Why isn’t she answering?
“Elaine?”
It was a full yell this time; a plaintive, pathetic holler, like an injured child screaming for its mother.
The only response was thundering silence, heavy and oppressive, like pausing for breath in the middle of a vicious argument. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Dan’s pulse began to quicken. Something had happened—was happening—he could feel it in his gut, could taste the truth of it between his gritted teeth. He stepped forward, darting to the entrance to the bathroom, and peered inside. Dark, and still.
Normal.
He swallowed, and it felt like shards of glass tumbling down his throat.
Farther along the corridor, a wide archway opened out into a surprisingly large living space; the apartment’s best feature, and the main reason they had opted to rent it. The living room was large enough that they had been able to cordon off a corner for use as Dan’s studio, though he hadn’t painted a stroke since the attack, and felt bleakly certain that he never would again.
He swept his eyes across the gloomy space. There was no sign of Elaine.
Which left only the kitchen.
Exactly where she had said she would be, of course.
So why isn’t she answering?
Dan padded forward, toward the entrance to the kitchen, each step feeling heavier, as though his feet were sinking into wet sand.
And with each yard he travelled, he felt worse.
Because now he could hear it.
A barely-audible whimpering.
It was the kind of sound someone made almost unwittingly, a low keening emitted through teeth that were trying to bite down on terrible pain.
No!
Sheer panic propelled him forward: not the type of panic that gripped him when the nightmares came, but something more real; tangible.
If I lose Elaine, I have nothing—
He was running by the time he reached the kitchen, but his mind was still mired in that wet sand, struggling to catch up, unable to piece together what he saw in the dark room, dimly lit by a sliver of light spilling from the cracked fridge door.
Elaine was sitting cross-legged on the tiles, with a knife rack emptied onto the floor around her. She held the largest of the knives in her right hand, using it to slowly—almost surgically—cut away her own face.
Her eyes were pointed right at him.
Right through him.
Wide, blank pools of terror.
He screamed.
The darkness behind Elaine chuckled.
And she sliced away what remained of her cheek, peeling away the dripping flesh with her left hand, pulling the knife away with her right…
…and driving the blade deep into her own throat, ripping out her life in a single, savage cut.
Dan was still screaming as he fell to his knees, distantly aware of the red eyes in the shadows behind Elaine, and a different sort of darkness began to rush up inside him, overwhelming him; threatening to submerge him forever.
Elaine collapsed sideways onto the tiled floor, the knife in her right hand still working feebly at her throat, her last drops of energy devoted only to the cutting.
The creature standing behind her made her do this, Dan thought, the words a belligerent howl in his mind. The thing with the red eyes.
Poisonous, all-consuming rage erupted inside him.
He hauled himself back to his feet, ready to throw himself bodily at the monster that had taken his fiancé, to tear it apart with his bare hands.
Still screaming.
Until he took a couple of steps forward and the scream caught in his throat.
There was no monster in the darkness.
Just Dan’s own reflection, a dark shape painted on the kitchen window.
Standing over the ruined body.
Her body.
His own eyes burning crimson.
Dan screamed again, and finally, mercifully, the river in his mind washed over his consciousness; the darkness swallowing him whole.
Spitting him back out somewhere else.
Somewhere worse.
*
Reality.
Reality wasn’t a kitchen in a small South Wimbledon apartment. Reality wasn’t Elaine, not anymore. Elaine was gone. Everything was gone. Only death and pain and the desire for vengeance remained.
Reality was Dan standing on a strip of dusty ground in Colorado, a barren area which was used as a private airfield for a woman who had wanted to cut him open and see what secrets his biology held. A woman who had just been executed on Dan’s own command, the deed itself carried out by a man that he controlled with his mind, like a feral dog on an invisible leash.
Someone was shaking his shoulders roughly, hissing his name. Calling him back from the river’s edge. Beckoning him to leave that horror; to trade it for another.
Slowly, the world shifted into focus, and his eyes dropped to the ground.
To the blood at his feet.
This, then, was the real world, every bit as terrible as the nightmare.
And, just like the nightmare—like all the nightmares—the killing wasn’t over.
Far from it.
2
An uneasy hush settled over the flat strip of dust which served as a runway for the American arm of the Order. Even the whining roar of the Gulfstream’s engine seemed to quieten momentarily.
All eyes were on Leon Mancini; on the perforated body at his feet. Jennifer Craven had been torn apart when Mancini emptied his weapon into her at point-blank range, though he was hardly responsible. It had been Mancini’s finger curled around the trigger but, well, Herbert Rennick guessed you could say the big American hadn’t been himself lately.
Herb’s were perhaps the only eyes that weren’t fixed on the steaming corpse. He stared, unblinking, at the man who was truly responsible for the murder.
No, the execution.
His second in two days, Herb thought. Something dark began to uncoil in his gut as he studied Dan Bellamy. When he had first encountered him, the guy had seemed like one of life’s victims: a quiet, shy type; scared of his own shadow, desperate only to run away from the trouble he had somehow become wrapped up in.
Now?
Now, Herb wasn’t exactly sure what Dan was. But for the first time since they had met aboard the doomed cruise ship Oceanus, Herb began to wonder if he should fear him.
“Kill them all,” he said flatly, repeating the words that Dan had spoken to him moments earlier. “Are you talking about the vampires, Dan?” he gestured at Craven’s body, spattered across several yards of Colorado dirt, “or just whoever happens to be standing in your way?”
Dan didn’t say anything; he appeared not to have heard. His eyes flickered, unfocused, levelled at the body of Jennifer Craven but apparently not really seeing it. A thin trickle of blood leaked from the young artist’s nose, coursing down toward slack lips and two-day-old stubble.
Herb had seen that look before. Twenty-four hours earlier, right after Dan’s first execution, and right before the scrawny guy had collapsed, convulsing violently and falling into a coma which had lasted for several hours. Each time since, when Dan had taken a mind, he had started to bleed from his eyes, his nose, his ears. This time was no different: it was like something was draining Dan away, right in front of Herb’s face.
It’s the exertion of controlling Mancini, Herb thought, alarmed, and he shot a fearful glance at the ex-military man.
Mancini was swaying on the spot, his own expression as vacant as Dan’s, like someone had whipped his batteries out.
Herb’s jaw clenched involuntarily.
When Dan had taken the mind of a vampire back in London, his life—all of their lives—had depended on him using the incredible ability that he had just discovered. This time, however, his actions were premeditated; planned hours earlier. It was Dan who had armed Leon Mancini, way back in England, letting the man believe that he was in charge, when in fact he was no more th
an a living weapon. Dan had always intended to use Mancini like this if the need arose, and he hadn’t bothered to fill Herb or anyone else in on his plan.
The dark emotions running through Herb pulsed. He had been lied to and manipulated since birth, and he’d never learned to like it. Still, there wasn’t time to confront Dan about his methods, not now.
The air tingled with threat.
Jennifer Craven hadn’t been alone on the runway: she had been at the head of a large group of armed men, all presumably residents of the ranch that she had called home. When Herb lifted his eyes to them, he saw that most of Craven’s entourage were now staring hesitantly at Mancini. They looked a little scared and a lot confused, as though they were waiting for the man who had just murdered their leader to tell them what to do next.
Mancini must be a big deal at the ranch, Herb thought, and then: if Dan kills him—or passes out—none of us are getting out of here alive.
He studied Craven’s backup: all were young—many looked barely out of their teens—and all were dressed in identical black, paramilitary-style uniforms. Clerics of the Order, Herb guessed, not so different to the ones he had grown up with at his family’s compound in England; not so different to himself, really. Like Herb, and the three brothers he had lost aboard the cruise ship, these men had been taken young and brainwashed to believe the ancient lie. Indoctrinated; weaponised just like Mancini, in their own way.
They’re just kids, Herb thought. They don’t know what to do next.
Craven hadn’t brought more experienced backup, he realised, because she probably didn’t have any. Moments before she inhaled a full clip from Mancini’s gun, Craven had boasted about the rapid expansion of her operation in Colorado; the army she was building. These, then, were her troops. Most likely, Craven’s ‘expansion’ had involved sweeping up America’s lost youth: runaways, junkies. The ones that nobody would miss. They probably hadn’t known what they were getting into when someone just like Mancini drafted them with promises of food in their bellies and a roof over their heads. It was no wonder they were hesitant.
Yet, even as Herb watched, the caution on some of the young faces seemed to be melting away: expressions hardening; confusion and doubt replaced by aggression. Most of the clerics cradled a rifle in their arms; some looked to be debating whether or not they should use them.
The situation was about to head downhill rapidly. Somebody had to do something, and as far as Herb could see, only one person could.
“Dan,” Herb hissed, grabbing the guy’s narrow shoulders and shaking him roughly. “Dan! Let Mancini go or we’re all fucked. Let him go now. Can you hear me? Dan?”
One of the clerics lifted his rifle, half-aiming it at Mancini, then at Herb, before lowering it again, his brow furrowing.
“Dan!”
Dan blinked, and his eyes rolled queasily in their sockets before finally settling on Herb. His massively dilated pupils contracted sharply.
Several yards behind him, Mancini collapsed to his knees, gasping for air, as though he had just been released from a chokehold. The abrupt movement sent another current of doubt through the clerics gathered on the runway, and several took a faltering step backward.
Mancini shook his head and spat out a cough. He stared at Jennifer Craven’s body for a moment, apparently coming to terms with what his hands had done when someone else had been at the controls. With a grunt, he staggered to his feet, releasing the empty magazine from his submachine gun and slamming in a replacement.
Herb’s lungs stopped working. He watched Mancini, his heart pounding, unsure whether the man would turn his gun on Dan; on Herb; maybe even on himself.
After several long, painful seconds had passed, Mancini raised his voice. He spoke with an audible tremor.
“She was…a traitor, and...she got what she had coming.” He lifted his chin defiantly. “Any of you have a problem with that, best speak up now.” He hoisted the gun, aiming it at the sky. “Well? Anyone?”
Mancini stared down the group of clerics for several seconds. None of them responded.
“Good,” he barked. “Now, get your asses back to your vehicles, and head back to the ranch, pronto. We’re taking these VIPs straight to the Grand Cleric. Radio fucking silence until we get there, got it?”
Herb watched the clerics disperse, heading back toward three trucks which waited in the distance, and finally allowed himself to breathe.
“Rennick,” Mancini growled, approaching on unsteady legs. “Get your people together, and follow me. Keep your mouths shut until I say otherwise. Oh, and Bellamy?”
Dan turned to face the American, just in time to catch a meaty left hook which lifted him off his feet and deposited him on the bloody ground.
Mancini leaned over him, his voice dropping to a steely whisper.
“You ever find your way into my head again, boy, you’d better fuckin’ kill me, capiche?”
Mancini stalked away without waiting for a reply, waving an angry gesture for Herb to follow. Herb grunted acknowledgment, and stooped to help Dan back to his feet.
“You okay?” he said, hooking a hand under Dan’s right arm and lifting.
Dan winced, rubbing at his jaw.
“I’ll live.”
Something about the tone of Dan’s voice—the almost rueful way he said those two words—set Herb’s teeth on edge. He forced a chuckle.
“Yeah, I guess I thought that was touch-and-go there for a minute. I didn’t expect him to take you…uh, using him like that so well.”
Dan stared thoughtfully after Mancini.
“He wanted to kill me,” he replied. “He loved Craven almost as much as he hated her. If anyone was going to kill her, I think he wanted it to be him. He certainly wanted to be…uh, present for it. I thought he might, once I let him go. Kill me, I mean. I wasn’t sure.”
Dan shook his head, as if aware that he was beginning to ramble. He looked even paler than usual. Sickly, like he was recovering from a surgical procedure.
Herb scratched at his chin. Dan had mentioned back in London that when he broke into a person’s mind, he could root around in their thoughts, flicking through their memories like the pages of an old newspaper. It was the same ability the vampires themselves were supposed to possess: the reason they knew how to talk, how to use or avoid human weapons. He thought back to his own confrontation with a vampire, back on the Oceanus, in a room lit by fire. He recalled the way the creature had spoken, using the English language as if it had discovered the words for the first time, and he shuddered. Hell, he didn’t like examining the contents of his own head. The notion of letting someone—or something—else poke around in there was just too damn unsettling.
“I wonder why he didn’t, then.”
Dan started walking, a little unsteadily, trudging after Mancini toward the waiting trucks.
“I’m not sure. Perhaps because he could see a little of what’s in my mind,” he said over his shoulder. “A little of what’s really out there.”
“And what’s that?”
Dan didn’t answer.
Herb ground his teeth in frustration and watched Dan go, flinching when he felt a light touch on his arm. For a moment, he had almost forgotten that there had been other passengers on the jet.
Conny Stokes regarded him with an expression that was part anger, part concern. Behind Conny, her teenage son, Logan, stood, his wide eyes fixed on the gruesome remains of Jennifer Craven. The kid almost looked like the sudden outbreak of violence had put him in a trance.
“Is he okay?” Herb said, nodding at Logan. Conny shot a glance at her son, and when she returned her gaze to Herb, her eyes were full of confusion.
“He’s in shock,” she said. “That’s what happens to normal people when somebody gets executed right in front of them.”
Herb grunted.
“Did you know?” Conny said in a brittle voice.
Herb shook his head. “That he was going to kill Craven? No. I had no idea.”
Conny grimaced.
“Great. What do we do now?”
Herb returned his eyes to Dan, still walking away on shaky legs without looking back, and apparently still determined to keep his thoughts to himself.
Suddenly, Herb wished more than anything that he was back on the jet, still in the air. For those few hours, as the Gulfstream crossed the Atlantic, he had felt some semblance of peace, and some faint hope that the nightmare might be over. He felt like he had let those precious minutes of safety slip through his fingers without really enjoying them. Hell, he had slept for most of the time that the jet was airborne.
What a waste.
He glanced back at the aircraft wistfully, and shook his head. The ground held nothing but trouble, no matter which side of the ocean he was on.
He scanned the countryside. Other than the dirt runway, and a ramshackle building that presumably served as a hangar for the jet, there was nothing else to be seen for miles.
“What choice do we have? We’re going to Craven’s ranch.”
Conny held up her hands, still bound at the wrists.
“As prisoners,” she said sourly.
Herb shrugged.
“At least we’re alive.”
He started to walk toward the trucks.
“Yeah,” Conny said behind him, her tone bitter. “For now.”
*
The trucks were battered old flatbeds, their original colour long ago faded to scrapyard-grey; the vehicles appeared to be held together by muttered prayers and rust.
By the time Herb reached them, the first two trucks were already pulling away, engines coughing, heaving under the weight of the clerics perched on their backs. Only a couple of the black-clad youngsters remained, flanking Mancini and watching the approach of the prisoners—and in particular Conny’s huge German Shepherd, Remy—with wary expressions and fingers curled around the triggers of their weapons.
Dan was already aboard the remaining truck, his hands still tied. A black hood had been draped over his head, tightened around his neck with a length of rope.
Herb arched an eyebrow as Mancini held out an identical hood for him to wear.
The Black River (The Complete Adrift Trilogy) Page 56
