03 - Evolution (27 page)

Viktor’s once-mighty fortress had been destroyed by
centuries of warfare and neglect. Selene recalled it rising proudly from
the craggy slopes of the mountain. Now, however, nothing more than a
skeletal remnant of its former glory remained. Its formidable walls had
collapsed altogether in places. Fallen stones dotted the snowy
landscape. The wooden roofs had rotted away, exposing the castle’s
gutted interior to the elements. The drawbridge leading up to the
gatehouse was long gone, discouraging visitors, although that was hardly
likely to keep out the winged Elder. Frost-covered spires and parapets
jutted upward from the packed snow and ice like the stumps of amputated
limbs. Thick black clouds obscured the moon, adding to the impenetrable
shadows veiling the lower levels of the abandoned citadel. Selene tried
not to remember playing with her sister on the sunlit slopes below the
castle.

The last time she’d seen Cecilia, many years later, her
throat had been ripped open by Viktor’s fangs….

Samuel leaned forward in his seat, peering out over the
nose of the chopper. “I don’t see a way inside.”

“Head back around,” she instructed the pilot. “Toward
the river.”

The pilot glanced at Samuel, who nodded his consent. The
Lynx swooped down toward the water, then leveled out several meters
above the choppy surface of the river. Selene looked at Samuel and
motioned toward a rocky riverbed up ahead. The raging waters crashed
along the side of the steep granite slope.

Samuel peered through the windshield. “I don’t see a way
inside.”

“There used to be a river entrance just there,” she
explained. “It must be submerged now, but it should lead straight into
the catacombs beneath the dungeon.”

Samuel did not question her assertion. He turned toward
his men.

“Looks like we’re getting wet.”

The strike team immediately went into action. Locker
doors were slammed open to reveal multiple wetsuits and other pieces of
diving gear. Selene was impressed; apparently Corvinus’ men were
prepared for anything.

As the Cleaners suited up, Selene glanced at Michael’s
body one last time. It was possible, she knew, that she would never
leave the ruined castle alive. She wanted to think that they might have
beaten Marcus to the site, but she knew that was highly unlikely.
Chances were, the hybrid Elder was waiting for them below. They could
only hope that he had not yet liberated his equally fearsome brother.

Marcus is bad enough,
she
thought.
Heaven help us if we have to take on
William, too.
She recalled the fearsome albino beast depicted in
the ancient woodcut. Viktor and Amelia had needed an army of Death
Dealers to capture William the first time.
What
hope do we have, especially now that he’s allied with Marcus?

A fatalistic mood descended upon her. She would do her
best; what other choice was there? Perhaps Corvinus’ blood would give
her the edge she needed. Perhaps not.

Bending down over Michael, she lightly kissed his
forehead. The inert flesh felt cold against her lips. She rose and
turned away from the body, her eyes shimmering like ice crystals. She
wiped away the incriminating moisture, then strode over to the chopper’s
side door. Unfastening the latch, she yanked the door open in midflight,
allowing a gust of freezing air to buffet the interior of the Lynx. Her
fingers wrapped around the edge of the doorframe as she checked their
position.

“Closer,” she shouted to the pilot.

The Lynx descended into a low hover above the river. The
wash from the copter’s blades stirred up the already foamy water,
sending concentric waves crashing against the rocky shore. Selene felt
the cold spray against her face.

By now, Samuel and the other Cleaners had geared up for
the dive. He tossed Selene a transparent face mask. She glanced at it
briefly, then tossed it back to him. She didn’t bother with a wetsuit
either; her slick black leathers were still damp from fighting Marcus
beneath the pier. Staying warm and dry were the least of her concerns.

Instead she reached out and claimed a Remington 870
combat shotgun from the weapons rack. She deftly slung the weapon’s
strap over her shoulder.

“Ladies first,” Samuel said.

Selene wouldn’t have it any other way. Shooting him a
look, she leapt from the chopper without hesitation.

Gravity grabbed her and didn’t let go. She plummeted,
falling fifteen feet toward the river below. Her boots broke the surface
of the water with a tremendous splash as she sank beneath the waves.
Five more splashes confirmed that Samuel and his men had hit the water
as well.

The icy water was even colder here in the mountains than
it had been in the city. The freezing cold came as a shock, but Selene’s
undead nature protected her from hypothermia. Moonlight filtered through
the murky water above her. She surfaced long enough to conduct a quick
head count, then dived beneath the waves once more. Waterproof
flashlights lit up the way before them as she swam toward the mouth of a
submerged tunnel. The Cleaners followed closely behind her.

Darkness swallowed them as they left the moonlight
behind.

The French had a word,
oubliette,
which referred to a
hidden dungeon in which an unfortunate prisoner could be forgotten forever. It
was a fitting term for the granite tomb in which Viktor had confined William.
Immortality only added to the diabolical cruelty of the concept.

Marcus stood before another stretch of seemingly
impervious wall. A second ornate design, twice as large as the one
before, was carved into the solid rock. Lodging his torch in an empty
sconce, he extracted both parts of the key from the pockets of his
overcoat. He carefully inserted the pendant, its inner blades once more
withdrawn, into the larger component he had captured from his father.
Making sure the pieces fit together securely, he again activated the
hidden hinges inside the pendant. The bronze blades blossomed outward,
engaging with the larger key. A new set of intricate blades opened along
the outer edge of the joined keys.

What exquisite workmanship,
Marcus thought. He spared a moment to admire the ingenuity and skill of
Selene’s late, unlamented father. The long-dead metalsmith had been
quite talented for a mortal.
A pity his craft cost
him his life.

Delaying no longer, he inserted the master key into the
depression upon the wall. He held his breath as he turned the key
clockwise. His action was rewarded by the sound of clandestine machinery
fulfilling its destined function. Harsh grinding noises echoed within
the gloomy catacombs as a vertical sheet of rock descended into the
floor. Marcus glimpsed a cramped, coffin-shaped alcove almost completely
shrouded in darkness. Straining his eyes, he spotted only a few stray
glints of metal, reflecting the flickering glow of the torch.

“William?”

He impatiently snatched the torch from its holder and
stepped toward the open sarcophagus. The claustrophobic dimensions of
the cell both appalled and angered him. Bad enough that Viktor had
condemned William to eternal imprisonment, but in so small a space as
well? There was barely enough room to move, let alone rest in comfort!

The sputtering torchlight revealed the enormity of his
brother’s torment. The snow-white albino werewolf hung limply within the
upright sarcophagus. Silver manacles were clamped around his forelimbs,
chaining him to the rough brick wall at the rear of the cell. His eyes
were closed in uneasy slumber. His muzzle twitched restlessly. Deep
grooves had been scratched into the granite floor of the oubliette,
where the beast’s paws had clawed uselessly for at least six hundred
years. His fur was matted painfully. So had his brother hung all these
centuries, Marcus realized, deprived of food, water, and even light for
countless generations, all thanks to Viktor’s perfidy!

How has he endured it?
he
wondered.
I would have gone mad.

He could not bear to see his brother suffer so a moment
longer. He rushed forward, intending to liberate William from his
sadistic bonds.

The werewolf’s eyes snapped open. Blood-red orbs stared
at the world with feral rage. Taken aback, Marcus stumbled backward as
his brother lunged at him from the cramped confines of the sarcophagus.
A ferocious roar reverberated against the damp stone walls.

William’s chains were longer than Marcus had
anticipated. The crazed werewolf drove his startled brother across the
corridor into the wall opposite his tomb. He drew back his bestial head
and opened his jaws wide.

“Be still, Brother,” Marcus said in a soothing tone.
Regaining his composure, he knew nonetheless that his life was in deadly
jeopardy. The werewolf’s bloodlust had often been beyond his control,
even before he had been starved for centuries. It was possible that he
didn’t even recognize Marcus. Still, the Elder stared coolly into his
brother’s crimson eyes. “I would no sooner hurt you than I would
myself.”

For a second, he feared that the long centuries of
confinement had indeed driven William mad. Then the werewolf’s eyes
narrowed as he studied Marcus’ face. Recognition dawned upon the
beast’s inhuman features. Rubbery black lips lifted in a smile.

That’s better,
Marcus
thought. Even after all this time, their bond remained strong. Marcus
regretted that he had ever conspired with Viktor to capture his brother,
no matter how urgent that necessity had appeared at the time.
This is how it should have always been. The two of
us united against the world.

An unexpected sound intruded upon their reunion. Marcus
cocked his head to listen. William looked distinctly puzzled by the
unfamiliar noise, but Marcus recognized the muffled
whump-whump
of an approaching helicopter.

It seemed they had company.

Selene was almost out of breath by the time they reached the end of the flooded
tunnel. She kicked her way to the surface and gratefully inhaled the
dank air within the castle. Samuel and his Cleaners followed her lead.
She heard the men suck in the air as they splashed to the surface all
around her.

Their flashlight beams darted around the ruins, checking
out their surroundings. They appeared to be in one of the lower levels
of the castle’s sprawling dungeons, at a junction between two shadowy
passageways. A damp stone floor beckoned to them, and they waded out of
the sunken pool onto slightly drier terrain. The Cleaners stripped off
their diving gear, while Selene slipped the shotgun off her shoulder and
hefted it in her arms. A searchlight was mounted beneath the barrel of
the pump-action rifle. Ice-cold water dripped from her hair.

She scanned the waiting junction. Intersecting tunnels
led off in separate directions. Both paths were riddled with treacherous
puddles and sinkholes. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, further obscuring
her view. Mold glistened upon the stone walls, whose ancient mortar had
practically turned to dust. A lizard slithered into a crack in the wall.

“Which way?” Samuel asked.

Selene closed her eyes, calling up long-forgotten memories:

Giggling, she and Cecilia raced
along the murky passageway, dodging the straining laborers with heavy
carts. “Last one there is a silly goose!”

Without a word, she turned and headed off down the
tunnel on the left. She didn’t trust herself to speak, not when her
voice might betray the powerful emotions the fleeting memory had stirred
up inside her. She was quite literally treading the ruins of her own
lost childhood. The past seemed to lie in ambush for her around every
corner.

Never mind that,
she scolded
herself harshly. She had to keep her mind on the mission.
The past is the past. Stopping Marcus is all that matters now.

Samuel motioned for his men to follow her. Weapons
ready, they stalked warily through the blighted dungeons. Empty prison
cells and abandoned instruments of torture made it clear that these
subterranean chambers had borne witness to unspeakable pain and
suffering. A human skeleton hung in shackles upon a crumbing wall, its
fractured bones hinting at the abuse the poor prisoner must have
received before he died. Faint brown bloodstains could still be glimpsed
upon the uneven paving stones. An iron maiden rested against one wall,
its lid hanging open to reveal a battery of rusty metal spikes. Metal
pokers and branding irons lay on the floor beside a toppled iron brazier
that had once been used to heat the vicious implements until they had
glowed as red as molten lava. A wooden rack had all but rotted away, the
tortured screams of its victims now lost to history.

Selene found it disturbing, yet strangely appropriate,
that this hellish place had once been her childhood playground. Had her
father realized the dreadful purpose to which these catacombs would be
put when he’d accepted Viktor’s commission to oversee their
construction? She wanted to consign such barbarism to the Dark Ages,
where it belonged, yet were the interrogation rooms in which she and her
fellow Death Dealers had extracted vital intel from captured lycans all
that different from this medieval torture chamber? Selene had lost track
of how many lycans she had killed and interrogated over the centuries,
in the mistaken belief that their kind had been responsible for her
family’s death. All she knew for certain was that no lycan had ever
survived being captured by her; disposing of them afterward had been one
of the perks of the job.

I belong here,
she thought ruefully.
This place is a part of me,
in more ways than one.

A rat scurried somewhere above her and she glanced
upward. Stone arches curved off into a stygian blackness that was beyond
the ability of her eyes to penetrate. Her search-beam probed the
darkness, but with only slightly better results. Large sections of the
ceiling had crumbled away, and she could tell that there were definitely
more levels above them, but the pervasive gloom made it difficult to
make out the details.
Only Viktor would need so
many dungeons for his enemies,
she mused. How many innocent
lycans had he confined here back in the early days of the war?