Authors: Steven Montano
Soulrazor (15 page)
“
All right, Chief,” the big man said to Black. “What do we do?”
All right, Chief,” the big man said to Black. “What do we do?”
Black looked at Kane. He just nodded, and smiled.
Ash looked at her. Maur looked at her. Ronan looked around, looked at her, and shrugged.
“
Well?” he asked.
Well?” he asked.
Black took a breath.
“
All right,” she said. “Let’s go get him.”
All right,” she said. “Let’s go get him.”
It was 0800 hours when they opened the hangar doors. The underground bay stretched into a wide tunnel that opened out of a jagged cliff-wall hanging directly over the Bloodnight River. Roughly 500 feet of smoothed-out tunnel stood between their hangar and the open cliff, but since they’d never gotten around to fixing the damage done to the doors during a “simple” (by Maur’s claims, at least) navigational error, the tunnel occasionally housed squatters, birds, and other small creatures. At that moment, the tunnel appeared to be clear for take-off.
The team was ready to depart, but they weren’t armored up – they wouldn’t see any combat for a few days, if things went well, as it would take that long to reach the dig site – but all of their equipment was on board, the mansion was locked down, and Kane loudly reminded everyone to go to the bathroom before they left.
Black stood outside the stout Darkhawk and gathered her thoughts. She hated being in the position she found herself in.
I’m going to kick your ass when we catch up with you, you selfish bastard
, she thought.
No matter
what
you’ve done for me
. In reality, she knew that she would do no such thing. Every member of the team drove her crazy in their own way, but Cross was the worst.
I need to figure that out
.
, she thought.
No matter
what
you’ve done for me
. In reality, she knew that she would do no such thing. Every member of the team drove her crazy in their own way, but Cross was the worst.
I need to figure that out
.
She was just about to set foot on the ship when the chaos started outside.
They first saw signs of a disturbance in the skies over the Bloodnight River. Flocks of birds fled the city, dark clouds moved far too fast to be natural, and the air took on the tang of rust and blood.
Black and Kane raced upstairs. They came through the foyer – the mansion was dark because they’d drawn protective iron shields over the windows to deter intruders while they were away – and to the front doors, which Ash’s homunculi promptly unlocked and opened.
The smell of burning sky greeted them as the doors peeled open. The air had turned orange from the fire and smoke. Staccato bursts of weapons fire and distant and muffled booms sounded through the city streets. Dark winged silhouettes coiled before the face of the bloody sun.
Thornn was under attack.
“
What the hell?!!” Kane shouted as he hastily pulled on an armored vest he’d picked up in the hall.
What the hell?!!” Kane shouted as he hastily pulled on an armored vest he’d picked up in the hall.
Black looked up. There was something wrong with the sun: it was distorted and twisted, hazy, like she viewed it through a greasy film. Dirty golden light ran down the edge of the sky.
“
What
is
that thing?” Kane asked. Black heard the others come into the foyer behind them.
What
is
that thing?” Kane asked. Black heard the others come into the foyer behind them.
A molten spheroid, like a glimmering sliver of caustic light, hung low over the city like the eye of a giant cat. It slowly turned in place. Black wasn’t even sure if it had three dimensions, for as it rotated it looked almost like a plane, a floating disc smeared in oily light. Thin tendrils of electric slime pulsated out of the suspended edifice like a network of organic webs.
Kane handed Black an H&K G36C, and she hefted the stout submachine gun and felt its weight. The winged creatures circled low. They bore riders.
Bullets and arcane ballista bolts flew through the air. Smaller shapes pulled away from the floating gilt mirror. They hovered like black paper, dimensionless and insubstantial, but after a few moments they took on the form of warships. They bore down with bladed hulls and motorcannons, underbelly dorsal fins made of hardened bone and razor chains that dangled in the air.
Explosions boomed throughout Thornn. Southern Claw gargoyle sentries took flight and engaged their vampire-controlled brothers, who descended from the warships like murderous bats. Klaxons echoed through the streets. Steel shutters came over windows, and doors were thrown shut. Flamecannons from the watchtowers belched streams of liquid orange.
“
Get inside!” she shouted, and she turned to run indoors with the others when pale shapes caught her eye. They were unshadows, murderous white folds that faded invisible in the light of the morning sun. They took on clearer dimension as black clouds formed a perimeter around Thornn, a dark and whirling wall that left a central shaft of gritty sunshine which somehow fueled the vampire’s mirror-shard vessel.
Get inside!” she shouted, and she turned to run indoors with the others when pale shapes caught her eye. They were unshadows, murderous white folds that faded invisible in the light of the morning sun. They took on clearer dimension as black clouds formed a perimeter around Thornn, a dark and whirling wall that left a central shaft of gritty sunshine which somehow fueled the vampire’s mirror-shard vessel.
The pale forms were genderless and unclothed, mannequins of flesh. Claws extended from their featureless appendages, and though faceless they seemed to regard the team with murderous intent as they inclined their heads and made their way towards the manor.
Black’s spirit surrounded her. His anger seared her skin, and his fury filled her heart. He shifted into a cavalcade of raw edges and hacked pale vampires to bits.
Those that got through the spirit barrier were met by a barrage of automatic gunfire. Hexed bullets tore through vampire bodies and splashed pale blood on the ground.
Shadows lengthened as the fliers drew close. The serpents twisted and circled low in the air, grouped together in a winged flotilla of razor tails and edged wings. Dark steam trailed them like vaporous shadows.
The Razorwings were heavily armored with dark iron plates and bands of frosted steel. Their riders wore black and red armor, and they held tall spears and wide-bored hand cannons, double-edged sabers and lengths of barbed chain.
Danica counted five Razorwings and four times that many riders, small Creeds bound to their ebon-fleshed mounts by razor saddles and spiked boots. They drew closer by the second. The air took on a sick quality that tasted of exploding gunpowder and vegetable rot.
Rooftops caught alight in the distance. Darkness swirled around the city like a silent tornado, a storm without wind. Alarms and cannons blared in the background.
The city held its breath. Dark dust fell like rain. Pale undead shock troops rode the lines of black matter like lengths of ebon rope.
“
Black!” Grissom emerged with his AA-12 ready. Ash stood next to him, her spirit coiled tight. Ronan followed close behind with a katana. Only Maur was still inside, and Black heard the mini-guns slide out of their panels in the outer mansion walls, thaumaturgically powered weapons that Maur operated from a hidden console deep inside the complex.
Black!” Grissom emerged with his AA-12 ready. Ash stood next to him, her spirit coiled tight. Ronan followed close behind with a katana. Only Maur was still inside, and Black heard the mini-guns slide out of their panels in the outer mansion walls, thaumaturgically powered weapons that Maur operated from a hidden console deep inside the complex.
Black held her spirit ready. She took a breath and felt him burn inside her like smoke. He tasted of tobacco and funeral flames, and his whispers burned in her mind.
Light refracted off the massive mirror shard hovering over the city. The device rained daylight into the center of the swirling storm.
Thornn’s buildings faded from view as darkness eclipsed them. The Razorwings, contrarily, shone like glittering diamonds. Light bounced away from their sheen armor and iron fangs.
The serpents spread apart and came at the mansion from different directions. The wind intensified at their approach, and it smelled of brimstone and hot steel.
Black uncoiled her spirit and let him roar into the sky at the last possible moment. The flames blistered her hands and turned them black before her skin faded back to normal. Her fingertips glowed like burning embers.
Her spirit became a jet of flame. He punched through the chest of a Razorwing and brought it to the ground with a thunderous crash. Its vampire riders jumped clear, and they descended with the grace of birds in flight, but Kane and Grissom tore their bodies apart with ruthless waves of deafening arcane gunfire.
Everything was too bright. The shard above – it was difficult to see how far away it really was, since its two-dimensionality and the blinding haze made it seem like a phantom, a mirage in mid-air – spun faster than before. Waves of heat throbbed and pushed against Danica. Concentric bursts of energy blasted out of the disturbance.
It was a rip, a hole in the sky. It looked like glass that had been melted by the sun.
Blades and gunfire turned everything to a din of shrapnel noise. Vampires fell upon the team, and they were met with magic, bullets and swords. Black fired into pale bodies and dark-winged shadows. She dodged attacks and flew through the air, cushioned by her spirit, who lashed at her enemies with coils made of electric steel and blades of black frost.
He undulated and pulsed around her, a living shield. She moved with him, inside of him, a passenger in a ghost dreadnaught.
Even as the battle raged, she stayed aware of the blasting vortex of light. It grew and expanded, doubled and redoubled in size to the rhythm of the battle. It somehow remained flat and nearly invisible, a cage of golden power that strained the eyes to see. It was like looking at a cracked star.
A vampire’s blade came at her, and she ducked, kicked back, and sent the beast sprawling before she brought her spirit down like a hammer to smash its undead heart.
Knotted pain lanced up her arms. She felt herself swimming, as if lost in a golden sea. Everything pulled her towards that light.
The ground cracked. Gouts of steam erupted from cracks in the street and shot upwards like flaming geysers. Debris spiraled and caught aflame and scattered into tiny embers.
Danica blasted through another Razorwing with her spirit, which tore into its armored flesh like a drill of burning ice. Her breaths came labored and dry. Sweat glazed her skin. Every inch of her body ached with fatigue.
She landed, came to one knee, and for just one moment the world paused, the chaos of the bullets and hex saws and nail-cannons and blades caught at a space between, a breath, a fold between the moments. And in that fold, that frozen shard of time, she heard something.
A heartbeat.
It was a pulse, an emanation that came from the sun mirror, the un-crystal, that two-dimensional vessel that coordinated the chaos.
That heartbeat was slowing down. The pulse of beats was concentric, and the rhythm slowed in a pattern, so that fewer seconds passed between each beat. The variance was almost imperceptible in the maelstrom of blood and fire and noise.
Black realized what was happening, and her heart leapt into her throat.
Oh, God. It’s a countdown.
NINE
WRAITH
Black called her spirit around her. He pulled her off the ground.
Darkness welled around the city. What had began as a laggard flow of dark clouds turned to a churning cyclone of ebon fumes. Shadow lightning danced and crackled in the black wind.
Danica saw faces in the storm, disembodied screams that tore apart. The wind intensified and yet made no sound…or at least that was what she thought until she realized the silence
was
the sound of the wind, the cyclone, the dark cataclysm of noise from the necrotic gale. That silence roared.
was
the sound of the wind, the cyclone, the dark cataclysm of noise from the necrotic gale. That silence roared.
The real sounds – the fighting, the gunfire, the bomb blasts, the calls of Razorwings and the clarion alarms of the city and the booming war cries of mercenary gargoyles – were drowned out by that silence. Scraps of noise pushed through in muffled cries and static bursts. The quiet storm pressed in and smothered Thornn.
Razorwings and armed dirigibles battled in the sky. Traces of machine gun fire and mortar shells rattled against the hulls of vampire warships. Shards of stone and metal carried into the air like derelict birds. Streams of dust and debris fell in waves.
Danica fired at vampires and enemy gargoyles armed with moon blades and barbed electric spears. Hexed bolts of frost launched from her fingers and tore fliers out of the sky. On the ground, Kane and Ronan hacked through wight shock troops and multi-limbed zombie giants with blood-soaked blades. Grissom blasted through ghouls with the thunderous AA-12. Black only knew how loud the weapon was from memory: she couldn’t actually hear it, as the storm was too quiet, and too loud.
The mansion was on fire. Vampires had punched through the exterior walls. Undead remains were smeared everywhere thanks to the mansion’s outer defenses, but the undead pressed on, relentless.
The Ebon Cities’ forces were legion. They came in swarms.
How did they get through Thornn’s outer defenses?
Danica wondered.
How can there be this many of them in the city?
Danica wondered.
How can there be this many of them in the city?
They had to have used some subversive means of getting into Thornn. It was the only explanation.
Black ascended. She emptied the H&K and drew her kukri blades, and the black steel edges crossed with hexed male energy and sliced through gargoyle flesh. Razor nails and bone shards repelled and exploded away from her arcane shield.
She kept her eyes on the molten sheet in the sky. Wind rushed through her hair. She sensed the distance lengthen between herself and the ground as she arched her back and flew, straight as an arrow and into the sky.
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