Soul Stealers: The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles (15 page)

    Shanna moved to the lantern, and lowered it more. When she looked up at him, her eyes were dark, like pools of liquid ruby. Her face was gaunt, but stunningly beautiful. When she smiled, Saark melted like butter in a pan. He groaned, and moved to her again, and kissed her, and his arms were over her and touching her, and she writhed under his touch in lustful agony and then took his head, suddenly, in a powerful grip and stared deep into his eyes.

    "I think I am in heaven," whispered Saark.

    "You soon will be," promised Shanna, and there came twin crunches as her fangs ejected and her head dropped for his throat and a fist of insanity punched through Saark's mind – but not enough to inhibit twenty-five years of military training and real-world combat. Saark swayed back, twisting fast, stepped back and away in shock; then he leapt at her, both boots slamming Shanna's chest and using the impact to kick himself backwards, through a somersault to land lightly on his feet by the door, facing her.

    Shanna's hands had come up to her chest, head tilted, the smile still on her lips. There was no pain. Now, her visage was one of mock disappointment. "What? You would spurn me so soon, my beautiful and verbally sophisticated lover?"

    Saark cast his gaze past Shanna, to where his rapier stood – useless – by the window. He grinned, a nasty sideways grin without humour as his hands levelled before him, and he stared at the vachine and took a step to the left. Shanna followed his direction with intimacy, and eased towards him.

    "You would have bitten me," he said, eyes fixed on her long fangs, and then on her eyes, and he cursed himself. Her eyes were crimson, the red of the albino warriors who hunted them. And yet she had fangs, like the vachine creatures from beyond the mountains. "What the hell
are
you?"

    "You wouldn't understand, Saark, my sweet," she said, and lunged at him.

    Saark swayed to one side, and cracked a right hook against her cheek, spinning away to the other side of the room. Shanna touched her face, lower lip extending a little. She pouted.

    "A little excessive, Saark, don't you think?"

    Only then did he realise he had not told her his name. Something chilled inside him. Some primordial instinct told him this woman, or vachine, or whatever the hell she was, was very, very dangerous. And she was looking for him. Hunting him.

    Shanna leapt again, and blocked three fast punches. She grabbed his throat and groin in one swift movement, and hurled Saark across the room where he hit the wall, hard, and landed in a heap, wheezing, head spinning, and then she was there, kneeling beside him, and she took hold of his long fine oiled curls and snapped back his head in a vicious movement. From the corner of his eye he saw her fangs extend that little bit more. They gleamed, like brass.

    "You're going to taste so sweet, my love," she smiled, completely aware of the irony.

    "No," he croaked… as her fangs dropped for his throat.

Kell marched through the snow, boots crunching, the glass of the whiskey bottle cold against his skin under heavy jerkin. He stopped at a narrow crossroads, and looked about. The village was quiet, eerie, dusted with mist and falling snow, most houses sporting lights subdued behind heavy curtains. The villagers knew what would happen if soldiers from the Army of Iron discovered their little safe haven, tucked away between low hills; and they guarded their anonymity with jealous fear and an understanding of a savage retribution if discovered. Wise, he thought. Very wise.

    Kell looked up and down the twisting lanes, his breath steaming. He took out the whiskey bottle. He took a long drink. Honey eased into his veins. He thought of Nienna, he felt bad, and he knew if he got drunk he was doing nobody any favours, least of all his poor, kidnapped granddaughter. He knew, then, what he really
should
do was hurl the bottle down the street and go and get his horse and ride after her to the Cailleach Fortress. But he did not. He felt his mind crumbling, disintegrating, like a mud wall before a spring flood.

    He started off down a narrow street, unsure of where he was going. The whiskey tasted good on his lips, hot in his throat, and he craved more. Much more. He knew, as did all drinkers, that he could use the excuse of the poison in his veins; however, deep in his heart he realised he was only cheating himself. He needed no whiskey to cover that pain. The pain he could live with. He had lived with worse; much worse. The reality was: he needed the whiskey, because
he needed the fucking
whiskey
. It was that simple.

    Kell stopped. Squinted. "It cannot be," he muttered and moved to the end of the street. He barked a short laugh, and ran his hand through his beard, and then through his shaggy grey-streaked hair. "Well, I'll be damned." And he recognised the beautiful irony. If the poison went too far through his veins, seeped into his organs and heart, then he really would be damned.

    It was a distillery, a long, low building built with its back against a wall of rough-hewn rock carved from a steep hillside. The windows were dark, like torn out eye-sockets. Several were smashed. Behind, in what Kell presumed was a courtyard, squatted the old boilerhouse chimney, appearing far from the best of health. Kell assumed the distillery was long out of use. His eyes gleamed. I wonder if they left any casks behind? he mused, and laughed. Of course they didn't. Only a madman would do that.

    Kell moved to the door, and forced it open. He placed his half-empty whiskey bottle in the long pocket of his jerkin, and with Ilanna in both hands, stepped inside.

    It was gloomy, but a little starlight from shattered clouds filtered through a broken roof, a cold silver light which emphasised shapes without giving any real form or sense of solidity. Kell squinted, and his eyes adjusted, and he smiled. He was in the tun-room, and as he walked forward realised the distillery building
dropped
beneath him allowing for a double-height interior, but nestled in what appeared a single-storey shell. It was housed in an excavation. Kell stopped, boots rasping, and peered down from the walkway on which he stood. Beneath, he could see large, solid lids for the circular wash-backs. His eyes moved, counting. There were six below ground level, and six above, surrounded by an iron frame and timber gantries. Kell tested the handrail, and it crumbled beneath his powerful fingers. He grunted.

    "What a waste! Letting a fine building like this rot and die."

    He walked between the wash-backs and stopped, warily, beside a rail which overlooked a lower section of the distillery reached by twin sets of iron stairs. His eyes took in the wash chargers and wash-stills, with their odd copper shapes which looked as if they'd half melted, the metal sloping towards the floor like molten candle-wax, only to harden again. They look like garlic bulbs, he thought, and took another drain of whiskey. He grunted at the continued irony. The only bloody whiskey in this entire place was the cheap, nasty blend he carried in his paws.

    "Damn it. What I'd give for a single malt."

    Outside, the world seemed to flood into darkness. Clouds, passing over the stars and moon. Kell squinted, for despite having incredibly acute vision, he knew age was getting the better of him and his eyesight was not as good as it once was. "I can still pin a wolf to a tree at fifty paces with my axe," he muttered, and stared down at the steps. They looked far too dangerous to descend. But beyond, he knew, was the warehouse. Would it have barrels of whiskey? He doubted it. But if there
was
some nectar stored there, it called to him, taunting, drawing him as if down some invisible umbilical.

    No.

    "No."

    Kell took a deep breath. His fists clenched, and he stared at the bottle in his hands. It was poison, he decided. And it would kill him faster than Myriam's injected toxin.

    You used to have strength, he realised.

    You used to have willpower.

    Once, you could have stopped. Once, you would have cast away the piss. Once, you would have been a man. A man who ruled the bottle, instead of the bottle ruling his world.

    Kell hurled the whiskey bottle out over the spiritstills, and there came a mighty
boom
followed by a clattering, skittering sound. Then silence rushed back in, like the ocean filling a hole.

    "Interesting," came a gentle, feminine voice.

    Kell did not turn. His senses screamed. The hairs across the back of his neck prickled, and he forced a grin between tight teeth. He reached up, and slowly rubbed his beard. "The fact that I chose to launch the bottle, or the fact that you were sneaking through the dark?"

    "Neither," she said. "I was told you were dangerous, and I was simply pondering the best way to kill a fat old man."

    Kell turned, Ilanna in both hands now. His eyes narrowed, and he took in the tall, lithe albino woman, her crimson eyes, her brass fangs, the silver sword sheathed at her hip. She moved elegantly, and stopped, one hip pushed forward slightly giving her an arrogant, defiant stance. She had a gaunt face, and cropped white hair. She was pretty. Dake's Balls, thought Kell, she was beautiful – but maybe forty years his junior. He grinned. "I don't die that easy," he rumbled, rolling his shoulders almost imperceptibly to loosen the muscles.

    "But I'm sure that you do," she smiled, and drew her sword.

    "That's what the other vachines said," he soothed, head dropping a little, eyes now pools of blackness. He was pleased to note the annoyance in her expression; not just at his recognition, and knowledge, but at his tone of voice. His was not a sermon of arrogance; his was the voice of a known truth.

    "Do you want to know my name?" she purred stepping forward. Beneath her, the gantry creaked and Kell looked warily to one side.

    "Not really," he said. "You fucking vachine all smell the same to me; decayed flesh, hot oil, and mangled clockwork."

    She snarled, a bestial sound far from human. Her fangs slid out yet more, with tiny
crunches
. "My name is Tashmaniok. I am going to sup your blood, Kell. I'm going to savour it running down my throat. I am going to taste your most intimate dreams. I am going to drink your soul. I will lead you to the brink of despair, to a razor-edge of desolation, and you will teeter there like a maggot on a hook and then, only then, when you beg for death, when you plead with me for release… only then will I show you
real
pain."

    Kell grunted. "Stop talking. Show me." But even as the words left on a hot exhalation of air she leapt, a sudden striking blur, and Kell's axe lifted deflecting the sword blow with only a hair's breadth between life and death. He stepped forward, mighty axe swinging, to deflect a second, then third blow – and as sparks flew, so the axe twisted, reversed, and swept close to Tashmaniok's face causing her to leap back.

    Kell grinned at her. "You're quick, pretty one, I'll grant you that. But you talk a whole bucket of clockwork shit. Be careful, lest I spill your ticking gears over the gantry."

    Tash said nothing, but lowered her head and attacked, her sword flickering in a stunning series of frenetic bursts, showing dazzling skill and a precision Kell had rarely met in a human. But then, Tashmaniok was far from human. She was vachine.

    Kell deflected the blows, struggling, sweat beading on his skin, but the whiskey was numbing his brain, and so much recent fighting had tired his mighty muscles. Blow after blow he halted, sparks showering the old distillery, only for Tash to twist her blade and attack again; slowly, Kell was forced back to the iron steps leading
down.

    Tash paused, head high, eyes gleaming. She twirled her sword, experimentally, as if loosening her wrist after a brisk warm-up session. She showed no fatigue. By comparison, Kell was sweating heavily, and he felt sick. He could taste bad whiskey and old bile. Doubt flared in his breast, but he quelled it savagely. Now was not a time for doubt. He had killed better than Tashmaniok. He had killed far better.

    "You're good, girl," he said. "But I reckon you should work on your speed. I've seen one-legged whores move faster than you."

    Tash smiled, with genuine humour. She lifted her head a little, and some distant beam of starlight caught her eyes, which sparkled. "Old man. Save your breath for battle. For I've not seen anything special as of yet; and to think, they call you a Vachine Hunter."

    She's answered that question, thought Kell sourly. She was sent by General Graal. Their little war party had not escaped so easily. Indeed, Kell realised, now Graal felt it was personal. An intuition told him things had changed; strangely, Kell felt like Graal
wanted
something. But what the hell did he want other than Kell's head on a plate? What could Kell offer the warped general?

    Tash stepped forward, fluid, sword singing a figure of eight; Kell slammed his axe horizontal, and Tash did something with her sword, a technique Kell had never before experienced. His axe clattered off down the walkway behind her, and Kell felt something large and dark fall through him, like a rock down a well. He stood, stunned for a moment, and Tash moved fast leaping, both boots slamming his chest. With a grunt Kell staggered back and fell from the steps, rolling violently down the rattling, iron construct to lie, stunned and bleeding, at the foot.

    Kell groaned, and pushed himself up, then slumped to his chest once more. He rolled onto his back, tasting blood, and watched Tashmaniok walk lightly down the iron staircase. She strode, stood over him, her body framed by the sculpted shapes of spirit-stills in the gloom. Dust motes floated in the air from Kell's pounding descent, and he coughed, clutching his diaphragm, face contorted in pain.

    Tash twirled her sword once more, humour on her lips. But her crimson eyes were hard. Like glittering rubies.

    "Graal told me to be careful," she murmured, and lowered herself to one knee, so that she straddled him. Kell could smell her natural perfume. She smelt good.