The Living Night: Box Set

by Jack Conner

  The coven landed where the dead Collage lay, fires still rising from the motionless mound of putrescence. Dead Castle soldiers lay all around, some buried beneath the rubble that seemed endless. Ruegger’s mind flashed back to the Pools of Pleasure, and he had to stop himself from imagining their destruction.

  He knelt next to the strange blunt limb to see the woman—Sonia, Ladrido had named her, as had Capt. D’Aguila before him—extended from its open tip but lying lifelessly on the ground. Calling out her name and gently slapping her face did not revive her. Reluctantly, he lamented that he’d never be able to use the technique the late Captain Raulf D’Aguila had told him about—that is, Raulf’s theory about how a Collage could be killed. Then again, Raulf had said that he half-liked Sonia, when Junger and Jagoda weren’t in control of her, so maybe it was better that Ruegger never test the theory.

  With the others, he clambered atop the rotting mound of the Collage to find Roche Sarnova’s remains. Though the Dark Lord’s legs were fused with the monster, Francois had laid him face-up with his arms folded across his chest. His eyes were closed.

  Silently, Kharker cradled the stiffened body, and no one said a word when the Hunter wept openly, combing his rough fingers through Roche’s hair and kissing the dead tyrant’s forehead. Finally, when Kharker realized that he was holding up the mission, he rose to his feet and wiped the tears from his eyes. He demanded a moment of silence for his fallen friend, and everyone joined hands and bowed their heads solemnly.

  “I wish we had time to say some words over you, Roche,” Kharker said, when the moment was over. “But our window’s short, and we have to go. Just know that I love you, and that I mean to make the bastards that did this to you pay.”

  They descended, layer by layer, eventually entering the blood-spattered corridor where Col. Hernandez had led the resistance against the Libertarians and failed. Since much of the battle had been played out with rockets, especially at the beginning, the coven encountered more and more gruesome sights as they marched down the torch-lit hall, finally to descend the staircase that led to the catacombs.

  They used the same stairwell that Maleasoel and her army had used not too long ago, and shortly found the wreckage where Hernandez had dropped several layers down upon Maleasoel’s human fodder. Ruegger led the way, flying down this ragged avenue to land in the rubble and twisted death that lay below.

  Ruegger showed the way into the Sabo. Here he paused.

  He stood motionless, wondering if the Sabo would act. However, once stopped, he realized he didn’t have the slightest idea of how to get from here to where the bastards kept their Lair. Thankfully, Kharker and Jean-Pierre did; they’d had much experience down here hunting mortals with the late Roche Sarnova, and, as he allowed the Hunter to lead the way, Ruegger didn’t miss the wistful look in the old one’s eyes. Ruegger hoped that what Jean-Pierre had said was true, that Kharker had indeed arrived at some level of morality—but whether he had or not, it was his amoral past that lent him knowledge of the Labyrinth, and for this at least Ruegger was glad.

  “This way,” said the Hunter, after the Darkling had given a brief description of the Libertarian encampment and the landmarks leading to it.

  Ruegger followed close behind. Jean-Pierre, also somewhat familiar with the area, took up the rear. Ladrido, sensing greatest friendship with the albino, lagged behind, as well. Thus the women formed the center of the procession, which would have irked either one of them on any other night.

  “Remember,” Ruegger cautioned. “If Junger and Jagoda are still alive, they’ll use the Sabo’s parasites to attack. So if you see any movement along the walls, floor or ceiling, get out of the way.”

  “Roger,” said Danielle in all seriousness, eyeing the walls.

  A quiet lay on the tunnels. The torches flickered faintly, and from somewhere drifted the smell of sulfur. In the darkness ahead of them, something shifted, and the coven paused. When nothing came of the sound, they marched on, the earthen walls twisting and branching off, leading both up and down in angles so subtle Ruegger hardly noticed. An eerie silence seemed to have overcome the Labyrinth, as if something had died.

  Or was about to.

  The smell of bat guano, or something like it, curled out from a large archway. Ruegger felt his skin crawl as Kharker steered him towards it. I’m not going to lose another eye, he told himself.

  The atrium of the quasi-pterodactyls was dark, only a few dim torches flaring towards the domed ceiling, and here in the higher portions of the room Ruegger saw countless ledges and fissures from which the winged parasites gazed with their all-too-human eyes.

  The chamber was enshrouded in silence, except for the occasional ruffle of leathery wings and the soft spitting of the torches. The smell of pterodactyl guano invaded Ruegger’s nostrils, but there was another, stronger odor which caused him to light one of Kharker’s cigars, not to dispel the stench, but to calm his trembling hands.

  Beyond loomed the exit to this hellish chamber, where he could see a long wooden bridge, cast by a red light from below: a gorge. Even from his position within the atrium, the smell of sulfur and acidic vapors wrenched into livid memory the moment when he’d lost his arm and a good measure of his hopefulness. But with his companions all around him, and with Danielle’s hand on his shoulder, he turned his mind to the mission at hand.

  “Hmph,” muttered Kharker, staring up at the ceiling. He took several steps toward the middle of the room, his face in deep perplexity. Abruptly, several of the quasi-pterodactyls lit out from their various perches and circled him, wings flapping.

  “Die, die!”

  It was the voice of the Sabo, Ruegger realized, not of the Balaklava. Then, quite suddenly, the birds quit circling the Hunter and returned to their ledges and crags.

  Still deep in thought, Kharker said, “Curious.”

  Jean-Pierre stepped up beside him. Sophia followed, her eyes darting all about the room anxiously, as she had never seen its like before; in fact, for her and Danielle and maybe even Ladrido, the whole world of the Sabo would appear alien and horrible.

  “It’s dying,” said the albino. “They don’t even have the strength to attempt to instill fear. Look at them.”

  Ruegger watched the winged goblins and saw what Jean-Pierre was saying. The birds hunkered low in their perches, most of them not even having the energy to raise their beaked heads or to stand erect.

  “Maybe Amelia killed Junger and Jagoda,” he said. “The Sabo’s a zombie now, and if its masters die, so will it, in time.”

  “The bastards better not be dead,” said Danielle. “Without them, we’ve no way of finding out why Ludwig died. Besides, from what I know, the Sabo feeds on fear and ... shit, Kharker, how old is it?”

  “Many millennium.”

  “Care to imagine how many people it’s killed over the years? It’s evil. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t fault it for being that way. I mean, it is what it is. Unlike us, it’s probably had little choice in its method of feeding. But it’s still evil. So Kharker, Jean-Pierre, don’t look so damned glum. I don’t care what good times you had down here with your old buddy Roche, hunting and killing innocent people—but you’re beyond that shit now. This Labyrinth ... this thing ... is behind you ... or isn’t it?”

  Jean-Pierre turned to her, his face betraying no anger, only sadness and the frustration of being unable to explain. “Maybe it’s a relic to you, Danielle—or a symbol, of things ... things you abhor, and which we’re beginning to. But back then Kharker and I were different. This place brings back good memories, not of killing innocents—but of camaraderie and fellowship. To see the Sabo dying ... it’s like watching a part of us die.”

  “With good riddance,” said Sophia. “Come on, stop dawdling. We’ve got enemies to kill and truths to extract. Jean-Pierre, come.”

  “But—”

  “Enough.”

  Ladrido and the coven moved onto the bridge, which stood on wilted legs overlooking a deep gorge. A pu
ngent red river flowed through it, and Ruegger had to pause to collect himself at the sight. The acidic air proved more prevalent here, but he puffed his cigar and tried not to smell it.

  “Damn,” said Jean-Pierre, leaning over the rickety balustrade to peer down.

  The others followed his gaze. Ruegger was shocked to see the vast difference between this gorge and the last one he’d encountered. The last one had been full of a bubbling, swift-flowing river of some hellish color, squidoids swimming all about and bobbing hungrily at the surface. In this gorge, the river was low and hardly moved. The squidoids floated about, some swimming weakly, or swaying with what feeble currents there were. In fact, it looked as if the squidoids were actually resting on the floor of the ravine; that’s how low the river ran.

  Kharker, as if he had expected as much after the atrium, simply nodded sadly. “Yes, Jean-Pierre. It’s dying.”

  “I guess we’d better move on,” Jean-Pierre said.

  It was then that Ruegger glanced backwards, toward the atrium, to ascertain for certain that the quasi-pterodactyls weren’t about to issue forth and attack, and his eyes fixed on an enormous object high above the atrium’s archway.

  A Collage.

  He only had an instant to record the image, but it was enough. His eyes searched the jumble of faces and bodies that composed the abstraction until they landed on two very familiar faces. Two of the prongs on the three-pronged tail of the Collage were Loirot and Kilian, the last people he’d expected to find down here—or in that thing, as was the case. Then again, they’d struck a deal with devils, Cloire had said, and this is how devils repaid such things. The former mercenaries’ foreheads were marked by the sign of the Christian cross—as was every other face visible, Ruegger noticed.

  Surely not.

  Kilian and Loirot seemed to look at Ruegger apologetically in the moment before they—and the third prong on the tail, whom Ruegger didn’t recognize—shifted into their beast forms. The familiar blunt limb of the Collage extended, its petals folded back, and another known face popped into view—Laslo, grinning ear to ear.

  All this happened in about a second. It was only when Laslo shot an index finger at Ruegger and said, “Repent or die!” that the others in the coven took notice of the Collage, wedged as it was into the corner between the wall and roof of the closed ravine. Its limbs had dug deep holes into the earthen surfaces, from which it suspended itself like some mutant spider.

  Before the pilgrims had time to process exactly what they were looking at, the Laslo-Collage was barreling down on them with such speed and savagery that its intended targets were prevented from forming any defense.

  Laslo disappeared back into his limb as the Collage struck the bridge and destroyed it, the monster’s bulk smothering the journeyers before they could even attempt to fly away. The trap was perfectly orchestrated.

  The Collage carried Ladrido, the coven and the remains of the bridge into the chasm. They fell forever, and landed hard. Ruegger’s cigar flew from his mouth, and he tasted blood on his tongue.

  Wheezing, he dragged himself out from under a section of the monster. He saw Danielle struggling against a wall of flesh that was pressing her under the shallow red water, hands and claws raking her. Ruegger kicked at the enemy limbs as he pulled her out, then helped her through the bobbing squidoids into an area beyond any of the Collage’s various limbs. Red water, if that’s what it was, splashed around their ankles.

  Danielle summoned her weapons into her hands or levitated them. Ruegger did the same, keeping an eye out for the rest of the group.

  Sophia, already on her feet, fired into the Collage, her eyes locked on Kharker, busy freeing Jean-Pierre from a malformed pincer. Ladrido was nowhere to be seen.

  Ruegger squeezed his trigger, shooting at the Collage, and he employed his telekinesis with all the force he could. He reached out with his mind and tried to set the blasted thing on fire. Several of the weaker (and mortal, he realized) zombies burst into flame, but on the whole this Collage seemed impervious to the trick. It was fashioned almost exclusively from shades. Damn.

  With a triumphant yell, Kharker succeeded in prying apart the pincer and Jean-Pierre scrambled on his hands and knees in the low red water until he was far from the Collage. Kharker joined him.

  The Laslo-Collage struggled ungracefully to its “feet” and issued a mighty roar from its primary mouth. Its mouth had lips. Ruegger winced.

  “Repent or die, sinners!” said the creature. “I, Christ and Son of God, command thee! With this new form, I establish my own Heaven on Earth. Be consumed by me—and become one with God. Come, sinners, and be reborn into the Living Testament of God that I have humbly become. I, Laslo Christ, am the Word and Will of the Almighty. I carry with me the Promised Land. I beseech ye—your consummation will be your salvation.”

  “Bloody hell,” Kharker groaned, and shot the Collage with the riot gun.

  Jean-Pierre uncased his own gallery of armaments and began blowing holes in the monster. Sophia joined him.

  There! Ladrido, on the far side of the thing. He dispersed into a thousand bats and began swarming in a dark cloud about the Collage, trying to distract or blind it. Ruegger, too, kept firing.

  With a speed hard to believe from a thing so enormous, the Laslo-Collage swung its tail and appendages at the coven, oblivious to Ladrido’s swarm.

  One arm shot toward Ruegger. Grabbing Danielle next to him, he just barely pulled them away from the many-jointed limb in time. The Marshals scurried through the red sludge and dying squidoids till he judged they were at a safe distance, but when he glanced over his shoulder he saw how wrong he was. The Collage, elongating itself into a serpentine form, ably pursued the odd flock.

  “The ground’s no good,” Danielle said.

  They lifted into the air, their weapons spinning and firing about them, without any obvious effect on the target. Laslo, through the primary mouth, continued to rant and rave. Kharker, Jean-Pierre and Sophia, also being attacked on the ground, took to the air as well.

  Laslo struck at them with his three-pronged tail, and Ruegger was shocked to see Loirot and Kilian attacking Jean-Pierre. In wolf form, they snapped and clawed in mindless hate, their own wills completely subordinated to Laslo’s. These weren’t faceless goons composing the Collage, Ruegger knew. They were real people, once with minds and histories of their own. This abomination had absorbed them and transformed them into mockeries of themselves. It mocked even their own deaths.

  He saw Jean-Pierre eyeing the prongs of the tail, as well. Anguish shone in the albino’s eyes even as he dodged another strike from Kilian. There was no recognition in Kilian’s eyes anymore, only savagery. Jean-Pierre clubbed him on the side of the head and flew above him.

  “Kilian!” he said. “Loirot! Snap out of it! You don’t have to be this way!”

  They only raved and snapped. Spittle flew from Loirot’s mouth as he struck at Kharker, who dodged.

  “The only way to free your friends is to kill this thing,” Kharker said, and Jean-Pierre nodded.

  It was a scene out of the blackest nightmare if ever there was one, Ruegger thought. Five flying shades, swirling and attacking a monster of grotesque and surreal proportions, a never-ending cloud of bats circling it, all taking place in a shallow red river littered with sections of a broken bridge and bobbing squidoids—and all the while, the behemoth issuing a sermon.

  Ruegger crossed in and out of Ladrido’s cloud, alternately hacking away at the immensity of their nemesis with the gold-inlaid scimitar borrowed from Kharker, attempting to torch the thing, and simply blowing countless small holes in it with his guns. Nothing seemed to slow it.

  Suddenly, the swarm of bats composed itself into a dense mass, then invaded the body of a growling werewolf embedded in one of Laslo’s walls of flesh. The werewolf cried out at the invasion, then abruptly stopped.

  Ladrido had taken over the body. Subsequently, Ladrido attacked neighboring zombie fiends, swiping off heads of some
and disemboweling others. Ruegger cheered.

  On his next pass, Ruegger saw Ladrido evacuate his host, after killing it and many of its neighbors, and move on to possess yet another. Maybe, if the bat-man could someway possess Laslo, this whole battle could be over. But the mad priest hid in his thick armored limb. If only Ruegger could lure him out ...

  But how, when Laslo could preach from the primary mouth?

  Answer: destroy the mouth.

  Ruegger approached the yapping hole warily and slashed its thick lips with his blade. He shot it up, tried and failed to torch it—then began to simply kick in its teeth. Three long tongues drove toward him, all branded with the sign of the cross and moving with such unexpected speed that he could not escape in time—

  Sophia barreled into him and knocked him out of the way, her momentum carrying them both clear of the tongues. As the two ducked and wove to avoid being trapped by the flurry of limbs that moved much faster than the Sonia-Collage, Ruegger thanked her and they parted, both to fight in separate areas. How were the kavasari supposed to kill this thing? Invulnerable to fire, bullets, blades, boots—

  Laslo snatched Ruegger out of the air. In a movement so fast Ruegger didn’t immediately recognize it, he found himself at the end of one of the Collage’s limbs, in a hand with five fingers and two thumbs. Each digit was a zombie-shade.

  Ruegger struggled against the hand, but it was too strong. Worse, looking about, he saw all the others (except Ladrido, who kept possessing zombies, killing their neighbors and moving on) in similar predicaments. All were firmly locked into a hand or a pincer.

  The Collage’s primary mouth laughed. “Foolish sinners! I offered thee a chance to repent, to willingly be consumed and brought forth into the Promised Land—but you resisted! In the eyes of God, this does not reflect well. I, humble Christ, must teach you right from wrong, teach you to worship and respect the Almighty. But what do you do? You attack the very angels this corporeal Heaven is built upon!”