01 - Underworld

by Greg Cox

  Or so Erika hoped.

  Frankly, I wouldn’t mind a good spanking from Lord Kraven, she thought, as long as it was for the right reasons. It was all horribly unfair; Selene was getting all of Kraven’s attention, and she didn’t even appreciate it!

  Amusing herself with Selene’s boy toy gave Erika some small bit of revenge. She inspected the human’s exposed throat, only to notice a series of tiny rips in the shoulder of his jacket. What’s this? she thought, violet eyes widening. Had the haughty Selene, despite her protestations, been unable to resist nibbling on the merchandise?

  Intrigued, Erika peeled back the human’s collar. Looking for the telltale mark of a vampire’s kiss, she was shocked to discover instead an ugly, swollen red bite wound on the mortal’s inflamed right shoulder. The vicious-looking teeth marks were rough and jagged, quite unlike the discreet imprint of a vampire’s fangs, and tiny, bristling black hairs sprouted from the depths of the bloody indentations.

  “Holy shit!” Erika exclaimed, suddenly losing all interest in sampling the sleeping human’s blood. Not a Death Dealer, she had never seen a victim of the lycans before, but she knew a lycan’s bite when she saw one. He’s been turned, she realized in alarm and disgust, recoiling from the touch of his infected flesh. He’s one of them!

  A blinding flash of lightning lit up the room. Thunder boomed, and the human suddenly snapped awake, screaming at the top of his lungs. This was too much for Erika, who sprang straight up like a startled cat, sticking to the ceiling while hissing at the shrieking human below. Her claws dug into molded plaster, close to two meters above the humans head, as the stunned mortal stared up at her, eyes blinking in horrified amazement, like a man trapped in a never-ending nightmare.

  Erika didn’t know how long it took to turn a human into a lycanthrope, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  Kraven’s boots echoed down the portrait-lined hallway, in unison with the thunder roaring outside, as he marched with virulent purpose toward Selene’s quarters in the eastern wing of the mansion. Selene chased after him, fearful for Michael Corvin’s safety.

  “What are you planning to do to him?” she called out urgently.

  Kraven would not even look back at her. “Whatever I please!” he declared, letting nothing slow his murderous trek through the mansion. His outstretched claws twitched at his sides, as though they were already tightening around Michael’s neck.

  No! Selene thought anxiously, quickening her pace as she raced after Kraven. She realized Michael was in deadly danger; despite Kraven’s foppish airs, the lordly vampire could be brutally lethal when crossed. I can’t let him kill Michael, she despaired.

  But was there any way to stop him?

  * * *

  I have to get out of here!

  Michael looked around frantically, desperate for a way out. This whole situation was insane—guns and knives and levitating blondes. He had no idea where he was or what had happened to Selene, but he knew that he had to get away from all these gun-wielding lunatics.

  A moonlit window caught his eye, and he dashed unsteadily over to it and shoved open the glass. It was raining like hell outside, and a gust of cold wind spattered his face with icy wetness. Michael ignored the rain and peered over the edge of the window. To his dismay, he discovered that it was a good twenty-foot drop to the ground.

  “Shit!” he muttered. Having second thoughts about the window, he turned back toward the room—-just in time to see the blonde drop from the ceiling onto the floor, blocking the doorway to the hallway outside. The golden-haired nymphet glared at Michael, hissing like a pissed-off cat. She raised her hands in front of her defensively, her sharpened fingernails extended like claws. She bared shiny white teeth, complete with pointed fangs that looked like something out of a Hollywood horror movie.

  Screw this, Michael decided, preferring to take his chances with the window. He scrambled onto the sill and jumped into the beckoning night.

  He plummeted two stories, tumbling head over heels, before slamming down onto the wet lawn below. The crash landing stunned him, and for a second, everything went black. His eyes drooped shut, and Michael suddenly found himself somewhere else.

  Black glass exploded outward as he dived headfirst through a stained-glass window. The tinkling of the broken glass rang in his ears as he landed with a crash on the rocky ground below. The scent of the nearby forest tantalized his nostrils, offering the promise of freedom and safety.

  He rolled over onto his back, and the night sky came into view, cold and unwelcoming, the distant stars looking down on him without mercy. A blood-red moon, full and gigantic, hung between billowing storm clouds like an angry portent, casting an eerie light onto the high stone walls of an ancient fortress…

  Fierce barks and growls intruded upon the scene, yanking Michael harshly back to reality. His eyes snapped open, and he realized he was lying on the lawn. The stately Gothic mansion loomed behind him, looking very different from the forbidding stone edifice in his… what? Dream? Vision? Memory?

  Where the fuck did that come from? he asked himself, bewildered. The bizarre, hallucinatory experience had felt more vivid than a dream, closer to a memory, but he knew he had never lived through anything like that before. I think I would remember jumping through a glass window!

  The barking grew louder, closer. He blinked repeatedly to clear his mind and lifted his aching head from the soggy grass. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed as his eyes focused on the alarming sight of three snarling Rottweilers racing toward him across the lawn, looking like the Hound of the Baskervilles’ less friendly cousins. Ivory fangs glistened in the moonlight.

  Panic spurred Michael into action as he hurriedly scrambled to his feet and, limping like mad, took off for the estate’s perimeter fence, the yowling attack dogs in hot pursuit.

  Somehow he knew that no one was going to be calling the hounds off.

  Kraven stormed into the room, startling Erika, who let out a high-pitched yelp. Ignoring the servant wench, Kraven searched the chamber for this Michael Corvin whom Selene was so obsessed with. I’ll break his neck before her very eyes, he vowed, and drink his blood to the last drop. He smiled cruelly at the thought. That will teach her to place her fickle infatuations above her duty to the coven—and to me.

  But the inconvenient human was nowhere to be seen. Frustrated, Kraven shot an inquiring look at Erika, who nodded sheepishly toward the open window. A cold draft blew against Kraven, rustling his inky locks and silk jacket, as he heard the hounds baying loudly outside.

  “Damnation!” he cursed. Why couldn’t this miserable human stay put?

  The hellhounds lunging at his heels, Michael clambered up and over the slippery iron fence. He panted in exhaustion, his ragged breaths frosting in the chilly air. Taking care not to impale himself on the fence’s rusty spikes, he splashed down on the opposite side of the barrier. The furious dogs thrust their muzzles through the metal bars, snapping and barking at their elusive prey.

  Bye, bye, doggies, Michael thought sarcastically as he stumbled away from the fence. A shadowy line of naked oaks and beeches promised shelter and concealment, and he limped through the storm toward the swaying trees. The wind pelted his face and hands with icy rain, and thunder punctuated every other anguished minute.

  Was he heading north or south, toward the city or away from it? Michael had no idea, nor did it matter. All he cared about now was putting distance between himself and the dogs—and that entire freakhouse mansion.

  His infected shoulder burned like hell.

  Kraven strode impatiently to the window, even as he heard Selene rush into the room behind him. Perhaps the dogs already had claimed the human, he speculated. It would not be as satisfying, true, as slaying Corvin himself, but Kraven decided he could live with having Selene’s pet torn apart by the hounds. A fitting end, he decreed silently, for so insignificant a creature.

  His undead eyes easily penetrated the darkness outside. To his disappointment, however, he did not see the
Rottweilers enthusiastically savaging Corvin’s bleeding carcass. Instead, he saw the dogs yapping impotently at the fence and was forced to arrive at a singularly galling conclusion.

  The human had escaped.

  Lightning strobed the night, casting aside the darkness micro-seconds at a time. Thunder pealed overhead, all but drowning out the lupine howling inside Michael’s skull. He tore through the woods like an escapee from a chain gang, cold and wet and gasping for breath. His heart pounded wildly, and he kept glancing back over his shoulder, fearful of whatever might be following him. He stumbled clumsily over the uneven terrain, tripping over dimly glimpsed branches and vines. He toppled forward, scraping his palms on the underbrush, but kept on hurrying ahead even as he painfully dragged himself back onto his feet. Muddy puddles caught him by surprise, soaking his bedraggled socks and sneakers all the way through. The baying of the hounds rang out behind him, urging him onward.

  What if someone opens the gate? he worried, visualizing the baying Rottweilers following his scent into the woods. What if they set the hounds on me?

  Utter blackness enveloped him, only to be rent instants later by another blazing shaft of lightning. The shadows lifted, leaving Michael somewhere else. Another time, another place.

  He ran barefoot through the immense black forest, hearing his pursuers crash through the dense brush behind him. Looking back, he glimpsed them faintly in the foggy night: shadowy figures weaving through the evergreen tree trunks, flecks of moonlight glinting on exposed pieces of chain mail and plate armor. He felt woefully naked and defenseless compared to the warlike figures.

  They burst from the swirling white mist, brandishing crossbows loaded with deadly silver. Heartless dealers in death, they bounded and dodged around the bushy pines and firs, racing to catch Michael in their lethal sights.

  Multiple whooshing noises sliced through the night, and volleys of solid-silver crossbow bolts whistled past his shoulder, narrowly missing him, and sank deep into the trunk of a sturdy pine only a few paces away. The argent sheen of the deadly shafts filled his soul with fear and revulsion.

  An angry snarl built at the back of his throat. A savage part of his soul yearned to turn and face his oppressors, to meet arms and armor with unleashed tooth and claw, but he knew he was too weak, too depleted by torture and captivity. Another time, he vowed. Another night.

  For now, he could only run and run, ducking the barbed silver missiles that hurled past his ears…

  Michael flinched, half expecting to see a bloody arrowhead protrude from his chest. Then the darkness fell and lifted again, bisected by another blinding flash of lightning, and he found himself back in the rainy woods.

  He looked about in confusion. There were no silver crossbow bolts, no shadowy archers, only the angry barking of the guard dogs, which diminished in volume as he steadily distanced himself from the nameless mansion and its surrounding estate. The mountainous pines, with their bristling needles, once more had become the denuded, leafless oaks and beeches from before.

  What’s happening to me? he fretted. Nothing made sense anymore, not even the febrile imaginings of his own mind. His wounded shoulder throbbed in sync with his racing heartbeat. He shivered uncontrollably, from both the cold and a mounting sense of extreme dread. Murderous kidnappers and gangsters were bad enough, but now even his own senses were betraying him. I don’t understand any of this, he thought, staggering through the unfamiliar woods without any idea of how far he was from Budapest and everyday life as he knew it.

  Am I going insane?

  Kraven turned away from the open window. Selene could tell from the sour, truculent look on Kraven’s face that Michael had somehow gotten away—from Kraven and the Rottweilers alike.

  She was overcome with relief, which she did her best to conceal from Kraven. The imperious vampire regent was in a bad enough temper as it was. Damn Kraven and his infernal jealousy, she cursed silently. It’s not as if I’ve ever encouraged his amorous attentions!

  Erika cowered apprehensively near the door, no doubt fearful that Kraven would blame her for the human’s escape. Selene suspected that the lissome maidservant had little to fear; Kraven’s dire wrath appeared directed at Selene alone.

  “Leave us!” he snapped at Erika, who readily complied by darting out the door, leaving Selene alone with the de facto master of the mansion.

  Selene faced him, unafraid. She was fully prepared to accept the consequences of having brought Michael to Ordoghaz, but she was not about to apologize for her actions, let alone appeal for forgiveness. Michael was vastly important somehow, and not just to her, no matter what Kraven might think.

  The safety of this coven is my only concern, she asserted inwardly. Or am I protesting a bit too much?

  Kraven crossed the floor to where she was standing. His smoldering eyes glared crossly into hers. Selene maintained a stony, resolute expression, ready for whatever threats and ultimatums the other vampire had in store.

  A simmering moment passed, and Kraven opened his mouth to begin his tirade. Selene tensed in anticipation, but, at the last second, Kraven suddenly changed his mind—and viciously backhanded her instead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A ceramic bust, bearing a notably feral expression, snapped out from beneath an ornate concrete pillar. Blam-blam-blam! The sculpture exploded into hundreds of white shards as a burst of rapid gunfire blasted it apart.

  Scowling, Selene waited impatiently for another target to present itself. A whiff of gunpowder rose from the smoking muzzle of a brand-new Beretta automatic.

  Her face still smarted where Kraven had slapped her. She had hoped to blow off steam here at the firing range, but so far she felt as irate as before. Only a fierce determination not to stir up more trouble and division had kept her from returning Kraven’s blow with her own hand. We can’t afford to turn on each other right now, she reasoned, not with the lycans plotting something dire.

  Another ceramic target peeked out from behind a metal facade. This one bore the bestial features of a semi-transformed female lycan. Selene efficiently shot it to pieces, firing continuously until the Beretta’s slide snapped back. She swiftly ejected the empty ammo clip, grabbed a fresh one, and angrily slammed it into her gun.

  An amused chuckle came from behind her. “Sure hope you never get pissed off at me,” Kahn said. The weapons master stood a few meters back from the firing range, observing her practice session with friendly interest.

  Selene almost smiled but kept her gaze fixed on the far end of the range. Her finger tensed upon the trigger. She was fully prepared to blast apart every ersatz lycan in the dojo if that was what it took to get past the memory of Kraven’s infuriating slap. I can’t believe he dared to take a hand to me! I’ve killed more lycans in the last few years than he has for centuries…

  “Hold on,” Kahn said, before the next target could claim her attention. “Check this out.”

  Selene reluctantly holstered her gun and turned toward Kahn. The African immortal tugged a wicked-looking pistol from his belt and handed it to her. She balanced it in her grip, testing its weight. A serviceable weapon, she judged, uncertain what was so special about it.

  Kahn tapped his boot down on a scuffed green button built into the floor. The remote mechanism triggered the appearance of another ceramic target at the far end of the firing range. Sculpted marble fangs accentuated a frozen snarl. “Go ahead,” he said. “Squeeze off a few.”

  With pleasure, Selene thought, needing no urging to fire upon the lycanthropic simulacra. Blam-blam-blam! A tight grouping of bullet hits cratered the target. To her surprise, a shiny metallic liquid oozed from the ceramic wounds, like blood from a shattered skull.

  “Eject the mag,” Kahn instructed.

  Intrigued, Selene did so quickly. Her eyes lit up. The bullets in the magazine were identical to the lycans’ new ultraviolet rounds, except that these were filled with a lustrous metallic fluid. “You’ve copied the lycan rounds,” she realized.

 
; Kahn grinned proudly.

  She removed one of the liquid-filled bullets and rolled it between her fingers. “Silver nitrate?”

  “A lethal dose,” he confirmed.

  “Excellent,” she declared, her mind swiftly grasping the distinct advantages of this new form of ammo. “So they won’t be able to dig the silver out as they do with our normal rounds.”

  “Straight into the bloodstream,” Kahn said with a smirk. Selene foresaw a welcome increase in lycan fatalities. “Nothing to dig out.”

  She handed the gun back to him. “Does Kraven know about this?”

  “Of course,” Kahn answered, as if puzzled by her question. “He approved it.”

  Selene was relieved to hear that Kraven was taking some interest in the war against the lycans. She assumed Kahn had presented the idea to Kraven while she’d been tracking down Michael Corvin in the city. If only I could convince Kraven how important Michael is!

  She watched, lost in thought, as Kahn fiddled with his ingenious new brainchild. He racked the slide back, removed the barrel, and proceeded to examine the rifling. Selene leaned pensively against the wall, recalling Kraven’s odd remark earlier that evening.

  “Tell me, Kahn,” she asked after a moment. “Do you believe Lucian died the way they say he did?”

  Kahn’s grin widened. “Kraven been telling war stories again?” As far as he and most of the other Death Dealers were concerned, Kraven had been coasting on his celebrated victory for nearly six hundred years.