by Jan McDonald
Santo sensed his uncertainty and turned on him. Before he knew what was happening Santo had grabbed the dagger from him, leaving a red trail of blood from the rapidly-closing wound across his palm. He knelt behind Andrei’s head and pulled his chin backwards. With two deep slashes he separated the head from the shoulders and tossed it to one side, where it rolled into the bushes lining the road. He glared at Nik, who paled under its influence.
Santo threw the dagger at his feet.
“Now finish him.”
In silence Nik picked up the dagger and knelt at Andrei’s side. He sensed the location of the heart and began the grisly task of removing it from the body.
When he eventually stood up his hands were a gory mess. He looked at his mentor for approval. Instead Santo’s mouth twisted into a mocking smile before giving way to harsh laughter that cut into the boy as deep as any Toledo blade.
Santo had never hidden his true agenda from Nik, and recently he told the boy that he was also using him as bait to get his hands on Kat. What else did he expect?
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Sister Maria stopped praying; her hands lay still on her rosary. There was a voice in her head.
For years she had prayed that God would speak to her, tell her what he wanted of her; for years she had waited to hear that voice. Now the voice in her head was insistent and commanding but it was not the voice of God.
She felt Gregori stirring in the tomb, and felt the temperature drop even further; she could see her own breath in front of her now. The oppression she had felt all day and evening deepened and constricted around her chest making it hard for her to breathe.
Her hands strayed to the silver keys that she had hung from her belt only hours before, although it felt as though she had carried them forever. Unhooking them and selecting them one by one, she opened the silver padlocks and lowered the side of the tomb with trembling hands. Always, at this moment, she had held her breath as Sister Agnes had performed this duty, always unsure of what to expect. And always, it had been the same: Gregori lying inside, awake and ready to rise. A miracle. But never had the shrine been opened on the night before his feast day. Not knowing what drove her and not wanting to know, she responded only as her saint instructed her.
She bowed her head and moved away from the tomb to stand in the shadows at the rear of the chapel.
There was movement in the corridors and she desperately wanted to look up and see who approached but dare not. She heard Gregori leave the tomb and walk towards the approaching figure, his long frock coat swishing against his high leather boots.
And she was afraid.
Through the silver-lit gloom she heard Gregori speak. Never before had she been in his presence outside of his tomb. The voice that answered him was Sister Angelique’s.
“He has returned, and he has your son with him. I left them in my rooms until I knew where you wanted to meet with them.”
Gregori didn’t answer her. Instead he paced the corridor as if searching for something. Then he stopped directly in front of Sister Angelique. “She is here too. Why didn’t you say so?”
The nun bowed her head. “I wasn’t sure how you would react. It wasn’t what you expected.”
Gregori nodded his dismissal and Sister Angelique turned and disappeared into the rear gloom of the corridor.
Maria shrank further back into the shadows, her mind racing, her heart aching. This was no miracle; this was dark and somehow tainted. She pushed herself back against the icy wall as if it would engulf her and keep her hidden, keep her safe.
Gregori was pacing the chapel now, his footsteps firmer and heavier with every stride as he regained his strength after his six month hibernation.
None of it made any sense to Maria who had unquestioningly accepted the words of Sister Angelique; that the saint they guarded had fallen victim in death to a vampire, and that it was their duty to protect him while he slept and provide for him to feed when he awoke. That they would house his donor who would give his blood each and every day to keep Agios Georgios alive while he slept in his tomb for half a year as he was drip-fed through a tubing system into his tomb. They would open their doors twice a year for the people of the surrounding villages to come and pray at his open shrine and they would turn away as an innocent became the true feast. It was their duty to look after their saint and to do his bidding. It was the will of God, she said.
But what of right and wrong? Where had God’s will come into that equation? It was surely wrong to ignore the taking of life, for rarely did the chosen one survive. And if this was indeed a Holy man, a saint, why would he have such disregard for the life he took?
Maria’s head felt as if it would split open. Years of conditioning and doctrine melded into a hotchpotch of fragments and the dawn of a certainty: this was wrong.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head upwards, seeking solace from an image of the Blessed Virgin. None came.
Voices came again; one familiar, one not.
“Gregori, I have kept my promise to you. This is your son, Nikolos.”
Nik blanched. Nik, he wanted to shout, Nik.
Gregori moved into the silver reflections and candlelight and Nik saw his father’s face for the first time.
He didn’t know what he was expecting, but he was ill-prepared for the silver-haired, sharp-eyed man that towered in front of him. Nik was no midget, but Gregori, at full height, owed him at least five inches. He had the distinct impression that he was being inspected.
Gregori was obviously satisfied with his appraisal, as the soft leathery face broke into a refined smile. He stepped forwards suddenly and embraced Nik tightly before he could back away. His son, his own flesh and blood, after so many centuries.!
Gregori turned to Santo. “You did well, Santorini. I will reward you, as I promised. For now, I must feed. You two wait for me in Angelique’s room. Are you hungry? Help yourself.” He laughed as he waved an arm in a gesture of hospitality.
Santo nodded briefly in thanks. He knew when to speak and when to keep his mouth shut. Gregori led the way down the dark corridor and, when she was certain that they were gone, Maria fled.
At first she just ran blindly, tears of regret and shame on her face. All those years that she had spent in the belief that she was doing God’s will! All those years she had been harbouring a vampire.
She stopped and leaned against a dark wall. Looking around she realised that she was in the guest corridor. Even though they were a closed order, the nuns always had rooms ready for travellers and infrequent visitors to the monastery. She laughed as she thought of those who had come seeking sanctuary over the years. Some sanctuary; she didn’t even know if those poor wretches had ever made it out of there.
A small noise from the room behind her made her spin around. She listened. It was there again. There was someone in the room.
Maria leaned against the door, listening intently. Reaching far back into her memory, back nineteen years, to the time when she had pressed a silver crucifix into a young girl’s hand and later prayed for her as she raised her arms in blessing when she departed. Why was she remembering this? She knew the answer.
Sister Maria opened the door to the tiny cell and stood in the doorway, her eyes fixed on the woman who lay on the bed, talking and tossing her head in delirium. She would have recognised the amethyst eyes in any circumstances. She had looked into a similar pair many times over the years she had been understudy to Sister Agnes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
She stepped into the gloomy cell, lit only by a candle at the side of the bed. Kat struggled to focus on Sister Maria.
“I know you … oh, my God, it’s you! You’re still here.”
Maria smiled down at Kat. “Of course I’m still here. Where else would I go? Let me help you. Can you stand?”
Kat struggled to sit on the edge of the tiny bed. She sat there for a moment, steeling herself to stand and pull away from the restraints that Santo had planted in her head.
“Why have you come back here? I believed that you were safe. I thought when you left here that you would be free,” said Maria.
Kat shook her head. “I’m one of them now. Oh, don’t be afraid,” she said, “I won’t hurt you. I remember your kindness back then. I’m here because I had to come; they’ve brought my son here. To meet his father.”
For a moment Maria looked puzzled, then her brow cleared suddenly as she understood, probably for the first time, what was happening at the monastery.
She took Kat’s arm, “Come with me, there’s something you need to see.”
Kat followed her, regaining her strength with every step. By the time they had reached the end of the corridor her vampire senses were at full height.
Maria stopped outside a cell door. “I’ll wait outside,” was all she said.
Kat approached the door, sensing a presence inside – human not vampire, but weak to the point of death, the heartbeat as weak as a butterfly’s wing. Whoever was inside was in lingering torment.
She opened the door gingerly and went inside.
Her vampire sight cut right through the darkness to the skeletal form on the bed. He was not much more than skin and bone with thin, straggly, white hair and beard. His eyes were closed and his breathing so shallow it was barely perceptible.
She crossed over to the bed and put a hand on his shoulder, blanching at the cadaverous appearance, his cheekbones scarily prominent and his eye sockets sunken like a corpse.
She cast around the tiny room for evidence of who the man was and her eyes came to rest on a small wooden table opposite the bed. On it were all the trappings of transfusion kits and collecting vessels. This was Gregori’s donor.
Her heart went out to him. Is this what happened to donors? Surely this wasn’t the picture painted by Lane at the Sanctuary. The poor man was almost bled dry. She wondered how long he had been there, draining away his life force to keep Gregori alive.
He stirred under her touch.
“Hello,” she said.
The voice was weak but the words were unmistakeable. “Katerini? Is that you? “
She was startled and went to pull away, but a bony hand grabbed her wrist.
And then he opened his eyes.
Everything stopped for Kat. Time, space, sound, feelings, emotions, everything stopped for an instant, as she looked down into a duplicate of her own amethyst eyes, clouded now with age and his obvious condition, but she knew.
“Father?”
A tear formed at the corner of his eye but didn’t have the strength to make it down his cheek; it just lay there pooled under his eyelid.
Emotions collided inside her then; rage, pity, despair, and love.
She put her arm under his head gently and tried to lift him. He put his bony claw back on her arm.
“No, Katerini, it’s too late. I can’t leave. There is only one way out for me now. Please, Katerini, help me. Help me to leave.”
She tried again to lift him gently, but again, the claw. He gave a feeble shake of his head. “Please Katerini, I’m begging you. Release me.” The pleading in his eyes burned into her soul and she knew that she would do it.
She gathered herself into a central focus and wiped his tear away. “I will help you, Father. But first tell me how you come to be here. They told me you were dead.”
“I was dead to you all. It had to be that way. I made a bargain that I would keep him fed and alive if he left you alone. I came here because he was going to take you. I brought you here one feast day, you and your mother. We came as we always did to bring our gifts to Agios Georgios, then as we were leaving, an old nun came to us and asked us to go back inside. Your mother wouldn’t go back. She was afraid, and she tried to stop me going back with you. But I went and I took you with me. You were holding my hand really tight. Even then I did not suspect what was about to happen.
The old nun told me that the Saint had chosen you to remain at the monastery, to become one of the nuns. I told her that you were too young, that if you wanted to do that when you were older I would bring you myself.
I grabbed you to me and tried to make it to the door, but before I could get half way across the chapel, he was there in front of me; Agios Georgios, alive, and standing in my way. You were crying by then and he put his hand on your face. I tried to pull you away from him but he was stronger than me. I tried to stop you crying, to calm you, thinking that it would anger him and put you in more danger but there was no calming you.”
He paused for breath, his voice weakening with each moment.
“I don’t remember that. Why can’t I remember that? I remember coming home one day and mother was crying. Father was dead, she said. Later they told me you had died from tuberculosis.”
He struggled to speak again. “A memory that he left you with. Anyway, I begged him to leave you alone. I would give him anything I had if he left you alone. He kept looking at you, and then suddenly he agreed. You could go, if I stayed behind and became his donor. You ran outside to your mother and that is the last I saw of you. Until now. I would know you anywhere, Katerini.”
Kat was sobbing; all those years she had believed him dead. Then, in an instant, a bitter thought came right into focus. When she had been there with Greg that night, her father had been there too, feeding Gregori with his life-blood to keep her from harm. It was too much.
She turned to leave; there was more than a score to settle now.
“Katerini … you promised.”
She stopped dead in her tracks. The truth of it was plain: he was dying. She knew he was past help now and, without her keeping her promise to him, he would lay there in that limbo of existence until Gregori had drained him dry.
She went back to the bed and took his bony hand in hers.
“You know, don’t you?”
He sighed. “Yes, I know. I have since the night you were here all those years ago. Gregori enjoyed telling me how he had gone to you and taken you. I’ve lived with that pain since then, but I knew that one day you would come back, because of the boy.”
“You know about Nik?”
He nodded. “Please, Katerini. Help me leave this place.”
Kat didn’t speak. She simply bent down low over him and kissed him on the forehead. Memories of Beckett and what she had done to him came to her. Once again she would suck the blood from someone she loved. This time she wouldn’t stop until it was over and his torment at an end.
It didn’t take long to drain the old man past the point of death and she was careful not to allow a single drop to touch him. She straightened up again and gently closed the amethyst eyes that could no longer see.
Turning quickly, she was out of the room in a heartbeat. Maria had been true to her word and was waiting for her. She looked at Kat and at the tell-tale spot of blood at the corner of her mouth.
“He’s at peace now,” was all Kat could say.
Sister Maria nodded. “What now?”
“Now, I’m going to find them all and make them pay, even if I die trying.”
“You should know that others are here; he is not alone.”
Kat knew her own limitations. Well, if she died trying so be it, but she was going to take at least one of them with her.
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know all of them. One of them I know well, he has been coming back here for many years. Agios Georgios has taught him all and he returns to visit often. The one in the mask.”
“You should stop calling him that. His name isn’t Agios Georgios, it’s Gregori and he’s probably the oldest vampire alive on earth right now. And the nuns in your order have been keeping him alive and fed since God knows when. Who else is here?”
Maria bowed her head. When she looked up, the fear was gone and she appeared calm. “There are three other men and a woman. I don’t know who they are. One of the men arrived yesterday and has spent much time with Agi … Gregori. He seems important because Sister Angelique is always making sure he has what he need
s. I think she is afraid of him.”
“Is one of them called Andrei?”
Maria shook her head.
So, Santo had done for him … well that was one she didn’t have to worry about. Her main objective was to find Nik and get him out of there. If she could do some damage to Gregori on the way, well that would be a bonus.
“I think you need to get the Sisters away from here. And stay away yourself, you’ve done enough already,” Kat said.
CHAPTER FORTY
Lane stopped the jeep a hundred yards from the monastery gate.
She turned to Darius. “You’ve made your decision to do this, but I warn you, don’t you dare put either of us in danger by wimping out at the last minute. It’s going to be bloody and there is going to be death. So if you aren’t up to it, stay here.”
He was pale but the glint in his eye told of his determination to see it through, whatever the cost. He swallowed hard.
“I’ve done my running. I’m coming with you. And don’t worry; I won’t get in your way.”
“What have you got in the way of weapons? Or do you intend to be the sacrifice?”
She’d read him well.
“No, but I would make good bait. Andrei won’t miss the chance to finish the job he started.”
“As I thought, the sacrifice. Well, sorry, but that isn’t the way it’s going to be. If you come, we stand together. So you’d better get yourself something to fight with. What have you got for him, Beckett?”
“Me? Only what I always bring.”
Lane glared at him. “One of these days Beckett, you’re going to wake up in the real vampire world and get yourself some decent stuff.” She leaned forward and pulled a razor-sharp dagger in its sheath from the side of her boot. “Here, Darius, take this. Hopefully you won’t get close enough to use it, but if you do, don’t hesitate. And I want it back, it’s priceless.”
