by Laura Legend
Cass took a step back, trying to process the implications, and tripped over the cat. Zach dropped Richard like a ton of bricks and gently caught Cass before she hit the floor. He set her back on her feet.
Cass bent down and pulled Atlantis into her arms.
The cat dropped the fragment of wood it was carrying in its mouth into Cass’s open hand.
But the moment the blazing fragment touched her bare skin, Cass’s body stiffened.
Then she passed out.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It felt to Cass like time, rather than dilating, had been short-circuited. It felt like some wires had been crossed. One moment she was plugged-in to the present, the next she was in the past. She had touched the fragment of the cross and then the light blazing from it had crackled blue and enveloped her. She felt it fill her body at a cellular level and then explode in a kind of full-body orgasm.
Holy Mary, Mother of God! Cass thought as she struggled to reassemble the pieces of her mind.
When the light receded and her head had cleared, she found herself in a graveyard. A funeral was underway. She could tell from the way she was positioned in relation to the scene that she was just an observer. Whatever was happening here had already happened. She couldn’t act. She couldn’t change anything. And she couldn’t be seen. She could only watch.
So she watched.
The graveyard was next to a small church. The headstones were crude and many graves—obviously recent—went unmarked. The folk gathered for the funeral were a mix of local dignitaries. The priest overseeing the ceremony looked nervous. Practically everyone had dark hair and dark complexions. Some of the figures—monks?—were hooded.
Alright, Jones, Cass thought to herself, you’ve got a decade’s worth of training as an archeologist and historian. What can you tell? What can you deduce?
First question: where are you?
Judging from the climate and terrain, she guessed she wasn’t far from Valencia. Probably some place father east. She could smell the salt air of the Mediterranean Sea. The mix of Latin and colloquial Spanish used by those attending the funeral seemed to confirm this conclusion.
Okay, Jones, Cass decided, call it Eastern Spain, somewhere on the Mediterranean coast.
Second question: when are you?
The scene didn’t feel remotely contemporary. The spoken Spanish was archaic and the clothing felt like it belonged to the first hundred years or so of the Renaissance.
Okay, Jones, Cass decided again, call it circa 1500 AD.
Third question: why are you here? What are you supposed to see? What’s the connection with the One True Cross?
This one was tougher. She took a closer look at the faces of the funeral party turned in her direction. She peered at the priest. Nothing stood out to her. She took a closer look at the corpse in its open wooden coffin. The coffin was relatively ornate. The man was dressed in the robes of a Catholic Bishop. No wonder the local elites had shown up.
But what did this have to do with her? Cass took a closer look and her attention was drawn to the plain wooden crucifix the corpse was wearing as a necklace. It was fashioned from an unusual fragment of wood that was clearly not from any trees native to the area. The harder Cass looked at it, the more convinced she was that she could detect a faint glow coming from it.
That’s it, Cass thought. That’s what I’m looking for. That is a fragment of the One True Cross. And they buried it with him, in this spot, in this very cemetery.
As soon as Cass had made this discovery, her connection to the vision began to dim. She could feel its edges growing fuzzy and her own focus weakening. She wasn’t sure what it would feel like when the vision ended, so she braced herself.
Nothing spectacular happened, though, the scene just continued to gradually dim.
However, just as her view of this frozen moment was about to shift entirely out of focus, one final detail caught her attention. One of the people in attendance stepped away from the crowd to speak privately with the priest. He was much taller than the priest and, when he removed his hood, he revealed a shock of blond hair.
Wait! Stop! Cass protested, fighting to keep the vision from closing, trying to get a better look.
But it was too late. The vision receded and she woke, as if breaking through the surface of a dream, on the floor of the chapel, her head cradled in Zach’s lap.
Her eyes snapped open and Cass immediately sat bolt upright, startling everyone. Then, before anyone could react, she grabbed a fist full of Richard’s shirt and pulled him close.
“You!” Cass spat, “You were there!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cass described the scene she’d witnessed and Richard agreed: he had been there.
Zach and Miranda looked on, confused.
“What is going on, Cass?” Zach asked. “What are you talking about? What happened to you?”
Cass ignored him. Richard had her full attention. She held his eyes.
“Did you know?” Cass asked. “Did you know that the Bishop in the cemetery was buried with a piece of the One True Cross?”
Richard glanced away and then back again, as if he were still trying to decide how much to tell her.
“I suspected,” Richard admitted, his lips still blue, his hands still shaking. “The true importance of such relics only became clear to me later on. At the time, it seemed like a good idea to just keep such things out of circulation and away from hungry eyes.” He paused then started again. “I wasn’t sure what it was, but I was happy to have it buried.”
Cass weighed his response. As usual, he wasn’t lying. But, as usual, she wasn’t sure that what he’d said added up to the whole truth.
“Cassandra,” Richard continued, “if we’re done here, c-c-could we continue this conversation outside?” He gestured toward the door, already shuffling that way.
Were they done here, Cass wondered? The fragment of the Cross delivered by Atlantis was still in her hand. She looked around the room for the cat but, of course, he was lost again—at least to her. At this point, though, after saving her life and tracking down a fragment of the divine, she doubted that Atlantis was ever lost to himself.
If there was something left to do here, she couldn’t see it.
The three of them filed out of the chapel behind Richard. Miranda, visibly weakened by the earlier strain of keeping them hidden, was last out the door. Evening Mass had concluded though, and the nave was empty so there was no longer any need to hide.
The closer they got to the door, the better Richard looked. Cass could almost visibly see his strength returning, his posture improving, until he pushed with both hands through the exterior double doors and burst out into the night. Once he was out into the open air, he tilted his head back, took a deep breath, and looked deep into the night sky. He claimed to be unaffected by daylight but he never looked like this in the sun. He never looked … at home like he did here, in the night. Now that she’d spent a day with him, Cass could spot the difference easily. Richard rolled his shoulders, still drinking in the stars, and, for just a moment, Cass thought he was going to howl at the moon. But he didn’t.
Instead, pale and powerful in the dark, he turned back to her.
Zach had joined them. He could see the difference, too. He bristled and stepped protectively between them. He obviously preferred his vampires frozen, blue, and supine.
“Cass,” Zach started, glancing at Richard over her shoulder, “I think it’s time to seriously consider continuing this little adventure without the assistance of any … playboys.”
Richard didn’t look faintly threatened by Zach or by his proposal. He just looked right past Zach at Cass and gently raised an eyebrow.
Cass didn’t need any macho posturing from Richard at the moment. And she definitely didn’t need protection from Zach. What she needed was answers and Richard—not Zach—was the only one who had them.
“Miranda,” Cass said simply, holding Richard’s gaze. “Take Zach with
you back to the car. Richard and I need to talk.”
Zach was about to protest, but he couldn’t tell whether this meant she might be taking his idea seriously.
“Cass—” Zach began.
“Not now, Zach,” Cass interrupted. “Just go with Miranda. Please.”
Zach had known Cass long enough to known when to let something go. He gathered up Miranda and they headed back to the car. Miranda looked relieved that she would have a chance to sit down.
Now it was just Cass and Richard in the square.
“Let’s walk,” Cass said. “I have some questions.”
Richard nodded and they set off at a meandering pace. Cass pulled the band from her pony tail and let her hair fall. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jeans. She felt ordinary and small next to Richard. Richard shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
For the first couple of minutes, they just walked in silence.
“You really were born in the fifteenth century,” Cass offered.
“Around there,” Richard confirmed.
“You’ve been walking the face of the planet for six hundred years?”
“Yes,” he said, keeping his gaze fixed on the sidewalk in front of them.
“Shit,” she said.
“Correct.”
They rounded a corner, headed deeper now into a residential area.
Richard picked up the thread on his own. “In this case, in your vision, I was in Barcelona—on assignment. Those in power at that time saw my gifts as unholy, but that didn’t prevent them from using me. I was sent to investigate what was happening with the Inquisition in Montgat. Rumors had spread to Barcelona that the Holy Inquisition had, in that town, taken an unholy turn.”
Flapping in the evening breeze, Richard’s oversized jacket slipped from Cass’s shoulder. Richard tugged it back into place and gently swept Cass’s black hair out from underneath its collar with the back of his hand.
Cass pulled the coat tight around her.
“And …?“ she prompted.
“And the rumors were true. Lost vampires had infiltrated the Inquisition in Montgat, bending it to their own ends. The Bishop himself was not a vampire but he was at the heart of the trouble. He’d come into possession of a powerful relic that, in its fragmentary state, was easily abused. It was my job to clean up the mess. So I dispensed with the vampires, poisoned the bishop, and saw to it that he was buried with the relic.”
It was Cass’s turn to stare at the sidewalk ahead, not meeting Richard’s eyes.
“Okay,” she said. “I believe you. But now we’ve got three independent lines of evidence intersecting: the planted clue from the fake Vizzini, my vision, and your memory. I don’t see that we’ve got much choice now but to go to Montgat and spring the trap.”
“I’m afraid you may be right,” Richard agreed. “And we’ll need to hurry. My team has only recently confirmed that a shadowy figure long suspected of funding and directing a variety of corrupt enterprises is behind this race to collect all the available fragments of the Cross. In addition to the fragment we possess, all he needs now is the fragment known as the anointed piece.”
“The anointed piece … a fragment of the Cross that actually bears the blood of Christ’s own body.”
“Yes. That’s right. And this man—he goes by many names—is assuredly a vampire. Some even claim that he was the first to bear the curse and that, in one way or another, every vampire since is a descendant of his.”
Excellent, Cass thought. Way to take things slow, Jones, and work your way up to the big boss. First time out and you’re taking on the baddest ass of them all.
Cass had stopped walking. They’d gone in a circle and were almost back to the square, but the street they were on was still quiet, poorly lit, and residential.
Richard leaned against the wall of a house.
Cass looked him up and down. Could she trust him? Did she have a choice?
“Six hundred years is a long time,” she said.
“It is a very long time,” Richard allowed.
Seeing Richard backlit by his deep past, he suddenly looked very tired and very lonely to Cass. And seeing him this way, Cass suddenly felt very tired and very lonely herself.
Her eye felt weak and her body ordinary.
The road ahead looked rocky.
As Richard turned his head to watch a small car crawl by, Cass stepped in close, slid her hand behind his neck, and pulled his face down to hers. She kissed him full on the mouth, parting his lips with her tongue, hungry to not feel alone. She needed to taste the salt on him. Richard was surprised, but when she pressed her body tight against his, he put his hands low on her hips and pulled her even closer.
When Cass pulled back to catch her breath, he tenderly tucked her hair behind her ear. But when, after a moment, he leaned in to kiss her again, Cass put her hands on his chest and held him at arm’s length.
“That’s all,” she said, handing him back his jacket. “That’s all for now.”
Then she took Richard’s hand and pulled him toward the square.
“Hurry,” she said. “We’ve got to get to Barcelona.”
Chapter Thirty
The thin man was not pleased.
He was home, now, in his castle in Romania. He’d lived here for centuries. The castle was remote and secluded and the rooms were dry, cold, and dark, just as he preferred. But, at the moment, this did not soothe him.
Three of his colleagues stood nervously near the room’s entrance. The thin man was, as usual, quiet and reserved. But even standing still behind his glass desk, he gave the impression that something was about to explode.
He’d watched the whole series of events that unfolded in the Chapel of the Holy Chalice via a handful of tiny, strategically placed cameras. The footage was open on his desktop monitor. He rewound the video for the eleventh time and watched again the segment that showed Cass finding the empty compartment, the appearance of the cat, the discovery of the true fragment, and Cass’s collapse.
His men had been there first. They’d arrived at the chapel before Cass and claimed the fragment of wood hidden in the carving of the cross. His colleagues, however, hadn’t be able to tell that it was a fake. Now Cass and company had the real fragment and he had a paperweight.
He rewound the footage twice more, looking for any important details he might have missed. Halfway through the second time he had to sit down abruptly in his office chair. A shooting pain in his right leg almost sent him tumbling to the floor. His colleagues looked on, pretending not to notice, but they were obviously weighing the meaning of these developments.
The cloud of black flesh had advanced all the way up his arm, down his side, and into his leg. It was starting to spread across his chest and up his neck.
For more than two thousand years now he’d walked the earth. For more than two thousand years he had ranged up and down across its face, from the Sea of Galilee to Rome to China and back, bearing the weight of his curse.
The thin man felt his rage boil over.
His anger propelled him back onto his feet.
“You,” he pointed, “you brought back this useless decoy?”
He snatched the fragment of wood from his desk and held it up to the light, as if examining its authenticity.
His colleague swallowed hard and nodded his head.
Then, without warning, the thin man vaulted across his desk, ignoring the pain in his arm and leg, and decapitated the man with a single, herculean twist of his neck. What was left of the man turned to ash in his hands.
The remaining two scuttled out of the way, terrified by his volcanic shift from reserved to homicidal.
Good, the thin man thought. The loss is regrettable but, in addition to venting my frustration, this may help keep order in their ranks a bit longer. They’ll be second guessing how weak I have or haven’t become. Their loyalty needs to hold fast just a bit longer. I can’t allow them to be tempted by the Heretic or her splinter
group of Lost vampires. Acquiring the remaining relics may not heal me, but it will cement my control over them.
“Do not fail me,” he said to the two that remained. “The punishment will be swift and harsh. Too much is at stake. For now, get out.”
They hesitated for a moment.
“Leave!” he commanded, lowering his voice and shifting its register. And they were gone.
The thin man slammed the door behind them and then hobbled over to his desk. He rewound the video again, this time freezing an image of Cass’s face as she snapped back awake after her vision.
What did you see? he wondered. Where did you go? And what does it have to do with Richard York?
He was curious, but in some respects it didn’t matter. Even their failure in the Chapel of the Holy Chalice was only a minor setback. Cass had the true fragment in her possession. Just knowing where it was—knowing that she had it—was enough. He would take it from her when the time came.
And, even more importantly, his scouts had reported that she and her friends were already headed to Barcelona. They would arrive around midnight. And then, intentionally or not, they would lead him to the location of the final piece of the puzzle: the anointed piece.
Together with the fragments of the One True Cross he had already collected, the anointed piece would exponentially expand the scope of his power and, crucially, heal him.
He touched the frozen image of Cassandra Jones with his black hand.
“Thank you, dear girl, for helping me.”
Chapter Thirty-One
It was half past midnight when they stopped in front of a small chapel in Montgat.
Zach had driven them from Valencia. Miranda had claimed the front seat and closed her eyes as soon as they hit the freeway. Richard and Cass took the backseat.
Both Richard and Cass now knew what they were looking for, but neither was certain where to locate the church. After half an hour of sorting through her notes and maps with Richard, then cross-referencing this information with the so-called Father Vizzini’s speculations and the details Cass and Richard knew first-hand, Cass settled on the most likely location.
