[Sunwalker Saga 04] - Kissed by Moonlight (2013)

by Shéa MacLeod

  Stepping over the shattered remains of the door, I kept my ears peeled for any sound from within. There was nothing; just the stillness of a building that had expelled its visitors and now sat empty with a sigh of relief. Surely there must still be a few nuns or priests or whatever hanging around, cleaning up, counting the sales of religious trinkets from the booths near the entrance. The doors hadn't closed that long ago.

  I listened again. If there was anyone left inside, they were far away from this part of the Cathedral.

  I slipped through the narrow hallway, the heavy musk of age and mildew assaulting my nose. I reached out to touch the wall, ground myself in the deep shadows. My fingers slid across cool stone and smooth wood as I made my way into the sanctuary.

  Faint light trickled through the stained glass windows, so little as to be nearly useless. The exit signs gave off a faint greenish glow. Again, useless to the normal human eye, but my eyesight quickly adjusted. Between my hunter abilities and the Darkness channeling its way through me, I could see just as clearly as if someone had turned on floodlights.

  I turned my head, trying to spot my prey. Narrow wooden pews, dark with age, lined the middle of the enormous open area facing the altar. That was where the priests would say mass or whatever. I'd seen one once, years ago when I'd been just a tourist. I had actually kind of liked the chanting. It had had a soothing quality.

  Around the outside of the seating area was a wide avenue lined with velvet rope. It was there that the tourists could wander along, gawking at the goings on in the center of the room and at the carved stone statues of saints lining the walls. My favorite statue was the one of Joan of Arc, and I couldn't help pausing for a second to glance her way.

  In the dim light, the white marble shimmered like a ghost. She seemed almost alive, as if she were watching me from her little alcove. Maybe it would have been spooky to someone else, but to me it felt like a benediction. If I had believed in such things.

  Behind me, I heard a noise. The scuff of rubber against stone, perhaps. So faint, it almost didn't register.

  Instinct and training kicked in, and I dove for the floor just as something whistled through the air where my head had been. I had seconds before my attacker regained his stance. I rolled to the left and under the velvet rope as the weapon clanged against the stone floor with enough force to make me wince. It missed by a hair.

  From what I could make out, it was some kind of battle axe, heavy and ancient. Where had he gotten such a thing inside a church? And for that matter, what was with people attacking me with axes lately?

  Just like in the Other World with the boar-man, I was on the defensive. I didn't like it. Neither did the Darkness.

  I scrambled to the nearest pew, and squeezed under the seat into the next aisle. The axe blade bit into the back of the pew, splintering it in two as I jumped to my feet and ran like hell for the wide open space at the front. A chunk of wood hit me in the cheek, slicing through skin. Hot blood slid over my skin, dripping onto my leather jacket. Wonderful. It would match all the other blood stains.

  The scent of my blood enraged the vampire even more. He stormed after me, screaming "Die, bitch!" as he slashed and hacked at empty air, half out of his mind. If he'd been an animal, I'd have said he was rabid.

  I nearly stumbled on the stairs up to the altar, mind racing. I had little in the way of conventional weapons at my disposal. A couple knives, and that was it. My main blades and UV gun were back at the hotel. I hadn't exactly been planning on a hunt. Besides, even though I'd been able to bring a weapons stash with me, the French authorities technically didn't allow foreign hunters to carry arms within their borders. We were supposed to call a local hunter to take care of any "unpleasantness" we stumbled into. Sort of hard to do that with a vampire swinging an axe at your head.

  I did, however, have one hell of an unconventional arsenal at my disposal.

  I hesitated. Every time I let my powers out, it felt like I was walking a fine line between sanity and madness. Only the Darkness seemed marginally controllable these days. Still, I had no choice unless I wanted to become vamp food.

  I turned and faced the monster.

  Chapter 30

  I stood, feet braced, awaiting my attacker. Within my mind, I dove down into the place where my powers lived. The Fire was first, zipping out like it had hit an oil slick, spreading down my arms and across my hands. I could feel it was even in my eyes, a spot of brightness in the middle of a black tunnel of Darkness. The vampire faltered, red eyes panicked.

  "Who's the bitch now?" I whispered. Except it wasn't me speaking. The Darkness used my voice.

  I wasn't sure the vamp heard me. By that time, the Air was spiraling out of the center of my chest, white smoky mists whipping around like a coiling cobra. My short hair danced wildly on increasingly violent winds. The altar cloth flapped madly, and a vase tipped over, spilling water and day lilies across the apse.

  Next came that new power, unfurling almost gently from the deepest part of my being. That iridescent green thing, uncoiling slowly like a seedling sprouting from the earth. My whole body began to take on the faintest green shimmer. Even the fire and the mist had a green tinge.

  Below my feet, the stones of the ancient cathedral began to grumble and shake. The building gave a slight heave, sending centuries of dust sprinkling from the ceiling. The chandeliers swayed gently as the ground gave another ominous rumble.

  The vampire let out a string of words in French that would have made a sailor blush. And I didn't even speak French.

  "Mon dieu," he whispered. "What are you?"

  "Your worst nightmare." My lips curved in an ugly smile. The Darkness thrummed with excitement as it watched with my eyes and smiled with my lips. I think the vampire knew it.

  Pale fingers released the axe. As it crashed to the floor, the red faded from his eyes, leaving dark wells of nothing. He shook his head as though waking from a long sleep. Something sparked deep in those dead eyes. "Please," was all he said.

  I cocked my head to the side. My powers found him a curiosity. But the part of me that was still human found him horrifying. Another soul trapped inside a dead body. Awake. Aware. Dear gods. What kind of monster could do this to another human being?

  This had to be stopped. I had to stop it. "Tell me where I can find Alister Jones." My voice was an echoing hollow. Only it wasn't my voice. It was the Darkness.

  He opened his mouth, and then shook his head. Stubbornness or fear. I was going with the latter.

  "Darroch is no longer controlling you." I knew because the red had gone out of his eyes. I didn't know if he'd fought it off or if something about my powers negated the effects, but the control was gone. "Tell me."

  "I don't know." He cast his gaze to the floor. His lie was obvious. I could almost smell it on him. The Darkness snarled in anger.

  "Tell me."

  The vampire sighed, seeming to fold in on himself. He was older than I'd first thought. A couple hundred years at least. It must be his soul that was young. I shivered, feeling suddenly ill.

  "Underground. He's somewhere underground."

  I frowned. Jean-Pierre's chapel had an underground. Surely Alister hadn't gone back there. He'd gotten what he wanted. What would be the point?

  "Where? Where is this underground?"

  "With the bones. He's with the bones." The vampire's voice was faint, like someone half asleep.

  "What do you mean? What bones?"

  The vamp shook his head. He seemed confused. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was garbled French, none of which I understood. Except for one word: mort. Dead.

  I reached out to grab his arm. As my fingers touched his skin, the green danced from me to him, wrapping itself around him, winding and twining in a glittery vine. He stared down at the green spreading across his body, up his arm to his shoulder. I imagined my face was a mirror of his: shock, horror, confusion.

  And beneath all that, something else. For me, or rather my powers, it was
joy. For him, it looked surprisingly like hope.

  The green spread across his chest and down his torso, wrapping itself around his thighs. It curled up his throat, dove into his mouth and eyes, and spilled back out his nose. He shimmered with green light, growing brighter and brighter.

  Something made me step back. I watched as he spasmed and jerked, choking on the green. In the recesses of my mind, I realized how odd it was. Vampires didn't need to breathe. I also realized I should be horrified by what was happening, but I wasn't. It was as if I knew deep inside this needed to happen, that it was, somehow, good. Once the vampire's body was covered, the green stopped spreading. The vamp stared at me, eyes wide. He tried to speak, but nothing came out past the green.

  I don't know what made me say it. The words came unbidden to my lips, as they had once before, but this time they were a soft whisper. A benediction. "Ashes to ashes."

  The coils of green suddenly tightened like a snake around its prey. Between one heartbeat and the next, the vampire exploded into so much dust, and I watched a tiny wisp of something like smoke or mist drift away and disappear into the night. A soul returning to the universe.

  "Dust to dust."

  * * *

  It was full dark by the time I stepped outside again. I tried to ignore the shakiness of my legs as I made my way across the side lawn toward the river. I stuck to the shadows, more comfortable there than in the warm glow of the streetlights. Now that was something to ponder for later.

  I stumbled to the rail separating the pedestrian walkway from the sheer drop to the water. Wrapping my fingers around the railing, I held on so hard, my knuckles turned white. It was all that was keeping me on my feet. Once the powers retreated, there wasn't much left in me but sheer exhaustion. I sucked in a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

  By now, I was shaking, trembling so hard I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. Over and over, my mind replayed the image of my Earth power squeezing the life, such as it was, out of the vampire.

  "You released him," I reminded myself. "You set him free." I knew it without a shadow of a doubt. I'd seen the trapped soul leave. Just like I'd seen Zip's leave her body after the Marid killed her.

  It didn't help. I'd killed the vampire with my powers, but that wasn't what bothered me. He'd been a soul trapped inside a virus-ridden corpse. Setting that soul free was right and good. There was no shame in it.

  What bothered me was I hadn't cared about his death. I hadn't felt anything.

  That was a lie. I'd felt something. I'd felt... glee.

  As far as I was concerned, there was a vast difference between the pragmatism of killing monsters for the greater good and killing a creature with a soul, even if it was a trapped soul. Someone else's soul. And there was a huge difference between job satisfaction and actually getting off on the kill.

  Tonight, I was afraid I might have finally crossed that line.

  Chapter 31

  "Are you insane?"

  I peered at Jack's reflection in the mirror before returning to the task of cleaning the wound on my cheek. Fortunately, the cut was shallow and the wood chip hadn't left behind any splinters. "Don't be an ass, Jack."

  His face turned so red, I thought he might explode. "Going out there," he stabbed one long finger in the general direction of the hotel window, "by yourself was just plain stupid."

  I very much wanted to punch him in the face. Instead I said quite calmly, "I'm not a child."

  "Only a child would say that."

  I whirled to face him, clenching my fists. I wanted to scream in anger. Instead, I kept my voice as calm as I possibly could. "No, only a woman who is being treated like a child by an oversized asshat would say that. I am no helpless female waiting for someone to save her from the bad men. I am a hunter. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, and I damn well go where I damn well please." I didn't bother to point out it was his earlier asshattery that had driven me to take to the streets in the first place.

  "You're practically unarmed. In a strange place."

  I snorted. "I've been to Paris before. And I'm about as unarmed as a porcupine."

  That one made him think. He opened his mouth, ready to argue further.

  "Enough." A hint of the Darkness leaked into my voice, only partially by accident. It stopped Jack dead. He stared at me as the blood drained from his face. It had been a mean, underhanded thing to do, but I was tired of arguing. Tired of the constant need to prove myself. If I was counting, this was yet another reason why Jack and I would never work. He didn't trust me. Worse, he didn't respect me. Not as a woman, and certainly not as a warrior. I don't know if it was because he came from a different time period or what, but it wasn't something I wanted to live with.

  I turned back to the mirror, dismissing the conversation as I dabbed a little beeswax ointment onto the cut. No sense getting an infection even if I was a quick healer. "We have two mysteries to solve. First, we need to find the book."

  Jack nodded reluctantly, accepting the subject change. "Which the vampire told you was hidden underground with some bones."

  "Yes. If he's talking about JP's little chapel, we're screwed. Alister Jones is definitely not there."

  He shook his head. "No bones there. Can't be that."

  I tossed the pot of ointment back in my bag. "Okay. Then I'm thinking maybe an ossuary of some kind."

  "Catacombs."

  "What?"

  "Paris has catacombs."

  I knew that. Everybody knew that. "So?"

  "So, there is a portion of the catacombs where all the bones that were collected from the cemeteries were stored. That's your ossuary."

  "Makes sense. I guess city land was too precious to waste on dead people, huh?" I didn't bother hiding the snark.

  "Exactly."

  "That fits the description. I guess we look there for the book." I had no idea how we were supposed to find one book in a mess of catacombs, if it was even there. I was also getting tired of all this underground nonsense. So not a fan.

  "That's settled. The second thing?" Jack asked.

  I stared at him for a moment as I wiped my fingers on the cheap hotel towel, my mind still focused on ancient tunnels and old bones. "Oh, right. Second mystery is Brent Darroch's role in this whole thing. How he managed to manipulate someone else's memories. His control over vampires."

  "Agreed. Nothing good is bound to come of it."

  No shit, Sherlock. I cleared my throat. "Then, of course, there's the issue of stopping Alister and Darroch from their whole world-domination-by-soul-vamp thing. Though that's not really a mystery, per se. We just have to find them and take a sledgehammer to whatever equipment they're using. If the technology is destroyed, they're done." I doubted Alister could rebuild it, seeing as how, in thirty years, the SRA hadn't figured it out.

  "As long as they don't have more equipment, or specs hidden elsewhere," Jack pointed out.

  Killjoy.

  I tossed the towel onto the bathroom counter and stepped back into the bedroom. "Okay, I say we hit the catacombs." It was the best idea I had. Mostly because we had no other leads to go on at the moment.

  "Fine. We'll go first thing in the morning."

  I gave him a look. "Why wait?"

  "It doesn't open until ten."

  I smirked. "Since when has that stopped us?"

  * * *

  The streets around Notre Dame Cathedral had nearly emptied by the time we crossed the river back into St. Germain on the mainland of Paris. No one paid us any attention, wrapped up in their own little worries and dreams. The cafes, on the other hand, were heaving, golden light spilling out into the streets. Both indoor and outdoor tables were full to overflowing with diners, drinkers, and smokers, everybody yelling in French at top volume. Clouds of cigarette smoke made my eyes burn and my throat tighten. My extrasensory abilities tended to make me more vulnerable to pollutants, not less.

  Past the line of cafes, Jack made a sharp turn into an al
ley off the main thoroughfare. We were still close to the river. I heard the blast from a barge whistle and smelled the damp in the air. The alley ran between two dark shops and dead-ended in a brick wall, a dumpster pushed neatly into the corner. The top of the wall was studded with wrought iron fleur-de-lis, a border between the alley and whatever was beyond. They didn't fool me one bit. In the center of each fleur was a very nasty looking spike. Trust the French to make home security beautiful and stylish.

  "I don't see any entrance here, Jack. Not unless you plan to climb over that wall. If so, you're on your own."

  "I like my manhood where it is, thanks. Help me with this." He headed toward the dumpster. With a frown, I followed him.

  The dumpster was about half the size of a normal American one, which meant it was average for most of Europe. Judging by the stench, it was also full. Fantastic.

  We managed to maneuver the dumpster out of the corner with a great deal of pushing and shoving and only a moderate amount of cussing from me. Jack muttered a lot of stuff in French, so I'm guessing he was being a potty mouth, too. He just sounded more refined than I did.

  Once we had the dumpster pushed out of the corner, I realized why we were here. I crouched down for a better look.

  "One of these things is not like the other," I said in a light sing-song.

  "It's a manhole cover."

  "No kidding." I ran my hand over the stone. It was smooth and worn with time. Quite a bit larger than the other paving stones around it, someone had carved drain holes in it the shape of teardrops. The thing was ancient. "How old is it?"

  "No idea," he said with a shrug. "It's been here as long as I remember. Maybe even since the Romans."

  "How is that possible?" I was a little vague on my history, but I was pretty sure Paris had been rebuilt a time or two since the Roman occupation.

  "Back then, they reused everything. It's possible someone found it at some point and decided to put it to good use. What does it matter? It's here now, and this is our way into the catacombs."