Key to Justice

by Talia Gryphon

  For one brief, shining moment, she flashed back to a moonlit night in Sacele when she had tangled with Jack the Ripper. He’d had a scalpel; Sweeney had a straight razor. Knowing she couldn’t hope to beat him by strength, she opted for speed, weaving and dodging around the combatants in the room, praying she’d stay alive long enough for someone to kill him.

  “Gillian! The holy Grael is here!” Daed shouted at her.

  “The Grail? The witch has the Grail?” Bartholomew heard him as well and was now very confused. Point for Daed. Confusion among one’s enemies was a legitimate battle strategy.

  Trocar was indeed there. The doors to the throne room slammed open. There stood Trocar and behind him was . . . dear, sweet Ganesh, what the hell was It? Her mind made sense of It after a moment. She didn’t know how the hell he’d done it, but somehow Trocar had activated the Golem of Prague.

  “Kill everything in this room,” the Grael ordered It.

  The Golem was over ten feet tall. It looked like a rotting man-shaped mound of swamp debris onto which someone had etched a rudimentary face. There was Hebrew written across Its forehead, but from the distance, with bad lighting and the Golem’s color of muck brown, Gillian couldn’t read it from where she was.

  Bipedal, thick-girthed, genderless and powerful, the Thing swept Its foot through a knot of fighting bodies. Beings flew in every direction. Some splatted against walls; others were impaled on sconces.

  “Get away from It!” Gillian warned. “Don’t get in Its way. It’s like a robot: no emotion, no feeling. Once It’s turned on, It’s going to keep killing.”

  The order was for her own people, but she couldn’t help shouting. None of them but Aleksei would have heard her otherwise, and she doubted any of them would have noticed until too late. The damn Thing blended into the walls and floor like a chameleon except when It lurched. There wasn’t time for relayed messages.

  “Move, move, move!”

  Gillian backed up and the others followed suit. Unfortunately the only direction open at the moment was toward Daily and Elizabeta. Where the hell had Sweeney gone again? Sneaky-ass Vampire.

  The Golem was tearing through the packed group inside, with more and more trying to get in from the outside. How and where had Daily recruited them all? That was the question of the day. It would have to wait to be answered.

  “Gill!”

  Now what? She turned to see Jenna launch a solo blitz attack on Elizabeta. The Vampire was so shocked that she forgot to fight back until Jenna jerked her off the stool, tossed her against the nearest wall and landed a few serious blows to her pretty face.

  “Goddammit, Jenna.”

  Gillian grabbed the nearest weapon she could, which happened to be a fallen torch from a wall sconce. The damn thing seemed to weigh fifty pounds.

  She ran at the two of them. Jenna was quickly losing ground as Elizabeta recovered from her surprise and got down to the business of trying to dismember Gillian’s friend.

  A crack from the torch against the side of Elizabeta’s head knocked her away. Gillian grabbed Jenna and yanked her back. They overbalanced and fell together. Sweeney’s razor was instantly at her throat. Devious son of a bitch.

  “Sorry, love. Got to do what I got to do.”

  Gillian didn’t have time to react before Sweeney was knocked on his ass. She watched, stunned, as he skidded across the floor on his butt, grabbing his own throat. The dark red fountain pouring from it gave her incentive to move. She scrambled to her feet, pulling Jenna with her, and backed straight into Aleksei.

  “Are you all right, cara?”

  “Yeah . . . thanks. Did you do that?”

  “He will not touch you again.” Aleksei’s eyes were platinum disks of rage. She’d never seen him like that before. Actually, she had, except the anger had been directed at her.

  “Nice going. We’ll make a Marine out of you yet.” She grinned at him and then shoved Jenna into his arms.

  “Get her out of here. She’s still wounded.”

  “Gillian, watch out!” His warning almost came too late.

  Elizabeta had a jeweled knife and was bearing down on Gillian. She would have moved faster if she’d used her nifty Vampire foo skills. Instead she was fighting the heavy skirt of her antique gown complete with petticoats to limp purposely toward Gillian. She was probably pissed off at having her hairdo wrecked by the conk to her head.

  Gillian’s life might have ended just then if not for the sound of a heavy blade swishing through the air. Georg was free. He stood behind Elizabeta as her body took a step farther before crumpling to the paving stones. Her head rolled gently away. The ancient knight lifted a section of her skirt and wiped his blade clean. The manacles that had bound him dangled broken from his wrists.

  “I managed to free myself and Evzen,” Georg said apologetically.

  “I can see that. You’re awesome.” Gillian gave him a quick smile, then turned back to shoo Aleksei and Jenna out of the room.

  The quiet, familiar voice in her ear made her freeze.

  “I am so sorry for this, Gillian. I am sorry because you truly did care about me as your patient, despite my resistance to getting better. You did more to help me than you will ever know. You must know that, at least. ‘Thank you’ is not enough. Not nearly enough,” Vlad said softly behind her.

  “Not. A. Good. Time. Vlad,” she hissed over her shoulder.

  “Bartholomew Daily!”

  Vlad’s voice thundered through the throne room. He shoved Gillian to the floor in front of him and leaped over her to stand before Daily.

  By the time his voice stopped reverberating, everyone except Osiris, Aleksei, Erzsébet, Odin and the Golem was shaking in their boots. Those that weren’t quivering in fear were already dead. Most of Daily’s group were literally scattered on the floor, some in fetal positions. Gillian’s friends were less embarrassingly indisposed, with the exception of Jenna, who was disheveled and shuddering against Aleksei’s shirt.

  Clearly there were only five Vampire Lords in the room and one Creature who had been inexorably sent on a mission of destruction by a certain Grael Elf. Holy shit. Things were getting more exciting by the moment.

  Way to separate the chaff from the wheat, Vlad, Gillian thought to herself as soon as she could collect her wits.

  Vlad backhanded Daily across the face, knocking him and the throne over. The former priest scrambled to his feet and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. His liquid brown eyes widened in alarm, giving him a passing resemblance to a deer in headlights, except Vlad Dracula was the headlight.

  “You dare set yourself above the laws of this land and our own code.”

  Vlad had the Vampire Lord thing turned up full throttle. His voice reverberated through Gillian’s body, sending cold chills down the spine of every sentient Being in the room. She couldn’t speak for anyone else, but it was a crappy feeling. The Golem didn’t give a shit. It casually lumbered through the area, demolishing Paramortals left and right. Golem awake. Golem smash.

  “Heretic!” Daily shrieked.

  “Happily so,” Vlad replied.

  “I am the law of the land!” Daily declared.

  Vlad smacked him again, sending him reeling. Daily tried to back away, but Vlad’s booted foot stomped on the hem of the purple robes, pinning him in place.

  “You are insane. You have threatened my therapist, her beloved and her child. You are threatening the peaceful existence we have all enjoyed. You have lived too long.”

  “So have you,” Daily hissed. He reached for a jeweled hilt in his belt but wasn’t quite fast enough.

  CHAPTER 21

  VLAD grabbed Daily’s shoulders, hauling the smaller Vampire against his chest. Fangs descended in his mouth as he pulled Bartholomew to him. The phony priest made choking, protesting sounds as Vlad drove his fangs into the other’s throat. Testosterone superiority exhibitions within the Vampire community. Oh, boy.

  “Vlad, no!” Osiris yelled.

  The
difference of timbre in his tone compared to Vlad’s was remarkable. The Egyptian Lord’s voice echoed at the same volume but invoked much different feelings. Pure, absolute power resonated from that voice. That voice could command armies, people, even nations, with ideas of hope, growth and solidarity. Vlad’s people had served him out of terror; Osiris’s people had followed him for thousands of years out of sheer adoration and trust.

  Gillian was vaguely aware that the Golem had systematically decimated Daily’s army. The remaining Beings who weren’t dead, mortally injured or shitting themselves were scattering to the four corners of Prague and the landscape beyond. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Georg, Evzen, Hreidmar, Daed and Kelda rounding up the ones who were still mobile.

  Jenna was sitting in the middle of the room; Kimber and Pavel were beside her. Aleksei, Odin, Dagr and Erzsébet were dispatching the last few nasties with fight in them that the Golem had missed. Garm and Helgi had shifted during the fight and were chasing stragglers off into the night.

  Trocar was suddenly at her side. “We have to stop It, Gillyflower.”

  “Stop what? The Golem? What do you mean, ‘stop It’? You mean you don’t know how to turn that Thing off?”

  “No, I do not. I merely asked the rabbi how one would activate It if a certain Jewish heroine were in serious trouble. It turns out he is a fan of yours.”

  Gillian stared at him. She pointed at the Golem, who was methodically stomping bodies into goo.

  “You told a rabbi . . . an Orthodox rabbi, that I . . . we needed help from that?”

  “Did you need help?”

  “Are you kidding me? Look around! Of course we needed help.” She slapped a palm against her forehead.

  “Then do shut up, Petal. Just say, ‘Thank you, Trocar, for saving everyone,’ and help me figure out how to deactivate It. But do it quickly. I ordered It to kill everything in this room, and we are still in this room, need I remind you.”

  She gritted her teeth and fought not to yell. “Thank you, Trocar. Now tell me how you activated It before It notices us.”

  “Hence my urgency in seeking your help.” The insufferable shit grinned at her.

  “How did you turn It on?” Now she was yelling.

  “The rabbi had me draw a Hebraic letter on Its face. He said if I was to control It, I had to do the drawing.”

  “What letter? It’s hard to see from here.”

  “I believe he called it . . . aleph.”

  “Just the one letter? It has more than one letter on Its forehead. I could see that when you came in with It.”

  “Just one. The rest were already there.”

  “Aleph . . . aleph . . . okay, that makes sense.” Gillian’s mind was whirling, putting things together that she’d learned years ago.

  “Because . . . ?” Trocar gestured impatiently.

  “The Hebrew word for truth is Emet. It is literally one letter away from being Met, the word for death. If we rub out the aleph, we should be able to stop It.”

  “What do you mean, ‘we,’ Gillyflower?” Trocar backed away from her toward the door.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, you pointy-eared arrow twanger. Get back here. We are doing this together.” Gillian grabbed his cloak and hauled him back to stand next to her.

  Unfortunately the Golem picked that time to turn. It finally realized It was doing nothing more than getting squishy stuff between Its toes and began looking for more active prey. The massive shoulders turned as It squared Its body toward Gillian and Trocar.

  “Gillian, run!” Aleksei ordered her.

  His heart nearly stopped as the Creature fixed on his fiancée and her friend.

  Osiris echoed him. “Vlad, let him go and get out of there!”

  Shit. Vlad. They’d all forgotten about him, except Osiris, apparently. He still had Daily in a death grip. The purple-robed Vampire was struggling mightily but was still pinned against Vlad’s chest.

  Vlad’s entire body jerked and abruptly he let Daily free. The other Vampire scuttled back, his right hand covered in blood as Vlad’s legs slowly buckled.

  “All that power and still at the mercy of a wooden stake.” Daily was sheet white, trembling, almost stumbling away from Vlad but with an eerie, sardonic grin on his face.

  “Vlad!” Osiris, Aleksei and Gillian chorused. They ran as one toward their fallen companion.

  Aleksei got to him first and was cradling him as Osiris and Gillian skidded up. Vlad lay in Aleksei’s arms, the hilt of a jeweled wooden dagger between his ribs.

  Daily was chuckling to himself over how clever he had been to think about using wooden weapons against those of his own kind. He turned to run and bumped into the leg of the Golem.

  The Creature reached down, picked him up and promptly tore him in half. Almost casually It dropped the truncated body and began stomping it into unrecognizable chunks.

  Aleksei scooped Vlad up as they all ran for the door. Once everyone was outside, Gillian called for them to stop.

  “We’re okay now. It’s inside; we’re out here. Trocar told It to kill everything in the room. It should stop at the door.”

  She was breathing heavily as she sank down next to Vlad. Aleksei had laid him on the cobblestones away from the door and was still cradling his former enemy’s head. Daed was beside them, a medical pack in his hand.

  “The rest of you, do some crowd control. Keep those tourists away from here and make sure there are no wannabe heroes from Daily’s bunch around. Dagr, Evzen, see if you can handle the local authorities. We don’t want this in the papers tomorrow.”

  Gillian turned her attention back to Vlad, whose eyes were fluttering. Daed was giving him a shot of some kind. Her gaze flicked upward to meet Aleksei’s eyes. He shook his head at her, sadly. A glance at Daed confirmed it. Her friend was a doctor but he could do nothing for the mortally wounded Vampire.

  “Can any of you save him?” Gillian asked helplessly.

  “No . . . there are limits to our powers, Gillian. You know that perhaps better than anyone,” Osiris told her kindly.

  Daed looked up at her, lifting the broken, shattered hilt and what remained of the bloody wooden blade that Daily had stabbed Vlad with. “The dagger . . . It was wood, all right, but it was brittle, old wood and it hit a rib going in. There are splinters all over the inside of his chest and heart, Gill. Think of what a .45-caliber hollow-point slug can do to the inside of a Human. This effect is pretty similar.”

  “So . . . just making him comfortable is all we can do?” she asked.

  “I am comfortable, Gillian.”

  Vlad’s eyes had opened, coinciding with his ability to speak. The ice green crystalline color was becoming hazy as his life ebbed. He lifted a hand to her and she took it. His grasp was weak.

  “I have lived long enough, as Daily said,” he began.

  “Daily’s an asshole, and Daily is dead, by the way. Trocar’s new pet Golem made certain of that,” Gillian told him.

  “No, please listen. I have done a multitude of terrible things in my unnatural lifetime. My shame for deceiving you was more poignant after knowing how much you wanted me to get better.” He was speaking quickly, knowing he had little time left.

  “Aleksei, I can never make it right for Turning you and Tanis. I hope someday I might earn your forgiveness.”

  “If I had not been Reborn, I would have never met Gillian. I forgive you, freely,” Aleksei stated with absolute conviction.

  Gillian was shocked. Aleksei had been desperately depressed about being a Vampire when she’d first met him. To hear him forgive Dracula for that transgression was remarkable.

  “Osiris, you worked a miracle with me in your care. I regret that we might have been friends but for my madness.” Vlad coughed, pumping blood from his chest wound. A small trickle of blood formed at the edges of his mouth.

  “Don’t talk; just rest,” Gillian told him.

  “I will rest soon. Have to talk now.” Vlad struggled to sit up more. Aleksei propp
ed him up farther. His breathing was becoming more labored.

  “I would have killed Daily myself except for this.” He gestured almost imperceptibly toward the dagger Daed still held.

  “We know,” Odin said.

  He knelt by the fallen Vampire and clamped a hand on his shoulder. “You helped save us . . . all of us. Soon you will be in the Halls of Valhalla, where the dead may live forever. Say hello to my forefathers on my behalf.”

  “Good-bye, my old friend.” Erzsébet stood hand in hand with Sir Georg.

  Vlad shuddered a final time. “Justice is finally served.” The ice green eyes closed forever.

  The Dark Prince of Romania, Vlad Tsepes—the Bogey-man of lesser Vampires everywhere—died in the arms of his former servant, surrounded by his temporary comrades in arms.

  “Gillyflower?” Trocar’s voice insinuated itself into the somber scene.

  Gill looked up. Her eyes were completely dry. She laid the hand she’d been holding across Vlad’s still chest.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I’m confused, but fine. I’m sorry, guys. I am unhappy we lost anyone during this venture, but better him than one of you.”

  She searched for and locked eyes with Jenna, Kimber, Pavel, Daed, Aleksei and Osiris.

  “He said ‘justice is served’ as he died. I think he had no intention of living through this. I think his going after Daily was his way of redeeming himself back to some semblance of the hero he once was when he was Prince of Walachia. I also think he honestly, really felt remorse at the end. At least I hope so.”

  “I believe you are correct, cara mia. I am not particularly sorry he is dead, but I am not particularly happy either. He had a great deal to atone for,” Aleksei told her.

  “At least he apologized for Turning you and Tanis,” Gillian reminded him.

  “Yes, but as I said, if he had not, I would have missed meeting you.” His smile to her was wondrous.

  Daed butted in. “What do we do with him?”

  “We will return him to our homeland. He will be given a hero’s burial. I believe that is what he ultimately would have wanted,” Aleksei said firmly as he laid Vlad fully on the ground and stood up.