by Jack Conner
"Trust me," said Ludwig. "We've been friends too long."
"I don't know what's going on," Ruegger said, "but you haven't just put me in jeopardy. You've endangered Danielle, and I won't tolerate that. You owe us an explanation."
Ludwig glanced at the guards, then back to Ruegger. "You're right, but not now, not here. I'll tell you after the sled race tomorrow. Let me go."
Ruegger released him and sat back down. Danielle reached for his hand. They spoke little after that, and shortly the craft landed. Several trucks waited for them, and they piled in and set out for downtown Barrow. To Ruegger’s horror, almost every building in the heart of the city burned or had at least been touched by flame. Fire trucks choked the main street, and corpses littered the ground—many of them police officers.
"This is the end result of the deal you made?" Ruegger said.
Ludwig’s face twitched. "Actually, I think this is only the beginning of the end result."
Danielle tensed. “Why did we come here, Ludwig? You could've sent others to scout out the damage. You didn't need to come here yourself, and you didn't need to bring us."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I think you were hoping to meet with the ones who did this. Junger and Jagoda. That's the only reason you would've come yourself."
"If they're strong enough to destroy an entire town, Danielle, why would I want to put myself in the danger required to meet them?"
"Because you're not in jeopardy, are you?"
Ludwig said nothing.
"Jesus," said Ruegger. "You're not, are you? Did you bring us out here to hand us over to the Balaklava? Is that it? Why else would we be invited?"
"Of course not," Ludwig said. "It’s just ... you're going to meet them soon. I wanted you to have the proper appreciation of them first. Don't fight them. I'll take care of the rest."
"What are you talking about?"
"Here," Ludwig said to the driver. "Stop the truck."
The vehicle braked and Ludwig bailed out, the odd flock behind him. The other truck, the one bringing up the rear, halted and disgorged Ludwig's troops. The revolutionary leader glanced up at the building they stood before, a structure untouched by fire but surrounded by a dense layer of bodies, both living and dead.
"This was the mayor's house," Ludwig said, marching up to a few cops who stood on the stairs leading into the small mansion. Ruegger and Danielle followed.
"You can't come in," one police officer said. He looked wretched, sickened and saddened.
"I'm Ludwig Keaton. You're familiar with my name. I probably put both your kids through college, and I own most of this town."
The cops straightened. "What can we do for you?"
"Tell us what happened here."
"I don't know, not really. Everyone's dead, sir. Everyone. If we'd been on duty at the time we would be, too."
"Did you see who did this?"
"I'm not a religious man, but they were demons. Had to be. The ones who saw them say they were foreigners, big black fellows, two of them. They killed and torched everything. Shot, stabbed, raped, whatever, they kept going ... left some witnesses just to have witnesses, I guess. But that’s not all. Here," he said, his voice curdling with hate, "look at this." He led the way inside, Ludwig and the odd flock following through halls strewn with the bodies of domestic servants and personal guards, their blood arcing across the walls in gruesome abstraction.
They passed a bench where an Inuit woman sat sobbing, her shoulders sunken and her face hidden by her hands. A man tried to comfort her.
"She's the mayor," the officer explained as they walked on, up the stairs and down another hall into a large, windowed room, the focus of much official attention.
When Ruegger and Danielle crossed the threshold, Danielle stopped and braced herself against the doorjamb. Ruegger stared. Blood and various body parts lay strewn throughout the room, but this was second to the vision that looked down from the ceiling, where intricate patterns of bones were spun in surreal, nightmarish configurations, connected by rotting flesh and grayish tissues. At the center of the pattern hung two pale wisps, the remains of what used to be the torsos of two young girls, identical twins with wide dark eyes and hair that fanned about their lifeless faces. Very few bones of the girls' bodies were left below their arched necks, and their sinewy bodies disappeared in a ragged fashion just above their navels. Their arms stretched out pleadingly, but they too disappeared before the girls' elbows. The rest of their bodies were woven into the overall fabric of the tapestry at different and symmetrical intervals. A quick glance at the pelvic areas revealed that the girls had been more than killed.
Danielle slammed an elbow against the wall. “What creatures could do this? Destroy a town … kill children … fashion their bodies into … God, some art …”
“It’s terrible,” Ruegger agreed. The thing that bothered him the most was the gruesome appreciation he had of the art itself.
Danielle balled her hands into quaking fists until the worst of the shaking had subsided, then went about the empty motions of lighting a cigarette. Ruegger wrapped an arm about her, glanced at Ludwig and led the way out.
“Why did you show us this?” Ruegger said.
“You know why,” Ludwig said.
“We’re to meet them soon.”
“Yes. And it’s important you know who they are before you do.”
Danielle spat. “Well, we fucking know now, don’t we?”
It occurred to Ruegger that all this action seemed centered around the winter solstice, by chance or design, and the climax of the winter solstice was the dog-sled race.
Tomorrow.
Chapter 3
Danielle woke up half a day later with a blood-wringing hangover, propped herself up in bed next to Ruegger, squinted her eyes, and vomited onto the floor.
It took a lot of alcohol to give a vampire a hangover, but it hadn't been enough to erase the memory of the Balaklava's art. She had only to close her eyes to see the horror imprinted on the back of her eyelids. The bones stretching across the ceiling in some deathly spider-web, the faces of those two girls, whom she had learned were the mayor’s daughters, and the burning of a town. But this latter was, disgustingly, secondary, because the destruction of Barrow could be seen as calculated—maybe it was a message to Ludwig—but the Tapestry of Death (as they were now calling it) was a creative effort, and obviously the artists had enjoyed its creation. That was something else altogether.
The noise of Danielle throwing up woke Ruegger, and he silently massaged her shoulders and poured her a glass of milk from the mini-fridge—not that any fridges were really needed out here; it was cold. Noticing that Ruegger was on his second smoke of the day, she started her first and moved to the balcony, after first wrapping a jacket tight about herself. She looked down on the snow-laden trees and iced-over lake. Distantly, she could hear the swarm of voices coming from the Commons, where the party-goers had gathered for the dog-sled race. Slowly, she could feel their energy and enthusiasm affect her and undo some of the horror.
Ruegger brought her a hot black cup of coffee after diluting his own with sugar and cream. They drank without speaking, and she realized that if they didn’t talk about it they might just go on not talking.
"So—you think we'll meet Junger and Jagoda today?" she said.
His face clouded. "What …” He cleared his throat. “What could they possibly have to do with Ludwig?"
"I don't know, but it helps answer a few questions. The Balaklava are often shapeshifters, you said, so they were probably the wolves and bat Hauswell talked about.”
“They've been terrorizing the compound, or that's what makes the most sense based on what we know."
"Why, though? As part of the deal Ludwig was telling us about?"
"If that's the way it is, then it looks like Ludwig's bit off more than he can chew. He may be the leader of over two hundred immortals, but the Balaklava are stronger than any of us. So as long as they're car
eful, they could stick around for awhile."
"But that's it!” she said. “Why are they hanging around here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe they're trying to intimidate Ludwig. Remember, Hauswell said Ludwig's friend Gleason was killed.”
“You think Junger and Jagoda did that?” Ruegger said.
“Who else? Maybe that's why we've got five guards on us. Could be that’s the number it would take to kill the bastards. Plus us, of course."
"Perhaps. If the guards were very good. But Ludwig said that we would meet them, not confront them. Actually, he said that he would take care of us, or something like that, which implies that the Balaklava might not be so friendly. Why would we meet them in the first place?"
Danielle shrugged. "Like I said, they're trying to intimidate Ludwig, and what better way than to attack his closest friend—you. And, of course, his best friend's wife, or whatever I am."
He kissed her forehead. “Wife sounds fine to me.”
"The dissidents attacked Maleasoel, right? So she's protected by guards, like us. The dissidents seem to be trying to intimidate Ludwig, too. So they’re behind that plot ...”
“That might explain the death of Gleason. But, if the dissidents compose as large a faction as Maleasoel hinted, they would be strong enough to operate independently. So—"
"Why would they employ the Balaklava?"
Ruegger nodded. "A very good question. Therefore the Balaklava represent a different party entirely, assuming they're not acting on their own. Which means that in meeting them we'll be dealing with the emissaries of someone else ..."
"Perhaps the mysterious visitor that came to Ludwig.”
“Ah. That. I wonder … could any of this have something to do with the Castle?”
She looked at him. “You mean Roche Sarnova? God, I hope not.”
“He is the most powerful shade in the world, and if Ludwig, or at least his people, are planning to act after all these years, he might have grown nervous …”
She crossed herself. “If he’s involved, this whole thing could explode into open warfare.” She didn’t have to say that a war between two armies of immortals could prove devastating to the entire world.
"Okay," said Ruegger, "so where does that leave us?"
"The sled race." She sipped her coffee, watching its steam rise into the night.
"Which should be kicking off here shortly."
They finished their morning rituals and made their way downstairs to the Commons, which buzzed with the activities of hung-over immortals. Everywhere dogs were being fastened to sleds. The animals' barking and the party-goers mad whoops lifted Danielle's spirits, and she actually smiled when Ludwig spotted her and Ruegger and made his way over to them. He clapped Ruegger on the back and kissed Danielle's hand. He could be very charming when he wanted to be.
"Looking forward to the race, I hope," he said and led them to their respective sleds. "Good luck. Just remember that I'm looking out for you, okay? You'll be fine."
He vanished into the crowd. Danielle shot a glance at Ruegger, but he appeared solemn.
Five minutes later, the racers lined up at the starting line, talking and chuckling, some finishing joints or beer cans or sniffing a few quick lines. Danielle could tell by experience that these were the lightest of the drugs involved. She switched on the radio fastened to her sled—she and Ruegger occupied different vehicles—then deliberated on the choice of music.
“How about Wagner?” said Ruegger, his sled alongside hers. “Seems fittingly grand and energetic for a sled race.”
She smiled. Their tastes in music varied widely, she was all too aware. She and Ruegger had actually met in the New York punk scene, where he had been attempting, without much success, to learn the intricacies of the new sound.
She punched a button, and heavy metal flooded out.
Ruegger sighed.
“Sorry,” she said, “but Wagner?” She made a face. “A sled race of shades in the heart of darkness of northern Alaska earns a little Metallica, if you ask me.”
“If you insist.”
A gun blasted, and the racers lurched off in a confused flurry of dogs and shades, snow kicking up in all directions. The Ice Queen Sophia leapt into the lead at once.
Danielle kept her stance firm, maintaining a tight rein on the ten dogs at all times. Still, the sled bucked and rolled, and more than once she felt her position shift precariously. Her blood started to rush. Despite her best efforts, she laughed, then yelled defiantly at the other contestants, who laughed and yelled back. She tried to pretend that Barrow had only been a nightmare.
Casting frequent glances at Ruegger, she could tell that, after some time, he was getting into it as well, making his dogs go as fast as he could, trying to stay just a few strides ahead of her. Sticking her tongue out at him, she prodded her animals on and screamed in exaltation when her lead dog breasted his.
The competition proved determined, and Danielle tried to extend her mind into those of her dogs. Never very good at the whole psychic thing, she nevertheless knew instantly that her dogs couldn't be controlled by her—because they were being controlled by someone else. A quick look at Ruegger's grimace revealed that he wasn't that one. He was having trouble with his dogs, too.
"Fuck," she said.
Their sled dogs started to veer off, cutting across the tide of the other racers and into the more deeply forested regions surrounding the main racing grounds. The boisterous cries of the racers receded, replaced by the stirring of the wind, which swept through the white trees and tickled at Danielle's ear.
She ripped out a gun from beneath her jacket. For his part, Ruegger pointed up through the trees at something. Twisting, she saw a winged figure, barely discernable against the stars. Maleasoel. What could she be doing up there—following Ruegger and Danielle? The jandrow's speed lagged suddenly and she swooped in a tight arc off in the direction she'd come from.
Ruegger withdrew a gun of his own.
Their dogs went mad, deliberately charging close to shrubbery or low branches, forcing the sleds to smack against trees or knock into stubs or small rises. Ruegger jumped off his perch and Danielle followed, embedding herself in the snow.
Slowly, she rose on her snow-shoes, turning to locate him. For a wild moment she couldn't see Ruegger, but he was there, dusting himself off and shaking his head. He glanced up, saw her, and they trudged toward each other, embracing quickly and checking one another for wounds.
"It’s them," he said.
"Junger and Jagoda," she nodded, and fired off a round to make sure her gun wasn't jammed. He did the same. They each retrieved another gun and merged back-to-back. They watched the twenty sled-dogs—wolves, really—bite through their harnesses and assemble around the vampires in a bristling circle. The creatures were no longer operating under their own wills—rather, they had to be under the mind control of someone else. Two Jamaican assassins, most likely.
The wolves leapt.
Danielle fired. She blew apart the head of one wolf, then another, shooting into their trunks and throats, too, not taking time to aim. They swarmed her, biting, biting, their bodies heavy and rough. Beside her, Ruegger fired, too, sometimes clubbing the beasts over the head with his pistols. Bone broke loudly.
When her guns clicked empty, Danielle started to go for another pistol, but there was no time. The wolves were all over her, ripping and tearing. She bit back, elongating her fangs, and used her vampire strength to hurl furry bodies against trees, where they broke open in red showers.
Ruegger flung his spent guns away and went to work with a blade, but it got stuck in the ribcage of the first wolf he stuck it in. Danielle heard him swear.
The wolves forced the vampires to the ground.
Danielle fought on with her fingers, teeth and feet. A scrawny dark-haired thing burst at her, a knife (Ruegger's) stuck through its chest, but still it tore at her. Danielle grabbed it by the mouth, ignoring the pain, and ripped out it
s throat with her fangs. Several other wolves gnawed at her legs and chest.
Their bites were calculated, teeth locating her arteries. She could feel herself growing weak and knew that much of the blood that stained the snow around her was her own. It wouldn't be long before she was dead.
At last all the wolves lay in bloody chunks on the ground, their blood soaking the snow in bright crimson, and in the middle of it sprawled Ruegger and Danielle, their clothes and flesh torn. Too weak to move much, they reached out their arms and held hands.
Footsteps approached, and the vampires propped themselves up against each other to face whatever was coming.
The Balaklava stepped forward slowly, letting themselves be examined. They seemed to enjoy the attention. They were very tall, their skin nearly sheer ebony. Both of them were completely naked.
"Good to see you," one said, boasting a thick Jamaican accent. "I'm Junger." Bald from head to toe, his flesh was so covered by twisting, intricate tattoos that his actual skin was hard to see. Very small thin bones that were likely supposed to resemble tusks stuck out of his skin in twin arcs along his cheeks. Dear God, Danielle thought. Are those ... ?
The bones looked very much like the ribs of an infant human.
I’m going to be sick, Danielle thought.
"I'm Jagoda," the other said, his accent equally as thick. He wore expensive sunglasses and his face, framed by long dreadlocks, was masked by a heavy, unkempt beard. A gold ring gleamed at his lip, one through his nose, and several accentuated his right ear. "Sorry about your clothes."
"Grant me a last smoke?" Ruegger said. “I’m afraid your wolves tore all mine to pieces.”
Junger laughed. "We're almost out as it is."
"Then could you please find our radio and bring it over. I'd hate to die to silence."
Danielle knew what he was doing—separate them, for all the good that could do.
"Well, mon, Bob Marley does go well with rape," Junger told his partner, and marched off to find the sled and the radio.
"Why kill us?" Danielle asked Jagoda. Did he just say what I think he did?
"We're not going to kill you,” Jagoda said. “We could have—there was a certain party that wanted us to, and would have paid well for it—but we’ve chosen another route. Ultimately, this line of action will be the most rewarding."
