01 - Underworld

by Greg Cox

  Too bad she couldn’t stay to find out.

  The iron gates slid open automatically and a dark gray sedan came screeching out into the driveway. Selene wasn’t kidding, Michael realized, when she said she would be right out; less than five minutes had passed since she’d vanished from the monitor screen.

  She flung the passenger door open. “Get in!” she snapped with an urgency that scared the hell out of him.

  Michael couldn’t help remembering that the last time he had gotten into a car with this woman, he had almost ended up at the bottom of the Danube. This is what I came here for, he reminded himself. He glanced uncertainly at the foreboding mansion. Isn’t it?

  Gulping, he climbed into the car.

  Viktor… awake?

  Kraven couldn’t believe his ears. She can’t be serious, he thought desperately She must have been joking.

  Not that Selene had ever been known for a puckish sense of humor.

  The agitated regent dispatched Soren to find the security booth’s missing guardian, then charged out of the control room toward the crypt itself. He was terrified of what he might find but unable to live with the uncertainty for a heartbeat longer. The chill, ultra-air-conditioned climate of the sunken chamber matched the icy dread clutching his heart as his fearful eyes searched for the bronze plate marking Viktor’s buried tomb.

  There! Thank the Fates! Relief washed over him like a soothing bloodbath as he saw that the inscribed hatch remained in place above his master’s sarcophagus. Looking closer, he noted that Marcus’ tomb appeared undisturbed as well, as did the now-vacant repository awaiting Amelia. All is well, he concluded, taking a moment to compose himself. He took a deep breath, then released it slowly. Selene had merely been playing with his head, the deceitful bitch!

  He turned to exit the crypt, his mind already devising the diabolical punishments he would inflict on Selene if she ever dared to show her duplicitous face at the manor again, and he was startled to find a jittery blond servant girl standing behind him. Her elfin face was wan, even by vampire standards, and she trembled nervously, as though an entire pack of werewolves were salivating over her dainty flesh. Panicked violet orbs looked up at him.

  Now what? he wondered irritably.

  “I warned her,” she blurted breathlessly, the words spilling over her lips in a torrent. “I warned her, but she wouldn’t listen. She never listens—to anybody.” Kraven assumed she was referring to Selene. “I’m sorry, I should’ve told you sooner. I should’ve—”

  Kraven’s ears perked up suspiciously. “Told me what?”

  “Her human. Michael.” She cringed as she spoke, dipping her head toward her shoulders. “He’s not a human at all. He’s a lycan.”

  His newly regained composure evaporated in an instant, as the little handmaiden’s appalling revelation set his temper ablaze. Blood reddened his eyes and face, while swollen veins pulsed violently at his temples. The servant girl backed away tremulously, anticipating the storm to come.

  “WHAT?” he roared like an aggrieved lion, unaware that only a few meters away in the darkened recovery chamber, ancient ears heard his bellowing cry—and listened attentively.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The dark Hungarian woods zipped past the sedan’s windows in a blur as Selene kept her foot on the gas pedal. Spinning tires sent a whirlwind of fallen leaves swirling behind them, recklessly swooping and rising above the rain-slick asphalt. Her fingers tightly gripped the steering wheel as the female vampire drove through the night like a bat out of hell, although the irony was largely lost on her.

  “Look,” she said forcefully, her intense brown eyes never leaving the road, “you can never go there again. Never. They’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

  “Kill me?” The strident confusion in Michael’s voice testified that he very clearly did not have a clue. “Who the hell are you people?”

  Where to begin? she wondered, unsure how much or how little she should share with the agitated mortal—if he even was a mortal. Risking a glance to her left, she spotted the gashes in Michael’s jacket above his right shoulder. Oh, hell, she thought, her heart sinking. Please don’t let that mean what I think it does.

  Letting go of the wheel with one hand, she reached out and roughly yanked his jacket and T-shirt off his shoulder, exposing a red-stained bandage underneath. Her fingers dug beneath the bloody gauze and impatiently ripped the bandage from Michael’s naked shoulder.

  “Hey!” he yelped in surprise, but Selene wasn’t listening. All her attention was focused on the ugly wound, which now consisted of a crusty scab sprouting several dark black hairs. No! she thought in despair, the sight of the scar hitting her like a blast of sunlight. Although the mark was already healing, there was no mistaking the savage bite of a lycanthrope.

  Erika had been telling the truth. Michael was becoming one of them.

  Selene slammed her fist into the dashboard, cracking the hard molded plastic. It’s not fair! she thought angrily. Not him! Not Michael!

  He stared at her, uncomprehending. The baffled innocence in his naive American face nearly broke her heart.

  What the hell have I gotten myself into? The sedan accelerated through the nocturnal countryside, zooming at breakneck speed toward Budapest—and a future she couldn’t even bear to imagine.

  Now what do I do?

  Deep within the crypt, Kraven was beside himself. “How could she choose a mangy lycan dog over me?” he ranted. The very thought of them together made his cold blood boil. “It’s… inconceivable!”

  He angrily turned on the shapely blond bearer of this highly upsetting news. “Wait,” he said, a hopeful thought striking him. He peered suspiciously at the cowering servant girl, who, if memory served, was named Erika. “You’re the jealous one, aren’t you?”

  Perhaps this was merely a clumsy, not to mention tasteless, attempt to divert his affections from Selene?

  Alas, the silly little vamp reacted with horror to his implied accusation. “No! I swear, my lord, I would never lie to you!”

  Sadly, Kraven believed her, which left him no choice but to accept the obscene reality of Selene’s treacherous liaison with a lycan, of all creatures. This time she’s gone too far, he thought vindictively. Death Dealer or not, no vampire could be allowed to fraternize shamelessly with the enemy.

  Except for his secret alliance with Lucian, of course.

  He moved to leave the crypt, only to be halted in his tracks by a dry, whispery voice that emerged unexpectedly from the shadows at the rear of the subterranean chamber.

  “What is this tumult?” the voice demanded.

  Kraven’s blood froze. No, it cannot be! In his justifiable fury over Selene’s criminal behavior, he had completely forgotten about her parting remark concerning Viktor. I had thought her words nothing more than an empty taunt.

  Both he and Erika looked toward the voice, which seemed to emanate from the darkened recovery chamber. Kraven swallowed hard as a skeletal figure shuffled from the back of the chamber toward the clear plexiglass wall dividing the recovery unit from the crypt itself. An involuntary gasp escaped the servant girl at the grotesque sight before them.

  Viktor, an elegant silk robe draped over his emaciated frame, looked back at them from behind the transparent barrier. Cold white eyes, like polished quartz, peered intensely from the murky hollows of his sockets. His mummified face held a cool, imperious expression. An intricate network of IV tubing rose from Viktor’s neck and shoulders, connecting him to a lighted overhead feeding mechanism, so that he resembled a demonic marionette. Bright arterial blood flowed down the intravenous tubes, nourishing and restoring the newly risen Elder.

  This is all wrong! Kraven protested inwardly, seeing his carefully crafted designs unravel before his eyes. Viktor was supposed to be safely interred in the earth right now, not up and about on the very eve of Kraven’s greatest victory! Can the plan still be saved, he wondered anxiously, or has all my bold and meticulous scheming come to naught?
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br />   Erika dropped to her knees beside Kraven, reminding him to do the same. His mind in a whirl, his glorious future suddenly cast into uncertainty, the terrified vampire lord knelt before his dark master.

  Michael held on tightly to the door of the sedan as Selene drove at top speed along the rain-soaked highway. A dented metal sign announced that they were only thirty kilometers from Budapest, but Michael was too busy listening to Selene to pay much attention to their progress.

  “Whether you like it or not,” she said grimly, “you’re in the middle of a covert war that has been raging for the better part of a thousand years… a blood feud between vampires and lycans.”

  Michael wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly. “Vampires and… what?”

  “Werewolves,” she added, noting his disoriented expression. “Lycanthropes.”

  Michael’s jaw dropped. Are you kidding me? he thought in shocked disbelief. Vampires and werewolves? What did she think this was, some dopey horror movie? This is the twenty-first century, for crissakes, not the Dark Ages!

  Despite his skepticism, bizarre memories from the last forty-eight hours flashed through his brain.

  That blond girl at the mansion, sticking to the ceiling while she hissed at him through sharp white fangs…

  The stranger in the elevator, sinking his teeth into Michael’s shoulder…

  The ceiling of his apartment building, shedding chunks of plaster as three unseen creatures landed heavily on the roof above…

  The bloodcurdling roar of an unearthly beast…

  “No!” Michael blurted, shaking his head. This was impossible. There were no such things as vampires or werewolves, except among deluded psychopaths and blood fetishists. Maybe that’s what’s going on, he thought feverishly, struggling to find a rational context for what Selene was saying. This could be some sort of cult thing, maybe even a gang war between two rival sects.

  “Believe what you want,” Selene said, discerning the doubt in his eyes. She raked her gaze across his pale, perspiring features. “Consider yourself lucky. Most humans die within an hour of being bitten by an immortal. The virus we transmit is extremely lethal.”

  Don’t talk to me about viruses! he thought. I’m a doctor. I know this is bullshit! Selene didn’t look like any sort of werewolf he’d ever heard of, so he guessed she considered herself a vampire. “And if you bit me, I suppose, what? I’d become a vampire myself?”

  “No!” she said sharply, his sarcastic tone eliciting an impatient scowl. “You’d be dead. No one has ever survived a bite from both species—and, unfortunately, the lycans got to you first.” She shook her head at her own reckless folly. “By rights, I should stop the car and kill you right here and now!”

  Michael gulped. Vampire or not, he knew from experience just how dangerous this woman could be. “Then why are you helping me?” he asked hesitantly.

  “I’m not!” she insisted, perhaps a tad too vigorously. “I track you down and kill your kind! I’m a Death Dealer! It’s my duty.” She stared fixedly at the winding road ahead, making a point of not looking at him. “My only interest is finding out why Lucian wants you so badly.”

  Death Dealer? Lucian? This was getting more confusing—and insane—by the minute. Michael slumped back against his seat, overwhelmed by an “explanation” that made no sense whatsoever. Raising his free hand, he fingered the swollen bump on his forehead, a painful souvenir of the last time he went driving with Selene. Maybe I was wrong to come looking for her, he second-guessed himself. Maybe she’s psychologically disturbed.

  But what if she were telling the truth?

  Head bowed, Erika rose and quietly tiptoed out of the crypt, leaving Kraven alone with Viktor. He barely noticed her leave, too perturbed by his dread master’s untimely resurrection to pay heed to anything else. Was Soren still waiting in the security booth? It mattered little; no bodyguard on earth could spare Kraven from Viktor’s wrath should the Elder find fault with his trembling regent.

  Damn you, Selene, Kraven thought. What have you done?

  “Do you know why I have been awakened, my servant?” Viktor asked. His voice was a dry rustle, creaking from petrified vocal cords that had lain silent for nearly a century.

  “No, my lord,” Kraven answered. Kneeling, he stared meekly at the floor, unable to meet his master’s smoldering, all-white eyes. “But I will soon find out.”

  Viktor gestured for Kraven to rise. “You mean when you find her.”

  Then Viktor knew that Selene was responsible for his awakening? “Yes, my lord,” Kraven said quickly, praying that the faithless Selene, and not himself, would incur the Elder’s displeasure. “I give you my word that she shall be found!”

  Viktor nodded thoughtfully. Calcified joints cracked and popped. “You will let her come to me,” he decreed. “We have much to discuss, Selene and I. She has shown me a great many disturbing things.” An ominous tone entered his bone-dry voice. “Things that will be dealt with soon enough.”

  Kraven quailed before the gaze of the reanimated Elder. What did Viktor mean? What had Selene shown him? For an instant, Kraven felt certain that Viktor knew everything: the alliance with Lucian, the plans for tomorrow night, everything. He shuddered at the thought. Death would be mercy if Viktor had even a glimmer of Kraven’s true ambitions. More likely, Kraven would be doomed to an eternity of unceasing torture for merely daring to contemplate such an unprecedented offense.

  It took all his courage not to run fleeing from the crypt this very moment. Kraven felt his resolve waning perceptibly as he forced himself to remain in Viktor’s presence, while the skeletal Elder subjected him to a withering stare. Viktor stepped closer to the plexiglass divider, and Kraven clenched every bone and muscle in his body in order to remain stiffly at attention. His face became a rigid mask, betraying nothing.

  “This coven has grown weak… decadent,” Viktor pronounced, as though Kraven’s harmless (albeit numerous) indulgences were written in scarlet upon the younger vampire’s face and figure. Kraven felt like Dorian Gray, confronted by the incriminating lineaments of his notorious portrait. “Perhaps,” Viktor continued, “I should have left someone else in charge of my affairs.”

  Once again, Kraven wondered what exactly Selene had managed to communicate to the newly roused Elder. A flicker of resentment helped to melt a bit of the icy dread oppressing his spirit. Just one more night, he thought maliciously, and Viktor’s opinion of my abilities would have been academic! Kraven kept his secret agenda hidden deep within the most clandestine chambers of his immortal heart. Perhaps there was still a chance for success, despite the Elder’s premature awakening?

  Taking a closer look at the unsightly creature before him, Kraven saw that the mighty Viktor was, in fact, still recovering from his prolonged period of hibernation. He tottered momentarily upon his withered legs and raised a bony hand to his brow as he closed his eyes and squinted in discomfort, as if pained by the turbulent impressions within his ageless skull. “Still,” Viktor conceded solemnly, “Selene’s memories are… chaotic, with no sense of time or sequence.”

  “Then, please, my lord,” Kraven asserted, encouraged by Viktor’s fleeting signs of weakness, “allow me to summon assistance.”

  It would not be long, he knew, before Viktor was entirely himself again, but Kraven intended to make the most of the Elder’s brief period of recovery. Just one more night, he thought again. That’s all I—and Lucian—need. Then Viktor and his fellow Elders would regret underestimating Kraven of Leicester! “Heed me, my lord. You are greatly in need of rest.”

  Dry, papery eyelids peeled open. “I’ve rested enough,” Viktor declared. “What you can do is summon Marcus. It is time I was made aware of matters as they stand.”

  Kraven gazed at the Elder, aghast. By God, he does not comprehend what has truly occurred. The dark-haired vampire’s freshly restored confidence wilted at the daunting prospect of explaining to Viktor the full enormity of Selene’s unspeakable transgression. Please remember,
my master, he thought timorously, Selene is to blame, not I!

  His mouth nearly as dry as his mummified sire’s, Kraven pointed toward Marcus’ tomb. “But… he still slumbers, my lord.”

  Viktor’s pallid cranium drew back like a cobra’s. His sunken eyes widened alarmingly, then began to burn with malignant fire. His lipless mouth turned downward in a macabre grimace. Exposed fangs gnashed angrily.

  Frightened by Viktor’s growing fury, Kraven stepped back across the floor of the crypt. He hastened to finish his explanation, before the Elder’s simmering temper exploded at the nearest living target, namely Kraven himself.

  “Amelia and the council members are scheduled to arrive here tomorrow night… to awaken Marcus, not you.”

  Wordless rage contorted Viktor’s hideous countenance, turning his death’s-head visage into that of a vengeful demon. Kraven stumbled backward, averting his eyes from the wrathful Elder as he nervously spelled out the entire wretched situation: “You’ve been awakened a full century ahead of schedule.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kraven felt as if he’d been drained by an entire coven of voracious she-vampires when he finally staggered out of the unquiet crypt. Thank Providence! he thought shakily, both relieved and surprised that he actually had survived his nerve-jangling encounter with Viktor. He had forgotten just how menacing his sire could be.

  Ultimately, the autocratic Elder had merely dismissed Kraven from his presence, the better to ponder matters in private. Kraven was delighted to accommodate Viktor in this regard and drew some small comfort from the fact that, for the time being, the newly awakened Elder was confined to the circumscribed borders of the recovery chamber. He knew better, however, than to think that Viktor would languish in the gloomy bowels of the mansion for long. Viktor would rise from the crypt, in full possession of his former strength and majesty, soon enough.