Deathstalker Legacy (45 page)

The smell hit them first. Brett screwed up his face and made a disgusted sound. It was a thick, rank, organic but somehow dusty stench, full of age and decay and dead things. The kind of stench that had to build or accumulate over years, or maybe even centuries. There were noises too: rustling, crackling sounds, and wet, slippery smackings. Brett could feel his heart hammering in his chest, and he was breathing so heavily he was in danger of hyperventilating. Whatever was waiting in there, beyond the door, he just knew he didn’t want to see it. He looked almost desperately at Rose. She had a disrupter in her hand, though Finn had forbidden her to take any weapons with her. Brett made himself breathe more slowly, the first step to composing himself. First rule of the con; never let the mark see how on edge you were. Never let them know how much making the deal mattered to you.

“It seems we’re expected,” Rose said easily. “Let’s go in and say hello.”

“After you,” said Brett.

Rose strode majestically forward into the gloom beyond the door, and Brett sauntered in after her. Inside, it was worse than he imagined. It was worse than he could have imagined. What little confidence he’d managed to wrap himself in was gone in a moment. The place could have been a chamber or a cavern, carved out of the solid rock. It could have been some old storage room, long abandoned. It could have been the antechamber to Hell. There was no way of telling just how big the space was, because it was entirely stuffed and choked with webbing.

Thick gray and pink strands that stretched from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling, crossing and intertwining in delicate intricate patterns, so labyrinthine and diverse that they hinted at infinity. Bodies, dead human bodies, hung suspended in the webbing, here and there, low and high. Some were half consumed, with white shards of broken bone showing in the pale red meat. There were older, more mummified remains too, and the occasional clump of bare bones wrapped tightly together. In one corner, human skulls had been piled up, picked clean, and smeared with webbing, reaching almost to the concealed ceiling. The air was thick with death and decay, almost unbreathable. And everywhere, the pink and gray strands vibrated gently, constantly, never entirely still.

A narrow tunnel had been left open, a gap in the webbing, that led from the door to the center of the place, or chamber, or whatever the hell it might once have been, to where the only two living inhabitants sat side by side on old-fashioned chairs. Webbing crawled over and clung to them too. It was immediately obvious that neither of the beings had moved from their chairs in a long, long time.

Rose headed straight for them, plunging into the web tunnel, so of course Brett had to follow her in. Deep inside him, something was screaming. The tunnel through the webbing was only just wide enough for them both to walk down it side by side. Brett kept his arms pressed tightly to his sides, to be sure he wouldn’t risk brushing up against the pink and gray strands.

The two figures sitting deathly still upon their ancient chairs looked even more appalling the closer he got to them. They sat side by side, human in shape but not in nature, their sunken faces lacking anything like human expression. The tops of their heads had been broken open long ago, or perhaps had burst open, and that was where all the webbing originated from. It grew up out of their heads, the pink and gray strands extensions of their living brains, consciousness spread across an entire room, endlessly generated, endlessly branching, all of it alive. Brett looked around him, shocked and sickened, as he realized he was walking through their shared mind. On the intertwining brain tissues, naked and slender and delicate, neurons sparked and flared like tiny fireworks.

Rose and Brett finally came to a halt before the two seated figures, and for the first time the indistinct figures moved slightly, making dry rustling sounds like crackling paper. Perhaps their eyes moved. Perhaps their slit mouths widened slightly in a smile. Perhaps they merely stirred in anticipation . . . One naked arm from each was reaching out across the gap between the chairs, so that they could hold hands. They’d been holding hands for so long now that the flesh had grown together, fused into a single shape beyond hope of separation. Brett felt seriously sick. How long had these two been sitting here, gray and pink matters sprouting from their exposed brains, feeding on whatever poor fools came to visit them?

We are the Spider Harps,
said one of the figures, or perhaps both of them, the words ringing and echoing inside Brett’s and Rose’s heads like the voices of dead men speaking. The words were soft and foul, like rotten fruit, like every foul intention rolled into one, and proud of it.
We speak for the ELFs. Talk to us, little humans. Be bold and eloquent, and maybe afterwards . . . we’ll invite you to stay for dinner.

Brett would have turned and bolted right then, and to hell with Finn, if Rose hadn’t been there with him. He knew she wouldn’t run, and he couldn’t leave her there in that awful place. So he made himself concentrate on the shrunken, shriveled pair before him, so he wouldn’t have to look at the brain web, or the half-devoured bodies hanging above and around him. Both the figures were so old, so wrinkled, so fallen in upon themselves, that it was impossible to even guess whether they were male or female. If they had ever worn clothes, they had long ago rotted and fallen away. And yet, though their faces were dead, their eyes were very much alive and aware. Brett took a deep breath, immediately wished he hadn’t as the smell hit him all over again, and made a start.

“Hello. I’m Brett Random, and this is Rose Constantine. We speak for Finn Durandal. Please don’t kill us until you’ve heard us out. Fascinating place you have here. Love what you’ve done with it. How . . . long have you been down here?”

“The Lion . . .” Brett said quietly to Rose. “Lionstone’s grandfather! Jesus, they’ve been down here for centuries . . . growing, spreading . . .”

“Why the corpses?” Rose said to the Spider Harps, with her customary bluntness.

“This just gets better all the time,” said Brett. “All right; why Spider
Harps
?”

The two figures slowly raised their outer arms, with loud creaking noises, until their long bony fingers could reach the delicate strands fruiting from their opened heads. And then they plucked at the taut strands of the webbing, and note after perfect note rang in the underground cavern, forming an awful, entirely inhuman music, played on the outgrowths of centuries-old minds. Brett slapped both his hands to his ears to keep the terrible music out, but the sound invaded his mind, harsh and strident and full of terrible significances. Brett dropped to his knees, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. He tried to shout something, but his voice wouldn’t work. It was too small, too human, too sane. Rose moved in beside him, put a comforting hand on his shoulder, lifted her disrupter and pointed it directly at the head of the figure on the left.

“Stop that,” she said loudly. “Stop that right now.”

The Spider Harps let their hands fall away from the neuron-studded strands, and the music stopped, though the echoes seemed to linger unnaturally long on the still air. Brett slowly took his hands away from his ears. There were smears of blood on his palms. Rose hauled him to his feet again with one hand, while still keeping her disrupter carefully trained on her target.

“You all right, Brett?” she said, without looking around.

“I don’t know. My head hurts. Makes a change. Didn’t that music do anything to you?”

Rose shrugged. “I’ve never understood music.”

“Figures. Bless the Lord for his small mercies and pass the ammunition.” Brett glared at the Spider Harps. “I ought to let her shoot you.”

You both have very interesting minds,
said one of the Spider Harps, or perhaps both, unmoved either by Brett’s threat or the gun in Rose’s hand.
You have strong shields, Brett Random. And we can’t make sense of you at all, Rose Constantine. You’re just too . . . different. We had planned to possess you both, make you ours, take the Durandal’s location from your minds, and then ride you back to him, and have you kill him slowly. For our pleasure. But since that isn’t possible, we will hear your proposal. What do you have to offer us?

Brett told them. There was a long pause, and then there was a new sound in the chamber, a ragged sighing. The Spider Harps were laughing.

Brett finally broke. He turned and ran, plunging back through the tunnel in the webbing, past the great open door, and out into the corridor beyond. Rose backed slowly out, holding her disrupter on the Spider Harps all the way. But even after they’d both left that room, that chamber, that living Hell, even after the door had slammed shut again, the dry rustling laughter of the Spider Harps followed Brett and Rose all the way to the surface.

 

Hellfire Club meetings always began with an orgy. Satisfy the body and its appetites, to clear the mind. Indulge your every need and whim, so that the mind is free to concentrate on other matters. So that the subtler joys of plotting and treason are not overshadowed by the more immediate pleasures of the flesh. The devils of the Hellfire Club made it a point of principle to deny themselves nothing.

The huge hall’s floor was covered from wall to wall with cushions and silks and all kinds of textures that might please. The air was thick with heady perfumes and generated pheromones, and raucous music issued from the blindfolded orchestra tucked away in one corner. There was all kind of drink and every kind of drug, and everywhere . . . bodies, moving together, clothed and unclothed as tastes and preferences decided, sinking themselves into each other and in the moment, because that was what the Hellfire Club was all about.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. And to Hell with anyone who gets in the way.

Afterwards, they all lay nakedly together, sitting or reclining as the sweat cooled and their breathing slowed, while the more subservient members moved among them with refreshing drinks and the more obscure and unpleasant forms of finger food; smiling happily as they were beaten and abused. The hundred or so members of the Hellfire Club who’d been able to make it to this meeting had gathered together to consider the troublesome matter of Finn Durandal. It promised to be a long meeting, but then, they always were. Everyone was determined to be heard. Tel Markham lay stretched out with his head cradled on an accommodating belly, and looked thoughtfully about him.

Tel Markham belonged to many organizations. Member of Parliament, and the Shadow Court, supporter of Pure Humanity, rector of the official Church, and long-standing devil in the Hellfire Club. He’d have joined the ELFs if they’d agreed to have him. Markham believed in obtaining every possible advantage, every possible form of support, on the unanswerable grounds that he never knew when he might need them. He belonged to so many secret and underground organizations that he’d almost lost count. His computers oversaw his extremely complicated diary, and made sure he knew where he was supposed to be, and why. Most of the organizations had no idea of his other connections. It was only polite: they all so loved to believe that they were the only underground that mattered.

Luckily, these days Markham was such an established Member of Parliament that he only needed to make the occasional personal appearance, for the most important of debates. The rest of the time a low-level AI ran his holo for him, and took notes for his staff to study later. They took care of the day-to-day business. That was what staff was for. Attending Hellfire Club meetings messed him about more than most, though, because the Club’s inner circle insisted on deciding a new location for every get-together, announced only hours in advance, thus protecting themselves from gate-crashers and infiltrators.

Markham always made it to as many as he could.

The Club was currently occupying a deserted church in an area of the city marked for redevelopment.
Is the Church deconsecrated?
Markham had asked on arriving.
It soon will be,
he’d been told, and Markham had forced a chuckle.

Frankie started the discussion. She was a tall, almost unbearably voluptuous woman of a certain age, with sharp vicious features and a great mane of pure white hair that reached all the way down her supple back to her waist. Markham loved to see her breathe, but had enough sense to keep out of her clutches. Unlike many of the Hellfire Club, she wasn’t playing her role. She’d assassinated twenty-seven people that Markham knew of. Two had been ex-lovers. Markham was pretty sure she was about as inner circle as you could get. Frankie was hardcore all the way.