Myriam had regained her feet, swaying and holding onto the wall. She sensed a change in Kell, and kept well back. He was different. He wasn't just dangerous; he was deadly. Deadly to everyone. She licked her lips and his terrible raging eyes fell on her. There was insanity there, wriggling, like a corrupt worm at the heart of a corrupt apple.
"Kell?"
"Yes?"
"Bhu Vanesh. Through there." She pointed.
"Stay here," said Kell, with a torn, sickly grimace. "I wouldn't like you to get in the way."
Kell strode forward, through the archway, up several steps and into a huge circular chamber. It was devoid of furniture, but thick rugs covered the walls and windows keeping the room in perpetual darkness. The floor, also, was completely filled with thick embroidered rugs, each showing complex patterns of blood-oil magick invocation, or scenes of rape and mutilation from ancient battles.
Bhu Vanesh sat in the centre of the chamber, crosslegged, long limbs relaxed, his smoky skin squirming with half-formed, drifting scenes of his distilled depravity; the eating of flesh, the biting of throats, acts of decadent arching screaming deathrape, the joy of giggling child murder, the orgasm in the hunt of the innocent, the frail, the stupid…
Bhu Vanesh.
Greatest of the Vampire Warlords.
The Prime.
Bhu Vanesh…
The Eater in the Dark.
Kell halted, and Ilanna clunked to the carpeted stone. His eyes burned like molten ore. He smiled a grim smile that had nothing to do with humour, and glanced down at the pile of child corpses, a small pyramid of desolation nestling pitifully beside the Warlord. There were perhaps thirty or forty babes in all, drained to husks, nothing more than bones in mottled flesh sacks.
"Interrupt breakfast, did I, you corrupted deviant fuck?" snarled Kell. His voice was bleak, like breeze over leaden caskets. Like the solitary chime of a funeral bell.
"Welcome to my humble home, Kell, Legend," spoke Bhu Vanesh, and smoke curled from his mouth, around his grey vampire fangs, around his long long claws which reached out towards Kell, as if imploring the old man to lay down his axe.
"Well, I got to say it, this ain't your home, Vanesh. It's time for you to go back. Back to the Chaos Halls. Back to the Keepers. You know this. You know it's time you left my world."
Bhu Vanesh's eyes flashed dark, like jewelled obsidian in smoke pools. He stood, a long, languorous uncurling imbued with restrained power. He towered over Kell, and his long legs seemed to sag at knee joints which bent the wrong way, and his arms reached almost to the ground and ended in vicious-looking curved talons. And all the time his smoke skin curled and twisted, depicting scenes of murder and cruelty and evil sex and deathrape and the hunt. The hunting of women. The hunting of children. From Bhu Vanesh's past… His History. His Legacy. Faces flashed in quick succession across his smoke skin. All begging. Pleading. Screaming. Dying.
Darkness, desolation, fear, hate, all emanated from the Vampire Warlord like a bad drug. A stench of hate. An aroma of evil.
Kell swallowed.
Something grabbed him in its fist.
Fear, a rancid ball of fat, filled his belly and throat and mind.
It took him over. It rolled into him, and filled him like a jug to the brim.
Kell wanted to puke. He wanted to scream. He wanted to die…
It was all he could do to meet Bhu Vanesh's piercing gaze.
"You dare to come here and challenge me?" snarled the Vampire Warlord. "You, nothing but a smear of shit on the vastness of time and purity, nothing but a wriggling, deformed babe fresh from its mother's stinking syphilitic cunt, nothing but a smear of organic pus from the rancid quivering arsehole of Chaos?" His voice had risen to a roar. The walls seemed to shake. Brands flickered wild in their brackets, almost extinguishing with Bhu Vanesh's open raw wild fury. He took a step forward, head lowering to Kell's level, and his huge long arms lifted threateningly. "Turn around, you fucking pointlessness, and leave me in peace."
Bhu Vanesh began a slow turn, back to his pile of suckled corpses, his face and demeanour filled with disgust, and loathing, and revulsion, and raw pure abhorrence.
"A pointlessness, is it?" growled Kell, and leapt forward with a bestial growl, Ilanna singing a beautiful high song, a song from the dying of worlds, a song plucked from strands of strummed chaos, a song of purity, and Ilanna struck for Bhu Vanesh's head but the Warlord turned fast, long arm slamming out with piledriver force to strike Kell in the chest. The old warrior grunted, was punched backwards, and hit the wall several feet above the ground. He landed heavy, in a crouch, and his head came up. He rubbed at his chest, and with a wrench pulled out a battered steel breastplate – now a mangled mess of twisted armour. Kell coughed, a harsh hacking cough, and dropped the steel to the ground.
Kell spoke. His words were low, harsh, inhuman, barely more than guttural noises as a fire demon would make… and certainly not the voice of Kell. "Bhu Vanesh. Creature of the Chaos Halls. It is time to come back. The Keepers have decreed it so. I am here as your Guide."
Kell charged again, and Bhu Vanesh turned fast and claws raked against Ilanna's butterfly blades, only now they were not steel – and flames from brands in iron brackets did not reflect from Ilanna's blades but were sucked deep into them like trailing streamers, sucked and spooled and drawn into the eternal portal of the Chaos Halls. Bhu Vanesh fought, and as Myriam staggered to the door and leaned heavily against the frame, watching, it seemed to her that he struck with long, lazy strokes, like a pendulum, a clockwork machine, claws slamming Ilanna left, then right, and curling around Kell to lift him from the floor, accelerating him high up so he nearly touched the vaulted ceiling.
"Petty mortal, I will tear you in two!" he snarled, long smoking drools of saliva pooling from vampire fangs. "You cannot stand against me! I am Bhu Vanesh. The Eater in the Dark. I do not obey the Keepers! I mock them!"
Kell struck down with Ilanna, crashing her butterfly blades into Bhu Vanesh's skull. "Is that so, you babysucking bastard?" he roared. He slammed down again, Ilanna squealing, screaming, wailing like an animal in pain, and again, and again, and sounds of tortured metal reverberated around the chamber, "Well if you don't obey the Keepers, you can fucking obey me!"
Kell struck down a third time. Black light seemed to crackle around the room, igniting the carpets and tapestries, which all burned with black fire. A cold ice wind rushed through the chamber. Bhu Vanesh squealed, and tossed Kell like a piece of tinder. The old warrior hit the wall, clothes setting alight with black fire, and his huge hands patted frantically at his clothing as dark eyes watched the thrashing figure of Bhu Vanesh. But it wasn't enough, it still wasn't enough, and Kell charged back at the Vampire Warlord who was thrashing and squealing, claws flailing wide and flashing like scythes through the air, and a deep groaning chimed through the chamber, making the very stones vibrate. Through this chaos came Nienna, face pale, lips drawn back in horror, and Myriam grabbed for her, brushed against her arm, but Nienna slapped her away and stumbled into the chamber, sword held high, her eyes glowing triumphant as she faced that which she feared the most, Bhu Vanesh, the Eater in the Dark, and Haunter of Dreams, Desecrater of Flesh. "I defy you!" she screamed, "I banish you back to the Chaos Halls!" and Bhu Vanesh's laughter rolled out like terrible thunder, like the crushing of tectonic plates, and Kell was battling in fury in the midst of the storm, Ilanna rising and falling, the black fire inside him, his bearskin jerkin aflame, sparks dancing through his beard and grey hair, Ilanna slamming left, and right, and left and right, striking away the Warlord's claws, sinking into smoky flesh only to pull back and the flesh seal like hot wax as faces screamed at Kell from beneath the smoke surface. A claw struck Kell a mighty blow, sending him whirling through the chaos, Ilanna still singing, and his tumbling, spinning body careered into Nienna, crashing her to the ground, Ilanna's blades cleaving through her chest, straight down to bone, straight into her heart.