What I did next I still ask forgiveness from; the memory of it tortures me more surely than any religious curse possibly could.
Picking up an ax, I held it in the firelight. With the pounding of the storm all around us, I stretched my arm out and drew the blade across my skin, pressing hard. The blood flowed over my skin and gushed onto the floor.
Father Bartholomew gave an exclamation of alarm.
I set the tool aside. We watched as the wound healed magically, a golden glow closing the cut. I rubbed away the blood so he could see there was no mark.
“This is impossible.”
I laughed derisively. “It’s bad enough you’re a sinner, but you don’t even have basic faith.”
“But—you could be a devil! Where have I come? Oh, my Lord, help me!”
I slapped him, disgusted. “Shut up, priest. You’re where you are because you monks have been taken care of all your lives and now that you’ve been excommunicated, you find you can’t make it in the real world. Men like me work and raise families, and give our pennies to the church. You don’t understand love, not romantic love and not the all-consuming love a parent has for a child.” I trembled with fresh anger. “You spend your days on your knees praying, and sticking your noses up each other’s arses! You scheme and lie, and you dare to pass judgment on me? You Christians are the worst sinners of all!”
He stared at the blood on the ground. “What are you? Are you an angel?”
“You’ll have to decide that for yourself, father.”
“Why help me now?”
“Your death will not be on my hands.”
He stared at me, his expression a mixture of hatred and shame. “I thank you for that.”
“If you do, you will leave as soon as possible. I will bring you more food in the morning and a pair of boots. As soon as this storm breaks, I want you off my property. You will not speak to my wife or children. If you do, by God Almighty, I promise you will depart my lands in worse shape than you came to them.”
“What if I tell people your secret?”
“Tell them,” I said. “It’s been weeks since I watched the Inquisitors burn someone at the stake for consorting with demons.”
He went white as he realized his mistake.
He finished dressing in my old clothes. They were far too large for him. He recovered the rope belt from his discarded habit and tied it around the top of the pants. Then he went to his knees again and held his hands out to the fire.
I left him there.
The storm raged until sunrise. An hour before that, my family asleep, I brought Bartholomew enough food for a week, including a round of cheese. By the time the sun showed its face again and the land had begun to dry, he had gone.
I looked around the barn. Bartholomew’s verminous clothes lay where he had dropped them the night before. I would burn them later.
Guilt hung over me for what I had done. Insinuating I had religious significance now choked me with regret. I am no angel of God. By showing Bartholomew my ability to heal, doubt had entered his mind—probably for the first time in his life.
Hands on hips, I turned to the table. On it, next to the empty goblet and bowl, rested two items. I walked over and picked them up.
Bartholomew’s bible and rosary.
Chapter 46
Sunday, February 15, 12:31 a.m.
Hamilton, Rachella and I entered 49. The cavernous room featured a flat ceiling and no windows. Tables, benches, and mounds of milling equipment littered the edges, all of it piled against the walls, the perfect nest for the rats that shifted agitatedly beneath the unfamiliar light, their snouts quivering at the unnatural smell of the beings in their midst.
The heavy aroma of rot scented the air.
Four tiers of seats sat around the familiar red-floored boxing ring, the macabre scene garishly lit as always by industrial floodlights set behind the bleachers. Though it was after midnight, no fighters occupied the ring. The diminutive vampire who served as Master of Ceremonies stood in the blue corner, leaning on the ropes, listening to the group below.
Vampires clustered on one side of the ring, the normally festive air of the club absent, replaced by an atmosphere electric with tension. I had told Hamilton to expect hundreds of vampires, but it appeared less than forty were present.
All attention zeroed on us. Bared fangs greeted our arrival, accompanied by a low hiss.
“Mutha,” Hamilton muttered.
“Nothing to worry about,” Rachella told him. “You’re with me.”
I didn’t say anything to that.
We joined Marcus in the middle of a small group. With a soft rustle, the vampires floated over, closing around us, a few sitting in the nearest seats. Rachella pulled Hamilton closer.
The head priest, adorned in his blood-red robes, stood twenty meters away from the ring, near a door leading to what looked like a concrete pillbox. No other vampires were near that area. I was startled to see the stand and case for the Apollo Ring inside the room.
The four acolytes headed in that direction.
“Charlie?” Marcus said.
The acolyte next to Henry stopped. “Yes?”
“Where’s Ron?”
“He said he’d be here.”
“Did he phone you?” I asked.
Charlie’s eyes blazed briefly with hatred at my impertinence for asking him a direct question. I thought he would refuse to answer when he said, “Yes, he called me two minutes ago. From his house.”
He entered the pillbox and stood next to the others. The head priest closed the thick steel door.
“No boxing tonight?” I asked Marcus.
“Are you volunteering?” he replied.
The vampires grinned, their pupils a red glare. I decided to treat the question as rhetorical and remained silent, unaccustomed to hostility from Marcus.
“Detective Hamilton.” Marcus gave a brief nod. “While I have allowed you to attend, you must agree to certain conditions in order to remain. I assume Sebastian has explained the confidential nature of this meeting?”
“He has.”
“And we have your word that you will keep our secrets?”
“Yes,” Hamilton told him, “you have my word.”
“Thank you. We all hope you break that vow,” Marcus said to a menacing rumble of agreement. “Your blood is wonderfully hot and aromatic. Taking your succulent head off your shoulders would be a great pleasure indeed.”
Hamilton surveyed the crowd, expression grim.
Rachella drew a manicured fingernail along his cheek. “I’m sure Detective Hamilton won’t mind if I check on him,” she said.
Roars of approval mingled with angry shouts. Many of the men glared at Hamilton. Rachella had been correct. I hadn’t recognized the signs before now, because I hadn’t seen many vampires interact with mortals. Vampire society did indeed contain a sexual dichotomy: the women shared Rachella’s preference for human companions, but the men did not. How they must hate me! Sponsored by Aliena and openly pursued by Rachella, I attracted two of the most beautiful vampires in Los Angeles.
Was it my fault I tasted so sweet?
Marcus turned to me and the crowd quieted. “You said you saw Aliena earlier tonight. What was her condition?”
“She remembers more, but has obvious gaps. She blacked out again, sweating blood. She came to about ninety minutes later and left without a word. It didn’t look as if she was aware of her surroundings, or her actions.”
“You witnessed this?” he asked Rachella.
“Yes. I tried to follow, but lost her in the clouds.”
“Anything else?” He looked at each of us in turn.
“Sebastian has not told me everything,” she said, glancing at me, “but Aliena is impregnated with one of the Ghosts of Atlantis.”
I gave Rachella a stern stare.
“I know, I should have told you,” she said.
The vampires pressed closer. A woman with short dark hair jostled me from the left.
Two tall men closed behind me, and a man in a dove gray suit edged up on the right, positioning himself between Hamilton and me.
I had never been to 49 without Aliena. The games usually featured a mass feeding that would kill me as effectively as it did the mortal combatants the vampires lured into the boxing ring. Marcus had invited me and given permission to bring Hamilton, so we were under his protection—tonight.
“Are you sure it was one of the ghosts?” Marcus asked.
I kept my temper. Marcus and Rachella knew what was inside Aliena. They must have suspected it last night, yet they had said nothing to either of us. Damn the two of them. They knew.
“Yes,” Rachella told him. “Sebastian scanned Aliena with an ultrasound. I saw the computer display.”
Marcus turned a baleful gaze on me. “When had you planned on telling us this?”
“I was saving it for when you told me what was wrong with Aliena,” I shot back.
A microsecond of irritation flashed in his eyes. Danger signals clanged in my head. Never had I seen Marcus display the emotion of anger in any form, no matter how brief the moment. All the vampires thrummed with anxiety. I realized continued levity on my part could lead to a group snack on their part. I assumed a politer tone.
“What are the Ghosts of Atlantis?” I asked.
The weighty unease emanating from the vampires convinced me many of them were as uninformed about this as I was.
“The ghosts,” Marcus began, “are entities that exist within the flux corridor between universes. Darius said the creatures were among the first people to test interdimensional travel before the technology was perfected. They never exited the gateway, and became trapped there, ageless, living in a timeless, endless energy field. After decades of exposure to the flux, their patterns had slowly distorted beyond anything human. They mutated into fantastically powerful beings, and are scattered throughout the interdimensional void.”
“But if they’re trapped in the corridor, how did one get inside Aliena? And why?”
“Morgan put it there,” Rachella said.
“And Morgan is the woman from the other dimension?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“The ruler of Atlantis.”
Marcus glanced at the squat pillbox before continuing. “Morgan wants the Apollo Ring. She is using Aliena to house one of these creatures in our reality, because no other vessel is strong enough. Morgan then summons the thing and Aliena is taken to that location. We’ve never seen it happen, but she then uses these entities to torture people. And now she is focused on anyone she thinks might be able to lead her to the ring.”
“The two vampires Carmen killed?”
“Yes, both knew the location of the ring.”
Darius certainly had. “Why didn’t you tell me the two victims were acolytes of the Apollo Ring?” I asked Marcus.
“For the obvious reason I did not want you to know,” he replied.
I didn’t say anything to that, though the information would have linked Carmen’s crimes to Darius’s death, and explained the pattern of the murders.
“What does LAPD think of the crime scenes?” Marcus asked Hamilton.
“Not much, beyond the bizarre circumstances,” the detective replied. “We have no idea why the victims were killed or how it was done. According to our experts, to reduce a body to such a fine ash would require heat greater than a cremation oven. If no other evidence is uncovered, in a couple of days the cases will be placed on stand-by, to be re-opened only in the event of new evidence, or if similar homicides occur.”
“Thank you.”
“What about Cha? Rachella told us she and Darius had been seen together. Was Kristina gay?” Hamilton asked.
“Yes. We now believe she was trying to get him to divulge the location of the ring.”
“Who identified Aliena at the scene?”
Marcus glanced to his left. The Russian, Natasha, stared at us. “I did.”
“What exactly did Morgan do to Aliena?” Hamilton asked.
Rachella answered. “She implanted her with a ghost.”
“Yes, but how does that work?”
“We don’t know how she does it, but we do know she can capture these creatures and control them. Darius told us she has a special silver glove she designed. And she uses the ghosts for assassination.”
“A ghost is our killer?” Hamilton asked Marcus.
“Yes,” Marcus answered. “But controlled and directed by Morgan.”
I turned to Rachella. “How long have you known?”
“Since I saw the ultrasound readout.”
I wondered if she was lying. After standing in front of the active interdimensional door in Spellman’s house last night, was it possible Marcus and Rachella hadn’t realized that Aliena had been impregnated by someone from the other dimension?
“If this creature attacks a vampire,” I said, “will it burn the body to ashes?”
“Yes.”
“Yet you didn’t understand what had happened to Aliena—even after Spellman’s death and the interdimensional tunnel in his house?”
Marcus and Rachella made no comment.
“You should have told us.”
“To what end?” Marcus said. “Aliena was scared and disoriented. Telling her she had a creature in her stomach would not have helped.”
“Then you should have told me.”
“What could you do? Aliena did not remember you, so obviously would not spend the day at your house. Even if she had, you could not have helped her.”
“Marcus, are you telling me there’s nothing we can do for Aliena?” I asked, suddenly filled with a helpless dread. “There must be some way to get that creature out of her.”
“There is a way,” said the man in the elegant gray suit.
“Sebastian,” Marcus said, gesturing to the man, “Emilio.”
“An honor,” I said.
“And mine, sir,” Emilio replied. “If you take her through an interdimensional doorway, the passage through the flux detaches the creature. Unfortunately, the ghost still comes out of the corridor with its host and immediately tries to reinhabit the person.”
That matched what Darius had written. “And if someone blocked its way?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
I turned to the pillbox room. The vampires only brought out the Apollo Ring for one reason. And they had burned Carmen with it because she had a ghost inside her.
“Sebastian,” Marcus said. “We need to find Aliena.”
Sunday, February 15, 1:08 a.m.
“No,” I said. “No, Marcus, you can’t kill her! I won’t allow—”
“Easy, Sebastian.” Marcus placed a hand on my shoulder. “We do not intend to kill Aliena, you have my word. However, it is imperative we find her before she can hurt someone else. May I post two men outside your place to wait for her?” he asked me.
Taking a deep breath, I said, “That won’t be necessary.” I handed the tracker’s display to him. “I put a homer on Aliena’s jacket last night at six pm. This shows where she is now, and has a record of everywhere she’s been since I attached the device.”
“You let me fly after her when you knew how to follow her?” Rachella sounded miffed. “Do you realize what that flight did to my hair?”
Marcus tapped the screen. “What have her movements been?”
“She was present at Cha’s house when the murder occurred. Although I didn’t have the tracker on her when Spellman was killed, I can’t account for her whereabouts at the time.”
“Thank you for telling me.” Marcus drew his finger along the screen, scrolling. “She’s not moving now. Her location is 2756 Twain Avenue, Studio City.”
“That’s Ron’s address,” Emilio said.
Marcus glanced at the two big men standing behind me. “Bring her here, please.”
They vanished.
“Don’t worry,” Marcus said, observing my expression. “Felipe an
d Aidan won’t hurt her.” He handed the display unit back to me.
Hamilton said, “What does this Morgan want with the Apollo Ring?”
“The Apollo Ring is the power source for a device she has constructed. According to Darius, it’s designed to create a permanent interdimensional corridor to our universe and turn it into a funnel for siphoning off the energy of this reality.”
“Christ,” Hamilton said, glancing at me. I knew he was thinking of Preston’s explanation for the existence of Atlantis in the past. “Has this corridor been open before?”
“Yes. Long ago.”
“But you said this time it’s going to take our energy. How?” I asked.
“By creating a gravitational singularity on our end of the funnel, one that could eventually pull all of the Milky Way into it.”
“Darius told you this?” I asked, incredulous that Marcus would have believed such a story.
“I was as skeptical as you, Sebastian. The project requires massive power, of course, but the Atlanteans have been manipulating gravity for thousands of years and have developed a technology based on it. And I’ve seen the machine. Darius took me through the portal in his house. We flew to a point two kilometers from the structure. It stretches across continents and oceans, climbing into the clouds and blocking the view of the sky in some places.”
“But if this device was already there, that means Darius must have stolen the ring before the machine was completed.”
“He did.”
The story sounded incredible. No matter how large the machine, if it could fit on a planet the size of earth, how could it handle the power of a black hole? Such objects destroyed gigantic stars, pulling their solar plasma into the vortex like a teenager sucking a vanilla shake through a straw.
Of course, the singularities that created these gravitational monsters were tiny, smaller than a speck of sand.
“And now to another urgent matter,” Marcus said. “I wish to request your assistance with the ring.”
“I am your servant, of course.” Darius had prepared me for this conversation. “What sort of assistance?”
“We need someone to guard it during the day. Now that Morgan is so near it is no longer safe to leave the ring unattended.”
Ghosts of Atlantis (Immortal Montero Book 3) Page 26
