Angel Souls and Devil Hearts

by Christopher Golden

  “Cody is fine,” he continued. “I would know if he wasn’t. We can only assume he is Mulkerrin’s prisoner or he would have tracked us here by now. Here’s what’s going on. The UN and SJS have sent troops to Munich. They’re amassing there now, and will begin to move on Salzburg tonight so that they can enter the city in the morning.”

  “Alex and Meaghan with them?” Allison asked, hopeful.

  “No. They’re otherwise occupied.”

  “How in hell do you know all this?”

  “That’s not important.”

  “So what do we do until they get here, just hang out while people are dying down below?” Allison shivered at the thought.

  “Well, that depends on you,” Courage said, smiling again.

  He liked to smile, Allison thought, and realized that Cody shared that trait. It wasn’t something she’d ever considered before.

  “How’s that?”

  “We need reinforcements. With the power Mulkerrin has now—and I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know his new limits—the humans won’t be able to do a thing. The SJS doesn’t have any shadows old enough to have the power, the ability, to destroy Mulkerrin. And that’s if they can keep from killing each other, with the crazy politics involved. Ten miles south of here, there’s a mountain called Untersberg. Inside that mountain are our reinforcements, old shadows. With them we’d have a chance. What we need to do is wake them up and bring them back.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “That’s the catch,” John said. “We need some blood from a willing, living human female.”

  “How much is ‘some’?” Allison asked quietly.

  “You’ll live.”

  I don’t want to die.

  “How important is this?”

  “Victory depends on it.”

  “Well, then, I think you know my answer,” Allison nodded her head. “Just one thing. You won’t tell me who you are or how you know all these things, but it’s obvious to me that you know a lot of things without being told them. I think you knew Mulkerrin was coming back, or at least suspected. You know Cody’s okay, right now.

  “What I want to know is, will he get out of this alive?”

  Courage looked sad for the first time, and suddenly Allison was terrified to hear his answer. She had to fight to avoid running from the room, hands over her ears.

  “I wish I knew,” John said, and though it was better than the answer she had expected, for some reason Allison was not relieved.

  Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.

  Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 1:45 P.M.:

  In their bedroom, Meaghan Gallagher and Alex Nueva held each other tight. Their embrace lasted minutes, as they inhaled the familiar smells of their life together: fresh cut flowers and light perfumes, Italian cooking and fresh-baked brownies. When their eyes opened, they pressed their foreheads together, eyes meeting, and smiled nervous smiles to hide their anxiety. They had changed into jeans and sneakers, Meaghan with a cotton dress shirt, and Alex with the Batman tank top Meg had given her the previous Christmas. They loved their place, their life together, and they didn’t know if they would ever return.

  In the next room, Lazarus began to weave the spell they would need to travel. Finally, Alexandra let her lover go and then held her at arm’s length, searching her eyes.

  “I hate this, Meaghan,” she said quietly, almost whispering. “I hate being afraid. I thought fear was something I’d overcome. I’ve been afraid for others, in Venice, and now for Cody in Salzburg, but I forgot what it’s like to fear for myself. I wasn’t afraid to go to Salzburg, no matter what Mulkerrin has become, but this . . .”

  She waved her hand toward the closed door, beyond which they could hear the voice of Lazarus rise and fall in an eerie cadence. The lights in the room began to dim, flickered for a moment, and then came back on full force, one of the bulbs exploding beneath its shade. Alex jumped.

  “Alex, honey, listen,” Meaghan said, holding her lover’s hand tight. “You all fell for the myth of the vampire. We shadows are not creatures of myth, we’re flesh and blood. Even if we’re not really human anymore, we still have that humanity in us. Even if we’re that much stronger, it’s impossible to deny our fundamental nature. No matter how much we need the blood, at our core most of us know that it’s wrong to kill humans. We do what we must to live, but we can’t deny the humanity that’s still part of us. At our core, we can still feel fear, and sorrow. And love. Sweetheart, these things are not our weakness, they are our strength, our tether to all the things we hope for the future.”

  Alex nodded; she knew Meaghan was right. That knowledge had been hard won, but now, in her heart, she did know.

  From the other room, Lazarus called for them. It was time. They embraced again, their lips joining in a desperate kiss.

  “Meg,” Alex broke off, breathless, “what do you think we’ll find?”

  Meaghan was thoughtful a moment, then kissed Alex on the forehead and grabbed her leather jacket from the bed.

  “I’m afraid to think about it,” she said, taking Alex by the elbow and opening their bedroom door.

  Meaghan and Alex had known Matt and Ellen Tillinger for three years. They were a fortysomething couple who lived in a brownstone diagonally across the street, and they were the only close, human friends the shadow women had made who were not already involved in vampire politics. They weren’t blood cultists, they didn’t worship vampires, they weren’t mindless volunteers. They were friends.

  The four neighbors exchanged nervous hugs and kisses, as Lazarus chanted silently above the open Gospel of Shadows. Alex hadn’t told Matt what was going on over the phone, but the Tillingers had a good idea why they were there.

  “What’s going on?” Ellen asked, concern creasing her brow.

  “We don’t have time to beat around the bush, you guys,” Meaghan said, her hands clasped together. “So you’ll forgive us if we just sort of dump this on you. We’re going away for a while; I don’t know how long but probably not more than a few days. We don’t know if we’ll be able to get any sustenance where we’re going . . .” She let her words trail off.

  “You need blood?” Matt asked, and as Meaghan nodded, he shook his head nervously. “Look, we’re friends, you know. I mean, we love you guys and we’ll do anything you need us to do, but you don’t want my blood.”

  Matt had HIV.

  “It’s okay, Matt,” Alex said, soothing. “In fact, we had a doctor friend of ours confirm this last week, and we’ve been meaning to tell you. We can’t be infected. Shadows can’t get, carry or pass on HIV. We’ve always said it, but we’ve finally confirmed it, and since that’s been the number one fear among potential donors, we’ve got to get a press release out about it as soon as we get back.”

  “I wish I had your blood,” he quipped, and then fell silent.

  “If that’s so,” Ellen said, “then of course we’ll help. I know you wouldn’t ask if you didn’t have to. What should we do?”

  “Just give me a hug,” Meaghan said to her, and Ellen did.

  Matt went to Alex in much the same way, then snickered and told them he felt awkward, “like we’re playing strip poker or something.” They all smiled, understanding. It was an intimacy friends rarely shared, and far more profound than simply seeing one another naked.

  “Thanks for trusting us,” Meaghan said when it was over, then looked at Matt. “You know about the Revenant Transformation. When we get back, Alex and I will tell you all about what it means to be one of us. I know you were being a wiseguy, but if you do want our blood, it’s yours. Your life would never be the same, but you’d be alive.

  “Think about it,” she said, and then she and Alex walked them back to the door, kissed them good-bye, and shut it.

  Lazarus looked up from the book, and Meaghan thought that, for a moment, even he looked afraid.

  “They don’t know you,” Meaghan said. “I didn’t feel I could ask . . .”

  “Not
to worry,” he assured her. “I satisfied my, hm, cravings before I arrived. And now . . .” He slammed the book shut and stood up.

  “The bus is leaving,” Lazarus announced. “Shall we?”

  As he stretched out his arm, bowing as if to say After you, that arm disappeared completely. Meaghan was startled, but Alexandra understood immediately. It was just what she’d expected. The closer they got to Lazarus, the more they could see of the portal, nearly invisible when looked at from the side. Its reflective surface made Meaghan shiver as she thought about Peter, and Lazarus seemed to read her mind.

  “If I’ve read this right,” he said, holding up The Gospel of Shadows, “this passage should be much less painful for us than it was for Peter and the sorcerer.”

  “Let’s hope . . . Did you say ‘us’?” Alex raised an eyebrow.

  Lazarus nodded.

  “The Stranger has said that if we can’t find Octavian and bring him back, we have little chance of defeating Mulkerrin. In that light, I think I’ll be more use to you than I will be in Salzburg. Not, of course, that I want to do this . . . but then I’m sure a little milk run to Hell wasn’t on your agenda either.”

  Hell. He’d said it, and now Meaghan’s own fear rose up to enfold her, whispering in her ear. She’d comforted Alex as well as she could, but that was what lovers were for. She could not let on how nervous she was, especially about finding Peter. Lazarus had told them that time passed much more quickly there. Peter had been gone five years, but what did that mean for him? If they could even find him, if he were still alive, what shape might he be in? What state of mind? Mulkerrin had been evil, and his time in Hell had obviously nurtured him, but Peter, shadow or no, had been the essence of good. A hero. Oh, shit, she didn’t want to think about it.

  “You’re bringing the book, right?” Alexandra said, cutting off Meaghan’s thoughts.

  “Of course,” Lazarus said. “How else will we get back?”

  “Guard it with your life,” Alex said, “or we won’t get back.”

  Finally, the two of them looked at Meaghan. The youngest shadow in the room, and yet they both acknowledged her as the leader of this little expedition. She expected it from Alex; it had been that way since Venice. But Lazarus had seemed haughty, almost omniscient at times. Why would he . . . and then she realized that he must be just as frightened as they were, that he had no real, clear idea of what they might find through that portal, what it would feel like, look like, smell like. No matter what they’d faced before, the concept of Hell was buried so deep within them, the fear of it so pervasive . . .

  “Fuck it,” Meaghan snapped, slipping into her jacket. “We’re outta here.”

  She stepped through the portal, and the others followed.

  Salzburg, Austria, European Union.

  Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 4:45 P.M.:

  They were flying again, but there was no way that Allison was going to get used to it. Courage had spread his wings and, holding her tight, fallen off the side of the cliff For the count of three they had fallen toward the river, then leveled off, gliding, the wind whipping them in the face, the smell of fires, started by the earthquake, heavy in the damp air. John was trying to save his strength. There was no way he was going to be able to fly all the way to Mount Untersberg with her in his arms, but it would take far too long to try to fight their way out of the city. And so, for the moment at least, they flew.

  They stayed, for the most part, above the river, where they had an excellent view of the surrounding area. At first, Allison had felt sick from the flying, and then from the sights below. Parts of the city and the countryside were in flames, and some of the demons were so huge they could be seen much more clearly than the houses and buildings. Twice, she saw things off in the distance, gliding on the air as they were, and her heart pounded in her chest as she imagined them being attacked in mid-flight, Courage forced to drop her or die himself. But mercifully, neither creature even noticed them floating above.

  As they moved along the river, the number of shadows—no, scratch that, they don’t deserve to be called anything but demons—diminished greatly. What she guessed was a couple of miles from the monastery, they finally made a rough landing beside a bridge marked “Hellbrunner,” which was intact. There were cars everywhere, moving away from the city proper, and she was pleased to realize that word had finally gotten out. Action was being taken. Police and military vehicles screamed by, on their way to help evacuate those they could. To the southeast, there were homes and shops, but to the southwest nothing but countryside.

  “Still a long way to go,” she said, “what do we do now?”

  “We do what we must,” Courage answered. “We hitch-hike.”

  “Get out!”

  “No kidding,” he laughed, and stuck out his thumb.

  Allison watched as the cars moved past them. Some of the drivers’ faces were panic-stricken, others annoyed. It was easy to tell which of them knew why they were being evacuated and which did not. Allison figured nobody would stop, or if someone did, it would be one of those who had no clue as to what was going on. A few of the passersby actually noticed them, and a couple had enough perception to realize that John was a shadow. Those cars sped up as they moved away.

  An old Volkswagen rumbled toward them, and Allison watched the driver’s eyes take them in, narrow as if in disgust at their transience, and then open wide upon realizing Courage’s nature. The car bumped onto the shoulder and shut off, and the driver stepped out looking angry, but motioning to his passenger to stay in the car.

  “You!” the man barked in German, a language Allison understood fairly well but could not speak. “Why do you go away from the city, why do you not help the people there?”

  Allison was stunned. The man was either very brave or very stupid. Not that John would hurt him, or at least she didn’t think he would, but this man didn’t know that. John Courage was a vampire, after all. But he just wrinkled his brows in a question, then tilted his head in further inquiry, and finally laughed his little laugh, that Allison had begun to appreciate. She trusted John. She hoped that was the right choice.

  “Why do you not help your own people?” John asked the man. “Why do you go away from the city?”

  The man’s face burned red, with anger or embarrassment, Allison could not tell. He sputtered unintelligibly, then muttered under his breath, but before he could finally think of some response, John cut him off.

  “We are heading away from the city to find reinforcements. We need more of my kind if we are to destroy the sorcerer, to save what we can of your city, your nation.”

  The man looked doubtful.

  “And,” John continued, “we need a ride.”

  The man looked completely bewildered, and Allison knew she had to step in.

  “We need to reach Mount Untersberg,” she said in English, hoping he would get at least part of it. “It’s our only hope. Do you know it?”

  “Of course I know it,” the man said in flawless English his pride hurt by the question.

  Allison shouldn’t have been surprised. Many people in Austria and Germany who spoke English never let on that they do. She had always figured they thought Americans had it too easy as it was. Now she looked at the man, her face, she hoped, expressing all of the desperation that she felt.

  “Fine,” the man said. “I’ll take you. My brother will be thrilled.”

  Just then the Volkswagen’s passenger hopped out, beaming with pleasure, and rushed over to fall prostrate at John’s feet. He started babbling something about honor and sacrifice, calling John his “blood-lord,” and Courage finally hauled the man to his feet, his face the only question the car’s driver needed.

  “He’s a cultist,” the man said. “He thinks you’re a god or something. If you need blood, he’s your man. In the meantime, let’s get out of here.”

  Very soon, they were creeping slowly along Alpenstrasse with hundreds of other evacuees. The driver’s brother was not only a cultist, but
a volunteer, and Allison began to realize how plentiful they’d become. John didn’t take the blood the man offered, and Allison hoped that he’d made a wise choice, worried that before long he would need all the strength he could muster. The mountains rose up in the distance, and Allison wondered what might be left of the beautiful city when they returned.

  And whether the man she loved would still be alive.

  6

  Salzburg, Austria, European Union.

  Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 8:17 P.M.:

  In the depths of the fortress, Will Cody began, quite painfully, to come around. He lay on the stone floor, and felt the cold of the hundreds of feet of solid stone that made up the foundation of the ancient structure. His eyelids fluttered halfway open as he glanced about the room, able to see well enough in the near-complete darkness. What surprised him most was that he still lived. Almost as surprising, however, was his pain.

  Will had felt all kinds of pain, both in his human life and after. He’d suffered a broken heart, a broken spirit, broken limbs and broken promises. He’d been stabbed, shot, kicked and beaten, and eventually he’d died of old age and exhaustion, and that broken spirit as well. Karl Von Reinman’s intervention had given him another life, but that first death had hurt him body and soul.

  This pain was like that, only worse. It was despair over what might have happened to Allison, and it was the far-too-slow knitting of the gaping hole in his belly, where his innards had spilled out and were even now being replaced. The regrowth hurt even more than the wound. Still, he used his hands to sit up, and dragged himself backward until he found the support of a wall to lean against. He carefully avoided looking down at his gut, and concentrated on his other pain instead.

  Allison.

  Where was she? He’d seen Courage slipping down a side street with her, and fought that much harder to buy them time, expecting to follow. But then Mulkerrin had come . . . Still, he had to believe that Allison was okay or he’d go crazy in here. And somehow, it was not hard to have faith in Courage. There seemed more to that shadow than met the eye, and he certainly had mastered his abilities.