A Darker Crimson

by Carolyn Jewel

  He didn’t complain. In truth, his body ached from the weight of carrying her, hungered from the exertion and the drain of his slowly healing body. Under normal circumstances, his physical recovery would have been long past. Instead, he was forced to ignore his appetite, the soul-deep longing for the blood that would restore him. The effort was unpleasant but, happily, still possible. He wasn’t starving. Not yet. Daylight whirled closer, and with the promise of dawn came a creeping dread that he might sink into a permanent stupor. He flew lower and slower.

  Biirkma at first reappeared as a charcoal smudge against the rising dark of the horizon, but eventually the smudge took shape against the inkiness of night. The palace lay northwest, and they alit to the south, at an outer edge of the city wall, close to where he’d intended to end up. Korzha saw little choice except to keep Claudia with him when he went after Holly. In order to cloak her, she needed to be close by. Demons would find her if he left her unattended in the city. Leaving her unprotected in the country felt nearly as risky and unacceptably, to him, increased the chances of their being caught. Since he wasn’t at all certain that he could cloak Holly’s half-demon nature, once he had her, all three of them needed a straight shot to the portal.

  Now, Donovan paced, pausing once in a while to shake out her legs or windmill her arms. She never seemed to notice the attention he paid her body, particularly to the curve of her backside. Did she not notice, or did she choose to ignore? He wondered which. At the moment, he was too tired to care. He just watched and admired. She put her hands to her hips and her head down, a sprinter in the minutes before the five hundred meter race. He could feel her mental preparation for going into the city.

  He stood, and Donovan stopped pacing. Without comment, she bent for the satchels and slung them across her chest. Now began the most dangerous part of their dangerous plan: making their way to the palace. He needed to cloak them both from the senses of demons. He would stay low; roof-level if practical, street-level if necessary. The air if disaster came. His injuries meant he had to reach deep for physical and mental strength. His body felt the hum of the demons; he felt the tug of Donovan in his head. She walked to him, and he took her in his arms. He cloaked them both and leaped from the wall to the top of the nearest house. In silent agreement, he put her down and they carefully walked the roofs.

  They’d been prowling the rooftops for twenty minutes when an ear-splitting shriek shattered the air. Korzha saw immediately the sound had nothing to do with them, but Donovan cried out and clapped her hands to her head. She slipped and the heel of her leading leg went flak-aclak-aclak along the tiles, heading straight for the edge and a drop to the street below. Korzha dove after her, reaching for her wrist. On her belly, she stopped the slide by jamming her foot against a stone gutter. Korzha hauled her up, ignoring the pain in his bitten arm and the smell of blood seeping from her scraped leg.

  On the rooftop, she got her legs under her and crouched so that when he grabbed her, she fit against his chest. But his injuries made his grip awkward and insecure. She twisted against him, trying to settle herself, but jarred his injured arm. Agony exploded in him. His mental control slipped, exposing them to demon senses.

  From the west, blue light flashed. Demons launched into the air, and Korzha swore. With an inarticulate shout of apology, Claudia got the straps of the satchels over her head and let them spiral down to the street below. There wasn’t anything in them they couldn’t do without, and he could make better time without their burden.

  The demon pursuers moved fast, and more joined them. A flood of winged and airborne creatures rose from the distant palace. On their present course, the demons would corner them in ten minutes, probably less. Korzha dropped to street level and veered away, back toward the portal. They were near enough to the snare with its trapped rogue that the vibration made his head ache.

  Behind him, the air heated. Wind whipped his hair. The ground shuddered. More demons joined the chase. Some were close enough now that their clothes identified them as guards from the palace. The pursuers stayed airborne but others also poured from alleys and streets. He soared away from the palace. The demons had a visual on them, and Korzha decided he’d be better off putting his resources into speed.

  The palace demons were herding them northwest, so Korzha, contrary creature that he was, cut due east. A ball of fire exploded five yards ahead of them. Heat singed his face as he blew past. Behind him, fire billowed, cutting off any retreat. His body reacted to the danger, and he found a reservoir of strength. He would not allow harm to come to Claudia. Three snarling demons landed in the street ahead. Not Bak-Faru, but something close, something nearly as malign. Trapped. Above, demons on the wing hovered; behind, fire; ahead, more demons. To the right, another malign presence lurked and with that, a desperate plan took form. He wasn’t cloaking them now, and he opened himself wider. Behind them, an explosion rocked the ground.

  Korzha bolted left again. Turn left, he told himself, then right, then right again. Away from the hum of the trapped vampire. At top speed he dashed down a street so narrow the overhanging buildings blocked the sky. And then he cloaked them. A roar went up when he and Claudia essentially vanished from the demons’ senses. He tucked Donovan in close and backtracked to the snare. Near where they’d “vanished” light flashed in the air. The ground shuddered under their feet. He put Donovan down.

  “Go!” Korzha roared. The snare was the only place the demons couldn’t sense them and with any luck their pursuers would never think to look here. Donovan flinched but plunged ahead. Korzha leapt after her. He felt a flicker of something as they passed through a shadow, and then there was nothing. No sound, no trembling ground, no shrieking demons. He kept them cloaked because there was another danger here.

  “What is this place?” Donovan whispered.

  “A prison.” He stood tall, and she stepped closer, pressing herself to his side. She didn’t object when he slid an arm around her waist.

  She shot him a panicked look. “Are we going to be able to get out?”

  “Probably.” He hoped so. According to Jaise, only the rogue was trapped here. He hoped that was true.

  Her mouth opened, but whatever she was going to say, something changed her mind. “Prison,” she repeated. “What for?”

  “A vampire.”

  Her head turned toward him, and she caught his eye. “You?”

  “No.” He pulled her from the edge of the snare, further into the dark. “From the point of view of demon senses, this place is a dead zone, but just in case, let’s not be standing here if any of those demons figure out we’ve come in here.”

  She walked with him deeper into shadow. Jaise’s description of the snare certainly seemed accurate. The abandoned homes and streets felt dead to Korzha, too. Some moonlight shone on the streets, casting an eerie haze in every direction, as if light came through only to warp endlessly off each surface. The light reflected the red tinge of the moon and refracted into crimson mist overhead.

  “The vampire trapped in here,” he said in a low voice, “has been in Orcus since before the portal was sealed. How long it’s been in here—that I do not know.” He considered what more to tell her. “It’s rogue. I suspect it is now beyond recovery.”

  “And you’re after it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know it’s rogue?”

  Another decision. He ought to say nothing. This was vampire politics and vampire law. He chose to be honest. “It was rogue years ago when I chased it and then lost the trail.”

  She tightened her fingers around his hand and exerted just enough pressure to make him look at her. A shaft of orange-tinted light arced over her head and vanished, refracted from somewhere. “Maybe those demons would have been a better choice.”

  “One vamp,” he said lightly. “Not a thousand demons. When it finds us, I’ll take care of it. I promise.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  “All the same, keep that knife of yours at hand.”
They turned, keeping close together, and scanned their surroundings. “Don’t hesitate to use it.”

  “Trust me, I won’t.”

  Inside, the snare was larger than he’d expected, a bending of dimension perhaps, encompassing a square mile or more. Which meant that if they were lucky, the rogue would not know right away where they were. Korzha led them past buildings closed up tight or else wide open to the elements. Vines obscured many of the windows and covered the walls and roofs. They walked a street of nothing but modest homes and empty avenues. This was a ghost town of reduplicated emptiness.

  Donovan had her knife out, tightening and untightening her fingers around its hilt. Crimson-tinged light hit the blade, looking more than a little like blood. Their feet kicked up dust as they walked. There was no life here but Donovan. They passed stone buildings, stone roofs. The snare was a cold and desolate place with no animals, no dogs, no cats, no rats. Further away, miles and miles away, he smelled the city of demons living close by, heard the sounds of activity. If he turned, the faraway glow of life lit the sky. So, it was possible to see out, but not to see inside. In size, Biirkma was nothing on the scale of Crimson City but it buzzed with life in stark contrast to this desolation. They passed a wagon, empty, one wheel tilting at an odd angle. But there were no sounds but their own.

  Dawn approached, pulling at Korzha’s bones in a way he hadn’t felt since his early days of immortal life. There, at the edges of his perception in the snare, he felt a quivering, strumming wire of awareness softly plucked. “Hurry,” he said.

  He ran uphill along the widening street, pulling Donovan with him, heading for larger, lavish houses of carved stone and curly-topped columns, but just as empty as the houses behind. He stopped at a door with stone carvings of the surrounding murky-sweet vines. Thick stone. Deep. Cold. It went down deep. He reached for the door’s locking mechanism and missed it. He focused himself and then the parts slid and the door swung inward as the first rays of dawn crested the hill. Sunlight hit the top of the snare and veered off. The mist overhead turned a richer red; a darker crimson, scarlet and maroon without an appreciable increase in visibility. He crossed the threshold and pulled Donovan after him. He needed darkness. Coolness. Retreat. As surely as did the rogue.

  Inside, he slammed the door and picked up a pot abandoned on a stone plinth. A weak bluish glow came from the cutwork in its front. Demon magic was still extant here.

  “Thanks,” Donovan said. He didn’t need the light, but she did. Darkness terrified her. That, he’d learned at the cave. She took the lamp by the handle that stuck out from the side opposite the cutwork and looked around. “Where are we?”

  He shrugged, and she didn’t pursue the subject. He walked quickly to stone steps leading downward, feeling his way. Nothing lived here, not so much as a beetle. The air smelled stale and a layer of dust coated the floor. On their entrance to a lower corridor, lights appeared at the tops of the walls. But the quivering in his head increased, a thrum of awareness: the rogue knew and was outraged that dawn pulled him to sleep.

  Squares of black stone lined the floor, cool and hard against his boots. Korzha moved without sound, but Donovan’s sandals shushed in the dust thick on the floor. The deeper they went, the closer dawn came, the less he felt the thrum of the rogue’s awareness. A mosaic of garden scenes decorated the walls; a couple dining outside in full moonlight; children playing with a green ball; a male demon lifting his delighted child into the air while two more waited their turn. He wasn’t surprised when Donovan stopped to study the panel. Overhead the ceiling was painted twilight blue. The corridor met a transverse passage, larger and wider than the first. He opened a door with a painted crimson moon above its glowing transom. The moment the door opened, light suffused the room.

  “Wow.” Donovan looked around in awe. “Swank.”

  He went straight for a nest of pillows in one corner, pushed aside a gauze tent flap and collapsed. His senses moved out, not in his control anymore. He wished the day would take him over, that he would fall into sleep. Thank God, Donovan didn’t object to his mental push for her to follow. But if the rogue came, he would know. He would need to be ready.

  She put her lamp on a table near the bed and stared at him while he sank into the pillows. She wasn’t even half acclimated to this night schedule and exhaustion pulled at her; he could feel it. Yet, she’d not complained, not once, despite being human. A remarkable woman she was. Pale light flickered over the bed, as if a breeze had swept the room. He lay with his injured arm over his chest, the other at his side, watching her. Dark lashes brushed her cheeks. “You okay, Korzha?” she asked.

  “Go to sleep, Claudia.”

  Her eyes drifted shut where she stood. No nudge from him necessary.

  No doubt about it, she was thinner than when they’d first ended up in Orcus. And like him, she was ashen with exhaustion. He still wanted to have sex with her, and to keep her safe with him forever and ever. To finish what he’d begun. Claudia. Dear-heart. It was a strange welling in his soul. He’d found his second half and just his luck, she hated vampires.

  She joined him on the pillows. Her soft body was so warm. He wrapped his arms around her, curving himself around her warmth. Let him not wake to irrational hunger, he thought. His body went still. He could sleep here a whole year; he really could. He felt Donovan’s thoughts drift off and the blue light faded. By the time the room was dark, she was asleep and didn’t notice either the darkness or that she was sleeping in the arms of a vampire. Korzha followed her into slumber.

  In his sleep, restless sleep that didn’t heal, Korzha felt not the rogue but Claudia Donovan. He appeared in her dreams without knowing he did until he was there, present in her sleeping mind. It was a thing that sometimes happened with humans, in the days when he’d pursued relationships with them that included biting. She was dreaming about home. It was before Jaise. Before everything had changed. Holly was laughing while Claudia cooked dinner. Any minute, the sitter was due to arrive. Holly had a book report due in the morning, and she was forbidden to watch TV or surf the net until the report was done.

  Holly thought their apartment was too small. She didn’t remember living on the streets in the Lower or, later, in their off-campus studio. All she knew was that most of her friends lived in a place twice the size of this apartment. To Donovan they were living in luxury. Holly had her own bedroom all to herself. So did Claudia. No one shared anything except the bathroom. Holly had a mom who loved her and was proud of her and who watched her play soccer on a grass field.

  Korzha awoke with a start, sitting up. A soft bluish glow appeared through the sheer tent of fabric. The pillows had shifted, tumbling into softness around and beneath him. His stomach quivered, an unsettling roil that became near-nausea, but he felt a burning, scouring hunger, too. At his side, Donovan slept. His arm wasn’t even close to healed. He pushed up on his good elbow and bent over her. Sensitive to his presence, her eyes opened.

  “Good evening, Donovan.”

  Terror flared in her eyes, but she snuffed out the fear he saw there. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”

  “No such luck,” he said.

  She grabbed a pillow and hit him with it. Pain wound through him, and he wouldn’t have been at all surprised to look down and see his arm had come off. Donovan rolled to her feet and headed for the bathroom which, in the demon fashion, was open to view. The walls and floor were gleaming black stone. At one end was a black stall with gold knobs and no door. She faced him. “You know,” she said, “I thought technology didn’t work here. How come there’s all this modern plumbing?”

  “There’s a cistern at the top of the hill, it feeds the plumbing system. Nothing any feudal lord from Camelot couldn’t have managed.”

  She touched the black walls. “And the lights?”

  Korzha stared from his nest of pillows. She smelled alive. But his hunger could be controlled. “I don’t know, Donovan. Perhaps, the magic that keeps the vampire in traps this mag
ic too.”

  Even from the distance between then, she looked like hell. Pale. Tired. Worried. “You can call me Claudia,” she said.

  He felt a little jolt. “Such intimacy?”

  “Be a jerk about it, then.” She turned her back on him. For the count of twenty, he heard nothing but her breathing. She made no move toward the shower or anything else. Then she said, “You okay? For real. Are you going to be all right?”

  He closed his eyes. Her voice sounded…bruised. “Yes,” he said. “Now do your business. I won’t look. Scout’s hon—” he sat bolt upright.

  “What? What is it, Korzha?”

  “He’s here.”

  The rogue. And he was mindless with hunger. Inhuman. Un-vampire.

  “Get away, Donovan.” He gestured. “Back into a corner. If I can’t manage it, aim for the throat then take its heart to be sure.” His words were lost in the sound of the door smashing open. He felt Donovan’s fear and heard her scrambling backward. Whether she’d heard him or not, she had the sense to retreat. But he heard the sound of her knife sliding from its sheath. Brave woman.

  What came in resembled a human in proportion and shape but there the resemblance ended. Korzha’s heart shriveled. Any hope the rogue could be recovered vanished. Insanity burned in its eyes. They were gleaming, cunning green eyes that sent a chill through Korzha to think how long this vampire had been insane. Isolated in the snare, starving and confined to infrequent feeding on demons foolish enough to venture in, on the edge when he’d gotten trapped here, the years had sapped the vampire of the last of its mind.

  Clothing purloined from his demon victims adorned the rogue’s body in a motley array of colors and shapes. His too-short pants were crookedly laced, his leather boots were split at the sides. His thin arms, the joints huge, sprouted from a bright purple-and-yellow vest to which a few gems still clung. Black hair fell to the creature’s shoulders, but the curls were a mess. Skin clung so tight to his bones that each sinew and muscle stood out in high relief. At first and then second glance the face was skeletal, the eye sockets deep receptacles for burning green eyes.