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

by Jon F. Merz

  I sighed. “That’s part of the problem with any of us. We don’t really have a flag to stand behind save for being with our own kind.”

  Xuan Xiang nodded at me. “You get it.”

  “I get it because I’m a crusty old bastard,” I said. “But even still, my loyalty is to my race.”

  “We can wax philosophically later,” said Xuan Xiang. The elevator slid to a halt. “We’re here.”

  22

  When the elevator doors slid open, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But what I saw was a scene far busier than what had been happening above. Technicians, soldiers, and people wearing threadbare clothes rushed from one area to another with purpose. We barely made it out of the elevator before the doors closed and our ride to the top vanished. I just hoped getting a lift back to the surface was available when we needed it to be.

  We stuck close to the banks while trying to figure out which direction to head off in. Xuan Xiang looked around with a deep frown on his face. The soldiers shoved workers this way and that. It was obvious that the Nepali man Jack and I had come across by accident back at the army camp hadn’t been lying. There was a slave labor force of hundreds down here. Scores of them were busy using hand tools and hydraulic hammers on a section of rock down near the base of the pit. Heavy extractor fans pulled fumes and dust out of the air. But I doubted it was because the authorities cared about the workers; they probably wanted them there for the technicians and soldiers.

  I nudged Xuan Xiang. We needed to move. He got the message and nodded, pointing off to a rock tunnel leading away from the scene before us in the Abyss.

  We fell in behind a patrol of four Chinese soldiers and headed down the tunnel. LED lights illuminated the way, running the length of the tunnel before it branched off into two separate forks. We paused as the patrol went one way before heading down the other branch. Toward the end of this tunnel, Xuan Xiang waited near a heavy iron door and then glanced around. I did the same. I couldn’t see any cameras or audio surveillance equipment. And part of me suspected we might be in the clear, but I stayed put.

  “In here,” Xuan Xiang said quietly. He pulled the door open and we entered.

  Jack eyed me. Neither of us trusted Xuan Xiang obviously, but Jack really thought it was a bad idea even letting him get to this point.

  “We can talk here briefly,” said Xuan Xiang. “They don’t use this room.”

  “What is this place?” asked Jack. “Those people out there. They’re slaves.”

  Xuan Xiang nodded. “You’d think they wouldn’t care if I helped myself to one of them. Or two.” He sighed. “Oh well, live and learn.”

  “You preyed on the slaves?” I asked. “That was a damned stupid thing to do.”

  “Thank you for your opinion. I don’t require your judgment.” Xuan Xiang shook his head. “All right, here’s the plan: we’re going to go down that other branch where the soldiers headed. They’re most likely keeping Talya down there with the other slaves. That is presumably what they would use her for once they took her out of the cell I’d had her in up above.” He looked at me. “You can’t say I didn’t treat her decently. She was better off with me than she is down here, that’s for certain.”

  “I’ll send you a thank you note.”

  Jack put his hand on my arm. “Lawson.”

  “What?”

  “These people down here. They’re trapped. We can’t leave them. They’ll die most likely.”

  I sighed. “Jack, there’s nothing I’d like better than to free them all. No human deserves to be caged like an animal, let alone forced to do work like this against their will. But right now, the priority is Talya. That’s always been the priority. We’re here for one thing only and that’s it.”

  Jack frowned. “Seems to me we ought to at least give it some thought.”

  “If we can get Talya and be gone before those guards wake up, then that’s what we’re going to do. We can pass word back up the pipeline to the human intelligence services and they can resolve the matter from there.”

  “That’s not going to be a solution and you know it,” said Jack. “The west is too much in bed with the Chinese to let something like this derail trade and economic incentives. We’re talking about a few hundred people. There’s no way they’ll do anything.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’ve got to make sure we get Talya.”

  “If you two are done being all sentimental,” said Xuan Xiang. “We should probably get going.”

  Jack shook his head. “We’re making a mistake, Lawson. We can do something about this.”

  I looked at Xuan Xiang. “What exactly are they digging for out there, anyway?”

  Xuan Xiang shrugged. “Like I said, I was a guest here before they revoked my privileges. I didn’t get much of a chance to look around.”

  “If you had to guess though?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say they’re mining.”

  “But what?”

  Xuan Xiang shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  The air around suddenly filled with a horrible shrieking sound. Alarms.

  “Looks like we just ran out of time,” said Jack. “Let’s go.”

  Xuan Xiang held up his hand. “Wait a minute.”

  From out in the tunnel, we heard a speaker blaring an announcement. Xuan Xiang closed his eyes and then opened them when the announcement was over. “It’s not an alert about the guards. They’re talking about getting a safe distance away from the pit. Teams are being moved back.”

  “Why on earth would they do that?” That sounded ominous to me.

  “Some sort of test,” said Xuan Xiang. “I suppose we’ll find out in a minute.”

  And then we heard the same voice again, but this time I could tell that it was a countdown. In the corridor outside, we could hear the footfalls of the slaves moving back to their quarters and the soldiers haranguing them to move faster. Xuan Xiang held up his hand for us to be quiet. We were still under the Cloak in case anyone thought to look inside the room, but they all seemed too intent on getting away from the pit.

  When the noise had died away, I looked at Xuan Xiang. “Are we safe here?”

  “I think we’re about to find out.”

  The countdown reached ten and started down toward one. My gut ached and I looked at Jack. He shook his head. I think he was rapidly reaching his tolerance for shenanigans and wanted nothing more than to get home to his much safer existence dealing with tempestuous vampire spirits.

  When the countdown reached one, there was a distinct pause. We heard a high-pitched whine fill the tunnel and then the entire earth shook around us.

  I’ve been in a few earthquakes before, but nothing like this. It felt like the mountain was literally shaking itself apart. We all fell away from each other tried to cling to the rock walls for support. My balance felt compromised and everything seemed to turn upside down. I looked over at Xuan Xiang just to make sure he wasn’t handling this any better, because if he had been, I would have suspected that he actually knew what was going on here.

  But he looked ashen and sick.

  Good, because I wasn’t feeling too well, either.

  The shaking went on for almost five minutes. Longer than any other earthquake I’d experienced. And something about the constant and unending shaking made me think that this might not have been natural. Especially when taken with the countdown that had happened. So what were they doing? Were the Chinese manufacturing an earthquake machine under this mountain? And if they were, to what end? What purpose could they possibly have for something like this?

  It wasn’t particularly easy trying to come up with an answer while the insides of my head felt like they were being scrambled in a snow globe. Gradually, the shaking died away, even though my guts still felt like they were moving to some sort of techno beat. When everything finally stopped moving, I had to lean against the wall and slide down to the floor just to get the sensations to stop.

  “What the hell was that?” as
ked Jack.

  Xuan Xiang looked like he was going to vomit. I pointed at him. “You puke, you clean it up. We can leave any sign that we were here and you know that.”

  He nodded and swallowed hard. “I’m fine. Just give me a minute.”

  I took several deep breaths and tried to calm my thundering heart. This was definitely something that I hadn’t expected. No wonder they didn’t want anyone near the epicenter. And we’d been closer than anyone else as far as I could tell. If anything, I was glad Talya was at least safe from what we’d experienced. But we needed to get her free and out of this place. What if something went wrong? What if the entire facility blew up?

  I felt Jack’s eyes on me. “What?”

  “You know.”

  I sighed. It wasn’t that I disagreed with him that the slaves deserved to be freed. Of course they did. It was just that my priority at the moment was getting us and Talya back out of there and home. Trying to do too much would jeopardize everything we’d come so far to accomplish. Unless I could be guaranteed that we’d all come out of this alive, there was no way I was going to risk our necks for the slaves. If Jack hated me for it, then that would be the price I’d have to pay. One day, he’d experience true love and then he could decide if he understood my motivations or not.

  Xuan Xiang slowly got to his feet. "All right then. There’s that.”

  “Why the hell are they deliberately starting earthquakes?”

  “I told you I don’t know.”

  I shook my head. “Who has command over this facility? Surely, you’d know that at least. You wouldn’t just come in here uninvited. So who invited you?”

  Xuan Xiang paused and I could see he was trying to decide if it was worth it to part with the information. After a minute, he sighed. “General Lu Xian Wei. He heads up the Special Projects Division for Chinese Military Intelligence.”

  “Oh, well, that’s awesome. He sounds like a great guy,” said Jack.

  But I knew more than that. “Wei. Great. Of all the twisted fucks in the world, you had to get cozy with him? Jesus…”

  “What is it?” asked Jack.

  “Wei handles the delicate stuff that Beijing doesn’t want its fingerprints on. After all, the Chinese economy is one of the strongest right now. Tons of money. People enjoying life. Imagine how their international reputation would be affected if people knew they were involved in some seriously nasty business in Africa and beyond?”

  “What sort of nastiness?”

  “Like getting into bed with Boko Haram and their quest to start an Islamic fundamentalist state in West Africa, for one. That kidnapping of those schoolgirls? They got logistic support from the Chinese. Word on the street was there was a unit of Chinese special ops on the ground as well.” I eyed Xuan Xiang. “Wei’s been involved in every back alley op for years. This is his little sideshow? Wonderful.”

  Xuan Xiang shrugged. “We don’t always have the luxury of choosing our bedmates, Lawson.”

  “The hell. I don’t fuck somebody just because they spread their legs.”

  “Well, you’ve always had higher standards than most.”

  “Damned right.” I shook my head. The sooner we were out of this place, the better. If Wei was running around then odds were good that earthquake machine of his was for some truly awful purpose. This entire facility needed to be nuked as far as I was concerned. And hopefully, Wei would be blown up with it.

  I pointed at Xuan Xiang. “Get us to Talya. Enough screwing around. We find her and we get the hell out of here before anyone knows we’re here. If this is Wei’s place, I don’t want to be anywhere near it.”

  23

  We stepped out of the room and back into the corridor. Already I could hear the guards rousing the slaves to get them back to work.

  Xuan Xiang motioned that we needed to go in the direction of the slaves. Presumably, Talya would be there. At least I hoped she was. I was growing more nervous by the second that our cover would be blown and Wei would realize he had intruders in his facility.

  We snuck down the tunnel heading toward the sounds of the guards. As we drew closer, I could make out crude holding cells hewn from the rock and earth. There must have been some sort of latrine system nearby too because it reeked. Obviously they needed to find some chem toilets and put them down here.

  We hugged the wall as a pair of guards led a pack of slaves past us. They stunk. Their emaciated faces looked drawn and depressed. As one of them wandered past me I could hear him praying quietly in Nepali.

  I felt Jack eyeballing me. I nodded at him. Yes, the situation sucked. And I wanted to do something. But not at the expense of our safety. Or Talya's.

  After they passed us, we continued down the tunnel. At the far end, the tunnel ended and we saw several more holding cells. As the guards emptied them I kept an eye out for Talya. She probably looked different but I was confident I could spot her. But the more pages that wandered past us, I started to doubt if she was even here. Had Xuan Xiang lied to me? He was certainly sociopathic and more than capable of lying but I didn't think he had. He may simply not have known where Wei took her.

  It was then in the fading din of the slaves and their guards moving back down the tunnel that I heard something move in another cell. I glanced at Xuan Xiang and he motioned for us to check out one of the cells. We moved over and peered inside.

  Talya lay on a threadbare cot.

  My heart leapt but I contained myself. I could see she still wore her tactical clothing Although it was tattered by now and fraying in places. Her head was turned toward the wall and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and grab her.

  Which was right when the alarms started going off.

  And this time they sounded different.

  "They found the guards," said Xuan Xiang. "Get her and move!"

  I came out from under the Cloak and grabbed Talya by the shoulders. "Hey it's me. It's Lawson. C’mon we have to get you out of here."

  She turned to me mumbling. In the dim light I could just see her face.

  It wasn't Talya.

  "What the hell-?"

  Xuan Xiang spoke up. "What's the problem?"

  "It's not Talya." I grabbed the woman and shook her. "Where did you get these clothes?"

  She looked at me with a blank expression so I repeated it in Nepali. This time she understood.

  "She traded clothes with me so I could rest."

  "How long ago?"

  "Just now."

  I looked back down the tunnel. She must have walked right past me and I didn't even notice. Way to be aware, Lawson, I thought with a frown. But something else struck me. Why would Talya have given up her clothes to this woman? Yeah, she was kind and everything, but not when her life was on the line. There had to be another reason.

  “Lawson, you need to get back under here before we’re discovered,” said Jack. “We can’t do anything for Talya if they know we’re here.”

  Xuan Xiang was holding the Cloak up and I ducked back under it. The Nepali woman passed out from shock and we left her there. Hopefully, we could do something for all of them eventually. I wasn’t all that optimistic, though.

  “Back the way we came,” I said. “She’s got to be among the slaves that walked past us.”

  We moved back down the tunnel. At the entrance to the pit, we saw more soldiers patrolling. All of them had their weapons unslung and at the ready. Something had to be going on to put them on such a high state of alert. I wondered if it was because they’d found the guards or some other reason.

  Talya.

  What if she’d switched clothes with the slave woman to try to escape? I smirked. Of course that had to be the answer. Talya would never wait for me to come and rescue her. She was her own woman. She’d been on her own countless times and probably in a lot worse situations that being held prisoner by Xuan Xiang. When he fell from grace, she must have sensed an opportunity and waited for the right moment to take advantage of it. What better time than after the test of whatever m
achine the Chinese were working on? Everyone would be focused on the after effects of the test and their awareness would be at a low point. Talya could pretend she was a pliable slave woman that represented no threat to anyone until she got to where she must have decided to make her move. At that point, she would have been primed and ready.

  It was how I would have done it.

  She couldn’t take the chance that I wouldn’t be able to come. Her survival depended on her, not me. I respected her for being so capable. I just wish I’d noticed her when she walked past me in the tunnel.

  We hung back away from the pit watching the scene unfold before us. As the alarms finally died away, the guards were regrouping and heading deeper into the Abyss. Fewer lights shone down below and I suspected that Talya would have first gone down there to take care of pursuers. Once she was armed and ready, she’d emerge and make her way back to the surface. Possibly, she would take a hostage if she thought it would help her.

  Somehow, I had to make contact with her. Otherwise, she might get shot trying to escape. We could use the Cloak to conceal her.

  Of course, that meant ditching Xuan Xiang. He wouldn’t be happy about that. He might even try to use us as a bargaining chip to get back into the good graces of Wei. I wished I’d had a Fixer gun to just shoot the sonofabitch. His usefulness was already coming to an end and I had no doubt he would sell us out in a heartbeat.

  It occurred to me then what we needed to do to make contact with Talya: we needed to enter the pit.

  I mimed this to Jack and Xuan Xiang and neither of them looked thrilled with the idea. Xuan Xiang vehemently shook his head no. Jack frowned but then nodded once he saw Xuan Xiang’s refusal. I pointed again and then we set off for the path leading down into the semi-darkness.

  I wasn’t particularly fussed about the lack of light. Vampires can see better than humans in total darkness so I knew we wouldn’t be stumbling down the path, kicking up dirt and rocks in our wake. Still, we had to bunch up more than normal. The path wasn’t wide enough for three people to walk abreast of one another. And if anyone came up while we were descending, it was going to get really crowded.