Cody reached the outer edge of the dome and helped Martha to her feet.
“You know me?” she asked, seeking confirmation.
“From Rolf’s mind,” he answered.
“It’s impossible to estimate Mulkerrin’s power,” she said even as the other vampires struggled around them. “Every time we think we’ve got it pinned down, it changes and grows a little more.”
“I don’t think even he knows how much power he has, Cody muttered, turning to lock eyes with the madman, twenty feet away. “But I would like to know where he got it.”
Cody had known Mulkerrin was a madman, and he had not been disappointed.
“Where did my power come from?” Liam Mulkerrin asked, stunned that any should question such a thing. “From God, you vile, evil thing. The Lord Himself endowed me with these abilities so that I could purge the Earth, beginning with you and your kind!”
Cody shook his head, still tired from everything he had been through, but energized by the situation, knowing that many others of his people would die if he were to fail.
“You tried that once already, didn’t you?” he asked, mocking, feeling Mulkerrin’s hatred of his kind, but more, of him personally. “That’s the only shot you get.”
And then suddenly he knew he could do it, and just as quickly he was doing it. With Martha and the rest looking on in astonishment, Cody began to wade right through Mulkerrin’s protective field, the greenish aura surrounding him, welcoming him.
“I’m coming for you, Liam,” he said with a low growl.
“No!” Mulkerrin snapped. “You cannot. My magic protects me.”
“Not from me, apparently,” Cody said grimly.
And he could feel it, the strain Mulkerrin put behind his efforts, the magic that stretched out, searching for Cody, hoping to hurt him, or at least to reject him. But it couldn’t find him, and therefore could not affect him. Mulkerrin was vulnerable, and Cody had been taught the lesson early in life that in a true war, you must exploit the vulnerable. He was wading through Mulkerrin’s shield when he saw the resolve appear in his old, mad eyes.
And then those eyes closed. Mulkerrin raised his hands muscles straining in his neck, and the ground shook, buckled, cracked beneath Cody’s feet. The stone floor of the fortress, which had withstood the siege of many centuries opened wide and swallowed Will Cody and several others . . . Then, with a terrible shout from Mulkerrin, it slammed together again, tearing new cracks in the foundation of the fortress.
But Cody was no fool, and neither were his comrades. All but one of the vampires who had fallen transformed to escape—into mist, into fire, one into a sharp-clawed owl. Cody knew now that even if Mulkerrin could not attack him directly with magic, it did not mean the madman was powerless against him. On the contrary, as the fortress continued to shake, its battlements crumbling and the stairs Cody had only just descended disappearing into a crevice, he realized that the sorcerer was creating another earthquake for the entire city, not merely the fortress.
It must stop. Cody made his way toward Mulkerrin again, the sorcerer apparently ignoring his approach. But only apparently. For as Cody neared, once again at the edge of the greenish aura that surrounded the sorcerer, the entire floor beneath both of them collapsed. A hole forty feet in diameter opened up in the center of the courtyard falling into the rooms below, and thinking to confront Mulkerrin there, Cody allowed himself to fall, did not change shape. Only when he lay there, bruised and bleeding but not feeling the quickly closing wounds, did he realize that, in fact, Mulkerrin had not fallen at all.
Above him, Mulkerrin hung suspended at the center of the glow that was his strength, his access to magic. Dozens of vampires, in flying or floating forms, hovered around that bubble-like shield, attacking it, testing its strength, but Mulkerrin ignored them. Instead, he stared down at Cody, who lay in the rubble, and his grin was a combination of hate, insanity and fear. Fear, yes, for Cody was a threat to him, an unexpected one.
“The strength of Hell is inside you!” Mulkerrin shouted, or Cody thought that was what he heard over the noise of the subsiding quake. Then, more clearly: “Your purification will set an example, the Lord Himself demands it.”
And Cody wondered yet again where Mulkerrin had gotten the power to control the flow of magic, of the ether, the way he now did. Certainly it was not from “the Lord.” But the maniac believed it was, and perhaps Cody could use that against him. In any case, Cody was apparently now immune to direct attack by magic, invisible to demons and other such creatures. He recognized then that he might be their only hope to destroy the sorcerer once and for all.
A new rumbling pulled Cody’s attention from Mulkerrin, and even as he stood among the rubble, he turned to look in the direction the sorcerer now pointed. Cody looked up, and the wall was coming down on top of him.
Salzburg, Austria, European Union.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 9:11 A.M.:
Residence Plaza was a shambles, the Salzburg Cathedral destroyed and dead civilians and soldiers strewn on the cobblestones with their throats slashed or bellies torn open, their blood painting the ground in a terrible montage. Hannibal stood on the hood of a shiny Mercedes and sucked blood from the neck of Elissa Thomas as hundreds of UN soldiers and a handful of shadows looked on.
And Rolf Sechs, her lover, was in motion.
But so was the ground.
As Rolf took to the air, flashing past his own shadow troops and the UN forces led by Roberto Jimenez, the earthquake began with a gentle tremble, like a frightened shiver down the back of every being in the plaza. But by the time Rolf was closing in on Hannibal, only feet away from those green eyes that locked with his own even as the fiend licked several stray drops of blood from Elissa’s neck . . . by then the plaza itself had begun to crack, nearly in half in a direct line from the shattered cathedral, through the gathered army and to the street directly in front of the car upon which the renegade Hannibal stood triumphant, his white hair flashing in the sunlight.
Eveiything happened at once. The ground opened up beneath the Mercedes, tilting the car forward at a drastic angle, dumping Hannibal and Commander Elissa Thomas from its hood, toward the huge crack yawning open before them. Before Hannibal could fall, Rolf slammed into him, sending both of them flying over and behind the car. Commander Thomas landed just at the edge of the crack, and only managed to scramble away from the crumbling street with the help of two of her soldiers. The mercedes slid into the gaping hole, and the ground continued to shake, making it impossible for many of the soldiers to stay on their feet.
Behind the jutting tail end of the Mercedes, Rolf and Hannibal faced each other once again. Finally free of the disorientation and confusion of battle that had surrounded them up to now, they knew the time had come. Elissa was weak, though Hannibal had not really taken much blood from her, and as the earthquake subsided, she signaled for her troops to ready themselves for the outcome. She wanted to take Hannibal down and keep him down, negating this duel, but Rolf was in the way. Her lover and his enemy would have their final battle, it seemed.
She wanted to shout, wanted to stop it. But she also wanted Hannibal dead, and knew that Rolf had the best chance of achieving that feat. Her interest in him paled by comparison to his strategic importance. She resigned herself to that. Elissa Thomas was a practical woman.
And then she heard two words coming through her collarcomm, words spoken by Roberto Jimenez, commander of the United Nations Security Forces: “Open fire.”
“No!” she said sharply, preparing to countermand that order among her own troops. But it would not make a difference, and she was too slow.
The rapid bursts of gunfire that filled the plaza joined together in one terrible rumble, as if the earthquake had come again, and Elissa could only watch as a swarm of bullets pulverized both Hannibal and Rolf. Their bodies danced with each wound, pushed back farther and farther along the Alter Markt as the soldiers advanced. Elissa heard screaming among the soldiers, as shadow
s, both friend and enemy, turned on the humans as one.
“Stop this!” she screamed into her comm. “Jimenez, he is our ally!”
And Commander Jimenez surprised her by bothering to reply at all.
“He is a vampire! Nothing more!”
And then Hannibal turned to mist, a pinkish cloud stained with the blood he’d shed only a single breath earlier, and the bullets merely passed through him. Rolf continued to dance under the barrage of metal, but the cloud that was Hannibal moved forward, toward the army toward Elissa. Even as she began to back up, to stumble through the soldiers at her sides, she knew what was happening, knew it was too late to stop.
“Commander,” a whisper said in her ear, “I am Hector. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
And her arms were seized, each by a pair of hands, and then she was rising above the broken earth, above the soldiers and Jimenez’s shout of “Hold your fire!” She was surrounded by at least a dozen shadows in forms both familiar and strange. One seemed almost reptilian though it had wings, almost like a small dragon. And the bloody mist of their master floated along with her, too close. She could feel Hannibal’s fury.
In the plaza, the vampiric SJS agents continued to battle the humans who had turned on them when the bullets began to fly at Hannibal and Rolf. There were only five of them left, and Commander Jimenez didn’t really want to kill them, but he didn’t want them alive either. The older and smarter they became, the harder they were to kill. The American President was dead, and the world would be hunting vampires. He realized that this had to be the first move in that hunt.
“Traitor,” a voice called out, over the brief bursts of gunfire and the sounds of struggle, and Jimenez turned to follow it. Six, he realized as he spotted the vampire named Jared, the son of Lazarus, or so he’d been told. He was about to order his troops to fire on the creature, but then Jared disappeared. One moment he was there, on open ground just waiting to be taken out, and the next he was gone.
“Jimenez, you are a traitor! A betrayer! Without honor!” the voice came again, and Roberto looked up along the Alter Mark, where Hannibal and Rolf had battled, where they’d been concentrating all their fire only a moment ago . . . and Jared was there. In his arms, the youthful-looking vampire held the bloody corpse of Rolf Sechs, lifting it with ease and walking back toward the troops.
Automatic weapons swung to bear on Jared, and in the moment before the shooting began, Roberto felt an emotion unfamiliar to him: confusion.
“Hold your fire!” he shouted again, and even those who hadn’t listened the first time acknowledged the order now. In seconds, the other shadows had flown to Jared’s side, and now the five vampires stood facing down hundreds of armed humans whose mistrust and fear had turned to hatred and disgust.
It was an insane picture, those few creatures against so many soldiers, and Jimenez could not prevent the possibility of merciless slaughter, of genocide, from entering his mind. Just what the Church had attempted. And suddenly he was certain that the world would complete the genocide that Liam Mulkerrin had begun, even if the priest were defeated once again. Though for those five short years, it had seemed to work, humans and vampires were not meant to live together, he knew now. Each group reminded the other too much of itself. Roberto knew that if he let these vampires live, he would only have to hunt them again later. And though he hated them, he thought, Dear God, how much the world has changed, been redefined, in the span of mere hours.
“What is wrong with you?” Jared snapped, glaring at Jimenez. “We were your allies. I could feel your hate from the start, but we have goals in common, at least. Are you stupid?”
It was silent in the plaza, as if the whole scene were being played out underwater, and when Jimenez spoke, he did so quietly, knowing the vampire could hear him.
“Not stupid,” he said sadly. “Efficient.”
And he was somewhat sad, which told him his actions had been correct. He had begun to respect Rolf Sechs, even to like him. That was dangerous in the new, new world. Dangerous for all. It was fortunate that the mute had died.
Died? Even now, as Roberto looked on, Rolf was stirring in Jared’s arms. Jimenez looked closer, saw the sadness in Jared’s eyes, the set of his mouth. Jimenez nearly dropped his weapon to his side when Jared shifted and the commander could see that Rolf’s mouth was locked onto Jared’s bicep, drinking his blood. Even as Roberto watched, Rolf’s wounds were healing.
Then Rolf’s head lolled back, his eyes opened, and he looked directly at Jimenez. He motioned for Jared to put him down and began limping toward the soldiers. Weapons clicked and ratcheted as they were brought to bear on the still staggering but quickly healing German, but Jimenez shouted for them not to fire, to allow him to approach.
Rolf’s gait improved as he crossed the last ten feet, until he stood immediately in front of Jimenez, who finally lowered his weapon, giving up on preventing retribution, if that’s what Sechs wanted. He owed the creature that much at least. He felt rage, but no violence.
Silence reigned once again, and Rolf Sechs, a mute ruled that world. He had apparently lost his voice-pad, for he reached out a hand, pointed a finger and tapped Commander Jimenez on the chest. The other hand pointed to the sky, in the direction Commander Thomas had been taken, then dropped to his pocket, from which the vampire drew a single British coin, which he turned so Jimenez could see each face.
And Roberto Jimenez dropped his head, for he understood the pantomime, at least its fundamental meaning.
You’re no better than Hannibal, Sechs was telling him. Two sides of the same coin.
And then the silence was broken once again, by a new voice.
“I would translate for you,” the voice said in Spanish, from across the plaza, “but I have a feeling you understood quite well.”
The troops scrambled once again, running to find new cover, new positions from which to attack, as a formidable force of strangely dressed warriors, armed only with swords, lined the open street where Residenzplatz and Mozartplatz met. Jimenez fired orders into his collarcomm advising caution, as the man who had spoken, looking ancient and regal, stepped forward into the plaza.
“Your name?” the man said, once again in Spanish, and before Roberto knew it, he was answering, as if to a superior officer.
“Commander Roberto Jimenez . . . ,” he started to say, and then he was angry at his compliance. “Who the hell are you?”
The man smirked in a way that was not obnoxious in someone his age, turned to a companion who was dressed in modern clothes and then looked back at Jimenez.
“I’ve been away too long,” he said. “But many still remember the name of Charlemagne. You will accept our assistance, or surrender your weapons.”
Roberto wanted to laugh, but knew that nothing here was funny.
16
Salzburg, Austria, European Union.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 9.22 A.M.:
Time. They’d had none of it, confronted with yet another potential enemy, another potential battle, chipping away, life by life, at the soldiers, the men and women, that Roberto Jimenez had led into Austria. It had started out ugly, but simple. It had gotten progressively uglier, and quickly became total chaos. Rather than storming one fortress, getting past hundreds of unholy monsters to sanction one, very powerful man who had already nearly destroyed the city of Salzburg and intended to continue on that path they had been forced by Hannibal to begin a bloody confrontation on a second front. Some of the shadows fought at their sides, others tore out their throats, and every human soldier in Salzburg stood on a razor edge of suspicion and fear, of not knowing if any vampire were trustworthy.
It was an impossible situation, one in which Roberto could only lead by his gut, and where the hand of destiny pushed him. They hadn’t had a choice in leaving the siege on Mulkerrin at the fortress to the vampires’ forces; human soldiers would have been killed or possessed by the dead. They hadn’t had a choice in descending into the city to save whate
ver remained of the civilian populace from Hannibal and his renegade vampires. They had failed in that effort. Roberto felt that he had failed. The civilians had died, Hannibal had been defeated but escaped, and Roberto had nearly killed the leader of his vampiric allies in his efforts to win. To win.
But winning was a hope long since past, and he knew that now. Instead, he could only hope to accomplish his goal, to complete his mission, to destroy Liam Mulkerrin. His noble wish to save lives had disappeared. And now this newcomer, who claimed to be one of Europe’s greatest leaders, and who led a shadow force of about one hundred warriors who dressed the part, had offered to help Commander Jimenez’s soldiers, or destroy them.
Roberto had perhaps five hundred men and women left, and with the number of corpses littering the plaza, he couldn’t be certain there were even that many. Five humans to one vampire: automatic weapons and missile launchers notwithstanding, those were terrible odds. Even if he managed to defeat the newcomers, Roberto would not have enough soldiers left to make any kind of attack on the fortress, and that was assuming the shadow force currently battling Mulkerrin had been able to destroy the ghosts, to make it safe for the human soldiers to return there at all.
He had little choice, really.
“We would welcome your assistance, sir,” Jimenez said in English, then in Spanish when he realized it was possible that none of this newly arrived army spoke English.
“A wise choice,” the leader said, in Spanish still, and Roberto was consciously aware for the first time that the darkness that had hung in the distance over Hohensalzburg Fortress had lifted, and now the whole city shone with the brightness of the June morning. The air smelled fresh and clean, the wind having carried away the stench of the demons they had killed, and the sky was blue and bright. But no birds sang. The morning, the beauty of the day, was a lie.
Angel Souls and Devil Hearts Page 26
