Veridian Shores

Chapter 44 - God Killer

Brooke could feel herself shaking as she plunged into the influence of the First's Aspect. She almost vomited as the thing buffeted her mind and body back and forth, but gritted her teeth and steeled herself against it. The creature must've sensed them by now – they were walking willingly into a killing field.

Everywhere she looked she saw bodies, torn to pieces as though by a wild animal, pasted against stalls, cars, carriages and pavements in a hideous collage of death. Scattered through the hundreds of dead humans she could make out the ash and fallen weapons of the Iron Hollow vampires who had found themselves in the path of the First. Smears of maroon were lashed through the lakes of crimson, and she saw bolt-throwers and the distinctive sickles that Iron Hollow's hunting class seemed to favour.

Ahead of her Capper moved with single-minded purpose, the vast great-sword strapped to his back as he picked his way cat-like through the debris. Ahead of them she knew Gliss and her band were moving in a wide loop to cut the First off while Arcil and the Baelock guards curved in the opposite direction, forming a pincer that would corral the First into an open space where Lilly could take her shot.

Entrusting her life to a thrall filled Brooke with unease, but she didn't see any other way for them to get a clean shot at the First and take it by surprise. Even if Lilly didn't kill it, she might wound it enough for the rest of them. Between them all the other vampires were accomplished fighters, and all armed with powerful weapons from a long dead age. She turned her open weapon over in her hands, the crescent blade at the top glinting viciously in the firelight. She'd never held anything that gave her such a feeling of confidence. It was as though it wanted to be used.

Behind her the surviving guards who'd followed her from Veridian Shores scurried silently – Lucille and the male guard Ivor, flanking their Elder-Blood charges and ready to sell their lives dearly. After having to watch Finbarr be torn apart in front of her eyes, however, Brooke had no wish to watch anyone else die for her.

The presence of the First continued to grow, and more screams ripped out across the air of the plaza, not all of them human. She felt Capper pick up the pace and she moved to match him, hurdling mounts of debris and joining him as they skirted through a series of smashed, abandoned stalls and dropped into the small gully of the tram-rail line. The four vampires stayed low, racing through through shadows with inhuman speed until they reached a junction where four tracks met. Around the cross-roads several kiosks rose, where normally food and drink would have been sold to passengers waiting to ride. Now they were empty, but the smells of the food still lingered. Brooke wrinkled her nose.

Then a strange word boomed through her mind, something she couldn't understand, but it was louder and more powerful than anything she'd felt before. She ducked behind one of the kiosks, hissing in pain and clamping one hand to her temple. As the pain throbbed through her skull she saw that Capper seemed to have been struck by the same baroque explosion of twisted noise and energy rippling through the realm of the vampire essence. It had sounded like some twisted, bastardised version of ancient Vampyr. She had no idea what the word had meant, but she knew where it had come from.

The First was acknowledging their presence.

Terror coiled through and she fought down the sensation. She caught Capper's eye. His face was hard with resolve; a sense of single-minded urgency had descended on him. He nodded to her, and in a silent, almost sinister motion he unslung the great-sword from his back and took it in his grip. It looked absurdly large in his hands but he held it with ease. The thing could have cloven a car in half and he was carrying it as casually as hammer.

"It knows we're here," he said quietly as the guards joined them in the cluster of buildings. "So let's give it something to see. Remember, we just need to give Lilly a clean shot."