The Slayer (4 page)
Authors: Theresa Meyers
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Fantasy, #Romance, #Paranormal
“Who the hell are you?” Winn growled, his horse sidestepping beneath him as it sensed the agitation eddying in the air.
“Dr. Adder Morpheus, at your service.”
Hardly. Winn caught the distinct odor of sulfur about the man. He was Darkin, Winn would bet his gun on it.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Drossenburg. I've heard so much about you.”
The contessa nodded briefly, her gaze flicking to Enric. Something was going on between the two vampires, Winn could tell. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but with every glance and change in facial expression, he knew they were somehow communicating and leaving him and the doctor out of the damn conversation.
“What is your business, Dr. Morpheus?” the contessa asked, her voice steady and controlled, without a flick of emotion.
“I'm afraid I must insist on Mr. Jackson's company. You see, my employer doesn't want him anywhere near your charming influence.”
Both the contessa and the envoy tensed, their fangs descending with an audible
flick
. “We are taking Mr. Jackson with us, with or without your employer's consent, sir,” she said firmly.
flick
. “We are taking Mr. Jackson with us, with or without your employer's consent, sir,” she said firmly.
Winn had had enough.
“There ain't a need to be so damn polite about all this,” he growled. “Look here, Morpheus. I ain't goin' with you.” Winn shifted his gaze to the vampires. “We done now? I thought we had a ship to catch.”
“Not so fast, Mr. Jackson,” Dr. Morpheus said, his voice dropping a notch with expectation. “Rathe has plans for you.” The man began to swell, his belly growing. The buttons on his acid green vest popped off and flew in all directions.
The sound of ripping fabric filled the air. Beneath Winn the horse whinnied and shied backward, the white of its eyes visible. Winn tightened his hold on the reins. “What the hellâ” he breathed.
Morpheus continued to swell, his grotesquely distended stomach shiny in the moonlight. He let out a bloodcurdling yell as his abdomen split open from waist to breastbone and thousands of small, shining objects poured out of him onto the desert sand.
Winn wasn't about to stick around long enough to find out what they were. “Run!” he yelled. He wheeled his horse around and kicked it into a full gallop.
He glanced back and saw Morpheus standing, fully whole once more, watching them with a satisfied smirk right below his pencil-thin black mustache. For a moment Winn thought it a trick of the light. The desert sand seemed to shimmer and move, though it wasn't midday and there was no heat wave; the tide seemed to be following them in a ripple across the valley.
“What do you make of that?” he yelled at Enric.
“The ground is moving.”
“Impossible,” the contessa shot back.
Winn narrowed his eyes. “That ain't the ground. There's something moving on top of it.” The unnatural silvery sheen kept advancing.
“Come on. The ship is just on the other side of this mountain.” The contessa motioned them forward with a sweep of her hand. Winn urged his horse to follow, but the animal had to trot to keep up with the rapid pace of the vampires. As they crested the mountain range they looked down upon a most unusual sight.
An enormous silver dirigible, nearly two hundred feet long, sat upon the floor of the desolate desert valley, illuminated by the moonlight. On the pale surface he could easily see the sigil marking the side of the vessel, a red castle turret with a crenellated top in the Norman fashion, bracketed on either side by black bat wings. It fairly screamed vampires. “Hardly subtle,” he muttered to himself.
At the base of the ship, beneath the large curve of the air balloon, rested a three-story gondola crafted with polished teakwood, brass, and glass. In a word, expensive. Clearly they were a well-funded group, which explained why they thought they could buy just about damn near anything they wantedâincluding him. Well, they had a surprise coming. He had his own reasons for joining up with these Darkin. He pushed forward, the loose rock and dirt on the downward side of the hills forcing him to move slower or risk breaking the horse's leg or getting thrown.
Behind them the silver moving tide crested the face of the mountain. The horse shied, tossing its head and whinnying in distress as mechanical spiders the size of a tin cup moved in a clacking swarm over the rocks directly behind them. “Move!” Winn yelled.
The vampires darted down the uneven slope, and Winn did his best to follow without injuring the horse. While the spiders were close, the vampires and the horse were faster.
The massive dirigible was even larger up close. Enormous creases marked the rigid frame latticework of ribs beneath the silver fabric skin of the ship. It looked sturdy enough, but could it actually fly? The ship shuddered and hissed, a column of white steam erupting from near the rudders. He glanced back at the advancing silvery tide of spiders, with their glowing, beady red eyes. Looked like they didn't have much choice.
“Get aboard! They have already set the fires to high to accommodate liftoff.” The contessa's voice startled Winn. He glanced down at her upturned face. Damn, but she moved quiet-like. He was going to have to be more aware. Being away from hunting for so long had left his senses dulled. He didn't wait to be told twice. He swung down off the horse and slapped the creature's backside, letting it run off into the night. It'd have a better chance of escaping the spiders and getting back to Bodie if he turned it free.
Winn jogged up the thick wooden gangplank that had been extended from the first deck of the airship to the ground as he followed the vampires.
“Enric, see that those things are kept off the ship,” she instructed as she kicked a mechanical spider off the gangplank. “And bring Mr. Jackson up to the captain as soon as possible.” She turned and disappeared through a door with a stained-glass window in it that bore the same castle-tower-and-bat-wing emblem as on the dirigible's balloon.
If she thought he was some trained lapdog that was gonna come running every time she snapped her little fingers together, she'd better think again.
Enric swore as he hauled up the gangplank. “We're not going to get off the ground in time. Those things are everywhere.”
The swarm of spiders was indeed covering the ship, weighing it down. The clicking of their millions of sharp, metallic legs caused an almost constant hissing sound, like a sleet storm against a metal roof. They skidded off the smooth wood of the gondola but clung to the gangplank and the ropes. The airship rose slowly into the air. Too slowly. But at least no more of the things could climb aboard.
Winn stomped one with his boot. A thin, greenish liquid squirted out, and the wood beneath it began to smolder, sending up wisps of acrid smoke. “Damn things are filled with acid. Don't squash them!” he yelled at Enric.
He and Enric worked side-by-side trying to brush the spiders off the ship through the railings of the gondola with their feet. A few got close enough to crawl up Winn's pants, their needle-like appendages gouging into his legs. “Ow. Those damn things are sharp,” he snapped as he kicked them off and swore in Latin, English, and French. “There's got to be something we could do to get rid of them.” But there were too many of them.
“I have an idea,” Enric said. A swirl of smoke appeared at Enric's feet, forming a large, banded steam trunk and a pair of iron tongs Winn had seen farriers use to dig red-hot horseshoes out of the coals at the stables.
“Start throwing them in here!” Enric said. He lifted the lid.
Winn snatched up the tongs and started grabbing and tossing as many spiders as he could into the trunk. Enric's vampire reflexes were fast enough that he could open and shut the trunk quickly and keep the spiders contained. The wind tore at Winn's hat, threatening to rip it off his head as the ship rose higher and higher. He was moving so fast he almost missed seeing the several harried faces of identically uniformed crewmen that seemed to appear here and there as they scurried about ridding the ship of spiders.
Winn glanced around and didn't see any more. “What are you going to do with them?” he asked Enric.
The vampire smiled back, showing off his fangs. “What we usually do to a nuisance. Get rid of them.”
Winn watched as Enric tossed the trunk over the edge of the airship. It hurtled down, spinning end over end until it crashed on the desert floor.
Adrenaline pumped hard and fast in his system, causing every sense to be on edge as Winn moved. He didn't trust Darkin, especially not vampires. And now that the spiders were gone, his neck felt exposed. Winn pulled the collar of his duster up to cover it as a precaution. No sense in taking chances on a ship full of vampires.
Enric opened the same door the contessa had entered, and close up Winn could see the stained glass was as fine as anything made by Tiffany & Co. “Let's get you to the bridge. I know the captain and the contessa are waiting.”
They walked quickly along a narrow hall to the base of a set of stairs, then climbed up to the second deck. It appeared to be nothing more than an endless set of long hallways punctuated at regular intervals with doors.
“Sleeping quarters?” Winn asked out of curiosity.
“
Da
.”
Da
.”
“Everybody on the same deck, or are crew and passengers separated?” Winn asked. He mentally counted the doors and figured there were two, maybe as many as four bunks to a room, so he could estimate the total number of vampires on the ship.
“There is only one sleeping deck, but since most of us need only a few hours at most, we rotate in shifts.”
Great. That blew any kind of calculations to hell.
Enric barely paused enough for Winn to get his bearings before he continued on with the abbreviated tour. “The bridge is located on the top deck.”
“So are you and the contessa both from Transylvania?”
“
Da
. The entire royal court is there.”
Da
. The entire royal court is there.”
“You connected to the vampires here in the States?”
“We have diplomatic relations with them.”
They traveled up another set of stairs to the top deck. The top level of the dirigible looked modern, like the rest of the ship, but far more plush, like an expensive hotel lobby, surrounded by windows that looked out into the night sky.
Huge potted palms, with their long, feathery green boughs, broke up the large open space, making the heavily stuffed and elegantly carved chairs and settees grouped together in clusters seem more inviting. Underfoot a thick, Oriental carpet muffled their steps. He didn't miss the vampire's crest in rich burgundy and gold bracketed by the ominous black wings. At the far end of the room, a roaring fire crackled and sparked in the grate of a marble fireplace. It seemed tranquil in comparison to their fight with the shifters and spiders.
Granted, the stone cherubs holding the ornately scrolled columns aloft had fangs, but knowing this was a vampire ship didn't make it any less impressive.
“How long have you known the contessa?”
Enric stared at him for a moment. His lips twitched. “About four hundred years. I was a stable boy in the count's household, and she offered me the chance to become a child by gift for my service.”
Winn's gut heated a bit. Enric probably knew her better than anyone. “Why does the count let his wife serve in politics?”
“Her ladyship is a widow and isn't one to let any man tell her what she may or may not do.”
Enric gave him an amused glance and gestured to an ornately carved set of wooden sliding doors. “These lead to our dining area.”
“Dining room? The couches out here don't work well enough for you?” Winn jibed.
Enric raised one brow. “No, it's much better when we just line our victims up in the dining chairs and ask them to lean to one side.” He hissed and bared his fangs, causing Winn to stiffen, then Enric chuckled. “Truly, you'll have to do better if you wish to wound me, Hunter.”
“And you'll have to do better than that to scare me,” Winn retorted.
A spiral of smoky particles beside Enric twisted into the solid, petite form of the contessa. “Gentlemen, manners.” The cold edge to her voice left no doubt she disapproved of their exchange. “Do not bare your fangs again at our guest unless you are invited to.”
The blond vampire gave her a sheepish look and bowed his head. “Yes, my lady.”
“You are excused,” she said simply with an upward tilt of her chin.
Enric stalked off back the way they had come.
The contessa turned her sharp gaze on Winn. “Before we go on any further, Mr. Jackson, let's clarify some rules of my own.”
Winn braced his feet apart and crossed his arms. He felt the sway of the floor and was grateful he couldn't observe the ground dropping away beneath them. The faint throb of large engines was more a sensation than a sound. Now that they were airborne, she had the advantage, and they both knew it. “I thought we'd already done that.”
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