The albino reeled, blood and brain fluid leaking
down his pale back and onto the forest floor below—but still he hung from the
tree, his lips quivering. Slowly, very slowly, he started back up the tree.
Fuck this.
Ruegger dropped onto
the wounded creature, dislodging it. Jean-Pierre wrapped monstrous arms around
the Darkling. Locked together, they plummeted past small limbs and large
branches—smacking them occasionally—toward the hard ground now nearly two
hundred feet below.
Ruegger twisted for position, but when the
impact finally came, it didn't make much difference. They landed side by side,
tangled and bleeding in each other's arms, and the blow only drove them closer
together. They each lay there for several minutes, motionless and unconscious.
When Ruegger came to, he tore himself loose and
rolled away. He'd broken several bones, he could tell. They'd mend, though.
Carefully, he rose to his feet and searched for
the pistol, which, he was glad to see, had survived intact. He retrieved an
extra clip from his ankle holster and loaded it.
Something caught his eye.
A
lizard.
Reaching for it, he caught the reptile and strode out into the
clearing, where Jean-Pierre lay lifelessly.
Ruegger approached the body—it had resumed its
human shape—and, when he was sure the albino wasn't playing
'possum,
held the lizard over the Frenchman's face, which still displayed the handle of
the knife. Ruegger squeezed the green reptile until it broke in his hands and
watched the blood fall into his enemy's mouth.
Jean-Pierre woke. He raised his hands to his
head, exploring, and, with what had to be great pain, withdrew the blade from
his skull. The knife still in his hand, he collapsed, the hand falling softly
to the ground. Ruegger snatched up the blade and returned it to its holster,
moved off into the woods again, retrieved another lizard and made a second
sacrifice to Jean-Pierre.
This time the albino stirred more readily,
licking the reptile's blood from his lips and opening his luminous green eyes.
At first they seemed unfocused, but they quickly locked onto Ruegger. Seeing
the remains of the lizard in the Darkling's hands, Jean-Pierre smiled.
Ruegger raised the pistol and aimed it at the
albino's head. Slowly, deliberately, he cocked it.
"Well?" he said.
The albino wiped a hand across his mouth, only
smearing the blood more, and gave it some thought.
Then, reluctantly, Jean-Pierre nodded.
"Uncle," he said.
Ruegger lowered the gun.
*
*
*
When
Kharker found them some time later, they were lying in the high grass of the
clearing, either asleep or unconscious. It wasn't readily apparent who’d won
the battle, but Kharker guessed that since they both still seemed to be undead,
the victor had been Ruegger. If Jean-Pierre had won, the Darkling would
probably be a memory by now.
The theory was further confirmed by the blood on
the albino's lips, which matched that on Ruegger's hands and which must have
come from the discarded reptile bodies on the ground nearby. For whatever
reason, the Darkling had chosen to revive his enemy. Chuckling, Kharker shook
his head.
An interesting thought struck him: if Ruegger
and Jean-Pierre had been awake and at peace in each other's presence, they
might have talked, which is what the Hunter had wanted to happen in the first
place. Kharker couldn't help but wonder what the two had found to say to each
other, before they’d drifted off.
Well, it didn't matter. Not right now.
Kharker ordered the servants that had
accompanied him to approach the slumbering duelists and resuscitate them. As
one of the dark-skinned girls approached the albino, Kharker could see the
green of the Parisian's eyes and was suddenly a little apprehensive. But
Jean-Pierre must have sensed Kharker’s presence, as he let the girl alone. She
and her partner bent over the pale creature and began cleansing him and
dressing his wounds, while two other girls did the same for Ruegger, now
conscious.
Once the girls were through nursing the
immortals, they began to rejuvenate them with blood. One girl placed her wrist
before Jean-Pierre's mouth, while another placed hers before the Darkling's,
and the duelists fed. When one girl had passed out, the other took over.
After Jean-Pierre and Ruegger had both been
sated, Kharker gave them each a cigar.
“On the house,” he said.
Ruegger narrowed his eyes.
Kharker shrugged by way of apology.
"Well," he said, "I told you that I was going to make it
interesting for us around here. When Jean-Pierre called me the other day and
told me that he was on his way to see me, I knew he was just what we needed, so
I allowed him through the cordon of local militias.
Standard
procedure.”
“But?”
"Well, I didn't want you two going at each
other's throats the whole time."
"So you had him ambush me."
Jean-Pierre sighed. "For God's sakes, I
didn't ambush you."
Ruegger considered. "I suppose you didn't.
But it wasn't much of a hello."
"Don't talk to me about it. It was
Khark's
idea."
Kharker smiled; they seemed to be getting along
well, which strengthened his theory that the two had talked during his absence.
Well, damnit, he should have planned for that by having a surveillance team
record their actions. It sure as hell must have been a Kodak moment.
"Anyway," he said, "I knew that
you two had your differences to work out, so I arranged for you to meet. What
you did with your time wasn't my concern. Hell, you could've played
chess."
"Bullshit," said the albino. "You
wanted us to fight."
"We could've killed each other," said Ruegger.
Kharker nodded guiltily. "As you can see, I
came with girls to revive you in case you were hurt."
"It wouldn't have done us any good if we
were dead."
"You had to fight each other sooner or
later. I just provided the time and the place.
Enough
squabbling, gentlemen.
Let's go inside and have a glass of wine."
As they rose, the former enemies noticed the
large detail of soldiers deployed behind Kharker. Ruegger seemed to understand
the precaution, but Jean-Pierre's face was a question mark.
"What's going on here?" he asked.
*
*
*
In
the Elephant Room, they spoke for a long time. Ruegger told of his
misadventures with Danielle, while Jean-Pierre talked about discovering his
daughter, about becoming her lover and husband, and about his near brush with
morality.
"You know we sent her to you," said
Ruegger.
"Sophia? Yes, she told me. I was more
surprised to find out that she was my daughter, of all things, that all this time
Veliswa had kept it from me."
"Does she know?
About you
and Sophia?”
“Hell, she thought it was funny. I guess that
means she’s over me.”
“She told me you hit her.”
Jean-Pierre nodded. "I did.
First time.
I supposed that’s what clinched it for her.”
Suddenly, his face turned bitter. In a whisper that was almost a growl, he
said, “Fuck love, or whatever it was. I've had enough."
"Is that why you left her?" asked Lord
Kharker.
"Sophe?
I suppose. To tell you
the truth, I just wanted to be alone for awhile, and I was sick of the whole
rotten city. After I found out what Vistrot had been up to all this time ...”
"Vistrot?" said Ruegger, leaning
forward. "What did you find out about Vistrot?"
Jean-Pierre took a sip of his wine,
then
shrugged. "He's the Scourer."
Ruegger sat back in his chair, quiet.
"What? Did you already know that?"
"I’d been told, yes. I didn't want to
believe it."
"Why?" When Ruegger didn't answer,
Jean-Pierre nodded. "Right, he told me about her, too. Amelia."
"I'm sorry about her,” Kharker said.
The Darkling eyed him strangely. "You sound
as if you'd heard about her."
Slowly, the Hunter sighed, staring at the fire
with his face full of concentration. "I've been keeping tabs on the kavasari
for years, my sons. It's one of my greatest pastimes. Among all of us, they are
the strongest and the best.
And the most lethal."
Unexpectedly, he smiled. "They are the biggest game there is."
"So you
did
know about her."
"I’d heard rumors, and I had my suspicions,
but there wasn't anything concrete, really. It wasn't until you told me what
Hauswell said that I knew for sure, and then there wasn't any point in telling
you about it, was there?"
"I suppose not." Ruegger paused.
"What else do you know about the kavasari?"
"It's not relevant."
"Ah, but it is. Kavasari seem to be
inextricably linked with all of this. First Roche Sarnova is attacked by a
daybeast
with kavasari blood. Meanwhile, the Scouring
begins wiping out powerful immortals in the world by using local hit-teams. Most
of these teams are given kavasari blood to make them stronger so that the hit
will be successful. Now it turns out that the mastermind behind the Scouring is
a kavasari, as well."
Jean-Pierre frowned. "Then could it be that
it’s the same single kavasari that's doing all this—Amelia?"
"I don't believe so," said Kharker,
slowly.
"Why?"
"Don't interrogate me."
Jean-Pierre didn’t back down. "You must
have had some personal involvement with them."
"If I have, it's none of your concern,
either of you."
Ruegger raised an eyebrow. "Let's elaborate
on that, Kharker.
Especially on the part where you become
personally involved with them."
"No," said the Hunter, and closed his
eyes. "Let's not do this, gentleman. As much as I would like to unburden
myself to you, some secrets must be kept. Please respect that. Still, you do
deserve to hear something of what I've learned about them over the years. If
you would like, I'll tell you what I know about the position of the kavasari in
our society—and how that came to be. Then you will see the connection between
them and the situation in which we find ourselves. But I
won't
discuss my personal encounters with them. Agreed?"
"It'll do."
"Good. It begins with a story."
The albino took a puff on his cigar. "I like
stories."
"It starts a long, long time ago, in a
place a little north from us. You see, about a hundred or two thousand years
ago, give or take, evolution coughed up a creature called a human being.
Somewhere around this time, perhaps due to the existence of spirits from
outside our world and their meddling in our reality, immortals came into play.
Though there were many
many
different kinds of
immortals, they kept themselves secret from humankind, because there
was a vastly greater number of humans
than shades, and
mortals could wipe out the undead if they only knew. At any rate, the most
powerful form of immortal was the kavasari, and there were only a few of these,
and they ruled—each in their own separate kingdom—over the other undead. This
went on for some time, and it was a time of relative peace.
"Then one day a bright lad of a kavasari—let's
call him Bob—decides to take over all immortals by crushing his other kavasari
opponents. War is waged. The other kavasari leaders band together to resist him
and, after many years of fighting—using the lesser shades as their soldiers,
mind you—they defeat poor Bob, who somehow escapes into the wild blue yonder.
“But the seed of global—and I use the term
loosely, being that they believed the earth was flat back then—anyway, the seed
of global power is sown among the victorious kavasari leaders, and they war for
dominance among each other. Again, they use the weaker immortals as their
soldiers, but eventually these weaklings get sick of beating each other's
brains out over some leader who never did them a damned bit of good to start
with.
"These lesser shades rise up against their kavasari
masters, defeating them with their greater numbers. The surviving kavasari
scatter and keep
themselves
in hiding for the rest of
their lives. They've learned their lesson; from now on, the last thing a kavasari
wants is a seat of power. Things continue peacefully for awhile, until old Bob
shows up again.
"Now one thing needs to be said for old Bob:
he’s a strong bastard; in fact, some say he was the very first immortal, but
that's debatable. Anyway, Bob falls in love with this particular vampire girl,
who is becoming a very successful chieftain of her people, and he starts
courting her in secret. Well, his little Barbarella is a warrior queen, and
she’s under constant attack. Bob is worried about her safety.