had expanded their numbers while the humans let their very presence become a myth. Wreathed in shadows and lies, his people had spread to every corner of the world.

  War, he thought, could be fun. He wished he could live to see it.

  He could still serve his people, though. One final act before his injuries claimed him. His dead brothers had been caught off-guard, and it had cost them. Centuries of complacency had made them soft and vulnerable.

  But he would not be caught out.

  The Hermetic was out there somewhere, stained by the blood of two vampires. His death was paramount.

  He sniffed at the body of his brother one last time, and then rose to his full height, the intriguing pain of his missing limb forgotten.

  One more role to play before his blood finally leaked away.

  He let out a shriek that was part-rage and part-challenge.

  And then he set off, moving as fast as his injuries and the crumbling ship allowed, determined to use what little time he had left for a greater purpose.

  For the hunt.

  39

  It felt like Herb's entire body was screaming. He was physically fit: that was another requirement of being a Rennick, but carrying the security guard up the shuddering stairwell on his aching back made his strength leak away at an alarming speed.

  More than anything, he wanted to set the man down on the stairs and take a seat; to catch his breath for a moment, but the heat he felt beneath his feet drove him on. When he risked a glance behind him, he saw that the level below had become a lake of fire.

  The flames followed him up the stairs relentlessly, tearing through the plush wooden decor at a frightening clip.

  The world was reduced to the next step. Lifting his aching thighs and planting his feet. Once the monumental task was accomplished, the next step awaited.

  Sweat poured from Herb's brow, and he felt his body beginning to shake with the exertion. As the ship itself continued to writhe beneath him, the steps were becoming almost vertical. Each
one a brutal wall of agony that began at his calves, and raced up to his shoulders, where the weight of the unconscious man threatened to topple him backwards.

  Four more steps.

  Three.

  By the time Herb felt the floor level out beneath his feet, a scream of triumph had built in his chest and he let it out, gasping for air.

  The heat was scorching his lungs, making every breath difficult, but with the fire behind him for the moment, the air tasted like cool, sweet water, and he drank it in gratefully.

  One more flight of stairs to go, he thought, and he would reach the park level. From there, he hoped that he would be able to spot a part of the ship that wasn't burning. Maybe even spot a route to the lifeboats.

  After that, Herb's fate would be in the lap of the gods. If his father scoured the wreckage for survivors and eliminated them all, the struggle would all be for nothing.

  Far easier to give up. After all, Herb had been prepared to die, hadn't he? Barely an hour earlier, he would have gratefully eaten a bullet.

  It's the hope that kills us, Herb thought grimly, and he set off again, heaving the guard along behind him, searching for the next staircase, smiling a little at the thought that it hadn't been so long ago that it was Herb who was being dragged.

  I owe you, the security guard had said when Herb prevented him from falling into the Atlantic.

  He didn't know the half of it.

  *

  Edgar limped into the park with Dan Bellamy slung across his left shoulder, and his jaw dropped in astonishment.

  The park had become the eye of a catastrophic storm. All around it, smoke poured from the passenger decks, and Edgar saw flames creeping up through the levels. In the distance, he heard groaning and creaking as the Oceanus began to break apart.

  Seeing the scale of the devastation, he felt a well of despair open in his gut. His idea for getting off the ship had seemed like a stroke of genius, but as he stood at the centre of a fire a thousand feet long, Edgar had serious doubts that it would work. How could anything possibly survive this?

  Somewhere to his right, toward the rear of the ship, something exploded, and sent a towering plume of fire into the sky.

  The entire rear of the ship was burning.

  The fuel tanks will go next, Edgar thought bleakly. The rear of the ship was a gigantic bomb now, primed to go off at any moment.

  Edgar's plan would work.

  It had to.

  With a grunt, Edgar hefted the unconscious man once more, and headed for the middle of the park, where it all began, and where it would all end.

  One way or another.

  *

  Herb almost sobbed in relief when he emerged into the open space at the centre of the ship, but when he laid eyes on the park, he knew immediately that his hopes of finding a way off the Oceanus were nothing more than a dream.

  The park was an island in an ocean of fire. Everywhere Herb turned, he saw a towering inferno, stretching up through the passenger decks and lighting the dark sky like a beacon.

  Even the rain had stopped, as though God, too, had turned his back on the passengers aboard the Oceanus, and was content to let them burn. The fire raged unchecked, whipped by the wind and spreading fast.

  Smaller explosions rocked the decks continually.

  Toward the rear of the ship, a vast column of fire rose far into the night, and Herb knew it wouldn't be long before the fuel tanks went up.

  He was going to get the death he had wished for, but it wouldn't be quick, and it wouldn't be painless.

  He stumbled out into the park, exhausting the last of his energy, and collapsed heavily to the floor, spilling the unconscious man onto the grass alongside him. At least the grass felt cool.

  For the moment.

  "Sorry, buddy," Herb wheezed, and the words dissolved into an agonising coughing fit that felt like his lungs might force themselves out through his mouth. "Thought I could save you, but I think we’ve reached the end of the road."

  Herb let his head roll to the side, and focused on the guard.

  His eyes widened.

  The guard's head lolled at an impossible angle. A broken neck. He must have died when the explosion in the nightclub blasted him off his feet. Herb had been trying to rescue a corpse; hauling it up those stairs in agony.

  He had been trying to save that bastard from the moment he chased after him in the vents, and it had all been for nothing.

  The laughter surprised Herb, and once it started he found he couldn't stop it. He leaned back on the wet grass and screamed with laughter until his ribs ached and tears rolled down his face.

  When the laughter stopped, the tears continued.

  Herb's eyes came to rest on the pistol still tucked into the guard's belt, and he choked out a wheezing sob.

  "Glad you saved those bullets," he croaked. "At least I can make it quick after all."

  He reached out and plucked the pistol from the man's belt.

  Pressed the barrel into his temple.

  Curled his forefinger around the trigger and squeezed his eyes shut.

  "I don't think you've got it in you, Herb. Not really the Rennick way, is it?"

  Herb's eyes flared open.

  A hallucination.

  Not possible.

  Edgar loomed over him, smiling wearily, his hand outstretched.

  "Like I said," Edgar grinned, "stick with me if you want to get off this ship."

  "What about Seb?" Herb croaked. "And Phil?"

  The smile fell from Edgar's lips, and he shook his head grimly.

  *

  "Heard you laughing," Edgar said as he led Herb away from the corpse. "Not sure what's funny, though."

  "I don't think you'd understand, Ed."

  "You're probably right, little brother. I don't think I ever did."

  Herb tried to laugh, and dissolved into a coughing fit.

  "Not much time left for understanding anything, now. Fuel tanks will go up any minute."

  Edgar nodded.

  "Then we'd better speed this up."

  "Speed what up? Where are you going, Ed?"

  Edgar pointed straight ahead, at the centre of the park.

  "The container," he said. "That's your way out."

  Herb shook his head.

  "I don't understand."

  "It might not work," Edgar said. "But that container is tempered steel. Airtight. If it survives the blast, you'll have air. Not sure how long for, but it might be long enough. You know the first thing Dad will do is retrieve that container."

  "Why do you keep saying you?" Herb said.

  "It locks from the outside, Herb. Someone's going to have to go down with the ship."

  Herb shook his head violently, and his eyes filled with tears.

  "And that someone is you? No, no way. There must be another way. A lifeboat, or—"

  "You said it yourself, Herb. There's no time. Besides, you wanted to save somebody, remember? Now you have your chance: there's someone in that container that I need you to save. Someone important. Call it me paying off a little of the debt I owe the world."

  "What?" Herb snapped. "Who?"

  The container was a few feet away, and the prone body inside was visible, lit in flickering crimson. Herb stared at it.

  "His name's Dan Bellamy," Edgar said. "He killed two vampires. Saved my life. I owe him."

  "Killed?" Herb repeated, astonished.

  "With a fucking cleaver," Edgar said, and he grinned a little at the memory.

  "I don't understand, Ed."

  "It was all lies, Herb. Everything Dad taught us. These things aren't gods. The truce is a lie. We've been feeding people to these monsters for centuries when we could have been fighting. When we should have been fighting. We're not the good guys. We never were."

  Herb stared at Edgar, open mouthed.

  "Does Dad know?"

  Edgar grimaced.

  "About the truce? I don't know. But he knows about the dead vampires. I radioed the Sea Shanty
myself. The missiles are his response."

  "He knows you're aboard? And he still fired on the ship?"

  "As far as he's concerned, we're all still on board, Herb. Judging from all this," Edgar waved a hand at the burning ship, "I'd say he doesn't much care. I guess you were right about that, too."

  Herb squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.

  "I'm sorry, Herb. For everything. I should have listened."

  Tears flowed freely down Herb's face, and he shook his head firmly.

  "We can try the lifeboats," he said. "If you're with us, Dad won't—"

  Herb's words died as a shriek filled the air.

  Edgar looked over Herb's shoulder, and sighed wearily.

  "We’ve got company. Time's up, Herb."

  "No!" Herb cried. "If they can be killed we can—"

  Edgar shook his head once, and shoved Herb into the container. His little brother stumbled over the unconscious man who would be his travelling companion. Maybe, Edgar thought darkly, Dan would be his company in a watery grave.

  But Herb had a chance, and if Dan Bellamy survived, maybe the world did, too. It was all Edgar could manage. It would have to do.

  The last thing Edgar saw as he swung the container door shut and attached the locking device was Herb's eyes, wide with despair that turned to terror as he saw what was looming behind his big brother.

  Edgar didn't turn around. There was no need. He knew what was coming, and looking upon it would not help.

  The lock was engaged, and his brother was safe.

  He closed his eyes, and waited for the talons with a serene smile on his face.

  He wouldn't let the creature get in his head. Not again. Wouldn't permit himself to be further tainted by the terrible fear the creatures exuded.

  It was a small victory.

  40

  Dan awoke in darkness, and smiled.

  A dream, he thought. A nightmare, more like. He must have missed taking his medication. Not surprising, really, what with the wedding going on. It had been a big day, a crazy day. Hardly surprising that he might forget to take his pills.