Four Dominions

by Eric Van Lustbader

  The Syrian howled in shock and pain, his grip on the AK-47 loosened enough for Bravo to rip it out of his hands. The butt of the Syrian’s own weapon rendered him unconscious. Crouching down, Bravo went through his pockets, salvaged a knife with a six-inch serrated blade in a stained and well-worn leather scabbard, and a two-way radio.

  He switched on the radio, tapped out I am here in Morse code, repeating it twice more before shutting off the radio and throwing it overboard. Returning to the stern rail, he helped Ayla aboard.

  “Keep your feet at shoulder width, knees slightly bent to counteract the pitch,” he instructed before recalling she was a diver and would know how to keep her sea legs in all kinds of weather. “Stay ready,” he said over the constant noise before retreating into the shadows.

  The steamer, having come alongside the arms freighter, had slowed to neutral and was now wallowing in the waves and troughs.

  It wasn’t long before Ismail appeared. He saw his man sprawled on the deck, then looked up to see Ayla, her face appearing and disappearing in the swinging, shifting ship’s lights. His eyes narrowed.

  “Who are you? Where did you come from?” But he didn’t seem in any mood to find out. He lifted a Makarov pistol. As he did so, Bravo threw the knife. The shifting of the deck worked against him. The knife entered Ismail’s right shoulder, causing him to lower the pistol, but it did not bring him down as Bravo had planned.

  Instead, he twisted to face Bravo as he pulled the knife out of his muscle. Bravo didn’t wait to see what he’d do next; he rushed Ismail and bulled into him with his shoulder. They both went down; the Makarov went skidding; Ismail smashed his fist into the side of Bravo’s neck. Digging his thumb into the knife wound, Bravo fought to gain control, but Ismail, imbued with the peculiar fire of the fanatic, drove an elbow into his windpipe.

  Bravo coughed heavily, gagging, and Ismail took the initiative, burying his fist into the place he had kicked Bravo. Bravo cried out, still trying to catch his breath, his strength drained by the pain and the fury of Ismail’s counterattack. Straddling Bravo, Ismail fought to gain a grip on Bravo’s head, to sink his thumbs into Bravo’s eye sockets.

  There was a moment when the two men were locked in stasis, grappled, arms twined, muscles bulging, teeth bared like animals in a death spiral. And then, so slowly it was only discernable to the two combatants, Ismail found an edge. His thumbs moved ever closer to Bravo’s eyes. They were almost upon them now, Bravo’s head locked in a fierce vise-like grip. Bravo could feel the other’s rough, calloused skin against his eyelids; then a terrible pressure commenced against his eyeballs, compressing them.

  An explosion. Ismail’s head fractured, spraying Bravo’s face with blood, bits of brain and skull like hot sleet. Ismail’s torso wobbled, the pressure came off Bravo’s eyes, and with a violent twist, Bravo tossed the Syrian’s corpse aside.

  He looked up to see Ayla standing over him, legs spread, two hands on the Makarov. Then she grinned. “You see,” she said, “feet at shoulder width.”

  *

  AS HE had predicted, the rood was secreted inside Ismail’s clothes, nestled against his skin. The gold gleamed against the darkness of his skin. There were still streaks of darker metal on it; Ismail hadn’t had time to completely free the rood from its bronze overlay. They could still see part of the crack that had led him to discover the gold.

  The two of them crouched down on either side of the body as Bravo cradled the golden rood.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I am now,” he answered, and gave her a grin to reassure her. There was no point in clueing her in to how much pain he was in, But, knowing her, she’d find out for herself sooner rather than later. His head pounded and his ribs felt like they were broken. Every inhalation was agony.

  She was about to ask another question of him when the firefight rushed back in on them. They had both been so concentrated on their own private battle they had blocked out the larger war being fought between the crews of the two ships. Now the incessant barrage of gunfire was all that could be heard.

  Ayla, leaning over the corpse, said in his ear, “Okay, now what? How do we get out of here?”

  “We don’t.” Bravo said. “We’ll let the crew of the other ship do it for us.”

  Ayla looked intrigued. “How d’you propose we do that?”

  Above and ahead of them loomed the ship’s superstructure—the crew’s quarters, wardroom, kitchen, and, above, the pilot’s wheelhouse—intermittently illuminated by livid tracer fire. The smells of cordite and blood, bittersweet, filled the air.

  He reloaded the Makarov from Ismail’s ammo belt, handed it back to Ayla. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

  “My father taught me. You know what a crack shot he was.”

  Bravo did. Once, when he and Omar Tusik went hunting in the Turkish mountains, a Eurasian lynx, all tufted ears and carnivorous eyes, leapt from an overhanging tree branch. It would have landed on Bravo, would have sunk its teeth into the back of his neck, had not Omar shot it dead in midair.

  “I’m going forward.” He pointed. “You take the high ground. The wheelhouse.” He looked at her levelly as she rifled through the Syrian’s pockets, found cigarettes and a cheap plastic lighter. “I’ll tell you this once, Ayla. The more of these Syrian extremists we kill the better our chance of booking passage on the arms ship. Are you listening to me?”

  She looked up at him. “Absorbed every word.”

  He nodded. “So... shoot first and often.”

  She nodded grimly. “I understand.”

  “I hope you do. Your mother will leap out of her grave and kill me if I let anything untoward happen to you.”

  *

  AYLA WAS in the kind of shock one feels at a loved one’s death—the autonomous nervous system, in full play, had taken charge of a body whose mind had gone numb. These dire, life-and-death circumstances were off the charts. Hell, they were part of another chart altogether. On the other hand, she thought, as she climbed the steep metal gangway to the helm’s crow’s nest, they had hurled her backward to the time her mother had taken her to Tannourine, to the red tent of shadows, introduced her to the infernal presence that would allow her to access her powers and mark her forever. She had to get used to the fact that her life was here, now. She was a Shaw, as fully committed to the extraordinary destiny of its lineage as Bravo was. And this recognition, which she felt flowing from her mind to every cell of her body, worked like a trigger. She had never before understood who she was, where she came from, what her lineage was, what responsibilities and powers that carried. All her adult life, until the moment she met Bravo last year in Istanbul, she had fought against her mother, fought against what had happened in Tannourine when she was a child, aligning herself with her father, who was as normal as she wished to be.

  As she opened the door to the wheelhouse, she felt her father’s—both her fathers’, actually—strength, intelligence, and nerve flow through her, unfreezing her mind. She no longer fought the unknown inside her but relaxed into its flow. She felt her mind moving forward in time, in the smallest increments, but dictating her actions and reactions as, she guessed, Conrad had been taught by his mother, Diantha.

  With one father on each shoulder, she shot to death three of the four armed Syrians manning the wheelhouse, protecting the pilot. They had been fixated on the firefight raging below them, could not imagine that they had been boarded from the stern by another enemy.

  The fourth guard swung his pistol and fired off-balance. Ayla leapt at him. The bullet grazed her cheek. She felt its passage as one might a lightning bolt, the proximity to such raw power electrifying, as terrifying as the events in the red tent of shadows when she was just a girl, when, in mortal fear, she had set fire to it.

  And this she did again, engaging with the fourth guard, shooting him in the abdomen while the pilot scrabbled for the pistol he never thought he’d need. He shot without aiming, putting two more bullets into his
guard, bleeding out, whom Ayla was using as a shield. She shot the pilot between the eyes, and then started work on the dried-out, oil-streaked wooden deck boards.

  *

  NO ONE had been assigned rear guard duty, no one was looking behind them, occupied as they were with exchanging fire with the crew aboard the arms ship. Bravo came at them enfilade—that is, from the side. He had counted twenty or so armed Syrians. Six went down in his first volley, before he switched positions. As the men were blown backward by the fusillade, some of their compatriots rose out of their positions hunkered down behind winches and crate, and were taken out by fire from the other ship.

  Ten down, Bravo thought as he fired again. Three more. That left seven. He was unconcerned by what would be a small complement belowdecks in the engine room. That would be the arms crew’s problem.

  His own problem stemmed from the three Syrians who were now coming after him, while their brethren kept up their fusillade across the short span of water between the two ships. But already the nature of the firefight had changed; the arms crew had realized the attacking fire had been more than cut in half and were reacting to it. Emboldened, they took less protected but more advantageous positions, concentrated their fire at the remaining Syrians. Then grappling hooks flew through the air, drawing the two ships close enough for members of the arms crew to leap aboard the steamer.

  It was at this moment that flames burst through the shattering windows of the wheelhouse. The three Syrians, stunned, were easy to pick off. Bravo advanced along the length of the ship. He shot the last remaining Syrian on deck as the first contingent from the arms ship approached from the opposite end. They were wary, their killing blood on the surface, ready to shoot anyone in their way, including Bravo. Then they saw the men he had shot, and allowed him to direct three of them belowdecks to mop up whoever was left aboard.

  Moments later, Ayla joined him, face and clothes smudged, but unhurt.

  “Good job,” Bravo said. Then he turned her to get a better look at her cheek. “That was close. Are you all right?”

  “Better than you, I expect.” She gave him a crooked smile, and he laughed.

  *

  “QUITE FORTUITOUS,” Captain Kreutzer said, eyeing them in his quarters aboard the arms freighter. “We owe you a debt of thanks. How about a hot meal, a shower, and a new set of clothes.” He tilted his head toward Ayla. “That is, if you don’t mind some oversized men’s clothes, Fräulein.”

  “Not at all,” Ayla said with no little relief. “Thank you very much, Captain.”

  He nodded to her in a formal manner. Everything about Kreutzer was formal, from his well-combed hair, to his scent of expensive cologne, to his well-cut trousers and pea coat. He wore, of all things, made-to-order John Lobb loafers with deck-gripping soles, which must have set him back $1,200, if Bravo was any judge.

  “Pardon me for saying this,” Bravo said as a mate set steaming mugs of coffee before them, “but you look more suited to be captaining a mega-yacht than a freighter.”

  Kreutzer laughed. He had a marked widow’s peak and large, square hands. A semi-circular scar stood on the point of his right cheek. He flipped open a silver hip flask, poured generous slugs of dark rum into their mugs. “Drink up, meine Freunde.” He lifted his mug and they clinked them together. “To money,” he said jovially. “The root of all evil. And pleasure!”

  He studied them, his deep-brown eyes twinkling. “You make quite a pair, I must say. And that fire you set, Fräulein. Quite ingenious.” He spoke with a peculiar accent, part German, part British. He lifted his mug to her in a salute that held no measure of irony. He was clearly impressed with them.

  Two crew members, one of them the cook, served them a delicious-smelling Moroccan meal: pigeon bastilla, lamb, prune, and green olive tagine, rounds of freshly baked unleavened bread. They fell to, the captain seeming as famished as they found themselves.

  Afterward, over more coffee, Kreutzer addressed their curiosity. “I used to captain a mega-yacht, just as you surmised, Herr Shaw. But I grew tired of taking orders from the rich and famous. ‘Vain and stupid’ is more like it.” He chuckled, a warm, throaty sound that put them completely at ease.

  He spread his hands. The nails were manicured, shining with clear lacquer. Clearly, this tanker did not lack for amenities. “I make no excuses for what I do now. It pays far more than anything else I could do on the high seas. I work less and make more.”

  “And the stress levels?” Ayla said.

  “I have a hearty constitution,” Kreutzer replied. “Lucky for me. Otherwise, I’d be popping stomach tablets like candy.”

  Ayla pushed her chair back from the table. Through one of the portholes, she could see the Syrian steamer on fire, the ship diminishing rapidly as they pulled farther and farther away. “Now about that shower, Captain.”

  “Certainly. I’ll have my steward show you the way. New clothes are already set out on a berth in a spare cabin, now that our complement has been somewhat... reduced.”

  “You feel no remorse, Captain?”

  “These men are all mercenaries, Fräulein. They knew the risks going in. They don’t expect to be mourned.”

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t.”

  “Fräulein, you’ll pardon me for being blunt, but I have no time for such luxuries.”

  “We fully understand, Captain,” Bravo interjected.

  “It might interest the Fräulein to know that ironically my six men died for nothing. We off-loaded our cargo ten days ago in Tunis. We’re running light now.” His heavy shoulders lifted, fell. “Die Idioten got their intelligence mixed up.”

  “One more thing,” Bravo said.

  Kreutzer lifted an eyebrow. “Anything, if it’s in my power.”

  “I believe it is. You’re heading east?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So are we.”

  “You’re welcome to take passage, both of you. Though some of my men will grumble about a having a female—”

  “I can take care of myself,” Ayla said, her back up.

  Kreutzer’s smile was soothing, not in the least condescending. He’d seen what she was capable of. “I don’t doubt that for a moment, Fräulein. I assure you that everything is in hand.” He turned to Bravo. “And where might you be headed, Herr Shaw?”

  “Arwad.”

  The captain’s thick eyebrows rose. “The island where those Syrian extremists who attacked us are from, so I’m given to understand.”

  Bravo nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “It may not be wise,” Bravo said. “But it’s necessary.”

  41

  Paris: Present Day

  THE... END... IS... NEAR....

  Emma heard these words in her mind, each one like a thunderclap, but she was unaware that her lips moved, her voice box vocalizing. She lay splayed, like Christ on the cross, bleeding from a thousand and one wounds. Drowned in the words of Lucifer, privy to the dreadful autobiography of his creation, “the birth of the Lord of Night,” in Satan’s own words, the raising of Beelzebub by a creature unknown to neither man nor angel, if he was to be believed. But why should I believe anything Lucifer says? the part of Emma’s mind still nominally under her control thought. He who worships at the filthy altar of lies, deception, and slander. And yet the words were there, all around her, dragging her under, where they swirled thickest, a blizzard of were-history.

  The... end... is... near....

  And Lucifer was not alone in his creation. Twins were born to the thing with neither face nor name. The words of Lucifer, filled with fire and smoke, told of the twins only in the vaguest terms, given short shrift, one embittered, spiteful sentence.

  Emma was flattened, shredded, ripped asunder. And yet the core of her abided. She had clutched the lifeline Conrad had extended to all his progeny, held it in her heart, kept it safe and secure against all assaults. And this vigilance now stood her in good stead. The lifeline
bore the Shaw-Safita-Ahirom’s imprimatur, the combined wisdom of Conrad, Diantha, and Tanis, twined like strands of DNA that rose through the core of her, a part that the Power Beleth could neither alter nor touch.

  But something more powerful than Beleth had used the doorway opened by the words of Lucifer that had invaded Emma’s mind at that first and only reading. And because, like her brother, she had an eidetic memory, those words could not be forgotten but repeated themselves endlessly, pinging off the folds of her brain.

  In this extraordinary state, she was separated from Beleth for the first time since it Transpositioned into her body from Maura Kite. And for the first time, she could hear the whispered voice of Conrad.

  Djat had’ar, he whispered in her mind’s ear.

  “Djat had’ar,” she said. He is present.

  A jolt went through her. A dark presence, colossal, many winged, face shrouded, halted on the threshold of the doorway the blizzard of Lucifer’s words had opened. It looked like the sum of all shadows, and her soul quailed before it. She could feel its rage like the heart of the sun. A rage beyond the scope of mere human senses. This... is... the... end... of all things.

  Et ignis ibi est! he whispered in her mind’s ear.

  “Et ignis ibi est!” she cried out with all her might. Let there be fire!

  Blue flames erupted, coursed through her, enveloped her, slammed the door on the many-winged presence, locked, bolted, and sealed the door shut.

  *

  “SHE’S DYING!” Lilith screamed. “She’s dying, Beleth, you lying piece of shit! Do something!”

  “I have tried,” Beleth said. “I am locked out.... There is nothing...” A gasp. “He comes! He is coming!”

  “Who?” Lilith cried. “Who’s coming?”

  “The King of the Four Thrones.” Beleth’s voice quivered. “The Beast. The Reaver. Verrine.”

  Lilith trembled at his words, at the thought of confronting evil. Nevertheless, she held Emma all the tighter, kissed her temples, her forehead, the trembling lips. She ignored the black tar-like substance Emma had vomited up, just as she ignored M. Boyer, who had at last abandoned his work at the sound of her scream, and who, along with his assistants, crowded around her. Dimly, she was aware of someone summoning an ambulance, and she shouted, “No! No ambulance!” without quite knowing why, and yet with such utter conviction that the call was canceled. Instead, someone contacted Building Services to clean up the strange black vomit.