“Yes, but very slowly,” Skye repeated.
“What does this mean?” Taamir asked.
“It means we can’t afford to give Dantalion any more time to run his experiments,” Jenn said, face pale but voice resolute. “We have to move against him now. Tonight.”
A surge of pride swept through Antonio. Jenn was taking command. And suddenly Antonio smelled something. The odor was a bit off, but there was no mistaking it: the death scent of Cursed Ones. He lurched to his feet at the same time Holgar did. Holgar growled, and Taamir and Noah jerked their heads in Holgar’s direction.
“What?” Jamie asked sharply.
“We don’t have to move against him,” Antonio snarled. “He’s moving against us.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Salamanca Hunter’s Manual: Casualties
On occasion, a friend or a person who has offered you aid will be put in harm’s way. Your impulse will be to save him, but you must always choose the destruction of a Cursed One over saving the life of even the kindest and most self-sacrificing person. When a good person dies, he will surely join his Father in Heaven. But a Cursed One left unchecked is a grievous sin, one that falls upon you. Thus, you must always kill a vampire as soon as you encounter him, even if it costs the lives of innocents.
(translated from the Spanish)
RUSSIA
TEAM SALAMANCA, TAAMIR, AND NOAH
Holgar growled as everyone jumped up and fanned out in anticipation of an attack. Then, to his horror, the growl deepened in his throat, changing into a lusty, violence-loving werewolf howl.
“For helvede!” he muttered—which meant “damn it” in Danish—prickling with alarm as Taamir and Noah stared at him. They separated from the Salamancan hunters in a flash, grabbing and aiming their submachine guns at him. Holgar’s heart raced. He hadn’t meant to growl. It had just burst out of him.
“What the hell?” Noah whispered. “What was that?”
“What is he?” Taamir said under his breath.
“He’s okay,” Jenn whispered back as she scanned the darkness. “He just howls!”
“That was not human!” Noah retorted.
“I’m okay!” Holgar held up a hand and waved it, trying to show that he was very human. He glanced at Antonio, Skye, Eriko, and Jamie, who had positioned themselves on the defensive, their attention divided between whatever was approaching and their possibly former allies. He hastily added in Danish, “I’m a werewolf, but I’m a good werewolf.” But of course two guys from the Middle East wouldn’t understand Danish, and he was so freaked out he had forgotten how to say it in English. And although his Russian was also excellent, it, too, had abandoned him.
He couldn’t think. His brain was sloshing with adrenaline. Noah had an Uzi, and Taamir had a Kalashnikov, a Russian weapon. Ja, maybe they spoke Russian. All Holgar had to do was remember how to say “Please don’t shoot me” in Russian in the next two seconds, and he would live. It was all so absurd that Holgar started laughing. The real bad guys were coming, and he needed to stop howling, he had to stop, or those guys were going to blow off his head, but that was why it was so funny in an intensely horrible way.
“Nej,” he guffawed, helplessly waving his hands. His normal human hands—thank God it wasn’t the full moon—but it was bad that Dantalion had managed to use werewolf bits that could change. That meant fully mature wolves. For helvede, he had to focus on his dilemma and keep it together. But he kept laughing.
And then, disastrously, he howled again. This one louder still.
It was answered by whatever was coming at them from the forest, a noise that grated like metal on metal or metal on bone, on its way.
“He’s signaling them!” Taamir whispered.
“Nej, nej!” Holgar said, laughing, horrified and terribly amused all at the same time.
“Are you high?” Skye flung at Holgar. “Shut up!”
“You shut him up, witchy!” Jamie told her.
Skye flushed and moved her hands.
Taamir spread his legs wide to brace against the recoil of his gun while he got ready to let er rip. Holgar freaked. God, those Russian guns worked only half the time; Taamir was just as likely to blow himself up on the spot as hit Holgar. Holgar had to get hold of himself.
The inhuman cries from the forest were louder.
Closer.
And then Skye’s spell took effect, and Holgar went blessedly silent.
“Don’t shoot him!” Jenn bellowed.
“Incoming!” Jamie yelled.
All of Holgar’s worries about Noah and Taamir evaporated as a row of raging, ugly things shot through the trees too fast for Holgar to track. He was thrown backward into the snow. His breath knocked out of him, his heart pounding, he grunted for air as blurred red eyes and enormous teeth flashed like images caught in strobe lights. Is its face melting? Wait, is it a werewolf?
In an instant he’d lost his giddy hysteria. A sharp pain from something attacking him needled his chest. Another. He roared, and his training kicked in. Sight the foe’s next move. If you can’t see the foe, strike where his blow is most likely to land.
Still on his back, Holgar made a fist and swung with his right. Then he swung with his left. He hit something, but just as quickly it wasn’t there. Unseen fangs or claws slashed his cheek. He bent his knees and rocked back, jamming them against a blurring shape straddling his chest. Shouting erupted all around him; then the shape was gone.
Holgar rolled onto his side and pushed himself up. In the flickering moonlight he saw Eriko hoisting a misshapen hulk above her head.
With a grunt she tossed it into their campfire. It began to scream and thrash. Taamir shot it with his Kalashnikov, the rat-tat-tat-tat bloating the battlefield with noise.
On the other side of the fire something with abnormally long, hair-covered arms—no they were batlike wings, maybe?—had Jenn by the hair. Holgar threw himself at the monster, grabbing one of the winglike appendages and wincing as his hands began to burn.
Holgar hissed, unable to yell. Defensive poison. He held on, tugging at it to loosen its grip on Jenn, as Jenn panted in agony. He bent his knees, allowing his full weight to hang from the wing. It didn’t budge.
Then Jenn tucked in her head and executed a forward roll, dragging the monster with her. Holgar let go so as not to impede the momentum, then grabbed the creature’s legs—beefy things, covered in long, matted hair, with people toes—as Jenn scrambled from beneath it. It flailed on its back like a furious drowning shark as Holgar anchored it by the legs. Jenn grabbed its wrists and looked up at Skye, shouting, “Skye, stake it!”
Holgar held the creature just above the knees, fighting to keep it supine as Jenn struggled with its wings. Holgar smelled burning flesh. Jenn’s, and his. From the poison.
Skye leaned over the monster and froze.
“Skye!” Jenn yelled at her in desperation.
Holgar spared a glance at his fighting partner. With her stake in both hands Skye dropped to her knees, driving the wooden spike into the creature’s chest.
It gasped. Vampires didn’t gasp. They didn’t need to breathe. Wheezing, it fought to free itself.
“Again, Skye!” Jenn ordered her.
C’mon, min lille heks, Holgar mentally urged as he clung to the creature, holding it fast.
“Mama,” it said in a guttural slur.
“Oh, God,” Skye said, jerking away. “I can’t! It’s a human!”
“Shit!” Jenn cried. She grabbed the stake out of the monster’s chest. Her hands were actually smoking from the monster’s poisonous touch. Awkwardly she tried to hold the stake high enough to use her momentum to ram it home. Holgar let go of one of the legs and gripped his hand around hers. Then he slammed the spike down with all his might into the creature’s chest.
It sagged. Jenn scrambled off, spreading her fingers in pain. Skye, seeing that Jenn was hurt, began saying her spells. Holgar was hurt too, but he could manage. He pushed himself to his feet and ran to ass
ist Antonio, who was brandishing a cross at one of the other invaders. It had a vampire face, only . . . wrong, with a flat forehead, batlike ears, and a wolf snout. It was snarling at him, scarlet eyes glowing, fangs extended—just like Antonio’s. For helvede. Antonio hissed back at the creature like a Curser and not the team’s holy man.
Kablamblamblamblamblamblam. Noah was laying out a thunderstorm of ammo as if he’d given up trying to decide who was friend and who was foe. Holgar dodged the barrage.
Antonio advanced on the monster, which was a hideous mishmash with werewolf haunches and legs and human arms. It was so focused on Antonio’s cross that it didn’t notice Holgar advancing on it.
Suddenly the incessant chatter of submachine gunfire went silent. Holgar hoped that was not bad news—as in Noah might be dead—but kept his focus. He didn’t need to be a hero, just backup, as Antonio kept the creature at bay. Pulling a cross from a pocket in his trousers, Holgar held it out, preparing to spring into action if the thing decided to make a run for it. It held its arms out and shuffled back and forth slightly, like an animal nervously pacing inside a cage. Or a bull, facing down a matador.
Holgar looked beyond the two, wondering if they had the time to spar with this thing, or if they should just rush it from both sides. Eriko and Jamie were taking turns staking a huge monstrosity that they’d flung against a tree trunk, so they didn’t seem to be in any imminent danger. Skye was kneeling over Jenn, her hands on Jenn’s head, doing healing magicks, he supposed.
Their Middle Eastern friends were nowhere to be seen.
Antonio remained still, prepared to spring, and it occurred to Holgar that with Antonio’s Spanish appearance beneath his vampiric features, and his taut bearing, he did look like a matador—a vampire matador, just like the Cursed Ones in Pamplona. Holgar fought down a chuckle of ironic appreciation. They had serious business here, life and death. He was useless if all he did was act like a court jester.
The creature jerked and half glanced over its shoulder, spotting Holgar.
“Got your back,” Holgar said to Antonio in Spanish. He could talk again! “But Taamir and Noah have run off.”
“Cobardes,” Antonio spat. Then in English, “Cowards.”
“English?” the monster ground out. Holgar blinked and stood his ground.
“Yes,” Antonio told it.
“Kill me,” the thing said, its knees buckling. It flung wide its arms. “Is good, kill.”
Antonio remained as he was. “How many of you? How many vampires with Dantalion?”
“Dantalion! Nyet, nyet!” it cried, shielding its face as it staggered backward.
“How many of you are there?” Holgar asked in Russian. Thank God he’d studied it in school.
The monster glanced at Holgar. It snarled and lunged. Holgar stuck out his cross, and it recoiled with a wail.
“You’re going to die. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll kill you quickly,” Holgar continued in Russian.
“But Dantalion will know that I betrayed him,” the thing protested. Its face was filled with longing and despair. “I cannot go to heaven. I accept that. But Dantalion will drag me down to hell. He swore that to any traitors. Anyone who tells.”
Holgar scoffed. “He can’t drag you anywhere. He’s a vampire, not the Devil.”
The creature’s red eyes grew huge. “But he is. He is the Great Duke of Hell, with thirty-six legions of demons under his command.”
“Nej,” Holgar retorted in Danish. “And anyway, hell is a myth.”
“What is going on?” Antonio demanded. “What is it saying?”
“Dantalion is a duke of hell,” Holgar snickered, then thought a moment. Antonio was a very devout Catholic. Could he possibly believe such a thing himself? “Dantalion told them that if they talk to us, he’ll damn them.”
“There is a duke of hell by that name, in an ancient grimoire,” Antonio said. “I came across that name while researching spells for Skye.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?” Holgar burst out, indignant.
“I spoke of my concerns to Father Juan,” Antonio informed him, rather haughtily. As if he thought Holgar’s question was out of line. “We felt he was simply a vampire trading on the name.”
“Well, you could have mentioned it to the rest of us,” Holgar snapped.
The Russian burst into tears, as if their arguing had sent him over the edge. Weirdly, Holgar found it less strange to hear the malformed nightmare crying than to listen to his own spontaneous howling.
“I don’t want to go to hell,” the creature wept. “I am boy, Russian boy. Ya russkiy. Ya russkiy pravoslavniy.”
“He’s Russian Orthodox,” Holgar said, “and he’s scared shitless.”
The extremely former Russian boy wailed. He stretched his hands toward Antonio’s cross, then recoiled. “I want to kiss crucifix! Give me back soul, oh, please!”
The hellish glow left Antonio’s eyes, and his fangs retracted. He looked much more like a man with a soul than that poor monster ever would again.
Antonio said, “Interrogate him. We need information. Fast.”
“He won’t tell me. Dantalion said that anyone who betrays him will go to hell.”
The monster nodded eagerly. “Hell. I no be Judas.”
Antonio said nothing. Holgar felt his mouth twitch. It really was too crazy, wasn’t it?
“Shall I tell him that we can make a hell of living for him?” Holgar said. That didn’t sound quite right. He started over in Spanish. “Podemos hacer—”
But no one was listening. The creature stared hard at Antonio. “Vuy ponimayete. Vuy tozhe camp ir,” it—he—said.
“He says, ‘You understand,’” Holgar translated. “‘You’re a vampire too.’”
“Tell him that I am a priest,” Antonio said in Spanish, “and I will hear his confession. After he’s finished, I will absolve him.” He pointed to the cross that he held in his hand. “Tell him that I will say Mass for his soul, and I will ask the Blessed Mother to intercede for him.”
“Pretty tricky, Antonio,” Holgar said, meaning it as a compliment. But Antonio’s face clouded over.
“I will ask the Blessed Mother to intercede for him,” the Spaniard said frostily.
Oh, these Catholics. Nitpickers and madmen.
Nevertheless Holgar quickly relayed everything Antonio had said to the vampire thing. Holgar pointed to Antonio with his free hand. “Look, he’s a vampire and he’s holding a cross. He is on God’s good side.”
The vampire let out another sob. He was trembling, afraid.
“We have nothing to eat,” he said, which was not what Holgar had been expecting. “Dantalion withholds our . . . rations. Starves us until he sets us loose.”
Like hunting hounds, in the Viking days. “What are your rations?” Holgar asked him.
The creature shook his head. “Just kill me, tovarich. My friend, release me.”
“What do you eat?” Holgar repeated more forcefully trying to get any information out of him. The Cursed One didn’t answer.
“Can you walk in daylight?” Holgar asked him.
“Dantalion says we can.”
One way to find out. Holgar looked at Antonio. “I asked him if he can walk in the sunlight. We can keep him here until morning,” he said in English. So much English and Russian. Why hadn’t he remembered all this crap when he’d started howling?
Antonio’s expression wavered. Holgar figured he was worried about the sunshine himself.
“Antonio, it won’t be a problem,” he assured him. “For you, I mean. We can—”
“Bloody hell, what are you two doing?” Jamie bellowed, as he and Eriko screeched to a halt beside Antonio. “Anyone happen to notice we had to stake that guy about three dozen times? Now we’ve got to catch up with our boys from the sand dunes, and I’ve no doubt Dandylion has more foot soldiers on their way.”
Holgar frowned. “What do you mean, ‘catch up?”
“Noah and Taamir saw
their friend,” Eriko informed them. “Svika. He was changed, but he didn’t attack them. He told them he escaped. They’re going to try to follow him into the palace.”
Holgar and Antonio traded looks of disbelief. The creature slid his gaze from one to the other, clearly not understanding, but aware of the change in the air.
“So we need to go,” Jamie said. He blinked and took in the scene. It began to snow, and he hazarded a glance upward. Then he yanked a stake out of the quiver at his waist, walked forward, and slammed it into the chest of the monster. He drove it in hard, and the creature gasped, grabbing at Jamie’s hand. Its legs gave way. Jamie swept its feet out from under it, and it went down onto its knees.
“Bloody hell. Someone finish him. We’re asking for it, staying here.” Jamie reached in his quiver for another stake and tossed it to Antonio. “Eri, ducks, c’mon.”
Jamie trotted over to their stash of submachine guns and threw one to Eriko. Moving in tandem, they began to thread their way through the trees, into the darkness. Antonio studied the stake in his hand.
The creature was panting, his head bobbing toward his chest. His hands hung at his side. He was mumbling, whispering.
“He’s saying his prayers,” Holgar told Antonio.
“Go with them,” Antonio said to Holgar. “I’ll catch up.”
Holgar huffed, scowling in disbelief. “Antonio, we don’t have time for this. Jamie is right. We have to get out of here.”
Ignoring him, Antonio dropped the stake to the ground. He walked forward, shifting the cross to his left hand and placing his right hand on the Russian monster’s bobbing head. Antonio began to mumble along, the monster in Russian, the vampire in Latin, and Holgar threw up his hands in frustration.
Holgar trotted away, spotting Skye and Jenn at the perimeter of the camp. Jenn’s hands were outstretched, and Skye was moving her hands over them. Still in need of healing, then. Holgar grabbed three submachine guns and carried them over to Skye and Jenn.
“Time to leave?” Holgar asked, essentially requesting her permission.
The Damned Page 12
