Lunatic (29 page)

Concussion?

"I'm awake! I'm awake!"

The shaking stopped.

Johnis stood, feeling his body for any injuries.

A wet spot oozed at the back of his head. He stared at his bloody hand for a minute, made stranger by the mist that still clung to the air.

"Are you all right?"

They'd fallen about ten feet into a shaft that narrowed as it spiraled down and out of sight, dim save for the never-ending vapor.

How had he survived the fall? Shaeda's gentle laugh answered.

So he couldn't die unless she wished, either. The gift of life. Or death.

Perception ...

Shaeda's eyes commanded his attention. Johnis took in his surroundings. Now they were on a small landing that gave way to a descending staircase. High above, even beyond the entrance they had walked into, were torn pulleys and shredded cords.

"You broke my fall." Silvie pointed to his skinned legs, bleeding at the knees and shins, and matching arms. "We fell down a lift." She tore off part of his tunic and wiped blood off his skin.

"How long have we been out?"

"I didn't pass out. Only a minute or two."

"We have to hurry."

The stair treads were narrow and close together. Johnis tested his weight.

It might hold him after all.

The passage shrank the farther he went. He started counting steps.

By fifty he was tired and cold.

By 136, he and Silvie were both getting winded.

Worse, the stairwell not only shrank in width, but in height, until Johnis was bent into a crouch just to fit.

Soon Silvie, too, slouched her way along, hand on the wall.

No railing, just slippery little steps and a rising sense of claustrophobia.

"Maybe you were right," he finally admitted.

"Should have listened."

Shaedas claws twisted at him. Johnis stifled a cry.

The mission. Retrieve the medallion. Return to do the ceremony with Sucrow. Then kill him.

Shaedas light chuckle. "You learn quickly, my pet ...

He had to get rid of the Leedhan, this entity. But her commanding eyes pulled him along. Like a dog on a leash.

The end of the staircase was so small, its ceiling so low, that they both ended up on hands and knees, crawling face first in sludge.

They reached the bottom. A metal grate blocked their exit. Johnis took his knife and pried at it. The metal gave, and he crawled through into an open room.

No red haze.

He blinked in the unexpected torchlight while his eyes adjusted.

Shaedas sixth sense spiked. Her sudden terror gripped him.

Slumbering black bats lined the entire room, dangling upside down, licking up worm sludge from larvae crawling along the walls. The long, thin worms shrieked occasionally. Copper filled his mouth. Johnis licked his lips.

Shaeda directed his eyes.

Near the far wall smoke and flames curled from a bowl-shaped stand. Silvie crawled through and walked past him into the room.

Leathery wings rustled overhead.

More dark stone walls and slimy, moss-covered rock. An empty hearth. A wooden altar with an open book across it.

Atop the book lay something round with a leather string dangling off one side.

Silvie hurried to him to look at it as well. She snatched up the torch.

The medallion was the size of his hand, of a reddish wood he'd never seen before, the kind described only in tales of the legendary Colored Forest. A ring was painted on it, and a setting made of slate with a gold center, almost like an eye.

"This is it, Silvie. This is really it."

His hand closed around the medallion.

Silvie thrust the torch like a club. Her eyes were wide and round, staring past his shoulders. "Back!"

He turned. Then backed up into her.

Before them stood an oversized, mangy, black-furred bat, easily nine feet tall, with beady red eyes and long claws. A fly buzzed around its ear. The lips parted in a wicked grin.

Shataiki.

The Shataiki queen.

Derias.

Shaeda's teeth bared. A ruse. She was only half-Shataiki. The other half was abhorrently human.

Silvie raised the torch over the book. "Stay back," she warned the Shataiki.

The room was filled with the beasts.

"I knew there was a catch," Silvie snarled.

"Well, what is this, breaking into my home?" Derias sneered as he eyed the medallion. "I would suggest you return that if you are to leave in the same condition in which you came." He outstretched a claw.

Razor-sharp, purple vision honed in on the bat.

Shaedas instinct was to run. Copper and salt flooded his mouth. Johnis half lunged.

Wait!

"Not so fast. You can't use it. I can."

"Not if you're dead." The queen's lips pulled back in a fierce sneer. Amulet guardian he was, to be feared. "Of course, there are other arrangements. I see you've met Shaeda. Abhorrent little vampire, isn't she?"

Shaeda bristled. The hair on the back of Johnis's neck stood up.

He could feel her starting to dominate him.

Johnis pulled the medallion away from the beast, draped it over his neck. His heart began to race again.

He had to think. Outsmart this creature. Get them both out of here.

"Fly, you fool."

Wait, wait!

He growled.

Human patience now surpassed Leedhan patience.

Silvie held the torch aloft. It was turning her skin red, but she didn't seem to care. The bats kept away from the fire.

"I'll torch us with it if I have to," she warned.

"Take us out," Johnis said. "I'll tell you the entity's plans and let you feast on the Horde instead. What do you think of that?"

The Leedhan had coiled up like a snake. She hissed. Johnis hissed.

"Amusing, pup." Again the Shataiki opened its palm, came forward several steps. "You will unleash more than you can imagine, and you will defy that which you do not wish to defy."

"I don't recall a Shataiki ever telling me the truth."

"Are you certain of what you know?" The bat paused, waited expectantly. "Or are you judging me by my fur?" He smiled, a yawning, jeering expression.

Johnis's mind warred between hatred and fear.

The beast grinned and raised a wing, drawing their attention toward the rafters. A dozen smaller bats clung upside down, their jaws dripping with a glistening gel. Some of the viscous liquid dripped down on Johnis's head.

Shaeda snarled.

"Let me take the amulet," Johnis said. "The entity holds me prisoner. Help me trick her and take her powers, and once the Circle is dead and we have the Horde, I will betray her to you. Think on this, Queen. Shaeda, the mate of the Leedhan chieftain."

Johnis glanced at the medallion around his neck. The necklace.

It made them visible.

Leedhan magic channeled through the medallion and did what it willed.

The Shataiki guardian hissed. "Return it to me, and I will allow you to leave alive."

"I don't think I can do that ..."

His mind was changing, slipping. His skin turned translucent white.

Through one eye he saw blue, through one he saw purple. Together he saw red haze washing over everything.

He gave himself to the Leedhan's impulses. His mind raced faster. His focus quickened. His senses razor sharp. Resolve steeled. Sharper his senses and more steeled his resolve.

Shaeda rushed through him, flooded him heart, mind, and soul. His thoughts were her thoughts. His will hers.

Silvie gaped at him. "Johnis ..."

Purplish-red colored the Shataiki and Silvie.

The queen threw back his head and roared. The Shataiki all came to life.

Silvie set the book ablaze and flung it at the queen. He jumped away from the blaze. His minions took flight. The whole chamber swarmed, tearing and clawing through the air. Many tore through a shaft above and through the one by which Johnis and Silvie had entered. Their shrieks mingled with those of the worms. Sludge dripped everywhere.

"You fight well, for a vampire's pet," the queen jeered, "If you survive, I will trade you freedom for the vampire's blood and for her power over the Horde."

A loan on the amulet?

But . . . that did mean he could be rid of Shaeda. But a Shataiki was worse than a Leedhan. He well remembered Alucard and Teeleh.

The queen flung back his head and roared. They dove for the exit.

Silvie kept her grip on the torch and slung the rest of the water. Now awakened and angry, facing enslavement to two humans, the Shataiki were a boiling cauldron.

Johnis twisted through. Silvie scrambled over his legs and up his back, set fire to the entrance. He bent his knees. She slammed the grate on a Shataiki's snout and made it scream louder.

"Hurry!"

Johnis sped after her. Behind, the bats flung their bodies at the grate and cursed each other until it came open. They reached the top of the staircase, right where they had fallen earlier. Smoke and flames licked at their heels.

Shaedas presence settled on him.

Her hazy eyes became his.

Her strength, his.

Her ancestors, her history, her hate ...

All his.

"Now what?" Silvie asked.

He whipped his head around, lip curled. "Can you jump that far?"

"No!"

"Silvie-"

The bats were on them, snapping, clawing, and beating them with enormous wings and deafening shrieks. They would circle high and swoop down on Johnis and Silvie's heads, always attacking from above.

Only Silvie's torch offered any protection. That and Shaeda's phenomenal strength.

Johnis managed to strike a second and used that to keep them back. The torches went between their teeth every time they had to climb. Blood poured from open wounds. First: get out alive.

"Grab!" Johnis latched onto a bat right as it headed toward the top. It jerked under his weight. A second and third joined the fray. Johnis swung out and broke loose of the bat's leg, barely catching the edge.

The harach. He didn't dare lose it.

They craved human flesh. And Leedhan blood.

He hoisted himself over the lip of the floor, rolled, and reached down for Silvie. "Jump! Jump!"

She screamed again, so loud he thought she was dead. Then her hands slapped his. Johnis grabbed her fingers and pulled. She scrambled over him.

"Come on!"

They tore through the tunnel with its claustrophobic darkness and sped through the labyrinth with giant bats latched onto their backs, teeth digging into their flesh. Several pulled him down and tore a chunk out of him.

Silvie beat them off and half dragged him, flying down the dark tunnel. Johnis staggered into a wall. Silvie tripped and nearly landed in worm sludge. Together they staggered like two drunks with one leg, back through the overhang and into the lakebed.

"What happened back there? Your eyes-"

"What about them?"

"They looked like Shaedas."

"I think they were."

Bats were pouring out of the lair. The stark Black Forest surrounded them. The trees were laden in Shataiki so thick he couldn't see the sun.

Black wood, black dirt.

The muddy graveyard they had stood in was now full of murky water. The same raunchy substance flowed over the fall.

They were both losing blood, but they dared not rest, dared not stop. Where were Warryn and his men? More than an hour had to have passed.

The Shataiki queen's voice roared from somewhere within. Johnis grabbed Silvie. Shaedas will overran him once more. "We have to go!"

"He said if we got out alive, he'd-"

"Run!"

ARROWS AND SWORDS FLASHED BETWEEN ERAM'S MEN, Cassak's men, and Warryn's men. Despite Cassak's orders, bod ies were falling, dying left and right. So far the Eramites suffered the worst-they would not allow the throaters to take them alive.

"Sanctuary to all who lay down their arms!" Cassak cried over the melee. "Lay down your arms! Lay down your arms! We didn't come here to fight!"

A few rebels submitted, down on their knees, hands behind their heads. Only those who would not yield to the throaters fell dead.

"Warryn! Call off your men! Call off-"

A loud screech took to the air, followed by a low boom-lower than a drum, barely audible, yet piercing the ears-and the earth shook.

The canyon transformed into the thick, broad-leafed Black Forest with trees that climbed several hundred feet into the air. And from its depths came a howling black thunderstorm that screeched into the sky, blacking out the sun.

Throaters, warriors, and rebels all went still. Cassak realized his mouth was open and shut it. The cloud came straight for them, and several of the men began to run.

Then it all vanished.

All was quiet on the edge of a canyon, where seconds ago a bloody skirmish took more than a dozen victims.

The Black Forest reappeared. Then was gone.

Seconds passed. They turned to minutes.

Cassak recovered from his stupor.

"Take the Eramites and the throaters." He put his sword at Warryn's throat before the serpent warrior could protest.

"We'll wait for the pup."

JOHNIS TUCKED THE MEDALLION INTO HIS SHIRT. DESERT and barren canyon met them once more. He drew it back out. Forest so thick it blotted out the sun enveloped them and the Shataiki swarming out of the cave.

"Johnis!"

He shoved it back into his shirt and they fled together, hearts pounding.

"What in the name of Elyon was that?"

Silvie didn't answer. They didn't stop until they reached where they had left the horses, right at the edge of the Black Forest, and stirred up a flock of vultures.

Both horses were dead, corpses feasted upon by the birds. Silvie screamed. The sound made Johnis jump. He fought the sick urge to retrieve the medallion again.

No, not yet.

Only now, staring at the dead horses, they both staggered to the ground. Shaedas strength left. He collapsed. He'd lost so much blood, and Silvie too. Johnis closed his eyes, the amulet in hand.

He couldn't give up. Not now. He'd survived the queen's lair, survived his challenge. Bats liked playing with their prey. The Shataiki hadn't expected the Leedhan to give Johnis that much power, enough to get out of the lair alive.