Vampires Don't Sparkle: Deathless Book 3

by Chris Fox

  They crossed a familiar maze of corridors, passing silently by undead servants until they reached the central chamber. The room was dim, only the faint glow of the obelisks providing illumination. The throne was empty, its vast black expanse still somehow threatening. There was no movement in the room, not even the stirring of air. It appeared the place was deserted.

  “Okay, do your stuff,” Liz whispered, releasing Blair. He slid from the shadows, stumbling forward until he caught himself.

  “On it,” he said, weaving like a drunken sailor as he made his way up the steps toward the central obelisk. He stood on the throne, reaching above it to touch the obelisk.

  “You seek to depart already? Was our hospitality not to your liking?” a feminine voice said. A moment later Anput emerged from the shadows at the base of the throne, her wicked smile revealing a pair of fangs as she swayed her way up the stairs toward Blair.

  Liz disliked her immediately. She’d known other women like her, the kind that drew every male eye in the room. They knew it, too. Used it to get whatever they wanted. She felt a low growl growing in her chest, but stifled it. Anput didn’t know she was here. Yet.

  “And you’re here to stop me?” Blair said, turning to face her. His hackles rose, and he bared his teeth. Liz would never have a better chance.

  She darted forward, ramming her claws through the small of Anput’s back, while savaging the tiny woman’s neck with her fangs. Cold, brackish blood showered the marble, but a moment later the god melted into tendrils of dark smoke. She flowed into the shadows and was gone. Liz did the same, nostrils twitching as she hunted for a scent.

  Careful, Ka-Ken. This is no mere deathless. You face one of Osiris’s get. They are more cunning, more subtle than those you have faced.

  “Keep her off me,” Blair said, turning back to the obelisk. He planted a hand against it, closing his eyes in concentration. Liz didn’t know how long he needed, but she knew Anput would strike before he completed whatever he was about.

  “Wait,” came a melodic voice. Tendrils of smoke began flowing together, until a figure stood next to Blair. She wasn’t more than a few feet away, but hadn’t made a threatening gesture yet.

  Liz didn’t wait. She charged, bursting from the shadows in a whirl of fangs and claws. Anput vanished, her voice suddenly behind Liz. “Please. You’re accessing the light bridge. To do that you need an access key. The only way your key would be recognized is if someone had first disabled the Ark’s defenses. That can only be done with a Primary Access Key.”

  Blair didn’t stop, and Liz could feel energy gathering around him.

  “I can help you deal with the gods of Olympus,” Anput burst out.

  Blair paused, opening his eyes and staring at Anput. “What makes you think we’re going there?”

  “Neither Isis nor Ra would be foolish enough to march on the First Ark without first knowing the fate of Olympus,” Anput said, relaxing. “It makes sense that she’d send an emissary.”

  “What can you tell us of Olympus?” Liz asked, neither confirming nor denying Anput’s assumption.

  “During our age, Olympus was one of the few strongholds to maintain independence from Ra,” Anput explained. She peered at the shadows near Liz, as if searching. “Zeus was their leader, but it is Hades that Ra will seek. He was given charge of the underworld, which meant he was the only member of their pantheon with direct access to the Well. He will know why the conduit has been severed. He may even be the one who severed it.”

  It matches the little Isis has told us. Blair’s thoughts echoed in Liz’s head again.

  “I realize you have little trust for me, but please listen,” Anput said, straightening. She raised her hands, palms facing them. “I have nothing to gain in battling you. At best, I kill or subdue you. What then? I gain little prestige from defending Ra’s Ark. If I let you go, then I gain favor with Isis. That will very much please my father.”

  “Your father?” Liz rumbled. She knew she was cloaked in the shadows, but she moved after speaking any way. It couldn’t hurt.

  “Osiris,” Blair interjected, taking a step closer to Anput. “The husband of Isis. It sounds like you have a complicated family history. You want to score points with Isis? Let us be about our work. We use the light bridge, and then we’re out of your hair.”

  “Done,” Anput said, giving a tight nod that set the beads in her hair to clacking.

  “Just remember, if you attack Blair while he is shaping I’ll scatter your damned entrails all over the Ark,” Liz rumbled. She summoned Excalibur, settling the flat of the blade against Anput’s throat.

  “Where did you get that weapon?” Anput said, gasping in obvious recognition.

  “Does it matter?” Liz said, pressing the blade a little tighter against the woman’s throat. “I have it. Let that be enough.”

  “Yes it matters,” Anput hissed, eyes narrowing. “That is my father’s blade, bonded to him since time immemorial. He’ll come for it, I assure you. Take care, little pup, my father is not as forgiving as I am.”

  Chapter 31- First Born

  Isis blurred through the Ark, passing through a seemingly endless array of dark stone corridors. She knew the place intimately, and arrived at the repository within seconds. The giant aquamarine dominating the valley below drew a pained breath from deep within her chest. The first virus had been concocted in a room just like this, so many millennia ago.

  “I knew you’d come, Mother.” Horus’s voice came from behind her, smug and angry all at the same time.

  She turned to face him. Emotion overcame Isis as she stared at her eldest son. It had been countless millennia since last she’d embraced him, but she still remembered his first tottering step. Still remembered how proud and amazed she’d been at the miracle of his birth. She and Osiris had labored for decades to change his physiology enough to have children, and Horus had been the fruit of that labor.

  “We do not have to be at odds, Horus. Step aside. Allow my pack and I to leave,” she rumbled, assuming a defensive stance.

  Horus merely watched her for long moments. His shaved skull still looked odd, as she remembered the thick mane of dark red hair he’d worn in his youth. His bronzed skin was the same, as were the tri-talons he wielded. She still remembered his discovery of the weapons, in the dark corners of Nubia.

  “By invading the Cradle, you have placed us at odds,” Horus snarled, eyes narrowing. He took a threatening step forward. “You agreed to leave these lands forever, to stay on the jungle continent to the south. We’d have left you to it, if you abided by the oath you swore to uphold.”

  “Things have changed, my son,” she said, softly. Isis took a step backwards, trying to appeal to his reason again. “The Well has been disconnected from the Nexus. We do not know who controls the First Ark, but whoever it is threatens us all. It may not be your father, whatever Sekhmet has told you. Even were that not the case, you must surely have felt the surge of light that was broadcast from this place. Someone sent a signal to the Builders, and we need to learn the cause.”

  Horus cocked his head, considering. Then his gaze hardened once more. “If these things are true, you should have parlayed with Ra, yet instead you are sneaking away. You came for your own reasons, as always. I do not know what your true goal is, but I have sworn to defend this place, and I will do it. Return to your quarters, or I will do as I must.”

  “Oh, Horus,” she sighed, shifting into wolf form. She loomed over him, though she wasn’t foolish enough to believe her height provided much advantage to one with his peerless speed. “Please do not force a confrontation. I do not wish to hurt you.”

  “Hurt me?” Horus laughed. “You think because you can assume this bestial form you frighten me? I battled Set when you and Father were powerless to stop him. I was accorded the mightiest warrior of the final age, as you well know. You are powerful, Mother, but don’t think your sorcerous tricks will avail you here. This will be a test of combat, and you know you will lose such
a contest.”

  “I am not the same woman you knew, Horus,” Isis said, the first pangs of anger stirring in her gut. She extended her left hand and commanded the staff to reveal itself. Gold flowed down her forearm, pooling as it extended into the Primary Access Key. “I have spent millennia fighting, since you last knew me. I am a stronger warrior than you, or your father. As you are about to learn.”

  Horus leapt skyward, transforming as he did so. Isis blurred, taking a single step backward toward the bronze railing as she readied her defenses. Her son was fast, perhaps the fastest being alive. But he was also predictable. He’d grown too used to surprising his enemies.

  Feathers leapt from his skin, and there was a flash of gold as the tri-talons melded with skin. When the transformation was complete a massive falcon dived at her, six golden talons flexing as they sought flesh. She allowed them to find purchase on her shoulder—perhaps allowed was a generous term. She wasn’t fast enough to stop it, even blurring as she never had.

  The talons dug into her flesh, as Isis shot out her free hand. She seized Horus by his feathered throat, slamming his body into the black marble walkway with as much force as she could muster. Bones broke in an explosion of feathers and blood. Isis did not relent. The fight had just begun, and her only chance was overwhelming force.

  She swung the Primary Access Key down in a tight arc, the weapon humming through the air as it descended towards the falcon’s head. It struck stone as the bird hopped away, shifting back into a man on the third hop. Horus spun, circling her as his eyes narrowed.

  “You’ve grown stronger, it’s true,” he said, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. His wounds were already healing. “Yet I am faster. Do not think the access key will save you. I will strip that lofty weapon from your corpse, Mother.”

  Isis blinked in surprise. It was in that moment she finally understood the stakes. If she hoped to survive, she’d have to kill her first born. So be it. She concentrated, summoning power from the Ark through her staff. Horus blurred, launching an aerial attack. He came down with both tri-talons extended, and she knew there was no way she could dodge. So she didn’t.

  Again, Isis allowed the weapons to find her flesh. They tore into her shoulders, biting deeply as they sought her heart. She ignored the pain, ignored the greater pain of what she was about to do. Isis summoned still more energy, pulling in as much as she could drink from the Ark. Then she released it in a blinding pulse of blue light. It exploded out from every pore, boiling away everything it touched. Flesh, stone, bronze—it all ceased to exist as the wave passed over it.

  Horus gave a single scream, so like the falcon he’d come to resemble. Then the light finished its work, and he ceased to exist. Isis fell to her knees, sobbing bitterly.

  Your pain is unendurable, Ka-Ken. Yet we have work to be about. We must wake the worm.

  Chapter 32- To War

  Jordan slipped on his sunglasses as he emerged into the wall of heat. He’d spent a long time in the gulf, so Cairo’s oppressive sun wasn’t anything new. He still hated it though, and it shocked him that this was supposed to be the cradle of humanity. It was a damnably hot place to have set up the first city. Hot and dusty. His lips were dry and cracked, his skin continuously burning in the blistering sun.

  “Come on, the army is departing soon,” Trevor said, starting towards a line of immense beasts clustered about fifty yards outside the Ark.

  The leathery-skinned creatures looked a great deal like mammoths, but instead of shaggy fur they had something closer to the thick hide of an elephant. They were far, far too large to be that, though. They towered over him; their tusks were easily a dozen feet of dense ivory. Each had a huge brown wicker basket on its back, outfitted with palm fronds for shade. Each basket was large enough to hold maybe eight people, and a rope ladder dangled from the base.

  Jordan started after Trevor, eyeing the sword now belted at the man’s side. It should have looked out of place, but it rode there like an extension of Trevor’s body. That wasn’t the only change, either. Trevor had abandoned his jeans and t-shirt, and now wore the strange flowing white garments favored by most of the gods in Ra’s pantheon. In short, the fucker had gone native.

  Jordan had tried experimenting with the collar the night before, but any attempt to remove it resulted in an electric shock that left him twitching on the ground. He could move of his own accord, but the farther he got from Trevor the more pressure built up in his skull. Anything beyond a few hundred yards, and he developed a splitting migraine. Of course, that might actually be worth it to avoid the stench of elephant dung mixed with rotting flesh.

  Trevor shimmied up the rope, pausing about halfway up. Jordan turned to see what had drawn Trevor’s attention, squinting at the glare even through his sunglasses. “Holy. Fuck.”

  Thousands upon thousands of corpses stood in neat, even rows. They covered the entire plain, from the Ark all the way to the muddy waters of the Nile. If they were anything like a modern army, he’d guess a dozen regiments or more.

  He turned back to the elephant, when a plopping sound came from his right. The beast had just deposited a pile of shit roughly the size of a Subaru near Jordan. Lovely. He held his breath, climbing the rope after Trevor. They’d nearly reached the basket when Trevor stopped and turned again. Jordan followed his gaze, and suddenly understood why Trevor had paused. A dozen massive zombies towered over their smaller brethren. They were misshapen and ugly, not quite human-shaped any longer. Their mouths were too large, their eyes too far apart. Their skin was a hodge podge of colors, as if they’d been made from hundreds of different people all glued together.

  “What the fuck are those?” Jordan muttered, mostly to himself.

  He was surprised when Trevor paused, leaning down the ladder to face him. His eyes were the same muted green as Irakesh’s, his teeth just as horrendous as ever. “They’re called Anakim. You encountered one, though it was a lot smaller. Remember the giant zombie in Panama? Irakesh made it to slow you down. Ra’s been growing these things for a lot longer. Let’s hope Blair and Liz don’t end up having to fight them.”

  Jordan didn’t answer, following as Trevor disappeared into the basket. It was interesting that Trevor was still thinking about Blair and Liz. That surprised him, at least a little. It didn’t change how he felt, though. Right now Trevor might be trying to stay normal, to be loyal to his friends. But Jordan had seen Stockholm syndrome. He’d watched troops gradually assimilate into foreign armies. It was a tactic Mohn had employed often. It might take time, but Trevor’s loyalty would shift to Ra.

  Not that it mattered, really. Even if Trevor was completely loyal to their pack, it was unlikely he’d be able to do anything to help himself, much less Jordan. They were watched constantly, especially by the Jackal. On top of that, Irakesh clearly nursed a singular hatred for Trevor, which meant he and Steve were watching them at all times as well.

  Take heart, Ka-Dun. Time flows on a scale you have yet to comprehend. Even if it takes years, you will have your freedom. The collar mutes your abilities, but it does not stop them entirely. You can shape, and the more you strain at your bonds the stronger you will grow.

  That drew a grim smile from Jordan. He’d simply treat this like working out. The time would come for him to make his move, and when it did he’d be ready. It wouldn’t take years, either. He’d be free before he knew it.

  Chapter 33- Hades

  “Holy. Shit,” Blair said, jaw dropping open as he gaped up at the sky. A torrent of competing thoughts rushed through his mind, because what he was seeing explained so much of the history of the western world.

  “What the hell is that?” Liz asked, shading her eyes as she stepped up next to Blair along the trail. Each step sent up little puffs of dust, and Blair waved them away absently.

  “That has to be Olympus,” he replied, studied the shimmering city high above. It flickered and danced in the sky, maybe a mile above the stunted hills around them. The fluted columns and heavy
marble architecture would have been at home in Rome, though this was clearly beyond anything the ancient Romans had created. Clouds boiled all around the base, shot through with veins of pink, gold, and red. It reminded him of a sunrise, though this particularly sunrise was created by the floating city.

  He’d guess there were two or three dozen structures, ranging from temples to a colosseum. There were even houses—well, mansions, actually. If he were a god, this was definitely where he’d want to live. “How the hell is it hovering there?”

  “You’re the shaper; you tell me. It’s like the frigging cloud city from Empire Strikes Back. What was it called? Bespin,” Liz replied, fishing her sunglasses from her pack and sliding them over her eyes. She added a green baseball cap a moment later, tucking her hair through the back in a simple pony tail. “Why does it keep shimmering like that? It’s like a mirage.”

  “I don’t know,” Blair said, shaking his head slowly. He could feel something each time the city shimmered. It would disappear for a split second, and he would feel an absence. When it returned he could feel it, like the sunrise on his face. “A better question is: how are we going to get up there? I’m guessing that’s what Isis meant when she said Olympus.”

  “I thought it was Mount Olympus. Where’s the mountain?” Liz asked.

  “It is,” Blair said, starting up the trail. At the very least they could get to higher ground and get a look around them. A number of monuments had been unearthed and, given what he could see, Blair had a suspicion he knew exactly where they were. “The Greeks claimed their gods lived on Mount Olympus. It’s not even the highest mountain in Greece, but it is a real place. My guess is they created it in remembrance of this place. Their ancestors probably worshiped here.”

  They made their way to the top of the hill, and by that time the sun had plastered their clothing to them in a thick layer of sweat. It was definitely over a hundred degrees. It might have been a hundred and ten.