by Drew D'Amato
“I’m going to bring Pacami back to the church,” Vlad said to Jasmine.
“Do you want me to stay with you?”
“No, you can still make it to your later classes. No need to miss them, too. I’m just going back to the hospital after I get some things Malachi wanted. I also have to handle what to do about Jericho’s body.”
“Vlad, I don’t want to leave you alone. What kind of woman would I be if left you like this?”
“And what kind of man would I be to make you sacrifice when you don’t have to? I’ll be all right, thank you.” They kissed passionately. He pulled her back and looked deep into her eyes. “Thank you for everything.”
For Pacami it was sad to see them part. It really was true love and worth everything that Vlad had sacrificed for, but Pacami knew for some reason it couldn’t be. He had a feeling in his gut that this would be the last time he ever saw them together.
FOUR
1
As soon as Pacami and Vlad were alone in the Mulsanne the conversation got turned to the elephant in the room.
“He told me what happened in the attack when I gave him his last rites. Did he tell you about it too?” Pacami asked in a way that he would not be the barer of bad news if it hadn’t already been brought.
“Yes, it was Radu. He is still alive. He also said I have no chance against him as a human. He is far too quick, too strong. If only I hadn’t destroyed that Blood,” Vlad said.
“But you wouldn’t be able to do the exorcism again.”
“Malachi could be the master vampire.”
“Yes, of course. We could sneak it to him. He is in and out of consciousness. He wouldn’t willingly drink it. That might work.”
“Yes Father, and if the exorcism didn’t work, Malachi offered do die so that I can still be with Jasmine. But only if we still had the blood.”
Silence filled the car, and Pacami let the silence stir. Vlad was wracked with guilt. He didn’t want his words to make things worse.
“That will be my fate, destroying the Blood,” Vlad started up again. “Not trusting those close to me. Shit, if I had kept it, maybe Michael wouldn’t have even betrayed me and then Radu would be dead.”
“Maybe, or maybe when you entered Radu’s house you would have really not been invited in, since there was no traitor on your side to set up the trap. And what if since you were humans, you all died that day? We can’t waste time thinking about the past and what if’s. We have to think about the now and what is.”
“The now! What now? I can’t kill him as a human. And I sure as shit can’t kill him as a vampire. So what can I do but hope mankind defeats him? And I don’t have much faith in that.”
Pacami thought for a moment. “Maybe there is still some more Blood?”
“What do you mean?”
“Radu was not the only one who was setting a trap. The Crusaders were too. Your source was in league with them, not you. Now, I am sure they have their own computer files of the translated Dark Bible, and could risk the orginal copy getting destroyed in their ruse. It’s a book. The only thing that is important is what’s inside it, not the cover. But the Blood was irreplaceable. Why bring it to the airport and risk it getting destroyed, for the sake of an elaborate trap?”
Vlad nodded along in agreement. “Yes, there is a chance that they still have it. But I don’t know anyway to get in touch with them. Our inside source was killed in Geneva.”
The sound of the wind as they drove down the Pacific Coast Highway ruffled through their minds. Then Vlad realized something.
“I think we might have a lead.” He took out his wallet, frantically flipped through it with one hand while he drove with the other until he found the card. He gave it to Pacami.
FAVORITE THINGS
William Henderson
Proprietor of Rare and Antique Works of Literature
Phone Number—20-7832-8280
57 Queen Anne St, Westminster, London W1G 7M4, UK
“That was the guy who translated the Dark Bible. He might just be some random guy paid to translate something, or he might be a Crusader himself. There is one way to find out if he is.”
“And what is that?”
“See if he’s still alive.”
Pacami was a little shocked at that simple test. Vlad explained further.
“Father, these are not good men. They would not let someone translate the Dark Bible, write down all the information and live, if he was not already one of them. I know a cop in London. He can help us. But we have to think of something to tell this guy if he is alive, and he is a Crusader.”
“What could we say?”
“I don’t know, but we got about a half hour until we get to my place. We have time to think of something.”
2
Warburton had been in bed for less than an hour when his phone rang. His wife grew concerned. She always did whenever the house phone rang past a certain time. Would it be for him, did he have to go out? She got even worse when she was alone at night and it rang.
“Hello.”
“Warburton, it’s Vlad. Can you talk?”
“Give me a moment.” He turned to his wife. “I’m going to take this downstairs.” She knew the drill and listened in on the line until she heard him pick up from the kitchen downstairs. She then hung up on her end. She did not want to know any of his business at work.
“Okay Vlad, what is the issue? I thought last time I saw you everything was over. You had the coffer and Radu was dead.”
“Well that’s the problem.”
“Radu isn’t dead!”
“No, he is.” Vlad and Pacami had talked it over, and decided there was no need to panic Warburton over Radu’s status. Just let Warburton worry about the humans. He was a cop, he was trained for that.
“The issue is the coffer, and the Crusaders. They didn’t give us the real blood.”
“How do you know it wasn’t the real thing?”
“Jericho took Peterson’s cell phone after what happened in Geneva. He took it initially so that no one would discover it and trace the call log back to us. We had forgotton all about it, but yesterday we searched through it. We found text messages saying they were giving us fake blood.”
Vlad lied again using half-truths, it was the easiest way. He couldn’t tell Warburton the truth. He couldn’t expect Warburton to get so involved on a hunch, which was simply all Vlad had. A hunch and hope. So he lied to Warburton that the real Blood in fact did still exist, and the threat was real.
“Okay so they have the real Blood, what do you want me to do?”
“The Dark Bible was translated by someone in England. A William Henderson. I have a business card of his. He deals in antiques, mostly books. He must be a Crusader.”
“How can you be so sure? He might have just been contracted to do it, and knows nothing more.”
“If he is alive, he is a Crusader. The Crusaders wouldn’t let him live with that information unless he was one of them.”
“So what do you want me to do? I can’t tap his phones. For it to be worthwhile, I would have to tap his cell phone and that requires a whole world of technology and cooperation with other people and agencies, and I don’t know how I can justify why his line should be tapped.”
“No, I don’t want you to tap anything, and I don’t want anyone else involved. What I want from you is simple. His address is 57 Queen Anne St in Westminster. His phone is 20-7832-8280. Scope him out. Tell me what he looks like, and maybe what some of his daily routines are.”
“You plan on apprehending and interrogating him?”
“Yes, what other option do I have?”
“Do you want me to help you?”
I don’t think your presence would make much of a difference. These men don’t fear any type of police force—they are above it.”
“Vlad are you still a vampire?”
“No, the exorcism worked. It was conducted before we realized the Crusaders still had the blood. I’m a human.”
“Well Vlad, how much more fear do you think you as a human would have over them than I as a cop?
“I don’t have to play by rules, you do.”
“Oh with people like this, involved in something they want to keep secret, they usually don’t complain about their legal rights being infringed upon.”
“Just keep a tab on him for now. I don’t want you anymore involved than you have to be. I will be landing in London in two days. We will talk about what to do then.”
“Okay.”
Vlad hung up and turned to Pacami who sat in the family room of Vlad’s new house.
“What do you plan to do once you find this guy?” Pacami asked.
“Once we find this guy.”
“We? I can’t go to Europe.”
“Father what we are doing here supercedes your lithurgical duties.” Vlad sat on the couch across from him. Pacami still didn’t understand.
“I don’t see why I have to come. What do you have planned?”
“I don’t think we are going to able to get what we want just from breaking this guy. These men have all been trained to surivive interrogations and are taught to give misinformation, before real information. He’ll send us on some wild goose chase to the wrong location and by the time we realize that he’ll be gone and we’ll never find him again. That is a very real possibility.”
“So what do you have planned?”
“We have to offer some deal that will entice him. We have the Dark Bible, the original, and those Crusaders want it back.”
“Why?”
“Because what these Crusaders want more than anything else is to prove to the world that vampires exist.”
“More than killing vampires?”
“Yes.”
“Why is that?”
“Because proof of vampires, proves another thing—proof of God. How could any scientist or skeptic refute the existence of God, when one of his damnations exist? That is why they sent the Blood to CERN. They wanted CERN to find nothing, so that vampires cannot be given any scientific explanation. Once proof of God is established, the Church will have inconceivable power.”
“If it was so important to them, why would they even risk bringing it to Geneva?”
“Because they couldn’t fake the Bible, I knew what it looked like. It was a risk they had to take to attempt their ruse, but they still want it. The Dark Bible, validated through carbon-14 dating is priceless. They won’t be willing to trade the Blood for it, but if we could get close enough to the actual Blood that’s good enough.”
“So, how would I help you?”
“We need a story as to how we came into possession of the Bible. We can say you were the priest that performed the exorcism on Vlad the Impaler, because he wanted to be a human again.”
“You can say you were the priest that performed the exorcism.”
“No, that won’t work.”
Are you afraid Vlad? Pacami thought. He had not seen Vlad scared before, but before he was not just a man. A man is vulnerable.
“I will get in your way Vlad, what can an old man like me do?”
“You’re the old man who performed the exorcism on Vlad the Impaler. It’s the truth, and the truth makes for the best lies. And then I can be someone else…your insurance. If I go alone, they will size me up for a lone priest. It would be all too easy for them to just take me out. But if you were the priest and I was someone else, then they would have to take us more seriously.”
“And who would you be?”
“I don’t know. We have a day to work out the details, but I think along with seeing the actual bible in front of them they would have to listen. For now though, I should bring you back to the rectory. I have to go pick up a friend.”
3
Pacami offered to go with Vlad to the county morgue. The morgue was on North Mission Road, about five minutes away from The Divine Saviour on Cypress. Vlad didn’t mind the company. He might need it. He also had no clue how this process worked. He could use some guidance.
“Don’t worry Vlad. People don’t falsely claim dead bodies. Why risk falsely claiming a body, when the real family members could show up at anytime? They won’t be inclined to suspect anything of you.”
“Yeah, I just have no idea what to expect and that makes me uneasy.”
Half way through the ride Vlad realized he would run into the same problem he did with Malachi at the hospital. He had no idea which identity they had attributed to Jericho, or if he even had one.
“Easy fix,” Pacami said and told Vlad to pull over at the next gas station. He came back out with a copy of the Los Angeles Times. On the second page he found the story written by Paul Dambros, probably the kid Patrick liked. Pacami skimmed over it quickly. “George Patterson is in critical care at Cedars-Sinai, and Jack Bearfield was found dead at the scene.” Pacami looked up at Vlad. “Let’s go claim your cousin Jack Bearfield.”
Pacami did not mean anything by those words, except showing him how easily they had solved that problem, but still those words hurt. Vlad’s face grew long. Now he was going to face Jericho’s death. He was depressed about it when he first drove to the hospital, but the shock of the news of Radu had put his mourning on pause. Now it came back with a vengeance.
“I’m sorry Vlad,” Pacami said seeing the pain in Vlad’s face.
“It’s not what you said. It’s just the fact that he is gone. He was better than me. A better fighter, a better warrior. He wouldn’t have been dead if I let him keep the Blood. If I let him stay a vampire. How much guilt, how many lives do I have on my soul?”
“You don’t have his Vlad. If you let him keep the Blood, you would have killed him yourself.”
“What?”
“We’re assuming now that the blood you got in Geneva was not the real Blood. So take it a step further. What would have happened if you decided to keep it?”
“Michael probably doesn’t betray me, Radu is probably dead, and Jericho is alive.”
“No, first like I said, we don’t even know if you’d have made it out of Radu’s house alive, nonetheless killing him. But let’s say you did, the mission went according to plan, then what? Then you come home, we do the exorcism and then Jericho drinks the blood. Hell maybe you let all three of them drink the blood, thinking it is the real blood. But they won’t be vampires yet. Not until they die…”
Vlad looked at Pacami with understanding. Pacami continued. “You kill them, but then they are not reborn. Your decision for no more vampires didn’t kill Jericho, it actually saved his life. Radu killed Jericho, don’t forget that.”
Vlad rode on and for the first time since on the boat this morning, he stopped regretting all of his decisions.
4
The coroner was happy to see them.
“I wasn’t sure if anyone would come. A one Jack Bearfield, who is an only child, and whose mother and father died of cancer, 9 and 12 years ago respectively, didn’t leave us with anyone to inform.”
A dead end, just the way Vlad wanted all of their aliases to be.
“I am his cousin, Raoul Wellington.” Vlad showed him the same identification he showed at the hospital. There was no reason to put a fly in the ointment if the coroner happened to speak to anyone at the hospital.
“Good, I am Mark Slegde. Well, since you are the next of kin, would you mind officially identifying the body first?” The coroner asked with sympathetic eyes. He was a balding, grey bearded, African-American who has seen too many people have one of the most horrible moments of their lives right in front of him. That moment they identify that loved one that can’t be replaced. He knew it was never a good thing. He didn’t question why a priest was with Vlad. He might need the support, spiritually and physically. He has also seen his share of people faint when that sheet is pulled back.
The coroner explained what he knew as they walked through the building to eventually the large blue filing cabinet where Jericho’s earthly body remained.
“He die
d from two gunshot wounds to his lungs. The bullets were painted silver. Probably a bunch of copy-cat punks after what happened in Europe a few days ago. But I’m curious if your cousin had any enemies?”
“No, none that would aim to harm him.”
“Well I would expect the police will have some questions for you anyway. You should be hearing from them soon enough. They were waiting to see who would pick up this body. Tragically, it was probably just another mugging.” The coroner put his hand on the door for the drawer. “Can I ask if you have seen a dead body before? Not one after it has been cleaned up at a funeral home. This can be pretty traumatic for some people.”
“Yes, I have.”
“And you, Father?” Sledge asked.
“I served in Vietnam,” Pacami said.
“Well, okay then.”
In one swift move the coroner opened the door and pulled the slab back. He gripped the corner of the blue sheet covering Jericho’s body. “Are you ready?” he asked again.
Vlad nodded. The coroner pulled the corner away. Vlad was stuck in shock. He had seen more than enough dead bodies and his share of gore, but this was his best friend. Jericho. He had been through so much with this man. His only true friend in his almost six-hundred year existence, and now he was gone. The tears starting to build up. He didn’t deserve this, how can I ever complain of my fate? Jericho was cheated the victory he had fought so hard for. Now there was no more life in those blue eyes. Vlad could not stop looking at those eyes.
“Is this him?” Sledge noticed Vlad’s staring, and knew in his gut it was.
A combination of the words of the coroner and the cold air coming out of the negative temperature cold chamber snapped him out of it.
“Yes, that’s…Jack.”
“Okay, well have you considered what to do with the body?”
“Yes, cremation. He wants his ashes scattered over a hill in Ireland.”
“I thought your cousin was an American citizen?”
“He is, but some of his family is from Ireland, and he told me that was what he wanted. I feel I should honor it. I am his only real family left.”
