Chapter Thirteen: Hands On Education.

  “Right… Devil’s Island.”

  As the words left Axle’s mouth, Andrew pulled out a large envelope, Wyatt’s Goal penned across the yellowed paper in his grandfather’s hand. He slid his fingers into the unsealed flap and withdrew a stack of documents; deeds certifying his father’s, grandfather’s, and great grandfather’s ownership of the island as it had passed down through their family.

  Axle leaned over his shoulder and whispered unnecessarily loudly into his ear.

  “Wait, you own the entire island? I thought you just had a piece of it. How the fuck?”

  “Jesus Christ, Axle, I’ve told you this like eight times. It was back when the rifts crashed the economy. You had all those companies buying up abandoned land, thinking things would bounce back. Then Khagri’el showed up and most of them got cold feet. No one wanted to buy. Hell, there weren’t enough people left to take what was still considered safe.”

  Axle made a winding gesture with his hand, like he was spooling yarn, silently telling him to fast forward. Andrew responded by giving him the finger.

  “Anyway, people were buying land for pennies an acre. But places like Devil’s Island, actual unstable zones with high rift probability, before we had counters, guilds, or even powerful awakened? They couldn’t get a full penny per acre for that. Especially somewhere that was already irrelevant before the rifts. So Great Grandpa liquidated Grandpa’s and Great Uncle’s college funds and bought the island.”

  “Where y’all did exactly fuck all with it for nearly a hundred years.”

  Andrew snapped him a set of finger guns. “Exactly.”

  Kainen continued through the tunnels of Milwaukee’s sewer system. The farther he travelled, the weaker his connection to the shadow veins became. It felt as though he had only managed to anchor himself to whatever lay within the stillborn dungeon’s founding radius.

  As his footsteps echoed behind clawed feet, the connection snapped without warning, like a band stretched past its limit. His link to the hideout vanished entirely.

  Alright, Kain. Priorities.

  Long term, as in before I vitsvaring blow up. Follow this connection. Reach somewhere that can sustain me.

  In the interim, I need preparation. Set out lures. The dungeon will need food. And so will I.

  Short term. Find some fucking clothes and try not to explode or burst into flames while wearing them.

  The vampire thought bitterly, once again bare assed, his cock swinging, barely concealed by the half incinerated jacket still clinging to his shoulders.

  Still, he pressed forward. The unforgettable horror of having his Spectre shredded in holy fire lingered in his mind. For most of his life, pain had been distant, almost abstract concept. A warning system. A notification of bodily condition and nothing more.

  But that…

  That was what mortals meant.

  Devastating. Mind rending.

  He understood now what it meant to truly burn.

  He would be damned before he stepped back into the open without first learning this planet’s day cycle. He’d already grown to suspect it did not follow the thirty-thirty rhythm of Valatia.

  Finally, something stood before Kain or more accurately laid, forcing him to halt his march through the widening and narrowing tunnels of the decay filled labyrinth.

  A corpse.

  A filthy man in ripped, ancient clothing that had seen better centuries. Layers of grime caked the soiled fabric clinging to his gaunt, emaciated frame. His nails were cracked, set into clubbed, bony fingers, and a long matted beard obscured a hardened, eyeless face.

  Kain almost walked past him. It was not uncommon to find a body in some forgotten and decrepit corner of the world. People understood that if their beloved did not come home, then he was not coming back, for one reason or another.

  Yet Andrew’s words troubled him.

  This world was gentler. Safer, from everything he had learned. Here, death was a worst case outcome, not an expected consequence of mild stupidity. The things Kain considered normal, obvious, natural, they found abhorrent. Many of his ideas, plans, and even anecdotes had been called atrocious or outright evil. They carried a childlike naivety he could almost relate to. At times, he did not know who he was inside, or where he stood.

  Nearly a century of wisdom crammed into an underdeveloped mind that will not mature. I am plagued by impulsivity and apathy. I crave fire and thrill, yet I know better. I know so much better, and I keep making mistakes.

  “I made mistakes with Eidruhn too. He would not have snared Father. Should not have gotten me.”

  Pushing away what he recognized as little more than vampire teen angst and refocusing on the body, considering what to do. It would be easy to ignore. But was that what the vile wayfarer wanted?

  What should have been an obvious decision, step over or kick aside, turned into a more troubling internal debate.

  Could this be what Andrew meant? That by holding to the callous values of my home world, I become exactly what he wants? A player in his game, cast as the fool?

  Kain shook the questions away. He could not answer them, and wisdom lay in recognizing that fact. No matter how vast his mind, he could not conjure answers from nothing.

  “There is a better question,” he murmured. “Do I need to bring the callous apathy of my home into a world that seems free of it?”

  His thoughts drifted. It would be easier, far easier, not to care. He would lose nothing by it.

  But it was not what he wanted.

  He had kept his humans close. He had come to love them like a second family. He had come to love this world’s compassion, its empathy, at least so much as he had heard of it.

  If it were my uncle, I would want him given rites. Even if no one else knew him.

  Decision made, Kain bent at the waist. His bone like fingers wrapped around the frayed, strangely textured leather of the man’s belt, and he lifted.

  He felt the strain at once.

  His body would not tire, not from this, not from anything. Yet he could sense the mechanical limit of his diminished strength. Without phasing to augment the force he generated, he was far more restricted than he once had been.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  He kept the body with him, carrying it through the tunnels as he wound along twisting paths and doubled back repeatedly in search of the route that would draw him closer to his destination. Eventually, he gathered the courage to try one of the steel covers that sealed the underground maze.

  He hauled himself up the narrow ladder, arms straining as he pulled both himself and the dead man upward. His clawed toes curled around the corpse’s shoulders for leverage. To Kain’s irritation, the shaft was too tight to sling the body over his shoulders.

  At last he reached the top and pressed against the rusted hood meant to shield the tunnel from daylight. The moment it lifted more than an inch, he flinched and dropped it.

  “Alright. Stop being a Myphkarska.”

  He shoved it upward again, holding himself in place with one hand, ready to release at the first hint of agony. Yet no searing pain came. No hiss of burning flesh. Instead, a deep violet sky greeted him. The sun was nowhere to be seen, only the faintest red hue bleeding into blue night, twisting it into a purple haze that marked its recent passing.

  He climbed out and immediately felt as though he had stepped into a staged performance.

  Four men, boys really, turned toward the sewer grate at the metallic clang. Even the short kid pinned against the wall froze at the sound, forgetting his chance to bolt.

  The one holding him glanced toward the noise, then looked back at his own cocked arm, still drawn to deliver a haymaker, as if only now remembering it was there.

  BANG.

  The grate lifted again. The manhole cover was shoved upward and held in place for a long, heavy moment before a pale hand thrust it aside. The massive disk of cast iron rolled away like a bottle cap.

  Something half naked and clawed slithered from the opening. Long, narrow arms corded with sinew and tipped in black razor nails stretched over the pavement. Claws shrieked against concrete as flat palms pressed down and heaved. A spill of blood and red hair followed, then an unnaturally thin torso dragged itself free. Knees struck ground. Impossible fingers flexed and pulled, hauling the creature several feet farther with an unsettling ease.

  Only then did they see the corpse being drawn out the same way, gripped in the thing’s feet. When the body was fully clear, it was released with a dull thud. The pale intruder rose to its full height.

  It was frighteningly tall.

  One of the boys in flashy designer clothes leaned toward his friend, who somehow still had his fist cocked back.

  “What the fuck is that? It’s got sharp ears like an elf.”

  “That ain’t a fuckin elf… Doesn’t that mean it’s gotta be an awakened?”

  “Well that awakened just slithered out of the sewer half naked with a corpse in it’s talons?”

  “Ah,” the man said at last, brushing dust from himself as though mildly inconvenienced. “You’ve caught me unawares, it would seem.”

  He sighed.

  “That is unfortunate. Though perhaps it is better I found you. Who collects corpses for this…” He paused, searching for the proper phrasing. “City.”

  One of the boys found just enough courage to speak. A spark flickered in him, enough to try and satisfy this potential murderer and convince him to move on. Still, he did not dare shift an inch, and neither did the boy he was holding, though his grip had become more symbolic than restraining. The smaller boy was barely even acknowledged now, forgettable as he was.

  “Uh, the cops, I guess. Maybe paramedics? I think any of the emergency services deal with… bodies.” He said balking slightly at the phrase.

  Kain’s eyes narrowed slightly, his lips quirking in faint amusement.

  “How cute. Summon them for me.” He commanded.

  The little tyrant stared at him, dumbstruck for several heartbeats. His mind visibly worked through the options. The police discovering what he had been doing to Chuck weighed against the possibility of the awakened tearing him apart. He hesitated.

  At last, good sense prevailed.

  He fumbled through his pockets, then turned sharply to his friend. “Dude, I need your phone. Mine’s dead.”

  He did not wait for permission. Shoving his hand into the shaved kid’s pocket and yanking out a familiar shiny rectangle, silver, with a half-eaten apple emblazoned across the back.

  As the bully began calling the authorities, searching both for a saviour and an exit from a situation where he was no longer in control, Kain stepped forward, closing the distance between himself and the trio of miscreants.

  He felt the tension coil in their bones as the thought of fleeing flickered through them. A single sweep of his gaze, a deliberate meeting of eyes, erased the impulse. His unholy stare freezing them in place.

  He nodded encouragingly to the largest of them and bent at the waist until his face hovered inches from the boy’s ear.

  “Go on, child of man,” he whispered, savouring their terror even as the boy’s voice trembled while reporting a body.

  Then Kain shifted, sidling up beside Chuck and leaning casually against the wall. The burnt leather of his ruined jacket crunched softly against brick as he settled there like an old acquaintance ready to reminisce.

  “A life on your knees is no way to live, little lad.”

  His tone had changed entirely. The hiss of restrained menace vanished from his voice. In its place was something warm, almost advisory, and threaded with curiosity.

  Even to Kain’s surprise, the boy found enough strength to answer without help.

  “I didn’t get to choose.”

  The words were bitter and worn smooth by repetition, as if spoken a thousand times before.

  “And why do you think you could not choose?”

  Chuck lifted his head, looking far up into the young faced awakened’s monstrous eyes. Within them was nothing but contempt, an endless, impotent rage simmering beneath his sullen expression.

  “For people like me, it’s zero tolerance. For them, it’s endless tolerance.”

  Kain raised a hand to his lips, a long, thin finger brushing along his jaw in thought.

  “So you lack the power to be taken seriously by the world. Therefore, you are suffocated by the scrutiny reserved for the second class.”

  It took Chuck a moment to parse the words, to weigh whether they rang true. Eventually, he nodded.

  With exaggerated ease, Kain stepped forward and stretched, arms lifting high above his head. Nothing popped or strained. His undead body maintained itself in flawless condition.

  “That could change for you,” he said lightly. “You could become worthy. When your constables arrive, tell them I found that man in the depths of the sewers. Tell them he deserves proper rites. And then come to me.” Slowly his voice dropped with every passing sentence, drawing Chuck in closer to hear him.

  Chuck almost reached for him, as though hope itself were turning its back.

  “How will I find you?” he asked, desperation creeping into his voice.

  Kain chuckled. The sound was dreadful. The silken cadence that once flowed from his tongue was gone, replaced by static laced growls and faint, echoing hisses.

  “All roads lead to your lord.”

  Then he vanished.

  Wind burst outward in a violent gust, forcing the boy to recoil and shield his eyes. When he looked again, the awakened man was gone. The three who had been accosting him lay unconscious on the pavement, arranged neatly, as if placed there rather than dropped.

  Kain launched from the edge of a rooftop, his body moving at superhuman speed. Concrete cracked beneath his heel as he disappeared and reappeared across dozens of rooftops, each contact fleeting. He used the night and open air to cover distance, avoiding the tunnels now that he knew the sun had set. He was not foolish enough to interact with this world’s authorities in his present state, and he remained on a lethal timer.

  Still, that does not mean I intend to walk into anything blind. Or naked.

  The thought lingered, edged with irritation, as he perched atop a building dozens of stories high. He crouched low, knees nearly level with his shoulders, clawed hands gripping the concrete between his feet. There he lingered, scanning the city below with the patience of an undead hawk. A gargoyle of famine looming over the streets.

  At last, he found a suitable target.

  Robbers and petty criminals were rarely missed, at least not immediately. And perhaps, he mused, he might even frighten the man straight.

  A wry smile split his lips.

  He leaned forward until gravity claimed him. His limbs released the ledge and embraced a free fall.

  His entire body blurred, vibrating as though every cell ignited with violent potential. He twisted mid-air, folding in on himself, then kicked off the building’s face. The impact cracked stone and launched him outward. He shot between buildings, contorting with impossible precision, then rebounded off another wall, changing direction in an instant.

  He hurtled toward his would-be unwilling partner like a bullet of necrotic flesh and malicious intent.

  He flexed his aura one final time and kicked off the edge of the roof at an angle, diving toward the street below at barely subsonic speed. Mid fall he flipped, righted himself, and slammed into the asphalt with bone cracking force.

  One moment there was nothing.

  The next, an inhumanly tall, hungry, and very naked child loomed over Joe and the schmo he had been dressing down.

  Joe’s eyes dragged slowly up the awakened’s frame. His survival instincts flared, only to be smothered by his gut. That same instinct had kept him alive for years. It told him when to leave a party just before the cops arrived. It warned him when a deal was too good and everyone ended up dead. It reminded him to mind his manners around his betters.

  That little voice had saved him more times than he could count, and he had never felt the need to obey it more than now.

  Unfortunately, his traitorous eyes kept drifting downward to a very specific part of the awakened’s anatomy. Long enough that he apparently felt compelled to comment.

  “It is not that impressive. Pick your jaw up, mortal.”

  Joe snapped his mouth shut instantly, but the words slipped out anyway, betraying him for the first time in his life.

  “It it’s barbed, sir.”

  “My anatomy is not your concern,” Kain replied coolly. “Now put away the petty toys and forget the coward. I believe you can do something for me. And I believe you would very much like to make me happy.”