01 - Underworld

by Greg Cox

  Was it even possible for Viktor to be defeated?

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flurry of movement at the periphery of the scene. The instincts of a veteran Death Dealer fired up, and she turned quickly to see Viktor’s three armed bodyguards drop from the top of the stairway to the floor of the bunker many feet below. They splashed to earth only a few paces away from Viktor and Michael and raised their automatic pistols ominously.

  Selene didn’t wait for them to get a clear shot at Michael. She sprang from the demolished generator room into the air above the bunker, landing nimbly right behind the three Death Dealers. Without even pausing to catch her breath, she snapped the neck of the first warrior, elbowed the second one in the throat, and snatched his gun from his hand.

  Blam-blam-blam! Death blazed from the muzzle of the captured weapon, and three seconds later, a trio of corpses littered the ground. Vampire blood joined the rippling puddles of water flooding the floor of the bunker.

  The massacre was over before Selene had a chance to realize that she had just killed three of her fellow Death Dealers. A gnawing sense of horror momentarily stopped her in her tracks. Forgive me, she thought. I never wanted to slay my own kind.

  She would have no regrets, however, about executing Viktor for the murder of her mortal family. Gun in hand, she whirled around to blow Viktor away, but the indomitable Elder was still too fast for her. A jarring blow knocked the gun right out of her hand, and Selene gasped to see Viktor directly in front of her, less than a meter away.

  “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth,” he whispered, quoting the Bard, “it is to have a thankless child!”

  Before she had a chance to react, Viktor’s open palm slammed into her like a battering ram, propelling her halfway through the nearest wall. Rock-hard chunks of concrete tumbled down into the muddy water as Selene slid into the churning ooze. A fresh gout of blood streamed from beneath her hairline.

  With Viktor briefly occupied with Selene, Michael seized the opportunity to haul himself to his feet. His ebony eyes widened as he spotted Selene’s battered body slumping into the sludge, apparently out cold—or worse. He sloshed loudly through the ankle-deep water, rushing to her side.

  “Selene!”

  Even his voice had been transformed, becoming deeper and more resonant. His heartfelt cry echoed throughout the vast excavation, reaching the ears of werewolf and vampire alike.

  “Selene!”

  To his relief, her eyes slowly flickered open.

  Thank God! he rejoiced, intent only on her. He wasn’t going to let her die, not like Lisa. This time, he had the strength to drive death away, just as Selene had brought him back from the abyss. What’s the good of all this incredible power if I can’t save the only person who matters to me?

  In the rush of emotion, he forgot about Viktor, until the implacable Elder came swooping out of the rain and shadows, descending feet first like some ravenous bird of prey. Viktor’s steel-toed boots smacked into Michael’s head with breakneck force, spinning him around and sending him flipping head over heels.

  He crashed facedown into the muck, stunned senseless.

  Viktor moved in for the kill.

  Selene saw Michael fall before Viktor’s assault. Ice-cold blood dripped into her eyes, and she wiped it away with a frantic motion. She lurched forward, desperate to come to Michael’s rescue, but the bunker spun around her vertiginously, and she dropped limply back into the mud, still too dazed and dizzy to get up. Her blurry eyes searched the flooded floor, looking for something she could throw at Viktor, just to distract him for a second or two.

  Her anguished gaze fell on a swath of silver-plated steel glistening in the rain not three centimeters away.

  Viktor’s sword!

  The abomination had to be destroyed.

  Viktor waded determinedly up behind Michael. He grabbed the hybrid creature by the back of his neck and began to choke his obscene life from his body. Michael gasped for breath, and the veins on his throat bulged tautly beneath his skin.

  “Time to die,” Viktor decreed. “And then your traitorous consort will suffer the same fate.”

  A glint of light caught the Elder’s eye, and he looked up to see a flash of gleaming metal in the rain. Selene appeared behind the metallic shimmer, landing behind him like a jaguar, with Viktor’s own sword clutched within her grip.

  Again she defies me? Is there no end to her perfidy? Dropping Michael into the muddy quagmire, Viktor turned to face Selene. His fiendish quartz eyes burned with fury, and he tugged the two silver daggers from his belt, gripping one in each hand. He opened his mouth to denounce her, but to his shock, bright arterial blood gushed forth instead of words.

  What in the Ancestor’s name? he wondered in confusion, staggered by the scarlet fountain cascading from his own lips. How can this be?

  He stepped forward uncertainly, and Selene held up the sword. The edge of the silver blade was slick with newly liberated blood. Viktor’s jaw dropped, spilling more blood into the murky waters below, and he realized that Selene had struck him already.

  But I created you! his mind protested, overcome by the tragic irony. I made you who you are…

  A thin red line materialized on Viktor’s lordly countenance. The crimson streak ran from the Elder’s left ear, right across his cheek, and all the way down to his collar.

  The useless daggers dropped from his gloved fingers as he reached upward in a panicky attempt to hold his immortal head together. But it was a wasted effort. A frisson of razor-sharp pain flashed through his nervous system as fully half his skull slid off, splashing into the gloppy water.

  The Elder’s body stood erect for a moment more, then toppled backward to land with a crash amid the blood and muck. The Elder’s lifeless remains were now merely part of the sewage flowing beneath the ancient city. An era had ended.

  That was for my family, Selene thought. Sword in hand, she stared grimly at the severed pieces of the fallen Elder. And for all the other innocents lost to your evil and hypocrisy.

  Her heart leaped in joy as Michael rose from the ground. Her adoring eyes marveled at the wondrous being he had become. He had transcended his human origins and lycan curse, to evolve into something strange and beautiful to behold.

  Who knew that the future held such remarkable possibilities?

  He joined her, silently, inexpressible love and passion radiating from his transfigured face. Together they made a slow turn at the base of the massive bunker, surveying their surroundings for any possible threat.

  But no attack was forthcoming. Stunned by the momentous victory they had just witnessed, the spectators on the catwalks and elsewhere appeared in no hurry to challenge either Selene or the manifestly dangerous hybrid. Vampires, werewolves, and lycans peered from the shadows, but none of them was brave enough to make a move.

  Smart monsters, Selene thought.

  Meekly and with little noise, the various creatures of the night scattered, receding into the sheltering darkness of the sprawling underworld. Within minutes, the bunker appeared as empty as the mortals above no doubt imagined the forgotten tunnels to be.

  Selene was happy to see them go. There had been enough bloodshed tonight. She retrieved Lucian’s pendant from Viktor’s remains and pressed the talisman into Michael’s palm. After all, he was now the custodian of Lucian’s memories and legacy. Hand in hand, she and Michael made their way across the flooded chamber and started the long trek back to the world above.

  Wiping her blood-streaked hair away from her eyes, Selene smiled as she recalled that only two nights ago, she had regarded the possibility of peace with extreme apprehension. She had dreaded facing immortality without any enemies to destroy.

  Michael shape-shifted back into his human guise. Selene squeezed his hand, feeling his warmth. He smiled back at her, and she laughed at her foolish fears.

  The war was over, but she had found something new to live for.

  Perhaps for all eternity.

  Ep
ilogue

  Hours had passed in the silent crypt. The body of the lycan scientist Singe had gone stiff with rigor mortis, but his immortal blood continued to creep slowly across the marble floor of the underground chamber, threading its way through the intricate design containing the sacred tombs of the Elders.

  The sanguinary tide passed by Viktor’s empty niche, then Amelia’s. Yet, with perverse inevitability, it came to rest atop the polished bronze plaque bearing the sculpted letter M.

  For Marcus.

  Rivulets of lycan blood seeped through the edges of the burnished hatch, slithering downward into the sepulchral cavity where Marcus, the last surviving Elder, hung upside-down inside his tomb, like a slumbering vampire bat. The energizing blood poured over Marcus’ emaciated frame, streaming down his skeletal body until it reached the thin, withered lips of a skull-like face.

  Minutes passed, until a dormant heart began to beat with growing strength. A sigh escaped the parched red lips, and a pair of hungry eyes awakened deep within the sunken recesses of their matching sockets.

  Jet-black eyes, just like Michael Corvin’s had become.

  Hybrid eyes.

  Scanning, formatting and

  proofing by Undead.