Chapter 8

Beeping. Other duties requiring my attention.
Logical discrepancy discovered in memory banks.
Time lost.
Must discover origin.

There was a dripping noise, which sounded far away. She focused her mind on it to block out the otherwise all-encompassing blaring which currently bounced around her skull. A string of invectives swarmed up in four different languages, but her mouth was too numb to vocalize them. She took several swallows and attempted to move her arms and legs, while rolling onto her knees. A few wiggles and Denisovich had determined the nature of her predicament. She had been relieved of her weapons and the various belts she wore, all of her personal belongings, save the clothes she wore. Her hands were chained behind her back, linked to a plate drilled into the ground. While her legs were not chained together, a cuff was locked around one, which also connected it to a plate in the ground. She tugged and pulled but the links didn't even begin to give.
“Don't bother,” a voice, hoarse and low, advised her. She squinted, adjusting her eyes to the darkness. The man she'd seen in the light vest was leaning on a barrel a few feet away from her, stroking his goatee. His cheeks were gaunt, but he appeared to be in good health.
“What were you doing out there?” he asked, though his voice belied a lack of interest in the answer.
“Where am I?” she demanded to know, eyes flashing. He responded by standing and backhanding her across the face. She felt blood well in the side of her mouth and her ears added a ringing to the pain in her head, but she didn't respond other than to spit blood out. The man proceeded to grab a mess of her hair and yank her head to one side, pulling at her left ear. This time she grunted at the pain and struggled away.
“Knock it off, or I'll tear the ear right off,” he threatened, pulling a light from his pocket without releasing his grip on her hair. She heard him suck in a breath before he released her, taking several quick steps back.
“Well, Kalten?” a new voice joined, one that seemed so familiar. She turned, trying to see him.
“Marek? Why are you here?”
The one called Kalten glanced to the side, his brow furrowed in suspicion. Denisovich followed his gaze, noticing a cluster of individuals, all armed, staring at her. He stood taller than most of them, his long hair curling around his neck and shoulders, dressed in the same dark commando clothing the others wore.
“You know this...thing?” Kalten asked, jerking his head towards her. Denisovich walked him walk towards her, noted how different his movement was. His accent was gone as well, but she knew he prided himself on his imitative capabilities. He knelt in front of her, his face only a few inches away from hers. She swallowed her surprise at everything she saw. Gone were the points at ears, and the slitted pupils that were common among all Atreans (and Thyestrians as far as she knew). She looked down at his chest, even more alarmed by his clearly rapidly beating heart. She looked up again, confusion written plainly across her face.
“You...you're human,” she whispered. Ignoring her, the man straightened and addressed Kalten.
“Never seen her before. She doesn't look like any of my kills so I couldn't tell you what clan she's from.”
Kalten seemed to accept this, though not without some concerns. He looked back at her, pondering his next move.
“What's your name, 'pire?” he asked, his gaze intent. She straightened her back, and he was both impressed and disconcerted that despite the fact he was standing and she was kneeling, she appeared to be looking down at him.
“I am Lacrymosa Cerastes Durkovai Petruvskaiia Denisovich, oldest living child of Grigori Orlovii and Erzebet Ekaterina, of the House of Atreus.”
At the first glimpse of his (she thought, “rodential”) smile, Denisovich knew she'd made a mistake. She'd forgotten that, much like in Tavian's floating city, knowledge could be power in the Wasteland, as well as strength or LiqNit cylinders, and in her pride, she gave too much of her own away. Having apparently gotten all he wanted, Kalten spun to leave, commanding the other man to “watch it, we'll need it soon.” As he disappeared into the dark, her superior hearing picked up another command, this one directed to one of the other, scruffier looking humans. Two words: “Watch him.”
Her mind attempted to develop escape strategies but the pain was making it difficult to get past, “Kill everyone.”
“What did you shoot me up with?” she asked, shaking her head in an attempt to clear it.
“Shut up.”
Sighing, she rolled her eyes. The man with the black hair sat down on the barrel Kalten had vacated and stared hot daggers at her. An hour went by in tense silence. Finally, the man spoke up.
“Just who is it you think I am?”
Denisovich looked sideways at the others she knew lurked nearby.
“Nobody,” she answered without looking at him, “It was my mistake. You look like someone else I know.”
“A vampire?” he scoffed.
“Like I said,” she repeated slowly, “It was my mistake.”
She looked around again. Wherever she was being held, it was definitely underground. The walls were rock, and the air was damp and unpleasant. Vibrations in the ground told her there were many others somewhere else, somewhere connected to whatever cave she was in. She tried to remember how she'd been brought down here, but the memory was fuzzy and surreal, making time and distance impossible to work out.
“So you're a Pure, eh?” a young woman came in, carrying a flashlight, which she seemed to take great pleasure in shining directly in Denisovich's sensitive eyes. “We've killed the other kind, plenty, they ain't nothing. Never seen a pure, though. Can't say you look like much special,” she observed.
“Well, consider the feeling mutual,” Denisovich countered. At first, she thought she'd be struck again, but the man caught the young woman's arm, holding her back.
“Let go of me, Mercer! I'm gunna knock this bitch clean out!”
Denisovich raised an eyebrow.
“Mercer? Figures.”
He glared at her in annoyance and then looked at the other girl, shaking his head.
“You weren't out there, Zia. Kalten said no one was to go near her for a reason. They don't have to look like a mountain to hit like one.” Zia jerked her arm away, spinning on her heel and stalking out.
Kalten returned, followed by two kids who couldn't have been older than fifteen, both stumbling while they carried her sword, still crusted with blood from the morning's encounter. They leaned it against a wall and scurried out, too afraid to look at her.
“I gotta say, vampire...that,” he motioned to her sword, “Is the absolutely worst zombie-killing weapon I have ever seen. The barbs make it catch on everything, it's heavy and unwieldy and seems to serve no other purpose than to declare its own existence.”
She smiled, baring her fangs at him.
“I think it's pretty.”
Kalten stared at her, skeptically. Denisovich just smiled again.
“Just who are you people?”
Kalten crossed his arms, looking down at her.
“We are all that's left of humanity,” he stated flatly. Denisovich blinked, looking slowly from him to the others, none of which raised a word of protest.
“Guess you guys don't get topside much.”
Kalten snorted derisively.
“Oh, we know about them. Traitors and weaklings. Willing to compromise with creatures like you, just to save their sorry skins. They're only a half step better than the vermin that crawl around down here.”
“But,” Denisovich protested, “Everyone knows Squees are just humans who have been modified by the radiation and-”
“They're not human!” Kalten roared, his voice echoing down the cavern. “We are human. Those things are a perversion, a leftover from what your kind wrought. Don't you dare categorize us with them.”
His face was red and a blood vessel pumped in his forehead as he spit his dogma. Having lost steam from his tirade, Kalten took a deep breath.
“Through careful planning, the Sons of Adam will preserve the true, pure human spirit and rid the world of all taint,” he concluded, a mad gleam in his eyes. Denisovich didn't dare argue in her disadvantaged state. He refocused on her.
“And you, Atrean, are going to help us.”