03 - Evolution by Greg Cox - (ebook by Undead) Read Free Book Online Page B

one
mainframe, with motion sensors revealing which ones are active. Someone
could have picked us up already.”
    Someone being Selene’s
fellow vampires, Michael realized. Thanks to him, she was now a fugitive
from her own people.
    Turning away from the computer station, she started
looking over the guns in the nearest weapons rack. She shrugged off her
damp leather coat, revealing a lithe figure encased in skintight black
leather. Dropping the coat on top of a waist-high metal filing cabinet,
she cracked open a crate of ammo and began to reload her guns. Twin
holsters were strapped to her thighs. A hunting knife was sheathed on
her ankle.
    “Now that Viktor is dead,” she continued, “the hunt will
be on for his killer. It’s only a matter of time before I’m found.”
    “But none of this is your fault,” he protested. “We have
proof that Viktor lied. Kraven, too.” Kraven was a double-crossing
vampire slimeball who had plotted to take control of the coven. Michael
had only met him once, but was not likely to forget him, considering
that Kraven had shot him in the chest with bullets filled with deadly
silver nitrate. If not for Selene, Michael would have died there and
then. “I have Lucian’s genetic memories.”
    Those memories, transferred to Michael when the lycan
commander had bit him, had revealed the true origins of the war between
the vampires and the werewolves. It was Viktor who had started the
war—by executing his own daughter after she’d fallen in love with a
lycan. As far as Michael was concerned, Viktor had fully deserved to
have his head sliced in half by Selene.
    Surely the other vampires would take that into account?
    Selene didn’t seem to think so. “All that will be beyond
useless if Kraven reaches Marcus first and kills the last remaining
Elder.” According to Selene, one more vampire Elder was still residing
in a tomb underneath the vampires’ mansion; she had done her best to
fill Michael in on the intricacies of vampire politics on their way to
the mine. “Kraven’s a coward. He’ll want to strike while Marcus is still
vulnerable. He knows he’s no match for him awake.”
    Michael had experienced Viktor’s awesome power
firsthand. He didn’t want to think about how strong this “Marcus” might
be. Selene and I barely beat Viktor on our own, he recalled. I’m in no hurry to go up against
another Elder.
    A thought occurred to him and he glanced at his
wristwatch. Like the clothes on his back, the watch had been salvaged
from a dead lycan on their way out of the underworld.
    “There’s only about an hour until daylight,” he said.
“Can you make it back to the mansion before the sun comes up?”
    Sunlight was fatal to vampires, just as silver was to
werewolves. Something the movies got right for once.
    “Just,” she said grimly.
    Michael didn’t like the sound of that. Joining Selene by
the weapons cabinet, he picked out a couple of pistols more or less
randomly. He wasn’t about to admit to her that he had never pulled a gun
on anyone in his life, let alone shot somebody. He didn’t know the first
thing about firearms. Then again, he
thought, I’ve never been a hybrid monster before
either.
    “Okay,” he said. “Let’s get what we need and go.”
    Selene laid a restraining hand upon his arm. “No,” she
said softly.
    Huh? Michael looked at her
in confusion. What did she mean by that?
    Her eyes avoided his. She hesitated, obviously
uncomfortable.
    “I’m going alone,” she insisted.

 
 
Chapter Five
     
     
    The mansion was known as Ordoghaz in the local tongue, or “Devil’s House”.
Located about an hour north of downtown Budapest, near the sleepy town
of Szentendre, the imposing Gothic estate deserved its evil reputation,
having served as the vampires’ lair since the days when Viktor had ruled
over feudal Hungary with an iron hand. Freshly fallen snow blanketed the
jagged spires and battlements