Kal Moonheart Trilogy: Dragon Killer, Roll the Bones & Sirensbane (78 page)

Then someone stepped out of the left passage, and turned to face her.

Lula skidded to a halt ten yards before the intersection. The zombie in front of her was the biggest she had seen: in life he must have been a tall man, with the thick muscular body of someone who had spent a lifetime engaged in hard physical labour.

The zombie was Levon Pearl; Lula’s father.

She caught the creature’s eyes. It was staring at her with a vacant, dumb expression, but with a flicker of anxiety—like a sick animal might stare in confusion and worry at an approaching threat. It was the saddest sight that Lula had ever seen, or ever would see.

‘Dad,’ she said. ‘It’s me. Lu.’

He stumbled towards her, arms outstretched. Like all the other zombies, his jerking advance and guttural snarls were at odds with the dead eyes and slack face that saw nothing and thought nothing.

It never occurred to Lula to run. She ducked under his powerful arms and hugged him tight. He returned the gesture with a crushing embrace that squeezed the wind out of her.

A crowd of zombies had shuffled out of the intersection ahead, and another gang of them had caught up with Lula and was coming down the corridor behind her. She only had moments with her father before they would be on top of her.

‘I found you, Dad,’ Lula said, with tears in her eyes. ‘I came home to find and rescue you. Well, I found you, at least—that’s all that matters in the end, isn’t it.’

Lula closed her eyes and held her father tight, as he continued to crush the life out of her.

His mouth opened, moved down to her neck, and closed around her jugular.

V.vi

Kal Moonheart’s Big Score

Kal ran a finger along the gleaming metal edge of a control panel, leaving a smear of sweat, dirt and blood. She idly browsed the confusing array of dials, levers and buttons, and the small brass plaques which labelled them: COMPRESS, PURGE, FILTER …

Sirensbane returned from a workstation where he had been speaking into the end of a tube. ‘I was giving my workers their latest instructions,’ he explained.

‘Keeping them busy?’ Kal said.

‘Actually, I was advising them to take their fifteen minute rest,’ he said. ‘My workers are treated a lot better then most people in this world. They are not slaves: most of these people are indentured servants. They owe me money; many of them thanks to expensive drug or gambling habits, and some of them because of taxes owed to Port Black. When they have worked off their debt I will release them.’

After how many years, though?
Kal thought. But she said nothing. She didn’t want to antagonise her new business partner.

‘So …’ she said, gesturing to the laboratory equipment. ‘Show me how all this stuff works.’

Sirensbane’s eyes lit up. Kal could tell he was proud of his work. ‘It would be a pleasure,’ he said, touching her on the shoulder to direct her over to a large mixing vat.

‘This is where we mix napazane with what I call
the spark
: the magic ingredient! Of course, it’s not really magic, but a complex chemical formula, the ingredients of which are laughably mundane: vinegar and the acid from rotting fruit.’

‘So how did you discover this magic formula, then?’ Kal asked as she moved from station to station.

‘I told you,’ Sirensbane said. ‘I’m like you. I travelled around the world in my youth. On the Isle of Alchemy, off the coast of Indux, the adepts there have made countless scientific discoveries. But they are insulated and near-sighted. It takes a visionary mind to realise the potential of their knowledge, a mind unfettered by law or morality. A criminal genius, if you like, but I accept that title without shame. In fact, I am proud of it.’

Kal shook her head softly and smiled to herself. Sirensbane seemed to take the gesture as approval, and his enthusiasm for his grand tour increased. He took Kal’s hand and dragged her along.

‘This pipe is the purge pipe, for passing poisonous fumes out into the ocean, or for dumping a spoiled batch. This other pipe carries the solution to the reduction chamber here, where we use alcohol and mercury to turn the mix into Sirensbane. Then the final product is filtered and distilled in these tanks here. Thanks to the efficiency of my lab, and the exactness and cleanliness of my methods, the drug I produce is over ninety-nine percent chemically pure. A rival manufacturer couldn’t hope to compete with me.’

Kal stood in front of a inverted cone, where a
drip, drip, drip
of sticky, shiny black goo fell down and filled a large rectangular tray, where it cooled and hardened. She looked around the rest of the dome: the same arrangement of mixing vats, filtration systems and collection trays were repeated hundreds of times over.

‘How do you power all this equipment?’ Kal asked as she moved along the rows. ‘Some kind of underwater geyser?’

Sirensbane had returned to the stone table at the edge of the dome, and was leaning back against it as he proudly watched Kal explore his lab. ‘Yes, that’s exactly right. You’re very observant, Kal. This whole complex is sitting on a hydrothermal vent that produces heat of over five-hundred degrees Celsius. As well as providing warmth and hydraulic power, the chemicals and minerals that bubble up from deep underground can be extracted. The hot liquids are rich in zinc and cobalt …’

Kal tuned him out as he droned on. She didn’t really care
how
it all worked. She was just interested in the scale of this operation. When Sirensbane had come to the end of his story, she pressed him further: ‘Just how much of this stuff can you actually produce here?’

‘More than enough!’ Sirensbane gloated. ‘More than I can sell right now, that’s for sure. That’s why I need your help, Kal, to help me break into emergent markets. I can manage the traffic between here and Amaranthium myself, but I’ll need a capable partner to oversee the next stage in my expansion plans: the road between Amaranthium and Zorronov.’

Kal didn’t reply. She was busy examining one of the control panels more closely. Sirensbane must have taken her silence for hesitation, though, so he presented her with another offer:

‘
Or
you can take on one my new operations, one that is entirely legal, if that’s how you prefer to operate. This drink that is so popular now in Port Black—
Vitalize
, they call it. Created by my idiot son. They mix it with red wine and call it
Gasparvino
, after that filthy Eldragoran pirate. It has an agreeable taste, I admit, although I think I will add more sugar to the mix. It won’t be as addictive as Sirensbane, but should prove popular with the poorer masses who cannot afford harder drugs.’

‘No,’ Kal said. ‘I’ll peddle your Sirensbane. It will be satisfying sneaking it right under the nose of Ben Godsword.’

Sirensbane let out a sly chuckle. ‘Good. Good! Kal, you are everything I had ever hoped for in an accomplice. In fact I might even go as far as saying that you are the daughter I wish I had.’

Kal let that comment pass. She stepped out from behind a row of machinery. ‘But you’ll need to produce more. This isn’t enough.’

Sirensbane paused midway through taking a sip of Vitalize. He lowered his glass and looked at Kal. ‘More?’ he said, momentarily taken aback. ‘What do you mean,
more
? We produce more than enough already.’

‘I can score you a new client,’ Kal said, holding Sirensbane’s gaze. ‘His appetite is limitless, and he will happily take all the Sirensbane you can produce.’

Sirensbane was interested, Kal could tell. She could see the flicker of greed in his eyes. She broke eye contact and looked around: behind Sirensbane, outside of the dome, bubbles were rising in long vertical streams from all around the dome’s perimeter. In the darkness of the ocean beyond, a faint light flickered …

‘Who is this person?’ Sirensbane asked. ‘Tell me, Kal. I can promise you a handsome finding fee, and also a percentage cut of the profits. Is it a wealthy politician you know? Give me his name.’

‘Why don’t you ask him yourself,’ Kal said. ‘He’s right behind you.’

Sirensbane followed Kal’s gaze and turned around, looking out to sea. His face was lit by the green glow that was getting brighter and brighter.

As she had explored the lab and listened to Sirensbane’s talk, Kal had surreptitiously reversed the flow of all the filtration and reduction tanks. Then she had pulled the lever marked PURGE on as many of the mixing vats as she could, flushing the liquid Sirensbane mix out into the ocean …

The sea dragon was now hurtling towards the dome at a rate of knots. At the last minute it turned its head, and smacked its massive neck and upper body against the dome itself. The steel frame shuddered, and cracks appeared in the hexagonal glass panels.

Sirensbane screamed in horror, fury and panic, but the structure held. The dragon curled its incredible length around the dome, and angled its head to catch the streams of bubbles in its nostril. Its enormous hungry eye peered in through the glass, as if it were looking for the source of its next hit.

Sirensbane turned back to Kal, this time with rage and anger in his eyes. He picked up his knife from the table.

Then the dragon squeezed its coiled body. The metal superstructure screeched, and several of the glass panels exploded.

And water started pouring in.

V.vii

Burial at Sea

Lula’s father’s mouth opened, moved down to her neck, and closed around her jugular  …

And then he kissed her softly. ‘Lula,’ he whispered. ‘I never thought I’d ever see you again.’

‘Dad!’ Lula breathed. ‘What the— How the— You can talk? You’re not a zombie?’

‘No,’ he said. Then he seemed to suddenly become aware of the rush of
real
zombies that were closing in from both directions. He stood up and held both palms out to stop them. ‘Workers, halt!’ he said, in a quiet but authoritative voice.

The zombies stopped dead. They just stood there, heads lolling and mouths drooling.

‘Return to your previous tasks,’ Levon Pearl ordered. As one, the zombies turned and shuffled off. Within a minute, the passageway was deserted.

Lula struggled to get her head around what had just happened. ‘How—’ she began.

Her father gave her an easy smile. ‘It’s an override command,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard the Magician use it when he wants to issue new orders to particular workers.’

Lula ran her hands over her father’s body, as if she couldn’t believe that he was real. She brushed away the dirt and ash from his skin, revealing a rich healthy black colour beneath.

‘But how—’ she said again. ‘You’re not a zombie! You’ve been here, what … pretending?’

He nodded. ‘I was captured, like the rest of the village: we were all rounded up by the Magician’s mercenaries. Anyone who was addicted to Sirensbane went along willingly; anyone who was clean—and that wasn’t very many people—was put to the sword. I was clean. I had no choice, Lu … I rubbed myself down with ash from the fire pit, spilled drink and food on my clothes like all the other filthy addicts, and fell in with the rest of them. We were taken by boat out to sea, and then bundled into one of those strange underwater tin can tubs and brought here.’

He looked his daughter in the eye, as if he too couldn’t believe what he was seeing. ‘I’ve been waiting for months for help to arrive, but I never thought in a million years that it would be you!

‘I came to the village,’ Lula said. ‘I saw the graves, of Marla and my three half-brothers. What happened to them? I feared they had become zombies or been killed by zombies.’

‘No,’ her father said sadly. ‘My sons never got hooked on that horrible drug. It was my wife and me who fell prey to its lure. Marla overdosed and died. My sons were killed fighting the Magician’s troops in the jungle. That drug destroyed my family, Lula. Well, almost all my family …’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I wish I had come back sooner.’

‘You’re here now,’ he said. ‘I have only myself to blame for what happened. I fell into a horrible spiral of grief and depression … but in the end it saved my life. I broke the hold that the drug had over me, and I discovered that once you break it, you are always free of it. The Magician drugs our food here, to keep his workers in a submissive state, but the drugs have no effect on me now.’

He put his hand on Lula’s shoulder. ‘I was hoping that if rescuers ever came, then I could somehow use what I’ve discovered to help out.’

‘You already did, Dad,’ Lula said. ‘I’m here with a friend to kill Sirensbane and rescue the Islanders. I managed to get some of them onto one of the large underwater nautilus vessels, those tubs as you call them. Do you know if there are any more docked here?’

‘Yes,’ her father said. ‘There are two docks for the transport tubs. Come on, I’ll show you!’

He took her hand, and led her down one of the turnoffs at the nearby intersection. But as they ran, there was a sudden booming crash from somewhere above, and even the rocky passage they were in seemed to shudder.

‘What was that?’ Levon said.

‘Kal, probably,’ Lula said. ‘I hope that she knows what she’s doing.

‘Does she need our help?’

Lula paused as she remembered Kal’s words.
Don’t come for me.
‘No,’ she said. ‘She said it would be too dangerous. We just need to get to that sub, get as many people on board as we can, then wait for Kal to come and find us … if she can.’

As they stood there, listening to further groaning and smashing noises, Lula felt her boots take in water. She looked down; the passageway was filled with an inch of cold seawater that was coming up through overflow grills in the floor. What had Kal done?!

Lula’s father must have seen the anguish on her face. ‘Is this Kal a good friend?’

‘The best,’ Lula said. ‘I love her.’

‘Then go!’ her father said. ‘Go to her. I can get our people onto the tub.’

Lula didn’t need telling twice. She kissed her father goodbye, and splashed back down the tunnel, crossing the intersection and heading towards the large centre dome.