Title: Eyes on a Moon of Blindness
Author: E.A. Week
E-mail: The Tenth Doctor is caught up in a deadly war between vampires and werewolves.
Category: Doctor Who; mystery/ romance/ supernatural. Crossover with the movie Underworld.
Distribution: Feel free to link this story to any Doctor Who or fanfic site, or distribute on a mailing list, but please drop me at least a brief e-mail and let me know you've done this.
Feedback: Letters of comment are always welcome! Loved it? Hated it? Let me know why!
Disclaimer: Copyrights to all characters in this story belong to their respective creators, production companies, and studios. I'm just borrowing them, honest! Special credit goes to Greg Cox, whose Underworld novelizations have provided invaluable background material.
Possible spoilers: This story takes place at some point in the indefinite future of the new Dr. Who series. Spoilers through the end of season two.
The story title and all chapter titles are shamelessly stolen from U2.
Datclaimer: This story is rated "M" for sexuality, creature violence, and profanity.
Prologue: Where the Streets Have No Name
He kept hoping that the ship would take him somewhere interesting or dangerous but time and again it transported him to one benign location after another: a spaceport, an agricultural center, an empty tundra. He itched for excitement: a war, a crisis, a conflict, anything. At this point, he would have settled for a pair of primary school students pelting each other with spitballs. When the ancient time and space machine ground and shuddered to a halt, he crossed his fingers, hoping that this time, he'd strike gold. Or at least good-quality nickel.
The rain hit him like a bad practical joke, soaking him almost the minute he stepped outside the ship into the alleyway where the vessel had materialized. He stood sputtering indignantly, then hopped back inside, staring out through the open doorway into the rainy night. For a moment, he debated leaving. Then he looked up, studying the shapes of the buildings, the unmistakably Baroque architecture. Interesting. He grabbed a large black umbrella off the coat rack and ventured out into the gloom, pulling the ship's door shut behind him.
Straight away the brolly proved almost comically useless. Water lay in vast puddles across the city square, soaking through his trainers and turning his trouser legs into wet flaps of fabric that stuck uncomfortably to his legs. Still, he scanned the faces of the people hurrying around him, all bundled into raincoats and trying to ward off the deluge with umbrellas. The stately Baroque buildings stood side-by-side with more modern constructions, and his gaze took in the glowing lights of restaurants and shops and internet cafés.
He dodged into the nearest coffee shop, picking up a discarded newspaper. "Budapest," he said out loud to himself. Early twenty-first century Earth, a time and place he'd been consciously avoiding for decades. He tossed down the paper, sloshing back outside. Thunder rumbled over distant mountains, and lightning streaked blue-white through the heavens. He sensed the nearly full moon behind the heavy, dark clouds overhead.
A hulking behemoth shoved past him, so rudely and powerfully that he very nearly went sprawling into a nearby puddle. Before he could so much as mouth a protest, the man was gone.
Angrily, the time traveler took off at a fast clip, slogging through the water until he caught sight of the big man again. The brute proved difficult to miss, even in the rain and darkness: well over six feet tall, with the vast shoulders of a professional athlete. Lamplight gleamed on his bald head. He hadn't bothered with any kind of protective outerwear, and he strode forward with single-minded absorption, literally pushing people out of his way.
A smaller Caucasian bobbed alongside him, his head barely touching the bigger man's shoulder. Despite the Mutt-and-Jeff difference in their physical appearance, they plainly were working together as a team, and the synchrony in their movements spoke of a long-standing partnership. They're after something.
Curiosity spurred him on. The two disreputable characters were heading for the entrance of a nearby metro station. He followed, hurrying down the steps, always keeping a distance of at least twelve feet behind his quarry. Once inside the station, he furled the big umbrella and casually used his sonic screwdriver to get through the turnstiles.
A train sat at the platform, a crush of people entering and exiting through its open doors. He spotted the two men: they'd split up and were stalking among the passengers like predatory animals on the hunt. The Doctor stayed parallel with the bigger man, walking casually through the station, as if heading for a news kiosk. For the first time in ages, he felt the familiar adrenaline pulse of trouble.
Then the big man bellowed "BLOOOOOODS!" and the station exploded in a storm of gunfire.
I. Zoo Station
Rain. All day it had been falling, and by the time Michael Corvin left for work, gray sheets were still pouring down from the sky, bringing an early twilight to the city. Thunder rumbled and lightning flickered in the clouds overhead, imparting a metallic sheen to the Budapest cityscape. Michael reached the sidewalk before he realized he'd left his umbrella in the apartment. Unwilling to wait for the infernally slow lift or trudge back up five flights of stairs to his tiny flat, he'd ventured out into the monsoon with only his rain slicker to protect him from the elements.
Now he cursed that rash decision: he was soaked to the skin, water sloshing around inside his sneakers and plastering his hair to his skull. He hurried among the crowds of workers, students, and tourists heading for the Ferenciek Square station. The world seemed to have become wholly aqueous: ankle-deep puddles stretched across the pavement, and torrents gushed from the yawning mouths of gargoyles. Once or twice he glanced back, feeling a strange sensation on his neck—almost as though he were being watched or followed. Crazy, he told himself. Who the hell would be following an anonymous American medical intern? Especially on a night like this. Still, he couldn't help a sense of relief when the metro station appeared ahead. Dodging the trenchcoat-clad, umbrella-toting Hungarians, he fairly ran down the stairs and into the blessedly rain-free underground.
Crowds milled about on the platform: day workers going home for the night, night workers like Michael heading out for evening shifts, students traveling to and from classes, tourists in search of restaurants and night life. Everyone looked damp, but underneath the discomfort, Michael sensed a kind of humorous resignation. What else are you going to do? he thought, shaking water off his clothes. You almost have to laugh.
He felt wind stir on his cheek and heard the mechanical steel rumble of an approaching M3 train. While he waited for its arrival, his gaze fell for a moment on a striking young woman decked out in top-to-toe black leather, a long trenchcoat over a catsuit and boots. Wow. He couldn't help staring. Michael had never found Goth fashion particularly attractive, but he had to admit, this woman had the perfect look for it: a svelte, athletic build, curving in all the right places, and pale, luminous skin. For a moment their eyes met. Hers were hazel, an astonishing mix of green and gold. Black hair, parted simply on one side, fell to her shoulders. For a long, wordless moment they stared at each other. Then the woman broke off the eye contact, turning away slightly and stepping behind a pillar. The train pulled into the station, and Michael trudged toward the nearest door, reluctantly.
Passengers entered and exited the train. Michael stood waiting, gazing out the window, hoping to catch another glimpse of the mystery woman, but she seemed to have vanished. He fidgeted in his wet gear, waiting for the ping that would announce the doors closing.
And then the world went crazy.
A deep basso profundo male voice bellowed something that sounded to Michael's ears like "BLOOOOODS!" An instant later came the concussive crack of gunfire. Instinct propelled Michael to the floor of the train, away from the doorway, huddling against the row of seats. Other passengers had done likewise, hunkering down in the corners. Outside, the firestorm continued: continuous explosions that sounded like machine guns, interspersed with the rapid bangs of other weapons. Michael's ears rang painfully from the din. His heart pounded, adrenaline pouring through his system. What the fuck? he thought wildly. His mind worked on overdrive, trying to make sense of the mayhem: a terrorist attack, mob violence, a drug deal gone horribly wrong?
The windows of the trains exploded inward, shattering glass everywhere. Passengers covered their heads, protecting their eyes. Over the gunfire, Michael could hear people on the platform screaming and a voice yelling in Hungarian for people to get down.
From his angle on the floor, he caught odd glimpses of the combatants: fast-moving figures in dark clothes, brandishing all manner of deadly weapons. Jesus Christ! The nondescript metro station had become a war zone. Michael could see sparks of what looked like weird blue glowing lights. Some freaky kind of cop-killer ammunition? For the barest moment, there was a pause in the racket. Michael dared to peer around the corner, staring out at the platform.
A bullet struck a young woman trying to take cover behind a pillar, and the impact threw her backwards, crying out in pain. A pair of thugs bolted into the train, barely feet from Michael, and he leaped away to avoid them. They raced down the car, and Michael, seeing his chance, flung himself to his belly and slid across the platform, heedless of the broken glass beneath him. He reached the wounded young woman, dragging her into the nearest corner, near a news kiosk.
"It's all right, I've got you!" he gasped, hoping she spoke English: at the moment, every word of Hungarian he knew had completely abandoned him. He opened the top of her shirt, applying pressure to the gaping wound in her shoulder. The bullet had passed right through the soft tissue, and she was bleeding from both the entrance and exit wounds. Michael could only pray that someone had called for the police and ambulances. Around him, the fighting had resumed with the same deadly intensity; Michael kept his head down, holding his torso low across the injured woman, hoping he wouldn't be killed before help could arrive.
Powerful hands grabbed his shoulders and began yanking him backwards. "No!" Michael yelled. What the hell? Were they taking hostages? If he couldn't tend her, the injured woman would die!
Gunfire exploded practically in his face, bullets flying past overhead, and Michael's would-be kidnapper cried out, releasing his grip and falling back. To his vast shock, the Goth woman strode toward him, a semiautomatic in each hand, firing both weapons simultaneously, hellfire and murder blazing out of her face. Jesus, she's part of this? Michael flung himself forward, onto the wounded commuter, and the Goth woman raced past him, her footsteps crunching rapidly away over the broken glass. He turned his attention to the bleeding young woman, again putting pressure on both sides of her shoulder. A few gunshots echoed hollowly in the distance. And then silence. Michael noted with alarm that the young woman was pale and shivering, shock setting in.
"Come on, stay with me!" he pleaded. I won't let her die, he thought wildly. Not this one. Not again.
Around him the survivors had begun dazedly to move, some of them moaning and crying, but most too numb to speak or even move. A dim corner of Michael's mind registered crunching footsteps and a male voice calling in Hungarian: is anyone hurt? Then someone hunkered down beside him.
"How bad is it?" It was the same voice, speaking English now.
"Bad," said Michael. "She needs help." He kept both hands on her shoulder, applying steady pressure.
"The police and medics are on their way. Someone outside must've called." Meaningless gibber. Very faintly now, Michael could hear the sound of sirens, like a far-away symphony of hope. The man beside Michael straightened up and wandered away, absently picking up things off the platform. Michael barely paid him any notice.
The first cops and medics arrived. Michael recognized one of the EMTs and yelled to catch his attention. "Bullet wound to the shoulder!" he called. "It's critical!" The medics swooped in, and Michael stood, aware of every muscle in his body aching, stretched taut from the ordeal. His hands were red with the woman's blood, and he wiped them on his wet trousers. But at least help had arrived.
For a moment, he stared around the platform. The metro station had been thoroughly trashed: lights broken, shattered glass and tile everywhere, the walls pockmarked from the fusillade of bullets. The driver of the M3 train was talking to police officers. Medics attended to other wounded commuters. Conversations hummed in quiet Hungarian. The aftermath of war.
Something odd caught Michael's eye, and he trotted over to investigate. His eyes went wide: on the platform lay a skeletal corpse, charred and still smoking. A smell like burnt meat hung in the air, nauseating Michael, despite his doctor's strong stomach. The man looked like he'd been burned alive. On the floor beside him, near his blackened hand, lay a wicked-looking gun. But those things made less of an impression on Michael than the corpse's skull. The facial flesh had mostly burned away, shrinking and contracting as if under the force of some intense, searing heat, leaving the teeth completely exposed. They were white teeth, perfect and even, the canines strangely elongated.
Almost looks like…. Impatiently, he pushed the thought away.
The body had also caught the attention of a tall man in a brown coat: he leaned over the skull, running a finger down the length of one canine, tapping the tooth gently with his fingernail.
"Are those real?" Michael found himself asking, his voice hoarse and unsteady. "Are they prosthetic?"
"No," the man responded, seemingly more to himself than to Michael. "No, they're bone." He straightened up, wandering into the now-empty M3 train. On the opposite side of the car, someone had forced open the sliding doors, exposing the black wall of the subway tunnel. The man in the brown coat paused and peered out through the open doors. Then, with a quick, casual glance over one shoulder, he hopped lightly down onto the train tracks.
The medics were calling to Michael, and he turned his attention back to the injured woman: she'd been loaded into a stretcher, and they were carrying her out. Everything else forgotten, Michael hurried alongside her; he could hitch a lift to the hospital in the ambulance.
(ii)
"Going home?"
Michael turned to face Adam Lockwood, another American medical intern, and the closest thing Michael had to a friend.
"Yeah… Nicholas let me have a few hours." He'd already changed out of his scrubs and back into his still-damp bloodstained clothes. After the shootout, he'd passed a grueling nine hours in the Karolyi Hospital's casualty ward, and now he was so tired his head was growing fuzzy and numb around the edges.
"He said you did terrific work with that girl."
Michael could barely muster a smile. "Thanks."
Adam asked, "Hey, did you hear about the guy that just wandered in? Like five minutes ago."
"What about him?"
"He came in off the street, mumbling something about how some crazy people kidnapped him and experimented on him. They're treating him in casualty now for blood loss and shock."
"It'll be a different story when he sobers up." That's a new one, Michael thought. I guess alien abduction is getting a little old. He shut the locker with a metallic clang and trudged out into the corridor. Exhausted as he was, he wanted to take one last look at his patient. A few moments later, he stood in the ICU, watching the young Hungarian woman sleep. Through the glass window, he could see that her vital signs were stable; IV lines dripped blood and fluids down into her arms.
"She's all right, then?"
"Yeah," said Michael absently, turning around.
"Here. You must be hungry." The man held out a paper bag and a paper cup with a small ticket hanging down its side: tea. Michael peeled the lid back and took a few sips. He normally never drank tea, and its pungent taste surprised him. He felt better immediately and wondered why he didn't drink it more often. Aware of sudden, ravenous hunger, he unwrapped the sandwich and tore into it: rye bread and some kind of meat, which he swallowed without tasting.
"Thanks," he mumbled gratefully, strolling out of the ICU. "You didn't have to do this."
The man shrugged, walking along beside Michael. "They said you had a long night." It was the guy from the subway station: Michael recognized him more from his voice than his appearance. Belatedly, he remembered the English accent, educated and vaguely upper-class.
"Did they find any bullets in the girl?"
"No, it went right through."
"I thought so." They'd walked into the lift, and the Englishman pressed a button for the lobby. "This is what struck her." He fished into a pocket and produced a small, glowing blue object. Michael took it and stared, fascinated, holding it up to the light. It was shaped like a bullet, but it seemed to be filled with some kind of fluid whose glow felt very bright against his eyes, like a sun lamp. He remembered the tiny blue lights flashing in the metro station.
"What the hell?" he grunted.
"Ultraviolet bullets." The man reached into his pocket again, producing more of them. "They were all over the station."
"Who the hell uses UV ammo?"
"Good question, when you consider the most powerful source of ultraviolet radiation."
"The sun," Michael said automatically.
The door pinged open, and they stepped out into the lobby, quiet at this early hour. Michael made a quick detour to discard his sandwich wrapper and empty paper cup.
"Sunlight, molded into a weapon," the Englishman agreed. "Fascinating. And then there were these." He fished into a second pocket and produced another handful of bullets. Instead of looking dull, like lead, they gleamed bright and shiny in the man's palm.
"Silver?" asked Michael.
"Exactly," the Englishman said. "Silver bullets."
Even in Michael's exhausted state, the strangeness of the conversation began to sink in. "What the hell weird shit is this?" he muttered. For the first time he really took a look at the Englishman, then he realized the fellow was steering him subtly but firmly out onto the sidewalk. "What did you say your name was?"
The man didn't respond; he was turning his head, scanning up and down the dark street, as if looking for something. The rain had stopped, but a cold mist hung over the city, and Michael shivered inside his damp clothes.
A taxi approached, and the Englishman put two fingers in his mouth, whistling a shrill blast that echoed off the tall buildings.
"I can take the metro," Michael protested.
"The metro's not safe for you any more." The taxi came to a stop, and the man steered Michael over to it. He flashed some kind of ID card to the driver, shouting in fluent, colloquial Hungarian, then pushed Michael into the back seat and got into the car beside him.
Michael felt events spinning rapidly out of control. "Wh—" Then he stopped short; the Englishman was giving him a hard, warning look, and there was a sense of authority about him that Michael felt reluctant to challenge. His sense of disquiet deepened to alarm when the Brit gave the driver his address. How the fuck did he learn that?
The cab sped through the pre-dawn streets; whatever the stranger had told the driver, it must've impressed upon him the need for haste. The Englishman settled back in the seat, and Michael assessed him warily: he was tall and very thin, brown hair, brown clothes, somewhere between thirty and thirty-five. Was he with a British intelligence agency—MI5, Scotland Yard?
At Michael's apartment building, the Englishman thanked the driver in Hungarian and jumped out of the cab. Michael crawled out after him, glad to be home.
"What's going on?" he asked as the taxi departed.
"Not until we get inside." The man peered about intently, listening. "It's safe—at least for now, but you really need to find somewhere else to stay." He steered Michael over to the lift and hit the down arrow.
"Why? What's going on?"
"Ultraviolet bullets, silver bullets, that body in the metro station. Use your brain, Michael!"
Michael remembered the charred corpse on the subway platform, its strikingly odd white teeth, the elongated canines. Sunlight. Who uses sunlight as a weapon? And silver? Silver bullets?
"Shit," Michael breathed.
"They've been following you, haven't they? They were following you tonight, on your way to the underground. They have your address, Michael. They know where you work and where you live, and they're going to keep coming after you."
The elevator doors opened, and the Englishman pushed Michael inside, banging on the button for the fifth floor.
"Vampires and werewolves?" Michael said skeptically, feeling stupid for even uttering the words. "I know we're in Eastern Europe, but do you expect me to believe…?" He faltered at the expression on the other man's face. "You're serious about this."
The Brit was watching the numbers flash over the elevator door, twitching slightly with impatience. "I'm serious," he said. "Very, very serious." When the doors opened, he first checked the hallway—which lay empty and quiet—and steered Michael down the hall by the elbow.
"Who the hell are you, some kind of nutso Van Helsing?" Michael demanded.
"Shh!" The Englishman had stopped, and a moment later, Michael saw why: the door to his apartment stood ajar. Inch by inch, the two of them crept along the corridor. Michael felt confused and angry and more than a little frightened. He wanted to brush off Van Helsing as a crazy British eccentric, but part of him still worried, What if he's right?
Then Michael's phone rang.
They stood out in the hallway, listening to its bleating summons. Michael's outgoing message kicked in. He heard his own tinny voice: "Hi, it's Michael. You know what to do."
After the bleep, he heard Adam speaking. "Michael? Michael, when you get this message, call me at the hospital immediately. There were two cops here, and they said—"
Michael bolted away from Van Helsing and into the apartment. He stared at his answering machine, listening to the rest of Adam's message. "… you're wanted for questioning in connection with the shooting in the metro station. I told them there's no way you could've possibly been involved with it, and—"
Without warning, something swooped out of the apartment's shadowy recesses, grabbing Michael by the throat and lifting him off the floor. It was the Goth woman from the metro station, and she pinned him up against the wall with impossible strength.
"Why are they after you?" she shouted.
His apartment door slammed shut with an explosive crack. The Goth woman dropped Michael, and he gasped, glad to have her hand off his throat and his feet on the floor. She aimed a fearsome-looking gun at the door.
"Who the hell are you?" she demanded.
Van Helsing wandered into the flat, utterly unfazed by the ugly weapon pointed at him. He flipped a switch on the wall, flooding the apartment with crepuscular yellow light. Michael blinked; so did the Goth woman—he could tell that this turn of events had thrown her off-balance.
"Why don't you put that silly thing away, and we can get all this sorted? Michael, put on some water, would you? I could do with a spot of tea." He sounded so relaxed, casual, almost happy, as if he were doing nothing more remarkable than reuniting with some old mates at a London pub. The Goth woman stood staring at him, thunderstruck. For the first time, Michael registered the extraordinary pallor of her skin. Her mouth hung open slightly, her nostrils flaring as she sniffed and tasted the air.
"What are you?" she breathed, leaning slightly toward Van Helsing. "You're not lycan, you're not a vampire, you're certainly not human—"
The mention of vampires sent another bolt of fear through Michael. Then the whole building seemed to shudder, and plaster rained down from the ceiling.
"Lycans!" the woman shouted, her face contorting in a snarl, eyes flashing pale blue. "On the roof!" She fired at the ceiling. "Get down!"
But Michael couldn't take any more: he turned and bolted, throwing open the apartment door and running into the hallway.
"Michael, no! It's not safe!" Van Helsing yelled, and Michael could feel the Englishman on his heels, but he had one objective in mind: get away, get as far away from those two lunatics as he possibly could.
The lift was still on the fifth floor. Michael sprinted into the car, banged the "close" knob, then hit the button for the first floor. He heard gunshots and someone thumping impotently on the elevator doors, but the old car blessedly carried Michael downward. Shaking with fear, he waited, gasping with relief when the lift reached the first floor.
The door slid open. And there stood another man, a slender fellow with long dark hair, wild gray eyes, and a distinctly feral look to him. He smiled menacingly.
"Hello, Michael."
II. Bullet the Blue Sky
Selene fired at the ceiling, her mind racing to seemingly a dozen places at once. Corvin had bolted; she needed to get him back. Then there was the threat posed by that… that thing who'd been with him. What was it? What did it want? At the back of conscious thought, she still worried about Kraven's indifference to the possibility of a new lycan uprising—a danger that now seemed very real, given the fully-fledged beasts slamming their way into the apartment building.
She raced into the hallway, tearing around the corner toward the lift, but Corvin was already on his way to the first floor, his erstwhile friend nowhere in sight. Three lycans had crashed through a window at the end of the hall and were racing along the walls and floor. Selene fired, picking off one, but the other two came at her, fueled by berserkers' rage. Her head turned, looking wildly for an escape route, but the entrance to the stairwell lay at the far end of the corridor, with the lycans blocking the way.
Time to improvise. Twisting and turning, Selene fired down at the floor with both guns, sending up a spray of splintered wood and plaster. As the lycans bore down on her, she succeeded in weakening the floor enough so that she crashed down into the fourth-floor hallway. She put all her vampiric strength into flight, bolting down the corridor and into the stairwell. A strong scent wafted up, telling her that the strange creature had used this escape route, also; she heard his footsteps near the bottom. Selene leaped over the banister and dropped straight down the four flights, landing smartly on the first floor.
The creature had just reached the bottom, and when Selene landed in front of him, he didn't blink. "Michael's in the lift!" he said, as if resuming an interrupted conversation. They bolted into the hallway, where the rich odor of a lycan assaulted her nose. A male in human form stood at the end of the hallway, near the doors to the lift, which had just opened. Selene raised both guns and fired, charging at the beast. It fell, not backwards, as she'd hoped, but rather into the lift. She heard Corvin shouting. An instant later, she was at the elevator door, reaching in to grab the American's legs. He screamed as she dragged him out into the hallway, freeing him from the grip of the wounded male lycan. She had no time to explain anything as she hauled him to his feet and shoved the gun against his neck.
"Move!" she ordered, and he complied, probably more terrified of the lycan than of her. Well, that shows good judgement, she thought, half-steering, half-dragging him to the exit. To her shock, the Jaguar sat waiting right outside the door, engine running, lights on, the odd-smelling creature behind the wheel.
"Get out of my car!" she screamed, pointing the gun at him, but the two transformed lycans burst into the first floor corridor, leaving Selene no time to argue. She threw Corvin into the back and leaped into the front passenger seat.
"Fasten your seatbelt," the driver said tersely, accelerating away from the apartment building so quickly that Selene felt the g-force pushing her back against the Jag's seat. She reached for the shoulder restraint, buckling herself in.
"Who the fuck are you crazy people?" Corvin shouted.
"Explanations later," the driver shot. Selene saw that he'd somehow managed not only to deactivate the car's alarm system but to start the engine without keys.
Selene twisted around, her vampiric senses on alert, and to her alarm, spotted the male lycan racing toward the Jaguar at top speed.
"Step on it!" she barked, but the Jaguar was already roaring along the darkened road at almost ninety. "We've got company!" She didn't know who or what the strange creature beside her was, but it handled the car as if it had learned how to drive on a racetrack. "Michael, get down!"
Selene unfastened her seatbelt and opened her window.
"What're you doing?" the driver yelled.
"Killing it before it kills us!"
With a phenomenal leap, the male lycan sprang up onto the roof of the car, balancing perfectly. His eyes glowed blue, fangs exposed in a snarl. Selene shot up at him, but with her odd angle and the speed of the car, her bullets went wild. She pushed herself further out the window, firing again. Her heart jolted when a long sword blade snapped out of his coat sleeve, and he lunged at her. Filthy beast! Selene knew for certain she'd never seen this lycan before: he must be old to be so powerful, but his features had an oddly familiar cast. Long dark hair flew in crazy streamers around his shoulders.
Selene fired and fired, trying to avoid the flashing blade, but her movement was limited, and the sword cut into her shoulder. She cried out, firing wildly. Now it was the lycan's turn to scream: she'd struck his kneecap, and he almost lost his precarious hold on the roof of the car.
"Get inside; I'll throw him off!"
In too much pain to argue, Selene slid back into the Jag. The driver braked hard and turned the wheel rapidly, spinning the car in a 360-degree circle. Corvin, hunkered down on the floor in the back, was slammed hard against the driver's side rear door. With a thump, the lycan went tumbling off the roof and onto the ground, landing on his injured knee, unable to rise. The car straightened out, picked up speed, and went tearing off into the city. The lycan gave up his pursuit, but Selene didn't delude herself that his injuries were fatal. I haven't seen the last of that one.
"Pull over," she ordered, but her voice lacked its usual strength.
"You're bleeding," the driver responded, loosening his necktie and handing it to her. "You'd better bind that wound."
In the back, Corvin groaned. "My head."
"Where are you going?" Selene asked, struggling to stay focused as she wrapped the tie around her heavily bleeding shoulder.
"Home," the driver said tersely, shifting gears. "Following the GPS back to where the car last came from."
Clever bastard. Selene's vision swam. She heard the driver say, "Michael, see what you can do with that wound of hers…" The world went black.
(ii)
When Selene came round again, she found that the passenger seat backrest had been opened out so that she lay prone, her shoulder now heavily bound in layers of cloth. She sniffed the improvised bandages, which reeked heavily of Corvin's sweat. His shirt. Cautiously, she turned her head. The young medical intern lay sprawled out on the back seat, asleep or unconscious. In the dim light, he seemed very young, and Selene felt an unfamiliar spasm of tenderness for him.
"Careful, there," the driver warned. "That's a nasty stab wound."
Selene checked beneath the dressing, finding the wound raw, but no longer bleeding. The worst had passed, and now her normal rapid healing took effect.
"I'll be all right. How long've I been out?"
"Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes."
Selene sighed. Shit. She reached for a lever on the side of her seat and eased herself up into a sitting position.
"Who are you?" she finally asked.
"I'm the Doctor. Who are you?"
"Selene," she told him shortly.
"Selene." He rolled the name across his tongue. "Lovely. Greek moon goddess. Fitting for a vampire." She started, staring across at him, and he glanced back at her, amused. "Yes, I know what you are."
"Is 'Doctor' a title or an alias?"
"A little of each."
Fascinated, despite her fear, worry, and irritation, Selene leaned closer to him, inhaling his scent deeply. She cocked her head, listening. Her ears must be playing tricks. Wiggling closer, Selene slid a hand inside his coat and jacket, feeling his chest experimentally. His body temperature was lower than a human's, by fifteen or twenty degrees Fahrenheit, she guessed.
"We've only just met," he said lightly, but Selene ignored the banter.
"My God, you've got two hearts," she said. "I can hear both of them beating." She stretched her head closer, listening at his neck; he might look like an ordinary man, but from the sounds of things, he was far from human under the skin. "You have a completely different vascular system." She ran a curious finger over his jawline, feeling the beginnings of stubble, then lightly touched his Adam's apple: he was unquestionably male. "Your scent isn't human. It's not lycan, either. You're certainly not a vampire. You're not any kind of a human hybrid or mutant. You're a completely different species."
"Thanks for clearing that up. I wasn't too sure when I woke up this morning."
Selene sat back in her seat, utterly flummoxed as the truth sank in. "You're an extraterrestrial."
"Flawless application of logic. I like you, Selene."
"How did you get here? To this planet?"
He glanced over at her again. "Don't you watch movies?"
"I don't have time for frivolous entertainment!" she snapped.
As if gently explaining something to a child, he said, "I came here in a space ship."
"Without anyone noticing?"
"What, like eluding human technology is some kind of challenge?"
He had a point. She demanded, "Do you have any idea how dangerous this war is?"
"A war between vampires and werewolves? A fair idea, yes."
"What's your interest in it, then?"
"I don't want humans getting hurt. Two people died during that underground shootout tonight. Three more were critically injured."
"That's regrettable," she sighed. "We usually avoid humans."
He gave her a steely look. "Except when you're hunting them?"
"We don't feed off humans!" Selene roared. He didn't flinch in the face of her anger. "I can't speak for lycans, but believe it or not, it's against our laws for vampires to hunt humans! Any vampire caught killing one is put to death."
He seemed chastened for a moment. "I'm sorry," he offered. "What do you eat, then?"
"Blood," she said. "Animal blood: pigs, cows, goats—the same animals people consume. In earlier times, we hunted deer and wild boar. Now we manufacture artificial blood."
"Kinder, gentler vampires?" He raised one eyebrow skeptically. "So, if you're not fighting werewolves over food resources, what's this war about? Territory? There can't be all that many of you, otherwise people would be up in arms."
"Our numbers are small," Selene revealed. "I don't know about the lycans." Ironically, she added, "Nobody's taken a census recently."
"Well, if the subway tunnels are anything to go by, I'd say there's a fair number living right under Budapest, maybe a hundred or more."
He said this so casually that Selene did a double-take, gawking at him. "How do you know?"
A smile touched his mouth. "That caught your ear, did it?"
"Tell me what you know!" She pointed the gun at his head.
"Put it away." He drove on, unfazed, and Selene realized the weapon didn't remotely intimidate him; he knew that if she killed him, she'd never get the information she wanted. Grudgingly, she lowered the Beretta.
"Tell me what you're fighting over," he bargained. "Then I'll tell you what I've seen."
"How do I know I can trust you?"
"You don't."
Selene debated. Of course, revealing any of the covens' secrets to an outsider represented a grave offense, one punishable by death. But she badly needed this information. Selene realized the alien might have knowledge that would enable her not only to destroy the lycans but to discredit Kraven in the process, an opportunity (she admitted to herself) she couldn't pass up. That tipped the scales in the alien's favor. She decided to take her chances.
"It's a blood feud, going back centuries," she said. "To the early middle ages. Six hundred years ago, the vampires defeated the lycans' most powerful leader, a man named Lucian." Kraven had been responsible for that, damn him. "Most of his followers were massacred. They've never regrouped their old strength since then, and we've been hunting down what's left of them."
"Is that what you do?" His quick glance took in her garb and weapons. "Kill lycans?"
"I'm a Death-Dealer."
"A vampire assassin," he ruminated. "But you haven't said what the war is about. What started it?"
"I don't know," Selene admitted.
"You've been fighting a war for six centuries and you don't know why?" His voice rose on a note of incredulity.
"Digging into the past is forbidden."
"That should tell you something right there. Who issued that particular edict?"
"The Elders. The three leaders of the vampire covens."
"And you've never been curious? You kill because someone ordered you to?"
"Lycans butchered my family!" she burst out. She wouldn't rest, ever, until the very last one of those beasts had been wiped off the face of the earth. "I don't need any more reason than that!"
He fell silent. "I'm sorry," he said at last. His genuine sympathy startled Selene. "So, it's personal?"
"Yes," she said tersely. "I really don't care how it all got started."
"Is there any way to find out?"
"Why are you so curious?"
He shrugged. "It helps to know these things. Has anyone ever tried brokering peace between the two races?"
"Never. Anyone who tried it would be too stupid to live."
He let that one pass. Selene glanced out at the dark forest that whipped past the Jag's windows. They would reach the house in about twenty minutes, so there wasn't much more time for conversation. In the back, Michael groaned.
"He has a concussion," the alien said.
Selene pressed, "What did you see in the tunnels?"
He shifted gears, slowing the car slightly to navigate a bend in the road. "Lycans. Lots of them. They're living in an old World War II bunker under the city. It's accessible by the train tunnels if you know where to look."
Selene breathed, "I knew I heard something down there! Did you actually see them?"
"I only saw three, but I heard and smelled a lot more. One of them was the man who attacked you tonight."
"The one who tried to take Michael," Selene nodded, remembering the lycan at the elevator.
"There was an enormous black man with a very deep voice. He was involved in the underground station attack—he used a pair of machine guns."
"That's Raze," Selene scowled. "An alpha male. He can change forms at will." She herself had killed Trix, his toady little accomplice; both lycans had been stalking Corvin before the shootout. "Who was the third?"
"A scientist of some type. Middle-aged looking, Austrian accent. They called him Singe. Both Raze and Singe deferred to the first one—I didn't catch his name, but I think he's their leader. They were arguing about how they need to find Michael—something they're trying to keep secret from the vampires." The alien glanced at Selene. "I didn't have much time to look around, but they're running a crude research lab down there."
"How'd you get that far inside without them discovering you?"
With a lift of one eyebrow, he said, "Experience. And a lot of good timing. The lycans were preoccupied and distracted from the fight. Besides, they've never smelled anything like me, and there's enough of a stink down there so my scent was pretty well masked." He wrinkled his nose. "I didn't stay long, but I did get a look around the lab. Does the name Alexander Corvinus mean anything to you?"
Stunned, Selene told him, "He was the first immortal." Vampire mythology didn't interest her much, but she certainly knew the name of Corvinus. "All vampires are descended from him. At least according to our legends, which might be nothing more than stories."
"Singe had the name on a big bulletin board, along with the names of other people named Corvinus—or Corvin. Dozens of other people."
Selene's mind reeled, and she glanced over her shoulder at Michael, still unconscious in the back seat. "That's why they're so interested in him."
"They were holding two men prisoner, both with the last name Corvin. One of them was already dead when I got there." The alien's jaw tightened perceptibly. "It looked like the lycans had been experimenting on both men's blood, mixing it with vampire blood to see what would happen. That's about all I learned—I wanted to get the man who was still alive to safety."
"They're trying to mingle vampire and lycan blood to breed a new species," Selene blurted, aghast at the lycans' audacity. For one horrified instant, she imagined how powerful such a creature would be.
"Which is why they're looking for humans who carry the Corvinus DNA," the alien concluded.
"My God, this is serious! And Kraven doesn't believe me—"
"Who's Kraven? Is that really his name?"
"Yes," growled Selene.
"I see you don't like him. Kraven!" The Doctor pronounced the name with relish. "Craven thief, craven liar, craven conformist—I haven't even met him, and I don't like him."
"He's everything his name implies, and more," Selene scowled. "A vain peacock, an infernal bureaucrat, only interested in his own advancement in the coven. Bastard! I told him I thought there was a den of lycans down there, and he brushed me off, wouldn't believe me—"
"Does he have something to hide?"
"I don't know, but I'm going to find out."
"While you're at it, find what's at the heart of this war, and you might get more answers," the Doctor advised. Selene realized she'd stopped thinking of him as "the alien" and had started thinking of him as "the Doctor," and despite her instinctive distrust of almost everyone and everything, she also found herself regarding him as an ally. Certainly—provided he wasn't lying—he'd just handed her a lot of valuable information. Abruptly, he asked, "Do werewolves and vampires both spread their condition by biting humans? Were you born a vampire, or did someone turn you?"
"Most of us were once humans," she said. "It's a dangerous process—the condition is transmitted by a virus that's deadly. Only the very strongest people can survive the transformation. I know you won't believe this, but we never turn humans without first asking their permission and warning them of the dangers. I don't know if lycans have a similar code—I doubt it. There's a few pure-born vampires, but they're rare. Giving birth is one of the most dangerous things female vampires can do—so many of them bleed to death during labor."
"So you could, theoretically, give birth to a child who'd be born a vampire?"
"Theoretically, yes." Selene couldn't imagine herself as a mother.
"And lycans?"
Selene's upper lip curled. "They seem to have less trouble with it. They breed like rabbits."
"Fantastic!"
"What's so fantastic about it?" she demanded.
"It means that vampires and lycans are more than just human hybrids. You're both viable species, capable of reproducing your own kind. Selene, that's staggering! It's an evolutionary leap that's happened within only a thousand years—humanity changing into new forms! Of course it's fantastic!"
"I can't share your enthusiasm, Doctor." The mansion lay not too far ahead, but Selene knew they couldn't go in through the main gate. "There's a small access road about a mile ahead, on the left—turn off there." She mulled over all these revelations, trying to sort them out and form the best plan of action. Curiously she asked, "What's your interest in all this? What do you want? You must have some personal stake in our conflict, to get so involved. You must realize you're putting your life in serious jeopardy."
"It's not personal. I only want to keep people safe. And because I'm a hopeless idealist, I'd like to see your lot and the lycans settle your differences, even if it means you both live on separate continents." He turned his head fully toward her, his gaze unsettling. "Selene, I'm the last one of my kind. My entire race was wiped out in a war with another species. I'd hate to see that happen to the first two species to evolve from Homo sapiens. And if this war of yours keeps escalating, that's exactly what will happen. Either you'll wipe yourselves out, or humans will drive you to extinction. Vampires and werewolves have enough bad press on this planet as it is; if it becomes common knowledge that your species actually exist, there's going to be an all-out war for the top of the food chain. At a rough guess, people outnumber vampires and lycans combined by about five billion. Who do you think is going to win that war?"
"You can't broker peace," Selene insisted. "Not you, not on your own. I couldn't even bring you into the house, certainly not with Kraven in charge—he'd kill you on the spot. One of the elders might be persuaded to grant you an audience, but only on neutral territory, and even that's doubtful." If only Viktor were here, Selene lamented. Her sire almost certainly would have enjoyed meeting an intelligent life-form from another world.
"I'd still like to learn what's at the heart of this conflict."
After a moment's hesitation, Selene said quietly, "There's books in the mansion… I've never looked at them, but I know where they're kept. They cover the history of our species." For the first time in six centuries she experienced curiosity about the contents of those volumes.
"I'd like to have a look at them. I wouldn't need much time." They'd reached the turn-off, and the Doctor deftly guided the Jag onto the narrow dirt road, shifting gears to slow the car.
"So would I." Selene briefly debated trying to smuggle the books out of the mansion, but she knew from rumor that the volumes were too big to be easily concealed. Her gaze turned to the Doctor again, assessing his intelligence, his determination.
"I can drop you off about half a mile from here," she said. "The road curves around the back of our property. It'll be sunrise soon, and the house will be settling down. The property's surrounded by a high fence, and there's motion sensors. And dogs."
"Dogs that've been trained to respond to human and lycan scents," he reminded her.
"If you can get past them undetected, go up to the roof. My quarters are in the center of the north wing, facing the front. There's trapdoors on the roof and more inside the attic. Find the one over my suite. It leads down into a closet. I'll undo the trap for you and leave it ajar. Be very quiet—vampires have excellent hearing. Wait in the attic until I give you the all-clear signal." If he'd been able to infiltrate the lycan lair, could he also get into the mansion undetected? Selene knew it wouldn't hurt to test his skills and cunning. And if he turned on her later, she wanted to have taken the measure of his abilities.
"All right." He slowed the car, turning it at the spot she indicated.
"If you're discovered, Doctor, we never met. I don't know who you are."
"Fair enough," he agreed. "What about Michael? Can you bring him inside?"
"Kraven won't like it, but I can always say I brought Michael here for questioning. Death-Dealers have certain privileges, including the right to interrogate prisoners in any way we see fit."
He nodded. From one pocket he produced a slender metal tube that resembled a penlight. He aimed it at the car's ignition, and with a quiet whine, a cool blue light flashed out. The engine stopped abruptly.
"What's that?" asked Selene, fascinated.
He held it up. "Sonic screwdriver."
Selene stared at it. Alien technology, she shivered.
He unfastened his seatbelt and opened the driver's door. "Give me twenty minutes."
Selene got out of the passenger side, shutting the door and striding around to the driver's seat. She watched the alien's tall figure vanish into the pre-dawn mist and darkness, marveling at how he'd altered her very perceptions of reality. Then she started the Jag's engine again, shifted the car into gear, and headed back out for the main road. The sun would soon be rising. She needed to take shelter inside the mansion, to question Michael about what he knew—and to deal, somehow, with the odious Kraven.
(iii)
After passing through the front gates, she took the Jag around to the mansion's north face and hauled Michael out of the backseat, slinging his body over her shoulder. A pair of young Death Dealers had emerged at her arrival, and she threw her keys to one of them. "Park it," she ordered.
The youngster obeyed with alacrity, and his partner eyed Michael with an incredulous expression.
"For questioning," Selene told him, heading inside through the side door.
"You didn't use one of the safe houses?" he blurted.
"The city was crawling with lycans. Is Khan still about?"
"He's with the guests. And Kraven. Would you like me to fetch them?"
"No," she said, silently blessing the arrival of Amelia's envoy, which would keep Kraven occupied, probably past sunrise—such an ambitious bastard wouldn't miss the opportunity to fraternize with the female Elder's entourage. Selene preferred to discuss the situation with Khan in private. "No, don't bother them. I'll see what this one knows, then dump him out somewhere tonight."
"Of course," the young Death Dealer murmured. He wouldn't question Selene's actions beyond that. But there was no avoiding other vampires on the way upstairs, and she knew it wouldn't be long before word reached Kraven about Selene's human prisoner.
Once in her own rooms, she settled Michael on the chaise lounge—he was still unconscious—and hastily went to close the heavy drapes that covered her windows. She shut the door to her room, then went quietly to the closet and opened the trap to the attic—each room had one, an escape in case of fire—leaving it slightly ajar. Then she pushed the closet door shut again.
Michael groaned softly, and Selene went to his side. He was sweaty and disheveled, probably exhausted, and once again she felt that dangerous twinge of tenderness. His eyes flicked open. They were fine eyes, she thought—blue-gray in color, full of intelligence and compassion, and right now, fear.
"Shh." She pressed her fingertips gently against his shoulder. "It's all right. You're safe."
"Who are you?" he whispered hoarsely.
"I'm Selene. Don't try to move around too much. You took a nasty knock to the head."
"Whaddayou want?" he mumbled.
"Only to ask you some questions," she began, but his eyes rolled up into his head and he passed out again. Damn! she thought.
While she waited for him to come around again, she slipped out of her protective armor, undressing down to the sleeveless chemise she wore beneath the black leather. She heard overhead the faintest of creaks, a sound she normally would have taken for one of the ordinary sounds the old building made. A moment later, a faint scent wafted into the room from the direction of the closet. Selene's eyebrows went up, and she checked the watch on her left wrist. Impressive.
She returned to Michael's side, watching him sleep, stroking long brown hair out of his face. She was so lost in thought that she didn't notice when the door to her room opened with a soft click.
"So for once the rumors are true. Everyone's simply buzzing about your new pet."
Selene turned, glaring at Erika, one of Kraven's female lackeys, a relatively new addition to the coven. The blonde vampire made her way over to the chaise lounge for a better look.
"Did Kraven send you?" Selene growled.
"No, I was curious." Erika studied Michael's face, recognizing him from his photo on Selene's laptop. "He's the human those lycans were hunting."
"Yes."
"So, why'd you bring him here?"
"For questioning."
Erika's pretty face registered skepticism. "This doesn't look like much of an interrogation."
"He's unconscious," Selene said, as if explaining something to an idiot.
Something in her tone must have betrayed her, because Erika said, "Oh God, you're going to try to turn him, aren't you?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Selene snapped. "Erika, I don't have time for idle—"
The blonde female had forgotten Michael, wandering into the center of the room. "What's that smell?" she asked, inhaling and turning around.
"What smell?" Selene did her best to sound irritated, but her pulse jumped uneasily.
"That smell—I've smelled it before somewhere, I know I have."
"Erika, get out of here!" Selene barked, moving to intercept the younger woman, but she wasn't fast enough. Erika scampered over the closet and pulled the door wide.
Selene's breath came out in a whistling rush. The Doctor stood inside the small space, staring out at Erika with a flabbergasted expression.
"Reinette?" he said, looking absurdly close to tears. "Reinette? Is it you?" He stepped out into the room, reaching to touch Erika's face. His voice shook when he said, "They turned you into a vampire?" She stood there rapt, not pulling away from him, and Selene felt something palpable jump between them.
Shit, she thought, this is a complication I don't need!
The alien turned his attention to Selene. "You're right," he said. "This is personal. It just got very personal."
III. Until the End of the World
Selene first made sure the door to the corridor was closed and locked. Then she said, "Keep your voices down." Returning to the center of the room, she asked, "You two know each other?"
Erika stared at the Doctor, perplexed. "No… but I feel like I do. I know your scent; I'd swear it."
Selene turned her gaze to the alien. "Where've you met Erika?"
"That's not her name." He was staring into Erika's eyes. "Her name is Reinette." He'd switched to French without Selene even being aware of it. "Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson. She was born in 1721."
"Impossible," Selene stated. "Erika, it's only been, what… sixty years?" She told the Doctor, "She's German—one of the vampires picked her up in Berlin after the Second World War—isn't that right?" Selene was hazy on the details of Erika's arrival in the coven, but she knew it had been within the past century. She'd always assumed one of the males had turned her out of sexual interest.
The Doctor smiled sadly, shaking his head. "She's a lot older than that. Someone's wiped your memories, Reinette." He told Selene, "She was born in Paris. Later she married and became Madame d'Etoilles. Louis XV dissolved her marriage so she could become his official consort. History remembers her as Madame de Pompadour."
Selene gawked at the younger vampire, incredulous; she couldn't possibly have such a pedigree. "But that's Erika! She's a—" She stopped just short of saying "a whore." Curiously, she asked the Doctor, "Did you know her?"
He nodded. "When she was human. Reinette—you died young—you were forty-three. Do you remember anything about it?"
She shook her pale head, baffled.
Abruptly, Selene asked, "Who turned you? Was it Kraven? Soren?"
"I don't remember," Erika said. She concentrated for a moment, brow furrowing. "My first really clear memory is coming here at night—we were in a car, and there was a bad storm. I remember feeling afraid of how fast the car was moving. Then we were here." She shrugged helplessly, shooting Selene a resentful expression. "When you're at the bottom of the coven's pecking order, you learn not to question things. Soren told me I'd been performing in a Berlin cabaret, that I'd had consumption, and I'd have died if I wasn't turned."
"But he didn't say he turned you?" Selene pressed, thinking with distaste of Soren, Kraven's chief henchman. Erika, she knew, was free with her favors to Soren, probably hoping to inveigle herself more deeply in Kraven's inner circle.
"No, never."
"Nothing they told you is true, anyway," the Doctor said.
"Are you sure you aren't mistaken?" asked Selene. "Maybe Erika just looks like—"
"No, it's her." The Doctor stepped closer to Erika, sniffing her head. "Her hair still smells the same. You have a birthmark," he told her, "on the upper inside of your left arm. It's small and blue."
Erika gawked at him. Then she rolled up the sleeve of her clingy lace jersey. On the pale skin of her inner arm Selene saw a tiny blue birthmark.
"So why can't Erika remember anything?"
"My guess is that one of your lot spotted Reinette during her time in the king's court," the Doctor speculated, "and turned her when she was on her deathbed."
Erika had gone to stare in Selene's mirror. "I don't look forty-three."
"Of course not," said Selene. "The process has a rejuvenating effect."
"I also think someone's wiped your memories," the Doctor told Erika. "And replaced them with a false identity." He said, "If you want, I can try to look."
"How can you do that?" she asked.
"Come here."
Selene watched as the Doctor placed his hands on either side of Erika's head, two fingers above her ears and two behind. He closed his eyes, concentrating.
"You're telepathic?" Selene asked uneasily.
He didn't answer. A moment later, Erika gasped and went rigid.
"Shh, stay with me," he murmured. Selene watched, fascinated. The Doctor had remarkably long hands, she noted, the fingers slim and tapered.
He broke away abruptly, looking sickened. Erika was shaking, her complexion almost gray. "They're all fake," she said. "Everything I've ever believed about myself is a lie!"
"There's a block on her memory," the Doctor told Selene. "Maybe more than one; I couldn't get past it without causing her a lot of pain." He put a hand on Erika's shoulder. "I'll help you get yourself back," he said. "I promise." He asked Selene, "Which vampires would have the ability to alter memory like this? It would take a lot of power to block someone's entire past from their conscious thoughts."
"One of the Elders," Selene murmured.
"Your leaders?" the Doctor clarified.
"There's three of them," Erika provided. "Viktor, Amelia, and Marcus. They rule one at a time for a century each."
"What about the other two?" the Doctor asked, surprised. "Do they take a holiday?"
"They hibernate," said Erika. "In special tombs. Amelia has the throne right now, but she'll be here tomorrow night to awaken Marcus and begin her next hibernation."
This fascinated the Doctor. "How do they get by when they wake up and two hundred years of history have gone past?"
"The Elders can organize their memories," Selene told him. "They can make a record of everything that's happened during their reign and pass it along to the next Elder during the awakening process. So when the Elders wake up, they know exactly what's happened during the past two hundred years, as if they'd experienced it themselves. It takes tremendous power."
"So altering the memories of a newly-turned vampire wouldn't be difficult."
"Child's play," Selene agreed.
"If Amelia reigned over the twentieth century, who reigned before her?"
"Viktor reigned in the nineteenth century," Selene told him. "Marcus in the eighteenth…" The truth hit her then. "It must've been him—Marcus. I remember he spent ages at the French court—a lot of vampires did. They loved that whole decadent lifestyle." Selene herself had never been part of that: even then, her existence had been consumed with hunting down and killing lycans. She'd had utter contempt for those vampires who'd done nothing but hobnob with the European aristocracy.
"So Madame de Pompadour might easily have caught his eye," the Doctor said.
"He never brought her into the coven," Selene frowned. "That's odd—and not at all like him. A king's mistress would've been a great prize, and Marcus wouldn't have been happy unless he could rub it in the other men's faces." She stared at Erika, baffled. "He must've been keeping you hidden somewhere."
"She died in 1764," the Doctor said. "About forty years before he was due to go into hibernation. Maybe he didn't want her in the coven for two hundred years without him around."
From the chaise, Michael groaned, reminding Selene of the bigger crisis at hand. "All this will have to wait," she said, hurrying to Michael's side. The young American was sweating and thrashing slightly in his sleep, mumbling quietly to himself.
"He's delirious," the Doctor said, concerned. He put his hands on the sides of Michael's head, as he'd done with Erika. Frowning, he said, "There's some violent nightmares going on in here… medieval torture chamber… what's all that about?"
Michael convulsed, and the Doctor pressed his index fingers hard into the young man's temples. Michael relaxed, exhaling a long breath.
"What'd you do?" asked Selene.
"Moved him out of REM sleep," the Doctor said. "He'll be out for a while longer. Why don't we look at those books while we're waiting for him to wake up?"
"What books?" asked Erika.
"The history of the vampire-lycan war," the Doctor provided.
"They're in the south wing," Selene frowned. "There'll be a Death Dealer on sentry duty between here and there. I can get past, but not you, Doctor."
"Rodrigo's on duty?" asked Erika.
"Yes," nodded Selene.
"Give me five minutes." She headed for the door.
"Reinette, you don't need to," the Doctor began.
"Five minutes," she teased, winking at him over her shoulder.
"I really wish she wouldn't do that," the Doctor said unhappily.
"Why not?" Selene retorted. "It's what she does best." She went to her closet, digging out a leather trenchcoat that Nathaniel had left behind after a conference; he'd never come back for it, and now never would. Selene thought briefly of her hunting partner, dead in the subway tunnels, a lycan's victim. She burned with cold rage. I'll avenge him, she vowed. "Here, put this on. Nobody wears brown around here; you'd stick out like a skyscraper." The Doctor exchanged his long tan coat for the black leather duster. It hung slackly on his thin frame, but it completely covered his pinstriped brown suit. Thankfully his sneakers were black. He didn't exactly look like a Death Dealer, but at least he wouldn't stand out so obviously.
Selene checked her watch. When five minutes had passed, they slipped into the quiet hallway. Most of the coven had either retired for the daylight sleeping hours or were still down in the salon, partying with Amelia's envoy. From an alcove between the north and south wings came muffled sounds of pleasure: Erika's quiet gasps and Rodrigo's excited groans. Selene and the Doctor moved swiftly until they reached the door to the library, one of the house's least popular rooms. Only Selene and a handful of other Death-Dealers utilized it on a regular basis.
A door at the rear was always locked, and Selene knew that behind it lay a walk-in closet containing valuable old volumes, forbidden knowledge about the origins of their species and the history of their war with the lycans. The Doctor used his sonic device to spring the lock on the door. They quietly slipped inside, and he used the device again to unlock the glass case where the heavy volumes rested. A thick layer of dust coated the case; nobody had been inside this closet in decades, Selene guessed. She pulled the string for the overhead light.
A moment later, the closet door opened, and Erika slipped inside, adjusting her clothes and looking smug, pleased with herself.
The Doctor handed one volume to Selene, keeping another for himself. I was right, she thought. These are way too big to smuggle out of here. He passed a third to Erika, and she joined him at one of the library's mahogany reading tables. "Happy hunting," he said, sliding a pair of black-rimmed spectacles onto his nose.
(ii)
Selene skimmed through pages of medieval woodcuttings, scanning the archaic text rapidly. She took care when turning the leaves: the paper was old, crumbling. Yet the age of the volume couldn't lessen the impact of the illustrations. Some of them filled her with pride: medieval Death-Dealers, her predecessors, doing battle with hordes of lycans. Others unsettled her: images of werewolves chained together and branded like cattle. Even more distressingly, the brands always bore one of three letters: V, A, or M.
Viktor, Amelia, Marcus?
She quickly closed the book, setting it aside and choosing another. To her consternation, an entire section of pages seemed to be missing. She checked the back of the volume, but they hadn't been tucked away, and a closer examination of the binding revealed the pages hadn't fallen out due to age. They'd been deliberately cut away. On some of the surviving pages, sentences and whole paragraphs had been blacked out with India ink. Selene scowled. Someone's got something to hide. The pages fell open to an account of the Battle of the Alps, vampires and lycans locked in a stylized depiction of mortal combat. In the background, smoke and flame issued from the openings of mountain caves. The book confirmed that only Kraven had survived the battle, emerging from the inferno with proof that he'd slain Lucian: branded skin from the lycan leader's arm.
At the back of the book, a scrap of something resembling old leather had been attached to the binding. Selene pulled it off, tracing the stylized V. She turned back a couple of pages, to an illustration of a lycan she assumed was meant to be Lucian, but the face had been burned away. The upper right arm bore a brand mark in the shape of a V. Selene squinted more closely at the page. Hanging from around the lycan's neck was a medallion. She'd seen that somewhere before: a small, round stone set into a tracery of Celtic knotwork.
She raised her eyes from the page, staring at the opposite wall, the shelves full of old volumes. That lycan who attacked Michael! she realized. She remembered his strength, his speed, his deadly cunning, the sword concealed in his sleeve. What had the Doctor told her? He seemed to be their leader.
"My God," she said out loud.
"What'd you find?" asked Erika. She and the Doctor came over to Selene's table.
Stunned, Selene showed them the illustration, the scrap of skin. "I can't be completely sure, but I think Lucian might still be alive. This was supposedly cut from his skin. But that lycan who tried to take Michael wore this exact same medallion."
"Why's the face burned away?" asked the Doctor.
"Someone didn't want anyone to see it," Selene said grimly. "Someone who doesn't want us to know Lucian's still alive, gathering forces."
"But only a lycan would want that," Erika protested. "And if a lycan ever did break into the mansion, it wouldn't exactly bother with old books."
"A lycan didn't do this." The Doctor took the volume, examining the binding and the defaced pages. "Your memory's not the only thing that's been wiped, Reinette," he said. "The collective memory of the coven's been tampered with." He looked down at Selene. "I hate to say this, but I think you've got a traitor in your midst. Someone with an interest in deliberately obscuring the past."
"Kraven," she muttered. "He's behind this, I know it."
"What would he gain by turning against the rest of us?" asked Erika.
"Power," said Selene. She tried to imagine that, Kraven in league with the most powerful lycan in history. And somehow, Michael was in the middle of their plans. She stood up, aware they'd been inside the library too long.
"Doctor, did you find anything?" They returned the volumes to their glass case, shutting and locking the closet door.
"A chronicle of vampire lineage, dating back to Alexander Corvinus," the Doctor provided. "He was apparently born in the early fifth century, a warlord who came to power at the time some sort of epidemic was sweeping through Europe. I don't think it was Black Death—the symptoms sound more like influenza, maybe even bird flu. It decimated Central Europe. But when Corvinus was stricken, he didn't die. Somehow the virus mutated to his advantage. He not only survived, he became immortal. Not a vampire, though—that was very clear."
"So where did we come from?" asked Selene.
"Corvinus fathered several children, including three sons. Two of them were twins. The book says one boy was bitten by a bat, the other one by a wolf."
Selene and Erika both goggled at him. "So vampires and werewolves share a common beginning?" Selene asked. Before tonight, the very thought would have struck her as not only absurd, but obscene, blasphemous. Now she was beginning to view the past very differently.
"Well, that all might be legend, but it makes sense, given the similarities between your species and the lycans' interest in the descendants of Corvinus."
"What about the third son?" asked Erika. "What happened to him?"
"He was mortal," the Doctor said. "He lived, he fathered twelve children of his own, and he died. Interestingly, he inherited the Corvinus title and lands, although he was younger than his twin brothers."
"Because the other two weren't suitable to inherit," Selene guessed. "Vampires can't go out during daylight, and werewolves change into uncontrollable beasts during the full moon. Corvinus deliberately left everything he had to the one son who could walk freely among humans."
"And Michael's one of his descendants," the Doctor said. "His mortal descendant."
Erika peered out into the corridor. "I'll go on ahead," she whispered.
"Check on Michael," Selene ordered. She watched the blonde vampire scurry away.
"One other thing." The Doctor put his glasses back into a pocket. "You said one of your Elders is named Marcus. The one who turned Reinette, the one who'll come out of hibernation tomorrow night."
"What about him?" Selene responded.
"The Corvinus twin who was bitten by a bat was named Markus. Markus Corvinus. Could it be the same vampire?"
This revelation stunned Selene. "It could be," she allowed. If true, it would mean Marcus was the oldest Elder—indeed, the oldest surviving vampire in the world—when she'd always been told that it was Viktor. "What about the other twin?"
"William," the Doctor provided. "And another fascinating detail—both the bat and the wolf that bit the boys had rabies. The writer didn't call it that, but the symptoms he described are unmistakable. And like their father, the boys' bodies mutated the virus, one twin taking on bat-like qualities and the other wolf-like. That's how Corvinus knew his sons had inherited his condition. They didn't die from the infection—they changed and became stronger."
"And both passed their conditions along by biting humans," Selene concluded. "That's why the bite is so dangerous."
The Doctor nodded. "It's a mutated form of the rabies virus. What are the initial symptoms of infection? Fever, confusion, agitation, hallucinations—" He stopped short, a horrified expression dawning in his eyes. "Michael!"
He shot out into the hallway, running, Selene on his heels. Even before they reached her room, Selene could hear the commotion: a shout of alarm, a loud cat-like hissing, the rapid thump of footsteps.
"Reinette! What's—Selene, wait! Stay out there!"
She reached the doorway, recoiling: Michael had thrown open the heavy drapes that covered one window, sending a deadly shaft of yellow sunlight across the floor. Selene heard the barks of an angry Rottweiler.
"He's gone—right out the window and up over the main gate." The Doctor shut the window and pulled the drapes. "No human could've made that drop unharmed or jumped over a twelve-foot gate." He turned, looking around, then glanced up. "Reinette—you can come down now."
The blonde female had been clinging to the ceiling by her claws. She dropped to the floor, fangs bared, still hissing, eyes glowing pale.
Selene closed the door and leaned against it, fighting the urge to groan out loud at this latest complication.
"He's a lycan." Erika had gotten control of herself. "I saw the bite with my own eyes!"
"When was he bitten?" the Doctor asked, baffled, then the answer occurred to him at the same time it hit Selene.
"Lucian," she growled. The powerful male lycan had bitten Michael, somehow—Selene realized it must have happened in the elevator, and in her panicked rush to escape the apartment building, she hadn't noticed. And now Michael would become a werewolf also, one of the creatures that Selene had sworn to hunt down and destroy.
(iii)
"You both need to get out of here," she said. "Erika—how much can I trust you?"
"What do you want me to do?"
"Stick as close to Soren and Kraven as you can. Don't break your usual routine or duties, don't make them suspicious, but keep your eyes and ears open. Let me know if they're up to anything unusual."
Erika nodded. "After sixty years of lying to me, they've got it coming." With a last glance at the Doctor, she slipped out of the room.
Selene turned to the alien. "Catch up with Michael. He's going to be sick and delirious, which will make it easy for Lucian's men to grab him. I'll try to touch base with you after sunset. The full moon starts tomorrow night, and if Michael's not confined, he's going to run berserk and kill people."
The Doctor nodded. "I can hold him in my ship if I need to."
"You'd better leave before anyone finds you."
The Doctor exchanged Nathaniel's leather duster for his own brown coat. Returning to the closet, he jumped up and grabbed the edges of the open trapdoor, pulling himself into the attic. Selene listened to the almost inaudible retreat of his footsteps, then refastened the trap and closed her closet door.
Less than five minutes later, a young Death Dealer materialized. "Kraven wants to see you. Now."
The acting lord of the manor had worked himself up into a righteous froth. Without pausing for niceties, he roared, "You dared bring a human into my house!"
Selene coolly gauged how drunk he must be (very), which she knew could work to her advantage. "I need to question him about lycan activity in the city."
"There's safe houses all over Budapest for that!"
"I couldn't take chances—the city was crawling with lycans."
"Crawling!" He made an ugly sneering expression. "In your imagination, maybe!"
"Tell that to the five who attacked me last night, all of them fully transformed alpha males. And that doesn't include the two in the subway. This isn't a random incursion, Kraven. They're gearing up for war. And maybe you'll deal with it by hiding your head in the sand, but I'm not going to!"
Infuriated, he yelled, "This is my house, and I won't stand for—"
"This is still Viktor's house, as far as I'm concerned," Selene interrupted. "The full moon's tomorrow night; the lycans will be at their most powerful, and we'll be awakening an Elder—you know that makes us vulnerable! And if Michael knows something—"
Kraven seized on her use of the intern's Christian name. "Oh, so it's Michael now! You're infatuated with him, aren't you?"
Trust Kraven to assume immediately the lowest common denominator. "Now, that's a ridiculous theory," Selene scoffed, her expression haughty. "I'm doing my job—protecting this coven, which is more than I can say for you! The lycans have an interest in him, Kraven! And anything that's important to them should be a concern to us!"
Kraven exploded, "Why on earth would Lucian ever be interested in one stupid mortal?"
A Death Dealer—one of Soren's men—appeared in the doorway. "Sir, the security cameras caught a human intruder fleeing the grounds—he escaped over the fence."
Selene blanched. Enraged, Kraven swung around and viciously backhanded her across the face.
(iv)
Why on earth would Lucian ever be interested in one stupid mortal?
Selene stood at the firing range, still in her plain black chemise, firing merciless silver rounds into the plaster busts that popped up at intervals. One bust after another burst into fragments. Of course, Selene was such a good shot that the targets represented no challenge whatsoever. She didn't need practice—she needed to burn off steam.
She'd taken far worse blows in nearly six hundred years of warfare, but Kraven's slap had wounded her dignity more than her flesh. Grinding her teeth, she sent another round of bullets into the next plaster bust. One corner of her mind kept replaying Kraven's provocative comment. He'd spoken of Lucian as if the werewolf leader still lived. A slip of the tongue? Selene saw again the man on the roof of her car, the pendant around his neck identical to the one pictured in the ancient, dusty volume. A volume that all but the Elders were forbidden to read, a volume that someone had deliberately defaced to obscure the information it contained. She thought of the lycan's speed, his power, the way he'd fought. Even in their brief, violent encounter, she'd sensed great age in him. Could it really be him? she wondered. Am I mad even to be thinking this?
Lucian, the most feared of all lycans, architect of the great war that had claimed the lives of so many vampires.
Still alive, in the twenty-first century.
Gathering forces.
Blindly experimenting to create a new race, perhaps an uber-werewolf, unstoppable even by silver.
In league with the shifty, power-hungry Kraven.
She heard footsteps and turned to see Khan approaching. The African vampire raised an eyebrow and said, "I sure hope you never get pissed off at me."
She grunted and returned her attention to the firing range. Khan watched her blast another plaster bust into fragments. Then he said casually, "Here, check this out." He handed her a gun, larger than the Berettas that Selene normally used. "Squeeze off a few." Curiously, she waited for another plaster head to appear, then took aim and fired.
BLAM-BLAM-BLAM! The report of the weapon echoed loudly in the training dojo. Selene stared down the range at her target. A glistening liquid silver oozed out of the holes and down the plaster face.
"Eject the mag," said Khan smugly.
Selene did as he suggested. Instead of silver bullets, she found that the pistol had been loaded with glass capsules virtually identical to those in the werewolves' UV weapons.
"You copied the lycan rounds," she realized, impressed by Khan's ingenuity. She held one bullet up to the light. "Silver nitrate?"
"A lethal dose," he confirmed.
"They won't be able to dig out the bullets like they usually do." Selene grasped the advantages of the new ammunition immediately.
"Right into the bloodstream," Khan agreed. "Ain't nothin' to dig out."
Selene set down the bullet and turned to face Khan, one of the few vampires, apart from Viktor, who she trusted fully. "Khan, do you think that Lucian died the way everyone says he did?"
The big African snorted quietly. "Kraven been tellin' old war stories again?"
"That's my point," she said. "They're just ancient stories—his stories. We don't have a shred of proof he killed Lucian, only his word." That wasn't strictly true—there was that scrap of branded skin Selene had found—but really, anyone could have cut that skin off. Kraven could have found the lycan leader already dead, removed the skin, and claimed the victory as his own. Assuming, of course, that Lucian was really dead.
"I've never underestimated Kraven's lust for advancement," Khan said. "But Viktor believed him, and that's all that matters." He gave Selene a peculiar look; like everyone else in the mansion, he probably knew about the human prisoner she'd let escape and her crazy theories that the lycans were in the midst of another uprising. "Now, where you goin' with all this?"
Selene shook her head, her mouth tightening, frustrated that she couldn't share what she knew even with one of her most trusted allies. "Nowhere."
Another bust appeared and she picked up her Beretta. Then she paused, circling around the counter to examine the bust more closely. The target had been fashioned as a simulacrum of a man's head, and to the uneducated eye, it vaguely resembled some classical musician. All the targets looked like this, and Selene asked herself, Is it supposed to be Lucian? She studied the shape of the bearded face, the set of the eyes and mouth. The man depicted in the bust had short hair, but Selene swore that the figure bore exactly the same features as the man who'd attacked her at Michael's apartment.
She felt a tickling vibration on her hip: her mobile phone. She opened the tiny device, startled: usually only Khan ever called her, and he was still standing right there. The caller ID screen glowed with a number in Budapest, "Laszlo's Bakery."
She pressed a button and spoke into the mouthpiece. "Yes?" Casually she wandered toward the door of the dojo.
"Michael?" The male voice spoke in Hungarian, thick with a working-class accent.
"You've got the wrong number."
The voice continued, "His order is ready. I tried his workplace and his residence and he's not there." Selene realized then that it must be the Doctor—he'd guessed that all the vampires' cellular phones were subject to surveillance. Silently she blessed his discretion.
Speaking in irritated Hungarian, she said, "There's nobody here by that name. You must be mistaken." And she disconnected.
Khan was looking at her oddly. "Who was that?"
Selene shrugged, returning to the firing range. "Wrong number."
(v)
As soon as she could manage it without arousing suspicion, Selene went down to the mansion's basement and slipped out into the underground parking garage. The coven kept a well-maintained fleet of vehicles, ranging from sports cars to SUVs to limousines, and a team of mechanically-inclined vampires kept them in crack running order. The last thing a Death Dealer needed when fleeing an angry lycan was a flat tire or a faulty transmission, and the last thing any vampire needed was to be stranded beside a broken-down car with dawn on the horizon.
At this hour, the garage lay empty. Selene inhaled the pleasant mechanical smells of oil and petrol and rubber tires, sliding silently among the vehicles until she reached her Jaguar. She bleeped off the alarm, then opened the trunk. Inside lay a collection of weapons and a neatly kept box of emergency automotive supplies. Selene sifted among the firearms until she found one in particular, indistinguishable from its mates, and opened the leather case. Only someone with sharp eyes would notice that the gun was about three inches too short for its holster.
Two years earlier, Selene had taken the precaution of purchasing in Budapest an inexpensive disposable cell phone, which she kept hidden beneath an unloaded gun. The simple device lacked the features of her coven-issued mobile, but she could make calls free from the prying ears of the mansion's security goons. The purchase had been prompted—even then—by her intense distrust of Kraven; although she always kept the spare fully charged, she'd never used it. Until now.
She powered up the disposable phone, glancing around to make sure she was alone in the garage, and entered in the number of Laszlo's Bakery, which she took from her mobile's "recent calls" menu.
After two rings, a man's voice came on the line. "Yes?" it said in Hungarian.
"It's me." Selene kept her voice down and didn't identify herself. She wondered how many Earth languages the Doctor knew. She spoke five fluently herself, and knew a smattering of at least a dozen others. "Do you speak Russian?" she asked, using the one language that she knew for a fact Kraven had never mastered.
"Da."
"What did you find?"
"Nothing. Corvin's not at the hospital or at his apartment." The Doctor's Russian was as flawless and idiomatic as his Hungarian. "There's police looking for him—he's considered a suspect in the metro station shooting." He paused. "It sounds like trumped-up charges."
"Instigated by the lycans," she said.
"Exactly."
"Have you been underground? Have they taken him prisoner?"
"No, I looked in the lab. He's not there."
Shit! Selene disliked the idea of Corvin wandering around, delirious and out of his mind, with the full moon only twenty-four hours away. When the moon rose the next night, he would transform into a savage beast, a danger to himself and everyone around him.
"Keep looking," she said. "Is this a safe number where I can reach you?"
"Yes, I picked up a cheap mobile and hijacked a local bakery's line."
Selene gave him the number of her disposable cellular. "Use that if you need to ring me again," she said. "All phone activity into and out of the mansion is strictly monitored." Two wrong numbers in one day would get her in even more trouble.
"Has Reinette learned anything?"
"Not yet."
"Can you trust anyone else there?"
"No," she said, once again glancing around the garage. She needed to end the call quickly before anyone found her. "Keep looking," she said. "I should ring off."
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
Subconsciously, Selene had been toying with a mad idea, and the time had come to act. Kraven had had free reign over the coven for too long, and Selene would roast in the sun before she'd see her fellow vampires brought low because of that strutting peacock's ambitions.
"I'm taking this to a higher power." And she disconnected.
(vi)
Steam. It billowed in clouds around Selene as she stood naked in the bathroom, scrubbed clean from her shower. Using her index finger, she wrote six block letters on the mirror.
VIKTOR.
With one swift motion, she wiped her hand across the mirror, obliterating her sire's name.
"Please forgive me," she whispered. "But I desperately need your guidance."
(vii)
She dried off, dressing herself in clean black leather. Feeling oddly calm and resolute, she went down to the security room and told the Death Dealer on duty, "Khan wants to see you."
The youngster stood up and left the booth with alacrity, tossing a suspicious look back at Selene. She ignored him, and when he was out of sight, she hurried across the corridor to the massive double doors of the great crypt.
Beyond the doors lay a vast subterranean chamber, the floor inlaid with gorgeous Italian tile. Three metal circles lay in the center of the floor, each one an intricate metal filigree bearing a single, stylized initial: V, A, or M. The resting places of the three Elders.
The two males slumbered beneath the stone floor; Amelia's sarcophagus, of course, was unoccupied. To the left lay the tomb of Marcus, to the right, that of Viktor. Selene knew she could have brought her suspicions to either Amelia, when she arrived, or to Marcus, when he awoke, but in truth, Selene had never been close to either of them, and she knew she had very little concrete proof. The testimony of an extraterrestrial won't hold much water, she thought ruefully. No, the only one of the three she really trusted was Viktor, and he wasn't due to be awakened for another century, in accordance with the ages-old Chain of coven leadership. Only one Elder ruled at a time, which prevented power struggles among the three and assured the coven wouldn't be fractured by internal warfare.
Selene knew that her plans would break the Chain and might well bring down ruin on the coven. But if I don't act, she thought, we'll be ruined anyway.
Waiting for Amelia would do no good if Selene's suspicions proved true. She didn't think the timing of all this lycan activity was any kind of accident. The coven was always at its most vulnerable during the transfer of leadership.
Taking a deep breath, Selene hunkered down beside the hatch covering Viktor's tomb and put her fingers in the grooves surrounding his initial. She turned the circle as far as it would go and stepped back, glancing over her shoulder.
Beneath the floor, ancient mechanisms sprang to life with a hollow reverberation. The metal grating broke into four pieces and retracted beneath the tiles. A slim sarcophagus rose up out of the dark cavity below, creaking softly on metal gears, until it stood upright, towering over Selene. She found the correct lever and pulled it so that the sarcophagus rotated and lay horizontally. Selene knew the procedure well; she'd attended four awakening ceremonies, starting back in the early sixteenth century, when Viktor had awakened Amelia.
Inside the cold metal coffin, beneath a sheet of glass, lay the shockingly mummified form of the greatest Elder, his flesh shriveled and desiccated. Selene knew how deceptive that appearance could be: all Elders looked like this when they came out of hibernation. She depressed a button on one side of the coffin, and with a mechanical hum, a metal feeding tube slid smoothly into place over Viktor's gaping mouth. Selene wondered Am I mad? before opening her gauntlet and biting into her wrist. There could be no turning back. She held her arm over a metal dish and let her blood drip down into it. The red trickle ran through the tube, flowing into Viktor's mouth.
Only the Elders possessed the ability to organize their thoughts and memories into a cohesive vision, a living record of their reign. Selene knew she pitifully lacked that skill, but she did her best to pass an urgent message to her slumbering sire.
Please forgive me, she thought, but I desperately need your guidance. I apologize for breaking the Chain and awakening you ahead of schedule, but I fear we may all be in grave danger. Especially you, my lord, if left in your weakened state, for I believe Lucian is alive and well. Here. Now. In this very city, preparing to strike us during the awakening ceremony. Even more disturbing is that if I am correct, it means that Kraven is in league with him.
She licked her wounded wrist clean and refastened the gauntlet: the bites would heal quickly. Then she pushed Viktor's sarcophagus to the rear of the chamber, to the specially designed recovery area. Here lay gleaming medical instruments and a refrigerator full of purloined human blood—recently "liberated" from the Budapest Red Cross in anticipation of the awakening. Selene began hooking up tubes to the copper implements embedded in Viktor's flesh. Then she attached the tubes to the bags full of blood, suspending each bag from an elaborate overhead rack. She watched as the precious, life-giving fluid began to drip into Viktor's withered body.
IV. Running to Stand Still
Adam looked astonished when Michael dragged him into the examining room—astonished and afraid.
"Michael? Jesus, where've you been? Everyone's been looking for you, and—" He stared the other intern up and down. "Michael, what the hell happened to you?"
Michael began talking—babbling, really—starting with the night of the shootout, telling Adam about the creatures that had attacked him, the man in the elevator, Van Helsing and the Goth woman, the insane car ride, waking up in that hellish place with the crazy blonde and the even crazier dogs—
"…And ever since he bit me, I've been having these… these hallucinations. All I know is it feels like my skull is going to explode."
"Woah—Michael, you're not making a lot of sense." Adam did his best to clean some of Michael's lacerations. While he worked, he asked, "You say these people kidnapped you?"
"They took me hostage! Haven't you been listening to anything I've been saying?"
"No, no—I believe you! Now here, let me look at that bite."
Michael sat fidgeting while Adam examined the puncture wound on his shoulder. "Jesus, are you sure a dog didn't do this?"
Michael grabbed the other intern's arm. "I said it was a man," he insisted. "It was a man."
"All right! Michael—let go of me." Adam gently prized Michael's hand off his arm. "Look—I'm going to help you get this all sorted out. Wait here."
Adam slipped out of the examining room, and Michael waited. He couldn't return to his flat; the police were watching it. He'd been wandering Budapest furtively all day, having hitched a lift back to the city after escaping that godforsaken mansion. An insane restlessness filled him—he was feverish, his head ached abominably, and his medical knowledge told him he was fighting off a terribly serious infection. By all rights, he should be comatose. Yet he couldn't keep still; he yearned to run and run and—
And what?
Other changes disturbed him, also: his vision kept shifting into black and white. Everything smelled weird, very intense all of a sudden. The world seemed amplified, too—he could hear the tiniest sounds. He'd never realized until now how much people smelled—how good they smelled—rich and meaty, almost savory—
Adam had been gone too long. Michael hopped up and peered out the window of the examining room. To his vast outrage, he saw Adam marching grimly down the hall, two surly-looking cops behind him.
I trusted you! Michael thought. Wildly, he looked for an escape. He saw only one: a small window, opening onto a three-story drop.
Michael grabbed a stout trashcan and smashed the thick glass, astonished by his strength. Then he dropped the can, ducked into a nearby closet, and pulled the door shut.
The examining room door burst open. "Where'd he go—oh, shit!" Adam said. "He was right here—the window, he went out the window!" Three sets of footsteps quickly retreated. Michael waited until they were gone before climbing out into the examination room.
He had nowhere to turn: he couldn't go to the police, and he had his doubts about the US embassy—they'd think he was nuts and hand him over to the cops. Dazed, Michael crept through the hospital corridors and down a flight of back steps, finally exiting through a service entrance near the cafeteria. Back outside, he didn't know where to go. Night had fallen, and from the heavy dampness in the atmosphere, rain would soon be starting.
He stood shivering out on the street, watching people come and go, so distracted by their scents that he barely noticed the sound of soft footsteps approaching him.
"Michael?"
He spun about, horrified to see Van Helsing standing right there behind him.
"Michael, it's all right. Come with me." He smiled, his eyes full of reassurance. "You could stand to wash and change, and you need medical attention." At Michael's expression, he added, "I know what's happened to you—you've got a bad infection. You're hallucinating, aren't you?"
Dumbly, Michael nodded.
"Violent, medieval hallucinations."
"How'd you know?" Michael croaked.
"You've been infected with a mutated rabies virus. I can explain everything to you, but we really need to get off the street."
"The hospital—"
"There's nothing the hospital can do for you. I can help. I'm a doctor—I have special training, and I can keep you safe." The man's voice held a soothing, almost hypnotic quality, and Michael desperately wanted to believe him, to trust him. "Now, come with me."
Numbly, Michael allowed himself to be steered along the street. Van Helsing waited for a traffic signal, then led Michael across a busy intersection.
"Are those—those things still after me?"
"Yes."
"And the guy who bit me?"
"Still at large." Van Helsing glanced around the street. "C'mon—it's only one more block."
Another vision slammed into Michael, so viscerally real that he felt himself there: he was being whipped by some cruel, sadistic monster—
"Stop," he gasped, coming back to himself with a painful rush. "Just make it stop!"
Van Helsing had an arm around Michael's shoulders. "Keep walking. You'll be fine."
Michael sniffed. He noticed that Van Helsing smelled—odd. Not rich and meaty at all, but light and pleasant. Michael stumbled along, enchanted by that scent. And Van Helsing sounded different, too—although why, Michael couldn't really say.
"Here we are." Van Helsing had led Michael into a mostly-empty side street. "Home sweet home." He paused before something that resembled a wooden blue phone booth; it seemed to give off a queer, humming vibration. Michael frowned, ugly fear blossoming inside him. Van Helsing fished for a key and unlocked the narrow paneled door. "I will warn you—this is going to be a shock." He steered Michael inside.
So many impressions hit Michael at once, it was like being plunged into another nightmare.
"What the fuck?" he gasped. He'd expected to find himself in a closet-sized space. Instead, he was standing in a vast circular chamber of humming and glowing machinery, a space far too big to be contained in that blue phone booth. "What—what—?"
"Welcome to the TARDIS." Van Helsing pushed him up a metal ramp, babbling words Michael could barely comprehend. "That's Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. Right now, it's the safest place for you to be—"
"What—who are you?"
"I'm the Doctor. Now, come back into the medical room and let's get a look at that bite."
Michael tried backing away, but Van Helsing had a strong grip on his arm. "What—this thing—it's—it's—"
"An alien spacecraft. I know this is a lot to absorb at once, and I'll explain it all in a moment, but you've got some nasty lacerations there, and we really should tend to those before we do anything else."
Michael gibbered, "You—you're an alien?"
Van Helsing answered simply, "Yes."
"Get away from me." Michael tried shoving, but the alien proved stronger than he looked. "Get the fuck away from me!"
He gave a mighty shove, some insane strength welling up inside him. Van Helsing went flying—literally flying—through the air like a toy. He slammed into one of the weirdly-shaped support posts and slid to the metal floor, where he lay motionless.
Michael stood there, stunned at what he'd done. The word superhuman flashed through his mind. A sense of sickening shame threatened to overwhelm him.
Oh God, he's dead. I killed him. Michael turned on his heel and ran blindly back down the ramp, out into the night. Rain had started. He whipped around, confirming the exterior of the craft really did look that small. He circled around the box, finding nothing but the brick wall of a building.
I'm going crazy. Michael took the precaution of shutting the door to the blue phone booth; he had enough on his hands without the cops also discovering Van Helsing's shattered corpse. Then he broke into a panicked run, putting the alley and the alien behind him. Right now, he could think of only one person who might help him, who could understand what was going on, what was happening to him.
Selene.
(ii)
A commotion in the corridor outside the crypt startled Selene. Noiselessly, she exited through a side door and slipped out. For the past fifteen minutes, Soren had been checking on the crypt, but Selene had prudently closed Viktor's sarcophagus hatch, and from the corridor, everything looked undisturbed.
A gaggle of vampires had gathered in the security room, all of them Kraven's minions—including the regent himself. Selene realized they were clustered around a security monitor. She could hear a tinny, desperate voice over the intercom.
"I need to see Selene!"
She pushed her way through to the monitor. Erika stood nearby; briefly, their eyes met. Kraven looked ready to explode.
"Is that Michael Corvin?" he demanded.
Selene didn't answer. She flipped on the microphone and called, "I'll be right out."
"What the hell is happening to me?" Michael shouted.
"Wait there." Selene turned to leave.
Kraven stuck his ugly face in front of hers. "If you go to him, you'll never be welcome in this house again!"
"Now that Viktor's awake, we'll see what he has to say about that." Selene strode away, leaving the horror-stricken, dumbstruck regent behind her.
(iii)
Michael waited outside. When the gates opened, Selene drove through. The American stood by the security intercom, looking like he'd crawled out of a sewer—filthy and drenched. Selene opened the passenger-side door.
"Get in," she said tersely.
Michael climbed inside, shutting the door. Selene drove off through the deluge, heading toward the city. "You can never go there again. Never. They'll kill you. Do you understand?"
"Who the hell are you crazy people? What's happening to me? I feel like my head's gonna explode!"
Selene reached over and grabbed the collar of his t-shirt, exposing any ugly, infected bite wound. A lycan bite, just as Erika had said.
"Like it or not, you're in the middle of a war that's been raging for the better part of a thousand years. A blood feud between vampires and lycans." He gave her a blank look. "Werewolves. The thing that bit you was a werewolf."
She watched Corvin process the unthinkable. "I'm—so I'm—"
"Turning into one of them."
"Shit." He grabbed his head. Selene yearned to comfort him, then furiously shook away that impulse. Madness. He was the enemy now. Fate had cruelly thrown them into opposite sides of the ancient conflict.
"So you—you're a vampire? Everyone in that mansion?" She didn't answer. Michael groaned softly. "That guy—that crazy Van Helsing guy."
"What about him?"
"He said he's an alien."
"He is."
"What did he—what does he want in all this?"
"Besides a violent death? He's got some crazy notion that one of our serving girls used to be Madame de Pompadour in her mortal life."
"Madame who?"
"Oh, never mind," Selene said wearily. She wondered fleetingly why Michael looked so guilty and miserable. "He's the least of my worries right now."
The Jaguar sped toward the city. As the lights of Budapest came into view, Michael asked—with more bravado than he probably felt—"So, what happens if you bite me? I become a vampire?"
"No, you'd die. Nobody has ever survived a bite from both species. The viruses we transmit are deadly. Consider yourself lucky—most people die within an hour of being bitten by an immortal."
"Lucky," he mumbled, looking away. "I'm turning into a werewolf, and I should feel lucky about it?" He turned back to her. "So why are you helping me?"
"I'm not helping you!" she roared. "I hunt down and kill your kind! By rights I'd pull over and kill you myself, but I need to keep Lucian from getting his hands on you!"
"Who's Lucian?"
Selene calmed. "The leader of the lycans—the most powerful lycan who ever lived. We thought he died six hundred years ago, but it looks like he faked his death and went into hiding. He's been underground all that time, gathering forces, and from what the Doctor said, he's been experimenting to genetically engineer a new breed of werewolf."
"Jesus," Michael muttered.
"And he needs your blood to do that. You're a descendant of Alexander Corvinus, the first immortal, the father of both vampires and lycans."
This stunned the young American. "Shit!" he swore.
"Now do you see why I need to keep you away from them?"
"Can you blame me for running? I didn't know what the hell you wanted with me, let alone those what those things wanted!"
She sighed, guiding the car through the streets of downtown Pest. At least we're talking, she thought ruefully. That's an improvement.
Selene approached the safe house warily, taking a circuitous route to make sure she wasn't being followed. Then she parked and led Michael up the five flights of steps.
"So, why have I been having these hallucinations?" he asked.
"They're not hallucinations, they're memories. Lucian bit you, and when he did, he passed along his memories to you."
Michael understandably didn't seem too pleased about that. "What is this place?" he asked, glancing around the squalid interior.
"We use it to interrogate prisoners." On the topmost landing, Selene unlocked the door and led him inside, flipping on lights. She unshuttered the window and checked the street below.
"Can I ask you something?"
Selene turned from the security monitors, raising an eyebrow.
Michael said, "Do you—you know, kill people and drink their blood?"
"Not for centuries." Selene understood his curiosity; he probably was afraid she'd make a snack out of him. She opened a refrigerator and fished out a plastic bag, tossing it to him. He caught it effortlessly: lycan reflexes.
"Ziodex Industries?" he read.
"We own it. First artificial plasma. Now this."
"Cloned blood?" He sounded awestruck.
"Once it's approved, it'll be our new cash crop." She took the bag and put it back inside the refrigerator. From the corner of her eye, she watched Michael examine the medical instruments on the metal tray.
"What are all these for?"
"Lycans are allergic to silver. If we don't get our bullets out quickly enough, they die during questioning."
"What do you do with them when you're done?"
Frankly, Selene told him, "We put the bullets back in."
Michael processed this, regarding Selene through eyes full of conflict: suspicion and revulsion warring with desire. A dangerous, heady mix. She turned her back to him, fishing for her spare phone, which she now kept tucked into her bodice, set to vibrate. She tried the line for Laszlo's Bakery, but nobody answered. She let it ring twenty times: nothing.
"Who are you calling?"
Selene didn't answer, returning the phone to its hiding place. She went and stood by the window, watching the street. Michael dropped into one of the chairs they used for interrogations. She tried not to think about that, tried not to picture Michael bleeding and screaming in pain while merciless Death Dealers tortured him. Until now, she'd never given any thought to the pain of the lycans who'd suffered at her hands.
"Why do you hate them so much?"
The question took her by surprise. Selene had been wondering what must be happening at the mansion. She knew she should get back—she was stalling, delaying the inevitable.
"Fine—don't answer," he muttered.
Selene kept her back to him, staring out the window at the nearly-full moon. "Something was in the stable, tearing the horses to pieces," she said. She'd never shared this memory with anyone, and she couldn't begin to explain why it felt so right to explain it to Michael. "I couldn't have saved my mother or my sister. Their screams woke me. My father died outside, trying to fend them off. I stood in the doorway, listening to my nieces scream. Twin girls. Six years old. Butchered like animals."
"Jesus," Michael muttered.
"Next thing I knew, I was in his arms," Selene went on.
"Who?"
"Viktor. The oldest and strongest of our kind. He'd been tracking the lycans for days. The war had spilled over into our house." She turned back to Michael. "He drove them off and saved me. That night, he made me a vampire. He gave me the strength to avenge my family's death. Since then, I've never looked back."
Michael gazed at her, no doubt seeing her in an entirely new light. Since they both seemed in a mood for sharing confidences, Selene revealed, "I saw some photos in your apartment." She leaned forward. "That woman. Was she your wife?"
"My fiancée." The American didn't seem at all upset that she'd looked through his personal effects; at this point, he probably considered it a matter of trivial concern. "I tried to swerve, but he hit us anyway… sent the car into the oncoming lane." Like Selene, Michael had started his story haphazardly, as if in mid-thought. "When I came to, part of the engine was in the front seat. Samantha… she was twisted in this… this horrible position. She must've been in shock, because she kept asking me over and over if I was okay."
Selene couldn't speak. Her heart ached for him, and she felt a spasm of guilt for having subjected him to two insane rides in her Jaguar.
"If I'd known then what I know now, I might've been able to save her, might've been able to do something… but she died right there… two minutes before the ambulance arrived."
Selene couldn't help another guilty spark: relief that his fiancée was dead and buried in another country. "So why did you come to Hungary?"
"I spent a summer here with my grandfather when I was a kid. When I finished my degree, it seemed like a good place to do my internship. I figured, what the hell? I cut my losses and came over here. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Thought I could put it all behind me… move on."
Selene studied his handsome, troubled face. "And have you?" she asked. When he met her gaze, she added, "Moved on?"
He gazed back at her evenly. "Have you?"
Selene couldn't answer.
They both were quiet for a while. Then Michael asked, "So, who started this war?"
"They did," she said. "At least that's what we've always been led to believe." She thought of the defaced book in the library. What story had those lost pages told?
"You believe that?"
"I'm not so sure," she admitted. Selene glanced at her watch. "Almost five. I should go." She hated to leave. She enjoyed talking to Corvin—she liked his intelligence, his obvious compassion, and she'd felt comfortable—too comfortable—unburdening her darkest secret to him. Then she angrily reminded herself that she didn't have time for insane adolescent infatuations.
"What about me?"
"Viktor will know what to do."
Michael looked less than reassured to have his future in the hands of a powerful vampire he'd never met.
"I'll come back tomorrow night."
"No way," he said. "I'm not staying here myself!"
"It's the safest place," she insisted, and his face took on an incredulous expression, like he'd heard that somewhere before and didn't believe it. Possibly he was thinking of the mansion, how she'd said he'd be safe there, too.
Michael tried to stand, but a wave of dizziness must have hit him. He slumped back against the chair. "Fine," he mumbled.
Selene turned and strolled back over to him, staring into his eyes. Hating herself for what she had to do next, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his.
He responded immediately, hungrily, as if he'd been longing to kiss her for some time. Selene felt hopelessly stirred by the contact, even as she reached for the manacles that hung from the metal chair.
Click! Selene stepped away. She'd cuffed him by one wrist to the chair.
"What the hell?" he grunted, staring at her with big, wounded eyes.
"When the full moon rises tomorrow night, you will change, you will kill, and you will feed." She spoke coldly, mechanically. "You won't be able to stop it. If I don't confine you here, you'll be a danger to everyone in the city. Trust me, Michael. This is for your own good." She ejected the mag from one of her guns, showing him the silver bullet inside, then popped the mag back into the gun and handed him the weapon.
"What's this for?"
"That's enough silver to prevent the transformation. At least for a few hours. If I don't get back in time tomorrow night, do yourself a favor." She slipped out of the safe house, locking the door behind her. She hated doing this to him, but it was the only way. With a heavy heart, Selene hurried down the five flights of stairs. The mansion, and Viktor's judgement, awaited.
(Continued in Chapter 2)