Shadows 2: The Half Life

by Graham Brown

  “Don’t look.” Terrance told him. “You don’t want to know the evil that these thing spread in the world. If you see too much, you may not want to help them.”

  Leroy looked anyway. Rotting carcasses lay one on top of each other in the corner. Flies everywhere, rats stealing pieces of meat from the dead humans. Some bodies were decayed, others looked as if they’d been last night’s meal.

  “The new ones did this?”

  “No, these were brought in by the clan leaders. To help the process along.”

  Leroy thought he’d be sick, but he held it together.

  “We must be cautious,” Terrance said. “This means the clan leaders are near. They’re probably watching us, unsure what to make of us since no one dares to come in here.”

  Leroy was beginning to think he should have gone elsewhere. This was too much. But he went forward and stepped into the next room.

  There he found some light. A candle in the center of the room with two teenage girls huddled together beside a male who appeared to be praying.

  Leroy’s arrival startled them, and they backed into a corner.

  Terrance pulled free of Leroy’s arm and whispered, “Ask the question.”

  “What question?

  “THE question.”

  Leroy stepped forward and opened up his arms. “Do you want to be saved?”

  They stared at him. Maybe that wasn’t it.

  “Do you want…” Leroy needed a word that could reach them, “…life?”

  And then he saw it. Images in their minds. Moments they were clinging to. Pictures slowly fading. The two girls were sisters. Their mother had sewn them new dresses for their twelfth birthday. He focused on this thought, this happy moment, and tried in whatever way he could to make it brighter.

  One of the girls broke free and crawled towards him. “Who are you?”

  “I’m…” he hesitated and almost lost her. What was he supposed to say? I’m an angel named Leroy? “I can help you,” he said. “Let me show you.”

  She was crying. She still had the ability to cry. Half human, half vampire was a terrible place to be, he thought.

  “I can take you home,” he said. “But you have to choose. Do you want to rejoin the light?”

  The girl looked up, her face thin.

  A hushed, “Yes,” came forth through the sobbing. Like a slight wind on a midsummer’s day, it could just barely be heard. She waved to her sister and the boy. Both came over.

  Leroy put his hands on them. A light began to emanate from beneath his fingers. Brilliant and colorful, like a churning, glowing palate. Soon it filled the room, spilling out and chasing the darkness from every crevice, every broken hole and boarded up window, pouring through every crack in the wall, spilling out into the street.

  Even though the light was warm and wonderful and living, Leroy shut his eyes. But the black eyes of the Nosferatu remained open. And the blinding palette of color danced on them, soaking into them and bringing back the soft brown color of the young trio’s irises.

  Outside, at the far end of the street as close as people were willing to come to this evil place, a crowd had gathered as soon as Leroy and Terrance went inside. Everyone knew that some great evil went on in there, but this was different. The light was mesmerizing. It seemed to change and move as if it were alive. They gazed in amazement and many crossed themselves while others chanted voodoo incantations.

  “What is dis’?” one woman kept asking. “What is it?”

  And then, the crumbling shack went dark. Instantly, something fled from the house. Something dark and evil. They saw it run up into the hills, fleeing in panic like a frightened animal.

  They watched as Terrance and Leroy came out with the three children in front of them.

  “He da priest,” a woman said, in a singsong Caribbean accent.

  “Ee’ not ‘posed to be here,” another bystander said. "Dis not his place.”

  “Whatchu care for?” the woman replied. “Dey chase out the darkness, chase out de’ evil. Why not he allowed to be here?”

  “Cause dis just gonna make it worse,” someone else added.

  The first woman waved them off, saying something about scared fools and where they could go. But then another member of the crowd whispered a name which they all feared. “Papa Legba ain’t gonna like dis. Trus’ me. He ain’t gonna like dis one bit.”

  They looked at each other. A few nodded. All kept silent until the last speaker muttered something under her breath. “Papa Legba,” she said. And then she crossed herself, gripped her crucifix and whispered another prayer.

  Chapter 15

  Paris, France

  Drake stood motionless under a bridge on the west bank of the river Seine. He watched the water play with the lights of Paris as it streamed past him in an endless effort to reach the sea. The circle of existence, he thought. Ocean waters to vapor, clouds to rain, rain to river and all of it ended up back in the sea. Somehow he and his kind had eluded the hard and fast laws of the universe, the cycle of life to death and perhaps back to life again somewhere.

  In his case, he felt he’d eluded it by the skin of his teeth. He was not completely healed—the fact that he was pondering such things told him that—but he would be soon.

  Having sent Zwana, Tereza and Akash in search of this great weapon, he’d come to a place he’d avoided for centuries. Paris had once been Drake’s home. But a betrayal had made him feel unwelcome within its borders. He’d abandoned this city in favor of the new world. He’d certainly believed new opportunities awaited him in the Americas, but the lack of the Church’s power there was also inviting.

  Only his great need brought him back. And he hoped it would not mean a new front in the war.

  A thirty-foot speedboat pulled up alongside. Three figures stood on the front deck. They wore modern clothing, jeans, boots, and hoody sweatshirts. They could blend in with the nightlife of Paris perfectly, but they were anything but modern humans.

  Drake stepped aboard. The boat accelerated and turned around, heading down river. It would soon arrive at the entrance to the catacombs: the great stronghold of the undead in Paris.

  The city had many catacombs. Most were known, but deeper than the caves which tourists flocked to were another set of tunnels and warrens. These were used by the undead. They were concealed, protected. One of the three hooded vampires tuned to Drake.

  “Artimous is expecting you.”

  “Good,” Drake said.

  Drake had turned Artimous in 1514. Artimous in many ways had proven to be Christian’s opposite. Where Christian was boring, dark and morose, but loyal until the falling out, Artimous, was a clever man, witty, arrogant and one who always wanted more than his fair share.

  Drake had always known his intelligence and desire would be helpful, and the fact that Artimous loved to fight was a great asset at times. But his greed made him a problem, and his distrust of Christian became an issue. The two could not be in the same room.

  So when Drake left Paris for good, he gave Artimous the city but warned him never to expand beyond it. Artimous had kept his word and Drake had let him live. A rare moment of mercy he was now thankful for.

  The wind picked up as the watercraft pulled to a stop underneath a bridge near Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. Drake stepped ashore beneath the five-hundred-year-old bridge as the sound of stone on stone began to emanate from the shadows. A gap in the wall appeared and one of the entrances to the Catacombs of the Undead opened up before him.

  Drake walked in and was greeted by more hooded vampires. Their looks and stations in society were as different as their ages, but all wore hoods when in the underground to shade the eyes and keep their telekinetic powers at bay. It seemed that Artimous ran a tight ship.

  A torch was lit and Drake was led deeper into the catacombs to the grand chamber of the undead, a room that Drake had built five hundred years ago. He continued past ranks of vampires. It dawned on him that the entire clan was assembled, a show of great
respect. He passed through them all the way to the Chair of the King. Sitting in that golden chair was a huge bearded figure with a scepter in his hand.

  Artimous.

  As Drake reached the first of the five marble steps that led to the chair, Artimous began to clap slowly and in an arrogant manner which was his way. “Yes, all Hail the King, the mighty Drakos who returns alone.”

  Perhaps the show of respect was facetious. “You’ve been busy,” Drake said.

  “I’ve built a civilization down here.”

  “And what good is it?”

  “I have learned that not all of our souls are as dark and barren as yours… or mine,” Artimous said. “There are some who play music. Others who sculpt and dance. I have learned that gold, pure gold feels warm even to a vampire and that wine, if mixed with the smallest amount of blood, can bring taste without destruction.”

  Drake almost laughed. “So you get weak with pleasures. And you horde the yellow metal like humans. To what end, Artimous? To live in a hole in the ground?”

  “The church is still strong here.”

  “I told you I’d break the church one day,” Drake said.

  “And I told you Christian would turn traitor,” Artimous said.

  Drake nodded. “It seems we were both right.”

  Artimous shook his huge, shaggy face. “No,” he said. “I was right. The church still hunts, but I don’t see Christian at your side.”

  “The church is in disarray,” Drake said. “And I will soon have the power to defeat them.”

  “I would say it’s their power that grows.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “We’ve heard rumors,” Artimous said.

  “About?”

  “The coming of angels.”

  “Yes,” Drake said. “The prophecy of Jocasta. It’s true.”

  At this, Artimous leaned forward. “You’ve seen the angel?”

  “No,” Drake replied. “But it has come into existence. We have little time. Unless you prefer to fight with me, or be returned to your wretched human life, you will do as I command.”

  “I will do as you command?” Artimous said, a look of surprise on his face. “Did you not come here to beg my help?”

  “I do not beg,” Drake said. “You will either fall into line, or I will destroy you and take your clan as my own.”

  Artimous sat taller and then stood upon his podium. “You’re surrounded and defenseless,” Artimous said.

  “And if I choose, I will take the minds of your army and conform them to my own. And then you will be surrounded and defenseless.”

  “You would find them ill-suited for war.”

  “They can learn,” Drake said. “Now answer me! Do we fight each other, or do we fight together?”

  For a moment the two of them locked metal horns, but Artimous was only testing him. He had heard Drake was weakened but found it not to be the case. Not enough that he would challenge him. He moved from the chair with its high back and golden arms and bowed before his king: Drake.

  Perhaps, these years had changed Artimous, for he had not just given him a King’s welcome, but conceded the throne. Drake searched Artimous’s mind. He was filled with fear. Fear that Drake had come there to kill him. Fear that the angel would undo all he’d done. Fear that even if there was forgiveness for the foot-soldiers, there was no mercy for those who’d turned them.

  As it turned out, he was tired of worrying, tired of leading. In fact, he was glad to relinquish the throne.

  “Rise Artimous,” Drake said.

  “What do you ask of me?”

  “I seek a learned man whose mind I once saw into,” Drake said. “He knows much about the past. You will accompany me, and we will extract from his memory all that we need to know.”

  “Who is this man?” Artimous said.

  “His name is Faust.”

  Chapter 16

  Cologne, Germany

  The aroma of the hazelnut drifted on the air, surrounding the patrons of the coffee house and mixing with a hint of pumpkin spice. Dr. Morgan Faust didn’t have a need for such frothy drinks. A strong cappuccino and the New York Times were his companions. Like the new-fangled beverages with names he couldn’t pronounce, the modern newspapers and magazines were all fluff and no substance in his estimation.

  He took a sip, read a snippet and looked out the window, a routine he had kept up for nearly two hours.

  The rain was pouring down outside, adding the kind of darkness to the night that made lights all but useless. Though the weather was expected to clear in the morning, it had been pouring for days.

  “Not fit for man nor beast,” one patron remarked as he rushed into the safety and warmth of the coffee shop. Dr. Faust wished that statement were true, but as he stared out the window the thought of a beast haunted him as it had since the moment one of the undead had come into his church in Cologne.

  No, he corrected himself, not a mere church, The Cathedral, The Kohler Dom. The largest, most important church in all of Germany. Since the demons had set foot there, Faust had been gripped with a kind of hidden fear. If they could walk there, they could walk anywhere.

  Unlike most, he knew of the battle between the Church and the Fallen. He’d studied tales of both victories and defeat. In some ways he was like an armchair general looking over the follies and triumphs of a war long past. He’d even likened himself to the great Josephus, a Jewish scholar who wrote about Roman power in the second century and whose name was better known than most of the generals.

  He’d rather enjoyed his life, but then one of the demons entered the cathedral and another had dug its claws into his mind. And suddenly the war was not some far off thing to be pondered and studied, but a close thing to be feared. And yet, he still lived.

  Could a demon commit an act of mercy?

  Had the church not investigated his claims and verified them by reviewing the blurred videotapes from the Cathedral’s security cameras, he would have thought it madness or a fevered dream, since he actually remembered very little. But the truth was there. With Drakos trying to control his mind and drag him out into the night, the blond demon had literally thrown him not out into darkness but towards the altar of the church where even Drake’s will could not touch him.

  A war, he wrote on the paper almost unconsciously. A war between the demons. But what could they be fighting for?

  He took another sip and looked out into the wet gloom of High Street wondering what was out there.

  Are you listening in? Do you hear my madness?

  He half hoped one of them would speak to him, and feared it like the devil at the same time.

  In a fit of paranoia—or an act of extreme prudence—he’d set up cameras outside his flat, put motion detectors in. He’d even bought himself a dog and covered the place with holy relics borrowed from the church—in hopes they would keep the demons at bay. But even though the alarm never sounded and the dog never barked, Faust was positive that something was out there, something that refused to show itself.

  On the worst nights he couldn’t stay home. His first stop was the Café Bruner where the patrons numbered in the dozens even late into the night. What good that would do him he didn’t know, but he had a feeling that even demons preferred to avoid public spectacles.

  And when the fear got to him or when the crowd failed to last until dawn, Faust had a second place of hiding. But he tried not to use it for fear that if it did not work, he would have no place left to feel safe.

  He peered out the window again, nothing but cars and people and rain.

  He looked around the coffee shop. Not an unkind face among the bunch. But still the feeling persisted. Something was watching him.

  Quickly he folded the paper and put it down. He stood, put on his raincoat and stepped toward the exit. Out the door and down the street, he moved as fast as his old legs could carry him. His heart pumped deep and heavy. He was sure if the vampires didn’t get him that he would have a heart attack
, but maybe that would be better.

  He dashed across a street without looking, almost getting hit by a car that skidded to a halt on the wet pavement.

  A window went down and German curses came flying out by the bushel, nasty words but nothing to take his soul. Very good, he thought. Yes, yes I’m a fool and a schwein. Have to go now, must keep moving.

  He tipped his hat to the driver, ran another block and ducked beneath an overhang.

  The rain continued to stream from the sky. The streetlights fought uselessly against the night and nothing on the road looked out of place. The church was only two blocks away. He could make it.

  As soon as he was breathing halfway normally, he moved from the doorway back out into the rain. With that first step a cold wind blew through him. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked across the street to a blonde woman standing in the rain. The water streaked her face and left her flaxen hair matted. She had no umbrella or hat. She didn’t seem to care.

  She stared at him.

  “The eyes of the Nosferatu,” he whispered to himself.

  She was pretty, but evil. He could feel her eyes boring a path deep into his mind.

  “Leave me alone!” he said.

  Words formed in his mind. Don’t run. It’s of no use.

  He took off running anyway, cutting down an alley and glancing back. Nothing. He continued on. Made a turn and risked another glance. Still nothing. He came to the end of the alley and the blonde woman stepped out in front of him.

  He crashed into her at full speed and fell to the ground, but she didn’t even flinch. She picked him up and shoved him back into the narrow cut between the two buildings.

  In the darkness of the alleyway, she would have her way. “You have much that I need,” she said. “And you will help me.”

  “I won’t,” he said. With that, Faust went for his crucifix but she grabbed his arm and stopped his hand from reaching the cross. “You really should wear these on the outside of your clothes, Dr. Faust. But at any rate they don’t affect me.”

  “How is that?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said. “Perhaps you can chronicle it in your treatise on The War of the Demons.”