Shadows 2: The Half Life Read online

  The thought struck him as odd. For two thousand years he’d been consumed with rage, anger, and malice. Why should he notice beauty now?

  He decided his mind was playing tricks on him. Weary and wounded, poisoned by a witch who could see through time, he’d been changed somehow. Toppled momentarily from his perch as King of the Dark World. First the poison had taken his strength, and now his mind was following.

  Damn that witch to hell, he thought.

  Centuries ago the inquisition had tried to do just that, but Christian had interfered. Now all these years later, Drake had finished what they started. And though he’d killed her in the most brutal fashion, her tainted stone weapon had passed into Christian’s hand. And thrown by that hand, it had punctured Drake’s back just as he made his escape.

  The pain was excruciating. It was spreading some kind of paralysis slowly throughout his body. What poison had she used? Palladium? Refined and powdered silver? Holy water? Could a witch half burned at the stake by the Inquisition even get her hands on holy water? He would never know. And truthfully it didn’t matter. If he didn’t find help soon, he would certainly die, consumed by the flames of perdition and cast into the fires of Hades as all his kind were in the end.

  “No,” he grunted, his hatred of her and Christian and all they stood for giving him power. “Damn them! No!”

  The sudden curse startled those around him - servants both human and otherwise transporting their master in an armed caravan along a dirt road that led to a remote West African village. The small town was the home of his servant Kwese (who’d also fallen before Christian’s blade). There Drake would find his last hope, a witch doctor named Zwana, whom Kwese had kept in his employment.

  It was a strange tale, Drake recalled. Zwana was an evil man obsessed with pain and mutilation, but he had ways that could be of use. Ways of healing and destroying.

  “What if Zwana refuses to help us?” one of Drake’s servants asked.

  At full strength Drake would have simply broken the witch doctor’s mind and forced him to do it. But in his weakened state, Drake would have to be cautious.

  “He will fear us,” Drake said.

  Drake could read his servants’ minds. They felt fear already, caused by the sudden uncertainty of seeing their near-omnipotent master broken and weakened. One of them had already challenged him, perhaps too soon, for Drake still possessed the strength to destroy the beast, but the others were nervous. Their world had become murky and unhinged for the first time in centuries.

  They feared other things beside Drake now. He could sense their nerves toward this witch doctor, their fear of the Church and above all their fear of Christian.

  In the swamps of Louisiana, Christian had battled and shattered the Brethren, despite their combined strength. Kwese, Lagos and Xhou had been killed, Anya and Drake wounded.

  They now feared Christian more than anything. They were afraid he would come for them. And truthfully, Drake feared this as well.

  “You will focus on me,” he said. “Your thoughts will stay locked with mine. Understand this, the witch doctor will heal me or he will die as painful a death as has ever occurred on the face of this Earth. Am I clear?”

  Drake sensed their thoughts re-aligning. Their minds becoming one with his. Their master still ruled. It took most of his remaining strength, but he continued to rule.

  The caravan pulled into a tiny village, a shantytown of huts and corrugated tin shacks. To Drake’s surprise it looked deserted and desolate.

  “It’s abandoned,” one of the Drones told him.

  “No,” Drake said. “Kwese’s minions have fled, but this place is not empty. Two of you stay with me. The rest of you, search.”

  Drake’s human servants walked from the Land Rovers, as did two of the Fallen. But the final two Drones remained beside their weakened master as he climbed from the SUV and stood painfully on his own.

  These two would form the basis of his new guard. Akash was a teen from Bangladesh. Drake found the boy killing an older man when he was just a teenager. Akash’s mind and psyche had already been damaged by the poverty and cruelty of the world he lived in. It was easy to turn him, to offer him something more. But until recently, Akash had been just a pawn. Now he was Drake’s bodyguard. He could do little but fight and kill. But he did that well.

  The other vampire with Drake was Tereza. She was intelligent and sophisticated. A socialite from a prominent family who never fit that mold. She desired excitement and danger and had run from her home at the age of twenty-three. To Drake she was a useful tool, one that could be trusted. He’d treated her well, giving her a clan and rights to a part of the Middle East centered on Istanbul. It brought her respect and power in the world of the Fallen. To her credit she used it wisely. But she was not as willful as Akash, not as strong or simple. She could sense Drake’s weakness more acutely, and he could feel the fear creeping back into her mind.

  Stay with me.

  She looked at him and nodded.

  Out past the tin shanties, the older section of the small village was made of thatched roof huts raised off the ground by stilts to keep the crawling insects out. Most of them seemed abandoned, left to ruin. No fires burned. No voices could be heard.

  The place seemed as dead as Drake was about to be, but the longer Drake lingered, the more his mind cleared. Not only could he feel Zwana’s presence, he could see the witch doctor in his mind’s eye. His evil shone bright like a fire on a barren cliff.

  “Give me my cane,” he demanded.

  Tereza handed him a cane. Drake took it and hobbled over to the most dilapidated hut of the village.

  Follow.

  The command was thought. Akash and Tereza heard it and fell in behind him, matching his pace until he stepped into the shack.

  Darkness gave way to firelight as a match was thrown into a pile of kindling at the center of the hut. Smoke swirled up and out a small hole in the roof, while orange flames sent flickers of light dancing around the walls and across the ceiling.

  In the corner sat a man whose face was dark as coal, but whose hands were bleached white.

  “Zwana,” Drake said.

  “I am he,” said the man.

  “Then you know who I am,” Drake replied. It was a statement more than a question.

  “Kwese long ago put your image in my mind,” Zwana admitted. “I must say, you’re not as fearful as he made you out to be.”

  “You’re not seeing me at my best,” Drake insisted. “And besides, fear is a strange thing. Like a shadow, sometimes it’s larger than that which makes it. Sometimes deceptively small. If you task me, I will show you fear like you’ve never imagined.”

  The witch doctor seemed unmoved, so Drake thought of the fire and then glared into Zwana’s eyes. He saw Zwana’s hands begin to shake and then one arm flicking back and forth as if he were trying to brush something off him. In Zwana’s mind, the flames were crawling on his skin, burning him alive.

  “Enough!” he shouted. “I know your tricks. But you need not perform them tonight.”

  Drake felt otherwise. In fact, he felt he must control and possess this man now or he would lack the strength to try again. He focused on Zwana’s eyes, bright white in the darkness. Probing his mind, Drake discovered what had happened to the villagers.

  “So you killed them,” he said, seeing that Zwana had drugged the water and then gone from hut to hut slaughtering the human villagers.

  Zwana tried to resist, thinking of the wall, of the floor, of the ants and even Kwese, but it was no use. Drake found the truth.

  “And you ate them to survive, when the crops around you failed,” Drake accused.

  Zwana’s body was locked, his jaw frozen. He could not have responded if he wanted to. But Drake saw his words. Is that not what your kind does?

  “The scavengers kill and feed off humans to feel worthless emotions,” Drake corrected. “They are like hyenas picking the bones of dead cattle. We are more than that. We are lio
ns.”

  Drake was fairly certain he’d impressed Zwana enough. And, as he was almost ready to fall, he pursued it no further. “You will heal me,” Drake ordered. “And I shall pay you handsomely for your services”

  “I will not help you, demon from beyond the void,” the Shaman said. “Unless you help me first.”

  Drake paused. “What do you wish?”

  “That which Kwese would never grant me. More life. Your kind of life.”

  Kwese had never been willing to turn Zwana because he feared that the witch doctor’s power combined with the abilities of the Nosferatu would make him more dangerous than most. An assessment Drake would agree with. “You wish to be one with the darkness? You know what awaits you if that’s done?”

  “I have seen my fate in the world after this,” Zwana said. “There is great pain waiting for me anyway.”

  As he spoke, Zwana clutched at a gnarled stick beside him, one that was old and worn smooth in the two places where his hands fell, discolored with the years of oils from his palms. It seemed to Drake like a mirror of Zwana’s soul, twisted and changed by his own proclivities.

  “If you wish to live…” Zwana said calmly, “…you will grant me my price.”

  Drake stared and then slowly, almost nonchalantly, offered a nod of approval. “If you wish, it shall be given to you. I suspect you’ll regret it, but that’s your affair. First you will heal me.”

  “No,” Zwana said, standing. “Once you have given me immortality, I will remove the poison. But not before.”

  “I have no time to wait on you,” Drake demanded.

  “The ritual is already set,” Zwana insisted. “For I knew this day was coming.”

  Drake pondered his situation. He had no choice. He motioned for Akash to come forward. “Give the witch doctor his part of the deal.”

  “No!” shouted Zwana. “You! The King of the Nosferatu. You will grant my power, you whom all obey.”

  Drake moved closer toward Zwana. “You push your luck, wizard. What makes you think I won’t kill you as soon as we’ve finished? What makes you think that while you’re mired in the Half-Life I won’t have my people destroy you?”

  Fear replaced Zwana’s arrogance. He went silent.

  “Yes,” Drake said easing back. “You know of the Half-Life. The pain of transformation. You have no power over me warlock. Only a chance to earn my respect.”

  Drake stared into Zwana’s eyes, but could not find his thoughts. Perhaps it was his weakened condition, or perhaps Zwana’s connection with the spirit world, but there was only swirling whispers and something…something hidden.

  “What are you concealing from me?” Drake demanded.

  “I have something you would value,” Zwana said. But instead of focusing on Drake, the shaman’s eyes went back to the fire - to the flames that danced between them, a refuge and a barrier all at the same time.

  “Speak,” Drake said.

  “In my vision, I saw you coming here. I saw myself granting you life and… a gift…” Zwana whispered this as if in a trance. “A gift I must find for you,” he added. “A weapon of unlimited power. One that will defeat your enemies and bring darkness to all the lands you own.”

  “I need no weapon you could find,” Drake said, scoffing at the thought.

  “It is said that this weapon can overcome the Church. It has the power to bring down the angels.”

  Drake inclined his ear ever so slightly. “What did you say?”

  Zwana beamed with arrogance. “While you searched my mind I searched yours. You showed me too much dark one. You showed pain, but also fear. You are running from the one you created. And from something more terrible. An angel sent to undo all that you have built. A being so meek and mild you would not recognize it until it was upon you but in whose sight you could not stand.”

  “I have seen no such thing,” Drake insisted.

  “But you feel it,” Zwana said. “You know it has come into the world.”

  Drake felt a sense of fury building inside him. For a thousand years he’d feared this angel. This abomination—by his perspective. The Midnight Sun announced its arrival, and Drake’s attempt to lure it to the swamps of Louisiana and destroy it had failed utterly. He’d seen nothing, but he knew it was out there. He could sense it like whisper in the dark, like the ringing of silence in one’s ears.

  “Turn me,” Zwana said. “Give me power and in return I will heal you. Give me great power and I will hunt your enemy, the one called Christian. Give me ultimate power, power nearly to match your own, and I will lead you to a weapon that will make this angel bow before you.”

  Drake tried to determine if this could be true. It was frustrating trying to look into this mortal’s mind. He made a quick decision. “I will grant your wish. If it turns out that your lips spew lies, I will destroy you. But if somehow your boast turns out to be valid, you will be rewarded like no other.”

  A grin stretched across Zwana’s lips. And it seemed to Drake that perhaps fate had sent him here. Perhaps Christian and his witch Elsa had done Drake a favor. Perhaps the debacle in the swamps of Louisiana was not the end, but actually the beginning.

  “Now tell me this power you speak of,” Drake asked. “How would I know this to be truth?”

  “It comes from the book of truth,” Zwana said.

  “Book of truth?”

  “For me,” Zwana said, “there are many truths in the universe. But for you…you struggle against the one that Christians worship. You are cursed by their God. But before them came the Jews. And in the ancient days of the Jews—days they themselves would scarcely recognize—angels walked the earth. To test and punish, to heal and teach. Placed before these angels, men were powerless, all but one… one named Jacob.”

  Drake’s mind followed the reference instantly. In his years of hiding, before he’d realized the power he possessed, he’d studied the Torah and the early writings of many Christians hoping to find a cure to the curse that had come upon him for scourging the one they called Christ.

  Ironic, he thought that he, the cursed one, had seen scrolls and writings penned by the early Christians that no scholar of today knew about, that no church had ever seen. Teachings lost to the human world, remembered only by one they called a demon.

  But the scripture Zwana referred to was older than that. Older than Dead Sea Scrolls and older than most in the Torah. It came from the book of Genesis and was well known. It stemmed from the earliest times of human civilization.

  In a strange way it was one of Drake’s favorites. For it told of Jacob, whose birthright was stolen by his brother Esau, much as Drake felt his life had been stolen by the Church.

  Preparing after fourteen years of hiding to confront his brother Esau, Jacob expects to be killed. He sends his family and servants to a safe place across the river and camps alone on the far bank. That night he is visited by a being of great power.

  “So Jacob was left alone,” Drake said, quoting the scripture. “And a man wrestled with him till the dawn broke. When the man saw that he could not overpower Jacob, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched and painful. Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’ But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’”

  “So the being of power asked him,” Zwana chimed in, ‘What is your name?’”

  “Yes,” Drake said. “And when Jacob told him, the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.’”

  Drake’s mind whirled, not only because he’d spent two thousand years struggling with God and man himself, but because he knew from context that Jacob had wrestled not with the Almighty God, but with an angel of God. More importantly, the text was clear—Jacob had overcome that angel, just as Drake needed to overcome the angel that would erase his own work of nearly twenty centuries.

  “In a vision of torment I’ve seen how Jacob prevailed,” Zwana said. “In his h
and was a stone, a stone of power, it came not from this earth but had fallen from heaven. It draws the light and does not release it.”

  Drake considered this. “I’ve read no text where Jacob possessed a weapon.”

  “Would the ancient Jews speak of a weapon that could undo the work of angels, the work of their God?”

  No, Drake thought, of course they wouldn’t.

  “They would hide it,” Drake said. “Knowledge of such a weapon would be compartmentalized and destroyed. As would the weapon itself.”

  “Unless…” Zwana suggested.

  “Unless, it could not be destroyed,” Drake finished. “After all, if it was not of this earth…”

  Zwana nodded and continued. “In my vision, the Hebrews cast this weapon into the hottest fire, but it would not melt. They crushed it under the densest stone, but it would not shatter. And so instead, it was hidden in a barren place, contained in a golden chest and draped in darkness so it could not poison the light.”

  “Do you know how to find this place?” asked Drake.

  “My visions can lead you to it. But you will need to pay my price. I will be your most powerful servant, your champion, second only to you. And we will cast down the light in favor of the darkness, and our reign will have no end.”

  Drake considered the danger of the offer. With too much power Zwana would be a threat, but with too little, he would become suspicious.

  “Do we have a covenant?” Zwana asked.

  Drake had no choice. If such a weapon existed, if it was even a possibility, he had to risk it. He nodded at the witch doctor.

  “Yes, Zwana, we do.”

  Chapter 3

  Outskirts of New Orleans

  A whip cracked in the dark of night, sounding like a gunshot. It startled Leroy Atherton, even though he knew it was coming. Ahead of him, in a barely lit section of an old warehouse a woman and a man were cornered by a group of four.

  The whips of the four were coated with specks of palladium. The men who carried them also held crosses, but they were not members of any religious order. In fact, each of them had once been hunted by the Church.