by D B Nielsen
It was something she had to investigate herself. She wanted the truth. But she needed solid proof, not just rumors, or the Atum Council wouldn’t be satisfied.
Aislinn could feel Cole cowering next to her as they ventured further into the maze of tunnels. On the walls were decaying billboards and posters left from a bygone era, a reminder of a past that wasn’t too distant in Cole’s memory.
Leaping over the side of the platform onto the unused train tracks, Aislinn landed with sure-footed dexterity on the ground below. A few feet on, a half-full bottle of Jim Beam lay abandoned on the tracks, as if the owner had left in a hurry. A rat crawled on top of the bottle, unable to feast on its contents, but scurried away at the sound of their approach.
“This place is revolting,” Cole muttered under his breath, avoiding the piles of rubbish and rat droppings on the ground. His face wrinkled up into a grimace of disgust as he held a perfumed handkerchief to his nose, refusing to breathe in the obscene scent. “How can anyone live down here?”
Picking up the bourbon bottle, Aislinn dumped the contents onto Cole’s unsuspecting head in a swift motion.
“What the Vlad? Are you nuts?” Cole spluttered, leaping back in horror, the amber alcohol running down his hair and neck.
“You stink of fear. This will help mask it.” Her response was terse as she signaled for him to be quiet.
“I stink? Did you fail to notice the dead pigeon back there? At least, I think it was a dead pigeon. I couldn’t tell because it was covered in worms.” His voice held indignant disbelief. “This isn’t exactly a day spa, Aislinn.”
She wasn’t paying any attention to him. Ahead, she sensed something was off.
Clamping her hand over Cole’s mouth, she cut off his words mid-flow. His round eyes met hers in the darkness, bright against the shadows, mirroring her anxiety. She dragged him down to the ground till they were lying flat on the tracks among the rats’ droppings.
She slowed her natural rhythms to simulate death, but her hand fell from Cole’s open mouth to the hilt of her skean, and her ears pricked up. Within the darkness of the tunnel, the sounds were muted, but they were undeniably footsteps rapidly coming nearer, and also from the opposite direction on the platform above.
For Cole’s sake, she hoped the danger would pass by and they wouldn’t be spotted, but that was unlikely with the two groups in front and behind them about to meet in the middle. Still, she didn’t want to draw blood so early, knowing what awaited them further up the trainline.
Beside Aislinn, bourbon fumes disguised the Sanguis’ fresh wave of fear. She gave Cole a terse, reassuring nod, which he failed to return.
Other sounds now could be heard.
The clang of metal against metal. Something snarling. A rhythmic thumping as footsteps pounded the platform above. Running toward them. Almost upon them now. The echo of shouts and scuffling, accompanied by a cry, and then another.
Cole’s eyes went wide with terror. Underneath the obvious sounds were the more aggressive pounding rhythms mimicking the beat of many jungle drums. Human heartbeats.
Aislinn gripped the dagger’s hilt tighter as she lay still in the darkness, ready for whatever threat was approaching them.
Chapter 7
Beams of light swept the area ahead, their arcs expanding widely over the train tracks.
“Did you get them?” A deep, male voice called out as heavy footsteps paused on the platform above. The leader hailed the approaching hunters.
They slowed. The lights became steady. “Bagged one. The others got away. The tranqs took a while to work. Thought this bloodsucker would never go down.”
Another voice, this one female, confirmed. “Looks like they’re evolving. You should see this motherfucker. It doesn’t look normal.”
“Looks like something Joss Whedon and Ridley Scott dreamed up together. Like the mutant lovechild of bloodsuckers and aliens,” a young, high-pitched voice warbled, his tone incredulous. “It’s not even recognizably human.”
Deepthroat snorted. “They’re not human. Don’t mistake them for us.”
The girl spoke again. “No, you really need to look at this. Usually, you can’t tell our species apart, but vamps are always intoxicatingly attractive when they want to feed. Afterward, they go back to looking normal. This one’s—” She paused, not knowing how to continue, “—well, see for yourself.”
Deepthroat leaped down onto the tracks, brandishing a wickedly sharp cypress stake. His boots hit the ground with a thud, managing to miss Aislinn by mere inches.
She didn’t even blink.
Taking a few steps forward to meet the other hunters, he bent down on his haunches as they hauled over a body bag bound by thick chains and dropped it onto the ground in front of him. Unzipping the black bag, the leader took one look at its contents and pulled back with a grimace.
“Holy fuck! That’s the ugliest motherfucker I’ve ever seen.”
“See what I mean?” the girl hunter asked. “What the hell is it?”
“You think I have a fucking clue?”
Another female voice chimed in, her accent from the north country. “Forget it. Let’s get it back to the priest. He can do whatever he wants with it. The tranqs aren’t going to keep this thing knocked out for much longer.”
“We gave it three,” the warbler protested. He stumbled to the furthest tunnel wall, leaning heavily against it, as if to get away from the sight of the thing in the body bag.
Every one of them had a look of disbelief mingled with terror. For trained hunters, this was something else altogether, something they hadn’t encountered before.
“Exactly my meaning,” the north country girl said. “If it took three tranqs to knock this thing out cold, you think it’s going to stay down for long? And what happens when it does wake up? This bloodsucker’s going to have one motherfucker of a headache, and it’s gonna be mad as hell. I don’t want to be around when that happens. Besides, Jason’s already lost too much blood. We need to get him some help.”
Both vampires could sense this was true. If his friends didn’t get him to a medic soon, he wouldn’t last. He already needed more than a simple blood transfusion, since the vampire they captured got him right across the chest and left thigh, tearing open flesh, almost down to the bone. He was being supported by his fellow hunters, who took his weight, but they wasted no time handing over their semi-conscious charge to the hunters high on the platform, who lifted him up carefully and placed him on a makeshift stretcher.
“Right. Move out,” Deepthroat commanded, and grabbed the hand offered to him to lever himself up.
High beams danced over the walls, train tracks and tunnel ceiling as they hurried to leave. Once or twice, the flashlight briefly swept over where the two vampires lay still, but no one was paying much attention in their desire to evacuate the vampire’s lair.
Aislinn could see panic in Cole’s eyes every time the flashlights momentarily illuminated them. Yet what was far worse, was the return of the rats. Attracted by the smell of the spilled bourbon, they had come to investigate. She sensed Cole’s infinitesimal shudder as an ugly, dirty, hairy rodent crawled through his hair and onto his face.
Holy Vlad! Get a move on! She willed the humans, knowing Cole wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer. Thank Vlad, he hadn’t lived through the Black Plague or this would have been pure torture.
The hunters roughly hauled the chained body bag onto the platform, and then the others followed, joining them on the platform one by one until the last two hunters were left.
“C’mon,” the northern country girl said to the warbler as he backed up further to sweep his flashlight over the tunnel one last time. “I don’t want to be stuck down here when the storms strike. I can’t imagine anything worse.” She hauled herself up onto the platform.
“Coming.” Wheeling around, he took a running leap at the wall. His boot crunched down on Cole’s forearm as he pushed off the ground onto the platform. He landed awkwardly
. “Shit, what was that?”
Spinning, his flashlight played over the ground, inching closer to exposing Cole.
“What was what?” Deepthroat turned around. Everyone paused.
Aislinn inhaled a hushed breath, filling her lungs to capacity, and with a quiet force, she blew the rat from Cole’s cheek. It squeaked loudly as it landed along the far wall and scampered away.
Immediately, a dozen flashlight beams tracked the movement, sending more rats scurrying along the tunnel as they tried to escape from the light.
“Vermin, revolting creatures, but preferable to vampires,” Deepthroat spat and turned on his heel decisively. “Are we done, peeps? Haul ass. Let’s go.”
Within moments, the hunters departed amid a stomping of boots, wisecracks, and swift movement.
Finally, the Tube station was quickly swallowed up by the darkness, abandoned by humans once more.
Immediately after they’d gone, Cole leaped up and started dancing around, swiping at his face and body with his hands, dislodging imaginary rats and other creepy crawlies. He was sobbing so loudly, he was almost in tears. He screamed, his throat straining with panic. “Get it off me! Get it off me!”
“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” Aislinn said, calmly picking herself up off the ground and giving her coat a shake. Brushing down her leathers, she refused to sympathize with her firstborn as it would only get him more wound up. “There’s absolutely nothing on you.”
“How would you know?” he whined, running his hands through his wavy hair, disheveling it even more. “I can feel it.”
“It’s all in your head, like the time you bit that guy who’d eaten a garlic pizza for dinner and thought you were going to die.” She rolled her eyes.
“I could have died.”
“Unlikely. No more than if you walk in the sunlight, you’re going to sparkle. You’ll go up in ashes, but you won’t sparkle.” She strode ahead into the tunnel. “Well, Cole, you heard the man. Haul ass.”
Cole didn’t really have time to consider what Aislinn had said. He was trying to make up his mind whether he was more scared of the hunters or what awaited them further down the tunnel.
Nope. His mind was made up. He was more scared of the rats.
Pushing away his discomfort, he followed Aislinn into the claustrophobic passage. He had no problem seeing in the dark, but there was menace wherever he looked. Cole gulped. His overwrought imagination conjured up every gothic novel he’d ever read.
“Wait!” Cole said, recalling the chained body bag. “Shouldn’t we have helped that other vampire?”
“Nope. Not my problem.” Aislinn didn’t even break her stride. She could feel the shift in the air and the lingering scent of bourbon as Cole scrambled to keep up with her.
“But they’ll experiment on him.” Even from behind her, she could sense Cole’s eyes flashing obsidian with anger.
He was mad at her for leaving the other vampire behind, knowing it was more than likely the church would keep it alive for as long as they could—and they would, since vampires could heal almost limitlessly if the wound wasn’t fatal. It was inhumane, but the hunters didn’t care.
But how can I do anything?
Cole couldn’t possibly understand.
She suspected that the vampire they had captured was jacked up on the Black Magic drug in its original form. It was bad enough when a vampire was using humans to filter the drug and get a huge hit through drinking their blood, but very few of her kind had witnessed the horrific reality when a vampire used the Black Magic drug on its own. Laced with ancient vampire blood and dark magic, taking this powerful blend resulted in a degenerative brain disease.
She’d seen the effects firsthand with Stanislav’s brother. He was no longer rational or in control. Without the drug, a vampire was likely to weaken, mentally and physically—but with the drug, it became a true monster.
Perhaps she should have killed it. Death was a mercy.
But then she would have fought and probably slain a dozen human hunters for the sake of this feral creature, who would certainly have turned on her and Cole as soon as it was conscious, like a rabid dog or mad bull.
No, it was better this way, even if Cole was giving her the evil eye. Besides, she was down here for a different reason.
“He’s way past helping.” Aislinn let out an exasperated sigh. “They’ll find out soon enough what they’re dealing with.”
Cole was shocked. “You’re cold, Aislinn.”
“I’m pragmatic.” She unsheathed her skean. “Now, shut up and keep up. No more questions. Unless you’d like to take the lead. Quit worrying about the other vampire and worry about yourself instead. Things are going to get tough from here on in.”
She wasn’t kidding.
They didn’t talk at all as she led the way through tunnel after tunnel. Cole, for the first time in forever, managed to stay silent, an unusual feat which suggested the shock and anger of her callous response was enough to keep him moving and ruminating. He was probably composing a poem in his head about the glorious, gory death of a bloodsucking tyrant.
A long stretch of silence followed, through which Aislinn could sense Cole was still upset. Their surroundings didn’t help.
The Underground was a miserable place with its decades of damp rot, and pigeon and rat droppings. Rivulets of rain trickled down the crumbling stone-and-mortar walls, and grime coated everything, from the broken, rusty fixtures to the broken, jagged glass of the eternally dark lights.
At irregular intervals, they heard the rumble of a train as it sped by in an adjoining tunnel. It was like being consumed in the belly of a whale, hearing the deep, low, hungry grumble. But for the most part, the silence was claustrophobic. The dripping water echoed eerily in the darkness. Unlike the human hunters whose footsteps were dull, heavy thumps on the tracks, Aislinn’s boots barely made contact with the ground beneath, and she moved stealthily like a ghost.
At a fork in the trainline, they took the right set of tracks. At another intersection, they went left. The railway shafts went on forever, unbroken archways that all looked the same to Cole.
But they weren’t all the same. Aislinn noted that there were security cameras placed within the labyrinth of tunnels they were heading down. The black domes were discreet but suggested a constant surveillance of vampire territory. She knew they would be monitored. Stanislav had warned her as much. It didn’t worry her, but it did suggest that there would be no unexpected, surprise entrance made.
After walking what seemed like hours for a vampire, Cole finally broke the silence. “I assume you know where we’re going.”
“Vampire GPS hardwired to my brain. Can’t leave home without it. So yeah, I do know where we’re going. Thanks for asking.” She stopped suddenly; her eyes remained locked on him. “You should too, if you turned the dial on your internal compass or paid attention to your surroundings more often than you do. Have you breathed in lately? Smelled anything?”
Cole felt like an idiot as he tried to explain. “Uh. No. I stopped inhaling when the tunnels started to smell like the boys’ locker room of a high school. Remember that Buffy phase I went through?”
Aislinn raised an eyebrow. “You mean that time where you pretended to be Spike?”
“Yeah—hey! That actor modeled his character on me!” Cole protested. “I swear Joss Whedon has a lot to be thankful for.”
“Except that you don’t wear leather. And you don’t have a history of torturing your victims with railroad spikes.” Aislinn mockingly gestured at their surroundings. “Though I suppose it isn’t too late to start.”
“That’s not going to happen. Can you imagine the amount of rust on those things? I’d have to give my meals a tetanus shot before I bled them,” he replied sheepishly. “Besides, you’re missing the point—I never want to go near another high school, cadet camp, or gym again. That teenage boy smell is gross. All that testosterone. Jock straps. Sweat socks. I swear, male urinals are only slightly worse.”
“Okay, I think I get the point. So, you’re saying way back at the entrance when I poured Jim Beam on you was a blessing? It was for me.” She turned away from him and started walking forward again. “I told you to keep your eyes and nose open. How in the world are you supposed to get your bearings if you don’t use your Kayne-given talents?”
He had to run a few steps to catch up with her. “Yeah, but I’m not feeding down here.”
“No, you’re not. But I presume you’re planning on staying alive, so start using your nose.”
They kept going. Cole did as Aislinn commanded and was immediately assailed with the strongest wafting odors of dead things. Time could never completely erase the stench of spilled blood on stone or absorbed into the ground. Turn after turn, tunnel after tunnel, the smells became more pungent, like overripe blue cheese or rotting fish. And suddenly, he realized that what he was smelling was close by. Nasty, horrible stuff.
Rounding another corner, he stepped on something sticky and looked down. A dark spot puddled on the ground. Lifting his boot, he saw the sole was covered in congealing blood. He was standing in a pool of the stuff.
Chapter 8
“Be careful, Cole. Watch your step here,” Aislinn’s voice, low and wary, called back. “Look where you’re going.”
The tacky substance clung to the soles of his boots as his eyes swept the ground around him, noticing an unusual grid of metal pans. He heard a slight scraping sound. Something creaked overhead. Metal on metal.
Cole bumped into something solid, heavy, like a punching bag used for training, sending it swaying back and forth. Spinning around in confusion, he heard the rattling of chains above his head. He looked up from the blood on the ground.
“Oh my Vlad!” His slow-beating heart just about exploded in fright as he leaped back, horrified, stumbling away into another stiff figure. His heel skidded on a pool of slick blood, and he slipped and fell backward.
