The Rift Walker (33 page)

Adele stabbed deep with her Fahrenheit dagger. She twisted the knife and pulled it out, slashing at the second. A brief resistance told her she'd connected. It staggered away from her, and to her surprise, it attacked the other one, perhaps jealous of the imminent kill.

Heedless, Anhalt stepped in to protect her, his own Fahrenheit blade slashing at the two vampires fighting in front of her. One reacted with a howl of pain before they both fled. Adele turned her attention to new attackers, always moving forward, making room for the Mountaineers who struggled across the chasm onto the boma plateau.

And then suddenly everything changed. Adele's head snapped up at the familiar sensation of power.

In the cold moments before the battle began, Gareth sat on the rock floor of Jaga's cave, where he had been for days. His clothes were in tatters and his hair matted with blood. His eyes darted between the two amazons who glared at him, daring him, practically begging him to try to escape. Their faces were etched with hatred for his killing of their sister. Only Jaga's command kept them from attacking.

Gareth had eaten every day and felt quite fit, aside from the fading results of the brutal beating he'd suffered a few days before at the hands of Jaga's wives. His shredded leg was whole once more, though he had yet to test the strength of it.

For several days, Gareth had listened to the sounds of slaughter outside. He wished he could have stanched the noise, but it was futile. The screams and sobs were similar to the sounds of a clan gathering in England. Jaga's people had fed heartily until their entire herd was killed and drained and shoved off the side of the plateau. Jaga had commanded the massacre for two reasons: one, so that his people would be fit for battle, and two, so that they would have no choice but victory. If they did not triumph, they would starve.

Now the females were distracted by the distant sounds of the approaching Katangan army. Faint whiffs of nonhuman blood couldn't hide the sounds of a human army. Since sunrise, the vampires had been restive as the clashing weapons and boots slapping against rock grew louder. Gareth strained for Adele's voice and waited for her distinctive scent to waft over him, proof that she came with the men who were stumbling into Jaga's trap. If so, he had to escape and find her; he had to be sure she was safe.

Gareth crawled to the edge of the pile of detritus taken from human victims over the years and crouched there, pretending to be cowed by his captors. He eyed the trophy mound and began to shove bones and rusted metal idly with his hands. Then he saw what he was looking for. The steel blade of a long-handled axe was beginning to rust, but its edge was still keen, even though it bore several notches from shattering bone. Gareth pulled it from the skeletal refuse.

The two amazons watched him. So foreign was the use of tools to vampires, they couldn't conceive that Gareth could perform any useful action with the axe. They stared as if he was no more than an animal pushing an object with his snout. He stood, but without aggression, holding the axe hilt loosely in one hand, leaving a trail in the dirt with the blade as he strolled closer. The females growled and showed their claws. Gareth lowered his eyes in submission. His claws were retracted; he was no threat to them.

The chilling war cry of Jaga's people rose from the mist outside, and soon it was accompanied by human shouts and the popping of gunfire. In the chaotic noise, Gareth heard a terrifyingly familiar sound—Adele's scream. The wives glanced outside anxiously, then quickly back at Gareth, who swung the axe with all his considerable strength. The blade impacted one female in the neck, nearly severing her head.

The second wife stared with utter surprise at her thrashing sister, unable to credit what had just happened. She looked up at Gareth, but he was already ripping her throat and cracking both her rib-bone cuirass and her own rib cage as well.

As Jaga's wives twitched on the ground, Gareth flew from the cave and was instantly among vampires rising and diving in the air. The wind had picked up and was beginning to shred the heavy clouds. He fell in with the shrieking flock and among the blood and gunpowder, detected the faint scent of Adele. He rolled and streaked toward her, slamming
ndoki
out of his way.

The mist was patchy and thick, cutting his visibility, but the touch of the wind allowed Gareth to pinpoint Jaga above several humans, positioning himself for a kill strike. With a jolt, he recognized one of the humans as Adele.

Jaga dropped toward the small human beachhead where Adele fought alongside Anhalt and King Msiri. It was a foolhardy attack, but it reeked of nobility and the quest for an honorable kill. Gareth flattened out and dove to intercept the vampire king. The smell of humans grew strong, and he could hear Adele's heavy breathing and smell the acrid burn of her Fahrenheit blade as it sliced the mist as well as the wraithlike
ndoki
around her.

Then, through a fissure in the clouds, Gareth finally saw Adele, her face glowing with perspiration and auburn hair flying. She had a pistol in one hand and a glowing dagger in the other. The woman fought like a machine, an intricate, beautiful machine crafted especially for this bloody production.

As Gareth prepared to slam Jaga aside, he saw Adele turn her goggles toward him. Her pistol came up and flamed. The bullet crashed into Gareth's shoulder, flipping him over. Jaga careened onto his back and together they crashed hard to the ground. He dug his claws into Jaga, who stared in fervent amazement. He felt the heat of a Fahrenheit blade pass close by, and the Rwenzori vampire king howled as it plunged deep into his chest. Gareth threw out his arm instinctively as Adele struck again. The knife sliced his forearm.

Jaga came for Gareth with his teeth. Several bullets thudded into the dirt around them. The prince sensed the wind welling up from the chasm only a few yards away, and he locked Jaga into an embrace, scrambling to his feet. A hellish hot blade cut him across the back, but he bulled toward the edge of the precipice, while Jaga screeched with fury and clawed his shoulders. Then they were airborne.

“What's wrong with you?” Jaga screamed. “I had Msiri!”

Gareth didn't bother to respond. The gaping wound in Jaga's chest still glowed from the Fahrenheit blade, so he dug his claws into the gash, tearing flesh and muscle.

“Stop!” Jaga cried. “You're one of us!”

Gareth forced his claws deeper into the gash, grimacing with the effort, until he felt Jaga's heart. He punctured it. Wide-eyed in disbelief, Jaga stiffened. Gareth released his hold and watched the Rwenzori king's quivering form drift away like a dead leaf.

A sudden blast of wind sent the prince slamming against the side of the chasm, where he clutched an outcrop and gathered his breath. The sound of weapons fire reached him and he climbed, hurling himself upward from rock to rock, ignoring the sting of his fierce wounds, fighting the violent winds.

When Gareth crawled over the top of the cliff, he was slapped by the smell of death. It was not the mundane metallic sting of blood or musk of human fear. This was different. He could taste it, and the fear he smelled was his own.

It was Adele.

Through the wind-ripped fog, Gareth spotted the trapped humans in the distance. Msiri, Anhalt, and numerous Mountaineers were surrounded by dead and wounded, both human and vampire. The Katangans were vastly outnumbered. The ropes the troopers had used to traverse had snapped and the treacherous rope bridge was shredded. Soon the murderous
ndoki
would winnow the humans to nothing.

In the midst of the chaotic battle, Adele was no longer fighting. She knelt with her hand on the ground. Gareth smelled the heat pouring off her and felt it in the earth under his knees and hands. His skin tingled with flame, just like it had when Adele prayed in Edinburgh and dreamed over Nabta Playa.

But this was more.

Much more.

Tendrils of rolling smoke and heat coiled around her limbs like living things seeping up from the ground. She was the nexus of a silver flame that flared around her brighter than the sun.

Gareth started backing up. He had to get away. The Rwenzori vampires were trapped by bloodlust and didn't realize what they were feeling. But he knew.

Adele was going to kill them all.

Suddenly, Adele turned her head in his direction. One hand, wrapped in argent smoke, reached up and slowly lifted her goggles. Her dark eyes locked with his as they shared the unbelievable realization that she was going to kill him. Her eyes betrayed a surging terror, of what she was becoming, and of the fact that she couldn't stop it. Her form blurred within the smoldering fire.

“No!” She tried to rise, but the air rippled around her with unbridled white heat. It flashed a brilliant hue and then surged outward in every direction, racing along the ground like a lit fuse.

Gareth tried to run, but felt a wave of fire wash over him and heard the distant cry of his name.

He felt nothing more.

T
HE DESERT HEAT
blazed across the men on the deck of USS
Ranger.
Senator Clark's collar chafed against his sweating skin and he tugged it loose, but it didn't relieve his irritation. They had been sitting in the desert for two days now, doing absolutely nothing. He had just spent weeks trapped in Alexandria. His men were restless and miserable from the days in the extreme heat. Sails had been rigged for shade from the brutal sun, and the crew had to fight to keep the ship moored in the face of sudden desert winds.

Clark's bloodshot eyes strayed into the distance off to starboard, where Stoddard watched over the schoolteacher. The senator failed to see how crouching in the middle of a sea of sand, surrounded by strange ruins, would give them a lead to the whereabouts of his wife. He snorted. What a fool! And what a fool he was for listening to the crazy schoolteacher.

Clark stomped down the gangplank and made for the ruins. His boots hissed as they sank into the soft sands. Soon he was among the tall, spindly rock columns. It wasn't the ruins of a city or a temple, as far as he could tell. Nabta Playa, Mamoru had called it. The place was just a circle of weird stones in the middle of the empty desert. Yet there was a sense about it that unnerved him.

“Major!” Clark called out gruffly.

His adjutant appeared from behind a stone pillar, signaling for silence, which only aggravated the senator more. He huffed his way over as Stoddard approached.

“Well?” the senator asked.

Stoddard saluted and then shook his head. “Nothing yet, sir.”

“Then what the hell are we staying here for? This is damned nonsense. That priest has gone crazy. We can get some intelligence elsewhere. Someone must have seen her and that masked popinjay she ran off with.”

“Mamoru is confident in his method.”

“His
method
is getting us nothing but sunstroke.”

“I recommend sticking with it. I've seen some strange things out in the desert. When Colonel Anhalt and I fought—”

“Don't let these people buffalo you, Major. Their hocus-pocus is crap. Mamoru is waiting for a contact of some kind and playing at swami while he does it. He must be having a good laugh at our expense.” Clark lifted his hat and wiped his brow. “Who would meet him out here in the middle of hell?”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I think it's more than that.”

“I knew I shouldn't have let you run around with that Gurkha. He's filled your brain with useless foolishness. How did the Equatorians even build an empire with all these fanatics at the top?”

“Any new tactic is worth looking into. Methods may differ, but some are no less effective.”

Clark tried to spit, but couldn't. “Whatever rapport you have with the old fakir, you tell him that he has one more day to stare into his crystal ball or read bird guts or whatever the hell he's doing, because after that, we are out of here and trying an alternate method. It will be much more direct, I promise you that.”

The senator stepped past his subordinate to take a look at Mamoru. The samurai knelt in the center of the ruins with an intricate pattern of crystals set around him in the sand. The flat of his hands were pressed against several crystals on the ground, and he was couched in deep concentration. With a well-placed foot, Clark kicked a crumbling standing stone, which clattered to the ground. The schoolteacher paid him no heed; he just sat there daydreaming or whatever he was doing.

Finally, the senator cleared his throat and said out loud, “You have one more day; then we're leaving.”

Mamoru was silent and still, but as Clark turned to leave the samurai spoke. “As you will, but I haven't gained any useful information yet.”

Clark spun back, eager to argue. “Little wonder! If you're just going to sit and meditate at least do it on the ship where we're up in the cooler air!”

“I have told you. My methods are my own. This place is where I need to be.”

“A ruination of sand and rocks isn't going to tell you squat!”

“You do not understand.”

“I damn well don't!”

“You asked for my help. I am endeavoring to give it. With enough time I will find her.”

“So could my Aunt Tess, but she wouldn't do it sitting on her ass.”

“Obviously not.”

Clark was tempted to call this whole thing off. However, that would mean formulating a new scheme, and the blistering Sahara was sapping even the senator's prodigious energies. So he would let this foolishness go on, for now.

“One more day!” Clark growled before stomping away past Major Stoddard.

Mamoru stretched out stiff muscles but didn't stand. “To be honest, I am surprised he has gone along with it this far.”

“What exactly are you hoping for?” Stoddard squatted in the precious shade of a withered monolith. He eyed the priest, amazed by the man's stamina.

“You wouldn't understand either.”

“Is this how you found her last time? In the Tower of London?”

“No, this is different. This time I am waiting for a signal from her, though we both know how stubborn and unpredictable she can be.”

“It's been hours since you drank or ate. This wretched heat can kill a man fast.” Stoddard offered Mamoru his canteen, which was taken gratefully. “I can arrange some food for you.”

“Thank you, yes. I will eat here, just in case.” The samurai closed his eyes and sank into meditation once more.

After a few moments of watching, Stoddard gained his feet to head for the ship. Suddenly Mamoru stiffened with a sharp gasp. His muscles clenched and his jaw clamped shut with an audible snap. A painful hiss strained through the man's lips.

“Mamoru?” Stoddard took a step toward the man just as the schoolteacher arched violently and collapsed to the hard stone ground, limbs splayed wide and eyes rolling back in his head. Stoddard grabbed hold of him and doused him with the precious water from the canteen in an attempt to revive him.

Mamoru was having some sort of seizure, Stoddard thought. He should have insisted the man drink more. If he took ill, Clark would leave him in the desert. The major swore that wouldn't happen, but even his resolve might not be enough and would only wind up angering Clark more, so much so that he might leave them both stranded.

He called Mamoru's name, and thankfully the man's eyes opened. They blinked slowly a few times and then flew wide as he sat straight up.

“Easy, man.” Stoddard held his shoulders.

Mamoru struggled to stand. “It was
her.”

“What was?”

He grabbed Stoddard's arm tightly. “I know where she is!”

The major studied the wide-eyed face. Mamoru was yellow from caked sand, and his lips were cracked and white. He looked as if he'd had some kind of psychotic episode. “Are you sure? You lost consciousness.”

“She is in the Mountains of the Moon. To the south.” Mamoru wiped his face, lost in his own stunned thoughts. “My God, it was incredible. I felt it! What did she do?”

He wasn't talking to Stoddard; he was babbling and grinning like a madman. Sweat poured down his face.

Stoddard couldn't take him to Clark in this state. “Just settle down a minute. What makes you think she's there? Did you remember something critical? Does she have friends there?”

Mamoru paid him no heed. His voice was low and full of astonishment. “I was right. She is the one.”

Stoddard shook him. “Answer me, or I'll take you to the surgeon for heat exhaustion.”

“I'm fine.” Mamoru scowled at the American and shrugged off the man's grip. “Inform the senator to make for Katanga and the Mountains of the Moon.”

Stoddard stood. “You had better have a damn good rationalization for the senator.”

“The earth told me where she is.”

“Oh? Well, that's brilliant.” Stoddard paused, then said, “I'll come up with something. I don't want him thinking he's banking on a crazy man.”

“Do you think that?”

“Maybe, but I'm still open-minded, which is more than Senator Clark is.” Stoddard helped the samurai to stand on his bare feet. “I'm not a hundred percent sure what just happened, but if she's where you say she is there'll be no denying you're a hell of a drama teacher.”

“She's there. But we must hurry.”

“Why?” The men waded through sand toward the beached airship.

“The Mountains of the Moon are a dangerous place, it seems.”

The grass under Adele's feet was scrubby and matted. The field of the boma was as ordinary as ever she had seen. It did not tell her anything until her foot took one last step. Suddenly her body was flooded with a familiar surge and memories that were not hers, of things she could not possibly know.

Instinctively she sank to one knee, gripping the damp soil, deepening her connection to a distant rift. It sang of salvation. What she had experienced before seemed pale by comparison. It was as if her life had been hollow before this moment, and now there was energy filling a void she had never known existed within her. The fiery voice rose eagerly within her, and she welcomed what it wanted her to do. A vast storehouse slept beneath her, and she was only dipping a finger into the rich resource. Shimmering smoke seeped up from the ground, coiling about her, the power in the earth consuming her.

Adele looked up. To her shock, Gareth stood there on the torn field, watching as she crouched on the ground with her hand pulling the very energy from the earth. The look in his eyes told her that he knew what was happening.

She tried to stop it, but the power would not be denied. It swelled, monstrous and furious, disregarding how she screamed for it to remain in the earth. With her concentration gone, the silver fire around her took control. She was aware that she was being overwhelmed as her vision blurred and her entire body writhed with snakelike smoke. She knew in that instant that Gareth would die—by her hand.

His name poured out of her lungs as searing and painful as the heat that rose through her. Her last memory was seeing the scorching wave in the air as it flung itself out and over the battlefield, over the vampires.

Over Gareth.

And then he was gone.

After that, darkness swallowed her. It seemed like she had struggled for years to lift herself from the mire, and when she did, she had only one thought.

Adele's eyes snapped open and she sat up.

“Gareth.” His name was a hoarse whisper escaping her dry lips.

Everything hurt as snatches of sound and light rushed back in quick glimpses of a time still separate from her. Her eyes were blurry, and it took a few minutes of trying to focus before the indistinct image before her cleared. Finally, the hide wall of a tent undulating in the wind came into view. Her skin felt hot, as though she had a fever, but she was clearheaded and could see her breath misting in the air with every exhale.

Exhaustion wrapped its arms around her, wanting to drag her back into its embrace, but she adamantly refused. She remembered everything now. The bloody battle and the sacrifices made. The last look on Gareth's face. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the note he had left for her. “Greyfriar cannot protect you. But I can.” A chill coursed through her like quicksilver.

All because she had found a rift, tapped it, and the power had taken control. It had risen in her like a wild thing eager to be unleashed.

Turning her aching head, Adele saw that she was alone in the small tent. A pallet on the ground served as a bed, and she was covered by a heavy fur blanket. She shoved it aside to let the air cool her flushed skin. The pain she felt was not sharp, but more like muscles overused and abused. A groan fell from her lips as she shoved herself to her feet.

Other sounds were now making themselves heard, such as snatches of indistinct voices and intermittent shouting. The horrible smell of smoke filling her small tent made her stomach roll. Fighting down the nausea, she stepped outside her thin shelter. Steadying herself against the tent frame she got her first glimpse of the killing field. She saw shimmering waves of heat still emanating from the rift she had tapped. Scores of vampire bodies littered the area, most burned and blackened.

Gareth.

She fell to her knees and dry-heaved, retching up her dread and anguish. She tried to ignore the shouts and shrieks reverberating around her, and the undercurrent of distant hissing that she understood. Vampires. Fearful whispers, angry but empty threats, and screams of outrage abruptly silenced.