01 - Underworld

by Greg Cox

  Selene stands before a foggy bathroom mirror, unintentionally echoing her pose from that night long past. Her dark brown hair is freshly wet from a shower. A dark indigo bathrobe partially conceals her moist, alabaster flesh…

  Three frenzied werewolves, their misshapen bodies bristling with pitch-black fur, charge down a dingy corridor faintly illuminated by sputtering electrical lights. Their yellowed fangs glint sharply beneath the fluorescent glow. Spume drips from the corners of their gaping jaws…

  Selene and Kraven argue heatedly in a palatial suite. Their eternally youthful faces radiate extreme emotion and mutual contempt. Kraven raises his hand, which smacks against her ivory cheek like the lash of an angry whip …

  Back before her mirror, Selene writes Viktor’s name across the befogged looking glass…

  The disjointed memories flickered and warped as they paraded frenetically across his consciousness. Waking slowly, he attempted to make sense of the confused images, but the kaleidoscopic barrage of visions defied his control.

  As Selene looks on with disdain, Kraven presides over a sanguinary orgy in the grand salon. Supple vampiresses, in various states of dishabille, offer their exposed throats and breasts to Kraven, who greedily partakes of the proffered white flesh and crimson refreshment. A surfeit of blood trickles down his chin, staining his ruffled white tunic, as his sybaritic acolytes couple, triple, and even quadruple with abandon, turning the elegant salon into a scene of wanton debauchery.

  Discarded items of clothing, fashionably expensive and otherwise, litter the floor. Thirsty mouths seek out willing veins, so that every square centimeter of naked flesh receives the razor-sharp kiss of striking fangs. The collective essence of the cavorting vampires circulates through their intertwined bodies like the bloodstream of a single vast organism. Human slaves and initiates, imported at great expense from Budapest and beyond, season the licentious repast, adding an infusion of mortal heat to the cold-blooded sensuality of the undead. Slurping and sucking noises pervade the scene, punctuated by ecstatic grunts and moans…

  The voluptuous images stirred his own sluggish blood, but the choppy cascade of memories swiftly moved on, its relentless current carrying him elsewhere.

  A human youth, his hair and clothing drenched as from a heavy rain, rides an escalator down to a crowded subway platform…

  Viktor’s own body lies upon a padded bier, his undying flesh mummified by his long interment beneath the mansion…

  A woman’s wrist—Selene’s—bleeds above the open bowl of the catalyst drip, beginning the time-honored process by which she shares her turbulent memories with the body upon the slab…

  Enough. He froze the bleeding wrist within his mind. Exerting his returning powers of concentration, he halted the flood of fractured memories, then turned back the stream so that the preceding images zoomed by fleetly in reverse. He scanned Selene’s jumbled recollections, maintaining tight control over the visions, until he found the moment he sought, the one she had clearly wished him to experience.

  She stands once more before her bathroom mirror, entreating her reflection with anxious eyes. “Please forgive me,” she says solemnly, “but I desperately need your guidance. I apologize for breaking the chain and awakening you ahead of schedule, but I fear we may all be in grave danger. Especially you, my lord, if left in your weakened state, for I believe the fearsome Lucian is alive and well. Here. Now. In this very city, preparing to strike out at us during the Awakening.” She swallowed hard, visibly troubled by this unnerving prospect, before speaking again. “Even more disturbing is the realization that, if I am correct in my suspicions, Kraven himself is in league with our greatest enemy.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  His face locked in a frozen scowl, Soren approached the security booth outside the crypt. Kraven had instructed him to make sure the Elders remained undisturbed, and Soren intended to take no chances.

  His already sullen expression darkened as he saw that the enclosed booth was conspicuously empty. Where is the guard? he wondered right away, instinctively reaching for the 9mm P7 pistol holstered at his hip. I don’t like the look of this.

  Eyes wary, he entered the booth. His meaty finger stabbed a button on the control panel, and he watched impatiently as the adjacent wall split in half, exposing the crypt itself to view. Peering through the thick transparent glass, he was both relieved and surprised to see that the crypt appeared undisturbed. The three bronze hatches marking the Elders’ tombs rested securely in place, just as they had for very nearly a century.

  Puzzled, he looked around the booth, detecting no evidence of a struggle. Perhaps the missing guard was simply shirking his duties, slipping away to enjoy a furtive tryst with one of the servant girls?

  Soren sneered scornfully. Kraven would have the guard’s hide for this breach of security, if Kahn didn’t get to him first. Not that it much mattered, Soren realized; after tomorrow night, everything would be different. And protecting the Elders no longer would be a cause for concern.

  Her back pressed tightly against the cold stone walls of the crypt, Selene hid in the shadows just outside the circle of illumination cast by the soft halogen lights. She could see Soren prowling about the security booth, but, with luck, he wouldn’t spot her, especially since the crypt appeared undisturbed. Thank heaven that she had returned the elevated slab and the bronze hatch to their usual locations before Soren arrived! Being surprised by Duncan would have been bad enough; the very last thing she needed was to be caught red-handed by Kraven’s personal pit bull.

  There would be time enough to face the consequences of her drastic actions. For now, she had no desire to justify her decision to Kraven and his thugs. I will answer to Viktor himself when the moment of reckoning comes.

  She held her breath while Soren stared suspiciously at the silent crypt. Would he discover her after all? Grueling, seconds dragged on interminably until the ageless janissary finally turned away from the glass. He pressed a button on the control panel and a set of opaque faux-stone doors slid shut, hiding the interior of the crypt from view.

  Selene expelled a sigh of relief. That was a close one, she realized. She wondered how long she would have to hide in the shadows before it was safe to slip out of the crypt.

  It was, she conceded, a rather too apt situation for a vampire to be in.

  * * *

  Something stinks, Soren thought metaphorically. Even though there was no sign of any intruder, aside from the unexplained absence of the guard, the seasoned bodyguard remained on edge. Instincts honed over generations of service to the coven and its masters told him that there was trouble afoot. Vague misgivings nagged at his mind like the gnawing of phantom wolves. Perhaps I should search the crypt by foot?

  He reached for the control panel, intending to unlock the entrance to the crypt, only to be distracted by what he witnessed on one of the booths numerous surveillance monitors.

  A taxi, of the sort routinely seen on the streets of Budapest, had pulled into the driveway outside the mansion’s front gate. “What the devil?” he snarled. Amelia and her entourage were not expected until tomorrow night at the earliest, so who the hell was this unexpected visitor?

  The crypt forgotten, Soren hastily tugged out his cell phone. Kraven needed to know about this—ASAP.

  “This is it,” Michael croaked hoarsely to the cab driver, confirming that they had reached the correct destination. The stolid Armenian cabbie eyed Michael doubtfully in his rear-view mirror. He looked all too eager to unload his pale and disheveled American passenger.

  Michael couldn’t blame him. I must look like a mess, he realized, collapsed against the back seat of the cab. The rain earlier had washed most of the sludge and blood from his jacket and pants, but Michael still felt badly in need of a shower, among other things. His skin was clammy and slick with perspiration beneath his torn and rumpled attire. His head felt as if a scalpel were jabbing into his brain, and painful spasms periodically wrenched his insides, causing him to clutch
his stomach while groaning out loud. Feverish and light-headed, he forced himself to sit up and thrust a wad of pinkish-blue bills at the driver. He was probably overtipping the man egregiously, but Michael didn’t have the strength or the mental acuity to calculate the proper amount.

  “Thanks for the ride,” he said weakly. His breath came in halting pants as he laboriously climbed out of the taxi. The cabbie nodded brusquely, then wasted no time turning the yellow sedan around and accelerating back toward the main road, as if he couldn’t wait to leave both Michael and the mansion behind.

  Wonder if he knows something I don’t, Michael thought, watching the taxi’s taillights disappear into the night, the fleeing cab trailing streamers of reflected yellow light over the rain-soaked asphalt. Tonight’s nonstop deluge mercifully had faded to a slight drizzle, but Michael’s damp sneakers squished noisily as he reluctantly turned away from the outer limits of the driveway toward the forbidding cast-iron gates directly in front of him.

  Beyond the high spiked fence, the mysterious mansion loomed ominously, its Gothic turrets and battlements stabbing upward at the lightening night sky. Sharply pointed, arches and gables added to the manor’s daunting fa�ade. It looked like something out of Dark Shadows, he thought, or maybe The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

  A layer of heavy fog blanketed the lawn outside the mansion. Michael remembered running for his life across that very same lawn earlier tonight—had that really been only hours ago?—and wondered for the umpteenth time if he was making a terrible mistake coming back to the mansion of his own free will. Baying Rottweilers, their jaws snapping at his heels, surged out of his memory, along with a hissing blonde glued inexplicably to the ceiling.

  Michael shuddered, unable to tell if it was fear or sickness that left his body trembling. There’s no turning back now, he reminded himself bleakly as he staggered toward the gate. The waxing moon peeked through the cloudy night sky, so blinding in its intensity that Michael could not look at it directly. Its incandescent silver glow felt hot upon his face and hands. Every hair on his body rose as though electrified by the vibrant moonlight.

  Please, Selene! he thought desperately, unable to fathom the volcanic convulsions racking his mind and body. Please be there for me! The enigmatic, dark-haired beauty was the only person he knew who might be able to explain this waking nightmare—and help him find a way out of it.

  If there was a way.

  A gaggle of excited servant girls following in his wake, Kraven stormed into the viewing chamber. He ignored the mindless whisperings of Erika and her ilk, concerned instead with finding out why Soren had summoned him from upstairs. It’s nearly four am., he fumed silently. I had hoped to retire for the morning soon.

  After all, he had an important night tomorrow.

  Soren spied him through the two-way mirror and quickly activated the automatic doorway, admitting Kraven to the security booth. The lord of the manor casually noted the absence of the usual guard but failed to see what might warrant his own presence in this morbid locale. “Well?” he demanded crossly. “What is so pressing?”

  Soren simply pointed at one of the black-and-white monitors mounted above the control panel. Kraven blinked in surprise at the sight of an unusually bedraggled-looking human male, perhaps twenty-five years old, peering stupidly into the security camera at the front gate. Who? Kraven wondered in confusion. The face looked vaguely familiar, but the vampire regent felt certain that he had never met this mortal before.

  What brings him to our door? Kraven frowned unhappily. The timing of the stranger’s arrival, less than twenty-four hours before the Awakening, was singularly inauspicious. Why here? he worried. Why now?

  The vaulted sanctity of the viewing chamber was packed with chattering maidservants, competing to get a better glimpse of what was happening in the security booth. Selene took advantage of the commotion to slip unnoticed out of the crypt into the crowded chamber outside.

  Her midnight-black fighting gear contrasted sharply with the flimsy frilly uniforms of the tittering servant girls, yet all eyes remained fixed on Kraven and his surly janissary, allowing Selene to join the scene unnoticed, at least for the moment. What’s this all about? she thought, puzzled and concerned by Kraven’s abrupt visitation. As far as she knew, her tampering with Viktor’s tomb remained undetected, but why else would Soren have alerted his heinous master?

  Part of her was tempted not to look a gift distraction in the mouth. Just get out of here, she urged herself sensibly, before Kraven finds out what you’ve done. Another part of her, however, driven by an intuitive conviction that whatever was happening was vitally important, compelled her to edge slowly toward the open doorway to the security station. She shouldered her way through the clustered female domestics until only the ubiquitous Erika stood between her and the entrance to the booth. Selene crept up behind the young blond vampiress, straining to see what exactly had Soren and Kraven up in arms.

  Kraven almost never visits the crypt, she recalled. Doubtless, he disliked any reminder that he ruled the mansion only as Viktor’s surrogate. So what has lured him down here?

  But before she could catch a glimpse of the relevant security monitor, a distraught voice crackled over the loudspeaker in the booth:

  “Let me speak with Selene!”

  Her eyes widened in alarm. Hoarse and ragged though it was, she instantly recognized Michael’s voice. Bloody hell! Whatever possessed him to come back here?

  Shoving Erika aside, she rushed into the security booth, where her horrified eyes rapidly confirmed what her ears already had told her. There was Michael, staring forlornly at her from the monitor. To her dismay, she saw that he looked even more sick and panic-stricken than he had been many hours ago.

  “He’s been bitten, your human.” Erika’s shocking warning, delivered hours ago in the archive hall, flashed unwanted across Selene’s mind. “He’s been marked by a lycan.”

  Could it be true? Had Michael been infected with Lucian’s foul contagion?

  Kraven gave her no time to react. Quickly putting two and two together, he whirled around to confront her. His face was livid with rage, and he shook an accusing finger at the monitor. Descending raindrops streaked the image on the screen, like tears running down the human’s face. “Is that Michael?”

  The only good thing about Kraven’s jealous pique was that it never occurred to him to question what Selene was doing outside the crypt. Ignoring his outburst, she reached out and adjusted a digital WebCam mounted atop the control panel, turning the unblinking eye of the camera toward her.

  “Is it Michael!” Kraven demanded, his voice rising to an intemperate pitch.

  Of course it is, she thought acerbically. The real question was what she would do now.

  Shivering in the cold, Michael stood in front of the remote-operated security camera, marching in place in a vain attempt to keep warm. The swirling gray fog seemed to soak into the very marrow of his bones, chilling him utterly, while he waited for somebody inside the mansion to notice he was there. Preferably, a certain gun-toting femme fatale of uncertain origin and intentions.

  Selene.

  She was named after the moon, he suddenly realized, and appropriately so. Like that shimmering lunar orb, she seemed to exert an almost tidal pull upon his mind and body, drawing him here despite his better judgment, holding him in place outside the last place on earth he ever wanted to come back to.

  How long am I going to stand out here, freezing my butt off? He hugged himself tightly, trying to keep his last vestiges of body heat from seeping out into the mist. Despite his impatience, he knew that he wasn’t going anywhere until he found out whether Selene was somewhere inside the spooky stone edifice on the other side of the locked iron gates. Great, he thought sarcastically. Now I’m a fugitive and a stalker.

  A blank electronic monitor above the camera flared to life abruptly, setting his heart racing. His bleary eyes snapped open as Selene’s luminous features appeared on the monitor. Thank God! he
thought, lunging toward the elevated camera. His shaking finger poked the talk button on the intercom.

  “I need to talk to you!” he shouted frantically into the speaker. A faint spark of hope flickered within him. “What the hell is going on? What’s happening to me!”

  Selene leaned across the control panel toward the intercom. She pressed down on a button. “I’ll be right out,” she promised tersely.

  There was no time even to try to answer any of Michael’s anguished questions. She knew his life depended on getting him away from Ordoghaz as quickly as possible. Even if Erika were wrong, and Michael wasn’t becoming a lycanthrope, Kraven’s insane jealousy placed the unsuspecting human in mortal danger.

  “If you go to him,” Kraven warned, drawing himself up like a rooster puffing out its chest, “by God, you’ll never be welcomed in this house again!”

  Turning away from the control panel, Selene could not resist giving him a nasty surprise. “Now that Viktor’s awake,” she stated, looking Kraven dead in the eye, “he’ll have something to say about that.”

  The horror-stricken look on his face was priceless. For the first time in perhaps six hundred years, Kraven had been rendered speechless. Stunned mystification caused his eyes to bulge.

  Selene didn’t wait for the dumbfounded regent to recover from his shock. She swept out the door of the security booth, passing Erika, who was fluttering right outside the exit, observing the unfolding drama with eyes agog. The servant girl’s jaw dropped as Selene plowed like an icebreaker through the flock of vampire maids. “Wait!” Erika called after the other woman. “What are you doing?”

  The only answer she received was the echoing ring of Selene’s bootsteps as the female Death Dealer disappeared down the marble corridor. Has Kraven checked the crypt yet? Selene wondered maliciously. Or is he still working up his nerve?