Ghosts of Empire Read online

  He looked up, suddenly aware of the sound of a biplane engine directly overhead. Its tail had been snagged by another curling vine, and Albion was forcing it into a steep dive. It was heading right for him, its propeller churning the air, its pilot frantically hammering the controls as it plummeted.

  Horwood ran, throwing himself around the corner of the building and charging down the street, back toward the main crux of the battle. Behind him, the engine roar grew louder, more insistent, until the sound became a whining scream, and he thought his eardrums were going to burst with the pressure. It was coming down right on top of him. There was no way he’d be quick enough to get out of the way.

  This was it. He knew then that he was going to die. He’d be dashed across the road as it struck the ground, or lacerated by the propeller as he tried to dive out of the way.

  And then he was falling forward, arms flung out before him, as the biplane struck the road behind him, detonating in a sudden fireball, its propellers cutting grooves in the pavement as its burning undercarriage slid wildly across the tarmac and rebounded from another nearby building, causing the brickwork to crack and the roof to slump, slate tiles cascading to the ground in a crashing shower.

  Horwood struck the pavement hard, his breath leaving his body. He flopped onto his back, and then rolled, wide-eyed, as a fragment of contorted wing flew overhead, so close that he could read the Russian markings on the paintwork. It clanged to the ground a few feet away, smoldering.

  Horwood came to rest in the gutter, and remained there for a moment, trying to catch his breath. He was so close to the burning wreckage he could feel the warmth of the flames against his cheek.

  He heard a voice, and looked up to see two Koscheis standing over him. The one on the left was a woman, her lips parted in a fierce sneer, her eyes only just visible beneath the hood of her robe. On the right, her male companion was levelling a weapon. It looked familiar—one of the flame guns, just like the one Regina had used in the Underground.

  Horwood swallowed. What were the chances? He’d managed to escape a crashing biplane, only to find himself confronted by a man standing ready to conflagrate him in stream of elemental flames.

  And then suddenly the two Koscheis were stumbling back, waving their arms before them in an attempt to ward off a flock of crows, which had descended from above in a flurry of stabbing beaks and disorientating wings.

  Horwood scrabbled back on his elbows as the men screamed, trying desperately to bat the birds away. But the crows were relentless, and within seconds both Koscheis had collapsed to the ground, their faces and hands reduced to a bloody mess, their eyes pecked out to reveal empty, staring sockets, dribbling with blood. The crows cawed in triumph, fluttering off in search of their next victims.

  Horwood picked himself up. To his left, the Albion entity was striding through the massed ranks of Koscheis, sword sweeping low, cleaving heads from shoulders with every swing. Around it, vines continued to erupt from the cracked paving slabs, knitting together to form a protective wall, a shield intended to pin the Koscheis in place, to shepherd them toward their doom.

  He saw the avatar look up, and followed its gaze. Another biplane was droning overhead, sweeping low in a wide arc, preparing to make a run at the avatar with its machine guns.

  The avatar waited, allowing the biplane to enter into its dive, before throwing out its arm, which extended into a whipping tendril, encircling the biplane even as the pilot tried to weave around it. With a flick of its arm, the avatar sent the biplane skywards, hurling it into a spinning trajectory for the nearest airship.

  Horwood saw the pilot bail, flinging himself out of the cockpit just as the biplane collided with the silvery lozenge of the airship, twisting through the taut outer skin like a corkscrew and tearing a massive rent in the gasbags as it crashed through the interior. The entire vessel buckled, before erupting into a massive ball of flame, temporarily lighting the street below, columns of black smoke curling away into the evening sky. The airship shuddered, and then began its ponderous descent toward the rooftops of the city far below.

  The avatar had already returned its attention to the Koscheis in the road, cleaving and lopping with its massive blade. The Russians were backing away toward the cathedral, concentrating their attacks on the avatar’s chest. The wood smoldered and burned where the elemental flames splashed across the avatar’s torso, and it writhed in pain, lashing out with even more ferocity, vines whipping from the ground to snare the unwary.

  Horwood backed away along the road, looking for somewhere to take cover. To his right, the shimmering figure of Ginny floated, dreamlike, above the street, her arms held out by her sides, her hair stirred by a strange, unnatural breeze. She was cloaked in tattered ribbons, which fluttered as she moved, translucent and eerie. Before her, her ghostly lions bounded along the road, bursting through the bodies of Koscheis, silently consuming their souls.

  Horwood ducked into the doorway of a baker’s shop, catching his breath. His elbows were smarting, and he was certain some shrapnel from the crashed biplane had buried itself in his back. He could feel blood trickling down the crease of his spine. He had to get out of there. Had to—

  He turned at the sound of the avatar screeching. It was a deep, inhuman sound, guttural and frantic; the sound of rending wood, amplified and distorted. A Koschei had managed to get behind the thicket wall, and had turned his flame gun upon the avatar’s back. As Horwood looked on, he saw the blue light searing a fist-sized hole in its shoulder. He felt something twist in his gut. The avatar twisted, trying to turn around, but the Koschei was now adjusting the beam of the weapon, burning a deep groove into the avatar’s back. It screeched again, staggering, the other Koscheis still bombarding it from the front. Horwood glanced around, searching for anyone who could help. There was no one—the soldiers he could see were all locked in battle with Koscheis, and Ginny had drifted out of sight. He gritted his teeth. There was nothing else for it.

  Almost before he knew what he was doing, Horwood was running, feet pounding the concrete as he charged at the Koschei with the flame gun. His back was agony, now, but it barely mattered—he knew he had no chance of surviving this. There was no other choice, though—the avatar was the only thing that could save them, and he was the only one able to do anything to help. He couldn’t allow the Koscheis to bring Albion down.

  So intent was the Koschei on his target that he didn’t see Horwood coming until it was too late. The man twisted, snarling, trying to bring his gun to bear, but Horwood was too close, barreling into him, lifting him from his feet and sending him crashing to the ground. Horwood sprawled too, going over inelegantly, slamming to the ground atop the writhing Koschei, barely able to believe that he was still alive. The flame gun skittered across the road, out of reach of them both.

  The Koschei grabbed for Horwood’s wrists, trying to heave him off. But Horwood, fired by a sudden surge of adrenaline, was having none of it. He bunched his hands into fists, squeezing until they hurt, and then unleashed a barrage upon the Koschei, pounding the man’s face once, twice, three times, striking him over and over, until his nose was spread across his pale face in a bloody streak, and his jaw was hanging loose and broken. Some of his teeth had been knocked free, and bright blood was streaming from the corner of his sagging mouth. He’d stopped moving.

  Horwood breathed, ragged breath whistling through his teeth. His fists were covered in blood, his palms stinging where he’d buried his own fingernails into the flesh. Sweat stung his eyes.

  Slowly, he got to his feet. He glanced at the flame gun, just a few feet away. To his right, the avatar had resumed its battle with the Koscheis, and the wound in its back was already beginning to close, vines knitting together around the hole.

  Horwood staggered toward the gun. If he could just figure out how to activate it… His fingers brushed the metal grip, just as something hard slammed into him from behind. He didn’t have time to see what it was before he went over, shoved forward with incred
ible force, striking his head against the pavement.

  Everything went black.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The ebony door yawned open.

  The chamber beyond felt cavernous, although it was difficult to discern, even with the benefit of his night-vision goggles; the edges of the space here were dark and impenetrable, cast in unnatural shadow. It was frigid, too—colder, even, than the previous chamber. He felt his boots crunch ice crystals as he walked across the threshold.

  To either side of him walked Rutherford and Donovan, both battered and bruised, but both determined to see it through. The traitor had been dealt with—now all that remained was to cut the Koscheis’ network of portals off at the source.

  “Straight ahead,” said the Ghost. “I can see something that looks like a sarcophagus.”

  He led the others across the open space, their footsteps ringing out in the darkness. He could just make out a large stone structure in the center of the chamber—what appeared to resemble a large stone coffin, sitting upon a low plinth. Cables trailed from inside of its open lid, emitting the occasional flicker of low yellow light.

  “Who goes there?”

  The voice was eerie and disembodied, as if the speaker was standing right beside him, whispering in his ear. He could almost feel the ghost of their breath on his cheek, and despite himself, he felt his skin prickle with anxiety.

  “Answer me.”

  He could hear that the words were being spoken in Russian, but somehow, a second, spectral voice was speaking simultaneously, translating the words into whispered, broken English. The sound of it made his brain itch, as if something were ferreting around inside his head.

  “Show yourself,” he said.

  For a moment, there was nothing but silence. He wondered if his demand had angered the owner of the voice. Then, slowly, the corners of the chamber began to glow, igniting with the same corrupting blue flame as the torches in the previous chamber, only bigger, like burning pyres, columns of terrible flame.

  Slowly, the full extent of the chamber resolved.

  It was huge, at least fifty feet wide and a hundred feet long, carved from the natural bedrock, its walls and ceiling roughly hewn and encrusted with a thick layer of blue-white ice.

  They were standing on a man-made platform or dais, and around the edges stood a series of upright booths. They took the form and shape of coffins, but were glass-fronted, and rimed with frost. Fat cables trailed from each of them, trailing across the ground, before snaking up the side of the stone sarcophagus, disappearing within. Soft light pulsed along each of the cables.

  There were around twenty of the glass-fronted booths, ten on each side of the dais, and Donovan crossed to one, wiping at the hoary glass with his sleeve. He recoiled at the sight that greeted him—the withered form of a man, ancient and near-death. The end of the cable was buried in his chest, as though whatever was inside the sarcophagus was slowing drawing the light from inside of him, absorbing it into itself.

  “They’re all full of people,” said Donovan, checking another of the booths. “It’s grotesque.”

  “It is necessary,” said the voice in the Ghost’s ear. “It is the only way.”

  He watched as the thing in the sarcophagus stirred, slowly rising until it was sitting up. It had its back to them, and it twisted, turning to regard them.

  It was like nothing the Ghost had ever seen—a living corpse, half rotten, its flesh peeling in tattered strips, jagged bones jutting from the end of its fingers where the skin had eroded. Its face was sallow and waxy, skin stretched thin across its skull, and its eyes were yellow and bulbous, protruding from their sockets as it glowered menacingly at him. It still wore a straggly gray beard, but its hair was almost entirely gone, with just a few wisps left upon its papery scalp.

  What flesh remained on its back was covered in faint black markings—ancient pictograms and sigils; the language of the elements. Its elbows had been supported by mechanical servos that made a dry, grinding sound as it lifted itself up to its full extent, turning to provide them with a full and proper view. Servos also supported its hips and knees, and its chest was a mess of broken ribs and cables. Here, the opposite ends of all twenty cables were embedded, feeding this living corpse with whatever energy it was siphoning from the people in the booths.

  “I am Rasputin,” said the creature. “Master of this place. Chief Magus of the Tsarina. Saviour of all Russia.”

  “You are long overdue a proper burial,” said the Ghost. He raised his hand and loosed a flurry of flechettes. They struck home, but pinged uselessly off the creature’s hide, the black symbols on its necrotic flesh taking on a gentle glow.

  The creature laughed. “Russia is eternal,” it said. “So is Rasputin.”

  It walked forward, moving with surprising speed and grace, leaping down from the sarcophagus. It landed neatly on the dais and walked toward them, trailing cables across the ground.

  “Sod this,” said Rutherford. He snapped out a series of shots as he walked toward the thing, emptying the chamber of his gun at its head and chest. Once again, the bullets struck it, and fell harmlessly to the floor, the sigils on its flesh glowing brighter with every shot.

  It flexed the dry, creaking ligaments in its neck, and then struck Rutherford in the chest with the flat of its palm. Light erupted, and he was tossed from his feet, tumbling back, wheeling his arms, until he collided with one of the glass-fronted booths. He slid to the ground, groaning.

  “Death is everything,” growled Rasputin. “Life is a mirage. Death is the only constant.”

  The creature swung, waving its arm and causing Donovan’s gun to be whipped from his fingers, clattering away across the other side of the cavern. It closed its fist, and Donovan clutched at his chest, doubling over, collapsing to his knees.

  The Ghost surged forward, closing the gap between them, swinging at the creature with all his might. It twisted, seeing him coming, and raised its hand, catching his fist as he came in to land the blow.

  With a strength that belied its form, the creature squeezed his hand, twisting his arm so that he fell to his knees, wincing, as he tried to prevent his shoulder from popping out of its socket.

  “This is only right. All shall kneel before Rasputin, for I have mastered death itself.”

  Panicking, the Ghost fought against the white stars of pain that were burning across his vision, trying to remain conscious as the creature pulled his arm ever further back, wrenching it until it dislocated with a loud pop.

  Master of death… How could he kill a thing that was already dead? Where did he even start? What was it that Newbury had said to him? Only the opposing force could beat the Koscheis. Only light could beat darkness, only water could beat fire. And only life could beat death.

  He understood it now. Understood everything. That was what Albion represented: rebirth, and new life. The avatar lived only so long as it was needed, before returning to the soil. Then, when it was called upon again, it would sprout anew, regenerating, taking on a new form. This thing before him, though, this walking corpse—it represented everything that Albion did not. It clung desperately to its tattered existence, even while its body decayed. It drew upon the life force of others simply to eke out another day, another year. It claimed to have mastered death, but all it had done was perpetuate it—inflicting death upon all those around it. That was why Horwood had insisted only Albion could help them beat the Koscheis. That was why Albion was the only thing that could destroy this monster—life versus death.

  With a roar of effort, the Ghost reached inside his trench coat, dragging the thorn he’d taken from Albion from his belt. This was Albion’s gift to him. It had known what he would face, and it had armed him for the battle to come.

  He raised his head, screaming at the pain in his dislocated shoulder. “I shall not kneel before you!”

  He pulled his left arm back, and plunged the thorn into Rasputin’s chest.

  Immediately, the creature released its grip on
his arm, staggering back. Both hands were at its chest, trying to pluck the thorn from the wound, but it was as if its hands could not grasp the weapon. It glared at him, yellowed eyes filled with shock.

  “But I… am… Rasputin,” it stammered.

  The sigils on its flesh had begun to glow. The Ghost staggered to his feet, right arm hanging useless by his side. He rushed over to Donovan.

  “Felix? Felix?” He grabbed Donovan by the collar, feeling for a pulse. It was still strong and steady. “Felix!”

  Donovan spluttered, and looked up to see the Ghost standing over him. “I haven’t missed it all again?”

  “Just get up and start running,” said the Ghost. He crossed to Rutherford, preferring his good hand, hauling the British agent to his feet.

  Behind them, the creature was still scrabbling at its chest, but now its entire body had begun to glow, wracked with an elemental energy it could no longer contain. It looked up, meeting the Ghost’s gaze.

  “Come on,” said Rutherford, dragging him toward the door. “The portals are about to stop working, and we’re still trapped in a tomb beneath St. Petersburg.”

  They barrelled toward the door, hurrying through into the adjoining chamber. Behind them, a sound like an erupting volcano marked the final moments of Rasputin, as his corpse-shell finally gave in, and the entire chamber was flooded with light.

  The Ghost paused on the threshold for a single, satisfied glance back, before launching himself through the portal.

  * * *