Dillon nodded at Cross. They moved on without a word.
Cross’ spirit coiled around him like a hungry snake. Her touch burned against his skin, and she slithered over his mind like warm oil.
The trees were just thick enough to block easy sight of what lie ahead. Cross hadn’t thought the trees ran that deep when they’d viewed them from afar, but after several minutes he and Dillon still worked their way through a veritable forest.
They found more wreckage, and two more bodies. Cross stopped, and Dillon followed suit.
His spirit found an area up ahead that she refused to enter on her own. Cross considered coaxing her on, but he decided against it. He signaled to Dillon that there was danger ahead. They crept forward.
The hull of a wrecked airship lay smoldering on the ground. The crash had formed a clearing. The ship had barreled over a stretch of trees and flattened them, creating an open area that was several hundred yards across. Broken trees, still aflame, lay like sticks all over the dark forest floor, and the earth was torn and black. Smoke and ash hung in the air, and gusts of cold wind enveloped everything in diesel smoke. The air was a fog of vehicular fumes.
Cross and Dillon emerged a few yards away from what looked like the tail end of the crash, where they found the aft end of the ship. The shattered remains of the foredeck, Cross guessed, were what accounted for the wreckage they’d already found. He saw blood and broken limbs amidst the burning refuse. Everything smelled like factory fires in a slaughterhouse.
“ Cross,” Dillon said quietly.
There was a body on the ground in front of them, and it was still moving. Greasy innards dangled from its waist where the legs had been torn away from the torso. Thick chains, still attached to a bulkhead, held the severed limbs just a few yards away.
The vampire clawed its way across the ground. Its black nails ripped into the soil, it’s clothes were tattered and ragged, and a deep cut in its forehead oozed a copious volume of pale blood that pasted its dark hair to its scalp. Dark, undead eyes regarded Cross and Dillon coldly, and the creature’s ashen face contorted in hunger, rage and pain.
This was a prison ship.
Cross looked at the smoking aft and saw the word DREADNAUGHT chiseled in letters across the dark wood. Most of the bodies they saw must have been those of prisoners, as they were dressed in the same crumbling rags as the vampire, but Cross saw another body that had been impaled on a broken shard of wood. That body, Cross reasoned, must have been one of the jailers, as he wore leather armor and had a. 44 Magnum in a side-holster, just like the body in the trees.
“ Black Scar?” Cross asked aloud.
“ That’s my guess,” Dillon nodded.
The vampire snarled and hissed. Its black tongue slathered hungrily out of its massive jaws. Cross smelled the creature’s carrion stench and grave-soil musk.
Dillon unsheathed his machete and sliced off the vampire’s head with a quick strike.
They heard movement. It was difficult to see the interior of the Dreadnaught’s aft-end wreckage, but they had a clear view of the shattered deck, much of which was still ablaze.
Cross stepped closer to the ship with his HK ready. His spirit wound about his free arm. Her anxious state almost rendered him numb, and her whispers clawed at his ear. Dillon moved into a covering position.
After a few steps, Cross stopped. The air was suddenly colder. He saw his breath and felt his skin go cold, and the ground crystallized beneath his feet.
“ Cross!” Dillon shouted.
Dillon’s rifle shot cracked open the air like a hammer.
Cross saw the vampire. It leapt at him from out of nowhere, its claws outstretched, its jaws wide, its pale skin covered in scars and runic tattoos. Cross had no time to react, but he didn’t have to. Dillon’s bullet shattered the vampire’s jawbone and it fell to the ground, where it writhed and clawed with violent force, as if taken by a seizure. Cross shot it, this time in the heart, and it stilled.
Two more vampires came at them. Their tattered clothing looked like it had been worn for centuries. Their ebon fangs and claws stood in stark contrast to the pale light. They were emaciated and fearless, clearly starved for blood.
Cross released his spirit. She flew into the first vampire as a drill head of pure force, an invisible and tightly wound cyclone that threw the creature into the air and onto its back. Cross raised his pistol and shot it as it fell.
The second vampire came from the other direction, and in a heartbeat it was nearly on top of Dillon. The ranger had no space to get a shot off with his rifle, but his machete was at his belt, and he pulled it free just in time to deflect claws aimed for his throat.
Cross’ senses overloaded. He heard a throbbing hum and noted a powerful male scent, like that of a wild wolf. His skin tingled with the unclean touch of someone else’s magic.
Red chains of fire swirled through the air and wrapped around the vampire’s body. The undead howled in fury as the chains touched its rotting flesh, which blistered and smoked with a gut-wrenching odor. The chains only burned the vampire when it moved against them; otherwise they hovered just inches away, where they circled the creature like flaming predatory eels. They kept it contained. So long as it stayed within their orbit, they wouldn’t burn it.
A burst of automatic gunfire shredded the ground between Dillon and Cross.
“ Don’t move, you morons!”
A tall and dark-haired man in black combat armor stepped out of the smoke. His hair was spiky and wild, and he wore a bandolier filled with knives and extra ammunition magazines over his armored coat. A broadsword was sheathed across his back, and he held an MP5.
Cross glanced at Dillon, who didn’t take his eyes off of the gunner.
Where are you? Cross wondered. His spirit returned, and he had her probe the area for the master of the other spirit, the male spirit. A witch was nearby, hidden somewhere out of sight.
That spirit and his master probed right back. Cross had wondered if the act of confining the vampire in such a flamboyant manner would prove too taxing on the witch and thereby prevent her from masking her presence, but he realized that those arcane flames were far too potent for even a high witch to maintain. That meant she used an implement to do it, an arcane focus that would reduce the stress placed on her own magic.
A damned powerful implement, he guessed. That means that she’s perfectly capable of matching anything I can do right now.
“ Dillon,” he said. “Wait.”
“ For what?” he asked. The shooter had the drop on them both, but Cross knew for a fact that Dillon could take him if he had to. Those throwing knives on the back of his belt weren’t just for show.
“ For the witch,” Cross said. “She’s around here somewhere.”
“ Really?” the shooter laughed. He had a coarse and gravelly voice. He bore a scar on one side of his face. “You’re a bright one, aren’t you? Both of you: drop your weapons.”
“ I don’t want to,” Dillon smiled.
“ Good,” the gunner replied, and he raised his gun and aimed it at Dillon’s face.
“ Knock it off, Vos,” a woman’s voice called out.
Four figures emerged from the burning fog and haze. Two men and one woman were bound and chained together at the wrist. Both of the men were blonde; one was an older man with thinning hair and a number of scars, while the other was younger and athletic, bearded and tattooed. The third prisoner, the woman, was lithe and the color of a ghost, with long blonde hair and a number of tattoos — dragons and blades, pyramids and skulls — that matched those of the bearded prisoner.
The prisoners were shepherded by a woman that Cross momentarily mistook for Ilfesa Warfield, a seductive black marketer and witch in Thornn whom he’d lusted after for the past several years. This woman was taller than Warfield, more toned, and impossibly more voluptuous, clearly displayed by the tightness of her form-fitting armor. Her waist was waif-thin, and her legs seemed to go on forever. She was clearly in excellent physical condition. Her deep red hair was perfectly straight and fell just past her shoulders, and her cheeks were sharp, angular and angry. Her eyes shone sapphire blue.