Cross’ spirit moved ahead on her own. Thin lines of spectral essence connected them, which gave Cross an awareness of the area ahead. He felt the heat of fires and he smelled burning skin. He heard voices, and saw auras of pain. Lost and dead spirits roamed the air like predators in blood waters, but Cross’ spirit had become expert at protecting herself, and she eluded those wailing souls before they could do her harm.
Cross felt multiple living presences ahead, moving on the other side of the trees and stones. There were voids there, as well, unspaces where beings should have stood, but didn’t.
“
We’ve got vampires ahead,” Cross said, and he and Dillon dismounted.
They readied their weapons.
“
How many?” Dillon asked.
“
I’m not sure. Two, maybe three.”
“
That could be rough for just the two of us.”
His spirit bristled at that. She didn’t like Dillon not counting her as part of the group. She’d developed quite the temper.
I need to be careful of that. If she flares out of control and catches me off guard, we’ll all be in trouble.
“
There’s more,” Cross said. He had his HK45 in one hand; he molded his spirit in the other, his gauntleted hand. He didn’t latch onto her form too tightly, but held her ethereal tendrils like a rein, firm enough to let her know she’d be needed back soon. She extended her form to the other side of the open canyon, but at his command she moved, smoke-like, back to him, and she surrounded his body and filled his lungs with a burning sensation. Warmth filled him, vaguely erotic and invigorating, but at the same time painful and poisonous. She was like some dread hashish.
“
There are a half-dozen other life forms over there, too. Maybe more…it’s hard to say.”
Dillon chewed on that for a moment. His dark beard was cut close to his angular face, which always looked grim.
“
Human?” he asked.
“
Can’t say.”
“
Damn.” Dillon spat. “Is there anything you
are
sure about?”
“
I’m sure I don’t want to go over there,” Cross nodded.
They left the horses and the camel tethered to a lone tree at the west end of the ridge. Dillon led the way. He carefully stepped out onto the log, which shifted suspiciously beneath the ranger’s weight and looked ready to twist or collapse. Cross watched nervously as Dillon slowly but surely worked his way across. Wind flew up from the canyon depths, but Dillon didn’t slow or falter in the least. Cross did his best not to look into the canyon – he just watched Dillon advance and tried not to think about how deep it probably was.
Once Dillon crossed, he drew his rifle and took up position, and Cross realized he hadn’t thought of a good reason not to follow.
The log was two-feet-thick, but it creaked unnervingly when Cross set foot on it. He heard dirt and stone loosen from the cliff wall as he shuffled across. The wood felt slick beneath his boots, and the wind gusted just enough that it felt like malevolent hands pushed against his body, waiting for the right moment to shove.
Cross didn’t look down. He didn’t have to: he could sense the depth of the rift below, and his legs almost turned to jelly.
Stay with me
.
She did. In spite of her reckless tendencies, Cross’ spirit stayed close as he crossed the unstable log, and her swirling form supported just enough of his weight that he almost floated across the last stretch of the cold run.
Dark growls peeled up from the depths of the canyon. Dillon chanced a glance down, but Cross didn’t. When he reached the far side he galloped onto stable ground and didn’t look back.
“
Will your camel be okay?” Dillon asked. Cross
did
look back then, and he saw the silhouette of the two mounts and the camel against a backdrop of dead clouds.
“
Yeah. I think it's smarter than both of us combined.”
“
Then why doesn’t it have a name?”
“
Names aren’t its style. Lay off about the camel, will you?” he laughed.
Dillon smiled.
They quickly cleared the open ground between the canyon and the line of dead trees. Cross and Dillon moved one ahead of the other in alternating runs, so that one man always kept an eye on what lay ahead while the other advanced.
The smell of fuel grew heavier as they came to the trees. Smoke poured into the air from the other side in an unrelenting stream.
Cross sent his spirit forward again. She found burning fuel tanks and bits of thaumaturgic cold steel, broken hex fields and snapped chains forged from arcane iron. She discovered a handful of living things, as well as the void space of vampire souls.
Cross and Dillon kept low and moved quietly through the trees. Soft stones shattered into pale dust beneath their boots, and their feet cracked apart dry twigs and brush. The floor was littered with pine needles and bits of wood and steel. Torn clothing dangled from dead branches.
They came upon the first body about twenty paces into the woods, a crumpled human in dark armor. His flesh was scalded and his head had snapped back against a dead pine. He’d fallen from the ship as it had exploded and crashed. A .44 Magnum revolver was held in a hip holster, but he bore neither badge nor insignia.
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.