by Graham Brown
Both men stood. Simon walked Aldo to the door and they embraced. As Aldo reached for the door handle, a question rose up in Simon’s mind.
“How many of them do you hear?” he asked.
Aldo turned, looking back at Simon oddly, as if he hadn’t really understood the question.
“How many voices?” Simon repeated.
Aldo blinked several times before finally responding. “All of them,” he said calmly.
It was not possible, Simon thought. And now he was certain the voices were just echoes. They had to be.
CHAPTER 14
Boston, Massachusetts
KATE STEPPED from the passenger seat of a gray SUV and onto the cracked blacktop. The seldom-used street near the South Boston waterfront was slowly decaying, crumbling with time into little chunks of rubble.
It was 9:00 a.m. The sun was burning off the morning cloud cover as a crane lifted an orange stretcher from the water’s edge. It raised the stretcher high enough to carry it over a rusted fence and brought it back toward the street, where several squad cars were parked with their lights going.
Boston PD was on-site, including their coroner and a forensics team. They’d cordoned off the area and done a preliminary exam before hauling up the body.
As the stretcher continued its slow journey, Kate and Billy Ray walked up to the group, showed their badges, and went through a round of introductions.
A detective named Tanner seemed to be in charge.
“What do we know?”
Tanner looked at his notes. “Female,” he said. “Mid-twenties. Obviously no ID. No distinguishing marks, not even a small tattoo or a piercing.”
“Was her throat cut?” Kate asked.
“It looks that way,” Tanner said. “But not slashed.”
The crane brought the stretcher out over the street, lowering it gently. Two uniformed officers reached out and guided it in for a soft landing. Once it was down, one of them released the hook and gave the thumbs-up. The crane reeled in the cable.
Kate and Billy Ray stepped forward. A quick scan told her the dead woman would soon be confirmed as the latest victim.
Like each of the others, this body showed no signs of trauma other than a clean slice across the left jugular vein. On the other bodies, the cut was so clean that, where the skin and tissue pressed together, it almost disappeared, but in this case, the artery appeared open, distended and ragged.
As they studied the body, one of the cops began to look a little green.
Kate glanced at him. His was a kid. Smooth face, eager eyes. He couldn’t have been on the force for more than a year or two, not a lot of experience or seniority. He should have been on a third watch beat somewhere, writing tickets and handing out DUIs. She wondered what the hell he was doing at a murder scene. Maybe he was covering for someone.
“You gonna be all right?”
He looked like he would either throw up or faint. Her money was on him puking.
“I, um…”
“Because if you throw up on the victim, you’re going to screw up any evidence that might still be there.”
He nodded, stepped back a little, and seemed to get it together.
She turned back to the body and pointed toward the jugular with a pen, careful not to touch it.
“What do you think?”
“The cut’s a little ragged,” Billy Ray said. “Not as clean as the others.”
“No,” she said. “Someone was in a hurry. Maybe that’s a break.”
She stared at the poor woman. Her facial features were Hispanic, her hair and eyebrows dark, her brown eyes staring lifelessly. But her skin tone was awfully pale, even for someone who’d been in the water. Kate figured she knew the reason for that.
“Exsanguinated,” she said while putting her sunglasses on. “Just like the others.”
“Yeah, that’s what the coroner thinks too,” Tanner said.
Across from them, the young cop looked like he was about to lose it.
“Tanner, you want to get this kid out of here?” she suggested.
“Go take a breather,” Tanner said to the rookie. “Send Jenkins over.”
As the young cop moved off, Billy Ray pointed to the woman’s hands. Neither her palms nor her forearms showed any bruising or scratching.
“No defense wounds,” he said. “Must have happened quick.”
Kate was looking at her hands as well. Billy Ray was right, but there was something more. Her nails were perfect. Freshly manicured. Most of the other victims had been more run-down, stragglers from the edge of society just trying to hold on. Those nails told Kate this woman came from a different section of town.
“All these victims,” Tanner said, agitated, “no sign that any of them resisted. They must have been drugged.”
“All the tox screens have come back clean,” Kate said. “No indication the kidneys or liver were trying to process any toxins. No sign of a bruising from a needle prick on any of the bodies. And no trace of any agents in the spinal cord or brain fluid.”
That wasn’t quite true; two of the victims had alcohol in their stomachs, but not enough to cause a blackout condition, especially as it hadn’t been absorbed yet.
“I don’t see any sign of restraints,” Tanner noted, pointing to the woman’s unmarked wrists. “It’s more like they were sleeping when it happened.”
“Yeah, but even then, we’d see some sign of trauma, some sign of activity until they bled out,” Kate said. “Besides, even if that doesn’t explain it, who has access to all these people in their sleep?”
Tanner shook his head. Billy Ray did the same. They’d been asking this question for months.
As Kate scanned the body for anything that would lead them somewhere, Officer Jenkins came up to replace the rookie who’d left.
He took one look at the body and his face changed. “What the hell…?”
Kate turned. “Are all your officers like this?”
Tanner shook his head and turned to Jenkins, who, instead of looking queasy, began to look angry.
“What’s wrong?” Tanner asked.
Jenkins set his jaw. “I know this woman, Detective. She works with my wife at the brokerage. She’s a stock trader or something.”
“Are you sure?” Kate asked.
“I’ve seen her a dozen times or more,” Jenkins said. “I’m sure.”
Kate looked over at Billy Ray. He nodded. It was a terrible moment for Officer Jenkins, but for the first time since they’d taken the case, Kate felt they’d finally caught a break.
CHAPTER 15
FORTY-EIGHT HOURS after his meeting with Faust, Christian Hannover once again walked the streets of Cologne. With the workweek under way, the city was much quieter. As the midnight hour passed, the streets were all but deserted.
Moving through the cold and dark, Christian approached the soaring spires of Cologne Cathedral. He passed its main entrance, well aware of the ringing in his head that had already begun.
For a moment, he wondered about his sanity. His kind didn’t enter churches, let alone a cathedral. They steered clear of them, even during the predations of the Middle Ages, during the plagues of Europe when men were at their weakest.
If he were caught inside, Christian would stand little chance of surviving. His strength would be sapped by the power of the sanctuary; his mind would be clouded. The Ignis Purgata would take him with ease.
In the distant past, the Order of the Purifying Fire had been known to use the sensation brought on by proximity to a church as a weapon against the Nosferatu. They called it the Cruciatus, which meant “the Torment.”
They would drag a suspected Nosferatu before a church or into it and chain them there until the pain became too great to bear. Once the Nosferatu admitted all they knew, their destruction soon followed. From what he understood, it did not take long.
And yet, he could not turn back now. Not when the answers he’d sought for all these centuries might lie within his grasp.
&n
bsp; He turned down a side alley, walking next to the structure until he came to a small door. It was a service entrance, a caretaker’s door and heavily barred. A small light hung just above the door, illuminating the cobblestone street.
He moved past it and into the shadows, waiting there until the diminutive shape of Morgan Faust appeared.
Faust moved slowly, walking through the darkness until he emerged into the faint light from that small lamp. He stopped at the door.
“Use the key,” Christian whispered.
Faust pulled out his keys and unlocked the door. He stepped inside, reached for a flashing alarm panel, and typed in a code. The flashing ceased.
Christian moved forward, took a deep breath, and forced himself to walk inside.
Although they were only in an anteroom near the back of the church, the ringing in his ears grew worse, and a wave of tension swept over his body. He closed the door behind him and forced himself to go forward. He would see this through.
Faust turned toward him at the sound of the door shutting. “Who are you?” he said, as if noticing Christian for the first time. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Take me to the vault,” Christian said.
Faust blinked a couple of times and then led Christian into the church proper. Their footsteps echoed off the stone floor as they reached the central aisle.
Christian paused. The lines around him ran vertically, the arches and supports curving toward the sky. The narrow windows accentuated the effect, as if the whole structure itself were stretching toward heaven.
Christian remembered a time when the cathedral was being built. Despite the pain it inflicted on him, he could not help but feel its designers had done tremendous work.
As he stood admiring the architecture, a wave of tension crept up through his neck, and a spike of pain began to resonate in his side. He steadied himself against it, but other effects could not be countered. The ringing in his ears was becoming a painful, high-pitched tone, and though the church was dimly lit, Christian’s pupils constricted as if in the presence of blinding light.
He moved forward, stumbling like a man in a blinding snowstorm. He found Faust with his hand. “Where’s the vault?”
“Below us,” Faust said. “Fifty feet below.”
“Lead me there, Dr. Faust.”
Faust approached a door, which led to a cramped room like a broom closet. He opened a small panel in the wall, revealing a hidden keypad. He typed in a code. A false wall slowly moved aside, and a stairwell appeared, narrow and spiraling.
Faust took the stairs and started down. Christian followed. His strength was faltering fast. He hoped being below the structure would relieve some of his pain.
He descended the stairs, following his mesmerized guide. The steps circled twice. On the third revolution, Faust’s shoes touched the bottom. Christian stepped onto the flat stone floor a second later.
Another door beckoned. The cold steel of its construction shimmered in the dull light. Christian found he could see slightly better at this depth.
“Please do the honors,” Christian said.
Faust stepped to the keypad and typed in his code. One of two red lights on the side of the steel door switched to green.
Next, he pressed his eye to a retinal scanning device. Moments later, the second light switched to green, and the locks in the vault’s door unlatched one by one. When the last one released, the steel door opened and swung toward him without a sound.
Lights in the darkened room began to brighten slowly. The inside of the vault was circular. Two dozen sealed cabinets made of some high-tech, bulletproof acrylic lined the walls.
It would take days to go through all of them.
He turned to Faust. “You know what I’m looking for.”
Faust didn’t hesitate or even reply. He moved past Christian and stopped beside the third case. He tapped a code into the electronic lock, and the smoked-glass faceplate went clear and then slid to one side.
“These materials reference your kind,” Faust said.
Faust handed him a document sealed in layer of plastic to protect it from the ravages of time. It was written on ancient paper, the ink faded and uneven, the words in Latin.
Christian remembered a time when those words were his first language. He read them only with great effort now. The document spoke of a purge of suspected Nosferatu in a village in Tuscany.
Another document claimed to understand the odd writing that the Nosferatu had developed to delineate themselves, as some of their groups had attempted to form a hierarchy.
The letter indicated great fear among the church that some form of unity was imminent among the infighting Nosferatu. But they were wrong. It had never worked. Clans ran for a while and then fractured. The bloodlust and the animal instinct inherent in the members always proved too great. Only those who resisted the lure of blood stood a chance to survive. If there was any danger to the Church, it came from Drake’s Brethren.
Christian studied the document for a moment, noting how much of it was incorrect. It made him wonder if the Church knew all he thought it knew.
He looked at the caretaker. “I search for my origin, Faust. Show me what you know. The earliest documents relating to my kind. The ones from Egypt.”
Faust dragged his hand across the sealed files and stopped, pulling another document. This one was protected behind thin sheets of clear Kevlar, each page kept separately. Christian had the impression that it was of great importance.
The parchment was dated Anno Domini 337, twelve years after the Nicene Council had finished deciding on the canon of the Christian Bible. It was a letter from a deacon in Alexandria named Cyril and meant to be delivered to the Pope in Rome, St. Julius I. But if Christian was reading it correctly, it had been sent back at the direction of the Pope, along with a scornful rebuke by a bishop named Timerius.
Part of the letter had been destroyed by fire, but what Christian read left his mind spinning.
It can only be a trick of the Dark One that you come to us with this request for mercy. The one you speak of has become a demon, and there is no cure to that plague. It is no mere possession, either, for no demon would have the power to remain within a mortal shell where we made effort to cast it out. And we have tried. Thus, we conclude this is not possession, but a transformation. The afflicted one is not controlled by other forces; he is an agent of darkness himself.
As such, he is no longer human and thus cannot receive the mercy he requests. Make no mistake, you’ve been approached by a dark spirit in the form of man, but do not be fooled. It is not a man. We fear he is not the only one, but the beginning of a plague.
If therefore they cannot be cleansed and also cannot be liberated, then we are faced with only one path of dealing with them. They must be destroyed.
Because of this, it has been decided that an army of warriors, holy and pure, will be raised. They will be created to rid the earth of this scourge.
We know that different gifts are given to each of God’s children; some must be healers and others soldiers. You are to gather the purest soldiers of our faith and instruct them in the ways of the Church and the dangers they will face. Only those with the strongest zeal and the stoutest hearts must be selected. Above all, this must remain a secret, known only to the highest members of the council.
The order shall be known as the Ignis Purgata, the Cleansing Fire, the Fire of Purification. You will hunt the Dark One who has come to you at once. None shall stand before you.
As Christian read the document, a sick feeling coursed through his heart. He’d spent most of his life in hiding, avoiding the Church’s death squads. He understood what they believed and why. But to face persecution and death for the equivalent of contracting a plague seemed as evil to Christian as the curse itself. And yet, if he’d read the document right, this did not have to be the path.
It can only be a trick of the Dark One that you come to us with this request for mercy.
Chri
stian could barely imagine one of his kind getting close enough to the Church to ask for clemency. But then again, this was a long time back, before the Church in Rome had risen to unquestioned dominance in Europe, before the endless war between the Church and the Nosferatu had even begun. The date listed was decades before he’d even been born. Perhaps things had been different in those days. Perhaps policies had not yet settled.
“What do you know about this?” he asked.
“The contents are unknown to me,” Faust said. “I am forbidden to look at them.”
“Are there more like this?”
“There is a letter from one of the Nosferatu to Cyril,” Faust said. “He claimed to be the first.”
“The first?”
Faust nodded. “It’s rumored that his existence was miserable. He wanted forgiveness.”
“Why?” Christian asked angrily. “There’s mercy for all sinners, is there not? Mercy is given for the blasphemous and the thieves and the murderers. Why not for the Nosferatu? At least for one who sought it?”
“Mercy is only for humankind,” Faust said. “Not for the fallen angels of perdition, nor for the demons or their minions. Nor for the Nosferatu.”
“Show me the letter,” Christian demanded, growing angry.
Faust moved to another case, sliding the door open and gently leafing through the materials. He pulled out another document. Like the first, this letter was partially burned.
Faust handed it to Christian. “The pleadings of the damned.”
Christian studied it. It was on coarse paper, written in a much rougher hand than the papal letter. It read like a confession.
I have lived as a rodent these three hundred years. A rat in the sewers. I have hidden from the light. It has taken the essence of life away from me and left me as a ghost that wanders the endless darkness. But it has brought about the desire of my soul to beg your forgiveness. Perhaps that is why it was placed upon me.
You know of me, others have spoken of me, now I reveal myself to you.
I was a soldier in the legion serving in Judea under Pontious Pilot, our governor. Yes, Pilot, who washed his hands of your Lord’s pain and crucifixion and handed him to us.
