Durham Red: The Unquiet Grave

by Peter J Evans

  The Unquiet

  Grave

  Durham Red

  Book I

  Peter J. Evans

  This book is the last scan done by our dear friend Dunamai, that passed away on the evening of January 19th, 2006.

  We grieve his loss.

  Undernet—The man did so much for so many, so they could enjoy the world of the written word. We lost someone so special ,when we lost Dun.

  Nullus—We thought very highly of Dunamai, he was unfailingly courteous, generous, and helpful. He turned e-books from a hobby into a movement. We owe him dearly.

  Highway—They don't make them much better than this man. He was a star on earth, and will be a star in heaven.

  We will remember you forever, dear Dun!

  To Nicola

  Who makes everything work

  Especially me.

  And to Kent

  Who came up with the goods.

  The Legend of Durham Red

  It is written that in that year of 2150, the skies rained down nuclear death, and every family and clan lost father and brothers and sons. The Strontium choked our beloved homeworld and brought forth mutants, squealing and twisted things.

  Yet such mutants were not weak things to be crushed underfoot, for the same radiation that had created them warped their bodies, making them stronger than any normal human. They became hated and feared by all, and were herded into ghettos and imprisoned in vast camps. There they plotted rebellion and dreamed of freedom amongst their own kind.

  Some, it is told, were able to escape from the shadows of ruined Earth, to join the feared Search/Destroy Agency. They tracked wanted criminals on worlds too dangerous for regular enforcement officers. They became known as the Strontium Dogs.

  The one they call Durham Red became an S/D Agent to escape the teeming ghettos of her devastated homeland. Shunned even by her own kind because of a foul mutant blood-thirst, she soon found that her unsurpassed combat skills served her well as a Strontium Dog. The years of continuous slaughter took their toll, however, and the tales relate that in the end Red willingly entered the deep sleep of cryogenic suspension, determined to let a few years go by without her.

  All know of the unexpected twist that the legend took. Her cryo-tube malfunctioned. Durham Red woke up twelve hundred years late.

  While she slept, the enmity between humans and mutants had exploded into centuries of total war, leaving the galaxy a shattered shell, home only to superstition and barbarism. Billions of oppressed mutants now worship Saint Scarlet of Durham—the mythologised image of Red herself! The bounty hunter from Milton Keynes has now become almost a messiah figure for mutantkind—and a terrifying blasphemy in the eyes of humans.

  Half the galaxy is looking to her for bloody salvation. The other half is determined to destroy her at any cost. The future is a nightmare, and Durham Red is trapped right in the middle of it…

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  1

  Glow

  Judas Harrow was late arriving at the Chamber of Sensation. By the time he got there, the orgy was already in full swing.

  The gallery was overflowing, lesser acolytes of the Osculum Cruentus jammed against the handrail in their dozens; a solid wall of crimson cowls. Harrow had to force his way to the front, sliding through the ranks of the faithful with an equal mixture of stealth, apology and brute force. No one complained, even though Harrow was certain he'd felt someone's rib crack after a particularly vicious shove. The owner of the rib might have gasped but the chamber was already ringing with gasps, and worse. Nobody paid any heed to one more.

  Harrow reached the rail, inwardly cursing himself for not getting to the chamber sooner. Part of his problem was the cowl. Its previous owner had been taller and the garment was too big, voluminous and long. He had to be on constant guard not to trip over the cursed thing. Falling flat on his face would do his attempts at subterfuge no good at all.

  Neither would the look of shock on his face when he peered over the edge of the gallery, but there was nothing he could do about that. Luckily the cowl's hood covered his expression and no one seemed to be looking at him anyway.

  They were too busy watching those participating in the orgy.

  It was the first time Harrow had managed to gain access into the chamber, and from what he saw with his own eyes, it was far worse than he could have imagined.

  The chamber itself was a broad, circular cavern, maybe a hundred metres across and a similar distance from floor to ceiling. The walls were hung with huge tapestries; scenes of gruesome debauchery so extreme that even Judas Harrow, who had seen some sights in his time, took one quick look at them and decided that he would see no more.

  Above the awful hangings, diamond-analogue windows formed a wide, domed ceiling. Distant starlight speckled in from outside, through coloured panes that formed images almost as foul as those on the walls. Halfway up the chamber was a ring of metal walkway, bolted precariously into the dark stone—the viewing gallery on which Judas Harrow, and almost a hundred sweating acolytes, now stood. The floor below was lost in darkness, but from the centre rose a blunt cylinder of black iron, its flanks stained and pitted with rust. The upper surface of this, the dais, was where the attention of the ranked acolytes was fixed. Harrow forced himself to turn his gaze the same way.

  What he saw sickened him.

  Down on the dais, lovers writhed in mindless abandon. Harrow tried to count them, but gave up after a few seconds. Ten, twelve, maybe more, he couldn't tell. There seemed to be no division between one bacchanalian and the next: the dais was a tangle of limbs, a squirming mass of pale, sweat-slicked skin and glittering metal.

  Despite the rapt, lust-soaked stares of the acolytes, Harrow could find nothing arousing in the multiple coupling below him. The lovers moved spastically, like failing machines. A physically active associate of the orgy on Harrow's side of the dais fell slightly away from her fellows shuddering uncontrollably, and he saw that the curve of her spine was studded with interface jacks, black metal sockets stapled brutally through her white skin and into the vertebrae beneath. Rumour had it that those who engaged in the orgies spent the long hours between rituals in a storm of neural transfer; plugged directly into the temple's data-engines and force-fed imagery both erotic and terrifying, priming them for the rigors of ceremony. Harrow saw that the woman's mind had already been driven apart by days of torturous hypnotic input. All that was left to her now was pain and raw, animalistic desire.

  The woman turned her head. She had no eyes, just another two interface sockets, riveted into the bone of her skull.

  Harrow gripped the rail hard and tried to keep his stomach from reeling. The stench of those who partook in the orgy—musk, vanilla and bitter machine oil—was assaulting his nostrils and the harsh glare of the spotlights illuminating them hurt his brain. He found a spot on the dais that appeared to be empty, and fixed his attention on it, trying to breathe through his mouth.

  Abruptly, the section of dais he was staring at moved.

  A jagged section of metal dropped and then slid away. With a soft whine of concealed hydraulics, almost lost amidst the cries and groans of the sexual debauchery, a long, gleaming blade rose up, slowed and locked into place.

  More blades were emerging from the dais—long, curved knives on hinged poles, little
serrated scalpels peeking from the iron floor, spikes, needles. In seconds, the grinding and pumping bodies were surrounded by a lethal glitter of edged steel.

  Despite himself, something in Judas Harrow soared. He had been wondering if he was in the right place, or if he had stumbled on another deranged pleasure-cult. This, however, told him that he was indeed on the right track, even though the sight of it stopped the breath in his throat.

  The eyeless woman cried out, her back arching, her head thrown back. In doing so she met a blade and the razored edge parted her bald scalp down to the bone.

  Blood flowed from the exposed wound like crimson lava and began to slick down the woman's neck and shoulders. If she noticed the horrific injury, she made no sign of it. Nor did the other writhing participants, as they too found sharpened metal with pale skin.

  In moments, the surface of the dais was bright red with blood. Its sickly sweet odour rose to meet Harrow, strong enough to block out the musk and oil, and for that he was grateful. He had smelled enough blood in his time to make the reek of it almost comforting.

  The dais was carved with dozens of intricate channels. He hadn't noticed them before, but now they stood out against the black iron as they filled with warm blood, taking it from the lacerated bodies and down into a system of open drains. Harrow squinted, trying to see where the blood was forming up, and as he did so he noticed movement below the dais. He strained to see into the darkness.

  There was a platform below the dais, a mesh ring set further down the cylinder. Harrow saw two men there; mutants. One had arms that moved with a boneless fluidity under the sleeves of his robe, the other bore a random, unfocussed mutation that turned his face into a maze of rifts and scars.

  Judas Harrow was a mutant too, although his genetic changes were far subtler.

  The snake-armed man was lifting a wide bowl and the other operating a valve set into the cylinder's iron flank. Liquid, dark and thick, gurgled faintly as it flowed into the bowl and filled it.

  As Harrow watched, the man at the valve turned a control, stemming the flow, and then reached into his robes. He brought out a vial and held it with a reverent pride. As his companion held the bowl close, the man uncorked the vial.

  From the mouth of it poured a sickly, greenish radiance.

  Harrow held his breath. There was little doubt, now—he was where he needed to be. And, of course, in mortal danger just by his very presence. One false step and he'd be down on the dais by tomorrow night, eyeless and brains pulped to a sexual mush, bleeding into a bowl. A shiver inched down his spine, and at that moment he was quite glad of the cowl's heavy fabric.

  His life had been simpler once. He was sure of it.

  Concentrate, Harrow! There was no time for reverie now; the man with the bottle was already dipping into it with a long spoon, taking out a tiny measure of fine powder. The spoonful gave off a ghostly light as he lowered it to the bowl and carefully, lovingly stirred it in.

  The powder's strange radiance faded into the liquid, but it never quite went out. Harrow watched the luminous disc bob in the gloom as the scarred man lifted the bowl above his head.

  "Blood!" he roared.

  His voice was harsh and powerful, as deep as a funeral drum. It cut effortlessly across the weakening cries of the grinding bodies. Harrow felt the acolytes around him tense.

  Was this the moment?

  "Blood," the man called again. "Blood born of pleasure, born of pain. Blood born of sensation, true sensation. True enlightenment!"

  The acolytes cheered, howled and beat at the rail with their fists. They had been waiting for this moment as well, but for different reasons to Harrow. For appearances, he slapped the rail a couple of times too. "Hooray," he croaked weakly.

  The snake-armed man joined his fellow. "This blood is the libation we give to our high-priestess, so that she may bless its creation for us." As he spoke, there was a grinding hiss: a door was grumbling open, down near the floor of the chamber. Light flooded in, blue-white and fluttering. In the staccato glare Harrow saw that the men were standing at the top of a shallow ramp, which led from the platform down to the doorway.

  The door itself was massive, armoured and saw-edged.

  The robed mutants turned without another word, and strode down the ramp, holding the bowl of gleaming blood between them. Harrow was too far around the gallery to see what lay beyond the opening, and he couldn't risk moving and losing his place. He needed to see what would happen next.

  What happened for several minutes was nothing, save the continued gyrations of those partaking in the blood-spattered orgy. Harrow noticed that a couple of them had lost too much blood and had fallen still and silent. If their fellows had any sanity left at all, he thought to himself, they would have envied their fallen companions. Instead, horribly, they continued to couple with them. They couldn't have enough wits left to know the difference between the living and the dead.

  Thankfully, the robed priests returned. The snake-armed man raised the bowl sinuously above his head and as one the acolytes gasped.

  It was empty.

  "Rejoice!" the scarred mutant roared. "The priestess has tasted our libation and pronounced it good. Now you shall taste enlightenment as she has done."

  With that, panels concealed around the wall of the gallery slid aside with a rusty groan. Inside were filthy metal beakers, brimming with dark, faintly glowing blood.

  The acolytes rushed at the open panels, grasping for the stained beakers, gulping the contents down. Judas Harrow, however, was already making his way off the gallery. There was nothing for him here, and he had no desire to sample the blood taken from the cut and wounded bodies. He had been dosing himself with an antidote to Glow, the luminous narcotic powder, for three days now, ever since he had arrived at the temple, but there was no sense pushing his luck. The vile stuff was everywhere, even in the air, and he would not risk drinking it as well.

  Once outside, in the corridor that led to the accommodation cells, he allowed himself a single curse. "Sneck!" he swore.

  He had been hoping that the priestess would show herself, that somehow the priests would bring her forth and present her to the faithful. Just a glimpse would have been enough.

  Enough to prove that he was right, that after all his months of searching he hadn't come here in vain. Enough to show him that she was alive.

  Because if he was right, the high priestess of the Osculum Cruentus was the woman he would love and worship until he died. Saint Scarlet herself.

  Durham Red.

  * * * *

  Harrow had come to' the temple of the Osculum Cruentus well prepared. Hidden beneath the folds of his cowl was a variety of equipment more suited to the professional burglar than the religious adept: the crimson fabric concealed a light-drill, a data-pick, a reel of mono-bond climbing line, a plasma-derringer and a long, wickedly curved knife. The last item hadn't been part of his original kit, but almost as soon as he had entered the temple an acolyte had tried to stab him with it. Which had been something of a mistake—Harrow was no warrior, but he knew how to take care of himself.

  The acolyte had lost his knife, his life and his cowl—roughly in that order—and had provided Judas Harrow with both a disguise and a useful weapon. A problem too, since the man's body had been folded into a cupboard for nearly three days. Glow-addled most of the Osculum might be, but it wouldn't be long before the smell of the carcass alerted someone.

  All the better if Harrow was gone from this place, and soon.

  He hurried along a passageway that, by his reckoning, must have run roughly alongside the Chamber of Sensation. The walls of the passage were rough-cut from the same dark stone as the rest of the temple, lit by meagre panels ranged along the ceiling. The inside of the temple, as Harrow had discovered during his time here, was a maze: an insane network of ramps, corridors, halls, chambers, vaulted rooms and terrifying, vertiginous stairways. Before the orgy he would have had no idea of even which direction to head in, and the place had been
full of wandering acolytes. Now, with the faithful still gulping down mouthfuls of blood in the chamber, Harrow had almost free run of the temple.

  That situation wouldn't last long. Those involved in the frenzied orgy could only have so much fluid left in their bodies, blood or otherwise. He had to move fast.

  The passageway branched left and right. Harrow paused at the junction, trying to picture the layout in his head. In a normal building left should have been the way to go, but that corridor led to a flight of stairs heading down: wasn't he still on the right level? The other passage disappeared around a corner that plainly went back in the direction he had come from. Harrow nibbled his lower lip nervously and chose right on a whim. Maybe it would turn again.

  He was halfway down the corridor when he heard heavy, measured footsteps approaching him. He froze, wondering where to hide. The odd acoustics of the passageway were making it hard to tell where the footsteps were coming from.

  Harrow had just about convinced himself that he was being approached from around the next bend when a door slid open directly behind him. He span, and came face to face with two servitors.

  Like those in the orgy, they had been human once. They had a similar look to them: hairless, their skin the same dead-looking white, devices of glossy black metal riveted brutally into their bodies. But these modifications were designed for hard labour, not lust. Both had their arms replaced with piston-operated grabs and braces mounted through their shoulders and backs to support loads that would break a normal man's spine. As they drew close, Harrow saw that in place of eyes the servitors had crude sensory feeds, clusters of lenses that chattered and whirred like ancient, rusty cameras as they focussed on him.

  Their mouths had been sewn shut.

  The creatures were right on top of him; there was nowhere for Harrow to go. Running away would have certainly aroused their suspicions and although the idea of hauling out the derringer and blasting the part of them crossed his mind, common sense quickly overrode the notion. Gunfights, he knew from bitter experience, were loud.

  He could do nothing but stand where he was as the servitors' deliberate, mechanical pace slowed and stopped. He heard servomotors in their joints winding down.