01 - Underworld

by Greg Cox

  Good-for-nothing bloods! He longed to transform, to revert to a more primal and powerful state, but that was impossible; only the oldest and most powerful of lycans could transform after being wounded by a silver weapon. Thanks to the bullet in his shoulder, Trix was trapped in human form until the metallic poison dissipated from his blood, which could take hours—or even days.

  His fingers burrowed painfully into the shredded meat and gristle, finally locating the bloodied remains of a single silver bullet. The flattened slug was slick and difficult to hold onto, and the hated metal burned his fingertips, but Trix gritted his teeth and violently wrenched the bullet from his shoulder. Steam rose from the fleshy pads of his fingers as they hissed and sizzled from contact with the silver. Snarling at the back of his throat, he hurled the captured slug as far away as possible, hearing it clatter upon the metal tracks several meters down the line.

  “Son of a bitch!” he growled. Now he was pissed!

  Trix licked his scorched fingers, then slammed a fresh magazine into his own gun, a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle. He popped up behind the gap in the subway doors and fired through the train at the platform beyond.

  His feral heart beat in exultation as he saw that, to the right side of the platform, Raze was already strafing the vampire’s kiosk with automatic fury.

  Friggin’ bloods! he raged, enthusiastically adding his own luminescent fire to Raze’s. Aboard the train, lily-livered humans trembled and pissed themselves, but Trix reserved the entirety of his seething contempt for the vampires themselves. We’ll teach those arrogant leeches to mess with our clan!

  In a moment of prudence, some unseen human had turned off the escalators leading to and from the platform. No matter, Nathaniel thought, racing down the motionless steps at blinding speed. His long black hair whipped behind him as he ran. The platform below rang with the sound of frenetic gunfire. And to think I was afraid of missing all the action!

  The lycans’ guns assaulted the kiosk at right angles to each other, backing Selene and Rigel into a single narrow corner behind the targeted structure, which was rapidly being ripped to shreds by the lycans’ ceaseless fire. Their situation, she realized, was swiftly becoming untenable.

  Despite her own dire predicament, though, she couldn’t help worrying about the safety of the heroic American. Was he still unharmed, or had both he and the injured girl already perished in the hostilities? A pity our war had to endanger innocent humans, she thought with sincere regret.

  Just in time, a vigorous volley of fresh gunfire targeted Raze, forcing the larger lycan to turn tail and seek the shelter of a nearby subway car. Selene looked back over her shoulder to see Nathaniel descending the escalator, his trademark Walther pistols spitting out an unrelenting stream of silver bullets.

  Well done! she thought proudly, grateful for the timely intervention of the valiant Death Dealer. Nathaniel’s fortuitous arrival was just what they needed to turn the tables on these revolting animals. We have them outnumbered now!

  She and Rigel seized the opportunity to abandon the bullet-riddled kiosk, bolting across the platform to a less pulverized concrete pillar. She looked with concern for the handsome good Samaritan and his injured charge, who were still dangerously out in the open. Amazingly, they were both still alive.

  But although Raze had been driven off, his subhuman accomplice still lurked on the other side of the beleaguered train. The muzzle of his handgun flared repeatedly—BLAM, BLAM, BLAM!—and a burst of incandescent ammunition caught Rigel across the chest.

  The reeling vampire stumbled and lurched sideways into a wall. The glowing bullets sliced through the strap of his camera, causing the compact digital device to go skittering across the concrete floor of the platform. Rigel staggered clumsily, fighting to stay on his feet. His once-seraphic countenance contorted with indescribable pain and suffering. As Selene looked on in horror, rays of searing light erupted from his wounds, blazing forth from the jagged tears in his dark leather attire. The blinding effulgence burned through the vampire’s transfixed body, incinerating him from the inside out!

  Selene felt the excruciating heat of the light upon her own ivory features. Aghast and astounded by what was happening to her friend, she tried to keep on watching, if only to be able to report back to her superiors on what she was witnessing, but the actinic glare grew so bright that she had to look away, crimson tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

  The sickening smell of burning flesh filled the underground station as the unnatural light flared up like a supernova before finally dying out.

  Selene opened her eyes just in time to see Rigel’s carbonized corpse hit the floor. Smoky fumes rose from the vampire’s body, which was burned and blackened beyond recognition. The charred remains looked as though Rigel had been left out in the sunlight to die.

  No! Selene thought in stunned disbelief. This can’t be happening! She had known and fought beside Rigel for years and years, yet the smoldering ruin before her eyes left no doubt that her ageless comrade had been eliminated forever.

  An all-consuming wrath possessed her. She whirled around, her anguished heart screaming for retribution, and opened fire on Trix, who took another silver bullet in the shoulder, not two centimeters from where she had shot him the last time. Does that hurt, you bastard? Selene thought vindictively savoring the agonized expression on the lycan’s face. I hope it burns like hell!

  If only silver acted as quickly as the lycan’s obscene new ammunition!

  The craven lycan had clearly had enough. Relinquishing his position on the other side of the metallic blue subway car, he turned and galloped down the underground Metro tunnel. Selene sneered at the lycan’s cowardice; such craven behavior was more like a jackal than a wolf.

  Run while you can, she taunted him silently. Despite the overwhelming thirst for vengeance engulfing her soul, Selene retained the presence of mind to snatch up Rigel’s fallen camera and quickly ejected its memory disk. Pocketing the disk, she discarded the camera before racing into the train after Trix. She charged down the center aisle of the car, running parallel to the lycan fleeing alongside the train.

  Through the windows to her right, she could see Trix making a break for the dimly lit tunnel ahead. She was tempted to fire at him through the transparent glass window but feared that a stray ricochet might kill or maim one of the train’s human passengers. Mortals were strictly noncombatants in the war she fought, and Selene had always striven to avoid undue collateral damage. Not that she intended to show any such mercy to the despicable lycanthrope outside the train.

  The memory of Rigel’s smoking remains added wings to her heels as she sped through one car after another, sprinting like leather-clad lightning past the shell-shocked humans cowering in their seats. She squeezed the grip of her Beretta so tightly that her fingers sank into the handle, leaving impressions in its high-impact polymer frame.

  She reached the end of the rear car and bared her fangs as Trix came zipping around the back of the train and took off down the center of the tracks. Perhaps he thought he could elude Selene amidst the stygian recesses of the murky tunnel?

  Fat chance. Selene didn’t even slow down before diving headfirst through the train’s rear window. Glass exploded onto the tracks as she came soaring out of the subway car, the back of her jet-black trench coat flaring out behind her like the wings of some enormous vampire bat.

  She hit the ground like an Olympic-class acrobat, executing a flawless diving roll before springing up onto her feet. Gun in hand, she pursued the lycan with all her preternatural strength and speed, plunging into the forbidding blackness of the tunnel without a second’s hesitation.

  I’ll get you, you murdering animal, if I have to follow you all the way to Perdition!

  Back on the platform, near the middle of the train, Nathaniel was running low on ammo. He lurked under the cover of the escalator as he and Raze vehemently exchanged fire. The barbaric lycan had taken refuge in a crowded subway car, from which he vainly sought to
nail Nathaniel with one of his phosphorescent rounds. The combat-savvy vampire carefully kept his head; having seen what the glowing bullets had done to Rigel, he was in no hurry to experience their incendiary effect himself.

  I still can’t believe that Rigel is actually gone, he brooded darkly. It happened so fast!

  Whistling silver and radiant particles of light zipped past each other, carving out a no-man’s land between the escalator and the stalled subway car. Raze fired his Uzi around the door of the car, until the spewing muzzle of his gun suddenly fell silent. Nathaniel saw the lycan scowl angrily at his weapon and realized that the Uzi must have exhausted its ammunition.

  And none too soon, the vampire thought appreciatively. His own pistols were out of ammo as well. He groped in the pockets of his trench coat for another magazine, only to come up empty. “Bugger!” he swore under his breath, even as he spied Raze fleeing toward the back of the train.

  Lacking either the time or the ability to reload, Nathaniel tossed his pistol aside and ran toward the next car down, hoping to cut Raze off. These lycans will pay for what they did to Rigel, he vowed. I swear it upon my eternal life!

  The snarling lycan rushed past the petrified passengers huddled together on the floor. He yanked open the door between the cars and threw himself across the gap above the coupling, provoking ear-splitting screams from the startled humans in the next car, who suddenly found themselves confronted with a wild-eyed thug brandishing a smoking submachine gun.

  Racing diagonally across the platform, Nathaniel glimpsed Raze through the windows of the train. There was no way that he could beat the lycan to the next open doorway, so, instead, raising his arms to protect his head, he hurled himself through one of the car’s side windows. Glass shattered with a stupendous crash as the vampire came zooming like a meteor into the car, tackling Raze. His headlong momentum threw the lycan into the opposite window, cracking the heavy glass.

  Nathaniel’s surprise attack infuriated the ambushed lycan, eating away at his flimsy pretense at humanity. Shaking off the bone-numbing impact, Raze glared at the Death Dealer with inhuman, cobalt-blue eyes. He bared his fangs, exposing a mouthful of serrated canines and incisors. An atavistic growl escaped his lips.

  The semi-transformed lycanthrope grabbed Nathaniel with both hands and flung the vampire down the aisle toward the front of the train. Against his will, Nathaniel found himself sliding backward across the floor, but he quickly halted his supine retreat and sprang back onto his feet. The colored irises of his eyes disappeared, leaving only the whites and pupils. His own fangs snapped together angrily, and his outstretched fingers sported razor-sharp nails.

  He was more than ready to engage Raze hand-to-hand if necessary, but the lycan had other ideas; turning his back on Nathaniel, Raze made a breakneck dash for the rear of the train.

  Not so fast, the vampire thought, giving chase. Pouring on the steam, he pursued the lycan through car after car, slowly gaining on the fleeing gunman. Nathaniel’s legs were a blur of superhuman speed, hurling him after his considerably less than human quarry.

  Within seconds, they had reached the final car, where Nathaniel observed the telltale signs of some earlier struggle. Bullet holes riddled the floor, and the window at the far end of the car, mounted halfway up the painted steel exit, had been smashed to pieces. Nathaniel briefly wondered what had become of Selene and the other lycan, only to see Raze closing fast on the exit in question, less than forty meters ahead of him.

  Tapping hidden reserves of speed and energy, the determined vampire leaped forward and tackled Raze once more. His talons grabbed on tightly to the lycan scum as they slammed into the rear exit, their combined momentum blowing the heavy steel door off its hinges.

  Locked together in a death grip, Raze and Nathaniel came flying out of the train. They crashed down onto the tracks, skidding across the rusty iron rails. The hard landing broke them apart, and they rolled away from each other before scrambling back onto their feet.

  Vampire and lycan faced off at the edge of a darkened tunnel. Flickering fluorescent lights created a strobe effect that only added to the bizarre, nightmarish ambience of the hellish drama playing out behind the ravaged subway train. Predator versus predator, the two deadly night creatures circled each other warily, flaunting demonic fangs and claws. The vampire’s eerie white eyes blazed with inhuman malice, while Raze glowered back at him with eyes as cold and impenetrable as a shark’s—or a wolf’s.

  Nathaniel suddenly felt terribly exposed and vulnerable. A tremor of apprehension shook his ageless bones as, in the pulsating glare of the erratic lights, his lycan adversary began to change.

  The grotesque transformation was visible only in quick, fragmentary glimpses.

  Wiry black hairs sprouting from Raze’s face, scalp, and hands.

  A lupine snout protruding from a flat human countenance.

  Gaping jaws packed with gleaming yellow fangs.

  Foam dripping from an immense, hungry maw.

  Thatches of bristling gray-black fur jutting through torn and shredded clothing.

  Jagged claws tearing free of leather boots.

  Human ears growing tufted and pointed at the tips.

  Cobalt eyes peering down as the inhuman shape-shifter grew a full half meter in height, his massive shoulders expanding as well.

  Upraised claws the size of steak knives…

  Nathaniel swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly as dry as the Valley of the Kings, where he had once dabbled in archaeology beside Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. He promptly realized that he had committed a grave tactical error in confronting the desperate lycan away from the inhibiting gaze of the mortals. As long as Raze had remained in his human form, Nathaniel had been more than a match for the lycan where hand-to-hand combat was concerned, but only the most powerful of vampire Elders could hope to survive unarmed against a fully transformed werewolf.

  Six centuries of immortality passed before his eyes as he backed away from the towering beast. Another snatch of Milton raced through his mind:

  Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,

  In Stygian cave forlorn,

  ’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy—

  Growling horrifically, the werewolf fell upon Nathaniel like some ravening prehistoric monster. Jagged claws sliced through his leather garb as though it were tissue paper, rending the undead flesh beneath. The doomed vampire struggled helplessly against the huge, voracious creature, but the hell-beast was too big, too strong. Powerful jaws closed on Nathaniel’s throat, crushing the vampire’s neck between rows of ivory fangs. A horrendous scream rang out, and cool vampiric blood gushed upon the tracks.

  In his last instants, Nathaniel prayed that Selene would not meet the same awful fate.

  Chapter Four

  Run all you can! Selene thought fiercely as she chased Trix through the winding subway tunnel, taking care to avoid the electrified third rail. The dim lighting posed little difficulty—vampires have excellent night vision—yet the determined Death Dealer would have charged headlong into utter blackness if necessary. You’re not getting away from me!

  Rigel’s fiery death still burned brightly in her memory, stoking her ever-smoldering hatred of the lycan breed to an even more consuming blaze. She held on tightly to her Beretta, aching for a chance to strafe her comrade’s killer with red-hot silver.

  The fleeing lycan disappeared around a bend in the track, but Selene was only a few seconds behind him. Rounding the curve herself, she was surprised to discover that Trix had seemingly vanished into thin air. What? she wondered in confusion, slowing to a halt between the iron rails. Where in hell…?

  Vampire eyes searched the floor of the tunnel, swiftly discerning a trail of muddy bootprints and scattered droplets of blood leading to a shallow alcove on the right-hand side of the underground tube. Undaunted by the thickly gathered shadows filling the inauspicious nook, she stepped toward the empty recess, her gaze glued to the ground in search of further
evidence of Trix’s present whereabouts. He can’t have gone far, she assured herself, determined to see the lycanthrope dead by dawn.

  A gust of hot air, accompanied by a distant roar, interrupted her search. What the devil? Selene whirled around toward the sudden noise, then cautiously peeked around a bend in the tunnel. Her eyes widened in alarm as she saw the northbound train, hightailing it out of the battle-scarred station, whip around the corner. Glaring headlights blinded her like malevolent sunbeams.

  Move! her brain shouted at her. Now!

  She jumped backward into the concrete alcove, flattening herself against the inner wall of the niche. She turned her face away from the oncoming train, just as the Metro carrier zoomed by her, its metallic epidermis passing only centimeters away from her exposed white cheek. The booming thunder of the cars riding madly over the rails drowned out the world, while a violent surge of wind caused her trench coat to flap wildly. Flickering lights strobed from the speeding cars; looking down, Selene saw the inconstant glare reflected by the glistening blood and bootprints next to a rusty drainage grate. Aha! she thought, despite the clamorous passage of the train. Heading downward, are we?

  The blue M3 train took forever to traverse this particular stretch of track, but Selene finally watched its luminous red taillights recede into the distance, heading north. Letting out a sigh of relief, she dropped to her knees beside the metal grating, which was wet and slimy with mold. She yanked up the grate with both hands, then paused momentarily to peer down into the uncovered pit.

  The floor of the drainage tunnel, running beneath the Metro line, was hidden by vigorously coursing rainwater, but Selene judged that it was hardly deep enough to conceal Trix in his entirety or to have carried him away to a watery doom. If he can brave the flood, so can I, she resolved, thankful that, contrary to myth, vampires had no genuine aversion to running water.