Part 31 (1/2)
”Help us, please,” Molly implored to the faces above. Two sailors from the Whitecloud swung down.
Valentine took Rho into the dim compartment. A pair of tiny bunks angled together into the sharp prow of the vessel. He laid the Lifeweaver down.
Thank you, Lee... David. You have a strong aura. It might be best if... the others didn't see me, after... The mind's touch faltered.
”It's not over, sir. Just rest.”
It... Rho began, but never finished. He flickered one final time, before s.h.i.+fting back to his natural form. The thing he knew as Rho collapsed into a rubbery ma.s.s the size of a teenage boy. Rho sagged-there was no skeleton to support his body-into something that looked like a blue octopus with a bit of bat in the evolutionary tree. Leathery fins ran the sides of his tentacles, the longer limbs at the back of his body joined by the veiny membranes almost to the sucker-tipped ends like a ribbed cape, the shorter ones at the front unattached and with smaller, more delicate suckers. His aqua-colored skin, more blue around cephalopod skull, changed to sea-foam green along his limbs, with a latticework of delicate black lines covering the skin that he found eerily beautiful, though if they were decorative or functional Valentine could not say. Spicules and flaps formed a band under the brain-in-a-bag of its head, but whether they were noses, ears, breathing tubes, or even s.e.xual organs was anyone's guess. The bulging eyes, lids opening wider and wider as it relaxed into death, drew Valentine's gaze back every time he looked elsewhere. They were like yellowish crystal b.a.l.l.s flecked with red, with a black band running across the middle.
G.o.d, it was ugly for an angel. Or a devil, for that matter.
Valentine hugged the moist, limp form to himself. He owed his and Molly's life to the dead Life weaver. When the warmth had left the body, he covered it with a blanket.
He should stuff Rho's body in a bucket or a big jug, preserve it with alcohol, and get it back to the Miskatonic. The researchers there might be able to find a weakness, some flaw that would allow them to kill the Kurians without blasting into their lairs and blowing them to bits. Duty, and loyalty to his species, demanded it.
He exited the cabin and went to the engine.
”Take any gear and fixtures you want out of her,” he said to the crewmen of the Whitecloud. ”But don't go in the cabin.”
He found a hose and siphoned some gasoline up into a water bottle. He took the fuel down into the forward compartment and splashed it on the carpet and wood paneling. He repeated the process until the gas was gone and the speedboat reeked of fumes. He followed his s.h.i.+pmates into the sailing vessel as the sailors pulled the powerful outboard up out of its mount with a block and tackle.
Valentine reached into his pockets and found one more tin of matches. He struck them all at once, and tossed the flaming handful into the cabin. Flames raced through the boat, and the Whitecloud sailors cast it off.
He watched and waited until the lake consumed the flaming wreck. The smoke dissipated into the fresh breeze.
Sailors are used to the unexpected. A woman with a long, thin-boned face introduced herself as Collier, the captain of the Whitecloud, and offered them blankets and hot coffee.
She invited them below to the cramped galley. Valentine showed the captain his card, the chit given him by Captain Doss of the White Lightning. She agreed to take them north, where they could transfer to another s.h.i.+p, which could take them anywhere in the Great Lakes they wished to go. ”I'd do it anyway, even without Dossie's card. Something tells me you went through a lot to get here.”
He, Molly, and J. P. discussed their options on the coming voyage. They decided to winter in the familiar (at least to Valentine) reaches of the Boundary Waters. He would see Father Max again. Only when spring came would he have to make new decisions.
A very weary David Valentine took Molly into the clean, cold air of the Lake Michigan morning. They looked west as the sh.o.r.eline slowly became distinct and the sun penetrated the clouds. He thought of all the doomed souls beyond the distant, mist-shrouded sh.o.r.e. He had saved Molly, but how many others had died to feed the Reapers in the last three days?
He remembered a story that Father Max used to tell, and a quote he had to memorize from the green blackboard, of a tireless nun named Mother Teresa. She and her Sisters of Mercy had worked with the mult.i.tudes of impoverished, disease-stricken people in India. A journalist had asked her how she managed to keep her spirits up, when despite her unceasing labors there would always be more suffering than she could possibly cure.
Mother Teresa had thought for a moment, and then said: ”You start with one.”
David Valentine turned to watch the dawn, Molly's hand in his.
One.
This ends the first volume tracking the career of David Valentine. He will return to face the mysterious Twisted Cross in Choice of the Cat, the second book in the Vampire Earth series. For more information on it and other tales of Vampire Earth, please visit the author's Web site at .
Glossary Aspirants: Teenagers, often sons and daughters of those in a particular caste, who travel with the Hunters and perform a.s.sorted camp functions.
Bears: Hunters and the most fearsome of the Lifeweavers' human weapons. The Bears are proud to take on anything the Kurians can design.
buckchits: The plastic currency of the Ozark Free Territory, they are doughnut-shaped coins of various denominations.
Cats: Trained by the Lifeweavers, these Hunters act as spies, saboteurs, and a.s.sa.s.sins in the Kurian Zone. Some work in disguises; others work openly.
Grogs: Any of the mult.i.tude of creations the Kurians have designed or enhanced to help subjugate man. They come in many shapes and sizes; some are intelligent enough to use weapons.
Hunters: Human beings who have been enhanced by the technomagic of the Lifeweavers to cope with the sp.a.w.n of Kur.
Interworld Tree: An ancient network of portals between the stars, the doors of which allow instantaneous transportation across the light-years.
Kurians: Lifeweavers from the planet Kur who learned how to indefinitely lengthen their lives by absorbing vital aura. They are the true vampires of the New Order.
lifesign: Energy given off by any living thing in proportion to its size and sentience. The Reapers use it, in addition to the normal senses, to track their human prey.
parang: A short, fat machete with a slight curve at the tip. Its three cutting edges can be used to skin game, chop down small trees, or even dig.
Pre-ent.i.ties: The Old Ones, a vampiric race that died out long before man walked the Earth. From their knowledge the Kur learned how to become vampires by living off vital aura.
Quislings: Humans who a.s.sist the Kurians in running the New Order.
Reapers: The Praetorian Guard of the New Order, they are in fact avatars animated by their master vampire. They permit the reclusive Kurians to interact with humans and others, and more important, absorb the vital aura through a psychic connection with the avatar without physical risk. The Reaper lives off the blood of the victim, while the aura sustains the Master Kurian. Also known colloquially as Capos, Governors, Hoods, Rigs, Skulls, Scowls, Tongue-Tong, Creeps, Hooded Ones, and Vampires.
vital aura: An energy field created by a living creature. Sadly, humans are rich in it.
Wolves: The most numerous caste of the Hunters, trieir patrols watch the no-man's-land between the Kurian Zone and the Free Territories. They also act as guerrilla fighters, couriers, and scouts.
Read on for a special preview of E. E. Knight's next volume of the VAMPIRE EARTH.
Available from Roc in May 2004 Lt. David Valentine looked back down into the gully. His platoon, numbering thirty-five in all, rested against leafing trees, using their packs to keep their backsides off of the rain- soaked earth. They had covered a lot of ground since skirting the northern edge of Lake Oologah that morning, moving at a steady, mile-eating run. The Wolves held rifles in their laps. Their leather uniforms were cut in variegated styles. Some Wolves still wore their winter beards, and no two hats matched. The only accoutrement his three squads shared were their short, broad-bladed machetes known as parangs, though as would be expected of the individualistic Wolves, some wore them on their belts, some across their chests, and some sheathed in their moccasin-leather puttees.
Valentine signaled with two fingers to the men waiting in the gully, and Sergeant Stafford climbed up the wash to join him in the damp bracken. His platoon sergeant, known as ”Gator” off-duty because of his leathery skin and wide, toothy grin, worked his way slowly to Valentine's overlook. Wordlessly, the lieutenant pa.s.sed Stafford his binoculars. Stafford examined the compound as Valentine worked another inch off of the gra.s.s stalk clamped in his teeth.
”Looks like that last sprint was for nothing,” Valentine said. ”The tractor trailer pulled in here. We wouldn't have intercepted anyway. This must be a pretty good stretch of road.”
”How do you figure that, sir?” Stafford said, searching the compound in vain for any sign of the tanker truck they had spotted crawling through the rain that morning. Using a map, making some guesswork, and trusting to luck, the platoon had dashed cross-country to ambush the tanker, hardly a forlorn hope given the terrible state of the roads in this part of the Kurain Zone.
”Look at the ruts by the gate, turning off the road. They've got to have been made by an eighteen wheeler,” Valentine said.
”Could have been from yesterday-even the day before, Lieutenant.”
Valentine raised an eyebrow. ”No puddles. Rain would have filled in something that deep.
Those were made since the shower ended, what, a half hour ago?”
”Err, okay, yeah. So the truck's in one of those big garages getting worked on. We get in touch with the captain, the rest of the company is here in a day or two, and we burn the compound. I figure fifteen or twenty guarding this place at most. Ten's more likely.”
”I'd like nothing better, Staff. Time's a problem, though.”
”Val, I know food's short, but what else is new? There's enough game and forage in these woods.”
”Sorry, Gator,” Valentine said, taking the binoculars back. ”I misspoke. I should have said time's running short for them.”
Stafford's eyebrows arched in surprise. ”What, those four tied up down there? Okay, it's ugly, but since when have we had much control over the punishment handed out by these little Territorial commandants?”