There had to be a way out of this. If he could just close his eyes, or turn his head! He tried for perhaps the thousandth time, once again to no avail. Obsessively, against his will, his perception fumbled at the lace-work of red and blue light, trying to comprehend its structure. A burst of agony blazed through his skull, and his self-awareness, his fragile hold on sanity, began to crumble.
“No!” he croaked. Exerting the last of his willpower, he fought to hang on. To stay focused on the prospect of escape. And somehow he succeeded, at least for the moment.
Maybe if he could get out of his bonds, he could walk or crawl backward from the matrix, loosening its hold on him with distance. Struggling to ignore his torment, to think beyond it, he considered the invisible coils. And after a while he realized something.
His bonds constricted whenever he shifted more than a fraction of an inch. But then they loosened up again. Their violent resistance prevented him from breaking them or squirming out of them rapidly, but it might not keep him from worming his way out of the end of the coil slowly, one tiny movement at a time.
He flexed his legs and dug his heels into the peculiar, only half-felt surface beneath him, straining to move with infinite care. Another flare of anguish transformed the maneuver into a spastic lurch. The bonds tightened.
No matter how many times he made the attempt, the result was always the same. The pain robbed him of the fine motor control his plan required. Unless he could somehow block out the crippling spectacle burning at the center of his vision, he was, in a real sense, going to die here, crumbling into the psychotic, cringing puppet that Tithonys required for his magical assault on Melpomene.
Alas, there seemed to be way no way to blot out the matrix. But what, he wondered abruptly, if he managed to understand it? To perceive it clearly? Tithonys obviously did, and with the enhanced vision Melpomene’s vitae had given him, maybe Dan could do the same. Then, perhaps, the construct would lose its hypnotic fascination, or at least stop hurting him.
Up until now, though he hadn’t been able to look away from it, he’d been straining to do so, flinching away from the torture. If he was to have any hope of seeing it whole, he’d have to do exactly the opposite. Steeling himself, he sharpened his vision to the utmost.
A blast of pain even more devastating than those he’d already experienced wracked him. He fought to ignore it, to keep peering, analyzing, trying to grasp the relationships of the luminous planes and angles hanging in the air. Another spasm wracked him, and then another. He felt as if someone were chopping him with an ax, one that cut his flesh and spirit both.
Despite himself, he felt his resolve beginning to fail. But then something changed inside his mind, like a lamp coming on in a darkened room. The glowing matrix altered without altering, reminding him of the optical illusions that had interested him as a kid, like the drawing that was a pretty young girl or a hook-nosed old woman, depending on how you looked at it.
As he grasped the true shape of the hyperspatial construct, his pain vanished. Now only the matrix’s loveliness remained, more compelling than ever because he recognized the five-dimensional symmetry that produced it. He gazed at it raptly, drinking it in, until it finally released him.
His mouth tasted of his own blood, and his lower lip stung. He realized that at some point during his ordeal he’d unconsciously extended his fangs and cut himself. Scowling at the discomfort, petty though it was compared to what he’d just undergone, he tried again to inch his way out of his restraints.
The process seemed to take a long time. Periodically he moved too aggressively, and the coils constricted. Telling himself repeatedly to take it easy, praying that Tithonys wouldn’t return for a while yet, he eventually managed to work his upper body free. He dug his fingers into the muddy floor for leverage and yanked his legs out with one
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convulsive pull. The coil made a metallic clashing sound as it snapped shut on itself.
Sprawled in the muck, Dan lifted his head and looked around. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. The surface on which he’d been lying was invisible, too. Several feet away, and out of his visual range until this moment, his wallet, keys, .38 and the little antique gun he’d stolen from Wyatt’s haven were hanging above the floor as if resting on an unseen shelf. Apparently Tithonys’ magic was so potent that he casually hardened empty air to serve as furniture, or else cancelled the force of gravity.
Dan tried to stand, and a wave of dizziness swept over him. A pang of Hunger cramped his belly. His exertions had left him weak and famished again. He scrambled to the chubby woman, still sprawled where Tithonys had dumped her, and pressed his fingers against her carotid artery.
To his surprised delight, he found a pulse. He flung himself on top of her and buried his fangs in her neck.
He meant to spare her life, but she was weak, too, from having been bled once already. As he guzzled her vitae, desire and need overwhelmed him. He couldn’t stop drinking until she shuddered and an ugly, rattling sound came out of her throat.
Refreshed and slightly ashamed of his murderous gluttony, his torn tip tingling as it healed, he sprang to his feet, grabbed his possessions off the invisible ledge, and slunk toward one of the openings in the wall. There were two sets of footprints on the floor: Tithonys’ bare ones and others left by someone wearing shoes. With any luck, one of them would lead him out of the earthen tunnels. From that point, he hoped, he shouldn’t have too much trouble getting out of Camelot. He only prayed that the Methuselah’s magical H-bomb, or whatever the hell it was going to be, wouldn’t go off until he was clear.
And then, much to his surprise, a twinge of, if not guilt, at least uneasiness, lanced through his resolve. Did he really want to run away?
He scowled at his own idiocy. Of course he wanted to book. If he tried to interfere with Tithonys’ “sacrifice,” that would mean that he was still doing Melpomene’s dirty work, and the very thought of that enraged him. He didn’t care if Durrell’s Tremere and Sinclair’s Toreador got killed. Both sides had abused him in one way or another. He didn’t care about kine getting massacred, either; hell, he’d just drained one himself. Even if he had given a damn about stopping Tithonys, he was realistic enough to comprehend that he was nowhere near powerful enough to do it alone, and since every other Kindred and ghoul in the park regarded him as an enemy, who could he get to help him?
And yet—
The man, the human, Dan had once been would have cared about the impending slaughter. He suspected that the undead creature he’d become might have also, if Melpomene hadn’t tampered with his psyche. If he truly wanted to defy the Methuselah’s efforts to control and exploit him, to be his own person again, maybe he needed to try to rekindle the empathy and the principles she’d extinguished in him, by behaving as if he still possessed them. And besides, suicidally reckless though it might be, he yearned to get even with Tithonys for torturing him.
Someone among his fellow vampires would listen to him. He’d make them listen. Straining his hearing, trying to make sure he wouldn’t unwittingly walk up on his erstwhile captor, he followed the sets of tracks.
His caution was unnecessary. Except for small, strangely blurry creatures hissing and scuttling in the shadows, the cave appeared to be empty. Maybe Tithonys had needed to move closer to the battle to cast his spell.
The Methuselah’s footprints simply ended in the middle of a chamber. But the other set led Dan to a rickety-looking wooden staircase ascending to what appeared to be a blank rectangle of concrete blocks set in the dirt wall.
Dan bounded up the steps and examined the surface, looking for another shadow-symbol or some other catch that might open a secret door. For a moment the cold stone seemed to quiver beneath his hand, but nothing else happened.
He guessed he’d have to do it the hard way. Drawing on his superhuman strength, he pressed his palms against the wall, braced himself as best he could, and shoved.
His arms and
shoulders quivered with effort. The platform beneath him groaned ominously and he was afraid that it would collapse before the mortar gave. But then several of the blocks broke loose and fell outward, crashing down on the other side of the barrier. Dan sprawled forward into the breach he’d created.
Peering about, he saw that he’d opened a hole into one of the service tunnels he’d visited before. After the dim green phosphorescence of I ithonys’ lair, the fluorescent lighting hurt his eyes and made him squint. Fearful that the noise he’d made would draw some potential attacker, he hastily scrambled through the breach and snatched out his .38.
After a moment he decided that, once again, he needn’t have worried. He didn’t hear anyone rushing toward him, nor did he hear any gunfire or other sounds of commotion echoing through the tunnels. Maybe Durrell and his men hadn’t wanted to fight down here, where they might conceivably be cornered. Perhaps they’d preferred to make their stand aboveground, where they’d have more room to maneuver and, if worst came to worst, might find it possible to flee.
It didn’t take long to find a stairwell to the surface. As Dan neared the door at the top he heard shooting. When he cracked it open and peeked out, the scents of gun smoke and vitae filled his nose. But no one was fighting on the section of sidewalk before him.
Wishing as he so often had that his powers of invisibility would shield him when he was in motion, he stalked out under the starry sky and toward what sounded as if it were the nearest battle. And then an assault weapon clattered, just to his left.
He reflexively leaped to one side. One of the bullets hit him anyway, shattering his knee. Somehow lurching on despite the burst of agony, he threw himself down behind the nearest available cover — a fish-and-chips stand in the shape of a miniature castle, topped by a sign that read The Fisher King’s Feast.
“Why did you do it?” cried an anguished female voice. Laurie’s voice. “We cared about you! We wanted youto be part of our family! ”
Dan felt a mixture of dismay and hope. He cringed at the prospect of fighting another friend, but with luck, it wouldn’t come to that. Surely he could convince Laurie of the peril that Tithonys represented far more easily than he could persuade a stranger. “I’m sorry about Wyatt!” he called. “But you have to listen to me. We’re all in terrible danger!” “Because you brought the enemy here!” she shouted back. “To the anarch base!’’ Dan thought he could see her now, a vague black shape in the dark, but he wasn’t positive. At the moment the fierce pain of his wound was clouding even his superhuman senses.
“Durrell and his people aren’t anarchs,” he said. “They’re rogue Tremere. He and Wyatt lied to you about everything There are these two Methuselahs —”
“Shut up!” she screamed. “I’m not gullible enough for you to con me this time! You murdered my friend, I’ve caught you escaping, and now I’m going to get you!” She charged out of the darkness, her flapping bellbottoms, Yellow-Submarine T-shirt and leather peace-symbol pendant an ironic contrast to her fiery eyes, bared fangs and the AK-47 blazing in her hands.
Dan couldn’t run from her: his leg was still healing. Nor would his powers of concealment protect him when she’d already pinpointed his location. All he could do was fire back.
She lurched backward, and the gun flew from her grasp. She collapsed and lay motionless on the asphalt. Clutching the wall of the fast-food stand, Dan dragged himself to his feet and limped painfully forward. After a moment he flinched and averted his eyes.
He hadn’t meant to destroy her, just incapacitate ber, but his pain, or perhaps simple bad luck, had spoiled his aim. One of his bullets had penetrated the center of her forehead and splashed her brains out of the back of her skull. Some Kindred could recover even from a wound as ghastly as that, but he could see that she wasn’t one of them. She hadn’t had the necessary stamina.
His eyes stinging, shedding tears of blood, he waited for his knee to finish repairing itself. When the pain in his leg disappeared, he picked up her assault rifle and skulked on.
THIRTY-THREE: FORSAKEN
And he answered and said, He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.
— Matthew 26:23
Driven from their last redoubt, Durrell and his bodyguards — a Tremere, a Caitiff anarch and a ghoul — pounded down a cobblestone lane looking for a new refuge. As they passed beneath a flickering crimson lantern it dashed their shadows onto the ground.
Actually, the elder magus and his soldiers were racing by any number of shops and enclosed rides which might have sheltered them. But Durrell wanted to stay outdoors, where he could see more of what was going on. It gave him the feeling of being in control.
In his present straits, he needed that feeling, even though he recognized that it was an illusion. Because he hadn’t had time to position and instruct his forces properly, the battle had turned out to be every bit as chaotic as he’d feared, disintegrating into countless small but deadly confrontations scattered throughout the park. He and his officers had cellular phones for communication, but as the enemy struck savagely, repeatedly, unpredictably, and as more and more of his troops lapsed into frenzy, it had become impossible to
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maintain any semblance of overall direction. At this point, the only thing he was certain of was that his army was being gradually overwhelmed by superior numbers.
Where was Tithonys? Where was the awesome sorcery that was supposed to turn the tide? Durrell peered about for any sign that some great work of magic was rising to his aid, but could only see the mundane flashes of guns and explosions flickering in the murky distance.
He wondered if the Methuselah had abandoned him. If he, who’d worked so deviously to ruin Roger Phillips and his minions, had been himself deceived. The suspicion was so excruciating that he struggled to expel it from his mind.
The Caitiff, a coarse-featured, redheaded woman with a perpetually swollen belly — evidently possessed of a perverse sense of humor, her sire had embraced her when she was pregnant — lurched to a halt and pointed. “There!” Startled, Durrell spun around. “What?” he barked.
“That pen,” she replied. “Isn’t it what you wanted, a place where we’ll have cover and be able to see in all directions?” He saw she was referring to Elfland. The attraction, intended specifically for small children, featured miniature cottages and giant concrete mushrooms, lawn-jockey-sized statues of butterfly-winged fairies and pipe-smoking leprechauns, all surrounded by a four-foot version of Camelot’s usual phony castle wall. “Yes,” he said tersely, “it’ll do. Come on.”
He and his minions ran to the enclosure. The three Kindred vaulted the wall, and the ghoul, a shaven-headed youth with a pentagram tattooed on his cheek, ducked through the child-sized gate. “Spread out,” said Durrell. “I want one of you watching north, one east, and one south.” His warriors scurried away.
The master magus looked again for some indication that I ithonys was about to reach out and start killing the enemy, soon, while some of Camelot’s defenders were left alive. He still couldn’t detect any. Fighting to quash a fresh wave of doubt, he jerked his phone off his belt. Maybe this time more of his lieutenants would answer. Maybe he could gather some useful intelligence, something that would actually enable him to organize his forces. Maybe —
A winged shadow with glowing scarlet eyes swooped over his head.
Durrell pivoted, firing his Uzi wildly, but didn’t hit anything. The flying creature — the bat, he realized, the shapeshifter — had already disappeared. Startled by the racket, crying out, the magus’ trio of warriors jerked around.
“It’s Angus!” Durrell said. He was all but certain he was correct. As far as he knew, the Justicar was the only Gangrel involved in this fiasco, and one of the few members of the enemy army powerful enough to contemplate confronting the Tremere elder and his bodyguards by himself. “I think he landed in the center of the enclosure!”
“How right you are,” rumbled Angus’
voice, sounding grimly amused. Suddenly, moving as fast as any Toreador or Brujah, the bearded giant popped up from behind a pixiesized gingerbread mansion with candy-cane trim and fired his automatic rifle at the ghoul. The servant flew off his feet. By the time the remaining defenders brought their own guns to bear, the Justicar had ducked from sight again.
“Move in!” Durrell cried. His minions hesitated, and he repeated the command using the coercive power of his voice and glare. “Do it! Damn it, we’ve got him surrounded!” This time they edged forward. Sharpening his senses to the utmost, Durrell studied the whimsical shapes — lollipop trees, thatch-roofed cottages scarcely larger than ostentatious tombstones, dwarves playing baseball, and a hollow stump with spindly minarets rising from its center
— that sprouted from the ground before him. Surely a Kindred as huge as Angus couldn’t hide among such objects for long.
From the corner of his eye, the magus glimpsed something gray, something that was built low enough to the ground to conceal itself easily, streaking across the gap between two of the huts. Turning, he fired, but the shape was already gone.
The Caitiff screamed. Lurching around again, Durrell saw a huge wolf with shining crimson eyes spring at the woman and carry her down behind a row of vendors’ stalls in a goblin market. Her severed head tumbled over the barrier a second later.
Though Durrell couldn’t see Angus and didn’t have a shot at him, at this moment he knew his approximate location, and thus was able to cast a spell at him. Hastily he gestured and jabbered the three syllables that triggered the effect.
An instant later, despite his anxiety, he felt a rush of pleasure and vitality. The magic had stolen a portion of Angus’ blood and transferred it into his own system. He could tell that the spell hadn’t siphoned enough to incapacitate his opponent, but at least it had hurt him.
Fangs bared and assault rifle leveled, the other Tremere, a gray-haired, fortyish-looking vampire with a saber sheathed at his hip, charged the fairy marketplace. Reaching a position from which he could see Angus’ last known location, he shouted, “He’s moved on, Sebastian!”
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