He pulled his bag onto one shoulder and started away from her, away from the house.
“Wait a minute,” she called, needing his camerawork but also not wanting to be so close to the house alone.
Against his better judgment, he did wait.
“Everything that I said happened to me really did, and in that house,” she said, pointing. “I know you don’t believe me, but look at it this way. You’re already out here, you’ve already got all that on tape, and I did help you out with your job tonight. Just bear with me a little while longer. Even if I’m completely out of my mind, I can prove I was held captive in that house, and probably a lot more besides. It’s still a hell of a story. If I turn out to be a nut, the story’s all yours.”
He looked at her, weighing his options. He was already in it, but . . . “No,” he said.
“Gutless,” Tracey said, and that got him.
Nobody answered the door, though she rang the bell several times. She started to knock then, but gave it up after just a few moments.
“Must have given the staff the night off,” Sandro said, and Tracey nodded agreement. She’d been certain there would be a whole group of them there, celebrating carnival. Now she realized they must have another location in the city, and that gave her pause.
Why stop at two? She’d known that the Defiant Ones rotated their annual . . . reunion, from one carnival to another. But who was to say exactly how many of these creatures were in Venice, and how many buildings they might inhabit?
Nevertheless, it seemed nobody was home at this address. She knocked one last time and then tried the knob. The door opened!
“Don’t even think it,” Sandro said, but she was already over the threshold. This was what she had wanted all along, but she’d never thought it would actually happen.
“It was open!” she rasped in a half whisper. “It’s not breaking and entering, only trespassing. And besides, no one’s home.”
“Only tres . . . oh, boy.”
“Roll that tape and get in here,” she whispered, and though he knew he might go to jail, Sandro’s gut told him there was a story in that house. He went after it.
They moved slowly and as quietly as possible. Sandro did not believe in undead monsters or any of that bullshit, but he was beginning to believe that something had happened to Tracey in there. Just what he didn’t know, but the way she crept through that house, glancing back at him to reassure herself that she was not alone, well, it surely wasn’t an act.
Plus she knew her way around the house.
It wasn’t long before Tracey found the room where she’d been held, on the basement level, and it was just as she’d described it, right down to the hole that had supposedly been ripped in the wall when she was freed. Sandro now felt certain that there was a story here—the story of a woman held captive by people so cruel, so completely inhuman, that they somehow drove her mad enough to believe they were vampires.
He felt sorry for her.
Tracey screamed.
“What?” he yelled back. “What is it?”
“Jesus,” she yelled, ahead of him, and then began to retch.
They’d gone on through the basement, checking inside a number of apparently secret rooms whose doors had not been properly shut. Sandro ran up to her now, as she had moved to the next room while he’d been filming an enormous walk-in closet filled with costumes. She was on her knees trying not to be sick when he reached her and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“What’s in there?” Sandro asked, though he had a bad feeling he wouldn’t like the answer. It took her a moment to reply.
“Remember I told you about Linda, the woman I came here with?” she began, and Sandro nodded. “Well, she’s in there, and she’s not alone.”
Sandro grabbed the edge of the door. “It’s cold,” he said.
“It’s a freezer,” Tracey answered.
After he had turned away to compose himself, Sandro began to breathe through his mouth and started rolling the tape.
“Tracey . . . Allison, whatever your name is. Talk,” he ordered.
She got up and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. She went into the freezer with him and began to narrate, pointing out Linda Metcalf among the two dozen or so ravaged cadavers they found inside. Many had tears at the throat, but a good number had double puncture marks, not only on their necks, but on their breasts, buttocks, penises. Some were savagely mutilated, others relatively unharmed. Tracey recounted the party she had attended the night before and pointed out a couple of people that she recognized from it.
“As I said earlier,” she concluded, “the majority of these people came here of their own free will, as volunteers, aware of what awaited them. But from what we can see here, that in no way lessens the horror of what’s happened to them.”
The search of the house continued, though Sandro badly wanted to leave. He could understand now how Tracey had come to believe in these creatures, but he had been fascinated by crime all his life and knew how clever killers could be. He wanted to be out of there, to call the police and the network, but she pressed on.
He was surprised at how calm she was, considering what she’d told him had happened on these stairs. But they went up just the same. Halfway up the first flight, she stopped.
“Hear it?” she asked, and then he did.
The shower was running up on the third floor.
“I’m not going up there,” Sandro declared with no uncertainty.
“I don’t blame you,” Tracey said. “Let’s check this floor while the shower’s still running.”
He didn’t want to, but they did anyway.
“I didn’t think anyone was home,” he whispered, aware now that someone else was in the house.
“Maybe they don’t need the lights?” she suggested. “There’s enough light coming in the windows to see by anyway, but if you didn’t have that light on your camera, you could never catch anything on film. Maybe they see like it’s light out?”
“Enough of that,” he scolded. She was really starting to get to him.
In the second room, they found another body. A very pretty young woman was lying there under the covers of the bed, her bare shoulders and face as pale as marble in the weak light from the window and three deep scratches, like claw marks, across one arm. She wasn’t breathing. Only when Sandro started to film did they see the twin punctures on her neck.
There were two armchairs by the window, and a set of clothes lay over each—one obviously the woman’s, the other, including a pair of worn cowboy boots, likely belonging to whomever was in the shower upstairs.
The most surprising thing of all, considering what they had already found in the basement, was the open crate that sat up against one wall. In that crate, buried in layers of bubble wrap and packing plastic popcorn, were automatic weapons. At first glance it looked like there were several dozen. They noticed then that another gun, shorter than the others, lay in its holster under a balled-up pair of blue jeans with the cowboy boots.
“You wouldn’t think the undead would carry guns,” Sandro said quietly.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” she whispered angrily, “but I know what I know, and your sarcasm won’t change that.”
She picked up the gun from the chair. She didn’t know if it was loaded, but she would have been willing to bet that it was.
“Put that down and let’s get out of here,” Sandro said, long beyond his fear threshold.
Tracey ignored him, though, and took three steps to the bed and sat down on its edge. She held the gun in her lap like a cup of coffee, and Sandro cringed at her carelessness. Then she touched the dead woman’s temple—he assumed she did so to be certain she was truly dead, though he himself had no doubt.
“I wonder who she was,” Tracey said quietly as she looked at the dead woman.
He was about to comment again on their need to be going when a voice came from behind him.
“Meaghan Gallagher,” the voice said, and both of them whirl
ed around to see a handsome, dripping-wet man with a towel held about his waist.
“That’s her name,” the man said. “Mine’s Will. Will Cody.”
Tracey lifted the gun.
25
“AND THE ANGEL LUCIFER WAS DRIVEN from heaven because he tried to duplicate the works of his own creator, the Lord God. And Lucifer was placed in hell, where he lords over his twisted and darkly evil creations, and where he shepherds the souls of those who themselves chose to reject heaven, and attempts even unto this day to give life to worlds and beings which he hopes might one day rival the Lord’s.
“Ft is for this purpose that Jesus Christ was born. To save the earth from such creatures and the human race from their temptations, to open the gates of heaven to us at the end of our lives, and to give us, while we live, a most important gift—the knowledge that allows us to enslave and control those dark forces, and nightmarish creations of Lucifer. Christ taught his apostles to ride herd over these creatures and, through their control, to protect the human race from their depredations.
“And we have succeeded. Upon a rock named Peter He built his church, and this church has controlled the forces of darkness, the minions of Lucifer for two thousand years. The human race now remembers such things only as myth, as legend, if at all. Even within the last twenty years, the rare instances of misbehavior among these dark hordes, their attacks on humanity, have been completely exorcised. Many of you are well on the way to completing your education in these disciplines, others are just beginning, but we shall continue to perform the functions with which we were entrusted by God Himself!
“Which brings us to our common mission this day. Of all the unnatural creatures born of the rift between heaven and hell, only one race has escaped our control. For this very same reason we call them Defiant Ones! Their origins are mystery even to us, for references to them in Christ’s teachings have been lost since the time of the Apostles. Repeated attempts at purifying the world of these creatures have failed, but they must not be allowed to roam free! If they cannot be controlled, they must be destroyed. The fascination of our times with such creatures must be stopped before technology makes it impossible for them to remain in secret.
“Only the fact that they wish to remain unknown to the world as much as we desire it has kept them from being discovered before now. But as was the case before the Great Purge, their numbers have become far too many. They are unable to control their own kind. Reckless creatures are spawned who care nothing for their own society’s rules.
“But the most disturbing reason which compels us to act now is that we have come to believe that the safeguards which were once firmly in place may now be slipping. Once this process begins, it will be similar to an avalanche. The Defiant Ones’ knowledge of the church, especially that of the younger ones, is minimal. We are a small enough order now that if they were to concentrate their efforts on us, we could not long withstand them. Without the safeguards, so much the worse.
“The time is at hand, the Blessed Event is today, only hours from now. The world as we know it, as our predecessors have shaped it, hangs in the balance, based upon your actions today. You know your positions and your units. Departures will begin in thirty minutes and will move according to schedule until thirty minutes before dawn.
“I bless you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You are the Sword of God and, as such, can never be defeated. Amen.”
They were ready. The Montesi brothers stood by Father Mulkerrin during his speech and swelled with sinful pride at his words. They were honored with having had a greater hand in the Blessed Event than any but Mulkerrin himself. And soon it was to begin.
The arrival of the Venice group had been handled swiftly, daggers and swords of silver given to each man and woman—the Roman Catholic Church had hoarded riches for two thousand years and there was little that money could not buy. Recently there had been problems acquiring funding, due to the necessity of keeping the pope in the dark, but the expensive stockpile of silver weaponry had been built up over centuries. As for such recent additions as flamethrowers, carried only by those both strong and agile, perhaps one in five, Garbarino had found a way. Now both problem and solution had been eliminated.
Sister Mary Magdalene undressed down to her waist without a care for those around her. None would dare to look at her or to question her actions except perhaps Father Mulkerrin, and he would see her faith clearly. She unsheathed her dagger and, pressing hard, drew a deep gash across her left breast. She did not cry out, but heard several others gasp despite their training as the blood ran down her chest to the waistband of her pants. Without any other covering, she pulled her shirt, sweater, and jacket on again.
The pain would keep her awake, the scent of blood would act as a magnet, drawing them toward her rather than one of the others. She intended to get more than her fair share. A warmth spread between her legs as she thought of it, and there was a tingling in her ruined and empty eye socket.
Isaac and Thomas went over the instructions a final time with the second in command of each unit. Each unit also had a Venetian guide handpicked from those troops only lately arrived, as well as a tracker—a novice whose studies had concentrated only on the use of magic to locate Defiant Ones, even specific creatures.
“Unit One will proceed directly to San Marco under command of Father Mulkerrin,” Thomas Montesi began. “Unit Two will handle those few Defiant Ones expected to be found in Castello and then move immediately to San Marco. Unit Three will move on San Polo and Four and Five will take Dorsoduro and Cannaregio, respectively, and then move on to San Polo. Thereafter all units will converge with Unit One in San Marco, where cleanup and crowd control will be primary objectives.”
“However,” Isaac continued, “if there are complications, you will obviously be instructed on site by your commander or supervisor. Please note that the duration of this operation is intended to be four hours, beginning at noon exactly. Should complications arise, we must be certain to have nearly completed all exterminations by five P.M. at the latest, for obvious reasons.”
“Finally,” Thomas concluded, “let me say that there is a possibility that some of your targets may be aware of our plans and may have taken precautions. Be extra careful when approaching resting places and watch for human conspirators.”
As the brothers were speaking, their youngest sibling had Joined them. Robert listened as he polished their father’s sword one final time. He wore two swords, one for battle and his father’s, which was not to be drawn except to destroy the Montesi patriarch’s own murderer. He smiled as he polished it, and many of the troops could not help but glance at him, the same way they could not tear their eyes from Sister Mary Magdalene’s self-mutilation. Noticing he had their attention, Robert picked up where Thomas left off:
“This is a search-and-destroy mission. Chances are there will be some complications. In any war, some civilian casualties are expected, accepted within reasonable limits. You are doing God’s work. If a civilian who is unaware of this threatens, purposely or accidentally, to interfere with this work, you must not shirk. You must eliminate that person or those persons. Time is of the essence. Our duty must be carried out.
“In the name of God,” Robert said.
“In the name of God,” the chorus came back to him.
“Form up,” Sister Mary shouted as she and Father Mulkerrin approached the Montesis, and the troops moved into their units.
“We will disperse in groups of ten, units then forming up at the preassigned meeting places. I trust you all understand the instructions the Brothers Montesi have given you. When the operation is concluded, you shall return here singly and in pairs. Avoid contact with law enforcement or military officials, what few may then remain, and rendezvous here for further instructions.
“Now go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”
“Jesus, Tracey, don’t shoot!” Sandro shouted.
“He’s one of them, dammit,” she growled
, not taking her eyes off Cody for a moment.
“Let’s call the police,” Sandro suggested.
“Cops can’t do anything to this guy, Sandro.”
Cody was amused, really. He’d only come back with the guns a short time earlier, and Peter had left him to watch Meaghan until the meeting had gotten well under way, hoping it would then be safe for him to show up there. At that point, Peter would send someone to relieve him.
It had never been Cody’s way to stay back, safe and sound, in the shadows. But he remembered the old saying discretion is the belter part of valor—and this one time he went with it. Besides, he’d had enough of leading as a scout and the owner of the Wild West Show. He remembered much more fondly his days with the Pony Express, buffalo hunting, and commandeering beer trains with Jim Hickok, old Wild Bill, whom he sorely missed. Nope, when he tried to be boss, he got screwed by the system. Now he preferred to work alone. He’d come to like being a rebel.
So he had only been there a short time when he decided to wash the grime of his black-market jaunt from his body. From the shower, he’d heard the woman scream downstairs and finished washing up, then left the water running and came down to see what was going on. Of course, he’d always had a soft spot for the ladies. This one looked mighty confused, trying to decide whether or not to shoot him. He didn’t want to give her the chance. He hated to waste bullets and, though only for a moment, getting shot would hurt. As far as the camera was concerned, well, Cody had always enjoyed the spotlight. He was going to get a royal reaming from Peter and the gang, but what the hell. If a guy couldn’t have some fun . . .
“Now, ma’am,” he began, and Tracey flinched at his voice. “Why don’t we discuss this? I’ve been aware of your presence since you got here, so why don’t you just say what’s on your mind?”
Tracey didn’t know what to say. Among the things she had expected, this wasn’t one. If the guy was one of them, he probably wouldn’t be afraid of a gun, especially his own gun. But . . .
Of Saints and Shadows (1994) Page 29
