James Axler - Necropolis

That Nathan Longa didn’t have the same kind of intellectual function as she was not an indication of the untrustworthiness of Nathan’s description of the assassin who’d slain his father, the previous protector of Nehushtan. Also, the moment had been one of intense fear and shock, meaning that Nathan’s senses would have been enhanced by adrenaline, his eyes sharper, probably dilated further to gather even more light, so shadowy hints wouldn’t have been so indiscriminate as he’d assumed. Plus, Brigid had gone with Nathan over the incident a couple of times, and she had asked questions about more than visual descriptors. She’d asked about the sounds, the smells, the feel of the room.

The smell of the murderer was something that made Brigid feel that the description as gelatinous had more validity. The thing smelled, according to Nathan, of salt and copper, two major components of blood. A translucent outline with no physical features, backlit by firelight, could easily have been a nontraditional physical entity. Supporting this observation was that it had disappeared in the brief instant that Nathan had looked away from the killer to see his father on the ground.

There were no windows that a full-grown man the bulk of the slayer could escape through, but there was a window open about three inches high. There was the sticky, slurping sound of fluid as the being moved, and Brigid could imagine an entity with no skeletal structure could easily have compressed itself down to three inches to squeeze out the window. She knew that octopi could fit through any opening large enough to accommodate their beaks, the only hard part of their anatomy, and that small rodents with skeletons could flex their bones to fit through openings only half the diameters of their bodies.

That was the cement for Brigid’s assumption of the assassin being a nontraditional physical entity, an expression she’d coined on the spot. Kane had asked her why she didn’t just call it a “blob,” but Brigid was not certain if it was an entirely fluid-based organism, a mollusk-like humanoid or just one with an extremely flexible skeleton as per a mouse.

Brigid coupled the appearance of that creature with Kane’s account of the void entity he had battled while he’d been comatose, left within a prison constructed in his own psyche. He’d also described her—it had taken on a more feminine appearance and addressed itself as “the queen”—as originally an amorphous, almost fluid-formed entity constructed of void. The limited shape-shifting on her part had a similar “feel” to Brigid’s presumptions about the killer who’d slain Nathan’s father.

The similarity between Kane’s psychic opponent and the elder Longa’s assassin was too coincidental for Brigid’s tastes. She’d studied more than enough mythology and parallel stories to realize that if something was vaguely related in the views of two separate people, there might be even stronger ties once exposed to the light of day.

Thurpa had added to the chain of coincidences. There was a strangely hued woman, Neekra, who seemed to come from nowhere, then disappear, and who could peer into Thurpa’s thoughts. She was at once dangerously alluring and viscerally disturbing, and she seemed cast in rust-or cinnamon-hued flesh that flowed easily.

Mind reading. The ability to appear and disappear like the wind. A voluptuous, curvy woman whom Durga had offhandedly referred to as his “queen.” Mind reading would not be too far off from the skill of telepathy and the construction of mental illusions, such as had been the case with Kane’s daylong, coma-like imprisonment.

Kane had described the queen’s interaction with Durga as more seductive than tortuous, as it had been with Kane himself. Thurpa had noted the obvious romantic relations between this very healthy, odd-hued woman and Durga. Right now, Brigid wasn’t entirely certain of who this Neekra was, but she knew full well that she and the queen were as related as the amorphous assassin and Kane’s psychic tormentor were.

Neekra was this woman’s self-appellation, and Brigid immediately returned to the dream wherein Kane had become aware of the artifact Nehushtan and the tales of a Puritan adventurer in the heart of Africa. Neekra matched up with not one but two names: Negari and Nakari—a hidden city and its queen, an immortal, vampirelike queen.

Nathan’s father had died of massive blood loss, and yet there had been very little blood spilled in the Longa home. The smell of blood was quite salty and coppery, Brigid knew from too much experience. Perhaps the reason no blood had been spilled was because it had been ingested, swallowed by the murderer.

Brigid’s mood turned black. A vampire queen and a hidden city.

Before skydark, Africa had been known as the Dark Continent. Now Brigid was certain they were going to find out exactly how dark. And that darkness could swallow them all whole.

Literally, Brigid feared.

Chapter 3

Kane’s mood was not good as he and Grant crept through the forest, closing in on the caravan that had crossed their path. Normally, he wouldn’t have been too interested in another group traveling through the jungle, and they had hidden their pickup truck, parked well off the formation’s route so as not to draw unwanted attention.

The group was armed to the teeth, and they had settled down for the evening not far from where Kane and his companions had set up their camp for the night. Traveling all day by truck was still tiring; there weren’t many roads, and the suspension could only take so much out of the bumps and jolts, especially for those who rode in the bed of the truck.

It was just good strategy for Kane and his allies to scope out a new group before coming out and greeting them, and seeing the column’s armed guards was more than a little unnerving. What made things even more tense was that they wore the uniforms of the Panthers of Mashona, the very militia they had battled back at Victoria Falls. While it was unlikely that Gamal could have communicated with this column, Kane was keen on keeping a low profile.

Well, he had been keen on that low profile.

Then he saw the row of naked Africans lying on the ground, connected to each other by chains and heavily burdened with steel yokes.

“We’re not going to leave well enough alone,” Grant murmured, counting on the Commtact to amplify the words in Kane’s ear.

“Slave traders. Damned straight we’re not leaving this alone,” Kane answered.

Grant nodded. Kane turned to regard his friend, and the massive former Magistrate’s brow wrinkled, knit with a mixture of concern and anger. His drooping gunfighter’s mustache only served to deepen the man’s frown into a grim mask.

Grant had no sense of solidarity with the blacks of Africa. Sure, his skin was dark like theirs, and they shared general facial features, but, culturally, Grant was a product of a world where race and familial history removed ties to anything other than fellow Magistrates. But here, Grant felt for the poor victims, lying immobilized by steel collars on their necks and shoulders, evidenced by the cracked, dried rivulets of blood on their torsos and the raw redness of scraped-off skin near the edges of those inhumane yokes. Kane heard the tendons in his fists pop as he flexed his big hands, and anger swiftly bled away as his eyes flitted from guard to guard.

Like Kane, he was sizing up the armed resistance, thinking of ways to kill the Panthers and to free their prisoners.

“We’re going to have to be very slow and patient,” Grant mused.

“Careful, yeah,” Kane agreed. “Even a silenced Copperhead would draw attention. It’s going to have to be knives and garrotes.”

Grant nodded. Neither Magistrate enjoyed murdering unaware opponents, but such ruthless tactics were going to be a necessity. If just one of the men standing guard over the prisoners suspected that someone was attempting a rescue, the Panthers would open fire, killing the group rather than giving up their treasured human cargo. “My bow, too.”