The Living Night (Book 2) (11 page)

He opened the door and ducked his head out.

“Hey!”

They spun, automatic rifles rising. Faster,
Jean-Pierre grabbed both guns by their barrels, tore them loose, tossed them in
the air, reversed his grip on the weapons, and drove both rifles through the skulls
of their former owners.

Limbs twitching, they collapsed. That wouldn’t
hold them forever, Jean-Pierre knew. They would heal soon enough. He dragged
them by their heels into the room.

“Sorry,” he told the girl. “I’d suggest you
close your eyes. What I’ve got to do isn’t going to be pretty.”

Just as she closed her eyes, the sounds of more
soldiers echoed through the catacomb hall. What the hell was this?
A full-scale invasion?

*
    
*
    
*

Ruegger
tripped and fell into a strange
arroyo
of some kind. With a start, he
realized he'd stumbled into one of Kharker's irrigation ditches. The Lodge
couldn't be far away. As he stopped and listened, he made out the sounds of
gunfire coming from the direction of the estate. Something bad was happening
there. Maybe the Captain's other soldiers had begun an attack on the Great
White Hunter himself. Kharker could be in danger.

Climbing out of the ditch, Ruegger made his way
toward the edge of the estate, wary now that the trees were thinning out. He
paused on the border between the jungle and the swath of clear ground that ran
around the Lodge and located the position of the catacombs opening, the logical
place to enter. How was he going to cross the clearing without being picked off
by D'Aguila? The only place that could offer any security at all was the
temporary swamp that Kharker had had built for his alligators.

Glancing over his shoulders to ensure that the
Captain wasn't at that very moment barreling for him, Ruegger dashed out from
the cover of trees to the alligator pin that lay between him and the opening of
the catacombs. He jumped over the short electric fence and splashed head-first
into the mud. Quickly, he sent his mind out to fend off the alligators and
subdue them temporarily. He wasn't the psychic dominator that Jean-Pierre was,
but keeping some big lizards out of his way for a few seconds shouldn't be too
hard.

He rose, covered in mud and alligator feces, and
wiped at his eyes. There, shooting from the green canopy of the jungle, was
Captain Raulf D'Aguila, big head grinning.

It shot straight towards the Darkling.

Ruegger used what influence he could muster to
force the alligators to lunge upwards. D'Aguila hurtled straight toward the
vampire. Ruegger flung himself to the side just in time to avoid the angry snap
of his enemy's teeth. The alligators leapt at Raulf's leathery wings, and Ruegger
grinned to see that there wasn't any loyalty between the different strains of
reptile.

"Go get '
im
,
boys.”

Climbing from the muck once again, he bolted
over the fence and tore his way across the clearing. He knew D'Aguila was
circling back for him even at that moment and felt the hairs rise all along the
nape of his neck as he heard the creature’s wings beating, louder by the second.

Something dark shifted at his feet, enlarging—the
Captain's shadow, thrown by the moon. When the shadow grew so large that he
could see where the moonlight filtered through its wings, Ruegger chanced a
look over his shoulder.

The Captain was right there, long mouth open and
green talons reaching for him.

Ruegger leapt forward into the opening of the
catacomb tunnel, landing on his mud-soaked stomach and rolling. He let himself
roll until the momentum wore off, then stood and looked about.

"Shit.”

The tunnel was too wide. When Raulf realized
that its wings could fit in here, it would pursue him.
Which
would be in about fifteen seconds, if Ruegger accurately gauged how long it
would take D'Aguila to circle back around again.

Ruegger ran. He fled down the long dusty
corridor toward the wine cellar and the stairs that would lead up into the
mansion, where he could hear frequent bursts of gunfire. He had to get to Kharker.
Prisoners shouted at him as he ran past.

Just before rounding the first corner, he heard
something behind him and turned to see D'Aguila.

It—
he
—had
landed just outside the tunnel. Sizing up the passageway, the red eyes of the
Captain gleamed when they fell on Ruegger. D’Aguila took a few running steps
forward, into the tunnel, and launched
himself
into
the air. The large wings almost touched the walls, but they fit. When they
started to beat, the Darkling could feel their power from where he stood nearly
a hundred feet away.

There wasn't enough air to support the Captain
in beast form—at least not for long. D’Aguila flew a few yards, set down,
then
quickly launched himself into the air for another few
yards. The sight was strange and halting, but, in his own surreal hopping
manner, D'Aguila was covering the ground between himself and Ruegger very quickly.
In a few moments, D’Aguila would be on him.

Ruegger ran. He rounded the corner and pelted
head-first into a pair of soldiers coming his way. They weren't jandrows, but,
by the look of them (rough and
ungroomed
, as if
they'd been living in the jungle) they certainly weren't Kharker's men. They
must be with D'Aguila's party—sentries, perhaps, sent to guard the opening of
the catacombs while their comrades battled within.

The sentries, if that’s what they were, raised
their weapons. Ruegger tore the machine guns from their grasps and continued
off down the hall. He could hear them running after him but didn't care. He was
older and could best them easily. Suddenly, he heard screaming behind him and
knew that D'Aguila must have just bounded past them.

"Jesus!" one cried.

"It's the Captain!"

Ruegger ran faster, not paying attention to the
prison cells he flew by or the various alternate tunnels that emptied into this
main one. As the tunnels grew narrower and crazier, he was sure that he'd put
some distance between him and Raulf. Then, not as far behind him as he would've
liked, he heard D'Aguila slam headfirst into an earthen wall as the Captain
took a turn too fast. He grunted and continued fly-hopping frog-like after his
prey.

Soon the rat-tunnels spilled out into Kharker's legendary
wine cellars. Ruegger found himself in the large main chamber.
Damn
. The ceiling was too high to afford
him much protection from the Captain. Also, the stairs that led up into the
mansion were way on the other side of the room, and it would take him some time
to thread his way through the rows and rows of wine to reach them.

He darted down one row, then another, making his
way toward one of the many smaller tunnels where Kharker kept the most
expensive wines of his collection. Narrow and low-ceilinged, they were the best
refuge from his antagonist.

Behind him, he heard an explosion of breaking
glass and running fluid as D'Aguila knocked his careless way into the room. Ruegger
glanced into the air to see his reptilian persecutor leaping into the air and
catching the air beneath his wings with grace and might. D’Aguila began flying back
and forth over the rows of wine, hunting the Darkling.

"Fee
fi
fo
fum
!" D’Aguila shouted.
"Come
out,
come out, wherever you are! If you
don't, I'll only make it worse for you. Show yourself, Darkling! Or are you the
worm that I think you are?"

Ruegger pointed both the machine guns in the air
and waited for his chance. When the Captain floated over his position, he
fired, the force of the guns knocking him back a foot. The rounds lanced
through Raulf's flesh and scales. Screaming, he flew to the side and out of the
Darkling's narrow field of fire.

"Die, worm!"
D’Aguila shouted.
“Soldiers!
Find the worm and kill him!"

Ruegger dropped the guns and ran, darting
through the fragile pathways, priceless bottles of wine to both sides and
earthen floor beneath. He zigzagged his way through the maze and was going so
fast that, when the enormous hole became visible to him, he was already
teetering on its rim.

Below him dropped a cavity, an opening in the
earth at least fifteen feet across. It looked like it had been caused by an
explosive of some sort. The shaft ran down for about twenty feet,
then
connected to a passageway leading to one side.

This was where the soldiers had entered, Ruegger
realized. Their time in the woods hadn't been in wait, after all. They’d been
digging. They’d dug a tunnel almost to the stairs that led up into the mansion,
then
blown their way into the wine cellar with a bomb.

Which could only mean one thing: aware of the
presence of Kharker's new army, the attackers knew a direct assault would fail.
That, at the least, it would be chancy.
So they had
chosen a sneak-attack. Their raiding party couldn't be much larger than the
Hunter's home team.

So why had they wasted five men on Ruegger?

He edged his way around the crater—which had
disrupted several rows of invaluable drink—and continued his trek toward one of
the smaller passageways, where he might be able to lose D'Aguila.

Flapping.

Craning his neck, he caught a brief flash of
Raulf's outline, then pitched himself forwards.

The Captain swept over him, pulling out of his
dive with care. In the heat of the moment, its talons reached out and
overturned one of the tall wooden racks of wine. The rack fell heavily upon the
rack in front of it, which in turn toppled and fell on the next one. The noise
was horrendous—wood and glass splintering loudly, while hundreds of gallons of
the richest wine in the world spilled to the dirt.

What a waste
. Ruegger dragged
himself to his feet. He ran on through the maze, trying to find his way out.
Once he had his bearings, he quickly found where the kingdom of the grape
ended, at least for the moment. Beyond the end of this row stretched a wide
walkway bordered by the earthen wall of the cellar. Not too far away, a hole in
the wall signaled one of the smaller tunnels, where Kharker kept the good
stuff.

Glancing both ways down the aisle and upwards
just to be sure, Ruegger fled down the walkway, entering the narrow and
low-ceilinged tunnel.

"There he is!" shouted D'Aguila
somewhere above and behind him, directing his underlings. "Follow
me!"

Ruegger sprinted carefully through the corridor,
wanting not to destroy any of the irreplaceable bottles that flanked him. He
just hoped that Raulf would show the same courtesy.

This was not to be. With a roar and the sound of
things breaking, the Captain entered the tunnel behind him. Ruegger turned to
see whether or not his pursuer would fit and was disheartened to see that he
would.

Just barely.
Relentlessly, D'Aguila
surged forward, his great bulk scraping the walls and destroying the bottles
that this corridor had been designed to protect. Unable to use his wings here,
the Captain utilized his muscular legs to propel him forcefully toward his
quarry, smashing every rack that he came to. His red eyes blazing, his body
covered by blood and antique wine, he opened his great mouth and roared at the
thrill of the hunt.

Ruegger dashed on, breathless.

He reached an equally small tunnel that emptied
out into this one and decided to take it, although not without a shred of
guilt. The wines down this new corridor were probably even finer than those of
the first one, and if D'Aguila could enter the first he could just as easily
enter the second.

Unfortunately, Ruegger was right. Though
D'Aguila did have some trouble changing position in order to force his way into
this new passageway, he managed.

"Run!" he shouted. "It makes your
adrenaline flow fast and free. I love to eat those with adrenaline in their
veins. It makes their blood all the headier."

The Captain charged, and Ruegger could hear the
grievous shattering of glass as he came on. Up ahead, Ruegger saw a brighter
light. He was heading back toward the main chamber, which wasn't going to do
him much good. Still, his alternatives were few.

A rifle cracked. Slugs tore into his chest. He
glanced up to see that one of the soldiers was jogging towards him from the
direction of the main chamber. The shade had time to release another burst
before Ruegger was upon him.

When he had torn out the man’s jugular, Ruegger wrenched
the AK-47 from his grasp and kept running. With a quick glance at the rifle, he
had an idea—Kharker's weapons storage room, right near the stairs that led up
into the mansion.

That’s where the soldier had found this gun,
Ruegger knew; unable to find his own weapon in the maze, he’d broken into the
Hunter's cubby-hole of death and borrowed one. In his haste, the soldier had
made a poor choice. The Darkling would do better.