The Darkest Night (The Second Dark Ages Book 2)

by Michael Anderle

  “All ashore who are going ashore,” he called back as he made sure his weapons were locked in. He could hear Juliana doing the same. “Feel free to kill most everyone so our friends can catch up. Remember what Billy and Cholly said, we are scrapping this—”

  Combs’ get-ready speech was lost when someone knocked on the outside of the little craft. “What the fuck?” he shouted. He was wondering if he should hit the gravs and try to get back to the other ship when metal started squeaking, then squealing. Finally both he and Juliana stared, shock on both of their faces, as the brackets broke and the cockpit door was ripped off. A young man with blazing red eyes stood outlined against the darkness, the lights from their skiff illuminating him from the front, the lightning amongst the clouds silhouetting him from behind.

  “Oh,” he told the two stricken pirates, “you will be going ashore.” He reached down and slapped Combs’ hand, breaking his wrist when he tried to pull his pistol. He deftly unhooked the seat belts and grabbed Combs’ shirt and belt.

  Juliana, mouth open, heart beating wildly, watched as the vampire yanked Combs out of the chair. She heard his screams as he flew out and over the side of the ship.

  Then those two red eyes turned to her and she saw her death written plainly.

  She inhaled, trying to catch her breath. “But I’m a girl!”

  The vampire didn’t even smile; he merely unhooked her seatbelt and gripped her as he had Combs.

  Before she was pulled from the ship and thrown over the side, she heard him say, “So was my sister.”

  Juliana closed her eyes, not wishing to know when the end would be. Just before she slammed into the sea, she wondered what the vampire’s sister had done to him.

  Back on the ship, Mark turned to see the second skiff hit the deck and Jacqueline approach it. He started walking towards it as well.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Near the Antigrav Ship ArchAngel

  The flash of the lightning was bright enough that it nearly blinded Terek as it vaporized Marc and Campbell’s attack ship. “Land this fucking thing already or I’m going to throw up all over you!” he yelled. His partner Leon whooped and shouted as they flew from the Folly over to the prize.

  "God damn, did you see the explosion? That could have been us!" Leon exclaimed.

  "That isn't helping, Leon," Terek muttered as he refrained from slapping his pilot on the back of his head.

  The clang of their landing did little for Terek’s stomach. He patted himself down quickly, not caring too much for the loss of a couple items if he could just get the fuck out of this death trap.

  He’d kick the shit out of Leon later.

  The canopy on their little antigrav ship cracked, and he reached up to push. The damned thing absolutely couldn’t open fast enough for him.

  The sudden bang from inside the canopy startled the shit out of him, as did the female bellowing right next to them.

  “Motherfucker, that’s my most comfortable shirt you just shot a hole in!”

  Terek heard Leon scream as an arm reached into the cockpit and crushed Leon’s hand. His screams turned to gurgles when she hit him in the head three times, then chopped him in the neck once for each word she yelled out.

  “That. Hurt. You. Bastard!”

  The fourth chop to Leon’s throat caused his demise.

  Terek was busy yanking out his pistol to shoot the woman. He looked up and saw her yellow glowing eyes, and knew immediately that he was fucked.

  He had no silver bullets in his pistol. There weren’t supposed to be any werewolves flying over the fucking sea, so who needed silver?

  Apparently he did.

  She had glanced over at him as she was beating the shit out of Leon, and didn’t seem too worried. Terek found out why when another arm reached over and grabbed his wrist, easily breaking it and leaving the pistol hanging limply from fingers he couldn’t control.

  The screaming was now coming from his own mouth.

  He grabbed his wrist and turned to look into the eyes of the male standing next to him. His spirit gave up. “Oh, fuck me!” Terek grunted when he noticed the red glowing eyes.

  “Not my type,” the young vampire answered as he popped the seatbelt off Terek, casually pulled him from the skid, and tossed him, screaming, over the side of the ship.

  “He’s not?” Jacqueline asked as she unbuckled the first pirate and pulled him out of the little craft. She pulled him out with two arms. “How the fuck did you make this seem so easy?” she grunted, then turned towards the edge of the deck and heaved the pirate’s body back over her head, sending it off the side of the ship.

  There was no yelling from that body.

  Mark smiled and answered, “Practice.”

  ---

  Captain O’Banion swallowed as he and the others on the bridge watched the casual way the two took out the four pirates. No one said a word, but they all could feel fear mixed with gratitude.

  Without them they might have had deaths on the ship, as they fought pirates they wouldn’t have known were sneaking aboard.

  Who tries to land those damned antigrav skiffs in a storm? There was no one stupid enough to try that.

  Well, except these pirates who had just met the welcoming party, and then been casually thrown off the ship to their deaths. Including the one that Jacqueline had beaten the shit out of for shooting her.

  “I think the young woman is going to need food,” Miles spoke into the quiet of the bridge. “Timms, take care of that. Someone also needs to make sure that Mark is ok. I didn’t see if he got hurt, but we need to make sure.” The Captain turned to Sasha, who had seemed interested in the vampire before. “Can you check on how Mark is doing?”

  This time, the infatuation Sasha usually displayed when talking about Mark was absent.

  It had been replaced with fear.

  The Pirate Ship Folly

  Michael had spent the better part of fifteen minutes locating the heartbeats, heavy breathing, and finally the people who were producing both.

  Twice he had heard gunshots that didn’t come near him. He later found those who had taken their own lives. He made the sign of the cross over their bodies.

  They had come to grips with their own sins and paid the final price.

  Now he had only the engine room, to deal with. He walked down the hallway and started slowly walking down the ladder to the lower level.

  Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.

  Behind him, the ship was deathly quiet.

  ---

  Cholly Jake hadn’t been able to raise the bridge in over five minutes. That told him all he needed to know.

  The Antichrist had found them, just like his mother had predicted thirty years before on her deathbed.

  “You be careful you not be doing what you ain’t supposed to be!” she had said “or the dark Christ will take you out one day!”

  He was busy wrapping the wire around his dead-man switch as his mind replayed that last conversation, the touch of his mother’s hand caressing his cheek as a tear tracked down the cheek of the younger version of him.

  He reached up and wiped a similar one off.

  “I might be joining you soon, Mom,” he whispered. “But I won’t go down without taking the devil with me.”

  He pulled hard, seating the wire, then turned around as the steps came closer to his engine room.

  It was a shame he wouldn’t be able to see the explosion from the outside. He had always wanted to know what happened when you fused all of the power in an antigrav core.

  ---

  Amanda shivered against Arnold and spoke into his chest. “The screaming has stopped.”

  When the sound died, so had the fear. Arnold felt like the danger was moving away from the two of them now.

  Not that he could do one damned thing about it.

  He had been trying to figure out how they could get inside, and the only solution he could see was using some of the equipment to break the windows to get back into the ship. W
ell, Amanda could get back in.

  He was too big for that.

  Plus, he could probably hold her high enough over the sharp edges to protect her. He would get cut, but with some care, nothing too bad. Then she could let him inside.

  He was starting to try to figure out which equipment might work when the ship dropped probably ten feet, causing the two of them to slam back down on the deck when it stopped.

  “Oh, fuck.” Arnold whispered.

  There was no way he would be able to save her from a fall that high.

  ---

  “I know you’re here!” Cholly yelled, his eyes darting around the engine room. “I’m ready to answer for my sins. Are you?”

  The maddening voice came back calm, cool and unhurried. “If I could die, I would have a long time ago, Cholly Jake.”

  “How the hell do you know my name?” Cholly looked around to make sure the bastard hadn’t slipped in behind him somehow. His left hand gripped the dead-man switch feverishly. “You know neither of us are getting out of this, right?”

  “No, Cholly Jake,” the voice replied, “I’m not sure of that.”

  Cholly licked his lips. “My momma warned me about you, but I didn’t believe her. We all thought she was slightly damaged in the brain. The stories she would tell after her dreaming!”

  “Stories? People have told dream stories for centuries, Cholly. I should know; I’ve heard them for over a thousand years.”

  Cholly whispered a curse as he decided to let go. A viselike grip wrapped around his own hand on the dead man switch, keeping his hold tight.

  “Now,” the voice whispered to Cholly, who had closed his eyes, expecting the ship to blow apart. “The problem with a device like this is the person you are playing with might be able to read your thoughts.”

  Cholly opened one fearful eye and took in the visage of the man in front of him. He was holding a sword in his right hand, his left hand wrapped around Cholly’s own.

  He grinned at Cholly.

  “If that person can read your thoughts, he will know if you intend to truly kill yourself, and when. Then he gets to stop you.” Michael looked down at the dead man switch. “You won’t be needing this anymore.”

  Michael slashed down, severing Cholly’s hand at the wrist. He moved to Cholly’s left so he was out of the way of the spurting blood as the man screamed, grabbing his bleeding stump and dropping to his knees.

  “So, dead-man switches only work—”

  The ship dropped suddenly, and Cholly gasped as he lost his balance. Michael looked around and back at the switch. He chewed his lip and finished his statement, “if you release the button, or do a piss-poor job making them in the first place dammit!”

  The ship dropped a second time and Cholly looked back to grin at the man. Looks like Cholly was going to win, with or without his hand.

  Except the devil wasn’t there anymore.

  ---

  Arnold let go of the door handle to hold Amanda in his arms.

  “Why now, you big ox?” her muffled voice cried. “Now that we are going to die, you have the courage to hold me?”

  “I’ve told you before,” he answered, playing with her hair for a moment until the ship lurched again. The two of them sprawled back ten feet. Arnold yelled for Amanda and grabbed her leg. There was a clang from the door back into the ship as it slammed open.

  Good thing the two of them weren’t there, or they would absolutely be dead at the moment.

  Then, he felt Amanda, himself and—another—as they floated away from the ship. Arnold’s vision was focused on the ship as they sped away. As the ship fell, it turned black and shrank for a split second, then shattered and exploded. An invisible wave caused a massive disturbance in the clouds around the ship before it was lost to his sight.

  “Arnold?” Amanda’s voice called out, gentle in the night.

  “I’m here, Amanda,” he replied, trying to get a lock on where her voice was coming from.

  That’s when a third voice entered their conversation, and Arnold’s blood, assuming he still had any, chilled.

  —

  “The two of you,” the male voice told them, “are all that is left of the Folly.”

  Amanda tried to keep ahold of her courage and asked, “Are you Death?”

  The chuckle that came back to them didn’t reassure Amanda at all, but his words did. “No, although some have called me different versions of Death over the centuries. My name is Michael.”

  Amanda interrupted, “You are the ArchAngel!”

  There was a pause in the communication. “No, not the ArchAngel Michael you are thinking of. I am not Christianity’s High Angel for God.”

  “But, you saved the two of us when you could have easily killed us for being on the ship,” Amanda argued. Arnold fell in love again with her voice, the purity of her heart evident in her simple questions. Not that she was simple, but she never failed to ask the hard questions. “Why?”

  Michael kept one part of his mind focused on the power sources to facilitate the return to the ArchAngel as he pondered her question. Why had he saved them? The old Michael would have killed everyone and not thought twice about it. They were on a pirate ship, obviously then trusted by the pirates.

  His voice softened. “Because Love is more powerful than deceit and selfishness. One cannot love as you two do, not only each other but also family and friends, and be truly evil.” They continued to speed towards the ship barely discernible in the clouds. “And because I myself have been changed by Love, and I’ll stay on the path as best I can.”

  The two of them allowed their host’s answer to wash over them as they pondered what the hell they were doing when it seemed the Heavens opened and God’s own lightning surrounded them.

  The ship they were approaching was hit multiple times, and as their speed increased, Arnold noticed an explosion in the aft section.

  Right where the antigrav technology should be located.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Over the Pacific

  “Find me that ship,” Akio ground out. While their technology was substantial, even with a hundred and fifty-plus years of improvements since Bethany Anne had left they had trouble locating a ship in a storm over the ocean. Separating the power sources from the large natural disturbances was not something Eve had developed any algorithms for yet.

  “I am trying, Akio-san,” Eve answered. This time, Akio detected a bit of fluctuation in her answer.

  He was stressing the AI too much. Akio pondered his obligations to everyone in a blistering second. His honor to his Queen. His responsibility to Eve, and his friendship, he realized, with both of them.

  The grim line of his lips said he was surprised at himself, if you knew this man well enough to tell.

  Akio had an AI as a friend. Over fifteen decades, and only now was he willing to accept even he could learn a new trick or two.

  “Do not stress, Eve.” He replied. “We will be successful; the Queen is assured.”

  Eve, her voice back on track, responded, “We lost the ability to speak to the Queen a long time ago, Akio. How can you be certain?”

  “Because, little one, it is time I teach you,” he told her, his reflexes pulling the ship he was piloting hard to the side as he dodged a group of clouds that seemed to be roiling more than usual, “about a human concept called faith.”

  Antigrav Ship ArchAngel

  “The fact that you took out two other people should have alerted you to the fact the second asshole pirate was mine!” yelled Jacqueline.

  Mark and Jacqueline were still arguing out on the deck. Each had a hand on the pirates’ second craft. Captain O’Banion had tried to call the two of them in after their successful eviction of the four pirates. When he opened the door to talk to them, they both turned to look at him.

  One set of red eyes, one pair of yellow.

  Family arguments weren’t his problem. He shouted, “Thank you!” and shut the door. He told those who had been ready, if not exact
ly willing, to help them that they could go back to their tasks. Those two were arguing with each other and it was best to let them get the arguing out of their system.

  Five minutes later, all hell broke loose.

  “What the fuck?” Jacqueline screeched as the ship lurched to the side. Both she and Mark slammed their other hands onto the slip of a ship and grabbed hold.

  Jacqueline failed to grab anything useful. A second and third bolt of lightning cracked, the sound blasting through their heightened senses, and the electricity ran along all of the metal around the deck. The ship’s capacity for capturing errant lightning bolts had been temporarily overwhelmed.

  Mark grabbed Jacqueline’s loose hand, locking on as if he would be her safety belt. He easily moved her whole body to place her second hand on a bar on the craft.

  “Goddammit!” he yelled at her. “Don’t you fucking think about falling off or I’ll jump after you and cuss you out the whole way down!”

  Jacqueline’s expression was one of maniacal glee as the adrenaline hit her senses. The two of them enjoyed the wild ride as the humans inside fought to keep their ship afloat in the sky.

  “Not if you fall first, Vamp Boy!”

  Then one last lightning bolt hit the ship and the two of them screamed in incredible pain.

  ---

  Michael saw his two charges out in the storm, arguing by a boat he knew hadn’t been there when he had left the ship. He had obviously failed to detect the intruders on the way to the pirates’ ship. He wanted to roll his eyes in frustration.

  Didn’t the two of them realize they were in a Gott Verdammt storm?

  They needed to get over their damned issues and become friends or partners or something. This dancing around was for the young.

  Which they were, unfortunately.

  God, he missed Bethany Anne.

  The ship was in trouble and he had to make a fast decision. Considering their height, he could catch it before they hit the seas below.

  He took the two humans onto the ship and rematerialized in the middle of the bridge.