Cross tried to grab her, but she eluded his hand. He didn’t want to let her go, couldn’t. He had to protect her. He saw Snow, burning on the train.
Gently Shiv pulled away, and the look she gave him told all he needed to know: he couldn’t help her now.
A blade of darkness drove into his side as Shiv and Azradayne met in arcane combat, their hands gripped in deadlock as their bodies swirled with immolated energies, black and white fire that fused the stone beneath their feet and made the air bleed. Cross flashed in and out of consciousness, held upright only by the power of the weapon in his hands. His eyes adjusted to the shifting gloom and he witnessed the source of his injury. Shadows and black ice, a vast lupine shape.
The last Maloj to have slipped through the gate. It had come for them at last.
Cross could only watch as the beast flung him aside. He drifted through the air like in a dream, heard bones crack as he smashed against the stone and fell. His spine felt wrong, and he lay there, bleeding, gripping the blade.
He held Danica’s gaze for just moments before she and Ronan leapt at the wolf, hacking at it from both sides. Blades in the darkness, slicing through shadowflesh.
Cross willed himself to move. The ice-laden ground rubbed skin from his hands and made them raw with frost and blood. He gripped Soulrazor/Avenger tight, knowing it was the only thing that allowed him to move. Blood pooled beneath him on the floor, black-red fluid freezing to gel.
The ground felt crisp as he rose, and his knees jarred with pain. Everything shifted and fell to the side, like the world was sliding away. He tasted the power swelling from the conflict between Shiv and Azradayne, the stench of dark fire.
Cross’s vision flickered in and out, knife edges of consciousness. He stumbled forward, chest heaving, eyes heavy, feeling like he was going to fall into the hole above. Blood dripped from his mouth and ran cold down his skin. The blades were heavy, too heavy, and he heard their voices screaming through his mind, panicked cries. The air thickened and warped.
He drove his sword through the Maloj’s black. Dark light crept up the weapon and into his arms, numbing his skin and freezing his heart. The wolf turned and knocking Danica and Ronan aside. Its jaws opened wide and a terrible dark substance poured out and burned Cross’s body with shocking cold. The temple shook.
Beyond them, Shiv and Azradayne struggled on. A deep bass rumble knocked columns loose and sent them crashing to the ground. Shiv’s spirits gathered around her, protected her, shielded her in cold fire.
The wolf cleaved through his side. Pain exploded across Cross’s vision. He felt organs torn, and his blood was on fire. The swords kept him alive, painfully, forced him to keep going, filled him with life energies that burned. Salty blood poured from his lips, and the weapon guided him as he stumbled forward and swung. Blood splashed onto his face, the monster’s blood, dismally chilled and filled with horrors. He glimpsed flashes of oblivion, fields of corpses and smoking cities, rivers of flesh and palaces of bone.
He was thrown back against the wall, bleeding, broken. Nothing seemed to work properly. He couldn’t feel his body anymore.
Ronan was somehow still alive even though his face was covered with blood. Danica’s spirit knifed through the wolf’s torso like a crusted crimson spear.
The temple hummed with tension. Hairline cracks ran up the walls. Dust and frost rained down, and the crack of mortar sounded like breaking bones. The voices in the swords screamed louder, a wailing song of terror, not just Soulrazor/Avenger but the other blades and the power in Shiv and Lucan, a choir of the damned.
Hurry, they seemed to say. When Cross looked up he saw the hole had widened, the void grown darker, so black and fathomless he felt drawn in. Never ending darkness, and pain.
Weapons hacked through wolf flesh. A knife of white light seared through the wolf as it punched a claw through Ronan’s stomach.
Lucan pushed himself up to his knees. His rib bones were visible through the grievous wound in his midsection, and the meat of his muscles smoked and burned, but somehow he stood.
Ronan was thrown against the wall and left a spatter of blood. His crumpled body lay in a heap.
Cross drove his sword into the Maloj as deep as it would go. Black blood fountained out around his hands, burning him with cold so utter he screamed. The wolf’s eyes were inches away from his, pools of polished glass which reflected back his mangled face. Within those eyes Cross saw things he’d seen before, but had hoped never to see again.
A charred landscape. Rivers of black souls. Skeletal trees burning with the fires of hell.
Lucan let loose a blast of flame and the wolf fell, slowly, its claws digging through Cross’s chest as it collapsed. Black gore splattered all over the red crystal ground.
Cross’s vision faded. He felt himself teetering.
Danica stood over the wolf and finished it off. She held Claw and Scar, one in each hand, and with a scissor strike decapitated the beast. It’s body dissolved like hot blood on the ice.
Cross rolled away, his strength gone. He stared up at the distant point beyond the skyscape. Stars of blood, constellations of blades. He saw shifting grey waters, walls of bloodsmoke and bone.
The portal rippled, bubbled out. Claws pushed from the other side and fangs tried to snap through the barrier. They stretched the boundary thin. Cross smelled rancid dead breath, felt the bile of another world dripping through.
We’re too late.
Shiv and Azradayne were at a stalemate. Spirits slashed at Warfield’s body, tearing her flesh to ribbons, but the nimbus of white light kept her upright in spite of her wounds. Shiv’s black ice shield was cracked and failing, and she was forced back.
Azradayne held blades wrought of crackling dark force. Her short red hair was pasted back to her scalp, and her eyes glowed like ice moons. Power clung to her in a cloak, a shifting flux of chaotic energies that tasted of acid winds.
Ronan came at her and slashed her face with his katana. Blood flew from her mouth, but she spun around fast and sent her two blades crashing against Ronan’s jaw, shattering it to pieces and sending him to the floor. His blade clattered down, and he crumpled. Cross shouted out as his friend lay there, his blood pooling on the ground.
Shiv screamed. A jet of spirit matter flew from her fingertips and crashed into Azradayne, but the spider met that power head on with drills of flame which scoured the air blue. Icy blood trickled from Shiv’s nose. Azradayne was getting the best of her, and the black-clad woman, ruined though her body was, advanced. Cold fire poured from her fingers and lit the walls, which hailed down chunks of stone. Choking clouds of ice dust fell into Cross’s lungs as he and Lucan lunged forward to pull Shiv out of Azradayne’s path.
They couldn’t reach her in time. Scalding white fire threw her back. Cross cried out as the blazing flames seared his face and body. The blade repelled the brunt of the attack but he still felt unbearable heat drive through to his bones. Lucan cried out, and Danica screamed.
The world faded. Cross felt himself floating, as if on a sea. He saw Snow, saw Graves. He saw Dillon and Kane and Flint. They were barely there, wraiths at the edge of the burning field of his vision, but they were waiting for him.
Danica pulled him away from the fire. There were tears in her eyes. He wanted to tell her not to cry, that she was too strong for that, that a couple of years ago she would have kicked his ass up and down the street for even suggesting she was capable of shedding tears.
A blade pierced through her back. White light erupted from her eyes. Cross screamed, but the horrified sound that came out couldn’t have been his voice. She fell next to him, blood pooling from her mouth. His heart shattered.
Danica lay there on the ground, breaths moving slow as she rasped out blood. Cross reached for her, and every inch of motion was filled with pain. He took her hand in his, and stared into her eyes. She stared back, pools of green he’d lost himself in.
He saw them in a better place. The two of them, together, a
lone and in love. The place he’d always wanted. The place he’d taken too long to find.
I’m sorry, he wanted to say, but Danica wouldn’t have it. Even lying there, dying, she commanded him with her eyes, and tightened her grip on his hand. Be thankful, that grip said, those eyes said. Enjoy what we had.
“I love you,” he said. Tears rolled down his face.
Azradayne stood over them, the white blades shining in her hands, extensions of her foul power.
“Thank you, Cross,” Azradayne said. “You made this all possible. I could have chosen others to manipulate, to guide so the pieces all fell into place, but I chose you. You should feel lucky.”
He tried to lift the blade, tried to clear his vision enough that he could see Azradayne and ram the sword up into her stomach, but the hilt was slick, and his strength flooded from him when Danica’s eyes closed. Soulrazor/Avenger clattered to the ground.
Cross felt the spider loom over him. He drew what he knew would be his last breath.
He held Danica’s hands. Wherever they went, whatever happened, they’d be together.
We can be more.
TWENTY-SIX
RESURRECTION
Dissonant beats. Falling noise. Blood sluiced through clouds of smoke and the ashen remains of the fallen.
Something turned inside, clicked. Blood pumped, dark and slow. Sensory outputs sparked his limbs. His fingers twitched, the metal digging into the pavement.
VAMPIRE DOWN, the message read. VAMPIRE DOWN.
I’m not a vampire.
He blinked, and the world slowly came into focus. Pyramid runes flashed across his vision, red and white High Jlantrian script which made his head buzz. He saw bars drop then shoot up, resetting some bio-arcane engineering which made his body respond. His limbs jerked, he spasmed. He heard cold engines flare to life. Twisted undead muscles leaked greasy fuel.
VAMPIRE DOWN.
I’m not a vampire. It was a standard message which played upon the reboot of thaumaturgic systems in any augmented undead creature, but the fact that the message didn’t know what he was still bothered him.
What am I?
He sat up. Dead surrounded him, husks of Ebon Kingdom’s assault units, New Koth rebels, Bloodhollow freedom fighters, all twisted and broken and bleeding, innards exposed and skin torn, insides roasting in the dank subterranean air. It was a butcher’s yard, and his metallic legs and hands slipped as he tried to gather himself and stand.
What am I?
Something was different. Battle raged inside the temple, the target destination where he’d been leading his troops. The location of the Breach. Blades and growls, darkness and light, flashes of grey power which settled on the ground like patches of bloody snow.
He remembered. Flashes of his life came back to him: growing up on the streets of Kalakkaii, running from his parents, stealing to survive. Begging, fighting, hiding. Being taken hostage, and then made a member of the gang, staging daring daytime raids and hijacking wastelands cargo transports.
Falling in love. She’d been his captor, but soon it was just the two of them, roaming the wilderness, living a life of lust and freedom before they were taken captive and forced to fight, first in Krul, then in Black Scar prison, and then in Krul again.
Black Scar. Danica. Ronan. Cross.
His name was Kane. And he regarded his transformed body in horror.
More memories played back, painful, inescapable. Ekko, by his side, the light in his heart, dying in his arms in the frozen city of Karamanganji. Living with that loss, living through others, through the team. Losing Cross, then finding him, losing him again.
He remembered dying, and the flash of pain was so sharp he recoiled, nearly fell to the ground. The shot, the bullets ripping through his skull. He remembered the pain, remembered seeing Ekko, hoping he was going to be with her. All he’d gotten was a new hell.
Kane slowly stood. It felt like the first time he’d ever used his legs, the first time he’d been on his feet since childhood. More flashes. His memory was wrong: he was a child, burning in wreckage, caged by walls of scorching yellow light. Hands tore him free, pieced him back together. He felt himself, more than one, an amalgam of different creatures, warriors, mercenaries, heroes. Forged into this monstrosity, a murderous brute with the voices of evil souls locked inside his head.
Ekko. Memory of her love had stayed with him and kept him from completely slipping away. She’d been his anchor, and though she couldn’t bring him back it had been enough to keep him from slipping all of the way into the gulf.
What have I done?
He couldn’t count how many he’d killed, human refugees, survivors of the Ebon Kingdom’s conquest of the Southern Claw. Time had been ripped, pieced back together. Events converged and twisted, a history he wasn’t familiar with, a future he’d never known. Hunter of the living, bane of humans, killer of hope: those had become his titles, his existence. So much blood soaked his hands he’d never again be clean.
His head pounded with fluid he knew wasn’t blood. Kane stumbled. The world was sideways, a haze of bodies and smoke.
The girl. He remembered the girl. Taking her from the wreckage, trying his best to protect her even if he hadn’t understood why. Now he knew: she was his new Ekko.
Jesus, I’m fucked up.
He didn’t feel dead, and realized he never had, but everything was hazy and sluggish, like he was trapped in a slow-moving dream. Sounds echoed around him, every movement, every step.
He looked up at the false sky and nearly fell, the clouds and explosive vapors of the cavern swirling like a whirlpool in a vast red sea.
There was combat inside the temple. The Breach was there.
Shit. What do I do?
Without understanding what was happening Kane found himself stumbling forward, a bone sword in his hand. It was unfamiliar, too light, its stark ivory face streaked through with blood, its hilt carved in the semblance of some monstrous claw. Drifts of ash covered the ground, wet with blood and filth. He heard steel clang against steel, smelled the taint of thaumaturgy, unclean magic, mongrel spirits hobbled by pain as they threw themselves at one another with fearless abandon.
Kane’s body repaired itself, dead tissue pasting together, misaligned bones snapping back into place. His strength was returning, even if his vision remained blurry and his movements awkward.
I’ve been severed from the collective again, he realized, and though there was no reason why he should know for certain he felt that this time the ties had been cut permanently. He was free.
Dead man walking, he thought to himself, and he started to laugh, a hollow and unnatural sound, dry and rancid. Grave dust and thick red soil dripped from his cracked lips. He heard the voices scream through his mind, desperate to drag him back down. Images flashed so fast they nearly bowled him over. Ekko, dying in his arms, her pale body bleeding out onto the snow, his hope and happiness dying with her.
But then the memories changed, no longer images of Ekko dying but others, people he’d killed as Reaver. Terrified refugees huddled in the dark, unarmed and afraid, burned or given to undead hounds to be rent apart. Their screams echoed in the darkness, and their blood pooled thick on the frozen earth. Meat and muscle came loose in his hands. His blades skewered renegade warlocks, barely armed commandos, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. He saw fields of smoking corpses, cargo ships loaded with bodies to be dumped and reanimated in the wastes. Plaintive cries, the smell of scorched skin, ruins left in his wake.
He had become Death.
He rounded the corner and stepped into the cold confines of the collapsing temple. More bodies, these not by his hands, but he felt they might as well have been. The sight of the people who’d once been his friends sent ripples of emptiness through his body. Regret cut at him like a blade, twisted in his gut.
The door was narrow, and Kane had to watch his step, as the floor was awash with gore. He could smell the inside of the mountain, the iron and sulfur and dampness, bu
t he knew they weren’t real scents, just long forgotten memories returned.
The temple shook. Low and terrible howling sounded from above, and Kane’s fingers tightened around the hilt of the bone sword. The air was crumbling, falling apart like hand-ripped webs. Patches of darkness deepened, holes to The Black. A shadow form came into view and faded.
Kane’s heart died as he saw her – Warfield, or something that looked like Warfield, only this creature pulsed with power, more than he’d ever seen in a single being. Pale energy dripped from her fingers and collected on the floor like iced blood. Great shapes loomed overhead, the bulwarks of vast ships floating in a false sky. The hole in the ceiling was like a drill bore into another world. He saw The Black, that great and roiling mass of shadow, darkness so thick it burned the eyes to look upon, but there was more: Kane saw other worlds, futures, pasts, possible places, impossible ones. The black ship, the same vessel that had crashed and created the crater where Cross had shifted over to the Whisperlands, was there now, a behemoth of dark iron, jagged sails and bone rudders manned by monsters made of darkness, wolf-shaped and moon-fanged, eyes of white fire. They looked upon the temple and the worlds around them with unbridled hunger.
Kane realized he was the only thing standing in their way. The rest were dead, or close to it – Danica lie bleeding, Cross’s breaths slowed as he desperately held onto her, Ronan was a broken and crumpled heap, Lucan and the girl Shiv were on the ground. Kane laughed again, that same hideous sound he’d made before.
I was resurrected for this? he thought. More dead friends, more lives lost. More people I couldn’t save. There were so few in the world he’d ever loved, and he’d never again get to see them whole. What good was life without people to care for?
Vampire Down (Blood Skies, Book 7) Page 34
