Vampire Down (Blood Skies, Book 7)

by Steven Montano

  Bloodhollow housed a portal of some sort. A way to The Black. Danica could understand why the Maloj would want it, but not the vampires, and certainly not humanity. Would good could it do them, to breach a doorway to the horrors that had torn the world asunder in the first place?

  Their unnamed giant companion knew something more, but he wasn’t talking. He seemed to insist they’d understand when they met some mysterious ally of his – a powerful warlock – face to face.

  They moved through low darkened slopes that wound their way out of the trees, and around mid-day they pushed out of the forest. They hiked across foothills, rock tors and drumlins flecked with trees. The group walked the routes of long-melted glaciers.

  They were within ten miles of Crucifix Point. Its roads almost reached them, and to the north they saw taller mountains. The shining surface of Rimefang Loch glowed to the west.

  They drank and cleaned in tarns. They moved slow because of Alvarez, even with the giant shouldering the load on his back like a pompoos. The man was conscious only intermittently. Capable as he was Danica had always thought Alvarez was something of a pain in the ass, but he was genuinely saddened by the death of Delgado, and she felt for him. Raine and Maur, for their part, were both stoic, and carried on without complaint. Danica was grateful to have them both at her side.

  Soon. We’ll be there soon.

  She had no idea what to expect. They knew more now than they had before about Bloodhollow, and they still had no idea what they were walking into, or what would happen once they were there.

  They were exhausted and on edge. Danica’s body was sore all over, and it seemed it had been weeks since she’d gotten proper sleep. They followed vague outlines of paths, pushed through dead grass and crossed shallow and brackish streams.

  The day wore long. The land before them was wooded, the ground peaked, slopes of scree gripped in twisted roots. Dust scattered in a low cloud, and as they climbed higher and the air grew thin and cold the fog finally started to fade away. A few miles in the distance the barren slope crested at a red rock wall, a natural formation crowned with jags of glass-like stone. The sky above was dank and grey and gripped with frost clouds.

  “Maur thinks we have trouble,” the Gol said.

  The giant kept moving, but Danica and Raine paused to look back down the slope. Maur pointed, and they saw them.

  A pair of figures moved in the distance, cloaked and floating, the shape of men held aloft by some unseen force. They wore wide-brimmed hats and tattered coats, their arms and legs splayed like they were being dangled by puppeteer’s strings. They arrowed ahead with grim and unnatural motion.

  “Magewraiths,” Raine said. “Shit.”

  “Move!” Danica shouted. Terror seized her chest. Magewraiths were a recent addition to the Ebon Kingdom’s army, the latest attempt to fuse undead with chattel sorcery, the dark soul magic the vampires used to power their Bonespires. Their last such experiment, the dreaded Witchborn, had been an unmitigated disaster, one the spider Azradayne had used to open a gateway to The Black that had allowed the Maloj to pour through. According to the reports Danica had read in Meldoar these new creations were more successful, albeit imperfect. Mated Magewraith pairs bore such destructive potential they were never deployed into areas where vampire resources might be damaged – they were living bombs, dropped into regions deemed expendable, sweeper units meant to raze villages and slaughter everything in sight.

  The team raced up the slope. To Danica’s surprise the grim giant aided them, not only by shouldering Alvarez but also by hauling Raine and Maur and then Danica herself up the hillside, taking time to lift them and set them down and save them tens of feet climbed. Rocks cracked away and tumbled down. The angle grew steeper, and with only a few handholds the dry dead grass and frozen soil offered little traction for them to make any headway.

  Behind them the two Magewraiths, dark shadows without faces or sound but possessed of a dire cold aura that turned the air around them brittle and black, continued to ascend on the wings of a Stygian breeze. They floated upwards with dreadful speed.

  Danica turned and fired. Her spirit swirled to life, a burning glaze against her bloodsteel arm. Bullets roared through the air as Raine and Maur stopped and joined her.

  The two figures drew to within a hundred yards. Bullets tore into their bodies. The shooters saw blood burst from the cloaked corpses and splatter to the frosted ground, but the undead didn’t slow.

  The Magewraiths opened their hands and released fist-sized balls of fire. The searing missiles sizzled off Danica’s arcane shield and shocked her body with wracking pain. Twisted undead magic pulsed against her spirit’s power, focused and reinforced by the thaumaturgic foci buried in her bloodsteel arm. She sensed his pain, felt him buckle and reel. Darkness spread through her chest and gripped her throat.

  The Magewraiths continued the barrage, pelting her shield with black fire. Her strength was about to give out, and her vision darkened. Every breath came ragged, and without even realizing it Danica was on her knees, barely clinging to consciousness.

  Maur and Raine kept firing and the giant drew his maul, but he stayed motionless. The earth darkened behind them, a tide of ebon shadow which stained the world like spilled oil. Danica could barely keep her eyes open, but the moment before the Magewraiths passed over the ground below she saw them – more of the same runic markings from the forest, faint and traced in something like honey and dirt, glazed symbols that held no meaning to her but that the giant had clearly recognized.

  The undead seemed to realize they’d stepped into a trap: they hesitated, their void faces turned to one another in shock, but they couldn’t stop. They triggered whatever snare had been laid and Danica fell back, relieved as their assault ceased, her spirit’s deflection replaced by another shield, one born of a presence she hadn’t noted before.

  The earth rippled. Waves of searing white light erupted from the ground in a pulsing gauntlet of shining blades. Cold unwound and sent thaumaturgic currents through the air, a stutter of explosive blasts, pent-up energy released in a vortex current of glowing ectoplasmic teeth. Undead flesh was torn, ground to pieces. The cloaks unfolded, releasing the darkness beneath. Twin streams of shadow like writhing black serpents wound away from the ruined corpses, which smoldered and exploded in bursts of blood and light. The ebon ghosts twisted and throbbed, bounced away from each other like eels cast into the water.

  Danica released her spirit, and in a swift motion he snapped through both of the undead with gilded cutting force, scattering their remains to the wind.

  “Well done,” a voice said.

  The man stood on the slope above, a hundred yards away, just at the edge of the crooked stones. Danica turned and faced him, and her heart jumped into her throat. He was young, with light blonde hair and pale skin. His cloak was tattered and blew in the icy wind, and an aura of power surrounded him like a corona of northern light.

  Next to the man stood a dark-haired warrior she knew, his face weathered and scarred, his dark cloak rippling in the breeze. He hadn’t shaved for days, had somehow hardened and become even more lean, and his tall shadow was made taller by the blade strapped across his back. Her heart hammered in her chest.

  “Oh my God,” Danica said in shock. “Eric!”

  TWENTY

  black

  Year 25 A.B. (After the Black)

  Danica fell into his arms, and Cross’s heart swelled with joy. Everything about her smothered him, her hair on his face, the feel of her back against his hands, her body pressed close to his, the scent of her sweat and skin, the shine of her eyes, even the hard metal of her golem appendage as she almost hurt him by holding too tight. Their lips met and he took in the taste of her. For a few precious seconds things were as they’d been, nothing but the two of them, alone in a world of darkness.

  It was over far too quickly. Maur was upon them, grabbing hold of his midsection and embracing him, and though Cross didn’t want to be separated from D
anica he was overjoyed to see the Gol, who he’d thought dead. Maur hadn’t changed a bit – it was a challenge to even recall him being as injured as he’d been the last time they’d seen him in the camp near Rimefang Loch – and Cross was fairly certain he’d never seen such a jubilant expression on the little man’s face, or his gait so full of bounce and excitement.

  “Maur can’t believe you’re alive!” he said.

  “Me, neither,” Cross replied, and he looked at Danica. Her eyes held him, a steel gaze that wouldn’t let go. “Me, neither.”

  The wind picked up, and the night-black clouds were swarming. He felt the tunnel mouth pulse behind them, the strange portal they’d used to reach this spot as it threatened to give away.

  “We should go,” he said, and he looked at Lucan. “Right?”

  “Yes,” Keth said. He had a slight smile on his face.

  “Jesus,” Danica said. “Is that...?”

  “Yeah,” Cross said. “And that was about the same reaction I had.”

  Danica looked at the man, then at Cross, and then her eyes (and her spirit, Cross sensed, twisted by the unnatural force of that arcane gate, suddenly on alert and wary of whatever it was that bent and twisted the atmosphere) went to the tunnel, and the undulating patch of darkness within.

  “That’s a gate,” she said. “Eric, what the hell is going on?” There were three others with her – the giant that Keth had told him of, a dark-haired woman, and an unconscious brown-haired man.

  “A lot,” he said. “Come with us. Trust me, you’ll want to see this.”

  They had to carry Danica’s companion Alvarez, but the giant was up to the task. Danica remained skeptical, and Cross didn’t blame her – he was skeptical himself. Wulf and Hasker had promised they’d kill Danica if he broke his word to them, and he had no reason to believe that one of the two mercenaries with her now weren’t the assassin, even if one of them was injured. He vowed to keep an eye on them.

  I just got her back. No one’s taking her away.

  They moved down the tunnel and passed through a membrane of ice and shadow. Everything smelled of gas and glaciers, and the new air they stepped into glowed red.

  He’d already seen Bloodhollow, but the sight of it still awed him.

  The city was made of spires, like red glass daggers aimed up towards a bowl of rock which held the semblance of a molten sky. No two spires were the exact same height, each of them carved from shards of obsidian and somewhat crooked, as if ripped from the distant walls of the vast cavern. Bridges spanned the summits and created a translucent crimson web. The floor of the city was blood rock, fused to the mountain and glowing faintly in the phantom light.

  They found themselves in the gate yard, a circular space flagged in dark schist. Everything glittered with a coat of diamond. Their footsteps echoed as if they were alone, but Lucan’s followers were everywhere, gathering supplies and ferrying weapons, moving sacks of grain and food into storehouses and shoring up the city’s defenses in preparation for the battle they knew was coming.

  “What the hell...?” the woman Raine muttered, but Danica looked around in wonder, nodding.

  “Bloodhollow,” she said.

  “Yep,” Cross said with a nod. “Something, isn’t it?”

  “How is this possible?” she asked. “What is this place, really?” She looked at Lucan. “And who are you...Lucan?” He turned, and smiled. “That is your name. I may be getting senile in my old age, but I’m not that far gone. I transported you with Kane and Ekko and a handful of vampires out of Black Scar prison when I tried to buy Lara back from my bastard of a brother. We saw you die. So how in the hell is it you’re here now?”

  “Follow me,” he said. Danica looked like she was ready to punch something, but Cross just shook his head.

  “That’s about as forthcoming as I’ve been able to get him to be,” he said. He pulled her close as the others followed. The light overhead shifted through shades of red, and he watched their circles shadow as their lips met and they held each other close.

  “I thought you were dead,” she whispered in his ear, and the touch of her breath sent warmth into his body.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Listen...these soldiers you’re with...how well do you know them? I mean besides Maur?”

  Danica watched him carefully, then turned and looked at the others as they followed Lucan into a large round dome of a building with an open roof; the structure was positioned in such a way that even though it was lower than the towers it afforded a good view of much of the lost city, including a good vantage of a number of massive holes in the ceiling that led to other top-side entrances.

  “We’ve been through some shit,” she said. “But not too much.” She looked at him. “You think one of them...”

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation. “It’s how the Coalition kept me in check. Wulf put me on a leash so they could figure out how to use the swords. They told me you’d made it to Meldoar, and that they had a person ready to take you out if I screwed things up.”

  “Shit,” she said. “Well, there’s an easy way to take care of this...” Danica was about to loose her gun when suddenly the air ahead crackled with bright white light. They smelled hex and unbridled primal energy so strong it nearly bowled them over. It was the same power signature as the swords, the same power they’d tasted back in The Reach when Lucan Keth had destroyed an entire horde of Gorgoloth.

  The wounded man, Alvarez, keeled over dead. Raine followed, and fell to the ground. Maur stood watching them both in shock.

  Lucan stood menacingly over their bodies, his hands covered with balls of glowing light, his eyes shining like angry suns. A beat of silence passed as the dead mercenaries smoldered. Smoke steamed off their backs like they’d been dipped in fire.

  “Maur is confused...”

  “They meant you harm,” Lucan said to Danica. “Now they can’t do you any.”

  Danica stepped away from Cross and approached the man, keeping her eyes on him the entire time.

  “Who in the hell are you?” she asked.

  “I asked him,” Cross said, and he stepped up next to her. “He won’t...”

  “I am among the last of the Soulweavers,” he said.

  Cross watched him for a moment, licked his lips, and shook his head.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Please,” Lucan insisted. “Inside.”

  The large building was a vaulted dome set with columns of red-black stone. A floor tiled in marble stretched across empty space towards a mural of a mountain and its surrounding landscape. A vast gap had been painted in the center of the mountain, and something was coming out of it. Based on what Cross had seen Bloodhollow was buried deep within the mountain, which would have been one of the peaks between Seraph and Meldoar.

  “This place, this city, was built over what’s left of the original Breach between worlds,” Lucan said. He kept his eyes on the mural, and didn’t turn around. Cross, Danica and Maur stood behind him, looking up at the dome and the staircase leading to the roof. The room was cold and still. “Though much of the physical reality of the places affected was re-written, rending the notion of a ground zero almost absurd, the crack that formed here is as close as anyone will ever get. It was here where the vampires spilled through to earth. They caused such tremendous damage to the fabric of the universe during their desperate attempt to escape their own world that other realities were sucked in, as well. That’s why there are Gol,” he said with a nod towards Maur, “and Gorgoloth, and Sorn, and so many other things that once never existed, at least from a human’s perspective. That’s why magic was made possible, why humans still recall some details of their old world while others remain elusive.” He looked down. “It’s right under us. The crack is miniscule now, sealed up long ago, but that seal was never completed. And because of that, it can be broken again.”

  Cross had seen some of the damage, those tunnels of darkness where the barrier was wearing thin. He squeezed Danica’s hand, an
d she squeezed back.

  They stood silent for a moment before Cross stepped forward.

  “You said the vampires were trying to escape,” he said. “Escape from what?”

  “They spent millennia destroying their own world,” Lucan said, his eyes distant and glassy, his voice soft. “A dismal and cold place of black marshes and ebon moons. They waged war constantly, never ceasing to understand that the power they released with their bastard weapons and command of lost souls would draw attention. They always thought themselves the ultimate predators – all other life forms on their world feared them, kept to the shadows to avoid becoming food or slaves. It never occurred to them there might be something worse.”

  “Jesus,” Danica said. “The Maloj.”

  “They are merely a representation,” Lucan said with a grim smile. Every word broke the silence and echoed, like he spoke to them from the bottom of a well. He never moved his eyes from the mural, and he held his hands folded and kept his dark cloak pushed back from his leather armor. He watched the painting of the crack as if he hoped he could heal it with his gaze. “Just a small fraction of the power you call The Black.”

  “What is it?” Maur asked.

  “It is oblivion,” he said. “A liquid universe of pain, of power, of dire intent and vengeful thought. It is a mass of madness and murderous rage. It spans the borders of its own universe, filling it from end to end like water in a sack. But the vampires broke the walls.”

  Lucan turned and looked at them, his breath frosting as he spoke, his long blonde hair hanging down over his scarred face.

  “What you call the Maloj are drops of water from that mad sea,” he said. “They worked to subvert the vampire’s world, destroying it from within by lending them more power with which to wage war. The Maloj thrive on spreading destruction, for their sole purpose is to annihilate. They crave light, and life, so they can consume it. Hunger is all they know, all they feel. No one knows what formed that dismal mass of tortured souls – perhaps it’s a prison, or some dark place crafted by the whim of an ancient and evil god. The Maloj are chained in darkness and hate the living with all the substance of their black and twisted hearts. Wherever they came from, they want out, and the vampires gave them the chance.