The Crucible: A Lawson Vampire Novel (The Lawson Vampire Series)

by Jon F. Merz

  I pointed at the two unconscious guards. “We’ve already been compromised, pal. These two are going to wake up and scream silly, which is another reason we’re bringing Xuan Xiang.”

  Jack sighed. “Fine. But I’m not carrying him. If he can’t hold his own, we dump him and let the Chinese kill his ass.”

  Xuan Xiang looked pained. “I thought the youth of the world were a much more caring and gentler sort these days.”

  Jack leaned in close to him. “I don’t care who you are or what you are. If you fuck this up, I will stake you myself and then torture you in the afterlife, too. ‘Cuz I can do that, asshole. You get me? I’ll unleash a spirit horde on your misbegotten ass.”

  Xuan Xiang said nothing for a moment and then looked at me with a big grin. “I kinda like him. A bit too much bravado, but overall, I like him. You’ve obviously done a good job training him.”

  “That’s all natural,” I said. “You must bring it out of him.”

  “Was that a compliment, Lawson?”

  I checked the guards but they were still out cold, so I turned to Xuan Xiang again. “Get up. We’ve got to get moving. I don’t want to be here when these guys come to.”

  “Then kill them and be done with it,” said Xuan Xiang. “No sense leaving witnesses behind.”

  “Neither one of them saw our faces,” I said. “And killing them achieves nothing.”

  “Dead men can’t scream,” said Xuan Xiang.

  “But alive or dead won’t matter. If we kill them, they won’t report back and more people will come to investigate. And if we leave them alive, they will still raise the alarm. Either way, we’re screwed. And for all the wrong reasons. Talya’s supposed to be here and she’s not. Now we’re stuck with you.”

  “I’m a lot more fun than she is,” said Xuan Xiang.

  “I doubt that very much.”

  Jack shook his head. “This is absurd. Are you absolutely certain we have to bring him along?”

  I hesitated and then stared Xuan Xiang in the eyes. “Do you know where she is?”

  He paused but then nodded. “I’m nearly positive I can find her. But you’ll need to trust me.”

  “I’m not about to just blindly put my faith in you,” I said. “My trust has to be earned.”

  “That’s awfully cliche,” said Xuan Xiang. “Do you honestly think we have time for some sort of proving period? Look at my face. They beat the hell out of me. Isn’t that proof enough that I’m not a friend of theirs any longer?”

  “I don’t know. Tell me why you fell from grace.”

  Xuan Xiang sighed. “Let’s just say that one of my vices got the better of me and I…over-indulged. I was caught in the process and fingered as some sort of monster.”

  “You? A monster?” Jack shook his head. “Who would have thought….”

  Xuan Xiang eyed him. “Don’t push your luck with me, boy. I’m in a weakened state right now, but if you continue to annoy me, when I’m recharged, I can promise you a very nasty beating.”

  “Bring it,” said Jack. “You won’t find me an easy mark.”

  Xuan Xiang laughed. “If only you knew how many I’ve killed who thought that very same thing.”

  “Enough,” I said. “Quit the dick measuring. I’m not impressed. My goal is get Talya and get the hell out of here. And we’re burning time.” I motioned for Xuan Xiang to stand. “You’d better lead us exactly where she is. If I even get the slightest hint that you’re betraying us, I will stake you with whatever I can find and then let Jack unleash the spirits of other dead vampires upon your miserable soul. Is that understood?”

  “You don’t have to be so dramatic,” said Xuan Xiang. “I’ll bring you to her. But you know eventually you and I are going to have to settle things.”

  “Seems to me you’re not in any sort of position right now to demand anything.”

  Xuan Xiang shrugged. “We’ll see. My fortunes have waxed and waned over the years. I’m not too concerned about the future.”

  “What did they have planned for you in this cell?”

  He shrugged. “More torture. Probably death. Or what they thought could kill me.”

  “That would have been a surprise.”

  “True.” Xuan Xiang glanced around. “Now, just how exactly are you planning to smuggle us out of here? After all, the hallways are lined with cameras. And yet you were able to steal in without the guards even noticing. I must say, I’m a bit curious as to how the great Lawson managed to pull that one off.”

  I sighed and turned to Jack. “Show him.”

  “Lawson-“

  “Just do it. It’s necessary. As much as I hate it, we have no choice.”

  “Fine.” Jack held out the Cloak.

  Xuan Xiang eyed it. “I see a piece of fabric. So what?”

  Jack shook his head. “Obviously not much of a history buff, are you?”

  “Should I be?”

  “This is the Cloak of Despar.”

  “Despair?”

  “Despar,” repeated Jack. He frowned. “Never mind. Just watch.” And with that, he wrapped it around himself and promptly disappeared.

  Xuan Xiang’s eyes blew open. “What in the world-?”

  Jack removed the Cloak and reappeared. “It renders whoever wears it invisible. And apparently masks other key indicators as well. We’re not exactly sure as to the extent of its powers, however, so this is going to be interesting.”

  “Where on earth did you get that?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “And were out of time. Now, here’s how this is going to work: we’ll move together as one unit. The Cloak should keep us concealed and safe. But three people moving as one is going to be awkward as hell and stressful at the same time. Jack and I snuck in here wearing this thing and it’s not exactly roomy. But it does seem to work. But like he said, we don’t know how far its powers go on for.”

  “Well, no time like the present I suppose,” said Xuan Xiang.

  He was being awfully cavalier and it was annoying me. This was the clown who had kidnapped my girlfriend and dragged me round the world only to be the one we ended up rescuing. That sort of bullshit was liable to put me in a real bad mood.

  I gestured for him to stand between Jack and me. “Once we put the Cloak on, you move like us and say nothing. If we have to communicate, we’ll use hand signals. No speaking unless we’re in some sort of safe area and you tell us it’s secure. Understood?”

  “Let’s get on with it,” said Xuan Xiang.

  I glanced at Jack but he was shaking his head. He thought this idea was nuts. And he was probably right. But neither one of these guys understood that I would do whatever it took to make sure Talya was safe. I would go anywhere and do anything for her. I didn’t expect them to get that.

  I’d conveniently neglected to inform Xuan Xiang that once we located Talya, he was getting the boot. There was no way four of us could use the Cloak and sneak out of the complex. As far as I was concerned, Xuan Xiang was on his own. If the Chinese snapped him up and ditched him down some hole in the center of the earth, that was punishment for kidnapping Talya in the first place.

  But for the moment, we needed Xuan Xiang alive. He was the only one who could lead us to Talya. If that meant sleeping with the enemy, then so be it. Jack didn’t like it, but he didn’t have to. I was calling the shots and as painful as this one was, it was how we had to play it.

  I wrapped the Cloak around us and Xuan Xiang whistled quietly. “Amazing.”

  “Shut up already. We’re moving out. Once in the corridor, you lead, but go slow. I can hurt you plenty and so can Jack.”

  “We’re wasting time,” said Xuan Xiang. “Once the guards wake up, we’ll have very little time to reach her.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. And we moved out.

  21

  We stumbled back into the maintenance closet and paused. Xuan Xiang, despite being in amazing shape, was bruised and battered. His legs weren’t working nearly as well as any of us
would have liked. Xuan Xiang especially.

  “Sorry, they did a number on me with their truncheons.”

  I glanced at Jack but he was staring at m with a look that said, I Told You So. “Give him some of the juice.”

  Jack shook his head. “That’s supposed to be for us.”

  “We’ve got enough. And more importantly, we won’t need it if we get discovered. He needs a hit and so do I. Might be a good time for you to fuel up, too. This way we don’t have to worry about it later.”

  Jack grumbled as he reached into the pack, but did it anyway. He took several sips before handing it to Xuan Xiang.

  “It’s been a while,” said Xuan Xiang. He sucked at the thermos like a newborn and I almost had to pry it away from him.

  I sucked some down, winced, and kept swallowing, forcing myself to overload because it might be a long time before I got the chance to do so again. If things went the way I thought they might, I was going to need as much help as I could get. I finished and handed it back to Jack. “Stow it.”

  Xuan Xiang was bent over double, feeling the hit of energy envelop him. I felt mine a moment later and closed my eyes. The buzz we got from the life force energy was amazing, no matter how old or how used to it we were. There was simply nothing like it. As much as I hated drinking blood, it was necessary for me to do so. And sometimes, it felt okay.

  Xuan Xiang stood looking a lot more confident.

  “Better?”

  He took a deep breath in and then exhaled in one slow smooth stream. “I feel ever so much better. Thank you for that.”

  There was an edge to him now that I wasn’t quite comfortable with. It was almost as if a piece of him had returned with the ingestion of blood: a more lethal piece. I was going to have to keep an eye on him. If the Chinese had really imprisoned him, then he was certainly persona non grata with them. But I wasn’t foolish enough to think he’d go down the straight and narrow. Xuan Xiang had made his living by doing whatever he wanted with whomever he wanted. I didn’t think that was going to end just because he’d run afoul of Beijing.

  “You ready to do this?”

  Xuan Xiang nodded so we donned the Cloak again and stepped out of the maintenance closet. The corridor was exactly how we’d left it: virtually empty save for one or two technicians walking here and there. I looked at Xuan Xiang who motioned we should head back toward the ring. I glanced at Jack and nodded. Then we moved off in unison.

  The effect on Xuan Xiang of drinking blood was obvious. He was much more in control and able to move as we did, which meant a lot less awkward interaction. And because of that, I started feeling like we might have a chance at pulling this off.

  As we moved down the corridor, the traffic grew heavier. Twice we had to pull ourselves flat against the wall as a few soldiers walked past. I had no idea where they were heading, but I hoped it wasn’t to the maintenance closet. The longer the guards were unconscious, the better.

  Would it have been wiser to kill them? I didn’t waste much time and thought on it. I’ll kill when it’s necessary, but I’m not into simply wasting life if it can be avoided. The guards didn’t pose a threat to us, so why kill them? And as I’d explained, it wouldn’t make much difference anyway. The alarm would still sound if they were alive or dead. I just hoped they didn’t become a threat later on down the road or else I would be forced to deal with them then.

  Xuan Xiang led us down another corridor away from the ring now. This one had fewer doors and seemed to venture further into the mountain. At the far end, I saw a bank of elevators and wondered where they went. Xuan Xiang called for a halt and motioned to me that we would need to ride the elevators down. The question was, how were we going to sneak into the elevators? On the wall opposite them, a camera stood sentry. If we pushed the button, the operators in the control room would no doubt see it and know something was amiss.

  Not good.

  The obvious answer was that we would need to wait until someone else called for an elevator. But that would mean we would have to somehow crowd into the elevator car with that person. Doing that unnoticed was going to be tough.

  The other option was to wait until someone exited the car and then hop in before the doors closed again. If we could manage that, then we would be fine inside. Unless the elevators had cameras inside them. But Xuan Xiang shook his head when I mimed the question to him. As far as he knew, there was no surveillance in the elevators. Lucky us.

  We stood near the elevator doors and tried our best to remain still. Twice, technicians rode the elevators down, but no one made a return trip. I wondered what was going on deeper inside the mountain. Was it related to the Chinese push to resurrect the ancient race of N’Yak Tul that I’d helped thwart back in the States? Or were they interested in something else entirely? More to the point, what was the point of keeping Talya imprisoned deeper inside the mountain? What use did they have for her?

  All of these questions and more ran through my head as we waited. If we hadn’t had that hit of juice, odds were good I might have dozed off. But I was still buzzing from the hit and my senses were keen. If anything, standing still was tougher than I thought it would be. I just wanted some action.

  I heard the ding of the elevator at the same time as Jack and Xuan Xiang. We all looked at each other and nodded. Our ship had just come in.

  We waited until the doors parted and the person riding it had stepped off before rushing inside as the doors started to shut again. We crashed into the far wall and I glanced at Xuan Xiang. “Where to?”

  He pushed the button at the very bottom and smiled at us. “All the way down.”

  “How deep does it go?”

  Xuan Xiang shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure, actually. But it wouldn’t be unheard of to suggest that it runs pretty damned deep.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked. “Is this related to what happened last year?”

  “The N’Yak Tul?” Xuan Xiang shook his head. “I’m not so sure that Beijing wants to risk that episode again. They lost a few people if you’ll recall.”

  I’d never forget it. The sight of those little subterranean monsters devouring the fat Chinese general was something I wished I could scrub out of my brain with steel wool and bleach. But, like most of the other heinous shit I’d seen over the course of my life, I knew it was locked in there for good. I could compartmentalize it, of course, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t get glimpses of the memory from time-to-time.

  Like right now.

  “So what is it, then? Oil?”

  “The Chinese don’t need oil and they long ago gave up looking for it where it didn’t exist. Nowadays, they’re content to simply buy what they need. Until such time as they develop another fuel source, they’ll continue plumbing it out of Africa. It’s far easier and cheaper to exploit the third world nations there rather than defecate where they live.”

  He was right. The Chinese had mining and oil drilling operations all over the African continent. In some ways, they were more African than the indigenous people who lived there. But the Chinese didn’t give a damn about preserving the ecosystems in Africa. They wanted cheap oil, gold, and whatever natural resources they could dig up. If they left behind a scarred and broken landscape, it didn’t seem to bother them all that much.

  “All right, so explain it to us.”

  Xuan Xiang shook his head. “Honestly, I’m not even certain what they’re up to. I was brought in after this place was already online. And as a result of my recent, er…unfortunate turn of circumstances, I haven’t had much opportunity to fully explore the facility. Although I must say I would enjoy doing so using this fine piece of clothing you somehow managed to acquire.”

  “Fat chance, hombre,” I said. “You’re not getting your hands on the Cloak. We’d never see you again.”

  To my surprise, Xuan Xiang agreed. “You’re right. I would leave you in a heartbeat. I do have to look out for myself, after all.”

  “You see?” Jack said. “We ca
n’t trust him.”

  “We don’t have any choice but to trust him,” I said. I turned to Xuan Xiang. “You promised to help us find Talya. If you try to renege on that deal, then I’ll figure out how to kill you right now.”

  “As much as I’m tempted to see you try that - and as much as I’m tempted to run away - I won’t break my word to you. Not that I ever explicitly gave it to you, mind, but I’ll do my best to reunite you with your girlfriend.” He paused. “I do wonder though what the Council would say if they knew their star Fixer was involved with a human. I don’t suppose that sort of thing sits very well with the majority of those stodgy old fools.”

  “It doesn’t,” I said. “But they don’t have to know.”

  “Or maybe they already do.”

  “Maybe.” I glanced at the bank of numbers and saw we were still descending. “This is taking forever.”

  “The elevators employ a new maglev technology instead of cables. The powers that be deemed them a safer option given that this part of the world sometimes sees its share of earthquakes.”

  “How in the world is maglev safer?” asked Jack. “If the power goes out, there’s nothing holding the cars up any longer.”

  Xuan Xiang smiled. “Your grasp of the obvious is astounding. That is true, naturally.”

  “So?”

  “So, the point behind the reasoning was that it was better to lose the people in the car, then risk the lives of the rescue crew coming to help extricate them from a car held aloft by cables.”

  “You’re joking.”

  Xuan Xiang shook his head. “I most certainly am not. The cost in lives was deemed more acceptable than potentially doubling it. Standard approach, really.”

  I chuckled. “I suppose there’s something brilliantly and wholly unemotionally pragmatic about that.”

  “We are a pragmatic species,” said Xuan Xiang. “Well, perhaps not me, but my countrymen are.”

  “We’re your countrymen,” said Jack. “You’re one of us, not a human.”

  Xuan Xiang shrugged. “I suppose that all depends on how you view yourself. I’ve always had a bit of an identity crisis. Never really sure where I fell into things as a kid and I’m afraid that carried over when I grew up.”