03 - Evolution (18 page)

The explosion destroyed what little the anonymous men
had left behind. A roiling ball of flame erupted from the mouth of the
mine. The accumulated snow and ice was vaporized instantly. A deafening
bang rocked the morning.

“Wha—?” Hadik gasped, a second before the shock wave
sent all four policemen flying backward into the woods. His head slammed
into an unyielding oak and the world went black once more.

It would be hours before any of the cops stirred again.

An engine roared to life, waking Selene from a
sound sleep. She sat up with a start and grabbed for her gun, but the
weapon was not resting on the table next to her bed the way it usually
was. In fact, there didn’t seem to be a table.

Or a bed.

It took her a moment to get oriented.
Right.
She was naked in the back of the
semitrailer, the gray wool blanket draped over her body. Her gun was
with her clothing, scattered about on the floor of the trailer,
surrounded by crates of engine parts. Sonja’s pendant rested on the
floor next to where her head had been.

“Michael?”

He was nowhere in sight, but she thought she heard him
stirring outside the trailer. A closed window was built into the wall at
her right. Wrapping the blanket around her, she retrieved some fresh
ammo from the pockets of her trench coat and reloaded the Berettas. Then
she cautiously approached the window. Wary of sunbeams, she stood to one
side of the window as she slowly drew open the metal blinds. No lethal
shaft of light invaded the trailer, so she took a chance and peered out
the window.

Outside the trailer, several meters away, Michael was
working on the engine of an old Land Rover. He had the hood up and his
hands were busy performing surgery on the vehicle’s innards. She
wondered if he could get the abandoned Rover up and running by
nightfall.

Why not?
she thought.
Michael is blessed with many talents.

As I learned this morning.

She watched him silently for a moment, then retreated
back into the darker corners of the trailer. Sonja’s pendant caught her
eye and she sat down to take a better look at it. She smiled at the
thought of Michael leaving it for her to find when she woke up. No doubt
he had been thinking of Lucian and Sonja, the star-crossed lovers whose
forbidden romance had incurred Viktor’s terrible wrath, setting off long
centuries of internecine warfare. Like Lucian and Sonja, she and Michael
came from two different worlds, but had somehow found each other
regardless.
I only hope our tale ends somewhat less
tragically… as unlikely as that seems.

Her thoughts drifted back to their lovemaking earlier
today. Despite her earlier doubts, she felt strangely at peace with what
had transpired between them. There was no turning back now. For better
or for worse, she had let Michael past the barricades that had long
guarded her heart. Her old life was over. All she could do now was fight
for their future together. It was the end of an era, and the beginning
of a risky new campaign.

Did Sonja feel this way,
Selene wondered,
after she slept with Lucian for
the first time?
She held up the crest-shaped pendant before her
eyes. Dried blood caked its gilded design, marring its beauty. She
frowned. Far too much blood had been spilled over this emblem for her
liking.

Licking her finger, she started to clear away the
clotted gore.

Click.
Her fingertip
accidentally depressed a concealed latch, triggering some sort of
internal mechanism. Selene’s eyes widened in wonder as delicate bronze
blades came sliding out of the pendant, not unlike the petals of a
clockwork flower. Selene was briefly reminded of the silver throwing
stars she often used against werewolves, but, no, the blades were not
sharp enough to serve as weapons. Rather they resembled the teeth of
some sort of complicated gear, as though the opened pendant were merely
a component of a larger mechanical puzzle.

But that wasn’t the strangest part of her discovery.
What was truly unexpected, and disturbing, was the realization that she
had seen this apparatus before, a long time ago….

The dungeon was damp and cold. No
more than six or seven, little Selene shivered beneath her woolen
kirtle. The fair-haired child wandered down the gloomy stone corridor,
fascinated by the gilded pendant in her hand. Torches mounted in sconces
on the wall provided just enough light for her to admire the intricate
runes inscribed on the newly made pendant. The shiny metal blades
projecting from the device reflected the flickering glow of the torches.
Selene thought she had never seen anything quite so beautiful.

A heavy thud caught the little girl
by surprise. She spun around, terrified….

“Selene?”

She snapped back to the present, startled to find
Michael sitting across from her. Somehow he had slipped back into the
trailer without her even noticing.
He’s getting
stronger,
she realized; catching a Death Dealer unawares was no
small matter.
We still don’t know the full extent
of his new abilities.

“Sun’s setting,” he declared. Selene realized she had
slept most of the day away. She knew she should get dressed; they needed
to keep moving, if only to stay one step ahead of Marcus. But the
forgotten memory, if that was indeed what it was, had left her deeply
unsettled. She tugged the blanket tighter around her trembling body. She
felt confused, uncertain, quite unlike herself. Her own past had caught
her unawares.

Michael noted the difference in her. “What’s wrong?” he
asked anxiously.

The
Sancta Helena
was docked at the pier in Budapest. Lorenz Macaro heard the Danube
lapping against the hull of the ship as he sat behind his mahogany desk
in the suite above the ops center. Samuel’s voice emerged from the
intercom. He spoke loudly, to be heard over the whirring of the
helicopter blades in the background.

“Supplies were taken, used weapons were left behind,”
the Cleaner reported. “The incident at the tavern occurred just before
dawn. They couldn’t have gotten very far.”

Macaro wished he had dispatched a team to the safe house
in the mountains earlier. Perhaps they could have apprehended Michael
Corvin and Selene before this situation had escalated further. He
glanced at an antique clock. Dusk was approaching. Marcus would soon be
on the move again, as would Selene and Michael. If Marcus hadn’t killed
them already.

“Remain airborne for the present,” he instructed Samuel.
“I’m certain they’ll reappear in good time.”

“Yes, sir.”

Selene handed the pendant to Michael.

“I’ve seen this before,” she told him, “when I was a
child. I held it. When it was open like this.”

Michael didn’t understand. “How’s that possible?” He
hadn’t seen Selene in any of Lucian’s memories of the Dark Ages. Was
this before Sonja died, before Lucian had claimed the pendant as his
own?
It has to be,
he thought.
That’s the only scenario that makes sense.

“I don’t know,” she said, obviously troubled. He found
it hard to imagine that Selene had ever been a child, even though he
knew that she had once been human. Her eyes lit up as an idea popped
into her head. “But I know someone that might.”

Throwing aside the blanket, she hastily slid back into
her leathers and geared up. Unafraid of the cold, she left her torn
trench coat behind. Michael got into the passenger seat of the Land
Rover, his own bloodstained jacket having seen better days. He was
tempted to drive, but she knew where they were going, not him. Selene
got behind the wheel and slammed her door shut.

“Andreas Tanis,” she explained on the run. “He was the
official historian of the covens, back when there was such a post.” She
jammed the key into the ignition. Michael felt a surge of satisfaction
as the engine fired up; his repair job seemed to have paid off. “But he
fell out of favor after documenting what Viktor considered ‘malicious
lies’. Of course,” she added bitterly, “that means he was probably
telling the truth.”

She threw the Land Rover into reverse and hit the gas.
The stolen SUV roared out of the garage in reverse, then expertly spun
around on the icy pavement. Michael was thrown back against his seat and
thanked God for his seat belt. Not for the first time, he wondered why
he kept getting into cars with Selene. The Rover peeled out of the
mining complex and took off into the night. Their headlights cut through
the wintry darkness. Selene shifted gears and put the pedal to the
metal. A sudden burst of acceleration sent them rocketing down the
remote mountain road. It was no longer snowing, but there was still
plenty of white stuff all around. Michael couldn’t see any other
vehicles ahead or behind them. They seemed to have the road all to
themselves.

“He was exiled over three hundred years ago,” she
continued, keeping her eye on the road.

“Three hundred years?” Michael still had trouble
grasping the huge spans of time in which Selene and the other immortals
seemed to operate. “What makes you think we’re going to find him now?”

She shot him a look. “I was the one who exiled him.”

Deep within the slimy drainage tunnel, Marcus
sensed the sun go down. His wings were wrapped around him like those of
a sleeping bat. They were strong and flexible once more, restored to
health by the day’s long slumber. His black eyes opened and he flexed
his deadly talons. All the scars and bruises he had received in this
morning’s clashes were long since healed. He felt stronger and more
vigorous than ever.

At last!
he thought. His
daylong repose in the fetid tunnel had tried his patience, but now he
need wait no longer. The golden pendant shone brightly in his memory,
sharpening his resolve. Hatred flared within his heart as he recalled
how Selene and Michael had dared to come between him and his prize. They
would pay with their lives for their impertinence.
Before the sun sets once more,
he vowed,
they will be punished… and the key will be mine.

He had waited eight centuries already. He could not wait
another night more.

His wings rustled like dry leaves as he crept toward the
mouth of the tunnel….

They headed east, higher into the hills.

The Land Rover thundered through a remote canyon.
Towering walls of granite loomed above the road on both sides, all but
blocking out the moonlit sky. Michael hadn’t seen a service station,
telephone pole, or any other sign of human habitation for over an hour.
That’s it,
he thought,
we’re officially in the middle of nowhere.

Selene had spoken little during the long drive. Michael
could tell she was deeply disturbed by this latest revelation, whatever
it might mean. As if her whole life hadn’t been turned upside down
already! He couldn’t begin to guess how her past could possibly be
connected to Sonja’s pendant. The disgraced princess had died, and
Lucian had stolen the pendant, years before Viktor had turned Selene
into a vampire. By then, Sonja’s very existence had been stricken from
the history of the coven, never to be spoken of again. Michael
remembered Selene telling him that the Elders had forbidden the other
vampires from probing too deeply into the past.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,
he thought,
that a pack of vampires has a whole
bunch of skeletons in their closet.

He looked at Selene with concern. After their intimacy
earlier, he had hoped that she would be quicker to open to him when she
was going through a rough time. He wanted to be there for her,
especially at moments like this.
Give her time,
he told himself.
This is all pretty new for her.

The Rover came tearing around a bend and into a valley.
“Whoa!” Michael said as an impressive stone structure came into view.
Shaped like a monumental Celtic cross, with granite crossbeams the size
of Neolithic monoliths, the breathtaking edifice had literally been
carved into the face of a craggy hill. Cracked stone and faded marble
mosaics hinted at centuries of neglect. A primitive wooden gate guarded
the barren grounds in front of the giant cross. Michael didn’t spot any
sort of lights either inside or outside the structure. The only
illumination came from the Rover’s headlights, and the full moon waxing
overhead.

“Looks like a monastery,” he guessed.

“It used to be,” Selene confirmed. “More like a prison
now. Tanis has been hiding here since Viktor’s decree. We may be the
first people he’s seen in centuries.”

The blonde was Olga. The brunette was Grushenka.

Or perhaps it was the other way around.

Happily smothered between the two sumptuous female
vampires, Andreas Tanis wasn’t worried about keeping the women’s names
straight. He had more important matters to occupy him right now, such as
their lush breasts, smooth thighs, and delectable rumps. Enmeshed in a
tangle of naked flesh, he barely knew what to grope or suckle first.

Choices, choices…

The monastery’s capacious wine cellar had been
transformed into an opulent love nest. Faded mosaics looked down on a
sprawling bed liberally strewn with expensive sheets and cushions. A
profusion of candles cast flickering shadows over the threesome
cavorting on the bed. Elegant tapestries were draped over the venerable
stone walls. Corinthian columns supported the vaulted ceiling. Antique
furniture had replaced the absent wine racks. Bookshelves sagged beneath
the weight of numerous dusty tomes. Bartók’s String Quartet No. 1 played
softly over a concealed sound system. Discarded clothing littered the
floor. Life-size marble statues of departed saints occupied recessed
nooks in the far corners of the cellar. Their sculpted eyes gazed
voyeuristically at the orgy taking place only a few yards away.