03 - Evolution (24 page)

Sounds as if this cold war is becoming hot.

Shallow waves lapped against the hull. A full moon cast
its reflection on the surface of the Danube. Langely scanned the
shoreline with a pair of night-vision binoculars. Beyond the silent
docks and warehouses, traffic flowed upon the Belgrade Parkway. In the
distance, the lights of central Pest lit up the night. Despite his
apprehensions, he spotted nothing amiss.

Without warning, a dark figure dropped into view.
Langely caught a glimpse of huge, demonic wings. Clawed feet smacked
down upon the deck. A hideous face, with flared ears and a batlike
snout, glared at him.

Bloody hell!
Langely
thought, dropping the binoculars. The grotesque creature before him bore
no resemblance to any vamp or lycan he had ever encountered before. He
reached for his Uzi, but the winged monster was too fast. His shots went
wild as a savage claw ripped off half his face.

* * *

The sound of gunfire, coming from topside,
electrified Michael and the others. Corvinus leapt to his feet, while
Selene drew her new Walthers. They heard anxious gasps and chatter from
the ops center below. Michael recognized the sound of automatic weapon’s
fire, something he had become all too familiar with over the last few
nights.

Now what?
he worried.
Has Marcus found us already?

Corvinus opened his mouth to demand a report, but was
interrupted by an enormous crash directly overhead. Michael jumped
backward as a body, wearing the black uniform of a Cleaner, came
smashing through the skylight, landing on top of the desk amidst a
shower of splintered glass. Corvinus and Selene also reacted with shock.

Michael saw at once that the guard was dead. His face
and chest had been ripped to shreds. An Uzi, strapped to the Cleaner’s
chest, had obviously done the poor guy no good. Blood dripped off the
edge of the desk onto the expensive carpet.

Instinctively, Michael clutched the pendant hanging
around his neck. He understood that at all costs they had to stop Marcus
from getting his claws on the key. A hybrid Elder was bad enough; they
couldn’t allow Marcus to free William as well.

He looked to Selene, hoping she would know what to do.
But before she could answer, the window behind him exploded inward.
Vicious talons tore through steel shutters as if they were tissue paper,
then stabbed all the way through Michael’s shoulders. He screamed in
agony as he was abruptly hoisted off his feet and yanked out of the
office through the broken window.

A cold wind rushed against him, but was not frigid
enough to numb the searing pain in his shoulders. Looking down, he saw
the
Sancta Helena
shrink away below his
dangling feet. Guards upon the ship’s deck fired up at them, apparently
none too concerned about hitting Michael as well as Marcus. He heard the
Elder’s powerful wings flapping in his ears.

Michael cried out. High in the air above the dock, he
thrashed wildly upon the talons spearing his shoulders. Blood streamed
from the wounds, falling hundreds of feet to the pier below. Vertigo
threatened as he gazed down at the empty air beneath his feet. How high
up was he?

Not that it mattered. A heartbeat later, Marcus hurled
Michael at the ground. A scream tore itself from Michael’s lungs as he
plunged downward at heart-stopping speed. Hitting the run-down wharf, he
smashed straight through the rotting timbers into the ice-cold water
below. The sudden immersion came as yet one more shock to his system, on
top of his crash landing and skewered flesh. The moonlit waters took on
a reddish tinge.

Stunned, he sank toward the bottom of the river.

“Michael!”

Selene rushed over to the ruptured window, just in time
to see Michael crash through a nearby pier. Splinters flew from
fractured wooden beams, followed by a tremendous splash of water
erupting from the river below. A second later, a winged figure dived
after him.

Was Michael strong enough to survive the fall? Probably,
provided he didn’t drown before Marcus got to him. But that still left
the ruthless Elder to deal with.

Hang on, Michael,
she thought desperately.
You don’t have to fight him
alone.

Thrusting her handguns back into their holsters, she
swiped the dead guard’s Uzi and racked another round into the chamber.
Turning away from Corvinus, she headed for the open window. “No, wait,”
he called after her. “You’re no match for him.”

She hesitated, but only for a moment. Corvinus was
undoubtedly right, yet that wasn’t going to stop her from coming to
Michael’s aid.
Hell,
she thought,
I’ve already killed one Elder this week. Let’s go for another.

She dived headfirst out the window, then landed like a
panther on the dock below. She raced across the wooden planks to the gap
Michael’s falling body had punched through the floor of the dock. She
peered through the hole into the murky shadows beneath the pier. Rusty
iron struts supported the crumbling wharf. Excess crates and barrels
were stacked on slime-covered wooden planks along the shore. A set of
concrete steps led up to the pier. Lengths of thick, knotted rope helped
hold the dock’s substructure together. Crimson water lapped against the
riverbank.

“Michael!”

Oily water sprayed against her face as Marcus burst from
the surface of the river, clutching Michael’s bleeding body. The Elder,
in his monstrous hybrid form, hurled Michael onto a muddy bank beneath
the pier. Selene felt a surge of relief as she saw Michael roll to his
feet upon the shore. Marcus touched down in front of him. The shattered
pier was high enough above their heads to allow the Elder to unfurl his
wings to their fullest.

Michael snarled at the other hybrid. His eyes shifted to
black.

But Marcus did not give Michael time to complete the
transformation. The deadly wings snapped forward, spearing Michael in
the chest. Blood sprayed freely as the lethal talons stabbed Michael
again and again, like the stingers of an angry scorpion. Michael
recoiled from the furious onslaught. He stumbled clumsily, too
overwhelmed to strike back. He swiped impotently at the darting wings,
trying and failing to fend them off. His face was contorted in agony.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

No!
Selene thought. Michael
was being tortured to death before her very eyes.
Leave him alone, damn you!

She dropped through the hole in the dock, splashing down
into the shallow water along the shore. Raising the Uzi, she took aim at
Marcus, but…

With a wicked growl, Marcus seized hold of Michael and
rammed him into one of the rusty iron struts supporting the dock. The
metal split in two and Michael’s body smashed down on the bottom half of
the sundered strut. The force of the collision drove the steel beam up
through Michael’s chest, impaling him from below. Blood gushed from his
open mouth.

Selene froze in horror, transfixed by the awful tableau.
She felt as if an iron bar had just been run through her own heart as
well.
Please, no,
she thought despairingly.
Not Michael.

Marcus, on the other hand, was not at all dismayed. He
tore open Michael’s shirt and wrapped his claws around the
blood-spattered pendant. A look of triumph crossed his malevolent face
as he claimed the precious ornament once and for all.

The sight of the pendant snapped Selene out of her
grief-induced paralysis. Screaming in fury, she emptied the Uzi,
peppering Marcus with red-hot silver. The muzzle of the submachine gun
flared like the anger erupting inside her.
Die, you
ugly bastard!
she thought, wishing she could make the heartless
Elder feel just a fraction of the pain she was going through.
Die!

Marcus hissed loudly, whether from pain or annoyance she
couldn’t tell. With preternatural speed, he retreated into the shadows,
taking the pendant with him.

Shit,
she thought.

Aboard the ship, Corvinus strode briskly to the
ebony armoire on the starboard side of his office. He opened the cabinet
to reveal an impressive collection of antique weapons: broadswords,
battle-axes, rapiers, daggers, pikes, maces, scimitars, stilettos, and
other mementos of his martial past.

A fitting memorial,
he mused,
for one whose legacy has long been
written in blood.

Selecting a seventeenth-century broadsword from the
armoire, he withdrew the double-edged weapon and prepared to meet his
vampiric son for the first time in centuries. He eyed the sword
dubiously. If and when the moment of truth arrived, was he truly willing
to take arms against his own flesh and blood? Chances were, he would
soon find out.

Not for one moment did he expect Selene to defeat Marcus
on her own.

Murder in her eyes, Selene crept along below the
dock, searching the shadows for her foe. Part of her wanted to rush to
Michael’s side, see to his injuries, but she knew she couldn’t afford to
let her guard down for a moment. Even though Marcus had claimed the
first part of the key, he still needed a taste of her blood to discover
the location of William’s hidden prison.

Come and get it,
she thought coldly.

The empty Uzi lay in the mud behind her. She gripped a
loaded Walther in her left fist. She regretted that all she had was
silver bullets to work with; the experimental UV ammo had not been the
right caliber for her new handguns.

Excited voices shouted up above. Racing footsteps
pounded across the pier, as though the
Sancta
Helena
was being abandoned en masse. Selene did her best to tune
the distracting noises out, trying to listen for the flutter of
bat-wings instead. All she heard, however, was the sound of the water
against the shore… and Michael’s dying moans.

Dammit,
she cursed silently.
Where the hell was Marcus?

Suddenly, the misshapen hybrid leapt out at her from
behind a large wooden pillar. His wings lashed out at her, but Selene
instantly flipped into the air, grabbing on to the underside of the pier
with her right hand. The deadly pinions passed beneath her, missing by
inches.

Hanging by one hand from the rotted timbers, she fired
down at Marcus with her Walther. Nine millimeters of solid silver tore
through the Elder’s flesh, causing him to grimace in pain. Instead of
falling down, however, he flapped off the ground at Selene. Gritting his
teeth against the impact of the bullets, he flew toward her like the
Angel of Death, while she fired ceaselessly at his misshapen hybrid
face.

His wings lashed out, his left nailing her right hand to
the wooden crossbeam, while his right wing pierced her hip. Selene bit
down on her lip to keep from crying out, while squeezing the trigger of
her pistol until it ran dry. Gory bullet wounds marked the hybrid’s
mottled hide, but Marcus kept on coming. A sadistic grin twisted his
lips.

Selene screamed in frustration as her gun clicked
uselessly. Marcus drove his taloned wings even deeper in her flesh as he
positioned his open jaws beneath her skewered hand. She watched
helplessly as her blood streamed down toward the Elder’s waiting maw.
Her heart pounded against her will, speeding the crimson flow.

This is just what he needs!

The blood splattered across the hybrid’s face. Closing
his eyes to better savor the moment, he gulped it down eagerly, chasing
after stray droplets with his tongue. He sighed in rapture as Selene’s
memories coursed through his brain:

The dungeon was cold and damp.
Selene was tired of playing there. “Come on, Cecilia!” she called to her
sister as they ran up the stone passageway toward the sun. Giggling, the
girls raced past the straining laborers with their heavy carts. “Last
one there is a silly goose!”

“No fair!” Cecilia complained as
she dashed after her sister. “You’ve got a head start!”

Cecilia gave her a good chase, but
the outcome was never in doubt. Selene burst out of the gloomy tunnel
into the bright afternoon sunshine. “I win!” she shouted to Cecilia, who
came rushing out of the dungeon only moments later.

Selene turned around to look back
the way she had come. The entrance to the dungeon had been dug into the
forbidding face of a craggy mountaintop. A river wound its way through
the rocky mountain passes, while high above the raging torrents, Lord
Viktor’s castle sat atop the very peak of the mountain, its magnificent
turrets and battlements reaching toward the sky. The imposing sight of
the mighty fortress imprinted itself on the little girl’s memory.

Marcus’ black eyes snapped open. Selene’s blood dripped
from his chin as he smiled triumphantly.

Bastard!
Selene thought
angrily. She felt violated by the Elder’s attack. Fury helped her
overcome the shock to her system as she reached for her spare handgun
and blasted Marcus in the chest. The demonic hybrid shrieked in pain and
tumbled back toward the water below.

His talons were yanked from her flesh and she fell like
a rock toward the river below. The freezing water jolted her as she
splashed into the Danube, sinking below the shallow waves. She kicked
madly back up to the surface, and her head burst free of the river. Her
eyes searched anxiously for Marcus, but the Elder was nowhere to be
seen.

Of course,
she thought
bitterly.
He got what he came for. The pendant and
my blood. Now all he needs is the second half of the key, wherever that
is.

Her gaze fell upon Michael, his unmoving body impaled
upon the bloody strut, and every other consideration fled her mind.
Heedless of her own injuries, she ran out of the river and over to the
shattered strut. Icy water streamed down her soggy leather gear as she
splashed through the shallows up to the shore.