Blood Royal

by Will McDermott

  ‘So, you’re more of a mosquito than a vampire,’ said Kal. ‘Father must be so proud.’ Jerico tried to pull away from the needles, but he couldn’t get free from Armand’s grasp, and he was now too far away to even kick him effectively.

  As he squirmed, Kal got a good look at the hole in Armand’s armour. He could almost reach it with his free hand. He needed a weapon, but his sabre was on the floor, and lasguns were useless against Armand. The energy would get sucked into his mirrored helmet.

  ‘Proud enough to make me heir apparent,’ said Armand. The needles moved back and forth in the air as Kal squirmed. ‘What did he ever give you?’

  The spear. How could he have forgotten about the spear? It had been on his back so long now that he’d finally gotten used to the constant scraping and banging every time he moved. ‘As a matter of fact, Dad gave me a birthday present not too long ago,’ he said. ‘Want to see it?’

  Kal reached over his head, grabbed the spear and pulled it out. Armand reached for the weapon. Jerico whipped the spear down toward Armand’s chest. Armand’s arm stopped and his body went rigid. The spear slammed into the armour. It was a perfect shot, sliding through the hole in the armour. Gems scraped off of the shaft as Kal drove the spear deep into his brother’s chest, impaling his heart and lungs.

  ‘How do you think it’s going up there?’ asked Bobo. They stood at the door to the shaft, peering into the darkness. Wotan had wandered off a while earlier and hadn’t yet come back. Bobo was a little worried that the steam had fried the robot dog’s brain, but then again, Kal Jerico would never know how it happened.

  Dutt hadn’t answered yet, so Bobo glanced at his companion. The tilt of Dutt’s head told him that the other spy was getting instructions or new information via his inner ear receiver. While that was obviously a very useful piece of equipment, Bobo preferred the old-fashioned, non-body-intrusive methods of communicating.

  ‘I understand,’ said Dutt. ‘I’ll be ready.’

  So, it was instructions. ‘Care to share?’ asked Bobo. ‘Don’t forget you owe me.’

  Dutt considered. He pulled the tooth out of his mouth and looked for a spot to hide it.

  ‘Here, I’ll hold it,’ said Bobo, extending his hand. ‘It hasn’t picked up my voice from inside your mouth, so it should be safe in my hand.’

  Dutt dropped the tooth in Bobo’s hand. ‘Well, it turns out your last bit of gossip was dead on accurate, so sure. It won’t matter soon anyway.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Bobo. ‘I’m dying to find out what happened up there.’

  ‘Well, things did not go well for Kal Jerico and crew,’ he gloated, a huge smile plastered on his face. ‘It looks like Armand killed most of them, and Jerico’s next. And would you believe it, that little snitch actually found the item and lifted it from underneath their noses in the middle of the battle. He’s on his way down right now. In fact, you might want to leave. Nemo’s muscle will be here soon to help me escort the weasel back to Nemo.

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ said Bobo. ‘Besides, I’m still holding out hope that Jerico will come through and save the day, like he always does.’

  ‘I’m serious,’ said Dutt. ‘These guys are a couple of wild thugs, from what I hear.’

  ‘You don’t even know them?’ asked Bobo. ‘How do you know they’re so bad?’

  ‘I know them by reputation,’ said Dutt. ‘They’re a pair of twins named Seek and Destroy. Plus Nemo’s sending some hired help from out of town. If these guys see you, they’ll kill you.’

  ‘Not if they think I’m you,’ said Bobo. The dagger flashed across Dutt’s throat in an instant, severing his vocal cords and slicing open his jugular. Dutt’s eyes went wide in pain and surprise as a torrent of blood poured down his neck and onto his shirt. A moment later he slumped to the ground. Bobo gave the body a little shove with the heel of his soft leather boot, pushing Dutt over the lip of the shaft.

  He looked down at the tooth and thought about dropping it down the shaft as well, but decided to keep it and stuffed it into a deep pocket in his trousers. ‘You never know when that might be useful,’ he said.

  The only thing left to do was wait. His next move would depend on who arrived first, the twins or Derindi.

  10: END GAME

  ‘A little help here!’ Kal called out. Armand was dead, but the Spyrer rig had powered down just as he delivered the death blow, and now Kal was stuck. The joints of Armand’s power armour seemed to have locked into place, leaving him suspended off the floor of the lift, and he couldn’t get his arm free of the dead man’s grip.

  ‘Help me!’ cried Lysanne. ‘She’s dying. I can’t stop the blood. Someone help me.’

  Kal tried to turn around to see who was alive and who was dead. He heard two pairs of feet run across the mesh flooring. ‘I’ve got Kal,’ said Yolanda from behind him. ‘Get the Spyrer medi-pack and help the girl.’

  ‘I hope you’re not talking to me,’ said Kal.

  ‘No,’ said Yolanda. She was right behind him. ‘Scabbs, hurry!’

  ‘Good,’ replied Kal. ‘Because I’m just going to hang around here for now, if that’s okay with you.’

  ‘Shut up and let me get you down.’

  Then it dawned on him, what she had just said. ‘Scabbs? Scabbs is alive?’

  ‘Of course he is,’ she said. She climbed onto the railing beside Armand. ‘Who do you think powered this guy down?’

  Kal regained his composure. ‘Well if he was alive all this time…’ he twisted around to find the scabby little sidekick. ‘…then what took him so long? I was fighting a vampire for you while you were, what, having a smoke?’

  ‘We were a little busy,’ said Yolanda. She grabbed Armand’s fingers with one hand and his thumb with the other. As she pulled, Kal could see the pistons in her rig pumping.

  ‘Wait!’ he said, just as Armand’s hand opened up and he fell to the floor of the lift in a heap.

  ‘Kal!’ called a weak voice from behind him.

  ‘What now?’ asked Kal. He stood up and looked across the lift. Valtin was leaning against the side of the service tunnel. He took a step forward and fell to his knees.

  ‘Kal,’ he called. ‘He took the brain. You have to hurry. He took the brain.’

  ‘What in the Hive?’ said Kal as he rushed to his nephew’s side. Scabbs kneeled next to the young Wildcat, using the medi-pack on Themis. Kal smiled at his friend and gave him a thumbs-up as he ran past.

  He slid to his knees as he reached Valtin and grabbed the young Helmawr around the shoulders. Valtin kept saying, ‘He took the brain. Hurry. He took the brain… ’

  Valtin’s face was as white as the sheets in the comfy bed Kal had shared with Candi, Sandi and Brandi not so many hours ago. He laid his nephew back down on the floor of the lift. ‘Hold on, Valtin, we’ll take care of you.’ He glanced back at Scabbs. ‘When you’re done there, Scabbs, Valtin needs help.’

  ‘It can’t wait,’ said Valtin. ‘The item we were sent to find. It was the brain of the Royal Chamberlain. We have to get it back. He took it.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Kal. ‘Who took it?’

  ‘A weaselly-looking man with a bandage over one ear took it while you were fighting Armand. I tried to stop him. I’m just so weak. We can’t let it fall into… the information inside is too–’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Kal, ‘I won’t let anyone hurt the family. Not anymore. Not even Father.’ He laid Valtin’s head down on the mesh floor and stood.

  ‘Kal! Somebody! Help!’

  ‘What now?’ asked Kal. He looked around. Jonas was lying on the floor. His rig had lost power as well and he couldn’t move. ‘Scabbs, Yolanda. Help Jonas with his rig. I’ve got to go see a man about a thing.’

  ‘Sure thing, boss,’ she said with only the slightest hint of sarcasm. ‘Here, you might want these.’ She tossed his sabre and the spear toward him. He caught them both and slipped them into their respective sheaths with a little flourish and then ran toward the ladder.r />
  Bobo heard someone climbing down the ladder. He slipped back down the tunnel and watched to make sure it was Derindi. When the snitch emerged from the shaft, Bobo trotted down the corridor toward him.

  The little weasel turned at the sound and started backing away. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘What do you want? Who are you?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Bobo. ‘Nemo sent me. My name is Dutt. I’m supposed to take you back to the… master.’ He almost choked on the last word, but Derindi didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Nemo didn’t say anything about an escort,’ whined Derindi. He continued backing away down the tunnel.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Bobo. He moved forward slowly. He didn’t want to spook the snitch. Running wasn’t Bobo’s forte. ‘Nemo had me watching your back all day. I saw you on the roof outside the Fresh Air. I ruptured the steam pipe to get Jerico’s dog off your rump, for Helmawr’s sake.’

  ‘That was you?’

  ‘Yeah, now come on. There’s not much time.’ Bobo was telling the truth about that. Nemo’s real men could show up at any moment, and he was a little worried that Armand might fly down the shaft once he was finished with Jerico’s crew. He led Derindi down the tunnel away from Hive City.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Derindi. ‘I came from that direction.’ He pointed back past the shaft entrance.

  ‘Yeah, this is a shortcut,’ said Bobo. ‘Follow me. It’s not far.’ If he could just get Derindi out of sight of the shaft entrance to make sure they couldn’t be seen and weren’t being followed, Bobo would gut the little snitch and take the item. Then it would be off to Noritake’s to send a secure message to Kauderer and spend a little quality time with Jenn.

  But nothing about this mission could ever be easy. He heard a low growl ahead of him that sounded frighteningly like the buzzing of a chainsword. Up ahead, sitting in one of the pools of light, was Wotan. He growled again as he got off his haunches and stalked his way down the tunnel toward them.

  ‘Maybe we should turn around and go the long way,’ said Derindi, backing away from the metallic hound.

  ‘That wouldn’t be my first choice,’ said Bobo. He backed away as well, though. It really was the only choice. He just hoped they could get out of the tunnels before the twins showed up.

  ‘Then what?’

  Bobo turned and dashed off. ‘Run!’ he yelled. Wotan barked, and Bobo could hear the dog’s steel paws scraping the concrete floor behind him. Bobo pumped his legs as fast as he could, but the spy was quite a bit shy of two metres tall, and Derindi, as short as he was, soon passed him.

  Bobo kept running. The barks and scrapes got closer and closer. They had almost made it back to the shaft. They could possibly climb down and look for another access point, but Bobo knew he would never make it there in time, and he couldn’t afford to let Derindi get away. Time to let the dog do his work for him.

  Bobo dove to the ground as Wotan nipped at his heels. He curled his shoulder under him as he fell, and rolled to the side underneath the banks of pipes lining the tunnel. He kept rolling until he hit the wall before looking back. Wotan sniffed at the pipes and then turned and ran after Derindi.

  Bobo crawled beneath the pipes down the tunnel as fast as he could, which was nearly as fast as he could run. Being short had some advantages, especially for a spy. Any second, he expected to hear Wotan tear into Derindi. He had to find some way to lure the dog away or get the item from the snitch before the metallic hound destroyed everything.

  But instead of snarls and screams, he heard laser blasts and cheers from down the tunnel. Wotan ran off back down the tunnel again as blasts hit the floor and pipes around him.

  ‘Yes! I hit him!’ yelled one voice.

  ‘No, you did not. I hit him!’ yelled a second voice.

  ‘Why you!’

  ‘I’ll kill you!’

  Then there was the sound of fighting. Bobo had no idea what in the Hive was going on, so he crawled out to the edge of the pipes and looked. Two Orlock gangers wearing leather vests over coloured shirts, one red and the other blue, rolled around on the concrete floor, clawing and hitting at each other. Three other people stood back and watched. The shortest of those three, a stocky man with huge arms, a plump, red face, and combat boots, held Derindi by the collar.

  Bobo recognised the short one. It was Hern, the bounty hunter, which meant the other two were Lebow and Gorgh. The three bounty hunters from Dead End Pass always worked together. Lebow wore a shiny, black, collared shirt open down to his chest. He had a large cigar tucked into the corner of his mouth. Gorgh wore what looked like a thick, red sweater. The material looked odd until Bobo realized the sweater was woven from thin leather strips. He’d just taken the stopper off a flask and was watching the fight with a smile on his face.

  Bobo realised that the two matched gangers fighting on the ground like only brothers can, had to be the twins, Seek and Destroy. He was too late. Nemo’s men had gotten to Derindi. But Bobo wasn’t ready to give up just yet. He pulled himself out from under the pipes, brushed off his pants, and walked up to the group. Lebow and Gorgh both whipped pistols out of their holsters as he approached. Hern carried no visible weapons, but smiled in a way that said, ‘Move another inch and you die!’

  Bobo put his hands in the air and smiled. ‘Relax, men. Name’s Dutt. K W Dutt. I work for Nemo. Hold onto that one, Hern. He’s worth more than what Nemo’s paying all three of you for this job.’ The mercenaries didn’t waver at all. Bobo looked at the twins. The red one had the blue one in a chokehold, while his brother tried to claw his eyes out. ‘Seek! Destroy! Stop that nonsense.’ Bobo had brothers as well, and that’s how his mother always spoke to them when they got like this. ‘We have a mission here.’

  The twins paused and looked up at Dutt. ‘Who are you?’ they asked at the same time. Lebow and Gorgh clicked the safeties off their weapons and took a step forward.

  Great, thought Bobo. I’m going to die because these two idiots were too busy killing each other to listen to me. ‘Whoa, whoa!’ he said. ‘I’m Dutt. Nemo’s agent. Didn’t he tell you I would be here to help you escort Derindi?’

  ‘Dutt?’ asked one.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said the other. ‘The spy.’ The boys got up and straightened their shirts and vests. The one who’d been in the chokehold poked his brother in the ribs with an elbow as he dusted off. The one in red slapped his brother in the head, knocking off his blue bandana as he resettled his dark glasses over his eyes.

  ‘Right,’ said Bobo. ‘The spy. And you’re Seek and Destroy. The twins.’

  ‘I’m Seek,’ said the one in blue. ‘He’s Destroy.’

  ‘And don’t call us “the twins” – ever!’ said Destroy.

  ‘Fine,’ said Bobo. What did it matter? They were identical, right down to the colour-coded clothes and the bandana-covered, bald heads. If they wanted to be treated as individuals, they should at least dress differently, aside from the colour.

  Bobo turned to Derindi. He’d gained everyone’s trust for the moment. It was time to make his move, before everything fell apart again. ‘Let’s get going,’ he said, ‘but maybe you’d better give the item to me, Derindi. After that dog attack, I’m worried about its safety.’

  Derindi had cocked his head to the side, as if listening to something that nobody else could hear. ‘Dutt,’ he said. ‘Short, kind of wiry. A little squirrely looking, to tell you the truth.’

  ‘What in the Hive is he babbling about?’ asked Seek.

  Bobo took a step back, knowing all too well what was coming next. Damn Nemo and his implants.

  ‘That’s not Dutt,’ said Derindi.

  Lebow and Gorgh whipped their weapons up again.

  ‘Then who in the Hive are you?’ asked Seek.

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know,’ said a voice from behind them.

  Bobo turned to see Kal Jerico standing by the entrance to the shaft. ‘Who in the Hive are you people, and what are you doing with my snitch?’

  Scabbs
carried the medi-pack over to Valtin and set it down. ‘How are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve had better days,’ said Valtin. A weak smile flitted across his pale face. He could barely keep his eyes open.

  ‘I need to get your coat off,’ said Scabbs.

  Valtin tried to rise, but couldn’t. Scabbs reached down and pulled Valtin’s leather coat off one arm. The skin was clammy and cold. He attached the leads from the medi-pack near his patient’s shoulder. After flipping a few switches to account for the different mass and sex of his new patient, Scabbs sat back and scratched at some dry skin on his neck while the medi-pack analysed Valtin’s condition.

  He looked around while he waited. Lysanne sat with Themis over to the side. He’d been able to stabilise the elder Wildcat, but she’d still need a real medicae to repair that nasty wound once they got out of this scav-forsaken shaft. Lysanne had hugged him again when he’d told her Themis would live.

  As he looked at Lysanne, who sat holding Themis’s head in her lap, Scabbs wondered if they could ever… Nah, he thought. They lived in different worlds. More likely she’d go rogue one day and they’d have to hunt her down for the bounty.

  Near the Wildcats, Yolanda worked on getting Jonas out of his dead rig. She was having some trouble with his mangled monomolecular sword, from the looks of it. Jonas sat and glared at her, waiting to get free.

  Leoni’s remains lay opposite the Wildcats. Scabbs tried to avoid looking at it or at Armand’s body. He was always a little squeamish around corpses. Perhaps because he’d seen too many of them rising back up. He glanced back at Valtin. ‘What should we do with Armand and Leoni?’ he asked.

  ‘Jonas and I will take them back to the Spire for a royal cremation.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Scabbs. ‘Down here we normally just chuck bodies into a waste pool. Usually does a pretty good job of cremating the remains.’