Limbo's Child (85 page)

Hiero spit out a phlegm-coated raspberry.

“Nothing, but we have to hurry and I can’t get him moving!”

“Nothin?!” Miles limped over to Hokharty and knelt by him.

Hokharty was muttering like a madman in a language he didn’t understand.

“What’s he sayin?” Miles asked.

“Something about his boy, Hotep. I think he was murdered, long ago, but I can’t get him to listen to me.”

“Geez when you break ‘em, you really break’em, dontcha kid.” Miles turned his attention to the old vampire. “Hokharty! Listen to me!” Miles bellowed in the old vampire’s ear. “We have to stop Lucy! We have to stop Lucy from opening the gate! How do we do it?” There was no response – he just kept muttering. “Do ya understand what’ I’m tellin’ ya, ya stupid ol’ bloodsucker?!! The world is about to end and ya gotta help us stop it!”

He kept on muttering in some unknown language.

“What’s the crazy blighter sayin’ now?”

“He’s just going on about his son being murdered and how he couldn’t stop it.”

Miles smacked his hand to his forehead in frustration. He looked back at the gibbering vampire and decided to give it one last try. “OY! YA CRAZY BLIGHTER!! I’m sorry ya’ lad died, but iff’n ya don’t get up and do somtin’ about it, RIGHT NOW, there are gonna be a lot more dead boys and a lot more grievin’ fadders! Now snap outta it!” Miles was about to smack Hokharty hard across the face, but before his hand got there, the vampire’s reflexes caught Miles’ hand inches from his face. For a moment Miles thought the fight was about to start up again, but Hokharty just stopped and looked up at Miles. Then he instantly came to himself, stood up and reassumed all the familiar impassive mannerisms that Miles had grown used to, except his eyes did still seem sadder somehow.

“Of course,” he said simply, “Follow me.” He turned and sped up the stairs and out into the kitchen.

“Finally!” Miles groused as Nephys helped him limp up the stairs and Hiero followed.

Most of the guests of the manor had wisely cleared out after the fight began, but a few of the vampires, including Betty and Mikhail were hovering around in the kitchen near the larder door wondering what the heck was going on.

Hokharty paused only long enough to give them orders, “Mikhail, Elizabeth, gather as many as you can and meet us in the ballroom.” Both looked nervously at each other before bolting off.

Miles was already shaking off the limp in the stabbed thigh. Imp blades hurt, but they didn’t seem to harm you very much, at least not vampires. The bruises from Hokharty and the blisters from the silver chains would take longer. The three charged down the hall and through the parlor to the foyer. Hokharty didn’t hesitate but walked straight in through the doors.

It was hard to describe the scene. A large, blue-white sphere of light was suspended in the middle of the room. Beneath it was Lucy, her right hand outstretched, tense. She was struggling to hold it upright like she was holding up an invisible weight. Her other hand was clasping her mother’s and clinging around her middle was the strange boy from earlier, but Amanda was nowhere to be seen.

“Lucy!” Miles cried and he began his way across the large ballroom. Nephys and Hokharty followed, but the second the imp caught sight of Lucy and the boy it went berserk again, frothing and honking and swinging the knife in a mad rage. The boy screamed and hugged Lucy tighter.

“Hiero, no!” Nephys grabbed the little imp around the middle and tried his hardest to restrain the bagpipes, but it wasn’t easy. Hokharty and Miles left Nephys to struggle with the crazy thing and went hurriedly to the other side of the room.

Miles had to pause in disbelief. From this side, it didn’t look like a sphere of light, but a tunnel extending far into the distance. There was a roaring sound like being under a waterfall and a rush of wind was pouring into the tunnel. It was unbelievable. Miles had to shake himself back to reality.

“Lucy! You have to stop!” Miles yelled again.

“I can’t!” she nearly cried, “My mother’s on the other side.”

“But if ya bring ya mother back, Death will follow her ta this side!”

“THAT’S NOT TRUE!” she yelled back, but she wasn’t certain anymore.

“Child…listen,” Hokharty began but he never got a chance. There was a bright pulse of grey light and then a specter with hollow eyes and long hair emerged from the tunnel. It rose up like an eagle and its hair spread out like two black wings. Then it collapsed back violently, like an explosion run backwards, into the form of Amanda who fell to her hands and knees.

“She’s there!” Amanda gasped, clearly fatigued, exhausted by the trip. “She’s there! But I can’t bring her the rest of the way here.”

“My mom?!” Lucy frantically looked at the tunnel to see if she could see her mother. There was a faint light in the shape of a person, like a pale reflection of moonlight on running water, but she couldn’t see anything else. Was that her? Was that her mother? In her excitement she lost concentration and her hand danced momentarily. She struggled to bring it back to the center of resistance, but the tunnel of light contracted slightly anyway.

“KEEP THE GATE OPEN!!” Amanda screamed at her. “AARRGH!” Amanda groaned, “You’ve let the gate get too narrow!”

“I’m sorry…” Lucy began meekly before Amanda snapped back at her.

“QUIET!! Concentrate! When it opens back up you must call to your mother!! You must do this as soon as you can!” and then after several hard breaths Amanda muttered something else that made everyone’s blood run cold, “He’s coming Lucy! He’s coming for her already!”

“HE?!” Lucy thought, “Does she mean
Death
?!”

Lucy’s eyes snapped back to the gate wide-eyed, as if she was afraid to blink.

Amanda then got up to her knees, still breathing heavily, when she noticed the other occupants of the room.

“
Vampires!
” she muttered contemptuously.

“Mistress,” Hokharty began in his usual officious manner, “I believe we have miscalculated.” He approached her cautiously. “I was wrong. I was blind, we both were. Death cannot be allowed to walk the earth. We were wrong to tempt the Great Master. We must close the gate immediately.”

Amanda laughed a dry laugh. “No, Hokharty, it is
you
, who have miscalculated. Death will soon never walk the earth or anywhere else ever again.” She stood up, her strength returning.

“What do you mean?” he asked, uncertain, but she just smiled. Hokharty looked at her querulously as if something horrible was just dawning on him, but there wasn’t enough time for the expression to fully form on his face before Amanda lunged at him with a bloody finger. She shouted his name and something else in some unknown language. Hokharty’s body went limp and collapsed to the ground. All around him, a thin red smoke rose into the air and then dissipated. Miles rushed to his side and rolled him over, but he was gone. The body was just a corpse again.

Before Miles even had a chance to think about the implications of what had just happened, several vampires burst into the room, Betty, Mikhail, even the five sisters and several others. They stared curiously at Miles crouched over the fallen form of the Father of All Vampires that had held out a hope of a new life for all of them. Miles looked at them and had no time to think of what to say before Amanda spoke.

“HOKHARTY IS DEAD!” Amanda screamed, “THEY KILLED HIM!”

She pointed the incriminating finger at Miles and Nephys who, up until that moment, was still struggling with Hiero who in turn stopped long enough to look up and say, “Farnt?”

Miles looked back at her with indignation, and even caught a glimpse of Lucy’s shocked face over Amanda’s mendacity before he turned back to see the rapid onslaught of vampires coming his way who had already decided their course of action.

“Oh, bugger.”

Miles barreled across the room turning into the dog-monster mid-leap over Nephys and Hiero. He crashed through the five snarling sisters and sent them flying like a bowling ball crashing through a basket of kittens. He managed to knock down Mikhail and several others, and only Betty managed to jump out of the way. This gave him barely enough time to circle back to Nephys and transform back into human form long enough to say just two words.

“STOP LUCY!!”

The words were hardly out of his mouth before the other vampires had already regrouped. They were pulling Miles away before Nephys even had a chance to say “But, how?!”

The vampires dog-piled Miles, and soon he was concealed under their bodies. They were plunging their snarling, bloody faces into him like a pack of wolves biting into their still-kicking prey. Miles exploded out of the midst of them in his dog form and ran around the room yelping, trying desperately to throw them off his back before fleeing out the foyer doors. Focused on their prey, they ignored Nephys and Hiero and pursued him like screeching animals.

“
Vampires!
” Amanda muttered to herself before deciding that she would have to handle things herself. She turned back to Lucy and snarled her last orders, “WHEN THE GATE IS WIDE ENOUGH, CALL YOUR MOTHER!”

“But, Amanda!” Lucy cried out, however Amanda just screamed back at her.

“HE IS COMING, LUCY!! IF HE REACHES HER BEFORE YOU CAN CALL HER BACK, EVERYONE WILL DIE!! EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON YOUR MOTHER!! NOW CONCENTRATE!” Instantly she exploded into the long-haired specter and tore off across the room and out the doors towards the sounds of Miles and the vampires fighting.

Hiero instantly restarted his struggle to get free of Nephys’ arms and reach Lucy as if it was his only imperative, but Nephys held him and yelled at him, “HIERO! NO! NO!
I’ll
talk to Lucy! Help Miles!!”

Hiero stopped struggling for a moment, he looked to Lucy and began to try to wriggle out of Nephys’ arms again to reach her, but Nephys refused.

“NO! NO, HIERO!! GO HELP MILES!!” The imp looked back and forth between Lucy and the door Miles had fled through with several vampires on his back. He looked like he was making the most excruciating decision of his life.

Finally after screeching, “FLUBBIT!!” through all three pipes and his flute-like nose he pulled free and tore off after Miles and Amanda.

Nephys stood up and ran to Lucy’s side.

“Lucy, you have to stop!”

“STAY AWAY FROM HER!!” the strange boy yelled back at him.

Nephys stopped a few short feet from Lucy. He thought for a moment about simply knocking the stone from her hand, but then he didn’t know what would happen.

“Lucy, you have to stop. Death is coming and he’s going to kill everyone if you don’t stop.”

“NO, SHE WON’T!!” Yo-yo yelled, “She’s going to save her mother and everyone’s mothers!!”

“Yo-yo’s right,” Lucy said weakly, “I have to do this.”

“Lucy, I know you’re hurt, but you can’t do this!!” Nephys looked at her and bit his lip. “Lucy, I know what it’s like not to have a mother. I lost my mother too. I know what it’s like to be alone. I’ve been alone for nearly two thousand years, but now you are going to take everyone’s mother away if you don’t stop.”

“DON’T LISTEN TO HIM, LUCY!!” Yo-yo cried, “He’s lying! Look at him! Look at his throat…he’s one of those
dead
things.”

“It’s ok, Yo-Yo,” she tried to console him, though he gripped her all the tighter. Then she tried to answer Nephys without taking her eyes off the gate, “You don’t understand, Nep. That won’t happen. My mother has powers.”

Nephys drew a breath and walked closer. “I don’t doubt that she does. If she can turn an imp into a watering can, she can probably do anything! But you can’t do this!”

Lucy looked away from the tunnel and focused on Nephys.
Watering can?
What
was
he talking about?! “No, not like that, she has powers to stop death! Amanda told me! I believe in her. I have
faith
in her. I know she can stop all this. I just have to try a little while longer and she’ll be here. She can stop Death, itself. I just know it! It’s going to be all right, Nep. This is what she would have wanted.” Lucy looked down at her mother’s body for just a second and squeezed her dead hand. In a few moments it wouldn’t be dead anymore, and she could hardly wait for her to wake up and hug her.

“You tell him, Lucy!” Yo-yo belted out.

Nephys swallowed hard and thought. How was he going to convince her?! Then it struck him.

“But she didn’t want
this
, Lucy. If you really believe in her, why don’t you have faith in what she told you?”

Lucy blanched.

“Think about what your mother said. Think about the note!”

“Note?” Yo-yo said curiously, “What note?!”

Lucy looked away from the gate for a moment and thought about the note and the ominous “DON’T” in front of those three words of promise, “BRING ME BACK.” She suddenly had doubts.

“It’s…not…that is…this is
different
,” Lucy stammered.

“No it’s not, Lucy,” Nephys continued.

“What note?!!” Yo-yo asked again, this time more angrily.

Lucy’s mind was racing. “There are
things
she didn’t know…if she had known, she wouldn’t have written that note in the first place. It will all turn out okay.”