Vampire Down (Blood Skies, Book 7)

by Steven Montano

  “The creatures of Malefia realized their mistake too late, when much of their world had already been devastated. The skies bled magic which melted their great spires and cities, and the undead citizens found themselves in a position they never would have imagined: they were the prey. The darkness of the Maloj was wiping them out and subjugating them as easily as the vampires themselves had done to countless other races. In their desperation they turned to Daezarkian, the Grim Father, a mad theurge-king who managed to use the very world-twisting energies the Maloj leaked from the pores of their dismal bodies, coupled with the sacrificed souls of thousands of human slaves and the undead essence of his own wife-queen, to create a way out. A gate.” He held up his arms. “And it led here.”

  “Holy shit,” Cross said. “And when they used this gate, they...royally fucked everybody.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Lucan said with that same wry grin. “They crossed over, bringing as much of their world with them as they could without allowing the Maloj to follow. The sheer scale of the event was beyond their comprehension. Places they’d never known existed were affected, the ripples of reality-altering physics too much to yield safely predictable results. Worse, not just space but time was affected. Pasts and futures co-mingled, histories of some worlds blended with the futures of others. And because it was reality itself that was being altered few knew the truth. Even many of the vampires have forgotten.”

  He stopped talking, and they stood in silence. The chamber was utterly cold and desolate.

  “How do you know this?” Danica asked after a time. “How would you recall all of this, if no one else can. Who...what...are you?”

  “He’s a Soulweaver,” Cross said. “Though I’m hard-pressed to explain what that is.” He addressed Lucan. “I met your kind in the Whisperlands, when Jennar was trying to make it so I’d open another portal to The Black.” He looked around the room. “I might have even been here in Bloodhollow, in a sense. Your brothers were much more...snake-like.”

  “There are few of us left,” Lucan said. “We observe. We are architects, artists, but we lack vision. We watch, we repair, we rebuild. We have no home of our own, and haven’t for millennia, not since it was destroyed by the Maloj.”

  Something was happening outside. Cross stepped back to the door and looked into the vast cavern, so massive it was like a stone sky. Hundreds of tunnels led off to a network of caves and passageways, many of which went to the surface, though from the way Lucan described it one was likely to get lost for months trying to navigate the confusing labyrinth. Cross saw more of Lucan’s followers – his “assistants”, he liked to call them, a combination of humans, Lith, Gol, even Gorgoloth and Vuul – setting up sandbags and flame cannons, machine guns and tents and boxes stuffed with ammo and medical supplies. They looked nothing like soldiers, just creatures from the wastelands, dirty and unkempt, the last defenders of the city of Bloodhollow.

  “Maur is sorry to hear of the loss of your world,” the Gol said to Lucan.

  “Yes,” Danica nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “That was so long ago none of us really remember it,” Lucan said sadly. “We’ve spent our existence watching other worlds, enjoying them from afar. We try to not to change things, except to help, to better, and never in any intrusive fashion. It’s not our way.”

  “But you helped me,” Cross said. “When I was lost in the Whisperlands, and Jennar...one of the Maloj...was trying to open another gateway to The Black, you did interfere. Just as you are now.” He took a breath. “Why?”

  “Because we’ve grown attached to Earth,” Lucan said plainly. “After all, we did all but wipe ourselves out defending it.”

  Cross nodded. Danica’s eyes widened.

  “Jesus...”

  “That’s why we’re still here,” Cross said. “Isn’t it? Without you and your brothers there to hold things together that Breach would have destroyed Earth, would have destroyed all of those worlds. The vampires wouldn’t have escaped, because they’d have damaged everything so badly it would have fallen apart.”

  “We weren’t entirely successful,” Lucan said. “That’s why the Breach is still here, a splitting seam, a crack where we held back the tide of the Maloj. That’s why other portals have opened, like the one Azradayne created. That’s how travel is possible between different times, different realms.”

  “Why this place?” Danica asked. “Why now?”

  “When The Black occurred – the event, when the Grim Father created the Breach and his world spilled over into yours – we did everything we could to stop it, but we weren’t strong enough, and the Maloj knew we were here. It wiped most of us out as we were making the final push to seal the gap and stabilize what we could. Our bodies were failing. The decision was made among the eldest of our kind to sacrifice our lives to seal the way once and for all. That life force had to be held in a reliquary of some kind, a repository capable of holding our power, our wills...”

  “The swords,” Danica said with a grim laugh.

  “That was my idea,” Lucan said proudly. “I enjoyed your myths and fantasy tales, and it seemed as good a receptacle as any. Most of the elders were fused to two different artifact blades, the weapons you’ve come to know as Scar and Claw. Two of us would remain behind and watch over the world after The Black. You see, we didn’t want to seal the Breach completely for fear we’d do even more harm – everything was balanced, and though millions had died the worlds themselves had survived, but if we undid the stitching it could all come apart. So we two remained: myself, and the one you’ve come to know as the Pale Goddess.”

  Cross was shaking. It was all too much, but there was more, and though he wanted to run away screaming he had to hear Lucan out.

  “There were just those two of us left when the most powerful Maloj we’d ever encountered attacked”, Lucan continued. “He nearly destroyed us, and while we were able to use our power to imprison him deep in the earth of an alternate world the damage had already been done. His destructive power scattered us, and both of us were discorporating. Desperate, we tried to shunt our own energy into the other two blades, Avenger and Soulrazor, but we didn’t act fast enough. My powers and my consciousness were scattered, and vestiges of my power littered the world – some had gone into Soulrazor, which had been forged from the very meteoric steel piloted by The Sleeper when he’d ventured to our world to destroy us, while some had fused into a number of individuals, men who held no clue that they carried a part of me inside of them.

  “This vessel,” he said, indicating his own body, “that of Lucan, was the most powerful, but there were more, each of us unaware of who we were. The same was true of the other, but she bore some memory of what she’d been, and she carried on where the rest of us could not. She, too, had had her consciousness scattered, but not to as many vessels. Much of her energy was shunted to Avenger, and the most powerful aspect of her soul, the White Mother, guided humankind to rebuild and defend against the threat of the Ebon Cities. The others – the Woman in the Ice, Korva, a handful more now long dead and forgotten – retained more power and more memory than I did.”

  “But she’s dead now,” Cross said. “That’s what I was shown – the Maloj found her, and destroyed her.”

  “True,” Lucan said. “But before she died she chose to pass her powers down to a few others, for she knew that when the time was right they’d manifest those abilities, and do what needed to be done.”

  “The Kindred,” Danica said, and she looked at Cross with terror in her eyes and fear in her voice. “Shiv. God, Eric, it’s Shiv...and I lost her...”

  “Just listen,” Lucan said, his tone growing angry. “We couldn’t act before because I was lost, and the White Mother couldn’t do this on her own. She didn’t even know the location of the Breach, of this city called Bloodhollow we ourselves had built over the rip. None of this could fall into place until the swords were brought closer together, for they’d been lost in our battle with The Sleeper, scattere
d as we were. They fell into hands where they didn’t belong.

  “But now you’re here,” Lucan said, almost giddy, excited like a schoolboy, and in its own way that was terrifying. “With the four blades plus this girl Shiv and myself we can finally seal the Breach. I’ve been analyzing the weylines, examining the fracture...”

  “Hold on,” Maur said. “Maur recalls you just said that was dangerous – that sealing the Breach could damage everything.”

  “I think now it can be done,” Lucan said. “With all that humans have learned about planar geography, about hex patterns and thaumaturgic algorithms, about transubstantive locationism and arcane geometry...all of that knowledge you hold in your head,” he said to Cross, “all of that information gleaned from the Tome of Scars we never had access to back when The Black occurred, we can now do what we couldn’t before. We can seal the Breach and end the threat of the Maloj. Better yet, we can end the threat of the vampires, once and for all.”

  “How’s that?” Danica asked. Cross stepped closer.

  “The vampires cannot fully abandon their home world,” Lucan explained. “They’ve never been able to, and they learned this even before the two worlds had merged. The necrotic power that fuels Malefia, that burns in their very atmosphere, is what allows them to exist. They left the Breach open intentionally, but in the chaos of The Black they lost its location. They’ve been able to create small gates under their control, but they’ve never been able to maintain them, and they know that if the true Breach ever fell into human hands their very existence would be in jeopardy. Not since Daezarkian’s first successful experiment have the Ebon Cities been able to craft a long-lasting portal back to their world.

  “They need the Breach to exist, and that’s why they’ve been searching so desperately for Bloodhollow. They don’t want it opened further – that would spell their doom – but they don’t want it sealed.”

  “What would happen?” Cross asked, hearing the anxiousness in his own voice. “What would become of the vampires if the Breach was sealed?”

  “They would cease to exist,” Lucan said. “They would fall to the ground, corpses again.”

  They all stood in stunned silence. It seemed there was a way to win the war after all. They all felt it – that desperate sense of hope they’d been clinging to for so long, suddenly building up with pressure like a dam about to burst – but they couldn’t move, didn’t dare move for fear of disturbing it, for breaking the silence.

  “No,” Danica said at last. “This is bullshit.”

  “Dani...” Cross started, but she cut him off.

  “No,” she said again. “This is too much...too much...” She turned to Lucan. “Assuming we even believe you, your plan depends on something we don’t have, that we can’t have, and can’t provide. Shiv is gone,” she said, and there was pain in her voice, raw pain the likes of which he hadn’t heard there in a long time, “and Ronan is gone, and there’s not a God damn thing we can do about that. So even if we could believe you...and I want to, trust me, I do...”

  “Danica is right,” Maur echoed. He’d been quiet for so long Cross had nearly forgotten he was there. “Maur wishes this was possible, but...”

  “Nothing is impossible,” Cross said. “After all we’ve been there...all we’ve seen...you guys have to believe this can be done.” He tried to control the pain in his tone, tried to keep all of the fear and terror from spilling out, because that was what he did, what he had to do, for their sake, for his, had to keep himself together, to keep going, keep fighting, keep pushing his way through all of the hurt. That was the only way to deal with it all: to carry on. “If there’s a chance...even a chance...this can be done...”

  “There’s more than a chance,” Lucan said calmly. “Bloodhollow stands over the Breach. It’s difficult, but we can reach through to other places...other times.”

  “What are you saying?” Danica asked.

  “Ronan and Shiv died in this timeline,” Lucan said, “but they are alive in another. Another where you died...all of you. They’ve carried on, just like you have. I wish I could find a time more closely aligned with ours, but the only one we can reach safely is ten years from now, where they’re alive, and capable of helping us...but we have to hurry. Because now that Bloodhollow’s location has been revealed, they’re coming...they’re all coming here...”

  “Who?” Maur asked.

  “The Ebon Kingdoms,” Lucan said. “New Koth. The East Claw Coalition. The Maloj. From the present and the future, all forces will converge on Bloodhollow.”

  “How can we find them?” Cross asked. “How can we find Shiv and Ronan?”

  “We go get them,” Lucan said. “But for now you need to rest, and eat. You'’ll need your strength. We have a lot of work to do.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  BRIDGE

  They ate breakfast in silence there on the floor of the strange temple: crusty bread, smoked bacon, mushrooms that had cooked and cooled in butter, all served with flasks of water. It was one of the most delicious meals Danica had ever had.

  She sat near Cross, enjoying his nearness in spite of the damp chill which gripped Bloodhollow. They didn’t speak, but the silence between them was comfortable. She felt like she was dreaming – half a dream, half a nightmare. That he was back with her, returned after she’d thought him dead and gone, was nothing short of a miracle. She hadn’t even realized until she’d seen him just how deeply his loss had affected her, even more than that of Cole, which had nearly drove her to the brink of madness. Having him close reminded her how important it was that she never lose him again.

  Maur watched them both, nodding to himself as he gnawed on the bacon.

  “Didn’t you used to be a vegetarian?” she asked him.

  “Maur doesn’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, with just enough humor in his voice to indicate he knew exactly what she was talking about, and had likely fallen off whatever proverbial wagon it was that had put him off from meat. She’d wondered for a time if it wasn’t something about the Gol physiology, but judging by how he tore the crusty meal apart with his oddly blunted teeth she could only surmise it was a lifestyle choice.

  Cross ate quietly. His eyes were on the mural. She leaned in and with her flesh and blood hand squeezed his knee, which brought his eyes to her and seemed to snap him from his disturbed reverie.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be,” she answered. “I love you.”

  He looked at her with a mixture of joy and fear, and she understood. They both had so much to lose now, more than ever before.

  “I love you,” he answered back.

  “Please,” Maur said. “Maur is eating.”

  Lucan was standing still, watching the mural as though he expected it to jump out at him. He kept his arms folded, his back straight. He was so much more confident than the Lucan Keth she’d known, the reclusive warlock who’d barely had control over his own primal spirit, though it made sense – that version from before had been just a shell of who he was, of what he was.

  “What do they look like?” she asked Cross quietly. “The Soulweavers?”

  Cross thought for a minute.

  “Do you know what a couatl is?”

  “I think so...from Native American lore, right?”

  “Yes,” he said hesitantly. “Actually, I was thinking Dungeons & Dragons...”

  “Giant winged snakes,” she said with a small laugh. “I got it.”

  “That’s a form we prefer,” Lucan said, still looking straight ahead. “It may be our natural form. I’m not sure. I can no longer remember.”

  “Maur wonders,” the Gol said, and he stood up and walked closer to Lucan. Danica and Cross watched with trepidation. “Do you know the truth of his people?”

  Lucan turned then, and regarded Maur with a quizzical look.

  “The Gol?”

  “Yes, the Gol,” Maur said with a bit of a sigh.

  “Of course.”

  “Do som
ething for Maur,” Maur said after a moment. Danica hadn’t noticed before, but their diminutive companion shook as he stood there. They couldn’t see his face, as he had his hood drawn, and his crimson clothing was baggy and hung loose around his dwarf’s body, but the crack in his voice and the way he carried himself told them Maur was wracked with anxiety. “Something for all Gol,” he said.

  “Of course,” Lucan answered.

  “Don’t tell them. Any of them.”

  “Maur...” Cross started, but the Gol put a hand up.

  “It’s better this way,” he said. “The Gol have survived their time on this world without knowledge of who they are, or where they came from. They’ve forged a new identity for themselves, but years were wasted trying to find out who they were, where they came from. Those precious years are lost now – there was in-fighting, plots. There was madness and pain.”

  Danica watched him, dumbfounded. They’d never heard anything of this, but then it was known that the denizens of Meldoar kept to themselves – it wasn’t until A.B. 10 that humans and Gol even made contact, and before the Ebon Kingdoms had conquered the human lands outsiders had never even been allowed in Meldoar.

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  It took a moment, but Maur nodded.

  “Maur thinks it is best they don’t know,” he said. “It might be they find they don’t like the answer. It might be they discover they did this to themselves, to forget. In any case, the society, the people, are better off the way they are now.” They heard tears in his voice, even if they couldn’t see his face. He looked up at Lucan. “Please. Can you do that for Maur?”