by Alix Adale
Jordan sunk onto the couch beside him. He took her hand and kissed it. “You okay, babe?”
She nodded in a distracted manner, unwilling to be drawn out. Fair enough. He coaxed her into the game. The hours ticked by.
Moog’s Circus of Blood wouldn’t officially open until tomorrow night, using a Demi-World link in the Santa Maria fairgrounds. But as the midnight hour approached, that sense of growing dread only quickened. As the others settled into their bedrooms, he and Armando walked the house, checking latches and securing windows.
Armando nodded at one of the crucifixes. “That meant so much, once.”
“Still does, doesn’t it?”
But Armando just shook his head. His brothers had grown up Catholic, while he’d been Church of England all those lifetimes ago. For the first few decades after his turning, guilt overwhelmed him because of that faith. In his young mind, Ferdinand had made him into a spawn of Satan, a drinker of blood, and for that he was going to Hell. No question about it.
It was a long journey to a more nuanced view of the world, but it was one he and his brothers had all completed, coming to peace with their vampirism. The funny thing was how young vampires today adopted and discarded a dizzying range of beliefs. Desiree called herself ‘spiritual but not religious.’ Cherise was all about chaos magic. Neither showed any awareness of how much freedom they enjoyed—and how fast it could vanish with the turning of the page.
Two hundred years had rolled by in a blur, bringing change after change. Napoleon’s downfall and the U.S. Civil War. Booms and busts and the Gold Rush. World wars and atom bombs. Computers, spaceships, and men walking on the moon. He’d seen it all, from the horrors of slavery to Preident Obama’s historic election. The stories he could tell—but who would listen?
Jordan would. His stories would come out, one by one. Maybe it was true, maybe he was in love with her. Oh, who was he kidding? Go on, admit it. He latched the final window before sticking his head into the women’s bedroom. “Good night, ladies.”
Jordan sat on one bed, Cherise the other, while Kit was curled up on a couch like a puppy. Jordan came to the door and kissed him good night. For a moment, they lingered in the embrace until Kit giggled with delight.
With reluctance, he shut the door before moving through the silent cottage, checking locks and window-latches a second time. The warm aftertaste of Jordan’s lips lingered as he joined his brothers. They had agreed to take turns standing watch. It was Armando’s idea to exclude the women, because that was Armando. Some things never changed. For once, he didn’t argue with his elder brother. Jordan needed rest. He drew first shift, so he perched on the couch, facing the night-darkened window.
Change was the only constant in this world, the only thing that endured. Even death wasn’t guaranteed anymore; science would tackle that frontier soon. His kind already embodied that ancient dream. Funny, immortality wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The years rolled by, blurring together, a dullness laced with sorrow with only rare flashes of joy. Love was the only thing that made it all worthwhile: love of the earth, of friends and family and of a woman like Jordan.
The transformation arrived in a heartbeat. One second, he’d been sitting on the couch, nodding off. The next moment, his attention snapped back into focus. Something had gone awry. He leaped from his seat.
Blue mist permeated the bungalow. Eerie music played in the distance, a mixture of strings and Gregorian chant. His brothers’ beds were empty, the blankets made up, the beds unslept in. Even as he gazed in wonder, the walls faded away and the distant rat-a-tat of French military drums echoed in the distance.
Every single hair on the back of his neck stood up. Every neuron that still remembered the Napoleonic Wars fired in alarm, for those scars ran deep.
This was no dream, but a Demi-World!
“Jordan!” He ran through a soup of blue, shifting fog, seeking the others. “Colin! Armando!”
His brothers had vanished, the women too. Instead he found himself ankle-deep in the churning mud. What was this place? Who had made this Demi-World? Had it always been here, attached to Saint Marius—or had some entity come along to create it?
Firelight flicked among canvas tents. Horses whinnied and shook in the dark. Male voices filled the night, campfire banter from a vanished century.
Glancing down, he saw a threadbare red jacket over filthy breeches and a ragged wool shirt. With wonder, he touched them, remembering. This was his uniform from 1815, with the Royal Sussex regiment. This could only be the eve of battle, the night that he was turned.
He stumbled toward the nearest campfire, choking on the harsh smoke. Grimy faces looked up from a ring of soldiers, half-remembered names from two hundred years before.
There! That one was Colin. He rushed to his brother’s side. “Colin! Colin it’s me, George. Snap out of it, man!”
Colin looked up at him blankly, rum-sotted. “Wot’s with you mate?” No recognition showed and one of the other soldiers cracked a joke.
No use! But if Colin was here, then this was not the past. Because Colin, old as he was, had been born a few decades after this battle. And if Colin was caught in this Demi-World, the others should be too. In vain, he darted from tent to tent, from fire to fire, searching for the others. Searching for Jordan. Somehow, she held the key.
Running about in a panic, he blundered into an officer with a woman on his arm. “Sorry, sir.”
The officer turned around, Armando looking resplendent in the green and gold uniform of the Spanish Empire. “Watch where you’re going, pig-dog!” Armando sputtered, “or I’ll have you whipped.”
The woman on his arm tittered—Cherise, dressed in the ragged red gown of a camp follower. Neither Braden showed any recognition in their dazed eyes.
With mounting horror, he spun away, dashing toward the center of camp. “Jordan! Jordan!”
A drummer boy blocked his path. No—not a drummer boy, a drummer girl. Kit, dressed up like a British auxiliary but with her long red hair unbound and her fox ears twitching. Her eyes looked glazed and she chanted in time with her drumming:
“Who are you George? What do you want? Who are you George? What do you want?”
It was as if some entity possessed them all. He grabbed Kit’s arms and shook her. “I want Jordan. Where is Jordan?”
“Even the River Jordan’s got bodies floating,” Kit intoned.
“Where is she?” he screamed.
With one antique drumstick, Kit pointed toward a welter of chaos on the horizon. In the nature of dream, the campground scene had shifted into a battlefield. Dawn rose in the east, a blood-pink sun bringing with it the horror of war.
Cannons boomed and horses whinnied. Troops grabbed their muskets and streamed into lines as sergeants shouted and horns blew. In the distance, thousands of French throats sang the chilling refrains of La Marseillaise.
Where was his gun? He needed to find Sergeant Potter, get in line with the rest of his squad… No! No, that was wrong. This wasn’t an actual battle.
“Dreck!” The voice barked at him from horseback. It was Ferdinand Braden, not yet his sire, still his commanding officer. The man pointed with his saber toward the infantry square. “In line with the rest!”
“Ferdinand! Where’s Jordan? Where is she!”
The figure on horseback loomed larger and larger until it wasn’t Ferdinand anymore or even Malmardane but whatever entity or cosmic force had possessed those vampires. In the depth of those ageless, inhuman eyes was a wonder: a vast, calculating intelligence, alien to this world, studying him with cold, mechanical precision.
“Who are you?” he screamed at it. “Where’s Jordan?”
A cannon shot roared nearby, first shot in a barrage so heavy it drowned out everything else. Men swarmed past him, rushing to their positions, catching him up in their ranks until he was carried along, helpless, in the tide of humanity.
Along the way, his hands—moving of their own accord—picked up a musket, the fam
iliar Brown Bess. This one was the one he’d carried for two years back and forth across the battlefields of Europe. “Jordan!”
His regiment formed up into infantry squares, fixing bayonets to the end of their muskets. The first rank of men knelt, planting the butts of their guns in the mud. The next ranks held their muskets level like spears. The men behind would load and reload muskets, passing them forward. The vaunted British infantry square, it could break a cavalry charge with gun and blade.
This is how it happened the day he died. But it was different. Why was the entity shaping a Demi-World out of his past? No ordinary immortal could fashion a Demi-World like this. It took a singularly powerful entity. Maybe a demon lord or something from beyond the world.
Dawn cast light across the battlefield. French bugles called and the ground shook with the thundering of thousands of hooves. Sweet God, here they came. It took all his strength to stand his ground—but it wasn’t just fear of death like all those years ago. He wanted to hurl his musket down, to shout at the others to stop, that none of this was real, that it didn’t matter—and that it didn’t matter back then either. To bleeding had to stop. The wars had to end.
The French cavalry charged. It was glorious yet tragic, the best and worst of humanity all at once. British cannons and gunfire raked the leading ranks. Men and horses went down by the dozens, then the hundreds. But they rode on. Wild-eyed horses panicked, trampling the dead and dying. Yet the army came on.
Jordan rode in the front rank atop a pale horse, wearing the blue uniform of the French Empire. Her massive katana swung back and forth in place of a cavalry saber. A stray bullet knocked her towering helmet off, but still she rode.
Like a wave breaking the shore, the first rank of cavalry smashed into his square. Men screamed, their voices lost in the din of battle. Horses rolled and crushed men. Blood spurted. Guns cracked and swords swung. Fearless, Jordan guided her horse straight at his square, urging it to leap. It did, hooves outstretched.
It came back now. This was the moment before his undeath. Everything slowed down as the fiery shell landed in the ranks, splashing flame across French and English, horse and human alike. These were the flames that slew him. This was the fire that remained within him after Ferdinand raised him to undeath.
He flung the rifle down, grabbing for Jordan’s leg. As her horse crashed to Earth, dying, he pulled her free and rolled with her into the clear space in the center of the infantry square. They ended up face-to-face, tussling in the mud and the grass and the blood, flames licking the hellscape all around.
Not a flicker of recognition in those eyes. She cursed in French. Like the others, she was possessed by the dreamscape, by the power of the Demi-World.
He seized her wrists, pinning her with Underworld strength. “Jordan! Jordan Rivers! Wake up! It’s not real! Nothing is! It’s only a dream!”
She kicked and snapped at him with her teeth, as fierce as any fighter.
His fangs dropped in and he bit her in the neck, hard and sudden. The blood spurted as the teeth broke skin. How sweet and succulent; he could drink her for a thousand years. But no. Mustn’t. Lose. Control. He broke the crimson kiss.
Her eyes rolled back, her expression blank. The venom had done its work. She stopped thrashing, staring up with a drugged look, receptive to suggestion.
“Jordan!” This might work better, jar her memory. He dropped bloodstained lips to hers, kissing hard.
A flicker of recognition showed in her eyes. As he broke the kiss, her voice came harsh and distant. “Dreck?”
All around, the French cavalry pressed closer, the red-jacketed English soldiers giving way. The surging tide of battle rolled across them.
He held her tight against the fray. “Jordan. I love you.”
Dark eyes blinked in confusion. “Dreck? What’s going on?”
“Please, wake up!”
The fog lifted and her eyes, alert and intelligent again, found his. At the same time, a horse hoof cracked against his skull and everything went black.
Chapter 19: The Flood
Jordan
Dreck slumped in her arms, unconscious amid a surging tide of gray water. The flood! This was Caddo County, Oklahoma. The tornado had taken the levees out. Now the river surged through the town again, drenching her clothes, soaking her boots, threatening to wash the world away.
“Mother! Father!” Her screams came unbidden from her lips, as if moving slow-motion through a dream. It was happening again—that terrible day—but this was no dream. It couldn’t be reality either. Dreck—George Braden—had not been there that day, had nothing to do with Malmardane and the attack, had never even visited Oklahoma.
She dragged him to higher ground, onto a heap of rubble clear of the surging tide. This was it, then. The culmination of her quest. But what was this, where was she? What was going on? The tornado, a distant column of darkness, danced up on the horizon, hurling reckless and random destructions in its wake.
A Demi-World. It must be. Just like at Firewater Dam. Maybe even like the recurring nightmare that warped her dreams. Her family—the SUV floating away. The grey, lorn figures rising from the tide.
There! Metal glinted at the far end of the flood-filled street. Her older sister leaned out the car window, desperately waving a white t-shirt to catch her attention.
“Jordan!” Her sister’s voice sounded as faint as a bird in a thunderstorm, almost drowned out by the din. “Jordan, hurry!”
Could they be saved this time? She leaped to her feet, cupped her hands around her mouth. “Judy! Judy, get back in the car! Lock the doors!”
Too late—too late. It was happening again. The gray shapes emerged from the muck, spindly and naked. Like a pack of feral wolves, they skittered toward the drifting SUV.
“Judy! Mom! Dad!” Her fingers tightened around the sword. But it was too late.
But before the creatures reached the car, the nightmare tableau froze. The air grew cold, still. The wind ceased its howling. Even the tornado halted in its relentless onslaught, quivering in place.
Now what? Her eyes went to Dreck, but he lay still, unmoving. How had he ended up in her dream-world? Had she appeared in his?
Overriding the storm was a strange, alien voice, thundering on down from heaven. It came from everywhere but nowhere. Yet somehow the words sounded familiar, feminine, even vulpine. “Humans,” it said. “Hosts. Service.”
It sounded like—Ingrid? But that was impossible. Her eyes searched the rubble, the eerie stillness of the floodwater. Where could the kitsune…
It was Ingrid, but it wasn’t. Some force possessed Ingrid’s body, floating her above the wreckage of the town. Light churned out of her eyes, pure energy, as the water lapped and danced beneath her wake.
Oh God. Ingrid. That creature, whatever it was, had taken control of the kitsune. Just as it had Malmardane and Ferdinand Braden before it. What was this thing? Why was it using vampires and lycans as puppets? “Ingrid! Let her go, you fiend!”
At her feet, Dreck stirred. He sat up, clutching a bleeding head. The wound—so deep, so red. Yet he scrambled up to a crouch. “Jordan? What’s going on, where are we? Is that—Kit?’
“Yes! That force—whatever it is—it’s talking through her!”
“The Walk-In. What Ursula warned about.”
The squishiest, hairiest tarantula of all time tiptoed down her spine. Every supernatural alarm bell in her arsenal was clattering nonstop. Her voice broke. “It’s the Devil himself.”
“Humans, hosts, serve,” the entity echoed. As it spoke, visions of wealth and power unfolded, sweeping the scene. Skyscrapers rose into the sky. Stacks of gold bars moved on forklifts. Flights of jet fighters crossed the horizon. “Service earns rewards. Wealth. Power. Dominion.”
Yes. It all fit now. Bits and pieces gleaned from stray comments of the others. Dreck scrambled to his feet beside her. He gasped, an awed whisper. “It’s got her. It’s got all of us! It’ll kill us all!”
He may
well be right. So right indeed. She wheeled toward the minatory figure hovering in the sky. “This is our Earth! Get out of here! Let her go!”
“Malmardane served,” the creature intoned. “Ferdinand served. Others have served. Others will serve. All vessels—serve!”
Block out this creature, its madness, its offers. She spun toward Dreck, wrapping him in her arms. He returned the embrace. If they were going to die, they would die together.
His fingers stroked her hair, pressing lips against her cheek. She returned the kiss, a wary eye on the hovering monster.
“What do they do with their mouths?” the entity hissed. Blood was oozing from Ingrid’s eyes along with the streams of white, vaporous energy pouring from her vacant eyes.
Dreck laughed, a grim counterpoint to the hissing beast. “It’s called love, idiot.”
“Dreck, it’s killing her. What do we do?”
“Shoot it with fire? Hack it with your sword?”
“We can’t attack Ingrid!”
But even as they stared, the creature released the werefox. Kit fell like a limp rag doll into the surging waters. At the same time, the storm whipped up again. The spindly gray vampires charged toward the distant SUV. They were starvelings, feral and mindless, so ancient and hungry for blood, they’d lost all outward trace of their humanity. Gray like ghouls, like gargoyles. Like monsters.
Ingrid or her family. Forward or back. What to do?
“Save her!” she told Dreck, pointing at Ingrid. “I’ll fight those things!”
