A large window stood open above the doors, too high to reach. Matt crept closer to the doors. The tight-fitted planks were devoid of any knot holes, and he didn’t dare try pulling them open enough to see through. Searching the doors for any kind of spyhole, he eventually found a slender gap on the far end, just above where the lower hinge met the wall. Matt lowered to his stomach and peered through the crevice.
A huge shape filled the room, blocky and long. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness more detail melted out from the shadows. He made out chrome-capped wheels, the cocked open windows, then eventually ‘Tuscia Tours’ written in orange and gold on the sides. I knew it.
Movement caught his eye and Matt looked closer at the windows. Several forms moved on the other side of the dark glass. The hostages were still alive and here. He didn’t see the demon, but a werewolf or aswang in human form would blend in. Perfect plant with the hostages. Matt watched the silhouette of what appeared to be a man fanning himself with his hat. Malcolm might consider these people expendable for the greater good, but Matt didn’t. And now that he knew where they were, a plan began forming in his mind. Yes, knowing this did give him an advantage, but first he needed to get out of here.
Matt rose to his feet and quietly hurried back to the hedges to escape.
#
“There had to be sixteen, seventeen cars in that lot,” Matt said, pulling the barbed wire fence open for Malcolm to slip through. “No telling how many people we’re looking at, but I’d guess thirty, maybe forty. If only half are demons that’s still more than we can possibly handle.”
“You’re forgetting the element of surprise,” Malcolm said. “Every time we’ve encountered this group they’ve had the home court. They’re not expecting us this time.” He started down the road back to the village.
“Maybe if we had ten people,” Matt said hurrying to catch up. “Unless you’ve got a missile hidden up your sleeve I don’t see how we can do it.”
Malcolm drew a breath, long and slow. “The hard part will be getting us all up there unnoticed. We can take the same path we just did. If there are any guards we can take them out quietly, especially if we can get Luiza down-light of them to cut their shadows. Once the grounds are clear, we cut tires. Prevent any of them an easy get away. One swing of Luc’s mace will bring down any locked door. Once the doors are gone, we lay covering fire, take out Anya’s cultists while holy weapons take out the demons. Allan moves fast enough with Ibenus that he can take point. If they have candles like they did in Spain, that’ll give Luiza plenty of shadows to chop through. And don’t think I’ve forgotten how well you shoot Dämoren. Between the five of us we can do it.”
Matt played the scenario is his head. Malcolm had a point. It wouldn’t be a random clusterfuck like Limoges, but a well-planned blitz. Maybe if they could get some lights from one side, headlights, maybe an airborne flare, Luiza’s sword could decimate them without even putting her in harm’s way. Malcolm’s weird hand tattoo could hold back attackers long enough to—”Candles?” Matt blurted. “You want to attack during the ceremony?”
“Of course,” Malcolm said. “There’s no way to guarantee the weapons are even there but they will be then. Also it’s the only way to be sure Anya and her cronies are all present. We’ll wipe them out once and for all.”
“I just said there’s probably forty people there now. Tomorrow night there could be twice that. We need more people.”
Malcolm shook his head. “It can’t be helped.”
Matt wiped the gritty sweat from his face and neck. Sixty, maybe eighty people. The rest of the team wouldn’t agree to it. How could they? It was suicide. In the end, their enemies would tear them apart and destroy their weapons. “There is another way,” he said finally.
“I’m not seeing one.”
“We need to cripple their plan first. Go for their balls before their throat.”
Malcolm snorted. “I’m listening.”
“I came across a demon summoning once a few years back,” Matt said. “They kidnapped this girl, possessed her with a demon.”
“Okay?”
“Well what we saw in Spain was different. They possessed Selene, but the others, they were used, too. Remember their legs? Completely stripped of skin. There was blood everywhere but inside that ring. It was like the oni used every bit of that in its creation. Like one body wasn’t enough. “
Malcolm brow creased, but he said nothing.
“So we think the weapons aren’t required for this ceremony of theirs,” Matt continued. “But what if multiple people are? They’re not just being sacrificed, but physically needed to bring forth this demon mother of theirs?”
“That’s possible,” Malcolm said carefully as trying to guess where Matt was going.
“We don’t stand a chance attacking sixty-plus people, not if we’re all going to survive. Even if we get forty of them first we’re still dead. Then our weapons are lost as well and no one left to stop them. We need an army.”
“We don’t have one.”
They rounded a bend and the village came into view through the trees.
“But we do.” Matt grinned. “What do you think the authorities would do if they were told a group of terrorists has a busload of people locked in a certain barn? There are already a thousand cops scouring Tuscany for them. No wreck has been found. They have to have figured out by now that something happened.”
Malcolm looked at him, then laughed. “You want to call the cops?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“What do you think will happen to them if they raid that castle? No silver, no iron, just bullets?”
“But those culties aren’t immune to bullets. If we call it in like they’re some militant crazy bastards with automatic weapons the cops are going to come ready for a fight.”
“What about the holy weapons?” Malcolm asked. “How, in that plan, do we save those?”
Matt thought about that. “If the police get them we’ll at least know where they are and can begin recovery. Steal them, maybe say they were stolen from us. I’m sure Turgen can pull some strings. Otherwise we have ten GPS trackers in our gear. We can sneak out tonight and tag some of those cars in case any of them get away we can follow them. Maybe we can sabotage the other cars before the raid.”
“Too many factors.” Malcolm shook his head. “If we lost those weapons then they’re gone. I can’t risk that.”
“Look,” Matt said, his voice lowering as they neared a building. “Full lunar eclipses don’t happen often. If we can stop this ceremony tomorrow, it might buy us enough time to track these people down and end this.”
Malcolm sighed. “These knights they’ve killed are just names to you. But to us they were our family. I don’t...expect you to understand this. But telling Master Turgen, or Master Schmidt, or Master Rangarajan that we let the people that murdered their...children...escape. It’d kill them.”
A lump of pity formed in Matt’s chest. He’s always seen Malcolm as some balls-out, stone-cold demon hunter. He’d ridden Matt’s ass since the minute they first met. He’d considered punching Malcolm in the mouth more times than he could count. But now...now he understood. Malcolm was grieving. He licked his lips, finding the words. “And if the five of us die?”
Malcolm didn’t answer.
They entered San Pettiro again, passing the first building. A black-clad priest stood on the sidewalk ahead behind a microbus loading cardboard boxes onto a wooden wagon.
Finally Malcolm spoke, his voice low. “We’ll talk to the others. Figure out the best plan.”
Matt hid a smile. A small victory.
“Excuse me,” said a man’s kind voice.
Matt looked up to see the young priest looking straight at him. His face was red and dotted with sweat.
“Could one of you help me with this last box?” the priest asked, smiling. He gestured to a red, flat, plastic case loaded with brown books.
Matt looked at Malcolm.
The knigh
t seemed unsure, his eyes narrow. He nodded reluctantly. “Of course, Father.”
Malcolm took a step closer. The priest reached toward one end of the crate and drew a revolver. The antique looked like some relic from the First World War, its blued finish worn to dusty silver.
He cocked the hammer. “Hands where I can see them.”
A door squeaked behind them. Matt glanced back, hoping a surprise witness might cause a distraction. A pair of gray-haired men stepped out from one of the shops. One held a pistol, the other a double-barrel shotgun. Shit.
“Hands where I can see them, Mister Romero,” the priest said again.
Empty hand out, other still gripping the handle of Hounacier’s brown case, Malcolm stepped back beside Matt.
“You too, Mister Hollis,” the priest said, training the revolver on him.
Matt lifted his left hand. His right inched toward the slit in Dämoren’s bag.
A shotgun pressed into his back. “Slowly,” a burly voice growled.
For a brief moment Matt considered spinning, catching the man’s gun and disarming him. The silver-ringed barrel of the priest’s pistol changed his mind. Matt raised his hands. “Mal?” he said, not moving his lips.
“Put the case down,” the other man said, prodding Malcolm in the back with his little semi-auto.
“Okay,” Malcolm said, his voice calm. “All right.” Slow and deliberate, he bent down, lowering Hounacier’s case to the stone-paved sidewalk.
Suddenly Malcolm cocked a leg and kicked back, slamming his foot into his captor’s knee. The man howled as the joint popped. He fell, his pistol firing into the air with a deafening crack.
Malcolm swung the long case back, knocking the shotgun out of Matt’s back. “Matt, now!”
Matt thrust his hand into his bag, his fingers finding Dämoren’s ivory grip.
Malcolm swung the case again. Shotgun Man dodged the attack and slammed the gun’s steel butt-plate into Malcolm’s face, sending him sprawling.
Spinning, Matt cocked Dämoren’s hammer and aimed her inside the awkward satchel at Malcolm’s attacker.
He fired. Thick smoke billowed as the leather exploded outward. The bullet missed, shattering one of the microbus’s windows.
Shotgun Man stumbled back, bringing the double-barrels up. Matt shoved Dämoren’s barrel out through the now shredded hole in his satchel and cocked the hammer again.
A cold smooth muzzle pressed hard into the side of Matt’s head, just below his ear.
“Drop it.”
Matt froze. He looked out the corner of his eye, down the long barrel to the priest at the other end.
The man’s face was hard. Angry. “Drop it. Now!”
Shotgun Man stood a few feet away now, his weapon aimed straight at him. There was no way Matt could take them both.
Defeated, he closed his eyes and withdrew his hand from the bag.
Chapter Nineteen
Matt laid face down on dirty carpet the color of wet cardboard, his wrists handcuffed behind him. The microbus jolted, smacking his face into the floor. Broken glass bounced across the carpeting. Air whistled through the bullet hole in the window above. Cold shears slid up his thigh, snipping through his jeans. The pant leg fell open, exposing him to his captors, and then the shears started up the other ankle.
From the corner of his eye, Matt glanced over to Malcolm beside him. He was naked, save the steel cuffs around his wrists. Bright tattoos of various patterns and shapes covered his upper arms and back. Some were elaborate, other simple, almost primitive. A crude, red stick man with a head like a push broom adorned one shoulder. A knot work face leered out between his shoulder blades. Dark blood caked his cheek.
Malcolm looked back, his swollen and purple eye just a slit. In that moment Matt could see Malcolm’s rage, the hatred, the remorse. Matt couldn’t tell if the death-look was meant for their captors or him.
Matt’s pants split fully open. Hands pulled his shirt out from beneath his cuffed wrists.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
The vehicle turned sharply and started up a steep grade. Matt’s shirt fell apart. He was naked.
“Your friends can’t save you,” said a voice behind him. He couldn’t tell whose. There were at least three people in the back of the microbus with them. They’d left the guy whose knee Malcolm had broken on the street in the care of some woman. Was the entire village in on it?
“We got them half an hour before you,” the voice continued.
A dreadful weight settled in Matt’s gut as he heard the names.
“Luc, Allan, Luiza.”
They weren’t bluffing.
“You and your murdering order are done. Now you’ll pay for your crimes.”
“Fuck you,” Malcolm growled.
A hard thwack sounded and Malcolm grunted in pain.
The vehicle slowed and turned into a stop. The back door groaned open and a breeze flowed in across Matt’s bare back. Firm hands grabbed his arm, forcing him up and out the rear of the microbus. He stepped barefoot onto sun-warmed stone. Malcolm came out beside him. Three men and a woman, all with guns, surrounded them. They stood at the edge of a wide, walled courtyard paved in gray blocks. A massive three-story building wrapped two sides of the yard, its roof tiled with orange terracotta. A pair of workers maneuvered across a scaffolding frame along one of the building’s faces.
One of the gunmen removed a padlock from a barred door, like a jail cell, its crisscrossing flat bars riveted at their intersections. It screeched open. Someone behind him twisted Matt’s arm up, driving him forward through the door and into a small brick room. Three nude prisoners stood inside, facing the rear wall, their hands cuffed behind them. At least they didn’t appear hurt.
Malcolm bumped into Matt’s shoulder as his captors shoved him inside. The door clanged shut behind them. Metal rattled and the lock clicked. The room was small, no more than six by fifteen feet with a vaulted ceiling. No windows. No other exit but the single locked door.
Luiza spun around first. She looked at Matt, her chocolate eyes tinged with worried relief.
“Mal?” Allan exclaimed.
“I’m all right,” Malcolm said, stepping forward. “Any of you hurt?”
“No,” Luc said. “They took us by surprise.”
“It’s my fault.” Allan’s eyes downcast. “This priest approached the car. Asked if we were tourists...needed directions...then he had a pistol and some friends.”
“I think we met him,” Matt said through a bitter smile.
Malcolm shook his head. “This is my fault. I wasn’t thinking. I should have left Matt in the car. Taken one of you instead.”
Matt’s face grew hot. This again? “Me? What the hell did I do?”
“No,” Malcolm said, shaking his head again. “You didn’t do anything. When you’re near me my scarab doesn’t work. It senses you and as long as you’re nearby I can’t feel other possessed. It left me blind. If I’d left you in the car I might have sensed that priest or one of his pals before they attacked us. Maybe before we even left the village.”
Matt’s anger cooled. “I see.”
“So you think they’re possessed?” Luc asked.
“Maybe not all of them,” Malcolm answered. “But they got us in the middle of the street, broad daylight, guns out, two shots fired, and no one stopped it. No worry someone might call the police? I’ll bet this entire town is either cultists or familiars.”
Allan frowned. “That’s a real big assumption.”
“Why not?” Matt asked. “Villagers spread stories that Marco Barugnani worshiped the devil, then why not preemptively align the entire community to their side? The Valducans killed Marco, but how many of his followers survived? They’ve had four hundred years to build up in this town. Work their way into the customs. Then, once they’re ready to make their move, Anya’s friends all fall off the grid, move from Florence to here. Whoever isn’t a card-carrying member of their little religion finds themselves bitten and enslaved
to a demon.”
“And giving the demons a local body to jump back into when needed,” Luiza said, finishing Matt’s thought.
Matt nodded. “Exactly.” He stole a glance at her dark nipples. He looked away, feeling a tinge of guilt.
“All right, I’ll buy that.” Allan eyed the iron-barred door, his voice lowering. “So any idea how we’re going to get out of this?”
Matt twisted at the cuffs behind his back. In a life of carrying guns, fencing stolen merchandise, and killing demons, ending up in police custody had always loomed as a possibility. Since he was thirteen Clay had drilled him on blindly picking a handcuff lock. His peak time had been thirty-seven seconds. Though in that case Matt had a pick, which he didn’t have now, and the cuffs weren’t double locked, which this time they were.
“They took my leather bracelet,” Luc mumbled. “I had a key hidden in the braid.”
“Mine too,” Malcolm said. “Nick made ‘em.”
Luiza grinned half-heartedly. “My jeans. I always stitched one in the inside near the top.”
“That’s a lot of keys,” Allan said. “I just kept one in my back pocket.”
“Your jeans aren’t as tight as mine,” she said. “Police aren’t as likely to search your back pockets as thoroughly, either.”
Matt chuckled. It wasn’t real amusement. Dämoren gone, stripped naked with no means of escape, he just needed the release.
Luiza’s brow arched. “So what about you?”
“Paperclip,” Matt said. “Stuck to the inside of my belt with black electric tape. Clay used to say that getting caught with a handcuff key was enough probable cause to earn a police ass-beating. Said no one looks at the inside of your belt and paperclips don’t leave much of an imprint.”
Malcolm gave an impressed nod. He looked around, his left eye was swollen shut now. “So unless one of you got a hairpin I don’t know about, they’ve successfully stripped us of all our keys. Any other suggestions?”
Damoren Page 28
