“Dear God,” the commander said again, then spoke into his collarcomm. “Withdraw! Immediately! All human troops withdraw from the fortress immediately. SJS troops assist in the evacuation and keep Mulkerrin’s human soldiers away from our people at all costs! Do it now, people, or we’re done for! All units converge at the Nonnberg Abbey. SJS forces keep Mulkerrin contained within the fortress.”
And then the comm was off, and Jimenez turned to Rolf.
“Now what the hell do we do?” he asked, knowing an answer would have to wait.
The exodus began, the shadows acting as guards, protecting the humans from their former comrades, trying not to kill those possessed, for the ghosts within them would only find new hosts. But as Rolf and Jimenez followed the outside wall, passing Mulkerrin on their left, the sorcerer laughed louder and louder, and several of the possessed soldiers turned their guns on one of their own, on Gloria Rodriguez. They kept firing until each had an empty clip, and only then could Jimenez look away, look up at the man, the thing, responsible. Rolf dragged the commander away even as Mulkerrin looked straight at them, clearly aware of his actions, enjoying himself immensely.
Outside the gate, and over the roar of gunfire, Rolf heard the cawing of birds above him. He looked up to see three eagles fly overhead, then swoop down to land, transforming into shadows he’d never seen before: a short, stout female and two young males, twins.
“Rolf Sechs,” the woman said and nodded, and next to him Commander Jimenez turned toward the newcomers obviously wondering if this were another threat. Rolf wondered as well.
“I am Martha, and these are Isaac and Jared, the sons of Lazarus,” the woman went on. “We are here to assist you with the sorcerer, and you should know that reinforcements are on the way. Also, I am saddened to inform you that the disgusting Hannibal has returned.”
“Hannibal!” Jimenez snapped. “Now? He’s on Mulkerrin’s team after all then.”
“Actually, Commander Jimenez,” Martha said calmly as they jogged down the path that would lead to the abbey “he will not attack your forces, because he wants you to destroy Mulkerrin, so that he does not have to. In fact, he and his coven have eliminated a great many of the demons left behind in the city.”
Rolf could sense Martha’s hesitancy, and though he guessed what was coming, he was not prepared for it.
“Then what’s the problem?” Jimenez asked.
“They are murdering those of the townspeople they are able to find, feeding off them.”
A scream built in Roberto Jimenez’s throat, but whether it was the name of his murdered lover or a damning curse he would never know. For he swallowed it, and as the scream dropped down into his belly, it burned.
Oh, how it burned.
Salzburg, Austria, European Union.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 7:32 A.M.:
Liam Mulkerrin was a madman, and he knew it. More to the point, he reveled in it. Once upon a time, so long ago to him, he had been a Roman Catholic priest. But more than that, he had been a sorcerer, the most powerful in centuries, whose power led him to engineer what should have been the destruction of all “Defiant Ones,” and the seed of his own eventual control over the world’s most powerful church.
Indeed, it would have been so, if not for Peter Octavian and the other children of Karl Von Reinman. Octavian had become the savior of his people. Mulkerrin had been stopped, his followers killed or dispersed, his power gone, and he had been taken, body and soul, into the very Hell from which he had been calling his servants for nearly a century. Once the demons had discovered he was there, within the confines of their world, they were . . . less than charitable. He and Octavian had been there together, for what seemed like forever, among the Suffering, amid the politics of Hell.
And though they’d suffered, so had their strength grown. With pain came power, and Mulkerrin began to see his previous goals as foolishness, locked into parameters created by his human experiences. As years flew by, as Hell worked changes upon his body, and his soul, Mulkerrin grew to be something more than human, with the taint of the demonic upon him. His desires followed suit, informed by the demonic infection in his soul. Though the minds of the Suffering were easily invaded by Hell’s masters, the demon-lords, Mulkerrin used his agony to blind them. Even as his body suffered, and his mind registered every excruciating moment, so did a part of it, the part he would call “soul,” become more aware. He spread his spirit, his aura, as far out from his physical form as he could, searching for a sign, any sign, of a weak spot in the barrier between worlds.
And eventually, when he found that spot, the sorcerer made his escape, leaving his demon-masters in a terrible fury, for they could not come to this plane unless individually, and specifically, called.
In the forever he had spent in Hell, Mulkerrin’s faith in Heaven had only grown. And while his body and mind had been tainted by his time there, and his power, his magic fed upon the fires of the place, he knew his soul was pure. For he had talked to God. While in Hell, the voice had come to him, and Liam Mulkerrin had experienced revelations that had humbled even him.
“Let’s make a deal,” God had said to him, though not in so many words. And Liam was in ecstasy. God wanted him to escape back to his birth-world to begin a new, and final crusade. Liam was to cleanse the world of the taint of Hell of the vampires that now lived among God’s children and of all other impure souls. The world was to be subjugated to the will of a new church, with Mulkerrin as the rock upon which it would be built. He alone would judge the guilty, he would mete out their justice. The world would become purgatory for its inhabitants, and when they were judged ready by Mulkerrin himself, he would send them to their God.
And any who attempted to prevent God’s word from becoming reality would be cut down by his right hand Liam Mulkerrin, and sent to Hell. When Mulkerrin was done, when he had achieved all God had set out for him then the Lord had promised to wipe the taint of evil from him and take the judge, the once-priest, to His bosom. And God helped Liam to rise above his suffering, to escape. God promised that if Hell sent its vile issue after him, or one of its foot soldiers, like the fiend Peter Octavian, then Liam would be given the power he needed to prevail. God told his former priest that he’d been right all along, that there was glory in pain—his own and that of others. It was this skill that made Liam the perfect tool, God told him: the ecstasy such work brought to him.
Liam Mulkerrin, madman, believed it all.
And now he stood amid the bloody warfare, his magic reaching out from the fortress he’d made his own, surveying the landscape around it, aware of the soldiers fleeing his influence, of the Defiant Ones working with them. That alone was proof that these humans must be purified, cleansed or sent to Hell if purification were impossible. As for the Defiant Ones, Mulkerrin sensed that he’d known some of these, even just one or two, before, but could not locate them just yet. But his power, his magic, still grew.
Mulkerrin was past simple spells, though they were still sometimes useful. No, now he controlled true magic, could manipulate the flow, the essence, of the world around him. But such magic was difficult. His primary concentration must go to his own protection, self-preservation. His hold on the other magics he controlled—the portals, the ghosts of dead soldiers, the weather—was much more tenuous.
Mulkerrin would rest now, though his influence would continue to grow and spread further out from the fortress. For the moment, he was content to replenish his supply of demon-slaves from the portals, and to wait for the humans to attack him again. That was their test and one he knew they would fail miserably. They could not face their own evil, and so they would fight his—God’s—judgment. Fight it, yes, but not escape it.
As a priest, Liam Mulkerrin had been fond of saying that God’s work was never done. But now that God had set him this task of judgment, the day would soon come when the Lord’s work would finally be complete.
Judgment Day had arrived.
12
Inside M
ount Untersberg, Austria, European Union.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 2:03 A.M.:
“Are you blushing?” John Courage asked with a smile. Allison Vigeant turned away, furious at having been discovered and blushing even more. Behind them, Charlemagne and his men bathed in the underwater stream that ran through the cavern. The emperor had ordered all of his men into the water, but there was only room for perhaps a dozen at a time, so they crowded at the stream’s edge awaiting their turn. For his part, the emperor swam as best he could in the shallow stream, up and down its length, not bothered at all when one of his men would block his path. In truth, he seemed to be enjoying himself
When they had disrobed, Allison had been more interested in their vampiric nature than in their nakedness. These shadows were different from all those she had known, even Cody and Peter Octavian. Though they were naked in her presence, not one of the men turned to leer at her. There was no bickering among them, no shoving, no posturing, only a deference to their emperor (and to Courage) and pride in themselves. And then Allison realized that there was one shadow who seemed somewhat like these soldiers, and that was Courage himself.
Pushing her thoughts aside for later examination, when she would confront John with her many questions, Allison realized that while she had been staring into nothing, not focusing, her eyes had been on the naked men at the stream’s edge. Now she noticed that some of them, at least, had noticed her looking their way and seemed uncomfortable themselves. And that was what had caused her to blush, and then to look away as John made a joke of it.
Allison’s eyes came to rest on the bed carved of stone where she had given her blood to the sleeping emperor, and the strangeness of what had happened since came back to her. She didn’t know what she had expected, but the surprises grew by the moment, and not the kind of surprises she had been prepared for. First, Charlemagne had seemed ready to kneel before John Courage, but John had stopped him. No matter what else it might indicate, it certainly proved that Courage was far older than he let on, as he had admitted to her that Charlemagne had not been out of the cavern in nearly twelve hundred years!
If that were not enough to think about, the emperor had then knelt, along with Courage, and led one hundred vampire soldiers in what was apparently a prayer, at the end of which all present made the sign of the cross! And that she didn’t understand at all. The vampires greatest enemy had been the Church, and here they were using its symbols, praying to its God. After the prayer, Courage had looked at her and smiled, and Allison had wanted to slap him. He knew what was going through her mind, the confusion she felt, and he was enjoying it!
Charlemagne had then taken John aside, and Courage had suggested Allison get some rest while he explained all that had happened and tried to prepare the emperor for what was ahead, not only in battle, but in the world outside as a whole. They had spoken quietly in Latin as they sat together on Charlemagne’s stone bed, and the soldiers had become silently industrious, sharpening and cleaning their weapons and repairing worn clothing. It amused Allison quite a bit to see these ancient warriors performing such quiet duties. And so, though she had assumed she could not possibly do so, Allison had fallen asleep on the cold, stone steps leading up and out of the mountain.
She had come awake a short time ago, only to be confronted by the sight of one hundred naked men. And now she sat with John Courage as Charlemagne pulled himself out of the stream, dried himself and dressed.
“Do you speak Latin?” Courage asked her, even as the former emperor approached.
“No, sorry.”
“Italian?”
“Just a little bit, a few words,” Allison said apologetically.
“Greek?” John suggested, but Allison only raised an eyebrow, which was answer enough.
“I do speak some Spanish, if that helps,” she said, finally, as Charlemagne joined them, and Courage’s face lit up.
“Spanish!” he said. “Excellent. Charles spent years fighting in Spain.”
Charles?
Allison had the urge to giggle, but suppressed it as Courage turned to the other shadow and began speaking rapidly in Spanish. It was a dialect she was unfamiliar with, and she hadn’t studied the language for years, but concentrating hard, she picked up enough to know that John was simply asking “Charles” to speak in Spanish when he could, as well as asking if he minded the two of them referring to him as Charles. Apparently, he did not like the name “Charlemagne” very much. In any case, he didn’t seem to care, and so Charles it was.
The more he spoke, the easier it became for Allison to understand him, and once he got going, Charles spoke quite a bit. He was fascinated by her, and yet she sensed it was not because she was a woman, but rather because of her newness, her youth, her familiarity with a world nearly alien to him. Eventually, as the soldiers finished their bathing and set about drying and dressing, John Courage wandered off to leave her alone with Charles, and Allison barely realized it. She liked this old king, who smiled at her in a grandfatherly way and patted her hand when she said something that amused or concerned him. His eyes had crow’s feet around them, which became quite pronounced with either emotion.
“I’m proud to know you,” he said, or at least that was how she understood his Spanish. “I gave my daughters the same education as my sons and, so many centuries later, see what the world has moved on to.”
“Thank you,” she said, beaming herself, for his energy was infectious.
Allison knew that Cody had gotten younger after he became a vampire, and though she thought Charlemagne—Charles, rather, had been older when he died, she wondered aloud why he hadn’t reverted to a more youthful appearance. She complimented him on his looks, admired his beard and mustache to soften the question, but he waved her words away.
“I am satisfied with my appearance,” he told her. “It is appropriate that an emperor look somewhat older, more . . .”
And then she couldn’t understand him, but she knew that he meant many things: distinguished, regal, noble, venerable. And he had all that. Yet still, he was far friendlier than she had ever imagined such a ruler could be. In school, she had always imagined historical figures to be either vicious madmen, or wise, grave, slightly curmudgeonly old men. Charles was a pleasant surprise.
And a vampire. It was so strange to think of one of the most pious of historical figures becoming such a great enemy of the Church, and yet she seemed to recall vaguely that Charlemagne had dealt harshly with those who had executed people believed to be witches. And her mother had told her she’d never do anything with a history major!
They were laughing about something, and for Allison it was not important what that something was, only that they were, indeed, laughing. And then the vampire’s face grew dark, and serious, and he looked at that moment precisely as she might have pictured him.
“We must go,” he said. “You are a beautiful girl, who does not belong in this thing. But I understand that women are no longer made to stay safe at home. Your lover is captive, and we will free him, so let us go, and pray to God for his assistance. With the Lord’s help, we will destroy this Mulkerrin. The Irish were my subjects once, and it seems that this one needs to be reminded.
“Come,” he said, and stood, offering Allison his hand and helping her to her feet.
When she looked around, she was surprised to see his soldiers, one hundred of them, prepared to depart and awaiting only his command. John Courage stood with them, but apart, and those nearest him would not even look in his direction.
Allison realized that once again she had not been able really to question John, but promised herself that she would make the time on the march. For that was what was ahead of them: a march across miles of Austrian countryside. They could have flown, sharing the burden of carrying the token human in the bunch, but Courage had said they wanted to conserve all of their energy. Certainly it would not be easy for her to keep up with the shadows, who would walk the entire way without tiring a bit, but she would make it.
For Will.
Morzg, Austria, European Union.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 7:17 A.M.:
A dozen ravens flew in arrow formation a mile or so to the north, and to anyone else looking up, they would have appeared to be nothing more than birds. But Allison knew that they were far more. There had been so many other things to wonder about that she’d barely considered the strange deaths of those ravens that had flown at the top of Mount Untersberg, but she thought of them now. She watched the progress of the birds, scouting ahead as they’d been ordered, and not for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to fly, to be one of them.
Not a raven, of course. A vampire. For that is what those birds were, soldiers of Charlemagne, surveying their path, mentally communicating the images of the land around them to their emperor. And Allison had to wonder what it would be like to have wings, to glide on the wind. It wouldn’t be the last time she would wonder such things, but she knew that she would always push such thoughts aside. For the pain, the sadness, the little tragedies of immortal life seemed far too terrible to her. Though her friends, even her lover (if they got through this), would live on while she grew old and died, she could never accept the “gift” that the so-called Revenant Transformation offered. She saw it as a double-edged sword at best.
She walked between John Courage and Charles, and though the two tried to engage her from time to time, they invariably lapsed into Latin, apparently discussing both the battle to come and the status of the world. She noticed more and more that Charles deferred to John, but decided to wait until they were alone to ask Courage about it.
Their exit from the mountain, or at least Allison’s, had been less than graceful. A return to the cavern ledge by which she and Courage had entered led to a slope disappearing down inside the mountain. They had gone down that slope, many shifting to forms better suited for the descent, and eventually, she had ridden on the back of a bear that was actually John Courage himself Regardless of everything else she had seen, that ride, holding so tightly to this thing that had become her friend, had unsettled her. Then she had realized that they were out of the mountain, and on the march.
Angel Souls and Devil Hearts Page 20
