Eldren: The Book of the Dark
Page 28
~-o0O0o-~
Margaret shook her head, hard. It was like coming out of a dream, a bad dream that had held her for too long.
Tony was standing in the middle of the mosaic, looking down at what remained of the vampire. Around the circle there was only bodies...Shoa’s disciples had not survived the demise of their master...their bodies lay strewn where they had fallen.
“Brian?” She said, looking around. A thick fog hung across the floor and at first she couldn’t see the teacher, but then she found him, kneeling over the figure of the man in the black leather jacket.
As she walked towards them Brian lifted the man in his arms as if he weighed no more than a child did. She saw that the man’s chest was still rising and falling, although his eyes were staring sightlessly past her and his skin was as pale and translucent as a piece of fine china.
She put out her hand towards Brian but he turned towards her and, just for a second, she saw something new in his eyes, a rage and fire that made her lower her hand and step back.
Then Brian, the old Brian, was back.
“Let’s just get out of here,” he said. “Explanations will have to wait.”
Margaret felt a pull on her arm and looked down. Tony was standing beside her.
“He’s still alive.” The boy said, and at first she didn’t know what he meant, then she saw the man in the long coat struggle to a sitting position on the opposite side of the mosaic.
~-o0O0o-~
Jim Kerr came up out of the darkness, amazed that there was anything beyond the limbo in which he had found himself.
There was no pain, only a dull coldness. He remembered the cold hands at his neck, …and the sound of his bones breaking was a noise he would never forget.
By all rights he should be dead...dead and long gone what with the loss of blood, exhaustion and broken bones. But still something drove him.
He managed to push himself to a sitting position and looked across the room.
The boy, the one from the cellar, was walking towards him.
And that’s when it happened.
It started with a sharp pain in his gums, a pain that forced him to clasp his hands over his mouth, only to draw them away again as his fingers met the sharp points of the twin fangs that emerged.
“No!” he screamed, and again, “No!”
The boy came closer, and Jim saw the blood course through him, the veins highlighted as if they had suddenly been transposed to the outside of the body.
“Stay back,” he said to the boy, but his limbs were betraying him, dragging him forward, closer to the red heat.
He reached into his pocket, forcing his hand to obey him, searching for the garlic packets he knew were there. But his fingers met something else, a cold metal that he recognized as his tin of lighter fuel.
The boy was closer now, a hand outstretched. Jim tried to back away but he was disgusted to find that he was salivating, his new fangs sliding bloodily in and out of torn gums, an ache in his stomach trying to drive all else from his mind.
He drew a crossbow bolt, the last, from his holster and, without giving himself pause to think he drove it into his chest. The cold metal scraped against his ribs but it seemed that he had missed his heart...there was no sudden gout of blood, but the pain was enough to focus what remained of his will.
He splashed the fluid from the can over his shirt at the waist, feeling the dampness as an extra layer of cold.
The boy was closer still.
No time left.
Jim reached for his lighter and got it into his hand without fumbling.
“Goodbye, son,” he said, and spun the wheel.
There was a sudden implosion of air and a flare of blue heat. He took a deep breath, welcoming the warmth inside him.
~-o0O0o-~
The body burned quickly, thick black smoke rising in a plume to the broken dome above.
Margaret had Tony by the shoulders, holding him back from the flames. Even when it was obvious that the man was dead the boy still struggled, still tried to reach him. And when the boy turned and buried his face in her chest she saw the hot tears that hung from the corners of his eyes.
The flames from the body were rising higher now, and Margaret was forced to back away from the heat as the flames lapped at the walls, hungrily seeking new conquests.
She pulled the boy with her, backing away from the heat that was already tightening the skin at her cheeks.
“Come on,” she said, taking the boy firmly by the hand.
As she reached the corridor she had one last look back into the room.
Flames were climbing the wall at the far side, tongues already lapping at the ruined frame of the dome above. And on the floor the ceramic tiles popped and cracked as they sprung from their position, lending once more a semblance of life to the serpent, but this time a life that was to be short lived.
A blazing spar fell from the ceiling, then another, and the cracking of fire on wood got suddenly louder.
And everywhere the bodies of the dead burned and smoked.
She turned her back and, holding the boy close, made her way out of the room, and through the hall to the clean air beyond the main door.
Brian was already standing there.
The other man, the one in the leather jacket, was standing on his own, but he leaned against Brian as if his own legs wouldn’t hold him, and his skin was a deathly gray, ill and sweating.
Brian took a step forward, and Margaret saw the need, the love in his eyes. She held out a hand, but met only air.
“Someday I’ll explain it to you,” Brian said. “I promise.”
Again he made to move toward her, but was held back by the injured man.
“We must go,” the man said, and Brian nodded.
“Someday,” he whispered, and for the merest moment Margaret’s fingertips brushed against his.
She felt a sudden tear in her eye and she reached to brush it away. And when her eyes cleared, there was only the expanse of driveway ahead of her.
There was a crash behind them, and she turned to find the whole house ablaze, blood red sparks and embers rising to dance in the air. She felt a pull at her hand as Tony dragged her back, away from the steadily rising heat.
The crackle from the fire was so loud that she didn’t hear the engine noise until it was almost on them. She turned to face the barrels of flame-throwers in the hands of three stocky built men in camouflage gear and blackened faces.
“You’re too late,” she said, and had to force back a giggle.
But when the tallest of the three ordered them to smile she was happy to oblige.
~-o0O0o-~
“North,” said Donald Allan, his voice little more than a whisper. “We must chase ahead of the sun.”
Brian looked down at his companion then out over the town from his position high on the hills.
The fire from the Hansen House had spread to the surrounding trees, a roaring conflagration that would be seen for miles, a scene of destruction that was mirrored and mimicked by many smaller fires in the town itself.
“Take me to the Temple,” Donald Allan said.
The vampire staggered, his legs finally betraying him, and he fell forward. Brian caught him before he collapsed completely and was dismayed at how light he had become. The vampire’s eyes had rolled up in their sockets, showing only white, and his head hung limply.
“Hold on,” Brian said, “It’ll only take one step. Just one step.”
With Donald Allan in his arms Brian Baillie turned his back on Finsburgh and took a step.
Just one.
~-o0O0o-~
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