by Adrian Cross
She opened her eyes, but it didn’t make a lot of difference. The lighting was dim and uncertain, fracturing off rough and ragged stone. The light had a strange blue cast, its source to her left.
She raised herself painfully to an elbow and saw Karen huddled a few feet away, although two lines of crude iron bars separated them. They were both in cells, with an empty one between them.
Bern struggled to remember who had taken her. They were big, she remembered, and their leader had had strange upward curving teeth. A new type of vampire? What did they want with her and Karen? Were they potential converts? Food? Or something else?
“Are you okay?”
Karen looked at Bern silently, a mix of hard-to-read emotions on the other woman’s face. Grief, despair, guilt?
“No,” she whispered.
“Are you hurt? Did they…” Bern didn’t finish the sentence. Did they assault Karen? Did they feed off her or force themselves upon her?
Karen shook her head slowly. The blue glow that lit her face came from her chest, Bern saw, from a stone in a necklace. It deepened the shadows around her until it seemed that Karen was the only real thing in this place.
Water dripped. They were underground, Bern realized, in some kind of cave.
“Not that. You will see. I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” Bern lurched to her feet. “What’s going on?”
“We’re tools, I think, for their vengeance.”
“Whose vengeance?”
“Clay’s enemies.”
Bern heard a soft scuttle in the darkness. Her heart leaped, and she spun, trying to see who was hidden in the shadows.
Karen stood and pressed herself against the bars, her hand wrapped around the chain of her necklace. The stone burned an even deeper blue, lighting her knuckles. Despair haunted Karen’s face.
“I don’t know if my light will reach that far.”
From the shadows beside Bern, a spider emerged. Tiny, no bigger than a child’s fingernail, and moving almost hesitantly. But another spilled out behind it, then another. They crept toward Bern.
She pressed herself back against the bars, heart pounding.
“Stay as close as you can,” Karen said. Her eyes were dark and shadowed. “It’ll be a long night…”
30
To the Tower
When the sounds of battle finally faded, JP slowed. His heart was pounding, and his hands trembled. A familiar horror filled his chest. It was like he’d had a dream, a dream in which he was free of the Last Great War, from its fire and blood. A dream in which he’d felt almost free of chains. Then everything had slid back again.
“You know what that was, right?” he said softly.
“Yes.”
“A Creeper, Clay. What’s a Creeper doing in StoneDragon?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could people not realize?” His pulse pounded in his ears. “He’s part of the Great Enemy—and not a small part either, from the looks of him.” From his size and carapace, that was one of their Warriors. A Creeper that could fight like twenty and wield the vibrations that melted rock and steel.
“It sounds strange,” Clay said, “but you have to realize his arrival was before Rhino and Candiman. None of the Bosses of that time were from the Last Great War. They wouldn’t have known what he was. And no one has really seen him since that first night. He’s killed, but quietly, leaving only the bodies. Just enough to keep the Bosses out of the Free Zone.”
“Why set any boundaries at all? Why not just attack the city?” JP imagined the carnage. It was possible the Bosses could bring him down—Rhino had experience fighting Creepers—but it would not be easy. Not one of the major Warriors.
Clay shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Not now. I’m sorry, but we need to keep moving. We have to rescue Karen and Bern from Mendonia’s soldiers.”
JP had almost forgotten them. He felt a flash of guilt. But he’d never met the girls. He was worried instead about Rhino, Mendonia, and the Creeper. About Clay and himself.
“Do you know where they are?”
“No,” Clay said, “but I have an idea how to find out.”
JP looked at Clay’s empty holster. If Clay was going to try to rescue the girls from the Spartan vampires, he would need more firepower than the dagger, especially if Mendonia survived the battle with Ripper.
“Are we still going to the office first?”
“We’re almost there.” Clay’s eyes burned as he swung his gaze to JP. “It’s important, right? Time is short.”
JP nodded. “I think so.”
They turned down a smoke-choked street, and JP saw the remnants of Clay’s office. Of his home. It hit JP like an avalanche. His dream of security torn to shreds. It had been as much of a lie as the age of his body. In that moment, JP felt truly old.
The scientists who created JP had known children absorb information better than adults. They’d forced chemicals in his veins to slow his growth, creating an informational sponge. He’d chewed through all the books they’d given him as well as the two great computers they’d saved. He’d learned in days things his predecessor would have spent his lifetime deducing. The man had been a great scientist, creating all kinds of inventions. He’d brought life and hope to the world.
JP brought death.
What would JP have been like if he’d had a family the same way? A normal life? Someone who cared if he lived or died? JP tasted salt on his lips. His arms wrapped around his chest, and he trembled.
“Are you okay?” Clay asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did a Spartan hurt you?”
JP drew a shaky breath. “Do you know what the General would do when I refused to help his program?”
Clay shook his head.
JP’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. “The Bird Cage. At first it was just a rope and some metal planks and bars. They told me to weld it together.” He still remembered the burn of sparks on his wrists, the smirk of the General. “They lowered me out the bottom of the Eyrie. That was the General’s fortress. It was built at the top of a cliff and jutted out over the main battlefield. There was always fighting underneath. The Enemy would try to claw their way up the stone. I think maybe they thought I was the General. Or maybe not. But sometimes the dirigibles would float close enough that the cage would bounce and roll along the balloon’s edge.” He scraped his hair. “I don’t want to go back to a cage, Clay.”
Clay’s hand closed on JP’s shoulder. It was warm and reassuring.
“I’m glad you told me, JP. And I don’t plan on letting anyone do that to you again, any time soon. But we need to leave now, or else that’ll be a tough promise to keep. You ready?”
“No.” JP drew a breath and pointed at the coals and beams in front of them. “There should be a black box right about there. We need to dig it up.”
Clay didn’t argue; he simply found a length of intact wood and an iron bar and started digging. It didn’t take as long as JP had feared. The bar rang off something metal, and Clay dug it out of the ash with the beam. Soon they had a scarred black box in their hands, still warm from the fire.
JP dusted it off, revealing the tumblers. This was the box he’d been working on when Rhino’s men had captured him. For the first time, he hesitated. If he gave this to Clay, he’d be taking sides. He’d be reclaiming his role as a weapons maker, and he knew StoneDragon would be as eager for his skills as the General had been.
But Clay was different. He had risked his life to protect JP. Wasn’t Clay worth it?
JP slid down to the soil, hands locked on the box.
“You’d think I’d be less affected by war, given my history.” He felt his face twist strangely, trying to smile. He stopped.
“Sometimes it’s different close up.” Clay held the bone he’d stolen from Mendonia, fingers twisting it around as he looked at it. It wasn’t anything exceptional, shorter than JP’s forearm, curved and smooth, like water-polished driftwood, although
one end was sharp, as if a blow had splintered it. “Could this thing have changed Mendonia’s infection? Made him different than a regular vampire?”
“No idea, honestly. Not my specialty. You going to give it back?”
“To who?”
“The Earth gods. Maybe they’d stop attacking if you did.”
A long pause. “Horan wants Karen, too,” Clay said. “Are you saying I should give her over?”
JP laughed bitterly. “I’m the last person who should advise anyone on morality.” He stared at the box in his hands.
Clay sank down beside JP. They sat silently for a little while.
“People seem to want to make this a numbers game,” Clay said finally. “But it’s not. Did I ever tell you how I came to StoneDragon?”
JP shook his head.
In the dark and smoke, in his dark coat and ash-smudged face, Clay almost seemed a disembodied voice.
“I earned a reputation with a gun at a young age, even though that wasn’t what I set out to do. You’d think that would encourage people to leave me alone, but in fact, the opposite happened. Every would-be gunfighter for hundreds of miles came hunting me. They forced me to kill them. I tried to hide. I even changed my name. Finally, I found myself in a corner of nowhere, working for a rancher named Kregor. He was getting older. It was just him and his daughter.”
Clay’s voice turned wistful. “Her name was Sarah. She was lively and fresh, like a mountain stream. We were drawn to each other. Kregor wasn’t happy about it. He brought his Winchester into my room not long after I arrived and told me what to expect if I planned on leaving his daughter with a broken heart and swollen stomach.” His lips quirked in a smile. “I liked that old man.
“For a while, I thought my luck had turned. But then a gang of outlaws moved into the area, probably for the same reason I did, hiding from someone. Suddenly, people were scared. The law was a long way away and the outlaws were dangerous men.
“The outlaws were led by a man named Mozart. He had a bad reputation. I hoped the outlaws would just move on, but deep down I knew better. Then one night I heard hoofbeats outside the house, lots of them, and looked out my window to see a dozen men on horseback. They milled around with torches, rifles, and near-empty bottles. A fat man kneed his horse forward and yelled for Kregor to come out.
“The old man appeared at the front door, holding his Winchester. His voice was high and thin when he spoke. ‘Get off my property.’
“Mozart laughed. ‘I hear you don’t want to pay our tax.’ His chubby fingers played over the grip of his pistol. ‘That’s a shame. Because there are a lot of valuables in your house, including one with blonde hair, that might get broken if you don’t. And maybe if you do.’ This was followed by some drunken laughs.
“The sound of my rifle cocking was loud in the night air. ‘You’ve had your fun. Now it’s time to ride away, friends.’
“Mozart’s eyes darted up to my window. He hadn’t expected me. But he still had twelve men to our two. He smiled. ‘I don’t think so, stranger.’
“That was when one of Mozart’s men leaned forward, looking like he’d sobered up suddenly. His cheeks were pale. Even from the window, I could hear the whisper. ‘That there’s Clay Halloway.’
“I figured I’d help things along. ‘I’ve got your forehead in my sights, Mozart, and the last time I missed a shot from this distance, I was four years old with a pop gun.’
“Mozart stiffened. He was furious but unwilling to call my bluff. He jerked his mount around. ‘No need to overreact, cowboy. We’re just here to deliver a message, which we did. See you again, Mr. Kregor.’
“They rode off. When I went downstairs, Kregor was gone. I figured he’d trailed the outlaws to make sure they left his land. He never said anything more about that night.”
Clay rubbed his eyes.
“It didn’t end there,” JP said.
“No. I didn’t know it, but at some point, Mozart managed to grab Sarah. Kregor asked me to ride into town with him but didn’t tell me why. I thought he might be going to the doctor’s because his forehead was beaded with sweat and his cheeks were white. He clutched his rifle as if someone were going to yank it away. I thought he might be having a heart attack. But when he turned in his saddle and stared up at a cliff, I spun around too, thinking we were about to be attacked.”
He was silent for a second. “Kregor shot me in the back.”
“I’m sorry,” JP said softly. “They blackmailed him?”
“Yes. They told him that they’d give her back to him at the ranch, if he did what they wanted. He was scared. Desperate.”
“What happened?”
“The bullet didn’t kill me, obviously. It glanced off a rib and lodged in my back. I was dizzy and weak, but I crawled after him and finally managed to walk. I followed him to the ranch, but much too slowly.” Grief shredded Clay’s voice.
“When I got there, the ranch house was burning, and there were two bodies in it. They killed Sarah and Kregor both.”
“I’m sorry,” JP said. He imagined Clay in front of the fire, similar to the one here, but with two people close to family dead within it. “What did you do?”
He laughed harshly. “I did what I do best. I killed them. I killed them all. Then I walked out into the desert, thinking I was going to follow. But instead of death, I found a wall of fire and inside it, a man who promised me something different.”
Clay rose silently, a dark, angular shadow in the night. The Wall’s red light danced along his rigid jaw and set eyes. “Which is why I will never trade Karen to the Earth gods, no matter what they promise. No matter what they threaten. I will not be blackmailed. I will see this whole damn city go up in flames first.”
JP nodded. He clicked open the box and offered it to Clay.
He looked surprised. “What is this?”
“A gun.”
Clay looked inside, and his face turned almost reverent. He drew out a long slender pistol, dark grey like a night snake’s scales. It was long, but sleek and light, JP knew, made for the size of Clay’s hand. It should be balanced and easy in his grip, as if it had been made for him—which it had been.
The pistol’s cylinder was clear, shaped from thick wedges of crystal, and it held three chambers instead of one. The first was the same as the other gun—icicles—but Clay brought the weapon up to examine the others.
The second chamber held the pectin-glazed balls.
“Acid shots,” JP said. “The refills are solid enough to fit into your belt loops. The reaction to dissolve the outer shell only happens as they move through the barrel. But if you shoot them at something, it will sting, I promise. That acid will melt iron.”
“And it will work in StoneDragon?”
“It will.”
Clay turned the cylinder with his thumb, bringing the last chamber into view. Muddy red balls packed against the crystal.
“Salamander balls,” JP said. “When they hit, fire will catch and spread. Whatever the mud clings to will burn—and it sticks to just about everything.”
“Nasty,” Clay said admiringly. “You really made this?”
JP nodded. “It’s a slight variation on your red pistol, but it should work just as well. The pressure chamber is more advanced, giving it better range, and the longer barrel should result in better accuracy.”
“How many shots in a chamber?”
“Six in each.” JP tapped the base of the gun. “Then you need to reload.”
“You’re giving this to me?”
“What else am I going to do with it? I’m not a soldier. And you’re going to need something more powerful than a kitchen knife if you’re going to take on the Earth gods.”
Clay stared at the gun and then slid it into his holster. The extra chambers he tucked into his belt. They fit snugly in the loops.
JP lifted his hand. “Just one warning. Be careful with this. The crystal around the chambers is reasonably strong, but it can break. If something hits it h
ard enough to break the wall between the chambers, throw the gun away. Preferably at someone you don’t like.”
“Why? What would happen?”
JP shrugged. “I’m not sure, exactly, but it would be bad. The chambers contain some naturally unstable chemicals that aren’t designed to mix together. My best guess is between two possibilities. And it might just be a question of timing. The first is that the chemical reaction creates a pressure that builds too fast to be contained. Whoever is holding it will likely end up in several different pieces in several different places.”
“How reassuring. And the other possibility?”
“The pressure might grow more slowly. That would mean a brief period when the pressure of the reaction is contained by the gun’s casing. It’s possible—just possible—that you harness the explosion into providing one very powerful shot. But I wouldn’t advise it. There is no question you’re going to get an explosion. The only question is which direction it blows. I don’t recommend experimentation.”
“Got it. Break glass, run away.”
“Yes.”
The weapon seemed to take some weight off Clay. He pulled his shoulders back.
“All right. Let’s go see some vampires.”
31
The Club District
Candiman’s territory was the Club District. To get there quickly, Clay and JP had to pass the Broken Tower. Clay always found it an unnerving experience.
The houses grew dark and neglected, with rubble and tangled weeds carpeting the road. Few people willingly lived close to the Tower. Stone gargoyles leered down at them from above. Clay tried not to look up. Artists of incredible talent and questionable sanity had chipped away those shapes, paying careful attention to such details as the shreds of flesh hanging from teeth and the bubbles of saliva foaming across stretched lips. The snakes were particularly disturbing: their scaled bodies lashed out, jaws spread to offer a gruesome death.
