“Let you . . .” Peter said, watching as Lazarus transformed into a bat, though he knew the elder could have chosen any form. “Figure what out?” he cried.
But Lazarus was gone.
Things had gone so wrong, so fast, Father Mulkerrin felt as if he would explode from the nervous energy building with every second of indecision.
What to do?
All three Montesis were dead, and the female Defiant One had become a tiger, something none of them ought to be able to do. And she’d been human just days earlier! Now the tiger was going for Sister Mary, and that he could not allow. Octavian, Cody, Hannibal, and the black woman were slaying their demon attackers easily, and many of the demons had wandered away. He was desperate.
“Un sptha pythfer, dothiende,” he screamed, repeating the words several times, and a mirror portal opened in the center of the square, pouring demons forth. The portal would disappear when he left, and he could not control the demons with such a reckless spell, but he had no choice.
When he looked again, the tiger was mauling Mary with its claws, and one spoken word saved her life. Responding to Mulkerrin’s call, creatures of solid power and complete darkness rose from the brick beneath the acolyte, carried the tiger hundreds of feet in the air, then let it fall.
Before Meaghan could complete her transformation to something with the power of flight, Mulkerrin and Sister Mary were borne aloft by the mist-wraiths, speeding west, toward the home of Hannibal, toward The Gospel of Shadows. Mulkerrin had failed to destroy the Defiant Ones, but with the book, he would be able to bide his time and return to finish the job.
Once he was airborne he realized that dusk had arrived. When the rest of the immortal creatures had woken, his demons would be easily overcome. From the sky he could sec that the fires still burned, far and wide across the city, and he imagined that among the humans, many demons still roamed. Silently, he prayed for those innocents that the shadows might encounter. He would make certain their sacrifice was not in vain. God would provide.
“Where the hell are they going?” Sandro snapped at Tracey.
“How should I know?” she answered.
“Should we follow them?” he asked.
“Hell, no. We’ve got more than enough. It’s almost over, we know who won . . . and the streets are about to become even more dangerous.
“It’s dark out.”
The third demon that Rolf faced was the largest, and still he thought he might destroy it. He knew he had only moments before his task was complete, before the light was gone and his family could join the battle.
And then he fell.
The creature had overpowered him, tearing one arm from its socket, and now it bore down on him as he lay there. Still, he did not quit, tearing at it with his good hand in the gathering dark, and then changing, reshaping himself as a wolf. His arm was still gone, but out of the corner of his eye, even as he thrust his silent muzzle toward the demon’s throat, he saw a miraculous thing.
His arm, too, had changed form.
He knew that his people had only just begun to understand themselves. He would not let them be robbed of that chance.
Rolf tore into the demon’s flesh, and the boiling bile it called blood seared his throat and burned his lips. His tongue melted; useless as it had always been, the pain was still extreme. And then the soldiers were there, the clergy, and the burning flame from their weapons engulfed him and the demon both.
“Triumph,” a man yelled, the same apprentice who had created these demons. His pride was immeasurable. “Quickly now. Inside before they rise.”
“No,” another yelled. “It is too late, we must flee.”
“Coward,” said a third, drawing his sword.
None of them saw the flames change, subtly, as if blown by an invisible wind, spreading across the ground to touch the hairy forepaw that lay torn on the street in front of the theater, engulfing the paw in a leaping flame, leaving at first smoldering ash, and then nothing.
Many of them started for the door of the theater, but jumped back as the tire flashed before them, ten feet in the air, blocking their entry before settling back down several feet.
To the height of a man.
They all saw it change, smoking, solidifying.
Rolf, still silent, ever-vigilant, had ignored the last seconds of the day, and put his faith in Octavian. He lived, and he was whole.
Raising a finger to his face, he waved it in front of them, admonishing them for thinking to enter the theater.
A moment later, as the men turned to run, the inner doors to the theater burst open behind him, and Rolf turned to see his brothers and sisters emerge, angry and hungry and bent on vengeance for the many deaths they felt in their sleep. In his homeland, the end of the Reich and its power-mad manipulators, its evil puppeteers, had come too late to save his great-grandchildren, and his few human friends. He had been powerless.
Never again.
As the darkness settled like the silent snow Rolf led his family into the night.
Miles away, Tracey Sacco and Sandro Ricci were on the road to Rome.
30
ALL THAT MATTERED NOW WAS RETRIEVING that Gospel of Shadows. Father Liam Mulkerrin had failed, and he accepted that. For nearly one hundred years, his magic had kept him youthful so that he could fulfill the mission given him by God Himself. And though he had suffered a major setback, as long as he had the book, he could start over. Their sorcerous order was the most direct link the church had to the time of Christ. Perhaps he could convince the new pope of the value of his mission.
Perhaps not. In any case, he would begin to proselytize once again, gathering a new force of true Christians. Using the book, he would train them as he had the others, and with them he would continue the mission. Though sorcery allowed him to postpone his aging and death, he was still human, and would die eventually, inevitably. He vowed to himself that before his passing, he would fulfill his divine role.
Death—other than the Defiant Ones, the only thing his magic could not master.
It looked as if it had come for Sister Mary. Rocketing through the air, propelled along by mist-wraiths toward the home of Hannibal, and the book, he took the time to look her over. Sister Mary was badly injured, horribly mauled by the tiger-thing that the Defiant One had become. Her good eye had been torn away with a chunk of facial flesh, leaving her completely blind. She would be next to useless now, but Mulkerrin warned her with him. Not out of any sense of loyalty, though. Liam wanted Mary with him so that he would not have to admit total defeat. If she survived, somehow it wasn’t quite as bad.
As they flew over Venice a pair of demons that had been indiscriminately rampaging through the alleyways below turned and sniffed at the sky, scenting the wraiths. They followed along below Mulkerrin, though he barely noticed.
Father Mulkerrin knew his enemies would be after him. Certainly it would take no more than a moment for them to realize where he was headed. But he had a head start, and they could not have left too large a force guarding the book. They would have needed most of their strength at St. Mark’s Square. No, his head start should be sufficient.
Enough about defeat! He would do whatever it took to destroy them, even if that meant attempting spells he had never performed, spells he might not be able to control. He would be victorious even if he must tear asunder the gates of hell and let Lucifer himself free!
Less than a minute after sundown, the horde of Defiant Ones who had slept inside the Venice Theater had arrived in St. Mark’s Square. Many, including Rolf, were disappointed by what they found. They had arrived just in time for the cleanup. The shadow demons that remained had gone completely berserk without any specific external control, but the gathered immortals had no trouble destroying them. To everyone’s relief, Cody dispatched the remaining banshee.
Two minutes had passed since Mulkerrin had fled.
“Hannibal,” Peter called to the older creature, “can you finish the cleanup here and then try to roun
d up any stray shadows? We’re going after the sorcerer.”
Peter motioned to Cody, Meaghan, and Alex, and the three prepared to leave, but Hannibal stopped them, “Why?” he asked.
Peter shook his head, angry. “Why? Look, I know you couldn’t care less about these people. But the times are changing, brother, and you’d better change with them.”
“What the hell are you talking about, lunatic? The humans are nothing to us.”
“Wrong,” Cody interrupted, knowing exactly where Peter was headed.
“Didn’t you see the camera?” Peter asked, pointing to the shadows of the Basilica where Tracey Sacco and Sandro Ricci had stood, recording it all.
Hannibal shook his head.
“Everything that happened here today has been taped and will be broadcast around the world,” Peter said, and smiled. “Nothing will ever be the same.”
“You didn’t!” Meaghan said, an astonished smile on her face as she hugged Peter.
“We did,” Cody answered for him.
“The question for you,” Alexandra broke in suddenly, pointing at Hannibal’s chest, “is do you want to be hounded, hunted down by a world filled with humans as a creature of the night, an inhuman devil? Or would you like them to see us as unfortunate victims who triumphed over evil?”
“We could be their heroes,” Meaghan said after a moment, and Hannibal looked at her with wide eyes, then up at the Basilica, where the secrets of the millennia had been put on display for the world.
Several times he started to say something, anger and confusion alternating on his face, then he turned away from them and walked several steps. After a moment he faced them again.
“You’d better catch that damned priest!” he said.
“We’re gone.”
The four of them were flying hard, and as fast as they could manage. Still, in falcon form again, Meaghan easily outdistanced them. They knew that under normal circumstances, Sheng would have been no match for Mulkerrin. They hoped that the priest’s weakened condition would even the odds.
Shit, Peter thought, communicating his words to Meaghan, we should never have left him alone. We should have had somebody else guarding that book with him.
If it’s anybody’s fault it’s mine, she replied. I’m the one who insisted on coming up. Anyway, we never knew Mulkerrin could move this fast.
They were all connected, really, in their minds. Cody, Alex, and Peter had all been of Karl Von Reinman, and therefore shared a psychic bond. And of course, Meaghan was of Peter. Yet the coven had denied both Cody and Peter, and their minds had been closed to each other. As soon as one of them realized the simplicity of it, it would be no problem to establish that rapport again.
Given the chance.
As they came in sight of Hannibal’s house, the face of which appeared to have crumbled into the street, a scream ripped through all four of their minds.
It was Sheng.
En masse, they landed, metamorphosis bringing them all to humanoid form. What they saw as they changed left them motionless for a moment.
The front of the building was indeed gone, the roof destroyed as well. In the rubble stood Father Liam Mulkerrin, right hand held high while the left hefted the book of evil they had all dreaded. He was speaking, and yet they could not make out the words.
High above them towered a mirror portal of such huge proportions that they knew it had been what destroyed the house. Seventy feet or more in the air and as wide as the building itself, the portal stood. They could not see into the structure, for their sight was blocked by the mirror-thing. Even as they watched, the liquid surface of the portal began to bubble.
The worst part, though, was what they beheld in the rubble next to Mulkerrin. An unspoken dread had consumed them all when Sheng’s mental cry had burst into their minds. Meaghan, for one, wished she had never discovered its origin. Sheng had been Alexandra’s lover, and now her fury was preparing to overpower her reason.
Three shadows, demons of a middling size, who had either followed Mulkerrin or been made by him upon his arrival, were holding Sheng’s limbs so that he was helpless before the attack of the blind Sister Mary. She swung the silver sword over her head and brought it down again, knowing from the smell where the death was. She chopped and chopped, and though she could not see her handiwork, the four Defiant Ones who had hoped to rescue their friend could not tear their eyes away from the scene, from the bloody pieces that were once Shi-er Zhi Sheng.
Still the sword fell, the words tumbled from Mulkerrin’s mouth, and the bubbling at the surface of the portal became more violent.
“The three of you,” Peter snapped, “get that crazy nun and those demons! I’m on that book.”
“I do not want to see what’s going to come through that hole,” Cody added as he followed Meaghan and Alex toward Sheng’s remains and his tormentors.
Meaghan had enjoyed the tiger form, and she took that shape again. Alexandra shifted into an imperfect bear. It would take practice, but she was destroying the bonds that had once held her mind captive. Cody, on the other hand, remained in human form, which he had always preferred.
As Meaghan leaped on one of the demons, the Alex-bear batted Sister Mary away from Sheng with a cracking of bones and a shriek as claws tore across the nun’s flesh. Cody was surprised the nun was alive at all, but he doubted that was still true. On the run, he picked up her fallen sword and used it to attack a second demon, and Alexandra faced the third. A scream brought Cody’s head up and he saw a chunk taken out of Alexandra’s furry side, but she ripped into her enemy with even more ferocity and he was forced to assume she was all right. Talons raked Cody’s skull, taking half his face with them, and he fell to his knees in pain and shock.
Peter ran at Mulkerrin, who seemed to be ignoring him, and when he was less than live feet from the man, ten from the portal, he dove for the book.
And passed right through the figure, screaming as he landed and his left arm pierced the sulfurons, burning liquid portal. He pulled back his arm to find that halfway between elbow and wrist, it was aflame. Pain and anger filled him as he turned to look for Mulkerrin and saw him several feet away, closing the book. The sorcerer turned, finally acknowledging their presence, as the turbulence of the portal worsened.
“You saw a reflection of me. A good spell, is it not?” the priest asked.
“What the hell are you calling up, you monster?”
“Monster? Surely evil is also insane,” Mulkerrin yelled, over a wind that had sprung up.
Peter noticed for the first time that the snow had completely stopped.
“And it’s not what I’m calling, but what I’ve called. Beelzebub himself, the first of the shadows created by Lucifer the Fallen. And you, Defiant One, are to be his first meal on earth.”
Mulkerrin put The Gospel of Shadows under one arm as if he were a boy walking home from school.
“Once before, with the sorcery in this book, the followers of Christ tore a hole into hell itself. Not some limbo where demons could be found, but hell, where the souls of the damned suffer eternity at the hands of Lucifer and the First Order of Shadows. Now I’ve done it again. Only this time I’ve called him across!”
As he was splashed by the burning liquid only feet away, fear overcame Peter’s confusion, and an anger he’d never known possessed him. “Your madness has no end!” he bellowed, teeth baring and claws stretching from the flesh of his fingers.
His voice became a growl. “You could have taken the book and gone! Instead you call something to our world that you have no hope of controlling!”
As Peter leaped for him Mulkerrin held up a hand and spoke three words aloud: “Ladithe, rothiel, urthoth.” And Peter stopped in midair, and fell like a brick.
“I am leaving, Octavian,” Mulkerrin said. “But I must see this, God’s final justice, before I’m on my way.”
His smile was mad, his eyes wide with awe and insanity.
It wasn’t that Peter couldn’t move, but he mov
ed so painfully slowly that it seemed as if he made no progress at all. The spell had not been meant to kill him, only to prevent him from acting before the creature emerged from the portal. As he looked up at Mulkerrin he saw that it was already too late.
What appeared to be a hand was slowly pushing through the portal, tugged at by the liquid around it as if it were the last sign of life from a thing drowning in quicksand. Only it wasn’t drowning. It was crossing over!
Each finger was the size of a man, gnarled like a tree, but a deep red and pulsing with obscene life. The claws of the thing were shining and came to a razor point. Peter did not want to see the rest. The hand descended, slicing down through the portal. In pain Peter turned his head to see its destination, though he’d already guessed what it was. The hand closed around Cody, and lifted him from the ground.
“Peter, are you all right?” Meaghan yelled to him as the wind picked up.
The spell was wearing off, though Mulkerrin had succeeded in draining much of his power. Peter could see that Alexandra, though injured, had finished off the last of the shadows, but he wondered where the wraiths had gone. Above them, Cody was screaming. He had to find a way to stop Mulkerrin, to prevent Beelzebub from coming through and to save Cody.
“Help him,” Peter screamed to them, and Meaghan immediately transformed, leading Alex into the air, racing up the monolithic creature’s body. They tore into the demon’s huge fingers, attempting to loosen its grip on Cody.
“Get this asshole off of me!” Cody yelled, his face tight with pain as he tore into the fingers himself.
Turn to mist! Alexandra’s voice filled his head.
“I can’t!” he yelled in a panic. “I don’t know why, but I can’t change at all!”
Mulkerrin was summoning the mist-wraiths, which were gathering about him, as he prepared to take his leave. Above them, the gargantuan demon’s face broke through the portal, and for the first time Peter believed it might truly be Beelzebub.
Unlike all the other demons they had seen, the ugliest, most disgusting, and perversely constructed creatures a mind could imagine, this creature terrified Peter Octavian. It looked down upon him, its face a crimson ruin, with furrows and rocky growths, two horns on each side of its head, eyes bright with a light reflected from nowhere, and he met its gaze. For a moment he felt as if Mulkerrin’s spell had not faded, for he was frozen solid by his terror.
Of Saints and Shadows (1994) Page 35
