03 - Evolution (20 page)

How many of these “watchdogs” does
Tanis have?
she wondered.
And what’s
happening with Michael?
She hoped that he was still safely
aboveground, but suspected that he was already searching for her.
He’s not very good at staying put.

Knife in hand, she advanced cautiously down the tunnel,
heading for the flickering lights up ahead. Her patience with Tanis’
snares had long since evaporated.

I wouldn’t want to be him when I
catch up with him.

Michael dropped through the trapdoor into the
tunnel below. He found himself in a murky catacomb, lit only by the
moonlight coming through the open trap. The werewolf’s chain stretched
away into the darkness, leading to some hidden lair deep beneath the
monastery.

What the fuck?
he thought.
There was much he still didn’t know about the secret world of the
immortals, but he knew that a chained werewolf guarding an exiled
vampire was not exactly kosher. What was that lycan doing here anyway?
Selene hadn’t said anything about werewolves.
Then
again, she probably wasn’t expecting that trapdoor either.

His hybrid eyes quickly adjusted to the dim lighting.
Nails scraped against the floor up ahead and he sensed something coming
toward him from around a bend in the tunnel.

“Selene?”

A shadow appeared on the wall ahead, just beyond the
bend. The shadow of a werewolf.

Oh, hell,
Michael thought.
He dropped into a defensive stance, raising his claws before him. His
lips peeled back from his fangs.

A bestial hiss disturbed the silence.

It took Michael a second to realize that the hiss was coming from him.

Michael?

Selene thought she heard his voice coming from one of
the adjacent tunnels. She rushed forward… just as the tunnel tilted
sharply downward. Taken by surprise, she slid feetfirst down the steep
incline. Musty air, rank with the scent of lycan shit and piss, blew
against her face as she sped down the slide on her back, finally landing
on her feet in a cavern far below the monastery. Straw crackled beneath
the soles of her boots.

Where was she now? Looking around, she saw that the
slide had deposited her in a circular chamber with several sloping
entrances like the one she had just stumbled onto. Titanium chains,
radiating from a central anchor, led up various of the tunnels. Selene
counted four chains, which left at least two chained werewolves
unaccounted for. She kept her silver blade ready.

This must be the lycans’ lair,
she realized. The fetid stench of the beasts was even stronger here than
in the tunnels. Torches mounted in the walls allowed her to see more
than she would have liked of the lycan’s squalid den. Piles of bones,
many of them recognizably human, were scattered around the lair.
Yellowed femurs, humeri, and tibiae had been cracked open, the better to
extract the tasty marrow inside. Gobbets of raw meat still clung to a
fractured skull and rib cage, implying that the victims had been
consumed fairly recently. All the bones bore evidence of having been
thoroughly gnawed. Selene could only hope that the unfortunate humans
had not been eaten alive.
What the devil have you
been up to, Tanis?

A mournful howl echoed down one of the slanted tunnels,
reaching a poignant note before trailing off into silence. Something,
she knew, had just died painfully. A steel chain extended up the
passageway in question. Selene was reluctant to follow the chain, for
fear of running into yet another hungry werewolf.

No point pushing my luck,
she thought. One way or another, the battle at the other end of the
chain was over.
I just have to hope that Michael
was the victor.

The sputtering glow of the torches revealed an actual
staircase, leading up to the ground floor of the monastery. Selene
thought she glimpsed more light at the top of the stairs. With luck, she
would find Tanis above, and not more of his ravenous guard dogs.

After all of this, he’d better have
some answers for me.

Holding her knife before her, she climbed the stairs.
Every sense was at a heightened state, alert to the slightest hint of an
ambush. Emerging from the stairwell, she found herself in a vaulted
corridor heavy with the weight of ages. Time and decay had taken their
toll on this part of the monastery. The plaster walls were cracked and
crumbling. Wooden crosses and other holy relics, resting in niches along
the walls, were covered by many decades’ worth of dust. Cobwebs cloaked
the hanging tapestries. The paving stones were broken and uneven,
forcing Selene to tread carefully. Melted snow dripped from the ceiling,
forming puddles upon the floor. Rats scurried away at her approach.
Moonlight shone through broken stained-glass windows, casting a spectrum
of eerie colors upon the ancient stones.

As Selene entered a particularly murky intersection, she
heard muffled breathing to both sides of her.
Not
werewolves,
she realized instantly. After centuries as a Death
Dealer, she knew a lycan when she heard one; this was something
different. She remained on guard regardless. Werewolves were not her
only enemies these days. She also had to watch out for her own kind.

Two pairs of bare feet crept toward her. Then, like
hissing alley cats, a pair of female vampires exploded from the shadows.
Their blue eyes glowed in the darkness as they bared their fangs and
came at her with both knives and claws. Bizarrely, they wore only a few
pieces of skimpy lingerie.

Despite their frivolous attire, Selene did not
underestimate her foes. She herself was living proof of just how deadly
a female vampire could be. She took out the blonde with an elbow jab to
the gut, then delivered a sideways kick to the brunette that sent the
dark-haired vampiress tumbling backward. The blonde doubled over,
vomiting blood onto the paving stones. Selene jabbed the point of her
own blade into the back of the blonde’s head and the woman dropped
lifelessly onto the floor. The brunette made the mistake of trying to
get up again, still clutching a silver dagger in her hand, but a
roundhouse kick snapped her neck in half and she joined her companion in
death. Selene retrieved her blade from the blonde’s skull. Cold blood
stained its length.

Who?
Selene glanced quickly
at the women’s faces. She didn’t recognize them from the coven.
Tanis must have turned
them himself,
she guessed. Most mortals died immediately from the
bite of an immortal, but a small percentage of victims became immortal
themselves.
How many human girls did he have to
bite to provide himself with these pretty playthings? How many mortal
girls had to die?

Selene felt a pang of regret. Before tonight, she had
never killed another vampire. Now she was becoming an old hand at it.

A bullet slammed into the wall behind her, missing her
face by inches. Pulverized stone and plaster pelted her cheek. An
intense beam of light blinded her. Throwing up a hand to shield her
eyes, she squinted past the harsh white light.

Andreas Tanis stood a few yards away, gripping an AK-47
assault rifle. A powerful searchlight was mounted beneath the barrel of
the gun. “I knew it was you, Selene,” he said venomously. “The stench of
Viktor’s blood still lingers in your veins.”

The exiled historian had changed little in appearance.
He was a slight man, with mousy brown hair, who looked to be in his
mid-thirties. A brocade dressing gown with a thick fur collar was draped
over his shoulders. A pair of velvet slippers protruded from beneath the
hem of the gown. He had a depleted, dissipated look, as though he had
spent rather too much of his immortality indulging in hedonistic
pursuits. And, judging from the baleful look in his bloodshot brown
eyes, he had neither forgotten nor forgiven Selene’s role in his
banishment.

“Tanis,” she greeted him. Her face and voice held a
warning. “I see your aim hasn’t improved.”

He smirked at her from behind his gun. “You haven’t
changed. You don’t scare me, Selene.”

“Well, we’re going to have to work on that.”

Without warning, Michael dropped from the ceiling,
landing right behind Tanis. The historian spun around and gaped in shock
at the hybrid. Michael’s singular black eyes dilated in the light.
“What—?”

With but a swipe of his arm, Michael knocked Tanis into
the wall, shattering a centuries-old mosaic. He grabbed the struggling
vampire’s throat and pressed him against the wall. Tanis was as strong
as any ordinary vampire, but he was helpless in the hybrid’s grasp. The
Kalashnikov clattered onto the floor as Tanis released the weapon.

Selene calmly took possession of the rifle. Beneath her
icy exterior, she was thrilled to see Michael alive and well, but that
wasn’t an emotion she wished to share with their new prisoner. Better
that he remember the old Selene, who cared for nothing but vengeance.

“We need to talk,” she said.

The converted wine cellar was as good a place as
any to interrogate Tanis. At their mercy, the disarmed historian sat
himself down on an antique wooden chair. His attempt to present a
nonchalant attitude was belied by the trickle of sweat running down his
temple. He fidgeted restlessly in the chair, obviously more apprehensive
than he let on.

Good,
Selene thought.
He ought to be scared.

She glanced around at the lavishly appointed cellar.
Tanis had obviously made himself quite at home over the years. Her
frosty gaze fell upon the discarded female clothing lying on and about
the decadently oversize bed. Disordered cushions and covers hinted at a
recent bout of vigorous activity. Incriminating drops of fresh vampire
blood stained the rumpled sheets.

“Your exile seems a bit more comfortable than I
remember,” she remarked drily. The bodies of his undead paramours rested
in the corridors outside, leaving Tanis to face the music alone.

He looked nervously at Michael. Although Michael had
resumed his human form, now that Tanis was no longer a threat, the
memory of the hybrid’s fearful appearance was apparently not far from
the historian’s thoughts. He watched nervously as Michael sorted through
a rack of stylish designer jackets, looking for something to wear. At
the moment, Michael’s entire wardrobe consisted of a single pair of
bloodstained trousers.

“How does a vampire have lycan bodyguards?” Michael asked.

Good question,
Selene
thought. She’d been wondering that, too, although she had her
suspicions. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted an unusual glow coming from
behind one of the elaborate tapestries adorning the walls.

“A gift,” Tanis volunteered. “From a most persuasive
client.”

As were the mortal girls you turned
into your undead concubines,
Selene suspected. Her boots carried
her across the cellar toward the faint blue glow. She had a pretty good
idea who Tanis’ mysterious benefactor was.

“Lucian,” she guessed.

Michael reacted in surprise to the name. He looked at
Tanis in confusion. “Why would Lucian want to protect you?”

Why indeed?
Selene thought.
She ripped the tapestry from the wall to reveal a huge weapons rack
lined with a wide variety of guns, blades, and crossbows. Vials of
luminous blue fluid emitted a solar radiance that hurt her eyes. The
same fluid filled multiple rounds of ammunition clips. Selene recognized
the lethal ultraviolet ammo that Lucian’s lycan soldiers had recently
added to their arsenal. One of her fellow Death Dealers, a longtime
comrade named Rigel, had been killed by the UV rounds only three nights
ago. Selene had watched in horror as Rigel had literally been burned
alive from the inside out, until only his carbonized corpse remained.
The UV ammo was nothing less than weaponized sunlight.

“Because he’s been trading with him,” she said angrily.
She swiped up one of glowing clips. Even through its insulated casing,
the glow from the irradiated fluid stung her fingers. “UV rounds.” She
had previously suspected a mortal arms dealer, Leonid Florescu, of
supplying Lucian with the experimental tracer rounds, but now it
appeared that Florescu had only been a middleman at best. She glared at
Tanis. “How long have you been in the business of killing your own
kind?”

He shrugged. “I’ve done what was necessary to survive,”
he said without apology. “But my decision was made easier the day your
precious Viktor betrayed me.”

Michael pulled a dark wool jacket over his bare torso.
Tanis moved to object, then thought better of it. Apparently he valued
his life over his wardrobe.

“Betrayal was something he did well,” Selene said
bitterly. She took down a silver-plated throwing star from the weapons
rack and examined it with an expert eye. The make was unfamiliar to her.

Tanis looked at Selene in surprise. “Did?”

“Viktor’s dead,” she informed him. “I killed him.”

He chuckled, as though this was the most ridiculous
thing he had ever heard. “You? Killed Viktor? No, I think not. Unless…”
Understanding dawned in his eyes. “You learned the truth.” A grin
stretched across his face. He was enjoying this now. “So your eyes are
finally open. Isn’t it interesting how truth is even harder to absorb
than light?”

Selene scowled at the historian’s mockery. The worst
part was knowing that he was perfectly entitled to his scorn.
I was blind for so long.

His voice took on a wheedling tone as he craftily tried
to turn Selene’s shattered illusions to his advantage. “You know, I
tried to stop him, of course.” He feigned a shudder of repulsion. “An
unspeakable travesty, committing such a horrible crime. And then turning
you… that was just too much to take. My protests are why he put me here.”