by Tal Bauer
Carefully, Cristoph wrapped his fingers around the hilt and lifted it from Alain’s hands.
He looked good. He looked so damn good holding the blade. Holding Alain’s knighted sword. Alain fought to clear his throat. “You’ve trained with the weapons in the armory?” The Swiss Guard had pikes and halberds, swords and daggers, and an arsenal of modern pistols and assault rifles.
Cristoph nodded.
“Good. Keep it. Learn how to use it.”
“What?” Stricken, Cristoph stared at Alain like he’d lost his mind. “I can’t, Alain. It’s yours.”
“I have another one,” he said quietly. “I have my old partner’s. And I want you to have this one. Mine. Maybe it’s early to give it to you. But one day, you can hold it as your own.”
Silence. “After you knight me? After you give me your knightly superpowers?”
What am I doing? This isn’t right. Still, he chuckled, trying to break the moment as he looked away. “Well, I think I already gave you something tonight.”
Cristoph barked out a laugh, but he kept holding the blade, gently testing the weight and the tang. He stepped back, gave it a few careful swings for practice, and then set it down gently on the counter.
“You said the knights before you were all commandants. Why won’t you rise to that rank? Seems like it’s tradition.”
Alain shook his head. “No, I’m not the type. I wasn’t supposed to be the superior knight, remember? I was just along for the ride. I was supposed to be the muscle. My partner was the brains.” Looking away, Alain bit his tongue, fighting back a swell of memories. “Luca is more the type, you know. To be a righteous knight of the Templar Order. Second-in-command, about to inherit the guard.”
“I’m glad it’s you and not him.” Cristoph’s hand snaked across the counter, his fingers resting over Alain’s. “I can’t imagine he’d handle learning about this stuff very well. He’d probably have a meltdown, completely lose his marbles.”
The moment stretched long, Alain losing himself in the warmth of Cristoph’s gaze. He couldn’t tear himself from Cristoph. I’m in too deep. I care too much about him. This is only going to end in tragedy.
“Cristoph—”
His front door splintering open, broken down from outside, tore them apart in a flash. Cristoph grabbed the blade Alain had given him as Alain ripped down a shotgun mounted behind them. He pumped once and braced against the kitchen wall, next to the narrow doorway leading to the rest of the apartment. Cristoph stood opposite, holding the blade and keeping his eyes fixed on Alain.
“Alain!” A deep voice roared from the doorway. “Alain, I know you’re in here!”
His breath whooshed from him, exhaling in a massive gasp. He dropped the shotgun, letting it clatter behind him on the floor as he motioned for Cristoph to lower his blade.
The noise from the dropped shotgun drew the intruder to them. Footsteps thundered toward the kitchen. Alain spun out into the hall, stopping the man before he saw Alain’s kitchen, his armory. Cristoph followed on his heels.
Luca came up short, glowering at Cristoph before turning a murderous scowl to Alain.
“What the fuck do you want, Luca? It’s—” He checked through the kitchen door to the coffee maker. The clock said five in the morning. “It’s way too fucking early for this.”
“I’m so sorry to disturb your morning, Alain,” Luca growled. “You should have thought of that last night. When I was trying to sleep.”
He frowned. Then it hit him. His bedroom wall was also Luca’s bedroom wall.
They hadn’t been quiet last night. Not at all. Not with him urging Cristoph to scream his name, to wail to God and the Vatican what Alain was doing to him. And then there was the bed frame, the hard, rhythmic pounding against the wall, for hours. His face flushed, burning.
“Prick,” Luca snarled. He snarled at Cristoph. “If you’re well enough to fuck, you’re well enough to get back to your duties. You’ll stand at your post until I tell you you’re free, Halberdier.”
“No, I still have my duties with Alain.”
Luca’s gaze burned and his lips pulled back, baring his gritted teeth. “Sergeant Autenburg—”
“Cristoph, it’s all right. You should go back to your post.” Alain tried to stem Luca’s fury, tried to stave off the eruption brewing before his eyes.
“But—” Hurt flashed through Cristoph, followed by a pang of accusation. “But we have our own duties. Things we need to do.”
Luca snorted loudly. He rolled his eyes.
Alain ignored him. “And when you’re through with your shifts, you’ll be back.” A thin smile stretched over his lips. “It’s better for you to be at your post right now. Safer. Don’t draw attention to yourself.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed to slits. He stared at Alain. Wariness poured from him, but he shook his head and strode away, leaving them behind.
Cristoph waited until he was gone. “Don’t push me away again.”
Alain grabbed Cristoph’s hand, bringing it to his lips. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” He kissed his fingers, the center of Cristoph’s palm. “I’ll see you later. I promise.” Cristoph smiled, then turned. He heaved a sigh.
Like a guilty man going to his execution, Cristoph trudged for Luca. Luca waited, glowering. “Are you ready, Halberdier?”
“I need to get dressed—”
“You will. Into your own uniform. In your own dorm.”
Cristoph’s face twisted. He marched in front of Luca to Alain’s broken door in just his boxers and Alain’s borrowed undershirt. He’d walk the whole way back to his dorm like that with Luca on his heels, and with what had happened yesterday in the canteen, everyone would know. God, everyone would know what had happened.
Alain scrubbed a hand over his eyes. Too much, too much was happening too fast. He couldn’t wrap his head around it, couldn’t wrap his heart around it.
He felt a heavy gaze on him. He looked up.
Luca, half shrouded in the darkness of the hallway, stared at him. His face was cast in shadow, and only the reflected light from the Apostolic Palace made his eyes gleam, a stare that made the hairs on the back of Alain’s neck stand on end. His blood turned to ice. He tasted electricity, felt the slide of snakeskin over a dry desert, sand and grave dirt choking the back of his throat.
“Luca,” he breathed.
Luca stormed off. His deep voice echoed down the barracks hallway, dogging after Cristoph as he marched him to his dorm.
* * *
Alain met Lotario in his office, clutching his third cup of espresso, in no mood for Lotario’s jokes.
“Where’s your lover boy?”
“Shut up.”
“Ooo, touchy. Was it not all you wanted it to be? Did he not put out?” Lotario’s eyebrows wagged. “Or did you not?”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
Lotario spread his arms wide. “Your first attempt at being an actual living male in twelve years and you expect me to not make a big deal out of it?”
“I expect you to be a decent human being but that’s clearly asking too much.”
Lotario snorted. He pulled one of the rickety metal chairs out with his foot and twirled it around, sitting backward and hanging his arms over the backrest. “Welcome back to the world of sin, Alain. It’s missed you.”
Alain stayed silent. He sucked his top lip behind his bottom teeth as he paged through his email. All quiet on the internet, at least. Thank God for small favors.
“Where is lover boy?”
He fixed Lotario with a dark glare. “He’s on post.” He hesitated. “Luca barged in this morning and dragged him back on duty. We were… loud.”
Lotario fought back his wild grin. One hand rose, covering his mouth. He coughed, looking anywhere but at Alain. “So that’s why you’re in such a wonderful mood.”
“Did you bring the samples?” Ignoring Lotario, Alain slid the crystal pendulum with the vampire blood from Nuzzi’s murder across the desk. T
he vampire blood had dried black on the crystal.
Lotario pulled out two vials of blood, hastily marked with tape and black marker. “Nest” read the first label. “Solitary” read the second. “Which one first?”
Alain grabbed the vial for the solitary vampire. He scraped some of the dried blood off the crystal, letting the small flecks rest on a cleared spot on his desk. Unstopping the vial, he tilted it, pouring a single drop onto the flecks.
Flame sparked as both parts of blood were consumed in fire.
Their gazes met and held. Lotario frowned and pulled out a cigarette as Alain scraped a new pile of dried blood onto the desk. Silently, Lotario passed over the second vial, the one labeled “Nest.”
A single drop fell. The blood flashed, the dried flecks slipping into the droplet, becoming one. A black sphere of blood sat quivering on Alain’s desk.
Lotario smashed it with his lit cigarette, rolling the embers into the blood drop. Smoke rose as the blood sizzled. Lotario left his smashed cigarette in the mess on Alain’s desk. “The nest killed Cardinal Nuzzi.”
“The nest had Madelena spy on Nuzzi.”
“They might have been coming after what they didn’t get from her. Trying to finish the job?”
Alain swallowed. “Did they?”
Lotario shrugged and let his head hang down over the back of the chair. He spread his hands wide. “What now, Alain? Where do we go from here?”
He didn’t want to do this. More than anything else, he didn’t want to do this. But they had to, especially now. With all signs pointing to the nest, with more unknowns than knowns, they had to track down the only leads they had. “We have to scout the nest.”
Lotario sighed, hanging his head. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? They’ve just snacked on thirteen bodies. They’re super powered now. Hitting them in the nest sounds like a really fucking bad idea, actually.”
“Not a strike. You’re right, we can’t take them. But we need to figure out what is going on. We need to talk to the alpha. The pact still stands, at least in writing. We should demand answers. Figure out what kind of alliance the demons and vampires have.”
“How are we going to get in there? We didn’t do so well the last time.”
“I can backtrack the route I took through the river, follow the Tiber back underground. We can come up through the water. It will mask our scent.”
“Should we wait for Cristoph?” Lotario sighed as Alain shot him a frigid glare. “All I’m saying is that more bodies would be helpful. We could use the backup.”
“No. No way.”
“Alain—”
“I will never bring him anywhere near the vampires, Lotario!” Twelve years, and nothing seemed to have changed. Facing vampires, again. And his lover in the mix, again. “I will never put him at risk. Never.”
Lotario pursed his lips, but nodded. He slapped his knees. “All right. All right, fine. Let’s go. Let’s go scout the damn nest. Try and talk to the alpha.”
Chapter Nineteen
Asmodeus shivered into being. The smoke and shadows of his incorporeal form was all he could push across the shuttered Veil. For ten thousand years, the Veil had stood, separating Earth—and humans—from everything else.
From their home. From the garden, the land they all had been born in.
It was an endless torment, a ceaseless torture, carving out the humans from the rest of creation. The erection of the Veil had shattered their lands, sent their home into endless waves of darkness and warfare. So much had changed when the Veil descended.
So many had been lost that day.
So many never found.
But nine hundred years ago, there had been a moment, a slice in time, when the Veil had torn. The Veil tore at the ruins where the last battle occurred, Elohim’s fight against Lucifer.
It was after that battle that the darkness had fallen, the Veil had risen, and their worlds had been torn apart, seemingly forever. A tear in the Veil at the site of those ancient ruins, the scorched and destroyed lands of the ancient battle, wasn’t what anyone had been expecting.
But they could all feel the Veil tear apart, and more, they could feel his longing, his desperate, aching longing. For the first time in millennia, they all could hear him again, his voice raging in their minds, calling out for salvation and for justice, just as he had so long ago.
Nine hundred years ago, the Veil had parted, and, coming from the humans’ world—from Earth—Lucifer’s voice was heard again, a clarion shout singing through their lands.
They tried to come for him, tried to find where his noumenon—thought banished, thought destroyed and unmade for millennia—had gone.
The Veil closed before they could reach him.
Before it closed, they saw men in white tunics with blazing red crosses, dressed in shining plate armor, and they heard the men call each other Templar.
They had a purpose, after that. Find Lucifer. Find his noumenon. Rescue their leader.
Time didn’t matter. They had eternity.
The search spanned centuries, crossed continents. The Templars—knights of Elohim’s church—grew in power and then were nearly destroyed. They went to the shadows and seemed to vanish.
But they returned. Whispers spread amongst the creatures of darkness, filtering through the Veil. Hunters, the whispers said. The knights are hunters.
It took time, but they tracked the knights to Rome.
To do more, they would need to work on Earth. They’d need to cross the Veil. But nothing could, nothing but shadow and smoke, the barest hint of their powers. Only dark creatures lived in the human world, on the human side of the Veil.
An alliance, then. A meeting of purposes in the darkness. Dark desires fanning each other.
Even though vampires were the darkest scourge of creation, twisted and corrupted, they had their uses.
Asmodeus turned, his shadowed form moving silently in the vampires’ bone cathedral. Green mist snaked over the walls, lit the skulls hanging on the walls. He recognized some of his fallen brothers. “Alpha Lycidas,” he called. “I am here.”
Lycidas emerged from the darkness, scowling. The evanescent gleam that slithered over his pupils caught enough light to give his glare an eerie glow. Asmodeus’s smoke curled inward, nearly curdled, and if he’d had his body, his bones would have puckered.
“The cardinal is dead,” Lycidas growled. His fangs were out, flashing in the dim light. “He didn’t give up the information, even though I took my time with his death.”
A pity. But not insurmountable. “You weren’t able to strum the information from your whore, and you weren’t able to take the information from a dying old man?”
Lycidas flew at him, fangs flashing, talons extended. He stopped short of Asmodeus’s shadow, holding back his strike. “Speak carefully of Madelena,” Lycidas’s nose twitched. Disgust crawled over his face. “She was mine, and I loved her.”
“She may have been your lover, and she may have let you feed on her, but she was useless to us in the end. And it was your carelessness that allowed the ghoul to follow you to her. Linhart followed the ghoul. You lost your little whore. A whore who bled out your secret, your blood in her veins, and led those priests to your nest.” Asmodeus clucked. “You couldn’t even pull information from the hunter you accidentally managed to capture here. And, you killed Nuzzi before he gave you any information. Your jealous blood rage against him obstructed your mission.”
Lycidas’s low snarl echoed through the bone cathedral. Growls rose in the darkness. “You didn’t have to send my lover to seduce the cardinal.” More braying, harsh grunts in the darkness, and talons slashing against stone, sparking.
“You would truly set your nest on me, Lycidas? Despite our alliance?” Asmodeus grinned, sly. “Will vampires turn against us in the end?”
“You stink.” Lycidas stalked away, slinking into the darkness. “You stink like damnation.”
“Pretty words from creatures who smell like grave rot an
d death.”
Lycidas stayed in the dark, silent.
Asmodeus felt a tug on his noumenon. Yes, he had to get going. Temeluchus, on the other side of the Veil, was getting restless. “Alpha Lycidas, you have failed at every turn. Even for a vampire, you’re a disappointment. Every low expectation I had for your kind, you failed to meet.” He turned, circling, able to spot Lycidas in the shadows despite the vampire’s attempts to retreat to his darkness.
The vampires thought they owned the darkness.
No. Demons gave birth to the darkness.
“Everything we did for you. Your nest was strengthened by us. We fed you all those humans, all those possessed souls led into your arms, and in exchange for what?” His head tilted. His white mask was perpetually grinning, but if he could, he’d have smiled wider, practically beaming.
“We can still get the information,” Lycidas barked. “We can still find out who the hunter is.”
“Oh, I think now you’re more useful for something else.” Asmodeus pulled inward, drawing his strength together. A low chant started in the back of his mind. “You didn’t think you were our only pawns, did you? Unfortunately for you, in the end, the others were simply so much more useful.”
Silence, for a moment, and then the nest exploded. Snarls, the roars of furious vampires, fangs snapping and talons scratching against bone and stone. He saw them coming, racing for him in the darkness.
He spoke his chant aloud, his voice rising. His power curled, swirling within him. He blasted his spell and his shadowed form—suddenly burning, suddenly flaming—turned to burgundy Demon Fire and arched through the nest.
Snarling vampires threw up their arms, trying to shield their eyes. They shrieked, falling to the ground, wrapped head to toe in freezing Demon Fire.
Lycidas howled, his voice like shattering glass and metal splintering apart. “What are you doing?”
Asmodeus, a whiff of shade, barely anything at all with his shadowed form turned to flame and stretched around the vampires, chuckled. “Turning on you, Lycidas. You vampires, you’re despicable. The worst of creation.” His flames leaped higher, his presence, his spell one and the same. “You know, you weren’t even created by Elohim. You’re an abomination.”
