Burke turned and looked at him. “We need to determine how we’re going to save your friends: Eric Cross, and my old associate Danica Black.”
They were still in the Grey Clan complex. Kane was thoroughly disappointed, but not at all surprised.
They walked through g reen steel halls and over metal catwalks. Burke led them past vats of industrial grease that stood beneath curved domes made of iron and pitted bronze. G outs of steam filled the air, and the grind of massive pistons and gears drowned out all other sound. The refinery never seemed to stop. S caly humanoid workers moved with grim determination, never paus ing to rest or socialize.
Kane and Jade followed Burke through a complicated network of mesh walkways. The metal ceiling pulsated with orange and green lights as strange fluids washed back and forth through highways of translucent tubing. The air smelled like burning iron.
“What do they do here?” Kane asked. He felt fluid in his lungs. They were walking in the strange green goop again, and he hadn’t even realized it. “Wait… Burke, what the hell are you doing here?”
Burke pointed to a door that led into a small cub e — shaped building made of grey concrete. A number of electrical cables and dangerous-looking antenna on top of the building flashed with pale electricity.
They walked through the door, and i t closed behind them. T he sound of machinery receded to a background haze, and the gooey murk they’d been breathing melted away to clean air.
I will never get used to that shit.
The room was large, sparse and riddled with cracks. Drifts of dust and piles of tools filled the corners, and a long pair of benches sat at opposing angles near the center of the room.
Ronan, Sol, Maur, a pair of Grey Clan wearing gas masks and two Revengers waited in the room. Most everyone sat facing a gigantic and primitive — looking monitor attached to metal beams running up to the ceiling. L oose wires and cables ran from the bottom of the screen to a small but noisy generator that leaked smoke.
The screen displayed a series of black and white maps, sepia quality images that flipped, shifted and realigned. The screen was controlled by a large control stick attached to the monitor via another cable. O ne of t he Revengers held the controls, the same tall woman with short brown hair who’d earlier drawn the vampiric para sites from Kane’s body. Her partner was an imposing black man with tattoos on his face and thick musc les. B oth of them wore the tell-tale dark leather armor of Black Scar.
The two reptilians were unquestionably the same ones Kane had met before: the brutish giant and the slimmer, human-like creature who’d nearly killed Jade with its magic. Despite the fact that Kane had injured the big one’s knee — it wore a splint around its leg — and that the other one had threatened to wipe out Jade’s mind, everyone seemed at ease. They s tud ied the schematics on the screen while the woman used the control box to search for something.
“What the hell?” Kane said. “Did everyone go nuts?”
“ Hi, Mike,” Ronan said. “Sleep well?”
“Maur is glad you’re okay,” Maur said.
“Yeah, thrilled to be here, been a long time…what the crap is going on?!” He looked at the female Revenger. “You’re name is Turner, right?”
“Charmed,” she said.
“And you’re Marcus,” he said to the other.
“Man, shut up,” Marcus replied.
Kane looked at Ronan, who just laughed and shrugged.
“ I knew these two from when I was at Black Scar. Which means I’m in hell.”
“Not yet,” Ronan said.
“Kane,” Jade said. “Please. Sit down. ”
Burke walked in front of the screens with his hands clasped behind his back. Kane had forgotten how tall the man wa s. Burke looked more imposing than ever with his scar, and he moved with a certain authority Kane didn’t re membered him having in Black Scar. The Revenger had never gi ve n off the impression that he enjoyed his job, but Kane remembered how good at it he was.
And I’ll never forget that, you bastard.
“Roughly one week ago,” Burke said without preamble, as if everyone in th e room was perfectly used to him addressing them like they were his soldiers, “ an Ebon Cities spy attempted to murder me and supplant a shape- shifter in my place at Black Scar. Half of that plan succeeded.”
“Whoa,” Kane said. “Huh?”
“Just listen,” Ronan said. Kane sat down next to him.
“Why are you so ok with all of this?” Kane asked him.
“Look, I don’t trust the guy,” Ronan said. “But he knows where Danica and Cross are.”
“Danica is back in Blacksand,” Kane said.
“No, she’s not,” Burke said. “The Revengers took her so they could get their hands on your friend Eric. They want something he has.”
“And what might that be?” Ronan asked.
“We don’t know,” the woman named Turner said. “At first we thought it was so they could gain possession of the arcane blade he ’d recovered, but…”
“Wait, hold on,” Kane said, and he stood back up. “How do you even know about that?”
“ Come now, Michael,” Burke said. “We know a lot more than you think. In any case, that isn’t what they want.”
“Then what is?” Maur asked as he stood up. His face-wrappings were off, so his scowl was unhidden. “ Maur has many questions. W hat is the connection between Black and Cross’s abduction and the vision that Maur and his allies had in the desert? Why have the Grey Clan allied with you?”
“And, best of all, why should we believe you, you son of a bitch?” Kane said to Burke.
Burke kept his eyes on Kane. Both of his Revengers looked at him uneasily, as did the Grey Clan. Burke smiled.
“Show them,” he told Turner.
Turner frowned as she manipulated the control stick. T he air stiffen ed, and her eyes turned ice blue. Power dripped from her hand.
The monitor shimmered and pulsed. It became a mirror, a molten glass sheet that throbbed with the tune of a dying heartbeat. Vaporous images like smoke shadows drifted into the air and arranged themselves into three- dimensional holograms. The images folded over one another, twisted and came together in a haze of white shadows. S ilhouettes fused into living beings. It wasn’t like watching them on a screen but like standing next to them, walking among them.
He’s in Black Scar.
He sees the vaulted passages and chain walkways and b lood-stained halls. He hears the roar of dread furnaces. Blasts of flame drown out the cries of prisoners.
The entrances to the mines stand in the distance, past the squat cell blocks and the walking iron towers lined with motorguns and grinding saws. Prisoners walk with their heads low. T heir backs strain beneath the burden of rocks and stones hauled from the red diamond mines.
Drifts of black dust fall in waves. Steam blast s into the subterranean sky and turns the walls ghastly and stark. Phosphorescent crystals glow like ghosts.
Burke is there, the false Burke. He has no scar, and he stands tall and proud. T hree Revengers accompany him as he surveys the scene.
T he false Burke looks at his cohorts. N o words are exchanged, and yet they communicate.
The four vampires stand on a platform over the pri son city. They watch the mines and the prisoners, but their thoughts are elsewhere. They think about Cross, and Danica.
The past unfolds in a flash of images and sound. Visceral emotions explode like wounds. The vampire Burke, whose real name is Krage, reflects for a moment, and the previous weeks unfurl. They expand and fill the skin of moments.
Burke, the real Burke, is telling the truth.
Krage ’s mind reveals months of planning. He sees bone vehicles and flesh juggernauts poised to make a strike, a massive force assembled in the wasteland s. They ’ re not there to attack the Southern Claw, or any human city, but something else, a remote and forgotten outpost that’ s important to their plans.
