Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy

by Stephen Morris

  He shuddered at her touch even as he struggled against his better judgment, trying to press his hips into her face and against her lips. He turned his face and clenched his eyes shut, unable to make himself step away.

  A scream rent the air. He felt her drop everything. He dared to turn his head towards her and open his eyes.

  Some deep, primal reflex that governed survival must have woke up in his brain. He saw his hands wrapped around her throat, the medal caught against the side of her neck. She writhed and cried out, twisting and struggling to escape him and the touch of the Infant of Prague. He felt the skin and bone melt beneath the medal, heard the popping and cracking of the tendons there, smelled the burning flesh. She took hold of his hands, wrapping her talons around them and pulling them away from her throat. But a strength he was unfamiliar with surged into his grip, enabling him to hold tight to her throat and keep the medal pressed tightly against her. She squirmed and twisted a shoulder, realigning herself slightly, and then bit the hand holding the medal.

  Alessandro cried out in anguish, the Dearg-due’s teeth tearing the already cut skin from his knuckles. The pain shot through his consciousness and in a reflex action, without realizing what he was doing, he dropped his hold on her throat. The medal fell onto the floor as his hand popped open.

  With a cry of triumph, the Dearg-due leaped into Alessandro’s face. She wrapped her talons around his throat and, using her right thumb, pushed into the soft tissue surrounding his esophagus and sliced open the artery there. Alessandro felt the pain as the sharp fingernails cut through his skin and the claws of the Dearg-due reached into his wound and sliced through tendons and muscles. She clamped her hand over the spurting blood, directing the flow down his torso. He could see as well as feel the slick flood pour down his exposed chest, the edges of it soaking into his shirt. The powerful, pulsing blood struck the Dearg-due’s hand, seeping through her fingers, and she shivered with a delight resembling sexual ecstasy.

  Alessandro’s head rolled onto his shoulder, now that the Dearg-due had severed the primary muscles that would hold it upright. Elizabeth held him there, her hands cupped around his jaw, and he could feel the weight of his body hanging from his neck. He could see her, hovering and eagerly licking the blood from his skin and sucking it from the cloth of his shirt. Her rough tongue dragged against his skin, and she pressed it against him harshly, lapping every drop greedily. He wanted to reach out, to make some feeble effort at self-defense, but his body would not respond to his wishes.

  Except for his phallus. That still responded, but not to his wishes. Still stiff and erect, getting stiffer and more erect if possible. What blood hadn’t spilled out the wound in his throat seemed to all be rushing to his groin. He heard Elizabeth slurping, felt her licking the blood from his body and then—unable to keep his eyes open any longer—he felt her toss his body onto the bed. He could feel Elizabeth moving about on the bed beside him, gulping the blood before it could soak into the sheets.

  He felt his consciousness fading. Everything happening seemed to be some horrific dream. Was this really happening to him? Hadn’t he been about to go downstairs and meet someone? He couldn’t remember. He felt the rough tongue on his flesh again and struggled to open his eyes once more. The Dearg-due floated above him, the shroud trailing beside and behind her, gently rippling in the air like waves on a lakeside beach. She continued to lap up the blood, the sound of her slurping driving all other thought from his mind. His eyelids fluttered closed.

  Then, his penis exploded with the most forceful orgasm he had ever experienced. Wave after wave after wave of physical delight racked his body in ways he had never dreamed possible. He jerked and convulsed as the darkness engulfed him.

  “So, take the feckin’ photo, Donal!” Colm directed his brother as the laughter finally died away.

  “Oh, yes. That’s right. Forgot all about that bit,” Donal admitted. He pulled the new camera from his pocket and fiddled with the dials and settings. He took a few steps down the fence and peered through the camera’s viewfinder. He wrapped an elbow around one fence post to get himself into the right angle and then pressed the button on the camera. A flash burst from the camera and they all shrieked with happy surprise. He took two more shots, the additional flashes illuminating the square. Everyone crowded behind Donal to look over his shoulder at the photos he had taken. He fumbled with the knobs and his audience “oohed” and “ahhed” as he revealed each of the three shots.

  “Very good!” Michael congratulated him. “Excellent shots. Perfect illustrations of pinning the vampire-woman in her grave under the cairn!” He clapped Donal on the back.

  “But where is the vampire-woman?” Annabel wanted to know. She looked around the square. “Since the cairn wasn’t already there, why didn’t she come screaming across the square to stop us? Or why didn’t we see her pinned beneath the cairn?” She sounded honestly disappointed.

  “I guess we’ll just have to repeat the procedure at the next grave. She’ll be sure to pay attention if both her graves have cairns on top ’em. Then you’ll see her shriek and cry for sure,” Eamonn reassured her.

  “On to Grave Two!” cried the group of friends, jabbing their fists into the air with gusto. “Vampire-woman, look out!” They formed two rows, linked arm in arm, and set out down the hill to their left for the ruins of the French Church a block or so away, breaking into another rendition of their favorite drinking song.

  “Ho, ro, the rattlin’ bog,

  The bog down in the valley-o!

  Ho, ro, the rattlin’ bog,

  The bog down in the valley-o!”

  At the last minute, Annabel broke away and grabbed three of the cobblestones from the construction supplies in case there were no stones for cairn making at the French Church. She stuffed them into her pockets and ran back to Eamonn’s side.

  Sophia and her husband had dinner with Alessandro and Theo, and then the four had parted, agreeing to meet at the Charles Bridge in the Old Town at eleven.

  “Victoria was sure that the streets would be empty by then. Before that, though, I told her that I would bring the chalice to her apartment to cleanse it in the salt,” Theo had informed them. So Sophia and her husband had returned to their room in a hotel around the corner from Theo’s and Alessandro’s, and Dmitri, saying he was feeling restless, had gone out for a brief walk. According to their plan, Sophia was to wait ten or fifteen minutes and then come down to the bridge and cross it with her husband.

  She sat near the open window, looking out into the night. She could see a few lights in rooms of other hotels but mostly she could hear people returning to the hotel after an evening out. The phrases of conversation that she caught all seemed to revolve around the quickly rising river.

  “Do they think it will flood?” one man’s voice asked his companions.

  “I hear the officials are denying the possibility of a flood,” a woman answered. “But it certainly looked to me like a flood might be possible. The river is much higher now than it was even earlier this afternoon. And it rushes so! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

  Sophia bit her lip. “Neither have I,” she muttered. “I don’t like it. Not at all. I’m sure George is behind it.”

  “Of course he is,” a voice agreed. Sophia gasped and turned around. Elizabeth stood there, closing the door from the hallway behind her. There was a quiet click as the latch caught. Elizabeth stepped into the room. Sophia sat in the chair, rigid with trepidation. “What can she want here?” Sophia asked herself. She had bought a half-dozen medals of the Infant of Prague that afternoon, which she had given out to most of the academics involved in stopping George and Elizabeth. She had one left, which she had hung on a delicate silver chain around her neck with the small cross she nearly always wore; these were tucked in her blouse, where Elizabeth would not have seen them. The only other object close to hand that she could think of as a protective weapon was the hinged two-panel icon her husband had set on the table near her seat. />
  Sophia saw that her visitor’s hair was tussled and tangled, as if she had just risen from a nap and hadn’t had time to comb it out. She had a bright red blister in the middle of her forehead. Her clothes all seemed somewhat askew. But Elizabeth seemed not to notice. Or perhaps she didn’t care. She smiled at Sophia, as if happy to unexpectedly meet a long-lost friend on the street.

  “What happened to you?” Sophia couldn’t help blurting out. “You look… disheveled.”

  Elizabeth glanced down at herself and then looked back to Sophia. “Perhaps. But in a good cause.” She wiped the back of one hand across her lips and Sophia shuddered involuntarily.

  “What have you done?” Sophia asked warily.

  “This is very good.” Elizabeth stepped out of the small vestibule and into the room. “Just us women. We can dispense with the small talk and get right to business. You and Alessandro have gotten in the way. I can speak freely, because you will never be able to repeat anything I tell you. Just as Alessandro is in no position to repeat anything that he learned this evening, either.”

  Sophia clutched the arms of the chair. “What have you done with Alessandro?”

  “Fulfilled his fantasies. Made his dreams come true.” Elizabeth stepped closer. “As he said, that is what I do. Seduce men. It is unusual for me to visit someone like yourself. Another woman. A fellow traveler, as it were. You should feel flattered.”

  Sophia nervously fingered the slim chain around her neck and then stood to face Elizabeth. “Flattered? Hardly. What do you want here?” Her fingers slid somewhat down the chain.

  Elizabeth looked around the room briefly before answering. “I am not so much interested in the seduction of another woman. But the rest of it…” She met Sophia’s gaze directly. “I think you will find my company… fascinating, nonetheless.”

  Sophia swallowed. Changing the subject, she asked, “What is it that Alessandro learned this evening? What did you tell him before… before…”

  “Before his dreams came true? Though I suspect you might call some of those dreams nightmares,” Elizabeth said to Sophia. “I answered his questions. Fairly simple answers to fairly simple questions.”

  “Is that what you did with Peter?” Sophia wanted to know. “Answered his questions?”

  Elizabeth laughed heartily. “No, I answered none of his questions. But he must have had one or two that he was hoping would be answered before he could ask no more.”

  “So you did kill Peter,” Sophia reasoned aloud. “After I saw you change him into a toad….”

  “Changed him into a toad? Kill Peter?” Elizabeth repeated the accusation. “Well… not directly. But it could be considered a kind of death. He did experienced a metamorphosis, although I don’t know how you could have known that. His body shifted into the animal form of his most overwhelming vice. Yes, I changed him into a toad.” She laughed again. “Which, according to the theologians, is a death of sorts, as they say that a human soul cannot survive in an animal’s body.”

  “How could you do such a thing?” cried Sophia, aghast. “Have you no conscience at all?”

  Elizabeth regarded Sophia with a detached curiosity. “No conscience? Let us say that we each have a different conscience, you and I. Different lives, different consciences. We could argue, for instance, if it was crueler to leave Peter’s questions unanswered or to answer Alessandro’s. Sometimes men do not truly want to know the answers to the questions they are asking.”

  “Such as? What questions was Alessandro asking?” pressed Sophia. She realized that if Elizabeth stood between her and the door, there was no chance for escape, so she took a few steps, closing the distance between them. The door was still behind Elizabeth, but at least Sophia was closer to it than the window. She clenched both her hands into small, protective fists closed around the silver links draped around her neck.

  “Such as if George and I tricked Magdalena into helping us when it was the other way ’round, in fact. Magdalena called George and me here to assist her in clearing the name of an old woman,” Elizabeth purred seductively, stepping closer to Sophia. Sophia felt something stir within her. It was the attraction of knowledge, of being brought into a small, elite group that knew the truth. She felt like a schoolgirl again, thrilled to be chosen to share a secret.

  “Clear an old woman’s name? Of what?” The taste of a little knowledge made her thirsty, yearning for more. Was this what Eve felt like in the garden? Sophia wondered.

  “Fen’ka was burned for witchcraft in 1357,” Elizabeth whispered, leaning in closer to Sophia. “She asked Magdalena to clear her name and Magdalena agreed.”

  “But why would clearing the name of a woman burned for witchcraft involve destroying the city?” Sophia gasped. She could taste the desire for knowledge on her tongue. It was as intoxicating as any other desire. She could feel her heart racing. She struggled to bring her breathing under control.

  “Clearing Fen’ka’s name also means revitalizing her dying words, calling on the god Svetovit to vindicate her,” Elizabeth answered, her own breaths becoming labored and her voice alluringly husky. “Svetovit will destroy the city when his power is unleashed, destroy the city that turned its back on him and persecuted and killed his handmaiden, Fen’ka.”

  “Is that what this flood is about? Svetovit destroying the city?” Sophia turned her face away from Elizabeth, afraid of the pull of desire.

  “Only in part.” Elizabeth leaned in even closer, her cheek grazing Sophia’s. “The single most powerful check on Svetovit is the Charles Bridge. Once it is washed away in the flood, and we control the four magical tools of Prague, there will be nothing left to stand in Svetovit’s way.”

  Sophia’s breasts heaved as the tension within her built to a crescendo. She wanted to share so completely in whatever Elizabeth was willing to share with her. It was difficult to think. The only thing she was certain of was her need to consummate this newfound sisterhood. Her fists, still closed around her necklace, slid down to the cross and medal.

  In a flash, she saw what Alessandro had seen on the Charles Bridge: a doubled-over hunchback, scrawny and skeletal, wrapped in the tattered red cerements of a long-dead corpse. Desire and hunger burned in its eyes. The tip of its serpentine tongue slithered across its ragged shards of teeth and toward the lobe of Sophia’s ear. The talons of its claws tightly gripped Sophia’s upper arms. In the same instant that Sophia saw the other-Elizabeth and struggled to not scream or pull away or reveal that she saw the truth, she realized exactly what she had to do. Sophia leaned forward and kissed the Dearg-due’s cheek.

  The true Elizabeth fell back, startled. Sophia rapidly kissed the Dearg-due’s other cheek and then the first again, a threefold kiss in good Eastern European fashion. As she kissed the astonished Elizabeth, she swung the chain over her own head and down around the hood of the Dearg-due’s shroud. The religious medallions fell into the folds of the shroud and between the creature’s sagging breasts.

  The Dearg-due screamed, thrusting Sophia away from her. Billows of smoke and steam hissed from where the medals touched the Dearg-due’s breasts. Her withered fingers scrabbled and clutched at the chain in her wild attempts to snap its links or tear it away from her as the Infant of Prague burned its way into her already desiccated body.

  In the instant that she no longer touched the Infant of Prague, Sophia saw Elizabeth the scholar again, not the hideous reality hidden beneath the guise of a modern academic. The modern Elizabeth’s shrill howl filled Sophia as completely as the yearning for consummation had moments before. Sophia pushed her way past the frantic Elizabeth, who was struggling to remove the Infant of Prague from her throat, knocking the Dearg-due to the floor. Seizing hold of the door’s handle, Sophia struggled momentarily with the lock and then tore the door open and ran down the hall. Not daring to wait for the elevator, she ran down the stairs, taking two at a time, nearly falling at least once in her race to the lobby. Bursting into the lobby from the last step, she flew past the front desk an
d out into the small plaza. Not even pausing to orient herself, she kept running, dodging others as best she could, though she did knock over a young boy hanging onto his father’s hand.

  Making for the bridge without pausing to look for her husband, she ran across to the Old Town. Sophia ran until her gasps for breath cut like a knife in her chest. She collapsed against a building, wheezing and gulping air into her lungs. For the first time, she dared to look behind her. There was no sign of the Dearg-due.

  “Most Holy Mother of God, save us!” Sophia whispered as she crossed herself.

  Colm and the other Irish teens came to a stop in front of the French Church, standing at the top of a flight of stairs leading to the entrance gate of the ruins. Stone walls rose into the night, ragged shards of stone slicing the sky where a roof had once provided shelter to those gathered within the safety of the walls. Three great arched window frames, the stained glass long vanished from between the carved stonework, could be seen high in the wall at the opposite end of the ruins.

  Donal bounded down the steps to the gate and shook its iron bars. It rattled but was clearly locked and secured with a solid padlock. He shook the gate again, more forcefully. Echoes of frustration bounced off the stone walls within.

  “What are daft ol’ Uncle Sean’s directions here?” asked Michael.

  Donal searched his pockets for the e-mail text but could not find it.

  “I dunno know where I put it,” he muttered angrily. “Did it drop outta me pocket?” he wondered, looking back up the street they had just come down.

  “Here, I have it!” Daria pulled the paper from her pocket and waved it. She stepped to the one street lamp on the block, followed by the others. They waited impatiently for her eyes to adjust to the light before she found the place where Uncle Sean had given his directions for finding the specific grave.