The eccentrics knight wa.., p.10
The Eccentrics (Knight Watch Book 3), page 10
“Nice shot, Ches!” Gregory bellowed.
“Not enough!” I called. “Tembo?”
“Nearly there!” the big mage answered. A tapestry of light hung around him, growing in complexity with each pass of his nimble fingers.
“Fine.” I tossed my shield like a sling, holding on to the enarme straps and willing the shield face into a longer shape. It settled into a kite shield, but with a front edge that was as sharp as a razor. If I was going to beat a machine, I was literally going to have to beat the machine. “Hey, Count Mechula! Come get it!”
Ignoring the trio of arrow shafts sticking out of its face, the vampire came at me, swinging both hooked claws like threshers. I deflected the first swing with my sword, letting the claw travel down the length of the blade before catching it at the hilt. The flesh of the vampire’s wrist tore open, but the creature seemed undeterred. The same black ichor splashed down my weapon. When its fist reached the hilt, it curled thick fingers around the quillions, wrestling for control of the weapon.
“That’s mine, you grim bastard,” I said through gritted teeth. Up close, I could smell the sharp tang of hot metal, and hear the lurch and rumble of machinery. The vampire stared at me blankly, then opened its gaping jaws and snapped at my face.
I punched with the sharp edge of my shield, driving it twice into its open jaws. Eventually its mouth clapped shut. I disengaged, then thrust the bottom point of the shield into the creature’s thigh and leaned my whole weight on it. There was enough force in the blow to twist the vampire to the side. I disentangled my sword from the creature’s grasping claws, drew back, and smashed the pommel directly into its forehead. Once. Twice. A third time, each strike ringing like a bell. The beast’s face began to deform like a mask melting in the fire. I drew back to strike a fourth and, hopefully, final time.
Before I could land the fateful blow, the vampire seized my shield in both hands and lifted it high into the air. I was still attached to the shield in question. My legs dangled off the ground, kicking ineffectively at the vampire’s chest. With no leverage, my sword arm hung limp at my side. I tried cutting at the creature’s fingers, but my blade simply banged off the hardened flesh of its hand.
“Guys! Figure something out!” I shouted.
“Incoming!” Gregory roared forward, Bright Vengeance overhead. He chopped down, connecting with the vampire’s shoulder with all his might. The burning blade sliced deeply into the beast’s shoulder. Meat sizzled and cloth burned, sending up plumes of acrid smoke. The blow was enough to release me. I dropped to the ground and rolled out from under the vampire’s shadow, coming to my feet against one of the baker’s tables. I whirled around to see what damage Gregory had managed.
The vampire’s arm dangled lifeless from the socket. The edge of the wound was jagged and twitching with mechanical life. I watched in horror as the dead meat of his shoulder knitted back together, zippering closed like a pair of trousers. The thick black ichor pouring down its side landed in squirming clumps on the floor of the bakery. The engine between its shoulder blades clattered loudly.
“It’s the machine! That’s what’s keeping him alive,” I shouted. “Hit the thing on its back!”
The monster responded by catching Gregory’s next swing with its bare hand and throwing him across the room. The paladin yelped as he vaulted over the baker’s table, to land in a heap at the base of the ovens. Then the creature turned to me and roared.
“Okay, just you and me. That’s fine.” I could feel my magical reserves running out, but I figured I had enough for one last trick. Hopefully it would be enough.
My shield, Svalinn, was a gift from the valkyries for heading off Ragnarok. In legend, it was the shield that protected the earth from the sun, and had various cold powers associated with it. I rarely used them, because legendary powers absorbed a lot of my mojo, but it seemed the time had come to call on the winter of the Viking armageddon. I gritted my teeth and delved deep into my mythic self, pulling every last scrap of magical power to the fore, then pushed it all into the shield. It returned to its natural form, a Viking round shield, then began to glow.
The surface of my shield swam with pale blue light, and a vortex of snowflakes and freezing mist swirled across the leather face. The air turned as cold as a Wisconsin sunrise in February, the chill traveling down my arm and into my lungs. The limited well of my magical power leaked away, like water through a sieve. Whatever I was going to do, I had to do it fast. I suppressed a shiver, then squared off against the vampire.
Big and Bitey didn’t seem to notice the change in temperature, or just didn’t care. Distracted by its severed arm, perhaps. It lumbered closer, taking a swipe at my head with its remaining claw. I ducked, then punched my shield forward to strike the elbow of the swinging arm. That didn’t have an immediate impact, but when he wound up again I noticed that its arm was a little slow to respond. This time I took its attack full on the face of the shield. My feet slid back as it pushed me along, but when I pulled away it took a second for claws to peel back from the shield.
I’ve tried to start my car in the middle of January often enough to know what cold weather does to machines. Maybe this monster couldn’t feel pain, or fear, but nothing was immune to freezing temperatures and frostbite. Especially if its clockwork depended on oil to function properly.
Frost covered the monster’s face, spreading like cobwebs across the steely surface of its skin. Before it could attack again, I shuffled to the side and swung down with my sword. Sparks flew, but this time they were joined by broken cogs and sundered springs. The oil leaking from its wound was as black and slow as tar. The vampire lumbered around to face me, but its joints shrieked in protest as it turned, and its feet dragged along the floor. I bashed the vampire across the face with the boss of the shield, and was rewarded with a spray of cogs and the sound of torquing metal.
Just then, my magical reserves emptied out. The polar vortex snuffed out, along with some of the passive defensive abilities of my mythos. Aches and pains sprang up across my body, as the pain-dampening and resilience powers switched off abruptly. I let out an involuntary moan, but kept moving.
The vampire grabbed at my neck with its outstretched hand. Its fingers closed around my gorget, and I heard the wrinkling metal just as pressure grew around my collar. I really regretted leaving my helm back at the ship. Last time I’d let vanity guide my battle prep. The beast drew me close, its jaws gaping as it pulled me into its embrace. I stuck my knee into its chest, struggling to keep it away from my neck, then I released my shield, letting it swing on its straps around my elbow, and took my sword in both hands. Arrows whistled overhead as Chesa tried to split the difference between hitting the vampire and skewering me. There was no sign of Gregory, or The Good Doctor. Typical healers and heroes, disappearing when things got tough.
Grasping my sword in both hands, I placed the forte of the blade against the vampire’s wrist, then worked it back and forth until I found a joint. I might not be able to cut the beast’s flesh, but I could wreak havoc with a ball joint, given enough leverage and the will to live. The vampire glanced down at my blade and smiled through gore-stained lips. Its fingers pressed tighter and tighter against my neck.
“Boo!” The shadows overhead coalesced into the falling form of Bethany the Rogue. She dropped onto the vampire’s shoulders, one dagger in each hand, and went to work. The sound of punctured skin and breaking metal filled the air, along with a haze of black ichor that flew up in plumes from the dozens of puncture wounds inflicted on the creature’s back.
The vampire dropped me and grabbed at Bee, but she was too fast. Somersaulting off the beast, she danced across the flour-dusted table, pirouetting in a blur of steel and skin and sparks. It lurched after her, slowed down by the frost clinging to its flesh, but also by the accumulation of sliced tendons and ruptured muscles. I hopped to my feet.
“The engine!” I croaked. “Break the engine!”
Bethany heard and responded. With each vaulting leap, she came down behind the vampire, striking a dozen times at the machine perched on its shoulders, then dancing away when it whirled to face her. Finally, with one scything blow, the machine came loose.
It dropped to the floor with a slithering whir. A half dozen snaking tendrils ripped free from the vampire’s flesh with a meaty schlup. The brass pincers that had held it in place, still slick with blood, twitched as the scarab-like engine clattered on its back. The vampire stood dumbstruck, weaving back and forth on its feet.
“That’s enough of that,” I said, lifting my shield overhead. The engine smashed into a hundred pieces, carapace and body shattering with a very satisfying crunch.
The vampire leaned forward and slowly, like a tower collapsing in on itself, crashed to the ground.
“Ready!” Tembo called. He balanced a spinning ball of light on the point of his staff. “Just point me to . . . Oh.”
“Sorry, Tem. Already killed it,” I said. “Better luck next time.”
“Hey, have you guys seen all these pancakes?” Matthew asked as he strolled into the kitchen. “They’re not bad. Oh, hey. Kind of a mess in here.”
I mean . . . healers, right?
CHAPTER TWELVE
I rolled the twice dead vampire onto its back. The angry red light in its eyes slowly dimmed, until only a faint pinprick of crimson remained. I looked at Bethany.
“Took you long enough,” I said.
“A rogue is never late. She backstabs precisely when she means to backstab.”
“Well, next time, maybe let us know when you’re going to disappear on us.”
“What’s the fun in that, John?” she said with a laugh.
“Will the two of you stop joking around!” Chesa yelled. “Our escort’s in pretty bad shape.”
All eyes pivoted to where Adelaide had fallen. She lay in a heap just inside the door to the kitchens. I used the vampire’s tunic to wipe the black gunk off my sword, then sheathed it and shouldered my shield on my way to the fallen gunslinger. Chesa got there first. She rolled Addie over on her back. The gunslinger’s arm flopped lifelessly across her chest.
“She’s lost a lot of blood. Addie, can you hear me?” Chesa bent over her. “Don’t just stand there, Rast. Get the doc!”
“Didn’t we bring a healer?” I asked, then turned to Saint Matthew. “You wanna lay some hands on, big guy?”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.” He dropped the featureless ceramic mask that he always wore on adventures over his face, then knelt beside Adelaide. “Might wanna cover up.”
There was a brilliance to Matthew’s work. Like, literal brilliance. When he was topped up, his skin glowed and his eyes burned with holy fire. I turned away, squinting to protect my eyes and holding one arm over my face. Didn’t want a holy sunburn, after all.
Seconds passed. Nearly a minute. I cleared my throat.
“How’s that healing going, Saint?” I asked.
“Uh. Yeah. Not great.” I looked back. Matthew was massaging the bite wound. His fingers were tipped with blood, but the wound didn’t seem to be improving. “Can’t get any traction on it. Might want to call the doctor, before we lose her.”
I bolted for the door.
The Good Doctor sat behind the counter in the main room, his hands sticky with mashed-up pancakes, which he was feeding through a hole in his mask and humming quietly to himself. Not what I expect of a healer in the middle of battle. I stormed into the room and gesticulated wildly with my sword.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I shouted. He looked up at me, the smooth glass eyes of his mask utterly expressionless. “We’ve had a vampire incident!”
To his credit, The Good Doctor hopped to his feet, shaking pancake off his fingers as he waddled past me. He croaked an apology.
“That’s more like it.” I escorted him into the back room, which in the glaring light of Chesa’s flare looked like a cross between a bakery and an operating theater. Flour mixed with splattered blood from Addie and the thick, viscous oil that had erupted from the vampire, creating a Pollock-like spatter pattern across the floor. Addie lay in the middle of the room, surrounded by a pool of her own blood. Bethany and Chesa sat over by the ovens, tending a nasty wound on Gregory’s head. Saint Matthew continued his ineffective ministrations on the fallen gunslinger.
The Good Doctor went to one knee beside Adelaide, peeling open her lips and peering at her gums, then sticking his fingers into her ears and wiggling her head around. Not the sort of medical examination I was used to. He chittered at Matthew, who sat up.
“I didn’t try that,” Matthew said. “Whatever’s wrong with her, it ain’t magic.”
“Forty percent dead. Everything fine,” The Good Doctor chirped. He rummaged around in one of his pockets and produced an empty syringe, which he inserted into Addie’s neck, next to the wound. When he pulled the plunger, the syringe filled up with a thick, viscous fluid the color of radioactive mucous. Addie took a deep, sudden breath, and her eyes flew open. Coughing, she pushed The Good Doctor away.
“I’m fine,” Addie said between jagged gasps. “What happened to the vampire?”
“Bee ganked it,” Gregory said. He clambered to his feet, pushing away Chesa, who tried to dab delicately at the blood on his forehead. “Enough. I have faced graver injuries than this.”
“Yes, but your face is . . .” Chesa fumbled to a halt. “It might scar.”
“I mean, hopefully,” Bethany said. “You could use a little grimdark in your life.”
“Once I return to the Chapel of Eternal Vigilance, the waters of the Shimmering Pool will cleanse my flesh of all impurity,” he said confidently, standing over the brass engine that had fallen off the vampire’s back. “Now. What is this work of devilry?”
“Looks like some kind of bug,” Bethany said. “One of those Egyptian things.”
“A scarab.” I turned the device over. The arms clattered loudly against the floor. Bethany was right. The twin vials on the back of the device looked like folded wings, and the overall shape definitely looked like the scarab statues I had seen in many museums. “Weird thing to find on a vampire.”
“The scarab was a symbol of rebirth and resurrection in ancient Egypt,” Tembo said. “And the Victorians were obsessed with Egyptology.”
“The thing was burrowed into its body,” I said. “As soon as Bee knocked it off, the vampire dropped like a stone.”
“Very odd.” Tembo glanced back at the dead vampire, and his eyebrows shot up. “And look, the beast is changing.”
The former vampire was melting away. The stark black veins in its face disappeared, and its pale flesh regained the rosy bloom of youth. Its once red eyes were now baby blue, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Blood blossomed from the dozen cuts Gregory and I had given it, though without a beating heart, they did little more than spot its tunic. The bright steel of its jaws crumbled to dust.
“So we’re looking at some kind of ersatz vampire?” Gregory asked.
“Such a thing has happened before,” Addie said. “We have Jekylls hiding all over the Gestalt. Mad scientists trying to improve themselves, with horrific results.”
“This looks more like something that was done to him,” I said. “The short guy had one, too. Where’d he go?”
We found the other baker hiding beneath an empty rack, hands over his head, sniffling. Chesa coaxed him out, and Saint Matthew comforted him. He didn’t have the metal jaws or glowing eyes, but the device at the base of his skull certainly looked similar. We led him into the light, but he shied away from the vampire’s corpse. By now, the effects of the scarab engine had faded completely. The corpse, though pale, looked like a child.
“Not a monster at all,” I said. “He’s so young. Barely even a man.”
“He was a beautiful young man. Such delicate fingers,” Pierre said. Reluctantly, he knelt beside the corpse. “All he wanted to do was bake beautiful bread. He had a gift for the croissant.”
The Good Doctor chittered sadly. Matthew put a hand on Pierre’s shoulder, but the baker flinched, as though the Saint’s touch was painful.
“Hey, Pierre. Can you tell us what happened?” I asked. The small baker sniffed and looked around, his eyes glassy. “What do you remember?”
“Souviens pas,” the tiny man said. “Je faisais du pain pour le matin, et—”
“Um.” I held up a hand, dredging my memory for my high school French. “Je . . . je puh parl un petite poo day . . .”
“I beg you, sir, this has been a difficult day.” Pierre pressed his face into his hands. “Do not torture me further with that sorry excuse for French.”
“I was just trying to be nice. Geez.” I squatted next to him. “Try it again. English, so neither of us have to live through tenth grade again, ok?”
“I have no memory. I was making bread. I went to put the morning’s loaves in the front, and noticed it was brumeux . . . eh . . . foggy? More than usual. When I came back to the ovens, the back door was open. I went to check, and . . .” He gestured hopelessly. “Next thing I remember, you were beating me very rudely sur la tête with your stupid sword.”
“So is he a vampire now?” Bethany asked. “Do we need to . . . ?” She mimed staking him in the heart, much to Pierre’s distress.
“Let’s see if we can get this thing off him first.” I turned Pierre’s head to the side. The brass scarab glittered brightly in the light of Chesa’s flarrow. “Doc, you wanna take a crack at this thing?”
The Good Doctor and Matthew hummed and tutted at the device for a few minutes. Doc tapped at it with various syringes, until finally Matthew cupped his hands over it and hummed the theme song to an obscure ’80s sitcom. The beetle clattered to the ground.
“That seems to have done it.” I lifted the baker’s chin. His skin was warm to the touch, and the twin puncture wounds in his neck had healed almost completely. “How are you feeling?”
“What is that smell?” Pierre wrinkled his nose, looking around. “Where is all my bread?”
