Jack Sunder
“You can’t have me! Get away from me!” shrieked Kem. She glanced to the side, and lunged for an overly gaudy lamp. “I’ll kill you all!” she screamed, hefting the heavy copper and charging towards Sunder.
Sunder ducked under the young whore’s wild swing, and slammed his fist into her gut, hard. The girl doubled over, dropping the lamp, and Sunder stepped out and around, then brought both fists crashing down on the back of her head. The small prostitute crumpled to the floor, completely limp.
“The hell was that?” said Lore, and stared at the whore’s crumpled form.
Sunder picked her up and lay her on a nearby cushion. “I thought she was trying to kill me... I just fought back.” He frowned. “Although I may have over-done it.”
“No, not you, her - she jumped us nearly the moment she saw us. I mean we didn’t even announce ourselves.”
“Maybe she was expecting someone else?” suggested Maureen. “A... a client, perhaps?” Sunder saw a twist of her lip as she said that, but decided not to make anything of it.
“But she should have recognized us...”
Sunder squatted next to the girl, and brushed some hair out of her face. “It’s the same as the man I saw... not recognizing us, being afraid of everyone he sees... she, in her case.” He shook his head. “Trauma does strange things to people, but it affects different people differently. She’s the fourth one I’ve seen like this, and worse than the others. I wish I had Selena here... Maureen, what do you make of it?”
The northerner bit her lip, and Sunder regretted pitting her as Selena’s inferior.
“No, I’d want Selena to see if there is anything... altering them. I’m asking you whether you think there is a pattern.”
“Oh. Um.” Maureen looked upwards, thinking about something, and Sunder stood and stepped around her to close the door. He didn’t want anyone walking by and getting curious. Though he himself had probably seen stranger things in whorehouses with Perl.
“Maureen?”
“Sorry Mr. Sunder. I was just struck by the thought - what if it isn’t that she’s worse, but...” Maureen glanced at the prone girl. “Jack, was the man you saw last also worse than the ones before that?”
Jack nodded, slowly. “What about the woman you visited?”
“Worse than the man we saw before that, but she didn’t attack us on sight. Do you see where I’m going?”
“Say it for me.”
“Well, it was what you said regarding Selena. What if they are implanted with something? Maybe we didn’t just happen to visit people in the order of their illness, but visit people as they all got worse over time.”
It wasn’t a pleasant thought. What of the man he had just seen, and his wife and child? She was a small woman, unable to defend herself as he had. He squatted again, and stared at the comatose girl. “Lore... what do you think?”
There was no response. “Lore?” He stood suddenly, feeling a thrill of anxiety at her disappearance. Where could she-- He saw her in front of a looking glass, staring vacantly at a mess of spilled make-up and other feminine things.
“Lore - you okay?” he said, stepping across the small room to her. He put his hand on her shoulder.
“Huh? Oh, sorry sir.” She put down some small bottle. “I was just thinking how easily I could have been her.”
“What?”
“When I was... well... She’s the same age as me, same upbringing, you know. Easy to imagine myself having been taken instead.”
“Ah... Well, I’m glad that didn’t happen.”
“Jack, she’s coming to...” said Maureen. “Should I hold her down?”
“Urgh.” He would have preferred the prostitute to wake up nicely, but if Maureen were right, and the cultists had done something... then keeping her calm wouldn’t help. “Yeah. Get the arms. I’ll sit on her.” He followed up on his words by straddling the girl, and sitting down on her torso. Maureen grabbed both of the girl’s arms and pinned them down.
Sitting there on the girl, Jack couldn’t help but notice how small her body felt in between his legs. He wondered how old she was. Not as old as Lore - just thirteen? Fourteen?
Her eyes fluttered, then squinted, but to his surprise she wasn’t violent. He said, “Are you okay?” then winced at the stupidity of the question. Except... maybe it was like the breaking of a fever?
“I know you,” the girl whispered. “You saved me.” The girl smiled slightly, then shuddered.
Questions flew through Sunder’s mind. What should he ask her? Dumb questions first. Like why did she attack him. But how would he ask that? “Do you remember me when I came in the door?”
“You’re handsome... you know that?” the girl’s voice was wavery, and Sunder thought she might be still under the influence of some kind of drug. Maybe some part of the drugs from the lab had longer lasting effects? He wished he could ask Selena.
“Boss?” asked Lore. He looked up and saw Lore hovering over them, looking unsure. Maureen had the same questioning look. What now? A good question.
“You’re sitting on me, aren’t you...” said the girl, looking down at... Sunder pressed his lips together.
“Maureen? I think it’s okay to let go of her.”
The girl looked up. “Oh, hello there, northie. Are we going to do something fun?”
Maureen released the girl’s arms and stood up quickly. “Uh... no. Not...”
“I can’t move my arms...” said the girl. She looked calm, if slightly concerned. “Actually, I can’t feel anything...” She looked down at at Sunder. “You’re still there, but I don’t feel a thing...”
Sunder stood up, and immediately frowned. He looked at Maureen. “I didn’t hit her that hard. Not on the right part, either.”
“You hit me? Why would a handsome man like you hit a pretty girl like me?” She smiled again, then turned her eyes to look at Sunder. “A pity I can’t move my head... isn’t it?”
“Sir?” said Maureen.
“I don’t know... it’s not good.” Sunder looked back down at the girl, who had closed her eyes, and appeared to be sleeping again. “I mean... it’s better than attacking people, I guess...”
“Boss... her leg’s shaking!” said Lore.
He looked down at the girl. Sure enough, one of her legs was spasming. Then an arm. And the other leg. He reached down to steady the girl, but she suddenly went still. “Weird...” he whispered.
He looked at the girl’s face. Her eyes were open. They looked around, without the head moving at all. Then they stared at him.
Arms whipped from the girl’s sides, grabbing at this legs. His reflexes were easily faster, though, and he leapt out of reach instinctively. The girl went limp again, then an arm, moving by itself, planted itself on the cushion, and started pushing her upright.
“Oh no, this isn’t happening...” whispered Maureen. “Oh nonono...”
Sunder cursed inwardly. “Weapons everyone,” he hissed, hoping he was wrong. “On guard, but don’t attack unless I say the word.” He drew his machete.
The girl continued to stand up, arms and legs moving without coordination. Gradually she regained her feet.
“Kem. Kem!” No response. “Put both your hands on the ground, or I will attack you.” No response, but the eyes were watching him now.
“Maureen, the legs!”
The northerner stepped in and swung low, crushing a kneecap. The girl stumbled a bit, but still stood. Still stood on that leg, Jack noted. “Maureen, again, don’t hold back.”
Maureen’s next blow was a wet, juicy crunch, and plowed through the girl’s leg, crushing the knee back upon itself, and flipping the girl onto her face. Nose and face smashed into the wooden floorboards with a wet smack.
“Damn.” Sunder watched as the girl started to her feet again. It was more fluid this time, at odds with the massive injury to one leg.
“Maureen, break her back.”
Nothing.
Sunder looked at Maureen. The northern woman stood there, quivering, her fingers tightening and unclenching on her hammer. She stepped back. He thought she was even paler than usual.
“No... No... I can’t...” Maureen started shaking her head. “Mother and Father below... Not on her...”
There was a flash of movement, and then a loud bang. The girl sprawled out in front of him, arms outstretched, her back and side riddled with scattershot from Lore’s thunderstick.
Time seemed to pause for a long moment. Everything was so unreal...
Jack snapped back to his senses and brought his machete down on the back of the girl’s neck with a deep wet thud. Putting his foot on her shoulder, he pried the blade out. He raised it again, but the girl wasn’t moving. Relieved, hoping, maybe disbelieving, he lowered his machete, and took a unsure step backwards, then another. By the time Jack back ran into the wall, he barely felt it. Everything was so cold, so unreal. Slowly he sank to the ground, sitting back against the wall.
For a few long minutes, nobody moved, and the only sound was breathing.
Perl
Perl shoved the coach door open, eschewing the complicated handles for brute force, and leaped down onto the road. He drew his sword and lunged at the dead man.
One swing came down next to the ruined head, cutting deep into the left shoulder, and he kicked the back of the dead street urchin, knocking both the dead man and the kid backwards. The man with the ruined head stumbled backwards, but kept his footing. The urchin collapsed into a heap on the ground.
Perl didn't wait. The large man bounded over the child's corpse with years of experience, and aimed another downwards cut at the shoulder. He cut in, but a few inches to the side of the existing gash. Perl's blade was a well-balanced longsword, and lacked the heft of Jack's heavier machete, but he still was surprised at how little the blade sank in. The man wasn't armored, after all.
Before Perl could pull his sword out, the dead man clawed at his torso with the undamaged arm. Fortunately, the blow scraped harmlessly across his armor, finger raking across hardened leather, and Perl was able to pull his sword free before the man could swing again; he stepped backwards, disemboweling the man with the tip end of a defensive slash.
What would it take to end this? Perl wondered. Sunder had disabled the things he fought by chopping at limbs, but that option was going less well for Perl. He studied his opponent for a second, but he mistrusted contemplation on the battlefield.
This time the fight came to him. The dead man leaped forward, and Perl parried the arm as it raked downwards at his face. Perl’s sword being thus occupied, the dead man was able to bite down on one of Perl's arms. The teeth didn't pierce the boiled leather of his vambrace, but it was able to bend the stiff material, crushing Perl's left forearm with unnatural strength.
Perl kicked the dead man's legs out from under him, but the jaws held fast, nearly pulling Perl down with him. The man hung there, dangling off of Perl's forearm, and lashed out with the good arm again. The longsword wasn't much use in close quarters like this, especially one-handed, and Perl wedged it in the man's elbow to keep the fingers from reaching his face. He could feel scrabbling on his torso armor, and realized to his dismay that he hadn't completely disabled the left arm.
“Perl! Behind you!” Selena's cry was punctuated with the sound of a half-dozen quarrels being fired from that contraption of hers, and then... the sound of fleshy impacts behind him? He risked a glance over his shoulder, and saw the urchin crumpled on the ground, in a different pose, with a number of quarrels in his small back.
Well, Selena could have helped earlier, with this man. Or actually she couldn't – he was fighting in her way, leaving her unable to get a clear shot. But now... things weren't moving as much.
Perl contrived to get the dead man around, so that his foe would be between him and Selena. It was hard, with all the shaking and the movement, as Perl certainly didn't want to lose his footing: the man seemed just as strong as he, if not stronger, at least with regards to the bite, and grappling seemed like a bad idea. The arm underneath was fumbling around, trying to find a gap through the armor. Perl wasn't sure how it would hurt him without the momentum of a swing, but he didn't want to find out. “Selena! Shoot him!”
Selena stood near the carriage, lining up a shot. The lower hand had found its way under his armor, and the jaw was vising down harder and harder. “Just shoot now!” The dead man's body shook as it took several hits from the contraption, but kept moving. “More!” There was another volley, and this time the dead man froze up, muscle locking in position as if he had been turned to stone. Perl slowly lowered him onto the ground, then planted his knee on the man's chest and pried his arm loose.
“Sorry Perl! I didn't want to shoot you!” Selena hopped down the the carriage, and made a wide circle around the street urchin.
“It worked out.” Perl stared at the deep scratches in the boiled leather. How was that possible with just a bite? Then everything clicked back into place, thoughts he had set aside for the fight reasserting themselves. “Wait, what on earth was this? He's not a cultist, why did he... you know. Not die properly?”
“Maybe they implanted him with the same thing they had in themselves. Or maybe they were testing it on him. Though...” Selena looked down at the urchin.
Perl kicked the man's corpse away. He'd have liked to chop it limb from limb, to be sure, but there was a small, wary crowd forming, and there would be watchmen arriving soon. Even he knew how bad it would look to be mutilating a corpse – it wasn't like they would understand. He knew he should retrieve Selena's quarrels, but he really didn't want to go near the thing.
“Hey Perl, are you listening?” Selena was plucking the quarrels from the urchin's back, but also looking examining it while she did so.
“What? I was distracted.”
“Oh, you wouldn't know anyway.”
“What were you asking?”
“Well, I was wondering why the urchin rose from the dead like that. What if it's infectious? Like some kind of disease?” She pulled out a quarrel, and examined the threads of flesh that came with it. There was a cold stab of fear, and Perl swore could feel a sudden burning sensation where the dead man had wormed under his armor.
Perl reached under his armor, and felt around for any scrap or gash. “That thing didn't cough on me, exactly.” He wiped his forearm in the mud just to be sure. The watchmen should arrive any minute now, and then there was no time to be strange.
“No... Hmm... There's so much I don't understand. I don't think it's a cough, but probably something blood-borne.” She used a quarrel to point at the gash in the boy's neck. “He was biting you too, wasn't he? Maybe that's how it's transmitted – like slavering fever, it makes things go crazy and bite.”
“He didn't get through my armor.”
“Well that's good. But even if it did, you would have to die before... oh. Hum.”
Perl gave her a look, frowning as Jack did so often.
“Well, I was just thinking – aside from the man they cut the limbs from, everyone else we... Oh sorry, didn't mean to mention him, just... well, they were healthy, right? I mean, not going to die. Maybe whatever it is...” Selena continued on, but Perl wasn't listening. He walked over to the nearest apartment. The door was ajar, and peering in, he could see trails of blood on the ground. All the doors were closed. He decided against investigating – that was a job for the watchmen.
“Perl!” Selena ran up to him. “Are there any another dead people walking around?”
Perl considered her. In some sort of macabre, horrible fashion, she seemed much more cheerful now than she had all morning. She was a strange one, no doubt. “Maybe. I'm not going in there alone. Where are the watchmen?”
“Watchmen?”
“Yeah, the city watch. Someone should have called them by now.” He looked around for himself, but didn't see anyone with the black and white sash of a watchman.
“What do you want them for?”
“Well, we have to explain ourselves – this isn't just some small town we can leave behind us. And also we ought to explain to them what's going on before they go in there.” He indicated the empty doorway with his head.
Selena stared inside and bit her lip. “So we wait? I'm really hoping he just fell and hit his head.”
“He didn't.”
“How do you know?”
“He got clubbed. You don't hit your head like that just from falling over. Blow came from above.” He pantomimed a swing.
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. Why? What's it for?”
“Well... like I said, maybe—hopefully—it only triggers on death. But maybe kills people directly. And quickly.”
“I didn't get bitten.”
“No, not you, you dolt. There's nearly a score of people we rescued out there. And not all of them are going to run into people like you and me. It's going to be a slaughter. The dead attacking people all through the lower ward. And nobody is going to know how to fight them, and nobody is going to expect those killed to rise up again.”
Perl blinked. “Oh. So that's why the city watch isn't here. They're busy.”
“Which means the attacks have already started across the city.”
“We better tell the boss about this.”
“No, we better tell the city watch about this, and how to deal with it. They need to know, so they can stop it before it spreads.”
“Right. And the boss can take care of himself and the ladies. They'll figure out what's what. Jack always does.”
Maureen
“Wait, sir, we have to tell them to dispose of... uh... the mess carefully,” said Maureen, hurrying after her leader.
Sunder continued walking, long quick strides taking him though the foyer in a matter of seconds. “No, no we can't, okay, sorry. There's more important things to do, and explaining ourselves would take too long.”
“But what if it comes back to life? Or what if--” Maureen stopped as Mr. Sunder glared at her.
“There is no time for questions, and you would do better to not speak of that here.” Maureen could see the muscles in Sunder's jaw clenching.
“Yes. Sorry.” Maureen stole a glance back. Lore was trailing: unable to cleave through the crowds as Mr. Sunder had, she could hardly be seen now. “Should we wait for Lore?”
“No, I need to explain things to you on the street, then you will tell her.” Sunder swept down the grand stairs, leaving a wake of consternation and disturbed guests behind him. Maureen saw Madam Nene come up next to him, but he shook her off her arm and shook his head, not even stopping.
And then they were going through the front double doors, out onto the street, where mud steamed in the midday sun.
“Maureen, I don't know what Nene will make of that corpse in there. But I do know what will happen if so much as half of the people we visited today rise again, let alone all those on the list. There will be blood flowing on the streets. We can't stop this by ourselves. Listen to me carefully. You and Lore have to go to city watch. The commander there is Bartus, an old friend of mine. Tell him that Lord Jack Serronir sent you, and that the young Lord Serronir vouches with his honor for everything you say. He will believe you.” Sunder glanced behind Maureen at the doors. “Explain to him that he must dispatch all available troops to each one of these locations, and another squad to find Selena and provide her with a corpse to examine. Those are my instructions. I will have to leave for a bit, but I will meet you at the the Watch Headquarters, and failing that, at Lady Rae's mansion. Do you understand me?”
Maureen stared at him. The man was nearly shaking with tightly controlled anger. Or fear. Was he crazy? “Sir, where are you going? Come with us!”
“No, I put an innocent into danger, and much else that I now curse myself for. I have to rectify my mistakes.” He spun around and strode away, then stopped short. He looked back at Maureen. “And keep Lore safe.” With that he strode off into the crowd.
“Maureen!” Lore burst through the doors. “Nene held me up. Where is Jack?”
“He's off on private business again. Didn't want to explain himself.”
“What?”
“We have to go tell the city watch about this. The families and neighbors of all the people we...” Maureen stopped. Rescued was a word, but not one she wanted to use. “We need to get to the city watch. Jack said he would meet us there.” Maureen started walking the down the street, then stopped. “You're the one who knows where it is, aren’t you?”
Lore shook her head. “Yeah, I do. But what is Jack doing?”
Just then, Maureen hear cries and yells from the direction Mr. Sunder had went, and then for a moment the two women saw Jack on horseback, racing across the street. And then he was gone.
“Something important,” said Maureen.
“I hope he's safe.”
Maureen nodded. “Let's make that happen ourselves, then – where's the city watch?”
“Quick! This way.” Lore ran down a narrow alley between two abandoned buildings.
Minutes later, Maureen’s heart was pounding in her throat, Lore constantly disappearing around the corners in front of her. Maureen groaned as she rounded a corner to find Lore waiting at the base of yet another stairway. Apparently the Life adepts had done a good job healing her injuries, as the girl showed no signs of tiring.
Uphill. Maureen brought herself to the bottom of the stairway. It had to be uphill. Maureen was a fair athlete, thanks to Mr. Sunder's insistence on strengthening exercises, but this sort of scrabbling uphill dash was not something she could sustain very well. A long distance run, sure, but not with all these turns, not while weaving through shops, and not with Lore's habit of finding the most convoluted ways to cut distances.
The city of Archmeridies was built with a sort of circular plan – roads leading from the castle in all directions had become wide boulevards as the city had grown, and by now people referred to them as the wheel spokes their placement resembled. All other roads were vaguely circular, running between one spoke and another. In the lower ward, where the main boulevards had considerable space between them, the people found it worthwhile to have their own paths between the circle-streets. Paths that someone like Lore knew.
And of course, the House of Nene had to be as far away from a spoke as possible, so Lore had just cut through a series of buildings as a shortcut to get to the city watch headquarters. Supposedly.
“Maureen! We're almost there!” said Lore, from ahead.
“Right. Be there... right... in a moment.” Maureen pulled herself up the last few steps, clinging onto the exposed masonry of the abandoned buildings.
“You okay?”
“Will be.” Maureen looked across the road at a fairly normal looking building. “Is that it?” she said, before bending over to catch her breath.
“You said you knew your letters.”
“Uh.” The girl was right – if Maureen had looked a little higher, she would have already seen the fist-on-a-shield emblem of the city watch, and the words “City Watch Headquarters” painted around the edges of the shield. “Okay, let's go.”
“You do that. I'll... I'll wait out here.” Lore looked a little embarrassed. “If I went in there, I wouldn't come out, if you know what I mean.”
“Right.” Maureen tried not to speculate on how Lore had becomes so familiar with the back alleys and shortcuts. “Shouldn't there be watchmen? Outside?”
“Normally, I think.”
“Okay. Right.” Maureen wasn't sure what to make of that. She left Lore in the shadows between the buildings, and crossed the street to the city watch building. The door was open.
“Hello?” She asked. There was no answer, and the place was silent, empty, abandoned. She suddenly had the ridiculous feeling that she was breaking into the building. The city watch building, no less! “Hello? Is anyone there? I have an urgent message for Commander Bartus.”
There was the clamor of boots on stairs, and a frustrated young man appeared on the staircase. “What do you want, northie?”
“I need to speak with Commander Bartus, please,” said Maureen, trying to be polite. She didn't like his look, or the slur.
“Hah! Bartus has no business with savages like you and yours. Go back to your hut, northie!”
Maureen bristled, then clamped down on herself. From the expression on the man's face, she wasn't entirely successful. “I am on urgent business for Lord 'Jack' Serronir. Your commander will want to hear my message.”
“Piss off! You wouldn't know any lords or ladies. If I gutted you, naught but lies would spill out.”
Maureen stood there for a moment. It did strike her as odd that she knew a lord personally. Well, she actually knew two, though one not as well as the other. “We made our acquaintance on the road. We are staying at Manor Varnya, as guests of the Lady.”
He sneered. “Lady Varnya wouldn't be seen with trash like you. Now scram before I clap you in irons, and put you down in a cell with some friendly pieces of scum we found. I'm sure they wouldn't mind.”
A voice came down from the upper floor. “Callen, who are you talking to?”
“Some northie with pretensions. Say's she's serving a message for some Lord Serronir, and is staying with some Lady in the upper ward.”
“Some vitally urgent news!” Maureen shouted, hoping she could be heard. “To avert a crisis!”
Heavy footfalls preceded the man's appearance. “We already have a crisis, girl.” The man was stout and old, and sported a sling holding one of his arms.
“Are you Commander Bartus?”
“And what if I am?”
“Lord 'Jack' Serronir sent me with a message for you.” She swallowed. “He thought his name would mean something to you. I have vital information to show you.” She grabbed the list of names and addresses from her satchel.
The older watchman stared at her, then clouted the the younger one upside the head with a beefy hand. “You idiot. Can't you tell she's being sincere?” He plodded down the stairs and waved Maureen over. “I'm not Commander Bartus, I'm Subcommander Hobskin. Serronir, you say? Isn't he a marquis from down south? Nearly on the river with old Telmeris?”
“I wouldn't know, sir – we met... on the road.”
“Hrmph.” The man snatched the list from Maureen. “Names and street addresses. What is this?”
“Lord Serronir and a number of others were investigating disappearances in the city. We found the survivors being tortured, and...” Maureen frowned. This was their doing, wasn't it? “...freed them. Now we have reason to believe that they have been afflicted with some sort of supernatural... thing that causes them to attack other people, and be nearly impervious to wounds.”
“And the names?”
“These are the names and addresses of the families of the people we freed. We were visiting them, and the victims were getting more and more crazed, until one of them attacked us. We—I mean Lord Serronir—thinks that all of the victims we released will become...” The man raised a his good arm to cut her off. He had a dour look on his face.
“Save your breath, miss. On a good day we could ride out and save these folks.” He scanned the list. “But this morning Commander Bartus marshaled the watchmen, and they all went off northside to stop some sort of riot at the Life Temple. On account of my arm, I got left here with that fool.”
Maureen's blood went cold in her veins, and she could feel the skin of her face prickle. The Life Temple? They had ignored Mr. Sunder's warning about the danger that had been unleashed in the depths, and... had they been overwhelmed? The image of the bloodstained hallway, devoid of bodies, sprung unbidden to her mind.
“I'm sorry, but there isn't anything we can do for these families,” said Subcommander Hobskin.
“You don't understand – this might be the same thing. The watchmen at the life temple won't be prepared to deal with them.”
The youth had come down from the stairs as well, and now he bristled. “Us Watchmen can deal with anything, natural or not. We burned a nest of vampires just the other month!”
The older man cursed under his breath. “We deal with problems by being prepared, vampires included. Bartus went out there expecting to scatter a riot through show of force. Would that work on whatever these things are?”
Maureen shook her head, still thinking of the blood-stained hallway. More people had been killed, but no bodies... “And it's worse than that. I suspect that whatever is happening to them is contagious.”
“Contagious? Like a disease?” The older man shook his head, gravely “Oh, our luck cannot possibly be that bad.”
From behind them, a young female voice called out. “Your luck is that bad. It is contagious, and damned quick about it too.”
The unmistakable forms of Selena and Perl stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light.
“And we passed by the Life Temple, sir. Your men are all dead.”
Next: Chapter 4