Authors: Steven Montano
Soulrazor (41 page)
Darkness fell, and the car rattled without pause. She watched pale moonlight cut through the shutters. Everyone was wrapped tight in blankets and huddled against the cold. Kane sat on the floor near the door, weapon in hand, and watched for any sign of trouble. The air was cold and still, and smelled of diesel smoke and livestock.
Danica watched the men around her, and feared for them. It was with a dour heart she realized she’d come to care for them, almost in spite of herself. She thought of Ash and Grissom, and sadness pulled her down like a heavy weight. She shook in her place. Even though tears wouldn’t come – they rarely came for her anymore, not since Cole had left – her blood ran thick with regret. She rocked back and forth, a separate motion from the train, and she willed the hurt to go away, but it wouldn’t. Her spirit could tell something was wrong, and though he hovered nearby, ready to protect her, he sensed he couldn’t, and that she wanted him to keep his distance.
Her eyes went to Cross, deep in sleep, and she reached out with her spirit to search for his.
There was nothing there: just a void.
My God, Cross. You’ve been through so much. And who knows what you’re going through now.
Kane noticed that she was awake. He looked at her, and then at Cross. He seemed to know what she was doing, but he didn’t say anything, just turned back and watched the door.
“
What now, Mike?” she asked. Even with her spirit wrapped around her, she felt so weak.
What now, Mike?” she asked. Even with her spirit wrapped around her, she felt so weak.
“
I don’t know,” he answered. “We just…keep on going, I guess. Get home. Maybe somebody there can help him.” He rested his head against the wall of the train car. The clang of steel wheels and the rocking pistons made metal song in the air. “And help
us
.”
I don’t know,” he answered. “We just…keep on going, I guess. Get home. Maybe somebody there can help him.” He rested his head against the wall of the train car. The clang of steel wheels and the rocking pistons made metal song in the air. “And help
us
.”
Black sat back against the wall. She pulled her blankets up around her body. Her clothes were filthy, and she smelled like the inside of a drive shaft; her skin was dry and soiled with grime and blood and gunpowder; her head hurt, her side and her stomach hurt, and she felt like she hadn’t slept in weeks.
But she was alive.
“
Mike?” she said.
Mike?” she said.
“
Yeah?”
Yeah?”
“
Thanks.”
Thanks.”
He looked at her with a puzzled expression.
“
For what?”
For what?”
And then, unbidden, tears came, and they flowed thick and steady.
“
For being my friend,” she said.
For being my friend,” she said.
And he looked at her with the same confusion, the same concern, and even though she knew he didn’t understand, not really, that no one could know how hard it was for Danica Black to care about people, no one could know how few friends she’d ever truly had, how even being with the team for two years hadn’t shown her how much she needed them, how much she cared for them, until now, now that so many of them were gone, now that Cross was gone, but it didn’t matter, it seemed, didn’t matter to him because Kane went to Black and hugged her, and she cried into his chest, short bursts of wracking sobs that felt good even though she released them hysterically, even though the tears flowed and flowed and wouldn’t stop even when she wanted them to, for it had been long, so long, since she’d had someone to hold.
She wanted Cross to wake up, but he didn’t, and even though she knew Ronan and Maur woke, too, she was grateful they didn’t say anything, that Kane didn’t say anything, just held her while she cried, long into the night.
Bladed ice tears hang in stasis. The air is frozen plasma.
He stands in a clearing of crimson stone. The sky is dead and dark. The ruins of the shattered keep loom behind him.
Still here. He thought he’d escaped. They came for him, and they freed him. And yet here he is.
Years now, bleeding and languishing in her prison. So much of his life, lost.
He shouldn’t be alive. His spirit should have burned his soul away, made him hollow and weak. That she escaped and took control of him was the only reason he had lived. He’d had to become her prisoner for her to go on existing.
He doesn’t know where he is, or how old he really is. But he knows something is wrong. She’s gone, and he’s stuck here, alone in the crumbling palace near the sea, and then a dark crater filled with steaming black power. He is alone in a perpetual world, frozen. Everything moves but him. He has gone from one prison to another.
Sometimes he drifts, aimless. He walks along crimson sands, and climbs towers of black crystal. He watches black giants swim in bitter tides and dark stars that fall like rain.
He has no need for food or water. He is a shadow in a shadow world.
It doesn’t really matter what he does. He walks or falls or swims beneath a sky so red it seems to bleed, and he moves across ground so utterly black it’s like walking on fused midnight, but he always winds up back in the same place: the broken keep, and the crater.
He drifts through an elliptical universe. He is stuck in a cycle of nothingness.
Some days he wishes he could die. Even that ability has been lost to him.
How long?
he wonders.
How long will I be here? Will I be the last man, left and forgotten?
he wonders.
How long will I be here? Will I be the last man, left and forgotten?
He receives no answer to his questions. He never does.
The prisoner forgets his name. He walks through imaginary worlds fused together, hybrids with themselves. His need to escape grows ravenous. Sometimes he forgets there is no way out, and he runs, desperate to find some means to get back home.
He no longer remembers what home is, but that doesn’t matter. When his legs burn with fatigue and he returns to his senses, he realizes he will never get there.
He is lost.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steven Montano fell out of the sky one day and landed behind an accountant’s desk. Rather than write novels about his experiences in an alternate post-apocalyptic world besieged by vampires, he decided to reconcile accounts and calculate journal entries. He still writes in his spare time.
Visit Steven’s official website,
bloodskies.com
bloodskies.com
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