The Refineries started to hum, to vibrate like caged animals in shackles desperate to break free. The horizontal bursts of electricity filled the sky, no longer bursts but sheets of sparks and webs and fire, which finally discharged with tornadoes of bright burning light against the Blood Refineries… and the world was filled with noise and concussion and raw energy as General Graal, hands raised in the Black Pike Mountains, on Helltop, on the Vampire Warlords' Seat of Power, so he drew this source of blood-oil magick and allowed it a channel home.
They had assembled on Helltop, and Graal walked along the line of Granite Thrones, his back to them, showing contempt for their weakness, but also hiding his joy at their capture. Kell was dumped to the slick smooth ground, and he grunted as he hit the floor and glared up at Graal with undisguised loathing. Nienna was weeping, the wires which bound her cutting into flesh and drawing blood, and Saark said nothing, his mouth a bloodless slit. Graal turned.
'Stand them up.'
Unceremoniously, the Soul Stealers dragged Kell, Nienna and Saark to their feet, and they shivered as the cold mountain wind kissed them, and gazed around at the silent dark gathering. There were soldiers from the Army of Iron, a silent honour guard for their General and Watchmaker, Kradek-ka. Of the three Granite Thrones, two were occupied. The first, by a young woman with long, golden curls and the fangs of the vachine. Her face was slack, drugged, her eyes rolled back in a skull which showed the marks of a beating. Her throat still sported a huge puncture wound, halfhealed by advanced vachinery, and softly through the silence, the tick-tick-tick of her clockwork could be heard. On the second throne was a strange, crumpled, black-skinned creature, his skin more like insect chitin than real flesh. He was tied, as were Kell and Saark, with tight golden wire and although they could read no expression in his face, his eyes held a deep and ancient rage… and yet also understanding, and submission, and cooperation. For Jageraw, this was the culmination of his purpose and his existence. This was his destiny, and they needed no bonds.
Kell hawked, and spat on the ground. Distantly, thunder rumbled through the mountains, the Black Pikes displaying unease and raw, limitless power. He scowled at Graal, and looked slowly around, at the soldiers, at Kradek-ka who displayed a facial expression of intense focus, and then to the Soul Stealers and Myriam, their vachine subordinate, who had helped capture them and truss them like goats ready for sacrifice.
'At last. Kell. You have arrived. We have been waiting for you.'
Kell growled something incomprehensible, and spat again. 'I made a grave mistake the last time we met, Graal. I should have carved you out a skull-bucket and pissed in it. However. The error is mine, but one I'll not make again.'
Graal gave a low, level laugh, but his eyes held no humour. He looked up at the torn sky. Then back to Kell. 'Can you not feel the shift in power, Kell? Old man, can you not feel the vibrations in the air, and smell the sickly- sweet blood-stench of a hundred thousand victims? They are coming back, tonight, and all we lacked was the final Soul Gem. My beautiful daughters, here,' he moved around Tashmaniok, his hand sliding around her hips as he walked, and she tilted her head to smile at Kell, a dazzling show of beauty, 'they did well to find it and deliver it to evil.'
'What horseshit is this?' snarled Kell. 'We have no Soul Gem!'
'But you do,' said Graal, voice lover-soft, moving close to Kell, 'and it is buried inside,' he touched his own chest, 'integrated with the heart, and it will be such a shame to cut it free because, sadly, a side effect of removing the Soul Gem is… death.'
He turned and moved back to the Granite Thrones. He reached out, and touched the huge solid artefacts, face serene, for he knew everything was ready, everything aligned, in place, and nothing – not even Kell – could stop them. Nothing on earth could stop the Vampire Warlords.
Graal raised his arms to the sky, and the sky crackled with horizontal sheets of crimson electricity. The Soul Stealers moved to him, stood slightly back, pale faces bathed in a glow of blood-oil magick. The wind shrieked through Helltop like a million banshees. The snowstorm whipped and snapped, and the sky, still full of awesome primal power, an awe-inspiring Summoning, turned red and black as it filled with blood-oil streaks of energy. The snow itself turned red, into frozen blood snowflakes, and crimson flakes fell around Helltop like tears from the slain, which is what they surely were.
'They are coming,' said Graal, and looked to Kradek-ka. 'Are you ready?'
'I am ready,' said Kradek-ka, face impassive.
Kell struggled against the wires which held him, then glanced across at Saark. 'Lad? Can you hear me?'
Saark looked at Kell, weariness and defeat shining in his eyes like emerald tears. He gave a single nod.
'Can you help me get free?'
'I doubt it,' whispered Saark. 'And even if I did, you would slay me.'
'What are you talking about?' hissed Kell, face a contortion of effort and fury. Around them, the bloody snow thickened, and more discharges rent the sky. The wind howled like death, moaned like a widow, screeched like a castrated priest.
'I was bitten. I am changing. I will become like her.' He gestured to Myriam with a nod of his head. His voice was as bleak as a midwinter sacrifice. Then he looked at Kell, full in the eyes, face contorted in fear. 'You are the Vampire Hunter,' he said, voice almost sardonic. 'I will never sleep soundly again.' His eyes dropped to the floor, his dark curls whipped by the savage wind.
'Listen, lad,' growled Kell, trying to control his temper, 'the only one I'm going to kill around here is that annoying fucker Graal. So get your claws out, or your vampire fangs or whatever, and get me free of this fucking wire! You hear?'
'I cannot,' said Saark. He was filled to the brim with melancholy. He had resigned himself to death. He sighed, like a tumbling fall of worlds.
'You will not!' snapped Kell, and watched uneasily from the corner of his eye as Kradek-ka drew a long, curved, matt black blade. 'Help us get free, you dandy bastard! Look. I promise I'll not kill you. There. I've said it. You can't let them do this…'
Saark shook his head, tears running down his cheeks. 'Truly, Kell, it is out of my control.'
Kell stopped his struggling. The gold wire bit his flesh like razors. He was pinned to Ilanna, the greatest of slayers, and the irony was he could not get a hand free to wield the mighty weapon. If only I could get one arm free, he thought. I would welcome the orgy of violence! I would bathe in blood again. Just like the Old Days.
Suddenly, the energy and horizontal sheets of lightning and fire died, along with the wind and the snow. The sky was a terrible, flat black, as if they gazed up into a slab portal of nothing, a huge and endless void. Silence settled like ash. The world became an incredibly still place.
'What's your next trick?' shouted Kell. 'You going to pull a rabbit out of a horse's arse?'
Graal stared at Kell, as if seeing him for the first time. Then he gazed down, down at a small pool of black which nestled at floor level before the Thrones. The Arteries of Skaringa Dak. The life-blood of the mountain itself. Kell blinked, seeing the pool for the first time; it was black, black as ink, black as moonlit blood, black as the Eternity Void.
Graal spoke, and when he spoke it was as if he communed with the mountain, with Skaringa Dak Herself. 'Mighty Vrekken, hear my call, rise up for me, rise up and do my bidding!' and his hands crackled with bloodoil magick and Graal knelt, and plunged his hands down into the pool and his eyes were closed and blood ran from his eyes and ears, staining his pale white skin red, and his body vibrated and twitched as if in violent epileptic spasm, and then Graal kicked backwards, sprawling to the ground at the foot of the three Granite Thrones, but quickly stood, coughing up blood and spitting it to the rock. He grinned over at Kell, teeth stained, then towards the motionless figure of Kradek-ka.
'We need the Soul Gems,' he whispered.
Kradek-ka approached Anukis, and her eyes seemed suddenly normal and sane as she gazed into the face of her father, the father who had nurtured her from womb to womanhood and whom she had trusted with all her heart. 'No,' she said, golden curls trembling, vachine fangs baring as the dagger plunged into her chest, tearing through white cotton and cutting deep through to her heart… Anukis screamed, and started to thrash madly despite her golden bonds, splashing blood upon the Thrones, and Kradek-ka grasped her throat, steadying her, and cut a deep circular hole in her chest, the tip of the knife slicing through skin and breast-bone to prise free the Soul Gem which had lain dormant inside her, a parasite, beating with her heart since birth.
Kradek-ka took the Soul Gem, and turned to Graal, and behind him his daughter writhed on the Granite Throne in the throes of death, blood bubbling up her throat and down her chin like a crimson mask. But Kradek-ka
