“Ray!”
“I'm trying!” he screamed, jumping on the other horse. “I'm trying to believe!”
Brandy shook her head. She slapped the reins and her horse took off. Ray snapped his and the horse reared on its hind legs – nearly throwing him. He kept his saddle, though he didn't know how, and rode it back down to four hooves. Then he held on as the horse bolted - following Brandy from the courtyard.
Francois de Raiis pointed an undead claw after the humans, shrieked, and went for his own horse. He leapt into his saddle, spurred his mount and rode out. The Templars' chaplain likewise took to his saddle, dark cloak flying in the breeze. The knights who, seven centuries earlier had been Jules Lefebvre and Geoffrey de Charney, found their saddles and joined in the unholy chase.
Brandy's plan to avoid undue attention was a miserable failure. Four demon knights, blood drinkers all, were hot on their trail in the full moon light.
The two remaining Templars, whose horses had been stolen, returned their attention to the chapel - and to the blood-rich humans still inside.
Brandy rode hell-bent for leather in the field beyond the chapel cemetery. Ray rode behind. He told himself he was guarding her flank but, truth was, Brandy was a better rider. His ego could cope; his nerves not so much. Behind, pounding hooves closed in.
Just like that, feverishly spurring his mount, the Templar leader rode abreast; his animal matching strides with Ray's stolen horse. The American looked from the mummy to the field ahead and back. The creature took his reins in one clawed hand and raised his sword with the other. Ray reached beneath the flapping skirt of Trevelyan's cassock, pulled a bottle of holy water from a pocket of Luis' pants and lifted it toward the knight with all the menace he could muster. Eyes blazing hell fire, the grinning Templar slashed at Ray, who ducked in his saddle swinging blindly. The sword hit the bottle with a clink-smash.
Ray closed his eyes as an explosion of water slapped him. Glass shards stung his face like rock-salt. Sanctified water showered down on the cloth hood covering his mount's head. The horse, or whatever it was masquerading as a horse, shrieked in unimaginable pain. The soaked hood, and animal's brittle mane, parchment hide and skull beneath ignited in fire and a huff of smoke. It burned like dry kindling then melted like candle wax. The horse's hellish whinny vanished – as did its head.
Everything switched to slow motion. The Templar shrieked and pulled away while his mount bucked, whinnied and kicked up dirt. Ray shouted in pain and horror. Ray's horse ran on… without a head. Then the creature's corpse faltered in mid-stride and pitched forward and down like a ton of bricks.
All returned to normal speed. Ray, in anguish, shouted Brandy's name as the velocity of the event hurled him forward from the saddle. He met the ground with a tremendous thud, his lungs dumped air, his face collected dirt and weeds in a skin-rending slide.
It took several minutes after the fall for Ray to realize he wasn't dead. And then only because he ached so much. He gasped repeatedly for breath before catching one. Then he raised his head off the ground, opened his eyes, and wished he was dead.
The leader had regrouped with the others and all four Templars were riding back in his direction. Their chaplain brandished their damaged standard, the gold cross flashing in the moonlight, as the mummy used it to beat his mount's haunch. The horse screamed, breathed hellfire and transferred the beating to the soft ground beneath its hooves. The others rode beside him; one swinging the spiked ball of his flail above his helmet, the other holding the reins in his teeth as he notched a bolt into his crossbow. The leader switch-backed behind them like a cattle driver spurring them on.
Ray picked himself up. Which, layered in soaked and torn clothes, broken wine bottles, and cramping muscles, was no small chore. It felt as if he were climbing out of quicksand. He stood at the end of a trail of debris; moldered armor, an abused saddle, rusted weaponry, bits of bone, patches of hide, and the burned and decayed muck of what had been the horse.
Disgusted, but too numbed to react in disgust, Ray saw the Templars racing for him with murder in their undead eyes. He ran, instinctively at first, until his senses returned. Then he felt the fool, beating feet in Trevelyan's cassock and looking in his mind's eye like Anthony Perkins as Mother. The night was cool, the ground spongy, the going slow. The Templar cemetery Ray remembered to be just over the rise may as well have been a thousand miles away. He would never reach it on foot. The Templar horses, whinnying, snorting great breathy clouds, kicking up soaking clods of earth, were nearly on top of him - when something flashed in Ray's periphery.
He heard a shout. But, unlike the cackling of the living skeletons, this was an exuberant shout of triumph. Then racing in from the side, cutting off the Templars, the shouter came into view.
Brandy saw Ray fall, turned on a dime and rode back. Now she leaned from her saddle and, without her mount breaking stride, wrapped an arm under Ray's, shouted, “Jump!” and kept on riding. Ray landed in front, draped over her horse, with the hard edge of the saddle in his gut. Had he not screamed, it would have knocked the wind out of him. But Ray was screaming like a bitch.
The Templars screamed too. They reined in their mounts, turned in Brandy's wake, and started the hellish chase anew.
Sagging like a sack of seeds, his head and feet by a stirrup on either side of the horse, Ray felt stupid… and relieved, and alive, and proud of and grateful for Brandy Petracus. From his ridiculous position he shouted over his shoulder, “I love you.”
Brandy bit her lip and drove the horse on in silence.
It was quite the ride; the moonlit ground racing by beneath, the ancient leather saddle digging into his guts (despite the layered clothes), the thundering motion of the undead horse, and the occasional boney elbow in his back and lash from the reins across his shoulders as Brandy drove the animal on. Ray thought he'd puke.
She saved his stomach the bother by reining up near the fence of the Templar burial site. Brandy leapt from the saddle. Sucking air, Ray lifted his head and saw why. One of the Templars, swinging a flail, was on the right and dismounting. The other three were hard on his heels.
Ray shoved himself off the saddle putting Brandy's horse between them and the knights; all four now on foot. He pulled the last bottle from his pant leg, shouted, “Head's up,” and hurled it over the saddle. It hit the knight in front, the one with the flail, flat against the red cross on his chest – and broke.
Splinters. Splash. Eruption. The other three Templars backed away. Their horses screamed and were off to the races. His heavy flail fell to the ground and the knight howled as smoke, fiery immolation and, finally, nothingness followed. Gore, smoke, remnants of mail and a couple of old weapons were all that remained. “Yes!” Ray shouted throwing his hands into the air.
Brandy hadn't waited. She was already on her way over the cemetery fence.
“You missed it,” Ray shouted, starting after her. “You should have seen it.”
He failed to notice the chaplain, striding over the gory remains of the first knight, and coming up on him from behind. He heard, but failed to recognize, the sound of a long blade being drawn from its scabbard. He saw Brandy turn and heard her scream his name. But, for an instant, Ray didn't understand why.
Twenty Two
Father Trevelyan was up to something.
He left the balcony, energized, having successfully created a diversion for Brandy and Ray. But there was more to it. He was still on a mission; a man with an idea. He ran past Luis, downstairs, looking to share that idea with Aimee.
Luis secured the balcony door then sat on the gallery rail. He didn't intend to overhear their discussion but wasn't about to sit in a corner with his fingers in his ears either. He split the difference, watching the door with one eye and listening with one ear.
“It is possible, you see,” Trevelyan said, “they cannot take the sunlight.”
“Take the sunlight?” Aimee asked.
“Abide it, yes. I've been putting together a mytho
logy in my head. Trying to decipher what laws govern these creatures. The common thread I've witnessed is that the Templars live on blood but thrive on evil. Conversely, they are unable to remain in the presence of, or survive contact with, physical manifestations of the powers of good.”
Aimee looked a question and Trevelyan rephrased it. “The powers of God.”
“More superstition?”
“Superstition is my profession, Aimee,” the priest said. “Superstition and the supernatural. Examine the evidence. These creatures, and those they spawn, are evil personified. Yet they do not spring from evil. The Templars were not merely knights, they were monks. They were in life devoutly religious men. They still recognize good, they simply can't abide it. They feed in a bastardization of the Eucharist. Prayer stimulates them to courage but theirs are chanted blasphemy. They wear crosses but cannot tolerate images of the crucified Christ. They recognize sanctified ground but cannot enter. And they are literally burned by holy water.”
“And?”
“And,” Trevelyan said. “Now I'm wondering whether, eh, the sun might save us.”
“The son? The son of God?”
“No! Well, yes, obviously. But, no. I mean the sun. The rising sun. Daylight.”
“The sun is holy?”
“Ahh. I don't know. That's my question. The sun is a symbol of purity,” the priest explained. “In the Book of Revelation, Jesus said, 'I am… the bright Morning Star.' In 2nd Samuel 23 it says, 'And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth… for this is all my salvation…' The power of God flourishes in the light. I cannot help but wonder if the Templars know it.”
“Even if what you're saying is true, what does that mean to us?”
“Well, perhaps, eh, it means that, ah, if we can survive until dawn, we'll survive.”
Luis turned an idea over in his head. He made up his mind.
Only after he'd chosen a course of action did it occur to Luis how quiet the chapel had become. The Templars and their minions had been pecking and scratching at the doors, walls, and windows all night. Just a moment earlier, one of the damned things was on the balcony roof. Now all was quiet; too quiet.
A shudder went through the chapel. Again, a violent vibration. Then a thunderous crash followed and the gallery shook as if in an earthquake. Luis grabbed the rail.
Aimee called out from below, “What was that?”
Trevelyan joined Aimee, holding his sling and arm to his chest, and shouted, “That felt as if…”
Luis interrupted him, shouting that the building had moved. Then it happened again, a second shudder, second crash. With a shower of mortar and dust, a jagged crack appeared from end to end in the gallery wall behind him. “Mon Dieu,” Luis said under his breath. Then he shouted that he thought the balcony roof had collapsed!
“How could it collapse?” He heard Aimee shout. “Luis? Luis?”
But he heard something else, as well; scratching at the balcony door. What in hell could have collapsed the roof, he wondered? What could be at the door?
“Luis!” Aimee called excitedly.
The scratching was joined by a frightened cry. Luis couldn't decipher the words.
“Luis!” Trevelyan was shouting as well.
“Je vais bien!” he shouted, letting them know he was alright, and wishing they'd shut up. Then he yelled for them to stay downstairs as the gallery might not be safe. And asked them to be quiet as he was trying to hear… something at the door.
“Don't open the door!”
He wasn't going to. He only wanted to see. He slowly approached the door, heard more scratching and, barely audible, a weak voice. Luis laid his ear to the door.
“Help. Help me!”
It suddenly occurred the voice might belong to either Brandy or Ray. They were, after all, outside with those things. Slowly he lifted the batten they'd made to bar the door. He gripped the handle and slowly turned the knob, creating the slightest crack.
Had Luis opened the door fully, he'd have seen that the balcony roof had indeed collapsed. More accurately, that it had been made to collapse. The main pillar, to which the ossuary crucifix was secured, had been yanked out and pulled down to the ground. He never got the opportunity. Instead, as he opened the crack, the door was kicked. Back on his heels, Luis found himself staring at the maniacal nightmare vision of ink, metal studs, and blood that once was Jerome Rousseau, the tattoo artist.
“Bloody hell!” Jerome screamed. Then he laughed insanely. “I can not fucking believe that worked! I would not have opened that door in a million fucking years!”
He grinned with a wide, bloody mouth. His huge black pupils swam in electric yellow eyes. His T-shirt was ripped to shreds with only the stretched collar ring and a portion of one sleeve still in place. He was covered in bite marks with huge chunks of flesh torn away. The aesthetic design of his 'tats', head to waist, was blown to smithereens. His wounds oozed something akin to blood yet he seemed almost giddy.
“Barking mad, isn't it?” Jerome asked, too loudly, in a voice that wasn't his. Red spit flew as he shook his head wildly. “Barking mad! The whole bloody thing!”
Jerome threw his claws out, snarled, and leapt on Luis. They staggered back and fell against the rail. Luis gasped for air. Jerome weighed nothing at all but this vampire-thing atop his chest weighed a ton. The tattoo artist forced Luis' chin up and away. He felt Jerome's acrid breath hot against his throat. He saw the nave ceiling climb into shadows above. Then he heard the wooden rail beneath him snap and give way.
They fell - vampire over victim.
Father Trevelyan screamed, “Good Lord!” Aimee shouted, “Mon Dieu!” Both had a fraction of a second to get out of the way.
Luis landed face down. Jerome, like a drunk driven from a public house, sagged awkwardly against an iron candelabrum. Aimee screamed for the priest. Trevelyan screamed to heaven. Both ran to the unmoving Luis who, thank God, was still alive.
There came a strange sound behind them; deep, guttural, gagging.
Trevelyan turned and saw Jerome back on his feet. The vampire had not been leaning on the candle stand; he'd fallen on it. The carving at its apex had been driven through his throat and impaled him. The vampire grabbed the upright base, still jutting from his neck, lifted it with a grunt and turned - swinging it like a club.
Now all three were screaming.
The vampire swung awkwardly in the priest's direction. The weight of the stand threw him off balance. He landed on his back. The candelabrum clanged to the floor jacking Jerome's neck with a horrendous crack. The vampire screamed, spitting gore.
Trevelyan grabbed a bottle of holy water and shook it over this hell-spawned version of the tattoo artist. Smoke curled. Jerome screamed, flailed, bubbled and burst into flames. “God help you,” the priest screamed. “God help you! God help us all!”
Aimee cried at the top of her lungs. For Luis, whom she coddled on the floor in her arms, and in fear for Father Trevelyan, who stood mortified before Jerome's burning remains.
Both were startled by another scream from above. Another of the gendarme vampires had entered and stood at the broken gallery rail – shrieking.
Brandy's scream hadn't come in time.
The Templar chaplain drew back his long blade – painted with Ray's blood. Ray toppled over the fence into the cemetery. His wound, like one delivered to his sister days before, intended to disable not kill (the dead don't bleed), had done its job.
Gasping, Ray tried to crawl, while the three knights moved toward the cemetery gate – delighting in the sounds of their rapidly pounding hearts and the smell of his freshly flowing blood. Brandy tried to help, but Ray was heavy and seriously hurt. They struggled away from the fence and to the foot of the lone undisturbed tomb at the far side of the enclosure. Behind them, Brandy saw the Templars filing into the Devil's Bed.
No. No!
If Luis was right, if this was the Devil's Bed, then their fight had been in vain. If all that slept here serve
d Satan, they had no hope. That she would not believe. Like the occupant of the tomb beside them, Brandy had hope.
She gripped the weather-worn lid. Unlike the others, engraved with curses and insults, this stone merely bore a date of death and a name; Jacques de Molay. She gritted her teeth and pushed with both hands. Grunting in pain and fighting to breathe, Ray propped himself at Brandy's elbow and shoved with her. With their combined effort the lid screeched and fell to the ground.
The moonlight revealed the mummified corpse of the Templars' Grand Master. His gray skin was stretched and dried from the ages. Unlike the others, Molay seemed less one of the rotted dead and more like an aged museum piece. The long beard and mustache Brandy remembered from the painting in Trevelyan's study was scorched but intact, as was his balding head and stern elfin face. A large wooden shield, white with a bold black cross, lay atop the knight's chest – as if to protect him in the grave.
Brandy heard a metallic click and Ray's breathless attempt to shout a warning. She wrestled the shield from the mummy's hand and spun round as a twang sounded.
A loosed crossbow bolt struck the shield and stuck with a dull thud as Brandy dropped it in front of Ray. Behind the shield, he looked up gratefully and wearily. While, across the graveyard, the Templar grinned. The archer was playing with them.
Ray took the shield from Brandy and tried to defend them while she turned back to the tomb. Under the shield, on the knight's chest, she'd revealed his weapon; the golden handled treasure Father Trevelyan had referred to as the sword of the Savior. With bloodied hands, Brandy lifted the sword and with more effort than she'd imagined necessary handed it to Ray.
The Templars closed in.
Ray searched the pockets in his many soaked, torn and bloodied layers. Empty. He'd used, broken, or wasted all of his holy water. And the Templars were still coming. Ray tried to lift the sword. “Brandy,” he whispered fighting for breath. “I can't do it. I can't lift it.”
The Devil's Bed Page 27
