01 - Underworld

by Greg Cox

  The closet was dark and unlit, but Erika could see easily in the gloom. Opening a metal panel, she reached inside and laid a small white hand upon a switch. At the last minute, she hesitated, holding her breath as she reconsidered her reckless scheme. Was she really going to do this?

  Hell, yes! she thought indignantly, and threw the switch.

  In the recovery chamber, deep within the bowels of the mansion, Viktor reclined upon a large white chair, whose grandiose dimensions gave it the appearance of a throne. He rested motionlessly as his famished body soaked up a revitalizing infusion of fresh human blood. The intricate life-support apparatus hummed and gurgled in the background, while the soft halogen lights exposed a chalky white figure noticeably less cadaverous than before.

  As the blood nourished him, Viktor considered the unusual—indeed, unprecedented—circumstances surrounding his premature resurrection. Selene’s obscene betrayal was disappointing enough, yet he had grave doubts regarding Kraven as well. Clearly, he and Amelia would have much to discuss when his fellow Elder arrived at the mansion later this evening.

  And then, he silently resolved, there will be changes made.

  Without warning, the lights went out, interrupting his chain of thought. Even with his eyes closed, the sudden blackness was too jarring to overlook. An emergency siren went off, signaling a breach in the mansion’s security.

  Viktor’s eyes snapped open, exposing their colorless, inhuman whites. By the Ancestor, he raged, is there no end to this chaos?

  The lights blinked off all over the mansion, from the crypt to the dojo, where, several floors above the recovery chamber, Kahn looked up in surprise at the unexpected blackout. Red-tinted security lights switched on as emergency backups kicked in, throwing a lurid scarlet glow over the training area. Kahn saw his assembled Death Dealers looking about in confusion; the mansion had never come under attack within the memory of even the oldest immortal.

  What the devil?

  * * *

  The ear-piercing alarm continued to shriek as Selene ran back to her window. Peering downward, she saw Soren’s guards go scrambling toward the other side of the estate, guns drawn.

  Her undead heart beat faster. She had no idea what the source of the disturbance was, but she knew that this was her chance. Perhaps she still could get to Michael before he started changing?

  Before she could react, however, the door banged open, and Erika came rushing into the suite. Glancing past the uninvited servant girl, Selene saw that the guards posted outside the door had disappeared as well, no doubt joining their comrades to investigate whatever had triggered the alarm. Better and better, the captive Death Dealer thought, not inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  But first there was Erika to deal with. Without a word of explanation, the blond vampiress tossed Selene a bulging nylon pouch. She swiftly unzipped the bag and was surprised to discover a pair of Berettas inside.

  Confused but grateful, she directed a quizzical look at Erika. Up until now, Selene had judged the pert young maidservant to be thoroughly in Kraven’s thrall. “Why are you helping me?”

  Erika rolled her eyes, as if amazed that Selene didn’t get it. “I’m not,” she stated emphatically. “I’m helping me.”

  Whatever, Selene decided. The servant girl’s personal agenda was the least of her concerns. She smiled appreciatively as Erika threw her a set of car keys, a strange mixture of fear and exhilaration washing over the younger vampiress’ face.

  There was still an empty gap in the window where Michael had dived through it only the night before. Following his lead, Selene dashed to the open window and leaped over the edge.

  Hang on, Michael! she thought anxiously, even as the soles of her boots touched down on the damp lawn. I’m on my way!

  Singe had almost nodded off behind the wheel of the van when his keen ears picked up the sound of the mansion’s gates sliding open. He looked up in time to see that same gray sedan come rocketing out of the manor’s driveway, throwing up a spray of gravel as it took a sharp turn onto the road leading back to the city. A familiar dark-haired vampiress occupied the driver’s seat.

  Selene.

  The lycan scientist immediately went into action, firing up the engine of the slumbering van. After having spent the entire day staked out across from the vampires’ lair, he was not about to lose track of his quarry now. There had been nobody else in the car with Selene, at least not that he could see, but perhaps she was even now racing back to Michael Corvin’s side.

  Not without me, you’re not, he resolved. The lycan gunmen in the back of the van grunted in protest as the van executed an abrupt U-turn and took off speeding down the road after the gray sedan.

  The wailing alarm screamed in Kraven’s ears and gnawed on his nerves as he burst from the privacy of his suite into the hall outside. Kahn and several tense-looking Death Dealers came racing down the darkened corridor, the incandescent beams of their flashlights raking the walls. The leather-clad warriors seemed to be in full-blown panic mode. Not a good sign.

  “What’s going on?” Kraven demanded. As far as he knew, the present upset had nothing to do with his and Lucian’s plans for tonight, unless perhaps the nefarious lycan commander had double-crossed him?

  An icy chill ran down his spine at the very idea.

  Kahn hastily answered Kraven. “The perimeter sensor’s been tripped!” he explained, clutching a loaded automatic rifle. “We’re locking down the mansion!”

  But it’s too early, Kraven thought in alarm. I haven’t lowered our defenses yet!

  The plan was to allow Lucian and his forces to stage a successful “sneak attack” upon the mansion. Kraven would place his own people at key locations, while diverting Kahn and his Death Dealers to where they could do the least harm. Later, after Lucian personally disposed of Viktor and Marcus, Kraven would step forward to take undisputed control of both the Old and New World covens, eventually striking a historic peace agreement with Lucian that would leave Kraven covered in glory—and free to disband the Death Dealers once and for all, replacing them completely with Soren’s handpicked security force, whose loyalty was to Kraven alone.

  Then Selene had to complicate matters by reviving Viktor ahead of schedule! Now the crisis was upon them, forcing him toward a perilous confrontation he had hoped to avoid. Can even Lucian overcome Viktor, the scheming regent pondered, now that the Elder had regained much of his legendary strength?

  Adding to the confusion, Erika came running up behind Kahn and his security team. Kraven felt a stab of irritation—now what does the stupid wench want?—until her panicked face and obvious distress caught his attention.

  “It’s Selene!” she gasped breathlessly. “She’s escaped, to go to him… Michael!”

  A jealous fury drove Kraven’s fears from his mind. The thought of Selene rushing to her mangy lover’s arms infuriated him beyond reason. He shouted angrily to anyone within earshot: “I want that lycan’s head on a plate!”

  The gray sedan careened through the city streets, racing against fate and the insidious influence of the rising moon. Behind the wheel of the speeding vehicle, Selene glimpsed the moon shining between the thickly clustered high-rises and wondered if she was already too late.

  Had Michael delayed his transformation by shooting himself with the silver bullet, or had he already metamorphosed into an unreasoning beast? The very thought of Michael physically changing into a werewolf distressed her more than she wanted to admit. She prayed that he would find the strength to resist the infection until she could make it back to him—even if it ultimately meant that she would have to kill him herself.

  She breathed a sigh of relief as the safe house loomed into view She had broken multiple speed limits, and very nearly the sound barrier, getting to Budapest from the mansion in less than an hour. Now that she had almost reached her destination, however, she found that she had no plan beyond discovering whether Michael was still human.

  And if he is, she asked herse
lf pointedly, what then?

  She had no idea.

  The sedan squealed to a halt in the deserted alley beside the safe house. No lights shone through the building’s windows; the coven kept the five-story edifice conveniently unoccupied. Seconds later, Selene was dashing up the front steps of the building and unlocking the door. She slipped inside the desolate structure as swiftly and silently as a wraith.

  In her haste, she failed to notice the ominous black van slowing to a stop across the street.

  “After her! Don’t let her get away!” Singe barked at his lycan foot soldiers. His avid eyes gleamed with the thrill of the hunt, an invigorating frisson not unlike the heady excitement of scientific discovery. For all he knew, the elusive Michael Corvin was only meters away, somewhere in the dilapidated-looking edifice the vampiress had just entered.

  His heart pounded in anticipation. Once he had the specimen in his grasp, the final phase of Singe’s great experiment could begin. Just to play it safe, he hastily contacted Pierce and Taylor by cell phone, alerting them to his location.

  “Remember!” he called out to his men moments later, as the lycan soldiers piled out of the back of the van. Semiautomatic weapons armed with UV ammo glistened beneath the streetlights. “Take the male alive—at all costs!” He hurried after the commandos, unwilling to forgo the conclusion of their long chase. His boots raced up the steps of the building. “The vampire bitch is expendable!”

  Selene took the steps two at a time, dreading what she might find on the top floor of the empty building. She was not so intent on climbing the stairs, though, that her keen ears failed to detect the alarming sound of racing bootsteps three stories below. Someone was chasing after her; from the sound of it, several someones.

  Who? she wondered anxiously. She peered over the wrought-iron rail at the winding staircase behind her, half expecting to find a squad of determined Death Dealers on her tail. She had no illusions that her former comrades would show her any mercy, not after all she’d done over the last few nights. I wouldn’t trust me, either, she acknowledged.

  But instead of a crack team of undead warriors, she saw six thuggish figures in shabby brown attire. Not vampires at all, then. Lycans.

  They must have followed me, she realized.

  And she had led them straight to Michael!

  The lycans charged up the stairs below her. Badly outnumbered, Selene realized she had only moments before the man-beasts caught up with her. Drawing her Beretta, she fired down at the oncoming lycans, who ducked away from her blistering fusillade yet kept on climbing toward her. Turning her back on the intruders, she sprinted up the last flight of stairs to the fifth floor, then ran like mad down the hall to the barren room where she had last seen Michael.

  Would he still be there? Was he still remotely human? Selene held her breath as she ran, hoping against hope that there was still some trace of the unlucky American left to rescue.

  Dead to the world, Michael slumped against the cold steel legs of the interrogation chair. His free hand clumsily groped at the empty air, as alien memories carried his mind back to a very different time and place.

  His hand delicately sweeps along the edge of a gilded vanity table, tenderly exploring a collection of ornate combs, hairpins, and perfume bottles. The beautiful objects are all the more precious because he knows they belong to her.

  He longs to touch Sonja gently again, just as he now reverently fingers her things…

  An eruption of automatic gunfire rocked the apartment, jolting Michael from his feverish delirium. His bloodshot eyes jerked open, and he abruptly found himself back in the so-called safe house, which suddenly didn’t seem all that safe. The thunderous weapons fire sounded as if it were coming from right outside the room.

  Michael was still groggy and disoriented when the apartment door banged open and Selene ran into the room. As ever, she was clad entirely in black and sporting a smoking handgun. Her feline grace and beauty struck Michael even through his punch-drunk state, taking his breath away. Holstering the gun, she retrieved a key from the pocket of her trench coat and hastily unlocked his cuffs.

  “We need to go,” she said.

  Free at last, Michael scrambled away from the chair with all due speed. “What is it?” he asked her urgently, alarmed and confused. He heard multiple footsteps pounding on the stairs outside. “What’s going on?”

  Selene shook her head. Clearly, there was no time to explain. Raising her pistol, she aimed at the wall separating the apartment from the hall and unleashed a blistering salvo right through the flimsy barrier. Plaster exploded beneath a hail of bullets, and bestial screams came from the hallway beyond. Michael heard heavy bodies thump to the floor even as yet more guttural voices shouted in anger.

  Were those the voices of irate werewolves, he wondered, or were Selene’s fellow vampires after them now? And how crazy was it that those were actually the options?

  Selene’s long black coat swirled about her as she spun around and opened fire at the nearest window. Shattered glass burst outward, raining down on the street below, and Selene turned to shout at Michael.

  “Go, go, go!” she ordered him. “Jump!”

  Michael staggered over to the shattered window and stepped out onto the sill. He peered down at the glass-strewn pavement, some fifty feet below, then looked at Selene in bug-eyed disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Before she could answer him, four darkly garbed gunmen burst through the door. Their weapons blasted repeatedly, like a string of firecrackers, and luminous bullets popped and ricocheted off the metal window frame surrounding Michael. He recoiled instinctively from the deafening assault, stumbling backward out the window.

  The sill disappeared beneath his feet, replaced by nothing but empty air and gravity. A panicked shriek tore out of Michael’s lungs as he plummeted toward certain doom, his arms and legs flailing wildly. Months of gory experience in the ER painted a vivid picture of his broken body splattered all over the sidewalk. This is it, he thought. I’m going to die.

  Perhaps it was just as well…

  The cold night air whipped past his falling body. Michael squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable (and almost certainly fatal) impact. At the last minute, however, his body instinctively twisted in midair, so that he landed feet first on the pavement, completely unharmed.

  Eyes wide, Michael looked about himself in amazement, then tilted his head back to gaze up at the broken window, a full five stories overhead.

  Wow, he thought.

  Maybe there was something to this whole werewolf business, after all.

  A spent shell casing clattered to the floor. It rolled across the rough wooden timbers until it came to rest beside four bullet-stitched bodies. Pools of blood expanded outward from the scattered corpses, adding a crimson sheen to the floor.

  The last immortal standing, Selene paused amidst the carnage, her gun smoking in her grip. She nodded with satisfaction at the fallen lycans; the old-fashioned silver ammo was still as effective as ever. The scent of so much spilled blood made her mouth water.

  That was a close one, she acknowledged, wishing she knew why the lycans wanted Michael so badly. There’s something I’m still not getting here.

  The screech of peeling tires drew her attention to the street outside. Rushing to the window, she stared down in dismay as a blue-and-white police car pulled up to the curb less than a meter away from where Michael was standing. A pair of uniformed officers piled out of the car and none too gently took hold of Michael, forcing him into the back seat of the squad car. Michael fought back, slugging one of the cops in the jaw, but, in his debilitated state, he was outnumbered and overpowered by the two other men.

  Bloody hell, she thought. Not for a second did she think that Michael’s attackers were genuine police officers. She recognized the telltale ferocity of lycans in disguise. Reinforcements, she guessed, probably summoned by the beast-men she had just killed.

  She took aim with her Beretta, determin
ed not to let these new lycans steal Michael away from her, and pulled the trigger. But instead of unleashing a fresh salvo of deadly silver bullets, the weapon merely clicked impotently.

  Out of ammo, she realized. Damn!

  Hurriedly she ejected the empty clip, but she was already too late. Before she even had a chance to reload, the squad car took off into the night, its siren howling as though the speeding vehicle were as wolfen as its passengers. Within seconds, it had disappeared into Budapest’s busy nocturnal streets.

  Michael was gone.

  Her shoulders slumped, and her trigger arm dropped limply to her side as she stood silently in the bullet-riddled apartment, the lifeless bodies of her enemies strewn around her. Crimson puddles lapped at the heels of her black leather boots.

  Now what do I do? she thought hopelessly.

  A feeble moan intruded upon her despair. Selene spun away from the window, stunned to discover that one of the lycan casualties was still alive: a scrawny sort, middle-aged in appearance, who struck her as somewhat less thuggish than his associates. He looked more like a professor than a foot soldier, with close-cropped brown hair and a deeply furrowed brow. Older than the typical lycan berserker, the surviving intruder seemed an unlikely candidate for an assault team. He writhed helplessly on the floor, unable to lift himself out of a brackish pool of his own blood.

  Interesting, Selene thought.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Kahn apprehensively eyed the huge amber orb hovering in the sky above him. The werewolves would be at their most feral tonight, he realized, a worried frown on his ebony features. Whose bright idea was it to schedule the Awakening on the first night of the full moon?