Julia turned to her. Her smile said that she found her friend of old times pitiful.
The tall human raised his weapon, followed by the others. Miriam watched his face, the careful sculpture of it, the hard fury of the eyes.
The guns blasted — and Miriam herself felt a hot slash of pain along her exposed hip. Just a few shots had filled the entire space with bullets — all this huge area!
Then she saw Julia, who still stood, who still held the all-important book. Julia, pouring blood, placed the book beside her on the ground. She sat then, a dark and bloody Venus beside a still-ringing stalagmite. Again the guns rang out, and this time her head went bouncing off her neck. On its face Miriam saw an expression of mild curiosity, nothing more than that.
“There’s another one,” a voice said. “Over there — that shadow behind the stalagmite. That’s a vampire.”
Miriam must not waste another instant. But the book — it was lying beside the torn ruins of Julia. It was only a few cubits away, but right in their line of fire.
It was deep brown, its cover an ancient, profoundly aged human skin. On its cover was the Keeper’s ancient symbol of balanced nature and balanced rule, known to humans as the ankh. The humans looked toward it, too.
She had to reach it, she had to get it. But first, she must turn off these damn lights. The copper wires were set on insulators a few feet above her head. She knew that these batteries were very, very different from what the humans had, that they drew their energy from the earth itself, and they were powerful.
To kill the lights, she had to stand up in full view, reach overhead, and yank a wire loose. The electricity would jolt her. If she wasn’t fast enough, or could not let go of the power line, she would be burned inside — an injury that would take weeks to mend. In moments they would be upon her, though, and she would end up in their sights.
She was well up behind one of the stalagmites, but they nevertheless fired, all together, the roar of their guns causing the chamber to resound like the interior of a bell. She felt no injury.
The leader said, “Spread out,” in a resonant, icy voice.
They came closer to her, led by their monster. His face was so determined, so truly terrible in the hate that was written across it, that she was compelled to think that his emotions were almost full-circle. This human loathed the Keepers so much that he nearly loved them. She would not forget this.
“We need to angle off that wall,” he said, “it’s pressed itself against the back of the stalagmite.”
He spoke with detachment. Well, she also was professional. She reached up to the humming wire. Her fingers paused, hesitating. But this was no act of ritual possession. She curled them, closing them on the wire.
There was a buzzing sound and a choked, sizzling cry, and the lights went out. “Shit,” Bocage said.
Paul went down on his hands and knees. “The book,” he whispered.
“Forget the damn book; get some light in here,” Becky hissed.
“Get the goggles — ” Des Roches said.
There was no time, and Paul knew it. “Cover me,” he said as he moved off toward the book.
“How?” Bocage asked.
He crawled two, three feet, then five, then ten. He could hear them putting on their goggles. They mustn’t use the infrared floods. Vampires could see into the infrared.
Then he felt it. He felt the book’s smooth surface and grasped it. But then he knew that other hands also had it, another hand was grasping it, too.
She was there, face-to-face with him, but he could see nothing. He could smell her, though — not the stink of the vampire but a scent unlike any he had ever smelled before, rich and complicated and sexy as hell.
When she growled — as vampires did — he thought that it was the gentlest and yet most lethal sound he had ever heard. She was stronger, he knew that, but he didn’t intend to let go of that book. “I know you can understand me,” he said.
There was only breathing in reply, breathing like the soft and edgy flutter of a swarm of butterflies. He thought, She’s scared, too — a vampire that knows how to be afraid.
She yanked the book right out of his hands. Instantly, he dove at her, slammed into her, felt the book clatter to the ground. Again she growled, this time with a mixture of surprise and raw fury that made him think that he would shortly die.
He tried to get his fingers around her neck, to choke her, to try to close off that crucial blood flow.
He sensed somebody coming up from behind. Then Becky was with him, grabbing at the creature’s arms, trying to throw it off balance.
The vampire’s neck felt like steel. He couldn’t manage to throttle the creature, and his hands were strong. He struggled, getting closer, seeing the face before him, a glowing moon in the darkness, smelling the sweat of a woman and — perfume. Yes, it was perfumed, this one. What in damn hell was going on here.
“Get a light! A light!”
In the split of an instant, the vampire was gone. Des Roches and Bocage appeared. As Paul looked across the empty cave floor, a wave of rage and frustration swept through him. He’d lost the damn book! This meant years more work, hundreds of lives.
Then Becky’s hand came into his, her cool hand. A flashlight glowed, and he saw in that glow her shining, triumphant eyes. She gave him the book.
“Goddamn,” he said, “good god damn.”
She moved toward him, her lips parting, her eyes steady and strong.
There was no time — not here, not now. “We can get it,” he said, breaking away.
“It’s gone,” Bocage said.
Paul could not accept that. He turned; he went a few steps into the deadly blackness.
“Paul! Paul, no!”
He went on.
TEN
The Traveler
As he ran along a low, narrow corridor, he flashed his light from time to time, making sure that he hadn’t passed any side entrances and that he wasn’t about to hit a wall. He did not think about the fact that he was a man alone penetrating into a lair that was crawling with the creatures. That female — he had never encountered anything like that. It had been clean and perfumed. It had felt soft and smooth, if immensely strong. He had not seen the face, but he knew that there had been beauty, perhaps great beauty. Its scent still lingered: Arpège and womanhood. Its touch had inflamed him even as it had made his flesh crawl. He wanted to bathe, to get its smell off him . . . and he wanted never to bathe again.
Was it the traveler, still alive after all?
He knew that the safety of the book was everything, but he also had to kill this vampire. He had never wanted to kill a vampire so much, not in all the years he’d been at it. This thing could walk the streets without a problem. The idea of vampires that could function in the human world was horrifying.
He came to a T — blank wall ahead, a passage to the right sloping up, another to the left sloping down.
He stopped, shone his flashlight first in one direction and then the other. Far away he heard Becky. “Paul! Paul!”
He heard something in her voice that was tender. But she was a professional killer, for God’s sake. What man could romance a woman like that?
“Paaaaul!”
Her fear for him was heartrending. But he could not answer, dared not. They would have to do their best to follow. Waiting for them to catch up would cost at least two minutes, and there were no minutes available at all just now.
He listened ahead, closing his eyes and cupping his hands behind his ears. The rising passage was silent. But not the descending — down there he heard all sorts of noises — murmurs, scuffling sounds, the low thutter of vampire calls.
He hesitated only long enough to make certain that his gun had a fresh clip and there were still more in the rucksack that Raynard had given him. Three more, to be exact.
It was a lovely gun, the way it tore the things apart. His hand on its comforting butt, he stepped into the downward passage. The descent was steep. Soon, his
flashlight was revealing carved inscriptions in Latin here and there on the walls. This tunnel must be very old indeed. The Arénes de Lutèce, where the Romans had held bearbaiting contests, could not be far overhead. Maybe they had quarried the stone for it here. But he did not think so. There was something too perfect about the way these walls were made. As old as it all appeared, every line was dead straight.
He was in a vampire place, something made by them in some uncountably ancient time. When this place was made, mankind must have been — well, maybe still living in caves.
What did it mean?
If they had been advanced enough to make this, they must have ruled the world then, in the deep long ago. The implications for human life were chilling. Anything could be true — they could even have bred us the same way that we breed cattle.
Fear kept rising, and he kept pushing it down. But what if he couldn’t win? What if they had reserves of power that he had never imagined?
He tried to be philosophical. If he died here, he died here. At least he’d take some of them with him.
And then — was that somebody breathing?
He stopped, listened. No, it was nothing, just the wind in the halls, or far-off street noise. He started off again.
One of them appeared ahead of him, leaping, screaming, a blur of darkness and fury. He fired, then fired again and again, until it exploded along the corridor with a series of wet splats.
He flicked on his light. He’d expected to see a mass of carnage, a flowing river of blood. But there wasn’t all that much blood. And then he saw a bit of fur, gray, and he realized that the light had played a trick on him. He’d shot at the looming shadow of a rat.
“Goddamnit!”
He went on, deeper still, closer to the murmuring, to the whispering movement.
Then he heard a totally unexpected sound. A voice. A child’s voice.“Sir?” His heart started hammering — not only because the voice was there, but because it was behind him.
Dare he turn? Dare he?
“Sir?”
Boy or girl, he could not tell. It sounded about ten, perhaps a little older. His finger slipped around the trigger. He felt sick, he did not think he could do this. But he whirled round, dropping to the floor as he did, firing.
There was nobody.
They were tricking him. The rat had also been a trick, he realized. No rat would cast such a big shadow. Somehow, they’d done it. They were tricking him, in order to get him to use up his bullets. They were probably counting his shots.
He looked out into the darkness, could see nothing. He listened, could hear nothing. Only his own breathing disturbed the silence. He was a strong man; he had learned that over the years of his life. But he had also learned that all strength has its limits. He had seen the Khmer Rouge bury a man alive, and listened to that man go mad in his hole. Paul himself had wept with fear, thinking he would be next.
The vampires knew the human mind. They knew his mind. They knew his limits. And that was why, when he heard the creaking, coming slowly closer, it was so very hard not to use his light or fire his gun. It was so hard. But he could not, because he knew that no matter how sure he was, this, also, would be a wasted shot.
As quietly as was possible for a large man, he moved so that his back was pressed against the wall. To give his ears whatever tiny extra edge that might be gained, he closed his eyes. Even though there was no light, doing this would direct his brain a little more toward hearing than sight.
He stuffed the book into his pants and cupped his free hand behind his ear. He listened in one direction. There was the creaking, just over there. But it was not a living sound, and no closer. In the other direction, though, there was another sound, more complex, far harder to hear.
It was, he thought, a living sound. It was the sound of breath being drawn, in his opinion. He would have to lower his hand, grab his light and shine it, then instantly fire if something was there.
But what if it was that child? They had known that he would be unable to fire at a child. They had known that he would take the split of an instant to be certain. That would be their time.
It was a duel, and they had rigged it for him to lose the instant he disclosed his position. The only way to win would be to fire into the dark and risk a child . . . theirs, but still a child.
The breathing was close now. He would have to act and instantly. He did not go for his light. Instead, he reached out. He caught a sleeve. It was yanked away but he was fast; he’d always been damned fast. He found himself grasping a large, powerful, cold hand. The fingers closed around his wrist, closed and began to tighten.
There came laughter, soft and entirely relaxed. Foolishly so, he thought. He fired into the sound. In the flash, he saw a male face, powerful, dark, with a long, sharp nose and deep gleaming eyes.
There was a cry, deep, abruptly cut off.
Then he was deaf, as you always were deaf after that blast. When he could hear again, there was a high noise, the most terrible of noises, shaking the walls, echoing as it pealed again and again through the limestone chambers, the screaming of a woman in molten agony.
Now he used his light. It appeared, a female vampire, with beaded hair and a long dress on, dark blue silk, white collar, and the mouth fully open, a broad O filled with teeth. They had awful mouths, filthy and stinking of the blood in their guts, mouths that were made for sucking. They looked okay — a little thin-lipped was all — until they opened those wet, stinking maws of theirs. If you kissed a vampire, he thought, it might suck your insides right out of you.
The agony of grief was great for them, greater even than for a human being, as he had seen in Asia. She came maddened by it, her arms straight out ahead of her, her fingers long, lethal claws. He knew that she wanted to tear him to pieces. He knew that she wanted to feel his gristle break.
He pulled the trigger. In the flash, he saw her dress billow as if lifted by a funhouse blast. Her face folded in on itself, and her cry joined the cry of the gun and was gone.
Her body hit the wall behind her with a slapping thud, and she slid down a slide of her own thick, black blood.
They lay side by side, and he was amazed at what he saw. The male wore slacks and a black sweater, and a leather jacket so supple that Paul hardly dared touch it. The female beside him was equally passable.
These European vampires were not like the Asians, things that moved only in the shadows. These things could go anywhere they pleased, any time they pleased. But how modern were they? Was there anything to prevent them from getting on the phone, calling their friends in the States?
Of course there wasn’t. Paul had to admit to himself that he’d been lucky in Asia. But that level of surprise was over now. The only thing he had on his side was speed.
Every single creature in this hole had to be killed, and it had to be done right now, today. Otherwise, there were going to be phone calls, God knew, maybe even e-mails, to vampires in America, in Africa — wherever they were as modern and technologically capable as he had to assume these creatures were.
Either he and his cohorts cleared the place out immediately or they lost any and all chance of surprising others.
A long shape like a gigantic spider came striding toward him from along the corridor, its shadow briefly visible in his light. He turned it out.
He listened to the steps, one, two, coming up the tunnel. He could hear its breathing now, slow, almost soulful, like a man in love. Closer it came, until it seemed as if it were directly before him. But tunnels deceive, and he knew that there was more time yet to wait. It seemed to slide along, as if it wore silken shoes or moved like a snake.
He held his gun straight out. He waited.
The footsteps stopped. The breathing became soft and low. Where was it? He was uncertain.
He turned on the light, and there were eyes glaring at him from three inches away. The face was sallow, gray, not a face from the world of the sun. He fired into the dark crystal hate in those eyes. The body to
ok the whole force of the bullets and went sailing backward fifty feet, bouncing against the walls as it broke up. A leg went tumbling on down the steep incline into the dark.
The head was not severed. The eyes revealed shock, not death. He had to fire again, and he hated it, to waste a shot, but then there would be nothing further to worry about from this vampire.
He aimed, squeezed the trigger, felt the familiar satisfaction that came when they blew apart.
He went on down the passage. He was spattered with vampire blood, and he could smell its rankness. He could feel it in his shoes, slick between his toes. The blood could invade your body. If you had a cut, it could make you damned sick. He’d seen it, they all had — the fevers, the monstrous, weird hungers, the slow recovery.
As he went deeper, he felt his adult personality slipping into its own past. The love of wine, the love of music, the long days spent in elegant places — all that was going. There remained only a hurt, furious little boy looking for the killer of his father.
On he went, deeper into the secret heart of the ancient nest, deeper still. He was below the meeting hall now, down where no human being would or could ever go, down in narrow corridors painted with glyphs, walls and ceilings and floors forged by the perfect hand of the vampire.
This was the great secret of the world, that places like this existed hidden and embedded in the planet, where terrible minds had orchestrated with terrible cunning the bloody history of mankind.
He knew, suddenly, that he was in a larger space. He knew, also, that there was a new smell here. When he turned on his light, and he would have to do that, he feared that he would find himself face to face with hundreds of them.
He put his thumb on the switch. He pressed.
At first, he did not understand what had appeared in the beam. The place was so large that his light faded before the room ended. There were long brown lines of round objects arrayed in two rows facing a narrow aisle, and it took him a long moment to understand that they were skulls tightly encased in their own skin. Some had hair, and it hung in tufts like something left on totems.