Part 12 (1/2)

She shouldn't have forgotten there were likely to be traps throughout the labyrinth.

'In the floor,' Detlef said, indicating a manhole cover. She was on her knees, tugging at a ring. They heard footsteps, and she pulled harder. The ring came off, with a screech of protest.

'It's bolted from the underside.'

'There must be a trick.'

The footsteps were huge, thumping the ground like giant fists. The tunnels shook. She could smell smoke, and her eyes were watering. In the dark, distant flame flickered.

'It's iron,' she said. 'It leads into the sewers.'

'So? We're in the s.h.i.+t already.'

She shrugged and made awls of her fingers, piercing the metal with agonising slowness. She made fists, and pulled. Pain came alive in her shoulders and elbows.

A walking furnace squeezed into the chamber. A walking furnace with Reinhardt Jessner's face.

Genevieve pulled and heard the bolts breaking. The manhole burst free, and she choked on a gasp of truly foul air. Then, they were all in the middle of an explosion.

Detlef realized that pulling the manhole had let out a cloud of sewer gas. He felt a liquid heat on his facebeard and eyebrows singeingand was thrown against a hard wall. Even with his eyes screwed shut, the light was brighter than the sun.

He knew something was broken inside him.

Trying to stand up, he realized his left leg wasn't working. He opened his eyes, and saw the explosion had blown itself out. Sc.r.a.ps of cobwebs and detritus were burning, but most of the fire was gone.

Reinhardt had been smashed against a rack of old weapons. His body was blackened with soot and burns, but bright blades shone where they pierced him. Three swordblades stood out of his chest, points glinting. He'd been cooked alive, and now he was spitted. The stench of burned human meat was bitter in Detlef's mouth and nostrils.

Apart from anything else, Reinhardt's head hung wrongly, his neck broken.

Genevieve was on her feet. Her face was sooty, and her clothes were ruined. But she was all right. She was in a better shape than him.

'It's gone,' she said.

She took him in her arms, and checked his wounds. When she touched his knee, pain shot through him.

'How bad?'

She shook her head.

'I don't know. I think it's just a clean break.'

'Sigmar's holy hammer.'

'You can say that again.'

He touched her face, wiping the black grease away from her girl's skin. Her teeth were receding, and the red spark in her irises was dying.

'It's all right,' she said.

Behind her, Reinhardt Jessner's eyes opened wide in his black face, and he lurched forwards, pulling the rack of swords that pierced him away from the wall.

He roared, and Genevieve hugged Detlef hopelessly. If Reinhardt fell on them, they'd be transfixed many times. All three would die down here.

XXII.

Malvoisin launched himself at Reinhardt for the second time, bearing him away from Detlef and Genevieve, cras.h.i.+ng him against a smoke-smeared wall. Reinhardt broke in several places, and swords tore through his flesh, revealing angry red gashes in his burned-black body.

He had his tentacles around the madman, and was squeezing. The body was already a corpse, but it clung to life. Malvoisin squeezed desperately, using his altered body as he'd never done before. He had grown strong in his lair, he realized. He'd wasted himself loitering in the depths of his own dark.

In the sea, he might have had a chance.

Reinhardt's face came off, and stuck to his own.

The Animus left its ruined host, and latched onto Bruno Malvoisin, burrowing into his altered body, seeking his still-human brain. He must have a core which could be soured, turned against the Animus' prey. A core of bitterness, self-hate, misery.

This would be the final, and most powerful host.

It rose from Reinhardt's body, and stretched out its tentacles, reaching for Genevieve.

The vampire girl stood, wide-eyed. 'Malvoisin?'

The Animus was about to tell her 'no.' But the Trapdoor Daemon said, 'Yes, I'm still here.'

Angry, the Animus prepared for its final, fatal blows.

The monster came for them, and Detlef offered up his final prayers. He thought of all the parts he'd never take, the plays he'd never write, the actresses he'd never kiss Tentacles slipped around his broken leg, and latched onto his burned clothes, creeping up his body. Genevieve was entwined too. The Trapdoor Daemon was all around them.

In the centre of its head was a blank white face.

Then the monster froze like an ice statue.

Genevieve gasped, unwanted red tears on her cheeks.

She reached for the mask, but it seemed to elude her fingers, sinking into Malvoisin's hide as if it were disappearing under the surface of a still pond.

The mask was swallowed.

Inside his mind, Malvoisin wrestled the Animus, swallowing the creature of Drachenfels at a gulp.

It was hot inside, and he knew he would not last.