 DARKSIDE
CH-5The first man broke at just after midnight--the witching hour. He caved just about the same time the unholy shrieking stopped. I guess the creepy crawlies must have had a previous engagement. The poor SOB never really had a chance. Leanne handled the interrogation. We questioned our prisoners in the same room where they’d been taken, their comrades’ blood still spattered in fresh puddles on the floor. I half have expected her to torture them, but it wasn’t necessary. Josh backed his prisoner into a corner where the terrified commando huddled in fear as the shapeshifter paced back and forth, growling and salivating and generally looking as fearsome as possible. Occasionally he would tower over his victim and bring his snout to within an inch or so of the horrified man’s face, then sniff at him a few times and lick at the blood that trickled from the man’s head wound as if testing to see if he was good to eat yet. Leanne simply tied the second man to an antique, high-backed chair, and sat cross-legged before him, asking him questions in a calm, dispassionate voice. There was something unnerving about this tiny, fragile looking creature with her bloodred eyes and vertically slit pupils. Her black hair was swept back from that dead-white face, and her lips and teeth were still stained with the blood of her last meal. She would ask her question, and when the answer was not forthcoming she would smile, and then lean forward and drink from him. When she was finished she would ask her question again. He almost always answered. It wasn’t until later that I learned what had terrified him so much. It’s not that he worried Leanne would kill him; he was afraid that she wouldn’t. Like I said before, when a vampire drains you just to the point of death, a demon is summoned to possess the flesh. Leanne’s house was guarded. A demon wouldn’t be able to get in to animate the body, and sooner or later the flesh would rot. The soul, trapped in a rotting corpse, wouldn’t be able to escape, and the corpse, because it still has a soul, wouldn’t die. Voila--instant zombie. Believe me, zombies are rock bottom on the hierarchical scale of things. Grandpa appeared beside me as I watched the interrogation. “Whatever happened to good cop, bad cop?” “Hey, Grandpa. Where have you been?” “Last week,” he answered. The old coot still wasn’t making any sense. “I see you’ve made some new friends.” “Yup, and believe it or not we’re the good guys.” I had to keep telling myself that as Leanne leaned in for another taste. “She’s kinda cute,” Grandpa said. He studied me for a second, and I could tell he was worried. “She’s nothing like Alison, and Alex isn’t Sarah." “I know.” “Good,” he said as he faded out again. “Still, I don’t think I’d bring her home to meet your mother.” Leanne finished a few moments later and made her way over to me. I could tell it was a struggle for her. The demon had been let out to play, and it didn’t want to come in now. Every step she took in my direction was another measure of defeat for the creature, but the closer she came, the easier it was. By the time she stood before me, it cowered in the recesses of her mind once again. She put her arms around me and hugged me close to her, laying her head on my shoulder and shuddering as her body softened and her color returned. It had never occurred to me until that moment that hers was a gentle soul, and how horrifying it must be for her to watch the demon commit the atrocities it had in her name. Josh left his man cowering in the corner and came over to join us. “You get what we need?” he asked. Leanne nodded slightly, her head still resting on my shoulder. “Good. Now what?” Josh was understandably impatient. Leanne sighed and pulled away from me. “We let them go.” Josh started to protest, but she interrupted him. “There’s nothing more they can do for us, and we can’t kill them. Even if we could, what would we do with the bodies? We don’t have time to drag them out into the woods and dispose of them, and we’re not leaving them here. Besides, as James said, we’re supposed to be the good guys.” She must have heard me when I’d said that to Grandpa; I’d forgotten about her vampire hearing. I suppose she’d heard the crack about bringing her home to mom too. Josh snarled, then morphed back to human form. “I need food,” he said and stomped off down the stairs. Shapeshifters burned off a hell of a lot of calories, especially ones as large as Josh. The man in the chair was weak from loss of blood and watched listlessly as I untied him. I motioned for his friend to join us, but he wouldn’t come out of the corner; so I had to physically drag him over to his comrade. “Take your friend and get out of here,” I told him. “If I ever see either of you again, death will be the least of your worries.” I doubt I looked as scary as Leanne or Josh, but they got the message. I heard them stumble down the stairs, each one propping up the other, and a few moments later the front door slammed. Leanne and I went in to check on Alex, who had finally fallen asleep sometime after the screeching had stopped. She lay diagonally across the bed and wrapped up in her comforter, and occasionally would flinch at whatever haunted her in her dreams. I guess being an Innocent doesn’t protect you from nightmares. Leanne sat quietly at the corner of Alex’s bed and gently stroked the child’s face, pushing sweat-plastered strands of hair away from Alex’s eyes. It was hard to equate this gentle apparition before me now, looking little older herself than the child she cared for, with the depraved killer of only a short while ago. I put a hand to Leanne’s shoulder to comfort her. She looked up at me with such a saddened expression on her face that I knew it must be true that vampires couldn’t cry, or her eyes would have been filled with tears. “I never had a child of my own,” she whispered, and continued to stroke Alex’s hair. The poor kid seemed to be sleeping more soundly now, and her breathing was deep and regular. “I was turned at sixteen,” Leanne continued, “and though many of my friends were wed and had babies of their own at my age, my father had not yet given his consent to any of the eligible men who came to call.” I bent over and pressed my lips to her forehead, and she leaned against me while she continued to stroke Alex’s hair. I still had no real idea of Leanne’s age, but something told me she hadn’t been turned in the last hundred years or so. Her talk of arranged marriages dated her. It was obvious she was upper class, but the transformation made it difficult to discern her nationality. The Change leached any color from the skin, so her original pigmentation was unknown, though with her fine bone structure and those startling blue eyes I guessed she had to be Caucasian. While I admit I’m not the most knowledgeable man in the world, I couldn’t think offhand of any of the European countries that still practiced arranged marriages. Of course, I could have been wrong. Mom always told me you never asked a woman her age. I figured that went for vampire women too. Leanne would either tell me her story or not. Right at this moment finding out wasn’t at the top of my list of priorities. Rescuing Sabrina was. “We’d better go find Josh,” I said. “Whatever it is we’re going to do, we should do it now before they have a chance to prepare.” Leanne nodded and took my hand. It was obvious she didn’t want to leave; the time spent with the sleeping child was probably about as close to normal as the vampire ever got. For a while Leanne could forget what she was and just be human. We found Josh in the kitchen mangling the remains of some leftover turkey. I wasn’t about to ask what a vampire was doing with all this food in the house. Maybe she kept it for guests. “We just about ready?” Josh asked after he downed most of a quart of milk. Either he was incredibly thirsty, or that turkey was really dry. “I’ve just got to get a few things together,” Leanne said. “Then we can leave.” I hate being left out of the loop. I put my hand up. “Would someone mind telling the new guy what’s going on?” Leanne smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “They’ve taken Sabrina to Tae Con Ra in the other Realm. In two days, at the height of the full moon, they'll sacrifice her to the demon Aeshama during the Blood Moon ceremony. We’re going after her.” “Sounds good to me,” I said as she left the room to collect whatever it was she figured we needed. “It shouldn’t,” Josh said. He looked positively grim, and that just wasn’t Josh. “The other Realm, Land of the Faye, Summerland, the Twilight Zone--call it whatever you want--but it’s their home ground. And Tae Con Ra is an ancient place of power.” “I didn’t figure it was Celtic for Disney World.” Josh grinned in spite of himself. We sat there for a few moments in silence, neither of us really knowing what to say. “I guess I’d better pack some food for Alex,” he said finally. “You’re not going to bring that little girl along?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Josh looked pained. “We have to. She can’t stand by and let someone else die in her place. She can’t sacrifice her mother. If she did, she wouldn’t be an Innocent anymore.” You’ve got to hand it to them; the Dark side wasn’t stupid. By taking Sabrina they had ensured that we would have to bring Alex to Tae Con Ra. I felt the way I did when I was a kid and my dad used to make me go outside and cut him a switch to whoop me with. It was about then that Leanne showed up with a long, brown leather case. Both of the ends were tied off with bright blue silk cords. She’d also taken the time to change, and was dressed in tight-fitting black leathers. “Wow,” I said. “A vampire biker chick. Mom’s gonna love you.” Leanne pointedly ignored me. “We all set?” she asked Josh. “Yeah, just let me go get Alex.” It must have been murder on the guy. It was bad enough that the forces of evil (it always sounds so melodramatic when I say it like that) had made off with his wife, but now he had to shove his daughter into harm’s way also. “Just how do we get to the Other Realm anyway?” I asked Leanne once Josh had left the room. She put her arms about my neck and kissed me sweetly for a moment, then smiled up at me. “We take the Jeep, of course.” “Of course.” Dopey me. # The sun would be up in a little more than half an hour. It was a good thing for Leanne that the windows on the Jeep were tinted. They were dark, almost black, the way the cops hated, and she assured me they would protect her from the sun’s harmful rays. Still, just to be sure, she slipped on a pair of supple, black leather gloves, and smeared SPF 45 sunblock over her face and neck. The stuff had the consistency of Lepage's glue--the white stuff--as if she wasn't white enough all ready. She kept a black balaclava and some dark, wraparound sunglasses by her side just in case. Josh carried Alex out and laid her down on the back seat with a pillow and comforter. She fell back to sleep almost immediately. He opened up the back gate and tossed in a cooler of food and some travel packs, and an old beat-up hockey bag with the oddest assortment of bumps and bulges I'd ever seen. Josh glanced up and shrugged. "Small arms and ammo," he confided. "Always be prepared." The three of us fit in the front without much problem. Josh drove, I sat next to the passenger door, and Leanne sat between us. She was the smallest, after all. Josh started the engine just as something big and shadowy alighted on the hood of the Jeep. The front end dipped slightly, then something pink washed my half of the windshield in slobber, and the shadow was gone again. Josh hit the wipers and wiper fluid. "Dopey mutt," he mumbled. A smile touched my lips as Bear vanished as quickly as he had appeared. I'd really missed the dumb hound. "So, how do we get to Tae Con Ra?" I asked. "Just head out off the county road until we hit the Highway to Hell? "Actually, we head through the city," Leanne said seriously. “There’s a shortcut through the alley just behind the McDonald’s on Princess Street.” # The drive was rather uneventful. A faint rose blush had already begun to tinge the eastern horizon as we left the manor. By the time we reached the city, proper dawn was full upon us. There wasn’t much in the way of traffic at this time of the morning, human or otherwise. Even creepy crawlies need their sleep. Those that couldn’t stand the full effects of sunlight were long gone, and the others were no doubt resting up someplace, or off to their mundane jobs in human guise. Josh parked the Jeep in the small McDonald’s parking lot and went to the back of the truck to retrieve our gear while Leanne awakened Alex. He tossed me the pack with the food and kept the one with the weapons for himself. Leanne donned the balaclava and dark glasses, and Alex daubed at what little skin still showed with the sunscreen. “Is everybody set?” Leanne asked, and when one no one objected, added, “Then we’re off.” She retrieved her parcel, the one wrapped in blue, and led us to the dumpster at the back of the alley. “All right, you first, Josh. Then me and Alex. James can bring up the rear.” “This is the entrance to the Other Realm?” I scoffed. Josh opened the lid to the Dumpster and leapt nimbly up to the ledge. He perched there a moment, grinning at me and rearranging his pack. “Hey, it’s no Fairy Mound, but it’ll do.” With that he dropped down into the trash, and in a bright flash of white light, vanished. I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “Does everything about the Other Realm have to smell bad?” Leanne just shook her head, grasped the side of the Dumpster, and vaulted into the garbage, disappearing in a flash. Alex covered a yawn with the back of her hand. I was about to ask her if she needed a hand up when she pulled off this nice little scissor-kick and was up, over, and gone before I got the words out. Not one to be undone, I vaulted over the side and came down butt-first onto a pile of spaghetti and rotting lettuce. I stuck my hand into some brown, rancid oranges just seconds before the light flared, and I found myself seated on the grass on the side of a well-worn trail. I looked up to see Josh trying to stifle his laughter, and I knew that if I could have seen beneath Leanne’s balaclava, the same battle would have been going on there, too. Alex, showing the sensitivity that young teens are so famous for nowadays, was rolling on the ground laughing her fool head off. “I guess someone should have told the new guy there’s a five-second reset before you can use the portal again,” Leanne announced from behind the safety of the balaclava. I climbed to my feet and tried to brush off as much of the mess as I could. “Yeah, well the joke's on you,” I told them, trying to muster what little dignity I had left. “I’m taking point, which puts you folks downwind from me.” “Do you know where we’re going?” Josh asked. “No,” I admitted. “Just point me in the right direction.” Josh pointed northwards, where the trail led off into deep forest. I took point, with Alex next--suddenly she didn’t think the way I smelled was so funny anymore--and Leanne and Josh bringing up the rear. The trail wound its way among some of the biggest trees I’d ever seen. I doubt that all of us arm in arm could have reached around the bole of a single one of them. They were deciduous, and their leafy canopy blotted out what little sun there was and colored the land in eerie twilight enough so that Leanne could safely remove her headdress. The forest floor to either side of the trail was covered in layer upon layer of dead leaves. Occasionally, a tangled root would snake its way along the surface for a while only to dive back beneath the moldy vegetation and lose itself once again. Flowers blossomed intermittently among the trees, some climbing the massive trunks, while others draped across fallen stumps and over crumbling rock formations. There wasn’t an insect whine or bird cry to be heard. I glanced back at the rest of my party, especially to the young girl that we escorted. “I get to be the Tin Man,” I said. Josh smiled. “I guess that makes me the Cowardly Lion.” Leanne scowled. “Don’t even think it--Scarecrow indeed!” Just then I caught a glimpse of shadow to our right, and Bear skidded to a halt a few yards away. I guess he didn’t like the way I smelled either, because he vanished as quickly as he appeared. “Nice to see you too, Toto,” I mumbled. # After about an hour's march we finally came upon a stream, and I took the opportunity to wash--to much cheering and applauding, I might add. I scooped up a few handfuls of sand from the stream bottom and used it to grind away at the grunge on my pants as the rushing water burbled about my knees. Suddenly, I was assaulted by the sound of whispers on the wind, a choral of breathless voices, insistent in barely audible harmonies. Or was it simply a light breeze that rattled the trees, a sudden gust that rippled the water and low-lying grasses along the banks? I looked toward my little group and saw Josh arming himself from the bag he still carried. Leanne shook the blue velvet covering she had toted to reveal a couple of ornate rapiers, and tossed me one. I took the hint and got out of the water. "Now what?" I grumbled. "Faeries," Josh said. "What, like Tinkerbell?" Somehow the thought of swatting at three-inch high winged bimbos seemed ludicrous to me. "Not quite." The whispering raged against the wind now. Water crashed upon the rocks in waves that sent spray arching into the air and settled in a fine mist about our group. Trees bowed before the onslaught as if paying their respects. Blossoms caught up in the maelstrom flitted about like multihued insects before they lightly touched down. I saw the first ones then, an advance
party of ten men marching two by five as they approached us along the path from
the direction we had been heading. I assumed they were men, but they could have
been women, or...something else. They wore heavy black plate armor that fit like
the carapace of some carrion insect. The armor gleamed with an oily sheen and
had spikes and tiny blades fitted where they would do the most damage. The helms
completely covered their heads, with deep eye sockets and curving horns so that
they reminded me of those animal skulls you always see littered along the desert
floor, except in black. The armor was inlaid with intricate bloodred designs and
seemed to pulse with a life all its own. The soldiers did not wear the armor; it
engulfed them, protecting them and feeding off of them in some sick symbiosis. They were tall, all of them at least six feet, and carried lances at the port arms. Banners fixed to the ends of the lances hung limply, as if the advance party walked amidst the eye of a storm where the air was stagnant. They brought the darkness with them, the light about them dimming as they moved forward. Four mounted knights came into view, riding abreast and close behind the footmen. Their armor was lighter, and their helms removed; still, I couldn't help but feel that the plate and chainmail was parasitic. Their faces were slender and pale, with huge, dark, almond-shaped eyes; high cheekbones; and broad, high foreheads. A slim circlet of onyx metal, more a crown than a headband, kept manes of wavy black hair from their eyes, and exposed the tips of their pointed ears. Their horses were great muscled beasts, long and lanky, and I sensed a fierce intelligence about them. Josh moved past the women to stand alongside me, and I glanced over at him. The muscles in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth, and he said, "We're in it deep now." I grinned. "Yup, almost makes me wish I hadn't washed." Josh looked annoyed. "Don't you take anything seriously?" "Would you rather I ran off screaming, or cowered on the ground sobbing?" He thought about it for a moment. "Well, maybe just once." He grinned then, but it was kind of a sickly thing. "Do you know how to use that thing?" he asked, pointing at the sword clutched in my right hand. "Sure," I told him. "It looks just like a giant butter knife. I figure I'll press the bad guys up against a tree and then spread them real thin." "Just ignore him, Josh," Leanne said from somewhere behind me. "It's just his way of dealing with stress." I didn't have a comeback for that one. She was right. We backed away from the stream, situating ourselves so that a couple of the larger trees were behind us. At least that would cut down on one avenue of attack. It was about then that one of the riders saw us. He raised his hand, calling the troops to a halt, then broke ranks and rode out of view for a moment. When he returned, he spoke briefly to the other riders. "Can you make out what they're saying?" Leanne asked. "I can hear them, if that's what you mean," I said. Apparently my hearing was even better than hers, vampire or no. "I can't understand a word of it, but it sure sounds pretty." "It's High Sidhe, and don't let that lilting tone fool you. Rest assured, they are most likely deciding whether to question us first, or just kill us outright." One of the riders bent low and took a lance from a footman. His horse reared, pawing the air as he sawed on its reins and shook the lance at us. Then he was charging us, the lance couched in the right stirrup as horse and rider bore down on us. Or should I say on me. I don't know how he decided who to take out first--maybe the big powwow with his friends was nothing more than eeny, meeny, miney, moe, but I stood there watching as the lance tip quickly grew larger and larger. He closed the distance with incredible swiftness, yet gave the impression of moving in slow motion. It was misleading, and the dark knight was almost on me when an explosion to my left jarred me back to my senses. I counted the lead buckshot as it burned past my shoulder toward the marauding rider. The shot drove through the breastplate of his armor and lifted him from the saddle as the horse reared and went over on its side, crushing its rider beneath it. The horse struggled to its feet and galloped back toward the other riders. The knight lay where he had fallen and didn't move. "That'll teach 'em to bring a pointy stick to a gunfight," Josh said from behind me as I caught the acrid scent of gunpowder on the wind. He chambered another round into the shotgun. The Sidhe seemed really agitated now as the riders paced their horses back and forth behind the foot soldiers. One of them barked an order, and the advance party planted their lances and drew swords. They moved forward slowly into wedge formation. The rider bellowed and pointed his sword in our direction, and the ground troops broke into a run, screaming like banshees, which they may very well have been. They were certainly trying to herald our deaths. Josh pumped three rounds into them before they were too close for him to effectively use the shotgun. I heard fabric tear as Josh transformed, then slammed the butt of the weapon into a helmeted head. One of the enemy came at me with sword raised high, and I sidestepped and slashed at his unprotected underarm. He staggered to a halt and dropped his weapon, and I kicked out at him, a front thrust kick that caught him in the breastplate and shoved him back into his comrades, buying me time to get back into position. They tried to come in at us from Leanne's position, thinking it to be our weak spot; they were mistaken. She stepped forward in a blur of motion, and with a flick of her wrists neatly took a man's sword arm off at the elbow. The spray rained crimson droplets across the ivory white of her skin, and she used her fingers to streak it like war paint along her cheekbones. Another foot soldier drove in at me, and I ducked low and put my shoulder into his stomach, then straightened, sending him up and over to slam heavily to the ground. I stomped him back to the earth as he struggled to get up, then spun the rapier and drove it down into his helmet and through his eye, pinning him. I withdrew the sword as he ceased struggling, and looked up to see the remaining three horsemen charging. I stepped forward, knowing there was no stopping them this time. I only hoped that I would die, that I could die, too. I couldn't bear to live knowing I had failed the others.
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