Blood Curse: Book 2 of the Blood War Chronicles

by Quincy Allen

  Nessa sat in a large chair of carved oak, almost a throne, not far from the entrance to the bridge. An obsidian orb rested in a brass cradle suspended just out of reach to her right, and her hands were placed on the sides of a crystal ball that seemed to hover before her. A buxom redhead with pointed ears stood behind the petite woman, her hand resting on Nessa’s shoulder.

  Nessa looked at Shadowcat. “Pandora says Szilágyi’s ship is coming back; headed straight for us.”

  “Damn,” Jake growled.

  Cole ran to the side of the bridge and peered out a large circular viewport.

  Cole nodded. “It’s them, alright.”

  “Can you fight them?” Jake asked, turning to Shadowcat.

  The dark man had a bleak look upon his face. “This is a carnival ship, Jake. Not a warship. They can’t do much to a dragon, but the gondola won’t last long if they open up on us. They’ll tear this thing to pieces, and I doubt they’re stupid enough to get in front of Pandora Celtica after what he did to those zepps back there. We’ve got a real problem.”

  “What about the Dragun?” Jake asked. “Could she engage Szilágyi’s zepp? We could make a break for it.”

  Cole looked out the window again. “I don’t think she can take much more punishment, Jake. Her shields are almost gone, and there’s still five or six of Cromwell’s zepps on her.”

  The redhead spoke up. “This is my home, Shadowcat. And Corina is one of us. I’m not giving up without one hell of a fight.” She looked at Jake. “And I’ll have a few surprises for them if they’re foolish enough to come aboard.” She had a grim look on her face.

  “Jake?” Skeeter spoke up. “They’re not gonna shoot us down. They mean to board us.”

  “How do you know that?” the redhead asked, looking at Skeeter.

  “They came back, which means they opened the reliquary and didn’t find anything,” Skeeter said matter-of-factly. “We have what they want, and if they shoot us down, they risk burning the book and killing Corina.”

  “A crash wouldn’t kill me, Skeeter,” Corina warned.

  “No,” Jake interjected, “but being exposed to daylight would.” He looked at Skeeter and nodded his head. “She’s right.” Jake pulled one of his Colts and began reloading it. “How far to the shadowgate?” he asked, glancing out the window.

  “About ninety seconds,” the redhead replied. “But they can follow us in if they want. I’m Ruby, by the way.”

  Jake nodded at her and turned his gaze to the fast-approaching mass of black and purple ahead of them, its edges seething with energy. “What’s it like on the other side of that thing?”

  “Aether,” Ruby replied. “A million million oceans of it.”

  “What?”

  “The Traleil is pure aether, Jake,” Shadowcat cut in. “As thick as the air we breathe. Pandora Celtica doesn’t fly through it, he swims.”

  “And it’s not breathable, is it?” Jake asked.

  Shadowcat shook his head. “Which means we’ll all need masks if they breach the gondola. Ruby, get the masks out of the emergency locker and hand them out.”

  “Oh, great,” Cole mumbled.

  “It gets better,” Shadowcat said, looking grim. “We’ll have about twenty minutes before the masks run out of air.”

  “I coulda done without that little complication,” Jake said.

  “Me, too,” Skeeter added.

  As Ruby opened a nearby locker, Shadowcat moved up to the forward console and pulled a small comm from it, holding it to his mouth. “This is the captain. Prepare for boarders and have your masks close at hand.”

  “Shadowcat, can your people fight?” Jake interrupted.

  “Some, but not all. We’re mostly musicians and carnies.”

  “Then have your people open all doors that lead to the hold and lock everything that doesn’t.”

  Shadowcat thought about it and understood what Jake wanted. He hoped to herd Szilágyi’s men into one area.

  Shadowcat spoke into the mic again. “I want everyone to open all doors leading to the hold and lock all others. When that’s done, initiate the Ghost Protocol. Shadowcat out.” He turned to Jake. “So we fight,” he added simply.

  “Ghost Protocol?” Jake asked.

  “It’ll keep my people safe.”

  “Sounds good.” Jake looked at the people around him. “Y’all ready for this?”

  Everyone nodded as Ruby tossed a breathing mask to each of them. The things were made of leather and brass, made to fit around a human nose and mouth. A cinch strap would hold them in place, and each one had a pair of brass cylinders slightly smaller than a beer bottle that made a V shape at the chin-line.

  Jake looked out the window. The dark swirl of the shadowgate lay half a mile away. He shook his head, wondering how the hell he’d gotten into such a mess.

  Everyone slipped their masks over their heads, letting them hang loosely around their necks. And the shadowgate filled the forward windows. It wouldn’t be long until they crossed into the Traleil.

  “You got a plan, Jake?” Cole asked, stepping away from the window as he checked the load of his pistol.

  “Kill ’em all,” Jake replied with a dangerous finality. “Nessa, keep us on course no matter what,” he added.

  “And Ruby can kill anything that comes through those windows,” Shadowcat added.

  Jake gave them both a questioning look.

  Ruby smiled wickedly in return, holding out an open palm. Her eyes glowed red and a ruby spark appeared, turning quickly into a small vortex of flame that danced across her palm in little circles.

  “Fair enough,” Jake replied. “The rest of us will go below. There’s cover in the cargo hold, and they’ll mostly be heading for us with those doors open for them.”

  “Hey,” Cole interrupted. “Where the hell is Ghiss?”

  Everyone looked at each other, and then a series of small explosions rocked the ship. It sounded like Skeeter’s poppers, going off throughout the inside of the gondola.

  “Oh shit,” Jake said as the shadowgate loomed ahead. In that instant, he realized he’d been played like a prize fiddle.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Combat Tactics

  “Some secrets should stay that way.”

  ~ Jake Lasater

  A shriek of jetpacks filled the air around them, and a series of dull thuds hit both sides of the gondola. Something scrambled on the outside of the hull, and then a hailstorm of bullets shattered the side windows and riddled the console. Glass and splintered wood flew in all directions. Everyone dove to the floor, thankfully out of the line of fire. The gunfire cut off as two black-clad jump-troopers sailed in from each side through the shattered windows.

  The troopers rolled to the middle of the bridge and stood up, leveling their chainguns at the prone figures. Jake and Cole drew fast as the chaingun spun up, both firing twice. The troopers staggered back with the impact as their guns went off, pouring a stream of bullets into the ceiling.

  The dragon roared.

  Jake and Cole fired again, forcing the men back against the Console, and then Shadowcat leapt upon one while Nessa flitted past Jake, drew the sword in a single, smooth underhanded arc, and sent the blade sailing toward the other.

  Shadowcat grabbed the barrel of his opponent’s chaingun in one hand, pointing it straight up as it continued to fire, and slipped his hand under the trooper’s helmet.

  The sword hit the other trooper square in the chest, impaled him, and pinned him to a support beam between the windows. The chaingun went silent and fell from his grasp, his arms falling limply to his sides and his head drooping forward.

  Shadowcat’s trooper gurgled as his throat collapsed beneath the man’s grip. With a heave, Shadowcat shoved him out the window and turned.

  For the first time, Jake saw the vampire half of the captain. Shadowcat’s eyes had gone stark white, and his canines extended down twice as long as before. The man panted with fury like some enraged beast.

&n
bsp; “Let’s get this trash off my ship,” Shadowcat growled.

  Jake stood and retrieved the sword from the impaled trooper’s body as Nessa returned to the command chair. He put a boot in the dead man’s chest as it slid sideways. The body went sailing out the window.

  “Look out!” Ruby shouted, pointing out the window.

  A massive zeppelin had emerged from the shadowgate at full speed. The double-envelope configuration and the armored gondola looked exactly like the Dragun. Jake couldn’t believe his eyes. He knew the Dragun was off to port somewhere engaged with Republican airships. Then it occurred to him … Two Thibodeaux’, two ships.

  Pandora Celtica lurched, angling down at a steep angle. Everyone except Nessa was thrown off their feet, bouncing against the ceiling as the dragon desperately tried to avoid the oncoming zeppelin.

  “This is gonna be close!” Nessa cried, strapping herself into the command chair. The engines of the zeppelin ahead roared, and they felt the wash of air as it blew in the windows. But there was no crash.

  Guns thundered behind them—machine guns, cannons, and rockets. A lot of them. The sound was deafening, even from the bridge with a whole gondola between them and the barrage. Shields or not, Jake knew in an instant Szilágyi’s zeppelin was finished.

  Everyone stood quickly.

  “Masks!” Ruby shouted and then slipped hers over her face.

  Everyone followed suit just as they passed through the shadowgate. Jake felt a tingling sensation, and there was an instant of darkness. With a flash of purple light, the viewports were filled with nearly lightless green, an endless, formless ocean of it. The thundering torrent of gunfire behind them cut off, silenced by the shadowgate.

  They were in the Traleil Sea.

  Jake stood and stared. He’d never seen anything like it. The Sea defied his imagination. There were swirls of lighter and darker green off in an impossible distance. Mixed in were tiny motes of light surrounded by fading dark circles. Aether poured into the bridge, filling the compartment with a green haze, and he could smell the faint trace of electricity through the rebreather.

  “We have to go, Jake,” Shadowcat said quietly. “We still have boarders.” His voice was muffled by the mask but not enough to keep from being understood. “Twenty minutes, remember?”

  Broken from his first vision of the Traleil, Jake shook his head. “Yeah, right,” he replied, barely able to tear his eyes away.

  He and Cole reloaded quickly, and then the two of them dashed to the doorway. They both spotted a trooper below who was just stepping through the far door. They fired at the same time, and the trooper dropped in his tracks.

  They moved down the stairs and gathered at the base.

  “Well, they know where we are now,” Jake said. “Shadowcat, you’re with me. We move one doorway at a time, the people behind covering those ahead. Cole, you take up the rear and make sure nobody flanks us.” Cole nodded, eying the dead trooper’s chaingun below. “Skeeter, I want you and Corina in the middle. Have them stun poppers ready, we don’t want to damage the gondola any more than it already is.” He glanced at Skeeter’s suitcase where it had slid against the console. “And leave the suitcase here. If they’re hunting us, they won’t be after it.”

  “You got it,” she said, reaching into her long coat. She pulled out two poppers and nodded her head.

  “Nessa,” Shadowcat spoke up, “make for the Colorado gate. Best speed. Will we make it in time?”

  Nessa’s eyes were worried above the mask that covered her mouth. “It’s gonna be close.”

  Shadowcat nodded. “I need everyone to hold their breath whenever possible. It will make these things last longer.”

  Everyone nodded, most of them sharing Nessa’s worried look.

  “Let’s go,” Jake said, looking grim as he pulled both pistols. He leapt down the stairs, twisted in mid-air, and slammed his back up against the doorframe. A glance around the corner revealed an empty corridor. Halfway down, a green swirl of aether poured through an open door. He assumed the trooper had come through it. He nodded up to Shadowcat and turned, aiming his Peacekeeper to cover the rest.

  A deep, thunderous, blast sounded from the bridge, as if a huge blowtorch suddenly ignited. A man screamed, his voice fading away to nothingness. As Jake glanced back, Ruby poked her head through the bridge doorway and winked.

  “Got one!” she yelled, beaming.

  “Ruby can hold the bridge,” Shadowcat said as he slid up and placed his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Go.”

  The others were already coming down the stairs, so Jake dashed down the hallway, glancing through the open doorway as he passed by. Personnel quarters lay beyond, and the back wall had a four-foot hole blown through it, opening into the Traleil.

  Jake came to the end of the corridor and peeked quickly around the corner. The galley lay beyond, and it too had a large hole on the opposite side of the first. The entire room was filled with aether, but there was no sign of Szilágyi or his troops. It bothered Jake. He had expected a running battle, fighting from one corridor to the next.

  They’re waiting for us, he thought. They need us to get them to the other side, and if those trooper helmets are anything like the Confederacy models, they’re equipped with rebreathers that won’t last long in the aether.

  He turned and held up his hand. Skeeter and Corina froze where they were while Cole held his position in the doorway at the far end of the corridor. Jake knew Shadowcat was right behind him, but he couldn’t hear a thing, as if Shadowcat and simply disappeared.

  Jake pointed at the ladies and motioned for them to go into the quarters he’d passed. They disappeared within, both of them peeking around the door.

  “I don’t like it,” Jake whispered to Shadowcat. “I think he pulled his men back and has an ambush set up in the cargo hold. They want to out-wait the air supply or take us head-on from behind cover.” Jake got a sour look on his face. “That son-of-a-bitch.”

  Shadowcat looked thoughtful. “If we can get past the galley, I think I have a way to surprise them.”

  Jake raised a questioning eyebrow. “I’m all ears.”

  “I had this gondola built to my own specifications a long time ago … during the Atheon rebellion. We’re not just a carnival. Sometimes we transport goods that we don’t want discovered.”

  “Smuggling?” Jake asked suspiciously.

  Shadowcat shrugged. “I prefer the term discrete transport. Regardless, the carved hallway beyond the galley has two secret doors that lead down into a passageway that runs the length of the gondola. It’s where my people are hiding … and it comes up in the aft section.”

  “We’ll have him in a crossfire.” The gleam in Jake’s eyes was nothing less than devilish.

  “There’s more,” Shadowcat continued. “A trapdoor leads from that passageway up into the hold, and I can have Ruby kill the lights once the fighting starts.”

  “Where’s the trap door in relation to where we’re going to come in?” Jake asked.

  “Middle left of the bay, up against the wall and behind some crates of rice.”

  Jake nodded and closed his eyes, considering the possibilities. He visualized the layout of the hold and everything he’d seen in there. He pictured Szilágyi and his men setting up a trap, where they’d have to hide—what was good cover and what wasn’t. Where they would have to take up positions. The options and angles danced through his head. He’d always had a gift for tactics. It was part of the reason he’d been promoted from a green lieutenant to second and then captain in record time.

  Szilágyi and his troopers were a known quantity. If they were in the hold, then Jake and his people would burn them down, chainguns or not. “We’ve got him,” Jake said. “Fixed positions are a battlefield testament to stupidity.”

  The only wild card is Ghiss, Jake thought. If he was in the hold, it would be harder but still doable. But if the mercenary was elsewhere, playing cat-and-mouse … it could get very complicated very quickly. Having
seen what the mercenary was capable of inside the barricade, the thought of facing down Ghiss terrified him.

  Jake peeked around the corner one more time to make sure it was clear, and then reversed his position to keep an eye on the far side of the galley. He motioned for everyone to come down the hallway. He whispered as they gathered around him.

  “Corina, can you put one of those shields around us?”

  “No.” She looked almost embarrassed.

  “Why not?”

  “Witchcraft doesn’t work in the Traleil, only sorcery.”

  “What?”

  “It has to do with life essence. Witchcraft depends upon it as a source, and there’s not enough of it here to draw from. Sorcery taps into something else.”

  “Shit.” Jake sighed. “Well, that doesn’t change the plan. It just makes it riskier.”

  He quickly told them what he had in mind, and they all knew the clock was ticking.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Last Stand

  “Jake always gave his all.”

  ~ Cole McJunkins

  “How many poppers you got in that long coat?” Jake asked and inhaled slowly. Holding his breath as much as possible, he looked at his pocket watch. They had about ten minutes of air left.

  Skeeter stood next to him, their backs against the wall. Around the corner lay the cargo hold … and almost certainly Szilágyi’s men. They hadn’t heard a thing as they waited.

  “Six poppers, two flashers. And I gave one of the poppers to Cole.”

  “Five-second fuses, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Gimme one of the poppers.”

  She reached inside her coat and handed it over. Jake drew one of his pistols and then jammed the popper into his waistband, hoping it wouldn’t fly out.

  “Toss one of each when the lights go out?” she asked.

  It was his turn to nod. “Try and put them about five feet past the doorway.

  He looked at her like a concerned father. “I want you to stay back here until their guns shift toward me, okay? This hallway is going to be a shooting gallery for a few seconds.”