Shadow & Light

by Stephen Ayer

  That freak. Throughout his long life, the vampire had suffered the displeasure of meeting his own kin, seen werebeasts, slain witches and warlocks, encountered ghosts, demons and now an angel, but never had he met a being that defied reality so completely. He was a beast of the shadows, one that played the role of man from time to time, and it unsettled him to know there were things even he did not know about the dark.

  In comparison to the angel that had just sat in front of him however, his feelings were a degree less fearful and more cautious than anything. His eyes narrowed as Peter reclined back in his seat and spread his limbs out as far as possible, laying claim to his bastion of comfort. “How did you ever find Bill in the first place? The man’s like a ghost.”

  Peter smiled, keeping his eyes closed as his head rested on a cushion. “Hmm. I think he’s like a man. But I understand your meaning.” Frank sighed. Holy bastard is too pleased with himself. “As for how I found him? It’s all very complicated and esoteric sounding, so I’ll just leave it at this: I’m an angel. That’s how.”

  “You can do all that huh? But not touch a single bit of this black steel stuff...”

  “Stone. Black steel is rarer. And yes it’s safer in your rotten hands than whatever would be left of mine, and in the Order’s hands than yours. There is no shame in that.”

  Frank laughed. “Damn. Well you know, you must have a lot of faith in the cross boys not to fuck that up. More faith than I have.”

  “I have faith in humanity, that it will improve and fail in equal measure-”

  “I’m guessing fail more than not. I live in this shit, you come down from the clouds for little safaris.”

  Peter sighed with irritation and considered blazing memories of his various bloody tours on Earth into the fool’s brain as his presumptive skull melted around his hand. “All of mankind is afflicted and so long as it is, better the object be in their hands than with palsied Illuminus degenerates or worse.”

  Frank nodded his head. “Yeah, makes sense. If I were you I’d just melt the fucker with your... aura. Cut out all the middlemen.”

  Peter opened his eyes and looked down, the overhead light kept his gold flecked gaze well shrouded in shadow. “That’s not how it works, Frank. We have limits. Imagine the chaos if my kind could just float down here, playing with mortal affairs as a child does his baubles.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The waters of fate are treacherously complex to navigate, even for a mind like mine. One great splash in the pools of destiny begets ripples, ripples washing over other ripples, until there is naught but chaos done in the name of good.” He plucked a clutch of ice cubes, dropping them in his glass before holding his arm out expectantly. “Thus, we are sent on missions, the parameters of which dictate our time and level of influence allotted for the duties to be fulfilled.

  The delicate hand of a stewardess came out of the shadows and poured his glass with bourbon. The amber liquid sloshed about as he jangled the cubes within before taking a light swig. “And so I commit the greatest amount of good I can with the least amount of advantages at my disposal, all to stave off the hellish carrion that nibbles and gnaws on humanity’s sin, growing ripe and fat off mortal spiritual decay.”

  The vampire’s red bale fire eyes leered into the shapely stewardess as she walked off. “Sounds like your old man doesn’t trust his sons for shit.”

  “Nor should he, not after...” the angel’s face darkened and his eyes hardened. “The Betrayer.”

  “So why should I trust you if he won’t trust you?”

  The angel looked at him with warring emotions in his eyes, his jaw clenching as he put his drink down. “Because you have no choice. No more than I. Even if I could conceive of it, to betray Him would destroy me.”

  Frank scoffed. “The angels that went against him seem to be doing fine.”

  “Seeming is not actuality. They are in pain, but all pain becomes a fact of life when lived with long enough. And my shadow fallen brethren have had so very long to live...”

  The vampire reclined back into his seat. “Shit. I think I’d just kill myself... an eternity of pain...” Frank thought about the pains he had, the ones he could remember anyway. And the constant killing, the drinking, and the inability to ever join humanity again. But then he remembered how much fun he had and all his miseries seemed to grow hazy like distant lights. “So... with all those rules, I’m probably never going to get to see your wings. Or am I?”

  Peter put his cup down mid-drink, his face the sternest Frank had seen yet. “It is not for your health, or my sanity, to show you my wings.” He reached behind his neck, rubbing his back, as if feeling for a phantom sensation. “There are some things that simply cannot be seen, not in this realm, and not by these eyes.”

  “You can’t even see your own wings?”

  “Not in this body. This one was but a man. He had a wife. He knew love, he knew pain, but he did not know the glory of an angel in his life. Most will not.”

  “Guess I lucked out then.”

  Peter offered a haughty grin. “You know my presence, but not my glory. That is luck. Elsewise you would have followed the ashen steps of your sires.”

  You trying to get me killed Bill? Might just succeed this time. “Well... thanks for that.”

  “Don’t thank me, thank William. His mercy is deeper than mine.” More like his need. Still, if I make it through this without choirboy going berserk I just might thank him.

  Frank said nothing, only nodding before closing his eyes. He knew well of things that should not be seen. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be here. As darkness claimed him and the throttling of the jet vibrated through the cabin, strange, sibilant voices came to haunt his sleep before memories lived yet undreamed of came to fore...

  He found himself on some distant battlefield, across space and time, centuries in the past. He had been turned long before this moment, leaving the toxic fumes of burning brush and bodies to waft harmlessly around his body. The clear blue of his eyes had abandoned him in his bloodlust, leaving only a pair of rubies, glowing through the choking black smoke.

  He stopped and asserted his grip on his blade when he found an identical set of red orbs peering through the foul fog. Another vampire. Like stars of glittering crimson, they hung there, unmoving and appraising, as his eyes did much the same. A mercenary, like him, as was ever common in those times. The local liege lords had no idea the skilled warriors they plied with gold and whores were rapacious beasts of blood and shadow, most being too far away or dead to notice when the creatures came to blows.

  The two warrior’s stand-off came to an end when Frank finally caught a whiff of his scent, catching the musk of enemy knights and the bloody stink of eviscerated allies. The other vampire came to the same conclusion a split second after and both leaped through the coiling smoke, their swift motions displacing the smoke into fanciful curls and swirls. Their blades shined underneath the glowering, pale rays of the moon, speckled with blood and reflecting golden red flames alike.

  They swung and parried so fast their swords looked like dancing bands of light wreathed in midnight haze, with the occasional grunt or curse being the soulful accompaniment to the melody of clashing blades. Frank didn’t bother trying to ‘see’ in the human sense, avoiding the temptation to get a better look at his foe and focusing instead on the sound of footwork and of the mercenary’s blade sailing through the air.

  He had to get closer. But the other vampire was faster. Frank twisted to the side as the edge of the vampire’s sword swung close to his neck. He brought his blade down where he estimated his hand would be, expecting a satisfying cleave and snap, and snarled when the creature’s armor held, absorbing the blow but crumpling the armor around his wrist.

  Again did the vampire swing, slanting his blade in a downward arc. It scored and bounced off Frank’s chest plate and slashed across his inner thigh, opening his artery and making him shriek in pain. Frank’s blood boiled in rage and he ducked underneath his
foe’s guard. He swung his sword like a hammer, smashing it back and forth on both sides of the vampire’s torso. A gratifying crack, splintering snap and cry of pain followed his battering blade, before his opponent checked him, bringing his boot down on Frank’s blade while plunging his sword straight through Frank’s hand.

  Frank dropped his sword and grabbed onto the vampire’s blade with his other hand. He held it in place even as the vampire tried to rip it free from his impaled palm. Frank gritted his teeth and yanked the weapon from the vampire’s hands and out of his own, before tossing it off to the side and tackling him down onto the burnt ground.

  On the ground, the smoke was not as dense and gave leave for the quarreling fiends to regard each other. Neither was pleased with the sight, now having a face behind their pains, moving Frank to batter his head as he did his ribs only moments before. The man had scowl lines etched into his skin, his face bearded and faded like the pallor of slate. His nose was sharp and his dark yet bright red eyes unmistakably Iberian, a man of Spain. His vampiric fangs stretched into existence as his clawed hands clamped around Frank’s bulging neck, his irises not as deep a red as Frank’s, but still just as unsettling as his pupils retreated into tiny black dots.

  Frank felt a pang of panic race up his spine, as his neck creaked and buckled underneath the pressure of his assailant. He felt the beginnings of his sturdy skin beginning to yield and bloody underneath his digging claws. The hard bone of the vampire’s face was not surrendering to his devastating blows and caused Frank to follow his foe: go for the neck.

  The razor sharp talons of his nails punched through his foe’s fleshy throat, rewarding him with a spray of thick, inky blood. Black blood. Frank grinned. His foe had not feasted in a while. His skin was weaker, more susceptible to cuts and sunlight, his soul more vulnerable to that which was holy and his spine and skull ripe for the plucking like a spring blossom.

  The vampire’s missing throat had not diminished his fury, only incensed it all the more. His ornate dagger, pulled from his boot, stabbed repeatedly into Frank’s side, tearing through leather and chain mail, sending links of the armor scattering into the grass like coins as the blade’s tip dug into pale flesh.

  Frank fumbled for another corpse’s axe, fighting through the pain of repeated stabbing. He grabbed onto it and gave one last, pitiless look to his gurgling opponent. He reaffirmed his grip on the Spaniard’s spine, and swept the weapon across the red ruin of the his neck. His growling head was severed instantly. Frank staggered up, groaning in exasperation.

  He examined the putrid head, paying special attention to the fangs. He had been so curious then, and sighed when he realized he was not of his bloodline. Thoughtlessly, he pitched the head into a fire and rolled the corpse into a ditch with a few other long dead corpses, dropping a torch on them and leaving nothing to chance.

  “Unsavory memory. But exciting.” Frank spun around. The tall man in black was back, idly kicking the head of a corpse.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Miss this place? Garigliano. There are better places. Better times.” One screaming warrior charged through the smoke and dropped suddenly to the ground as the tall man flicked his fingers. His wiped his hair back and sighed with irritation. “Frenchmen and Spaniards fight. But not over France or Spain.”

  Frank stepped forward, and steadied his grip on his sword. The man looked comical, even more out of place than usual, dressed like some big city power broker in the midst of charred and bleeding medieval corpses. “I said, what are you doing here?”

  “Marco del Roga. Dead man’s name. Only a century to it-” He stopped when he felt Frank’s blade on his neck. “You think you can kill me here?”

  “It’s good practice. Now, for the last time, what do you want?”

  The man turned to face him, his face so smug Frank wanted to lop off his head right then and there. “Before. We spoke about lost love. You doubted offer. Look...” He gestured to the smoke.

  Frank eyed indistinct shapes in smoke. That which was indistinct, soon became feminine, their naked forms cloaked and guarded by the haze that seemed to have a life of its own. Maroon Venetian silks embroidered with silver threads caressed the figure of one dark haired woman.“I see Claudia, Jane, Juliana...” Another woman bowed daintily through the haze and just enough of the fog cleared to reveal a powder blue corset of Elizabethan stylings, ringlets that flowed over her shoulders and shined like molten russet and copper, her face still shrouded, “we both know which one you want... which one calls you.” With a flick of his fingers, many women became one, like shadows falling into each other to create one, sleek and nubile silhouette. “Ena. Dead Breton. Dead four centuries before Garigliano conflict.”

  The man stepped in front of Frank, obscuring his view. “Dead woman returned for Black Star piece. A deal too good for Francis to ignore. She’ll be just as you remember.” Frank frowned and then sliced off his greasy head. His body gently slumped to the ground as his head tumbled end over end, that conniving smile still plastered to his face. His gaping neck wound smelled like spoiled fish, full of blackened flesh and teeming with worms.

  He stepped over his body, closer to the smoke, and clenched his fist. She was gone. He turned back to the rapidly decaying corpse of the tall man in black.

  “No.”

  Frank awoke to the hum of jets, his dream still clear like a fresh memory. He did not sleep again.

  Chapter 7: Lady of Ice and Shadow

  Innsbruck, Austria

  “Police are looking for a missing Swiss couple, seen last night outside of Cafe-Konditorei.” Josette watched the news report through the mass of linked TVs through the store window, still pelted with residual rain. “A woman was seen following the couple near the time of their disappearance and is at this time a suspect.” On the left side of the anchor were two passport photos of the missing couple and to the right, a photo of the unknown woman, her figure blurred and insubstantial against the diffused amber city lights.

  As Josette knew she would be.

  She peeled away from the window as the report continued and walked onto the gleaming sidewalk with inhuman grace. Indeed for the passerby she walked with the kind of weightlessness only witnessed by sea beasts. Her long tresses swished from side to side behind her back, silken and platinum as if her hair was threaded out of starlight. The idle man or woman who watched her ethereal person felt their breaths die in their throat and their minds fall into an opaque haze.

  She did not belong to a world of mortar and concrete, gray skies, track housing and sprawling apartments. Hers was a lost world. A world of majesty, of jade spires and marble towers. Trees blasted into crystal that sung like glass armonicas. Marvelous robes and cloaks that draped on broad and supple shoulders alike, flowing as beaten silver and foggy gold, but soft as goose quills. A world where there was no common man, a place where she and her kind lived as gods. Where lords conjured fire as black as darkest jet yet burned like the icy white hands of winter’s grasp. Where ladies, out of the cerulean mist in their palms, forged towers and bridges of compounded diamond and steel with one hand, pitiless and terrible armies with the other.

  Under a momentary break of sun from the overcast sky, she knew she had arrived. Silver numerals shined in the gray light, Mariahilfstraße 22. Long dead autumn leaves spun up and twirled in the half hearted breeze. The river Inn ran lazily behind her, mercurial and somber against the rolling dark green forested hills of the surrounding valley, which in turn was hollowed out in the middle with the town itself. Spherical cupolas crowned many a building, their pale, oxidized greens little dashes of color against the expanse of bleached whites and creamy patinas. The apartment too, was the same warm coral color that graced so many roofs of the alpine town.

  She regarded the architecture as a boy might regard an anthill. These compressed, rectangular warrens, composed of such base matter... she could not fathom living in one for long. Every sidewalk brought up memories of polished red stone roads t
hat gave no sound, every picnic a bacchanal of riotous witch light seen through purpled smoke and savory scents, every sea blue apartment a ziggurat or palace encrusted with enough gems to reflect every hue of color from stars and suns alike.

  The magic she knew now gave her but a taste of the true power of her heritage.

  Unnatural quiet waited for her in front of the apartment doors and when she looked down either side of the street, the only people present were far on the horizon. Only the gentle melody of the river lent sound to her thoughts.

  Her dark red sheepskin leather gloves wrapped around the cold brass of the front door and pushed in. The front desk was empty, the lights turned off and the rest of the lobby was bathed in the ashen, stony light of midday. She looked to an elevator but went for the stairs instead.

  The top floor was the fourth floor and but for a resident at the end of a hall unlocking his door, it was as empty as the lobby. The man at the end gave her a quick smile and then walked into his apartment.

  She walked down the muted corridor, and noted the crunchiness of the shriveled black carpet as she checked the door numbers. On she walked, counting them off one by one until she stopped on a number that could not be. Sixty-seven. For a place of this size, the number did not belong. For a woman of her purpose, it might as well have been the ‘X’ on the map. Six and seven made thirteen-Wheel of the Year- the thirteenth moon would be upon her soon.

  Her purposes were far higher than celebrating a new year, however. She meant to herald a new everything.

  The door was unlocked and gave way with a gentle click. The entryway was barren, the furnishings covered up with white fluttering drapes while errant dust bunnies and papers scattered along the hard wood floor. She stepped inside, uncaring that each step brought a cringe inducing creak.

  At first she thought she might have made a mistake and entered the domain of a simple, low born hedge witch, doomed to grind leaves and incense for little nothings. Such apprehension was erased when she came into view of long beauty mirrors lined along the walls. That her reflections didn’t move with her was both eerie and reassuring. “Agatha?” she called out, not wanting to incur the wrath of her multiple selves whose movements had all ceased and who kept their eyes- her eyes- on her in a glare that was pale and silvery.