The Gathering Dark

by Christopher Golden

  The Whispers were raining down upon them from the sky.

  Kuromaku shoved Sophie away toward the bridge again. She needed no verbal instruction this time and set off running once more. The vampire ronin followed her just a few feet, then turned his back on the bridge and prepared himself to defend her retreat.

  A mortar shell struck the wall of the convent and it exploded, killing one of the Whispers as it fell. Kuromaku scrambled backward out of the way of the crumbling masonry, but the other two Whispers were crushed beneath it. The soldiers were his enemies, but without knowing it, they had aided him. The irony sketched a dark grin across his features.

  Another bullet struck him, this one entering low on his right side, chipping bone as it lodged in his ribcage.

  The katana dropped from Kuromaku’s hand. Clutching the wound, he fell to his knees. He swayed, narrowing his gaze as he glanced around him. He saw the Whispers he had believed he had left behind now moving more quickly to catch up with him, talons clacking on pavement. Bullets whined in the air around him. The lunatics were still shooting at him; in the midst of all this death, someone was still determined to kill him.

  As Kuromaku struggled to get to his feet, he turned toward the bridge and his eyes widened in alarm. Sophie had turned back for him. He shouted her name as she raced at him but she ignored him, ice blue eyes unflinching.

  “No!” he called. “Get out of here!”

  Sophie sneered at him. “Shut up, you pompous ass. You wouldn’t leave me behind, and I won’t leave you.” Then a stricken look crossed her eyes, burdened with heartache and desperation. “I can’t.”

  In the moment Kuromaku forgot all about the feelings he had developed for her, about the taste of her lips on his or his desire for her. All he could think of, just then, was the giggling little girl who had hidden from him beneath the dining table in her father’s home in Paris. It occurred to him that in his mind there were two Sophies, and that all along he had been doing everything in his power to save them both.

  But the girl Sophie had been had disappeared years before. She picked the katana up from the pavement with a scrape of steel and turned toward the demons, prepared to defend him. To die for him.

  To die with him.

  Father Jack stared at Commander Henning in shock. The brawny military man clung to the side of the tank with one hand and fired wildly with the weapon in his right.

  “Fall back, you motherfuckers! Fall back!” he screamed into the comm unit built into his collar, eyes wild, face and balding pate smeared with greasy rain.

  The priest had never seen anyone look quite so insane.

  Soldiers pushed by him all around and Father Jack struggled with the collision of too many variant emotions. He feared for his life. There were too many Whispers and they were closing in too quickly. The rain could not wash away the stench of blood. The wind could not drown out the screams of men and women as they were disemboweled. The British and U.N. forces led by Commander Henning had been routed, and now they had to retreat or they would be decimated down to the last soldier.

  “Father, come on!” a soldier snapped at him, the woman’s voice muffled by the helmet that hid her face.

  She grabbed his arm and tried to guide him away, toward a troop carrier whose engine was already roaring. Other soldiers stood in the back of the truck and fired short, sharp bursts from their weapons at Whispers that got too close. They were hunting now, the demons, being careful, knowing they had their prey on the run.

  But along with his fear, Father Jack felt a surge of disgust that rose like bile in the back of his throat, not for the horrors they faced, but for the behavior of Commander Henning and of his own superior, His Eminence the Bishop, Michel Gagnon. Or the bastard, as Jack had come to think of him.

  Henning was obsessed with vampires, which may have made him the right man to lead the U.N.’s Task Force Victor, but also had driven him over the edge during this battle. He should have seen much sooner the slaughter that was going on around him, should have retreated to avoid a further massacre. Instead, Henning had lingered, trying to finish off the vampire he had wounded, the vampire who had been on their side.

  Bishop Gagnon was partially to blame. There was the light of zealotry in his eyes, the spark of utter madness. He had been more than happy to let the French woman who had arrived with the vampire run out among the Whispers, risking her life to save her friend. The Bishop and Henning both were content to leave her to die.

  Father Jack cursed his own cowardice. He ought to have gone after the two of them himself. His magick was not strong enough to destroy so many demons, and even if it was, he had no doubt that Bishop Gagnon would have urged the Commander to shoot him in the back. In the chaos, no one would question such a thing, and the two men seemed to have found a kinship with one another. Henning wouldn’t have flinched at the suggestion.

  Guilt warred with fear and disgust in Jack Devlin’s heart. Already several Jeeps had torn off down Calle Tenorio, pursued by Whispers. They would be all right, though. There were other demons in Ronda, but this seemed to be their nest. If he and the Bishop could create a passage out of this dimension, those that retreated from the nest would probably survive.

  “Father, let’s go!” the soldier shouted at him again, her words torn away by a wind so powerful that they had to bend into it to remain upright.

  “You go!” he roared at her, and once again he pulled away.

  The tank had begun to move, grinding pavement beneath its treads, slowly lumbering after the troop carriers and Jeeps as they also started to roll away from the intersection, away from the Cleft of Ronda.

  But Henning was still on top of the tank with two of his men. The soldiers flanking him were shooting at the Whispers that tried to scrabble up the sides of the tank, but Henning concentrated his fire on the entrance to the bridge . . . on the place where the pretty, petite blond French woman raised a Japanese sword and tried to protect her wounded friend from the demons that surrounded them.

  Henning’s bullets struck some of the demons, but Father Jack knew it wasn’t the Whispers the Commander was aiming for. Up on top of the tank he swore loudly, cursing the moving tank and his wild aim.

  The last of the troop carriers was side by side with the tank now, and Jack was between them. Through the howling storm he heard a familiar voice calling out to him.

  “Father Devlin! Let’s go now, Father. Live to fight another day.”

  He turned around quickly and saw Bishop Gagnon lowering a hand down toward him from the back of the troop carrier. The vehicle had rumbled to a halt in order to let several soldiers and Father Jack climb aboard, but it was the Bishop who was reaching out to him. A flash of doubt went through Jack then. Was this man truly mad, or merely pious? Despite all that had happened—though Jack had earlier knocked him down—Michel was willing to set their differences aside in this desperate moment.

  Father Jack reached up and took the Bishop’s hand. With the other he grabbed the side of the troop carrier and began to haul himself up. Gunfire punctuated his efforts, far too near. The tank turret exploded with another mortar shell.

  Bishop Gagnon froze when Jack was halfway up the side of the truck, trying to get his left leg inside. With a frown, the priest looked up into his superior’s eyes.

  The Bishop grinned cruelly. “You were a great disappointment to me, Jack.”

  He let go. Father Jack tumbled back to the street, flailing his arms, and when he struck the pavement, the breath was knocked out of him. For a moment he could only lie there. The soldiers were firing wildly, too busy with the job of staying alive to notice what the Bishop had done. But Michel Gagnon, he of the austere countenance and severe eyes and snow white hair, he only smiled and raised a hand to wave goodbye to Jack with two fingers, almost a salute, as the troop carrier began to pull away.

  The storm seemed almost to shove him down but Father Jack struggled to climb once more to his feet, spitting out the greasy raindrops that slithered into his mo
uth. A new emotion filled him now. It was hatred. All gangly legs, glasses smeared with rain, he regained his footing as the tank fired again, the sound cracking the sky around him. The troop carrier with Bishop Gagnon picked up speed, about to pass the tank, when the Whispers fell upon it. They rained down from the buildings along Calle Tenorio and lunged up from the street, from beneath the tank, from the shadows of broken windows in the House of Don Bosco on the northwest side of the street.

  Their numbers were too great. The Whispers disarmed them, stripped them of their weapons, and tore off their limbs. Through the driving rain, in that gray-orange light, Father Jack saw one of the demons punch its razor-talons through Bishop Gagnon’s face. The old man’s corpse fell out of the troop carrier and was crushed beneath its wheels, even as the vehicle, driverless now, crashed into the House of Don Bosco.

  For a moment, Father Jack only stared. Then he realized that other than the tank—its engine roaring louder as it gained speed and began to pull away from him—he was alone with the Whispers.

  “Oh, shit,” he whispered.

  Then he ran, racing toward the tank. On top of it he saw Commander Henning, still firing that assault rifle with its special ammunition, still trying to kill the vampire as they pulled away from the bridge. No way could Henning have killed him from this distance with that kind of gun. A rifle with a scope, maybe, but not with that. Not without incredible luck.

  But still the man was trying, screaming to his men to retreat, cursing the demons and the vampire he so badly wanted dead.

  Father Jack reached the tank, grabbed hold of a rung on its side and started hauling himself up. As he did so, a pair of Whispers appeared from behind the tank as though they had just materialized, though he suspected they had come from inside one of the buildings. They lunged for him. The priest held on to the rung with both hands, running alongside the moving vehicle, and prepared to kick the demons. His heart skipped a beat, his throat was dry.

  Bullets tore the Whispers apart.

  Jack looked up to see one of Henning’s task force soldiers staring down at him. The man reached a hand down and the priest had a flashback to Bishop Gagnon’s deceit, but he felt he had no choice. The tank was the last target for the Whispers that swarmed into the street now. He grabbed the man’s hand and pulled himself up on top of the tank and they rumbled away down the street.

  But Commander Henning was not through. He kept firing. Father Jack looked back the way they’d come and saw, in the distance, the French woman and her vampire companion. The vampire had his sword back now and the two of them were leaning on one another, fending off Whispers as they inched closer to the bridge.

  Henning’s assault rifle dry-fired on an empty clip. The madman popped it out and reached into his jacket for a fresh one. Jack realized that the man would have run out of that special ammunition long ago, but that it did not matter. Normal bullets could kill the vampire now. If only Henning could hit him.

  “Die, you motherfucker!” the Commander screamed. The other members of the task force on top of the tank ignored him as if his behavior were completely normal, but the two of them were keeping themselves, Henning, and now Father Jack alive.

  Henning fired again.

  A shriek filled the air, like that of a bird of prey. Father Jack glanced up and saw the broad wingspan of a giant falcon above him. Then it was gone and a thick mist surrounded him and the others for only a moment.

  When the mist dissipated, there was a woman standing on top of the tank with them, her eyes severe, her dark red hair swept back away from her face. Father Jack had seen her picture hundreds of times, had seen her on television in years past, before she had become what she was now. He had a file on her in his office back in New York.

  Allison Vigeant snarled as she reached out and grabbed Commander Henning by the throat. She shook him like a rag doll and his assault rifle at last fell from his hands, clattering off the side of the tank. The two soldiers turned their weapons on her instantly but Allison reached out and slapped one of them so hard he fell to his knees, barely able to stay on board the tank. She tore the gun from the other’s grip and cracked him across the forehead with it. He fell to the street with a sickening thud as the tank rolled on through the rain, and then Allison hauled back and shot a hard kick at the soldier still trying to cling to the tank. He, too, fell.

  Then she turned her attention to Henning again.

  “You think I’m going to let you kill my friends? You stupid fuck! When was it going to be my turn?” Allison screamed at Henning. “Huh? I know you weren’t going to rest until we were all dead. When was it going to be me?”

  “Not . . . soon . . . enough . . .” Henning choked, her hand tightening on his throat.

  “You can say that again,” she snarled.

  Allison hissed, baring needle fangs impossibly long, and she sank her teeth into his throat. Blood sprayed her face and clothes as she drank greedily, sloppily from him. Rain slithered down her hair, turning it darker red, almost black. After several seconds she held him, limp and dead, away from her again.

  “Fucker!” she screamed. “You son of a bitch!”

  She threw the corpse off the tank and rounded on Father Jack, her mouth and chin smeared with bright red blood that ran down her throat. He held his hands up to ward her off.

  “You’re Father Devlin?” she demanded.

  Stunned, he nodded.

  Allison grabbed him up in her arms as though he were nothing more than a child and leaped off the tank, landing easily on the street. She set him down even as the Whispers began to move in.

  “Peter told me about you,” she said. “Lucky you.” There wasn’t a trace of humor in her voice.

  She pointed back the way they’d come, toward the bridge and the swarming Whispers, toward the other vampire and the blond French woman.

  “Run for the bridge. I’ll keep you alive.”

  “Is it safe on the other side?” he asked, hoping.

  Bloody lips curled back from those red-stained fangs. “You’re in Hell, father. Nowhere is safe.”

  20

  High above the dry bed of the Guadalevin River, Peter Octavian held his arms wide, his head thrown back, and his breath catching in his throat. Magick flowed out of him and through him, a circuit that lit his eyes with a cobalt blue glow and caused his hair to stand on end. Blue electric sparks danced across his body, and tendrils of that magick leaped from his fingertips to touch the interior of the sphere of energy in which he held himself and Keomany Shaw aloft over the Cleft of Ronda.

  The rocks and trees were far below, with only magick suspending the two of them. Peter felt it coursing through him, yet instead of draining him, this immersion in the sorcerous power that surged within him only seemed to invigorate him. For all the spells and enchantments he had learned, that was only ritual, the knowledge necessary to tap the dark energies that churned in the world around him, in the many parallel universes whose science was yet undiscovered. In addition to that knowledge, however, there must be the will, the innate power, to become a mage.

  So it was that he felt stronger than ever. The sphere sizzled, burning the air at his extremities, and he willed it to descend into the gorge.

  “It’s amazing,” Keomany whispered.

  Inside that sphere, he could hear her perfectly. Peter glanced at her and saw that golden light gleaming in her eyes. A shaft of Spanish morning light fifteen feet wide enveloped them so that the blue sphere of magickal energy was bathed in sunshine. Inside that sphere, Peter could smell fresh air, the breath of his own world, spring in Europe.

  It was a gift and he was grateful to Keomany for it.

  “When this is done,” he said as the sphere dropped more quickly past stone walls and outcroppings, past hidden battlements built centuries past to guard the city from attack. “If we survive, I want to spend more time outside . . . less time alone, in my apartment, with a paintbrush. I’ve spent far too much time trying to recreate the things I relished in my yo
uth instead of appreciating the world as it is now. The scents on the air. The sound of the wind. I owe you that.”

  Keomany smiled at him and took a deep breath. Her eyes closed a moment. “Wind chimes. I want to hear the sound of wind chimes again.”

  But when her eyes opened, there was no wistfulness there, only dark purpose. She nodded at Peter and he in return. He glanced down at the sight that awaited him, the horror they had both been avoiding as they descended. The walls of the Cleft were steep until they reached a plateau on either side where trees and bushes grew. Below that, rock that had calved off the cliffsides over the ages was arranged in strange architecture on the banks of the dry river.

  One hundred feet above the rocks.

  Eighty.

  Fifty.

  Peter reached out to hold Keomany’s hand. The sphere’s integrity wavered only the tiniest bit. He felt it lurch beneath them, an airplane passing through momentary turbulence, an air pocket. The filthy, oily rain and the Tatterdemalion’s storm could not be heard from within that protective shield.

  “Now,” Peter whispered.

  Keomany stared downward again, at the enormous brood mother, the colossal insectoid demon that lay curled on its side in the dry riverbed as newborn Whispers slipped from a pouch in its belly. The demon spawn climbed to their feet, shaky as colts at first, and then quickly grew more stable and began to caper across the rocks toward the wall of the gorge, and to climb upward . . . to prey upon the people who still hid away in their homes in Ronda.

  The Whispers had not been here long enough to slaughter the whole town. Ronda’s tribulations had only just begun. Much of its population might still survive if they could stop this now.