It was like a dance. After the disembowelling cut, Mark whipped the blade down into the back of Sam’s legs and hamstrung him. The noise the sword made as it whipped through the air was a howl: the harbinger of Sam’s death. Rowan’s brother-in-law collapsed to his knees with a growl. With eyes full of hatred, he raised his hands out to Mark as if to try and grab him.
The sword flashed again, its high-pitched song dreadful, and fingers scattered across the floor like fallen petals. Where they landed, they withered away in seconds, leaving nothing behind but a fine dust. Dismayed, Rowan turned to look for Sam’s blood and entrails; the viscera that had spattered to the floor had collapsed into smears of vermilion powder.
‘What the hell is going on!’ he demanded. Mark ignored him. He raised the black sword above his head and brought it down. Its banshee scream chilled Rowan’s blood. Mark decapitated Sam with one last blow, and Sam’s head tumbled beneath the kitchen table.
After a pause, Sam’s kneeling body stiffened. His fingerless hand went grey as gangrenous cysts swept through his veins. Within seconds, Sam’s body turned to rose coloured ash and crumbled to the floor. To Rowan, it looked as if a small sand dune was wearing Sam’s clothes. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he shouted again.
Mark turned to face Rowan with a puzzled expression on his face. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘It shouldn’t have done that.’
‘No shit, Sherlock! I’ve never seen anybody crumble into dust outside of cheesy vampire movies! Who the hell are you anyway? Abraham Van fucking Helsing?’
Mark ignored him. He walked over to the pile of dust that had been Sam’s body and stared at it in silence for a moment. ‘Where’s his head?’ Mark asked.
‘How should I know – where does dust go for a good time these days?’ Rowan snapped.
‘It went under the table – it’s not there now.’
‘It turned to dust,’ Rowan said.
‘There isn’t any dust under there. It should be dead. Decapitation, fire, and silver. That’s what should kill them. This one is different,’ Mark said grimly. A strange scraping noise came from the hallway. As one, they turned to face the kitchen door. Wordlessly, they both stepped out.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Rowan whispered in disgust. On the floor near the stairs, Sam’s head was slowly being dragged along by a writhing mound of tentacles that had erupted from his severed neck. They were red and thick, and covered with pulsing veins and a viscous slime.
The head turned around to face them, and staring yellow eyes bored into Rowan’s. The mouth was working furiously as if it were trying to say something to them, but there was no voice because there was no voice box. As they watched, the tendrils that crawled from Sam’s neck, like a cluster of blind worms, got longer and began to bond together. After a moment, Sam’s neck was a little more defined, and a whisper could be heard from his throat.
‘I’ll fucking kill you both, and that slut upstairs,’ he hissed. The tentacles were much longer now. They were beginning to wrap around each other and merge together.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Rowan said again.
‘It is regenerating,’ Mark said calmly. ‘I do not have the means to kill it here – we have to leave.’ He grabbed Rowan by the arm and began to pull him towards the front door, away from the abomination on the floor. Shoulders were evident, and the obscene mound of sticky red flesh was rapidly forming a torso. Rowan allowed himself to be pulled a few feet, his eyes glued to the hellish sight at the base of his stairs.
Shaking himself free of his shock, he shrugged Mark’s hand away. ‘We have to get my sister – she’s upstairs.’
‘There isn’t time.’
‘Then go. I’m not leaving her behind.’ Rowan turned and ran back towards the stairs. He hurdled the pulpy mass that was quickly becoming his brother-in-law. A tentacle slapped against his lower leg, and he realised it was trying to grab him. Rowan cried out involuntarily, but managed to avoid getting snared. He charged up to Tabby without looking back.
Tabby was where he had left her, trussed up on the bed. ‘What’s going on? Who’s there?’ she asked as he stumbled into her room. Her voice was steady and strong, and Rowan loved her for her calm.
‘We’re getting out of here. Now.’ He searched for something to cut the cable ties on her hands, and remembered that a pair of scissors were kept in a mug of pencils and pens on a small desk beneath the window. There was a lamp on it too. He fumbled around until he found the switch and turned it on, then he snatched up the scissors and cut the thin plastic. Tabby sat up, rubbing her wrists.
‘What’s going on? I heard banging. Shouting.’
‘We need to get out of here now.’ He didn’t wait for a response. Clutching the scissors like a knife, he moved cautiously to the door and edged out. The landing was clear. He could see the stairs, but not down them. His own room was dark and so was the bathroom. Sam could be anywhere.
Cautiously, he moved onto the landing for a better look down to the ground floor. He motioned for Tabby to stay where she was. She nodded in understanding. Rowan peered between the rails of the banister. There was nothing but a crust of gritty red dust at the bottom of the stairs. Rowan had to assume that the monster was mobile again. He took a step back uncertainly and put his back against a wall. His mind worked furiously. He cursed himself for not paying better attention to the landing while he was freeing Tabby.
What to do? He could try to get them out of Tabby’s window, but jumping would risk a twisted ankle or worse. He could just run, but he suspected Sam was waiting for something like that. Phone the police? And tell them what? Besides, this would all be over by the time they got here. Even if they did make it in time, what were batons and CS Spray going to do to someone who could survive being decapitated?
Think! he screamed at himself silently. Clutching the scissors tighter, he quickly moved the bigger pieces of broken bulb from the top of the stairs. Then he backed into Tabby’s bedroom.
‘What’s going on,’ she whispered.
‘He’s playing with us,’ Rowan said grimly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s enjoying this. He’s torturing us.’
‘What’s the matter? You’re not afraid of Sam.’
‘I am now,’ he muttered. ‘He’s in here somewhere, Tabby, and he’s very dangerous. There’s no other way – we’re going to have to run for it. I want you to go first, straight out and down the stairs. Go through to the back rather than messing with the front door. Straight out, and run as fast as you can. Get onto the street and start screaming. I want you to raise bloody murder on the street – I want everybody looking at you, okay?’
‘Why the back?’
‘It’s already off its hinges.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll be right behind you,’ he said reassuringly. He didn’t feel it. He doubted he would be able to buy her much time with nothing but a pair of scissors. ‘Are you ready?’ She nodded. ‘Then let’s go.’
They ran together. It was a slow-motion nightmare for Rowan. On the landing, his senses were heightened as he concentrated on identifying an attack from one of the dark rooms before it happened. Nothing.
They hurried down the stairs, and for a heart-stopping moment, he thought Tabby was going to fall. She kept her balance, and relief flooded through him. It was short lived. He had been sure that Sam was in one of the upstairs rooms, but he was wrong. That meant he was ahead of them, and Tabby was in front.
Before he could shout a warning, she darted into the kitchen. Rowan chased her desperately, fully expecting to see Sam gripping her triumphantly when he turned the corner. He wasn’t there, and Tabby was already at the door. Hope dared to raise its head.
Tabby was out the door and running for the side gate. They ran around the house and into the front garden. The night was dark, but the moon shone, giving the world a disjointed, pale glow. Rowan’s breath was heavy and loud in the night. His heart was hammering. Blood thundered in his ears. The gate s
hrieked as it opened, and Tabby ran into the centre of the road. Rowan began to believe that they were going to make it.
There was a flash of lights, a searing pain in the back of his skull, and then, nothing.
Mark sat in his car, knowing he should drive away but hesitating. Shame burned in him for leaving the young man and his sister to the mercy of that animal. He kept telling himself that it was not his fight, that he needed to retreat and regroup. The words felt hollow.
Just as he reached around to put his sword behind his seat, the grating noise of an unoiled gate made him look back at the house. He was surprised to see a woman and the young man running from the house. For a moment, he felt a surge of hope. Then he saw a naked figure, with yellow eyes glaring bright and feral in the moonlight, rise from the bushes and crash a fist against the back of the young man’s head. He collapsed to the ground in a boneless way.
Autumn leapt over the gate and caught the woman by the throat and mouth, stifling any cries. He dragged her towards the black Ferrari, parked a little up the street from the house. Mark stared at the girl in the moonlight for a second.
‘Shit,’ he said to himself. He pounded the steering wheel in sudden, unadulterated rage. ‘Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,’ he hissed as his palms struck the wheel. He did not shout – he had too much control for that. He wanted to, though.
The Ferrari shot off, and the Corvette followed.
They made it through two rooms before the ORCs found them. Cam was the first to see them. The distorted, bent creatures came pouring out of a side door, a wave of rotting faces and claw-like hands. A smell of filth and putrefying flesh preceded them. Dow ran with the flashlight, and its jumping, weaving light was a confused strobe. It’s like the trailers for that new movie he wanted to see, Cam thought inanely. What was it called? The Blair Witch Project or something. This was plain unnerving chaos. Jesus, he was scared!
Grímnir roared a battle cry and leapt towards them. His chainsaw matched his shout, and the first of the creatures squealed as the toothed blade slammed through its arm and chest. Thick, black blood oozed from its rent torso. It went down and the other creatures trampled it. Then the fight was joined.
It was a blurred, confused experience for Cam. Dow and Grímnir were up ahead in the narrow corridor with their backs to him. He could hear the chainsaw; he could see Dow’s gauntlets whipping around him in flat brutal sweeps, glittering in the light from the flashlight, which he had dropped to the floor. Cam aimed the shotgun, trying to get a target, but the angle of the flashlight’s beam was treacherous, and the heaving mass of bodies were so close together that he couldn’t be certain if he was aiming at friend or foe.
He knew he should draw his sword and rush to his comrades’ aid, but fear held him petrified. Grímnir fought with berserk frenzy, his chainsaw swinging left and right in tight arcs that chopped the Twisted away, ruthlessly tearing ravaged heads from stick thin necks. For all the wildness of his blows, Cam saw that the chainsaw never once threatened Dow, who stood shoulder to shoulder with him.
Dow, by contrast, fought in silence. His gauntlets crushed skulls with cold efficiency. Yet they were barely keeping the horde of creatures at bay, despite their prowess. Blood splashed across their chests and arms.
It was inevitable, really. One of the monsters managed to slip past the screeching chainsaw. Dead, black eyes found Cam. He stood transfixed under that soulless glare. Tightening his grip, he clutched his shotgun like a security blanket. He automatically cast a Glamour, but the creature didn’t take its eyes from him.
The ORC was tall, towering above Cam, but its body was emaciated. Long, straggly hair fell from a balding pate in matted clumps. One pointed ear gave testimony to its previous incarnation as an Elf. The other was gone, bitten or torn off in some old battle. The flesh of its face was rotting away; the remainder was grey and soggy, like skin left in a bath too long. The nose, top lip, and most of the bottom were missing. Foetid rips in its cheeks gave the thing a wide, Joker-like smile that didn’t reach its blank shark eyes. Big sharp teeth showed through the ruin of its face.
It was naked. The glory of its elfin physique had rotted into a hunched, bony carcass with gaping wounds in its stomach. Bulges of grey intestine hung out like huge obscene maggots. It had only two fingers on its right hand – Cam saw with sick horror that the nails at the end were thick and chisel-like. The other hand had been torn away completely; only a raw and ragged stump remained.
It tilted its head to one side and hissed. Cam gulped as he stood and stared in numb shock. It was like time had slowed down; the thing came at him as though through thick liquid. Details leapt out. Most of its left pectoral was gone, and the ribs beneath were stained and pitted. Its penis and one testicle had rotted off, and what remained was swollen to five or six times its original size. He watched every surging step it took on its thin legs, every snarling grinding of teeth, every spasmodic clench of its remaining fingers. Weeping sores covered its body where there was flesh left to hold them. It made a noise like a wounded cat as it charged towards him.
At the very last moment, his survival instincts took over. He levelled the shotgun at the ORC’s mangled face. The muzzle practically touched it as its finger slashed around to find Cam’s throat. He closed his eyes tight and pulled the trigger. Its head disappeared in a cloud of liquefied skull and brain, and the force of the explosion threw its twitching carcass back. The noise was deafening in the close confines of the narrow hallway, and dazed, Cam staggered in a half circle.
Tar-like blood and bits of teeth and skull covered his face and hair, but he barely noticed. His ears were ringing, and all sense of direction had gone. He found a wall and slumped against it, one hand holding the shotgun, the other clutching at his ear. Sight came back first. Dow and Grímnir stood alone with numb expressions on their faces. There was no noise. Cam wondered why everybody had gone so quiet. Then he saw the blade of the chainsaw still going full throttle and realised he was deaf.
Dow mouthed something at him. ‘What?’ Cam shouted back. Dow looked confused. Cam saw him mouth something else in the vague electric light; it looked like he said ‘what,’ too. There was confusion while the three of them exchanged deaf, useless ‘what’s’. A few more seconds passed, and sounds began to return. ‘I can hear again,’ Cam said.
‘Me too,’ Grímnir replied.
‘The noise scared them off, but they’ll be back,’ Dow said. ‘How far to this tattooist of yours, Grímnir?’
‘Not far.’
‘You lead, I’ll bring up the rear. Camhlaidh, take the flashlight and stay between us.’
‘No problem,’ Cam said as he surveyed the wreckage in the narrow corridor. The ORC he had killed was lying still on the floor. Its head was missing. Where Dow and Grímnir had stood, there was nothing but body parts and headless corpses. Some of them were still moving. Cam couldn’t count how many they had killed.
‘Is anybody bitten?’ Dow snapped. Cam was covered in the creature’s stinking gore, but other than that, he was fine. Dow and Grímnir were similarly unwounded. ‘You didn’t swallow anything? Didn’t get any in your eyes?’ Cam shook his head in the negative. ‘Good. Then let’s go.’ Cam swept up the flashlight as he went past it.
They were quickly away from the scene of the small battle. A few moments later, the howling started again.
Tossing his gagged and cable-tied wife to the floor in front of Cú Roí gave Sam immense pleasure. He looked up at the tall creature to which he found himself beholden. Tabby was sobbing gently through her gag, and once again something deep inside Sam’s skull stirred – something of doubt and fear and pity. He shrugged it away angrily.
As ever, Morgan Leach stood at his Master’s side, ridiculous in his filthy blue suit. Leach’s cold eyes never left Sam, and he felt his anger rising at the obvious challenge. He smiled thinly at his rival and promised himself that one day he would cave the sallow man’s head in.
What have you brought me?
‘It
is my wife, Master.’
Your wife?
Cú Roí stepped forwards and grabbed Tabby by the hair. The giant yanked at her, forcing Tabby to turn her face up. Her eyes roved blindly in the darkness. She tried to pull away, but his other hand cupped her chin and wrenched her head around savagely. Cú Roí leant in close until his face was only an inch from hers, their noses almost touching. For a second, Sam thought he might kiss her, and that jerking sense of doubt and pain flipped over in his stomach. Then Cú Roí finished his examination and let go. Tabby slumped to the floor, crying once more. Cú Roí turned back to Sam.
A worthy gift. I am pleased with you Samuel Autumn. Take her to the birthing pits. I will attend to her later. Tonight, you must lock yourself away, Samuel Autumn.
Sam stared at him for a second, nonplussed at the tangent. ‘What?’ Leach stepped forwards and clubbed him in the face. The move was so swift, Sam had no time to react. He fell to the floor. ‘Master,’ he added through angry, gritted teeth.
Cú Roí didn’t seem to notice. There is a room prepared for you downstairs. You must lock yourself in tonight. That is my command, and it will be obeyed. Take your friend with you. He turned away from Sam, ending the conversation. Leach; attend me. Cú Roí walked away into the darkness of the abandoned station.
For a second, Sam stood still. What friend? He shrugged. It was not for him to question his Master. Then a soft scrape came from behind him, inaudible but for his preternatural hearing. Sam froze. Tabby was lying still on the floor, her crying a quiet, miserable thing. The noise came again – the infinitesimal whisper of somebody trying to creep up on him. Spinning, Sam launched himself at the sound and cannoned into soft, sweet-smelling flesh.
He bore the interloper to the floor, and the two struggled in a jumble of legs and arms. His opponent did not put up much of a fight. He found himself looking into a pair of big eyes.
Immortals' Requiem Page 20
