01 - Underworld

by Greg Cox

  “That’s my point,” she insisted. “It’s nothing but an ancient story. His story. There’s not a shred of proof that he actually killed Lucian. Only his word.”

  The scornful tone in her voice made it clear how little she thought Kraven’s word was worth.

  The implied accusation got Kahn’s attention. His amiable grin faded, and he shot her a deadly serious look. “Viktor believed him,” he reminded her, lowering his voice. “And that’s all that matters.” He carefully put aside the disassembled pieces of his gun and eyed her warily. “Now, where are you going with this?”

  She had no immediate answer for him, only a vague, unsettling suspicion that Kraven was not telling her everything. Perhaps his unrelenting hostility to her investigation was based on more than mere jealousy?

  “Nowhere,” she muttered finally, not wanting to burden Kahn with her as yet unsupported misgivings. Shrugging casually, as though the matter was of little import, she drew her Beretta and turned back toward the firing range. Her toe tapped the button triggering the targets.

  Another ceramic bust popped up. Selene envisioned Kraven’s spiteful, arrogant expression as she mercilessly shot the target to pieces.

  It didn’t make her feel any better.

  The incessant rain was not improving Kraven’s disposition. A never-ending trickle of cold water ran down the back of his neck as he and Soren lurked in the shadows of a dismal alley in one of central Pest’s less savory neighborhoods, only a few blocks away from the hooker-infested fleshpots of Matyas and Rakoczi Squares. Broken glass and cigarette butts littered the cracked pavement beneath his feet. Political slogans and vulgar obscenities defaced the sooty stone walls of the alley, while several meters behind him, churning rainwater cascaded over the side of a graffiti-ridden concrete overpass.

  The only good thing about the miserable weather, Kraven reflected, was that it had emptied the adjoining avenues of unwanted tourists, carousers, and street trash. Even Budapest’s growing population of homeless indigents appeared to have sought drier domiciles elsewhere.

  Good, he thought sourly. He hunched beneath his black leather coat, keeping his face hidden behind his collar like a turtle retreating halfway into its shell. The fewer eyes that witness tonight’s rendezvous, the better.

  The bells of a nearby clock tower rang out, tolling the hour. Kraven glanced impatiently at his own wristwatch. It was nearly ten p.m. “Where the devil is he?” he muttered to the muscular, black-clad vampire standing beside him.

  Soren shrugged his shoulders. He maintained a tight lookout over the alley and environs, alert to any hint of treachery. Kraven was glad to have the wary bodyguard along on this outing but was anxious to return to Ordoghaz as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to give Selene cause to question his absence.

  More rain worked its way beneath his collar, chilling his already lukewarm flesh. Kraven was about ready to say the hell with it, to give up and go home, when an ominous black limousine pulled to the curb of the dimly lit street beyond the alley.

  About time, Kraven thought indignantly. His simmering resentment masked a deeper unease. Glancing about furtively, he slunk from the alley, shadowed by Soren.

  A dark-skinned figure emerged from the driver’s seat of the limo. Kraven recognized Raze, a particularly savage specimen of the wolfen breed. The beefy lycan appeared none the worse for being sliced up by Selene’s silver throwing stars the night before. A pity, Kraven thought. He had never liked Raze.

  Soren and Raze exchanged hostile glares. Two of a kind, after a fashion, the lethal warriors hated each other intensely; they were both eagerly waiting for an opportunity to settle which of them was more dangerous. Kraven’s money was on Soren, merely by virtue of the innate superiority of vampire over lycan, but he had no intention of letting Soren off his leash tonight. Matters were far too delicate already.

  Raze opened the limo’s rear door and gestured for Kraven to get inside. Kraven swallowed hard, unable to conceal his apprehension entirely, and slid into the back seat of the car. As Raze closed the door, Kraven could not resist looking back to make sure Soren was still there. Then the door slammed shut, cutting him off from his imposing bodyguard.

  Chin up, he reminded himself, striving to bolster his spirits. Show no weakness. It is not I who need fear the outcome of this meeting. I have nothing to apologize for.

  His throat tightened nonetheless.

  The interior of the limo was dark and musky. The flickering light of a nearby street lamp feebly penetrated the tinted black glass of the limo’s privacy windows. Through the darksome glass, Kraven glimpsed Soren and Raze taking positions at opposite ends of the limo. They glowered at each other mutely, immortal soldiers nursing their bitter rivalry beneath the driving rain.

  Kraven reluctantly looked away from the windows, turning his attention to the business at hand. More nervous about this encounter than he cared to admit, even to himself, he immediately went on the offensive.

  “Engaging Death Dealers in public and chasing around after some worthless human was not what I had in mind!” he protested brusquely, mustering an impressive show of justifiable indignation. Cold, wet, and disheveled, he let his physical discomfort fuel the umbrage in his voice. “You were told to set up shop and lie low,” he continued, “not—”

  A hand exploded from the darkness of the seat beside him, clutching Kraven by the throat and cutting off his tirade. A black-clad figure leaned toward Kraven, his narrowed eyes showing little patience with the soaking vampire’s histrionics.

  “Calm yourself, Kraven,” Lucian said. As always, his crest-shaped pendant glittered upon his chest; Kraven had never seen him without it.

  The lycan’s fingernails elongated, becoming razor-sharp claws digging into Kraven’s flesh. The vampire winced in pain, even as he tried unsuccessfully to yank his throat free from Lucian’s powerful grip. He struggled to speak but could scarcely breathe. Lucian tightened his grip, choking Kraven even harder.

  “The human doesn’t concern you,” the lycan said calmly, as though he weren’t throttling Kraven at this very moment. “And besides,” he added with a wolfish grin, “I believe I’ve lain low for quite long enough.”

  He released his grip at last. Gasping, Kraven fell backward against the padded back of his seat. He glared balefully at Lucian with blood-tinged eyes. Not for the first time, he rued ever entering into an alliance with this loathsome subhuman beast. Someday you’ll pay for this effrontery, he promised silently. Too much was at stake to jeopardize their grand endeavor now. But someday, and soon…

  Recovering his breath, he did what he could to reassert his dignity. “Keep your men at bay, Lucian. At least for the time being.” Lucian needed to be reminded that he was merely Kraven’s partner, not his superior. “Don’t force me to regret our arrangement.”

  Lucian chuckled, clearly unimpressed by Kraven’s bravado. His nails retracted back to human proportions as he subjected the petulant vampire to a withering stare. “You just concentrate on your part,” he instructed, his tone brooking no disagreement. “Remember, I’ve bled for you once already. Without me, you’d have nothing.” His fearless gray eyes dared Kraven to dispute him. He spoke slowly, underlining his words for emphasis.

  “You’d be… nothing.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The musty atmosphere of the archive hall felt heavy with the weight of ages. Dark oaken bookshelves sagged beneath countless volumes of forgotten lore and history. Illuminated manuscripts, painstakingly illustrated and copied by medieval monks, shared the overcrowded shelves with the abundant literary fruits of post-Gutenberg generations. Leather-bound memoirs, histories, and codexes were packed two deep in places or piled high upon the floor in tottering stacks that threatened to topple over at any minute. Dusty artifacts—souvenirs from bygone centuries—were scattered here and there among the copious written records: a ceremonial brass chalice from the thirteenth century, the curved scimitar of a long-dead Ottoman prince, an embossed silver plate
commemorating the epic Battle of Vezekeny in 1654, a filigreed golden scepter bearing the royal crest of Transylvania—all precious relics from nearly nine hundred years of vampiric history.

  Selene had the secluded library all to herself. No surprise there; Kraven and his hedonistic entourage were more interested in present pleasures than the accumulated debris of the past. Dust and cobwebs frosted the archaic tomes, testifying to how seldom the archive was visited by Ordoghaz’s sybaritic inhabitants. Even the manor’s myriad chambermaids seldom entered these cloistered chambers. As a rule, the servant girls had been selected more for their alluring faces and figures and compliant dispositions than for their diligence.

  Just as well, Selene thought. She had serious research to do and no desire to be interrupted. Her eyes scanned the bulging bookshelves, looking for the specific records she required. Still clad for battle, she stalked the library in her muddy leathers. Outside, the storm was still going strong. Rain pelted the library’s lancet windows, causing watery shadows to dance eerily upon the walls.

  Her gaze fell on the rectangular pine door of an inconspicuous closet, tucked between two looming oak bookcases. In truth, it had been at least seventy years since she had consulted these archives herself, but she dimly recalled that the chronicles covering the early decades of the war were kept in this long-abandoned closet. In theory, the information she sought would be there.

  She jiggled the antique crystal doorknob, only to find the closet door locked. Of course, she thought, scowling. Heaven only knew what had become of the key. Unwilling to be thwarted so quickly, she drew back her leg and—ka-boom!—kicked the obstinate door right off its hinges. Dusty light poured into the interior of the closet, exposing its contents for the first time in uncounted generations. Selene smiled as she spotted several dozen ponderous tomes, locked away behind a thick glass case just as she remembered.

  Eureka, she thought.

  The cabinet inside the closet was unlocked, sparing further vandalism, and Selene sifted through the enclosed volumes, peering closely at their timeworn spines and covers.

  Selecting four or five of the most promising candidates, she carried the heavy texts over to a Victorian-style maple table resting in the center of the library. She blew decades’ worth of dust off both the books and the table before sitting down to inspect the ancient chronicles.

  In an ideal world, she would peruse the texts at leisure, carefully reading each and every word. She sensed, however, that time was running out, so she flipped briskly but gently through the dry and crumbling pages, searching urgently for the answers she hungered for.

  Columns of intricate calligraphy were accompanied by faded etchings depicting scenes from the long crusade against the werewolves. At first, Selene nodded in approval at portraits of medieval Death Dealers riding to battle, the martial tableaux filling her undead heart with pride. Yet, as she continued to peruse the elaborately detailed woodcuts, she was disturbed to see several illustrations that more closely resembled massacres than honest warfare. Ghastly images, worthy of Dore, portrayed captive beast-men and -women (recognizable by their shaggy coats and canine paws) being tortured and burned at the stake by her armored ancestors. Half-human whelps were hurled like fuel onto the rising flames or else were crushed beneath the silver-shod hooves of the Death Dealers’ steeds, their childish proportions no protection against the merciless vampire warriors. Even over the gulf of centuries, the fear and anguish of the forsaken lycans came across loud and clear.

  Frowning, she turned the page, only to encounter an equally unsettling illustration that showed chained lycans, both male and female, being forced to their knees and branded like cattle. Leering Death Dealers, brandishing vicious pikes and crossbows, looked on as red-hot silver was applied to the unfortunate lycans, burning the emblems of their captors into their very flesh.

  “What are these?” Selene gasped out loud, recoiling from the grisly images. Ancient myths? Medieval propaganda?

  She ran her finger down the yellowing parchment, trying to find some explanation for the book’s unsettling illustrations. Her ivory brow furrowed as she struggled to decipher the adjacent text. Unfortunately, the scribbled chicken scratches appeared to be written in an archaic form of Magyar, which was somewhat beyond her abilities. She gazed in frustration at the tiny, indecipherable calligraphy, which was cleverly interlaced with rows of miniature sketches, which matched the brands being burned onto the flesh of the various howling lycans. Perhaps, she speculated, these pages constituted a catalog of the individual brands.

  Peering more closely at the mysterious symbols, she couldn’t help observing that although the brands varied slightly from illustration to illustration, they all had been designed around one of three ornate capital letters: V, A, or M.

  Just like the insignia on the tombs of the Elders.

  Viktor, Amelia, and Marcus.

  Despite her snug new leathers, a shiver passed through Selene. Her mind fleeing from the distressing implications of the medieval woodcuts, she put the incriminating tome aside and reached for a different book.

  To her relief, this book was written in simple Old English. Flipping through it, however, she discovered that many of the entries and illustrations had been blacked out with liberal applications of impenetrable India ink. Furthermore, dozens of pages appeared to have been torn out and discarded. She raised the book off the table and turned it over experimentally; none of the missing pages came falling out.

  Interesting, Selene thought, her suspicions aroused. Why had someone gone to such efforts to cover up the past? What dark secret was being concealed?

  Leafing through the plundered volume, she came across a portrait of a solitary male lycan, his lupine claws extended at his side. Intriguingly, the lycan’s face had been completely burned away, leaving a circular gap near the top of the etching.

  Selene examined the mutilated portrait more carefully. Visible on the faceless lycan’s right arm was an elaborate cattle brand incorporating a large capital V.

  V as in Viktor, she thought unwillingly.

  A charred caption beneath the portrait read: “Lucian, scourge of immortals, master of the lycan horde.”

  Selene smiled grimly. Now we’re getting somewhere, she thought. This was what she had been looking for.

  Beneath Lucian’s defaced portrait was another etching, depicting a heated battle between armed vampires and lycanthropes. Vampires armed with silver swords and crossbows took on a snarling pack of both humanoid and wolfen lycans, with each side inflicting grievous harm upon the other. Shrieking lycans, their bestial faces contorted in agony, were impaled three or four deep on the silver lances of vampiric cavalrymen, while elsewhere on the page, fully transformed werewolves tore unlucky vampires asunder with their dagger-sized fangs and claws. In the background, smoke and fire belched into the night sky from the mouths of several remote mountain caves. An overhanging moon, bearing the features of an outraged werewolf, looked down on the bloody scene with murder in its eyes.

  Selene recognized, from Kraven’s egocentric recountings if nothing else, the crucial Battle of the Alps. Her finger tracked across the gutter of the book to the adjoining page:

  “Of the scores of brave souls who ventured into Lucian’s infernal fortress, only a single vampire survived: Kraven of Leicester, who was richly rewarded not only for setting the great blaze but for returning with tangible proof of the lycan master’s demise: the branded skin, cut from Lucian’s arm.”

  At the bottom of the page was what appeared to be a piece of dried brown leather, folded neatly into a square. The “tangible proof” mentioned above? Wrinkling her nose in disgust, Selene carefully unfolded the paltry scrap of hide—to reveal the stylized letter V seared onto the fragment.

  She traced the brand with her fingertip, aware of the scrap’s historic significance. This was no mere scrap of leather, it was a swatch of skin cut from the flesh of a fallen lycan. Her gaze jumped back to the faceless portrait at the top of the opposite page
, comparing the brand on Lucian’s arm to the revolting fragment spread out before her.

  The marks were identical.

  How about that? she thought archly, uncertain whether to be relieved or disappointed that the archives confirmed Kraven’s account of having disposed of Lucian nearly six centuries ago, a momentous feat that had elevated Kraven instantly to the upper ranks of the coven. As much as she had hoped to catch Kraven in a lie, it was good to know that the infamous Lucian was indeed well and truly dead.

  Or was he?

  Staring again at Lucian’s burned-out portrait, Selene noticed a blackish smudge beneath the flaking hole where his face had been. Was there something beneath the ancient ashes? Wetting her fingertip, she gently rubbed away some of the loose charring, exposing a familiar-looking star-shaped pendant.

  Bloody hell! She instantly recalled the identical pendant worn by the unnamed lycan who had stabbed her in the shoulder, nearly killing her, yesterday night. I don’t believe it, she thought, dumbfounded by her discovery. Could that actually have been… Lucian?

  If so, then Kraven’s slip of the tongue earlier had been even more revelatory than she had feared—and her people’s greatest enemy was still alive and well.

  She slammed the book shut, her every nerve vibrating with alarm. She needed to do something, tell someone, before it was too late. Lucian, lord of the werewolves, was aprowl in the night—and he was after Michael!

  She lurched out of her chair and whirled toward the exit. To her surprise, she found the ubiquitous Erika standing in the doorway. Again? Selene thought impatiently. I need to fasten a bell to this inquisitive little domestic.

  “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” the blond servant vamp explained, sounding a trifle put out. She glanced around the musty archive hall with disdain, as though no vampiress in her right mind would frequent such a tedious locale.

  So what else is new? Selene thought in response to Erika’s complaint. “Not now,” she said brusquely If Lucian were back and plotting against her coven, then appeasing Erika was the least of Selene’s concerns.