His long black ponytail hung over his right shoulder, braided with golden cord. His coppery skin glittered like the metallic scales of a snake in the light from the video screen. When he smiled, the corners of his thin mustache rose, lifting the tips from below his chin to brush his jawline.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" Genghis' voice was deep and rough, the growl of a wolf about to pounce on prey. "I give you the keys to Empyrea!"
The applause intensified as Mavis and Jonah reached the end of the compartment. James and Thomas led them by their shackles to stand alongside Genghis, facing the crowd of bloodsucking passengers. Stanza stood on the other side of the video screen, staring into space, dressed in red and black as always—just like Genghis.
Of course they match. They must have been in cahoots from the start.
Genghis threw an arm around Mavis and rocked her against his side. "These two will bestow upon us the power of the gods! The power we need to remake this world in our image!"
The crowd clapped louder at that one. Within seconds, everyone was on their feet, giving Genghis a standing ovation.
"We race toward paradise even now!" Genghis raised his voice above the shouts and applause. "Aboard this mighty aircraft, the Karakorum—named for the capital of my mighty Mongol empire—we prepare to begin a new empire! One that truly encompasses the entire world!"
As the room again erupted with applause, Mavis looked at Jonah. When he met her gaze, she saw a look of utter hopelessness and defeat in his eyes. No hope, no chance of escape or rescue, no salvation. Nothing there for her to cling to, no reason to fight.
How I wish Arthur were here.
"Empyrea awaits!" Genghis punched his fists in the air and howled with triumph. "Nothing can stop us now!"
Mavis felt herself shrivel inside. I almost wish I'd never met Arthur, so I wouldn't know what I'm losing. So I wouldn't know how wonderful life could be.
Only to lose it forever.
"Now that we are so close, it is time!" said Genghis. "Time to reveal to all of you the greatest secret of the ages! The location of our great legacy, our magnificent destiny...eternal Empyrea!"
With that, Genghis pressed a button on a remote control, and a map of the world appeared on the video screen behind him. He walked in front of it, handed the remote to Stanza, then stepped back.
"I give you now the keeper of the secret," said Genghis. "The bringer of the keys. Our transcendent saint and savior...my personal guiding light since the most ancient of days! A miracle worker in name as well as deed. Stanza Miracolo!"
The applause was deafening. Everyone in the room was on their feet.
When it died down, Genghis gestured with a flourish at Stanza. "Show us, o' beautiful angel of darkness! Show us the cradle of our new and glorious empire! Show us Empyrea!"
With a blank expression on her face, Stanza turned to the screen and raised the remote. She pressed buttons, and the map on the screen zoomed in; the rest of the world slid off the edges, leaving only blue with a few scattered, rough-edged specks of beige.
Stanza continued manipulating the remote, and the map kept zooming...pushing in tighter and tighter on a string of those specks, those islands in the Pacific Ocean. Even then, it zoomed tighter still, shunting aside one island of the chain after another.
Then, finally, it came to rest on one solitary speck. One apostrophe of land hanging like a lonely leaf from the top of the chain. It glowed red when Stanza pressed another button on the remote, soft red like a South Pacific sunset.
Stanza tapped the screen with a black fingernail. "Niihau," she said. "Empyrea is here."
Genghis leaned closer to the screen, frowning at the glowing shard of land. "Empyrea's one of the Hawaiian Islands?"
"Niihau is the 'forbidden island,'" said Stanza. "Owned by one family and off-limits to the general public. What better place to hide a secret refuge?"
Genghis snorted and leaned back. "It doesn't look big enough to be Heaven."
"It's bigger than it looks," said Stanza. "Cloaked by ancient magic."
Genghis turned slowly, fixing his piercing gaze on Stanza. "You're sure about this?"
"I am, my Lord," said Stanza.
'My Lord?'
Mavis winced and looked at Jonah. His face was still expressionless.
Suddenly, Genghis lunged at Stanza and swept her into his arms. She didn't fight him as he pressed a lingering kiss on her lips.
When Genghis broke away, he grinned at the image of Niihau on the screen. "Soon." His voice was a whisper only Mavis could hear as he touched the forbidden island in its computer-generated ocean of blue. "Soon, you will be mine."
Whirling, he raised his arms in the air and beamed at the crowd. "Soon, the entire world will be ours."
He closed his eyes blissfully as the compartment full of vampires broke from their seats and rushed forward to embrace him.
*****
Chapter 76
After Genghis' rally, James and Thomas returned Jonah and Mavis to their private compartment and manacled them to their seats. Staring out the window at the darkness, Jonah drifted into a deep, numb sleep, the only way he could escape the nightmare in which he was trapped.
After a while, when his sleep was deepest, Stanza came to him. At first, Jonah thought she was part of his dream. Her whispering voice flowed into his sleeping mind like syrup. "Listen to me. I don't have much time."
An image of her appeared in Jonah's mind's eye to go with the voice. She looked just as she had the first time he'd seen her, back in the funeral home in Tucson: red leather jacket over a short black dress, knee-high red leather boots, black horned-rim glasses. She was as beautiful as ever.
"Wake up," she said. "This is important."
In his dream, just as before, Jonah slouched on a chair between his mother and father's caskets. He was drinking a case of beer to drown his sorrows. Stanza flipped a business card at him. It landed face-up on his stomach, and he read it.
She doesn't love you, it said.
It was then that Jonah finally woke. He opened his eyes to see Stanza leaning over him, shaking him gently.
"Shh." Stanza placed an index finger against her lips. She looked across the cabin at Mavis, who was still asleep in her seat. "Don't talk. Just listen."
It took a moment for Jonah to come fully awake. In that moment, his first reaction to seeing Stanza was happiness.
But then he caught himself. He remembered what she'd done.
What now? What else can she do to twist the knife?
Stanza looked from side to side as if expecting someone to intrude at any moment. "Here's what I have to tell you: trust me."
Jonah frowned.
"I know what you're thinking." Stanza winced. "I know how it looks."
Jonah opened his mouth, and Stanza pressed her hand over it. "I can't explain everything right now. All I can do is ask you to trust me."
Jonah's frown deepened.
She just wants me to open Empyrea for Genghis. Her "Lord."
"The thing is, if I were in your place, I don't think I'd believe me either." Stanza shrugged. "I guess you'll just have to be a better person than I would be."
She's lying. She knows how I feel about her, and she's using me.
Either that, or...
She's telling the truth.
"Please," said Stanza. "Please trust me. I'm on your side."
Jonah shook his head. "Genghis called you his guiding light since ancient days."
Stanza rolled her eyes. "I knew him in a past life. Thousands of years old, remember?"
"How can you help him?" said Jonah.
Stanza pitched her voice so low he could barely hear. "I'm stopping him, not helping him. He trusts me, and I'm using it against him." Suddenly, she heard something and looked toward the black curtain at the end of the aisle. "I have to go."
The next thing Stanza did was duck down and kiss Jonah on the lips. When she pulled away, she lingered and locked eyes with him for an instant. Her next word
s made Jonah's heart pound in his chest.
"I love you," she said, and then she kissed him again.
"I love you, too," whispered Jonah.
Stanza's eyes darted toward the curtain again. She flashed a quick smile as she got to her feet. "No matter what happens, trust me. I promise, it's all going to work out."
With that, she scurried past sleeping Mavis and down the aisle. The black curtain rippled behind her as she disappeared into the forward compartment.
Leaving Jonah to think about what she'd said. What she'd done.
Leaving his heart, which had been empty of all hope, to dare against all reason to hope once more.
*****
Part Seven: Niihau
Chapter 77
Jonah slogged through the steaming jungle, sweat streaming down his face in torrents. His black t-shirt and blue jeans were soaked. The high heat of midday on the Hawaiian island of Niihau was boiling him alive.
For the millionth time, he wished he were riding one of the horses instead of plodding along beside them. He also wished horses and walking weren't the only transportation options on Niihau. Something with an engine would have been nice—but cars, trucks, and motorcycles could not be found on the low-tech, privately-owned island. The residents wanted to preserve their culture and idyllic way of life.
At least, that was what they said. Keeping out technology couldn't have anything to do with protecting a secret vampire paradise, could it?
Once Genghis' plane had landed on the island's one lousy airstrip, everyone had set out on foot or horseback for the gateway to Empyrea. Stanza had pointed the way, which, unfortunately, led straight up the jungle-covered mountain in the middle of the island.
The forced jungle march was grueling, but Jonah managed to keep moving. At least he wasn't still manacled to a seat on the plane; he wasn't shackled or bound at all, because he was under guard and had nowhere to run to.
Things looked bleak but could have been worse. Jonah wasn't at rock bottom anymore. He still had hope.
He believed what Stanza had told him on the plane. He trusted her and had faith she would get him through this ordeal. More than that, more than anything, he believed she loved him. That, in itself, was more than enough to hold him together.
Too bad Mavis didn't seem to be doing as well as he was. She was on horseback but looked more miserable than Jonah felt slogging along on foot. She looked like the life had gone out of her, leaving nothing but an empty shell slumped in the saddle.
Up ahead, at the front of the group, Stanza led the way through the jungle on a sleek black horse. Genghis followed on a white horse of his own.
"How much farther?" said Genghis.
"Not far, my Lord." Stanza ducked to avoid an overhanging tree branch.
Suddenly, she stopped. The group came to a halt behind her, except Jonah, who walked up between James' and Thomas' horses for a better view.
Two men in Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses stood dead ahead, in the shadows of the jungle canopy. One of the men was tall and lean, with wavy brown hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. The other was short and barrel-chested, with curly dark hair. Both of them had the bronze-tinted skin of sun-baked islanders.
"Aloha." Both men waved and said it at the same time.
"Aloha," said Stanza.
"What can we do you for?" said the tall man in the red-and-white Hawaiian shirt. "In the market for some shell leis or makaloa mats?"
Genghis chuckled. "How about fresh-squeezed human blood drawn from the arteries of local men?"
The man in the red-and-white shirt looked at the man in the blue-and-white shirt, and both of them laughed.
"Hey, that's a good one!" said red-and-white shirt. "But I've got a better one."
"Yeah?" said blue-and-white shirt. "Tell me!"
"What do you call someone who doesn't realize he's about be savagely beaten?" said red-and-white shirt.
"What?" said blue-and-white.
"Him." Red-and-white shirt pointed the index fingers of both hands at Genghis. "Right there!"
Suddenly, the jungle around them erupted in thrashing noise and motion. Dozens of male and female vampires leaped and flew from the trees, surrounding the caravan.
"What the hell?" said Thomas.
The man in the red-and-white shirt wiped his face, and his bronze coloring came away on his shirt-sleeve. "Ladies and gentlemen!" His voice changed, its sing-song island lilt replaced by a theatrical British accent. "William Shakespeare, at your service!"
Jonah did a double-take, suddenly realizing he might very well be in the presence of the great Bard himself. Realizing also that meant William Shakespeare was an immortal vampire.
"And may I present the latest member of my troupe of actors, the King's Men!" Shakespeare grabbed the arm of his beefy companion in the blue-and-white shirt. "A once and future smash guaranteed to take the world by storm! The peerless Hercules!"
"Finally!" roared Hercules. "I've found my true calling!"
For the first time in days, Jonah smiled. His hope, he now knew, had not been misplaced. The cavalry had arrived.
Maybe he and Mavis had a chance of surviving this after all. Maybe the world had a chance of not falling to Genghis. Maybe.
"Stand down, Genghis!" said Hercules. "Surrender now or suffer annihilation at the hands of our noble warriors!"
"As if that could ever happen," said Genghis. "I'm surprised you morons even managed to find me."
"Alexander remembered the secret location from when Kitezh spoke through him," said Shakespeare. "We've come to ensure you never see the gates of Empyrea, let alone enter them."
Genghis chuckled and drew his sword from the scabbard on his back. "I'll get what I came for, one way or another. Whoever stands against me will suffer first and worst when I claim the power of Empyrea!"
"You'll claim nothing but death for yourself," said Shakespeare. "Look around you! In case you've failed to notice, I've brought an army of Cruentus Estus' finest to remand your foul soul to darkest Hades."
"This is the best you can do?" Genghis howled with laughter. "I have the blessing of the Scarlet Council! They've excommunicated you and your pathetic sect of pacifists. Why do you think they've handed me the church's resources—airplanes, money, weapons, troops? Why do you think they sent Nicolo Borgia to intercede? Because Cruentus Estus has chosen my path! Dominion over humanity, not spineless coexistence!"
"From the start, your base betrayal was expected," said Shakespeare. "So this does not surprise me in the least. Cruentus Estus' wicked turn alarms me, yet enflames my soul in equal measure. I and mine shall fight thee now with God's own might, then take the war to Cruentus' dooryard with berserkers' rage."
"You're nothing but a speed bump, Suckspeare!" said Genghis. "You'll barely slow us down! And when we have the power of gods, you'll learn what hell on earth really feels like!"
"Alexander! To arms!" Shakespeare reached high, and Father Alexander hurled a pair of long-bladed knives in his direction. He caught them unerringly by the hilts and pointed the blades at Genghis. "We shall see who tastes glory this day! Let's settle this, monster!"
Genghis sneered and stabbed his sword skyward. "Kill them! Kill the lot of them!"
Roaring and shrieking, his personal troops bolted toward the forces surrounding them.
*****
Chapter 78
Shakespeare didn't need to order his forces to fight back. They leaped into all-out battle as soon as Genghis' troops engaged them.
The thunder of hoofbeats mingled with howls and the crackle of gunfire, drowning out the chatter of wildlife that had dominated the jungle soundscape just moments ago. Soon, every vampire on both sides was caught up in the chaos, spattered with blood spilled by hand-to-hand combat or weapons.
Non-vampire Mavis remained untouched, but she knew it couldn't last. There was just too much violent action going on all around her; sooner or later, she was bound to catch a claw, blade, or bullet.
She thought it was
also possible her horse might throw her. The chestnut brown stallion was cantering with increasing nervousness, nickering more loudly with each near miss. When he finally reared up, Mavis threw her arms around his neck and hung on as tightly as she could.
The horse dropped, spun in a circle, and reared again, nearly pitching Mavis from his back. She clamped her eyes shut and clung to him, praying she wouldn't fly off and break her neck or come down in the path of bullets or talons or a sword. She wished, yet again, that her beloved King Arthur were at her side to protect her.
The next time the horse dropped to all fours, he didn't stay that way for more than a heartbeat. When a gunshot blast rang out close by, he tensed and leaped forward, charging through the battleground. Mavis kept her eyes closed and held on, but her grip was slipping over the rippling bands of muscle underneath the horse's sweaty hide. The jarring movements didn't help, as the horse dodged one way, then another, swerving to avoid fighters and weapons.
Mavis was just about to slide off when, suddenly, the horse lurched to a stop. Mavis regained her grip, but not for long; the horse jerked to one side, and the sudden motion sent Mavis tumbling down over its flank.
Right into a pair of waiting arms.
For an instant, Mavis steeled herself, preparing to fight off whatever vampire had caught her. Heart pounding, she balled her fists and looked to see who it was.
And her heart beat even faster. Not from fear or fury this time, though.
It beat with the rhythm of relief...delight...restoration.
Pure love.
For it was then she realized that she'd finally gotten her wish. The man who'd caught her was the one she'd been longing to see. The one she'd feared she might never see again.
"Arthur!" Without hesitation, Mavis threw her arms around his neck. "Thank God!"
"Darling Mavis." Beaming, Arthur swung her around and kissed her forehead. "My own precious grail. Would you care to accompany me?"
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