“It’s about what John is,” Cody answered finally, kissing Allison on the forehead, “and what that makes the rest of us.”
“What does it make you?” Allison asked, confused by her own suspicions regarding John Courage.
Cody only smiled.
“Concentrate all fire at the bastard’s head!” Roberto menez shouted into his collarcomm. The quake had lasted barely a minute, but it sent a solid signal to all of them: Mulkerrin had not been weakened at all. They were throwing everything they had at him, but the sorcerer had not so much as flinched. Even now, as Jimenez watched, he was moving forward again, closer and closer to the small army that opposed him.
Jimenez realized that their only shot would be hammering at one spot on whatever the hell kind of force shield the son of a bitch was generating. That was the purpose of his order. If all weapons were fired nearly simultaneously at one part of his body—Roberto had chosen the head for maximum damage—perhaps they could break through. If not, they were totally lost. And then it would be up to the vampires, and he hated that thought. He knew the old saying, the enemy of his enemy, and all that, but once Mulkerrin was gone . . .
“On my mark, all weapons fire on that target!” he shouted again. “Ready! Aim! Fire!”
Mulkerrin was hurled, end over end, thirty or forty yards before he was able to right himself in the air. Though Jimenez could tell from where he stood that the energy field had not been breached, the sheer force of the blast had knocked him back. Even now, a number of Charlemagne’s warriors had taken to the air, some as birds, but others in human form, with wings sprouting from their backs and swords held high. Charlemagne himself was at the head, and from where Jimenez sat, it appeared as if the “king’s” hands were made of the same metal as his weapon. In fact, Roberto thought that the swords, and Charlemagne’s hands, might be silver. But he shook the idea from his head—he was fairly certain that was impossible. Still, he wasn’t positive about anything anymore.
Well, perhaps one thing. Their firepower had been useless, and he doubted the vampires could do any better. They were welcome to try, though, and die trying as far as he was concerned.
And then Mulkerrin shouted something, fury carved into his face. Roberto wished he could hear the sorcerer’s words, but over the noise of gunfire and the screaming of Charlemagne’s warriors, he couldn’t make them out. Mulkerrin moved his hands in a series of wild gestures that gave Jimenez an inexplicable chill . . .
And then the fourth quake began. But this wasn’t an earthquake, really. Rather, it was a rip in the fabric of the world. Instead of a tremor shaking the entire city, only the plaza beneath the feet of the human soldiers shook. Sudden realization almost stunned him into silence, but Roberto shook it off.
“Retreat!” he shouted. “The ground is going to go!”
And go it did. Even as his men and women were trying to fall back, escape from the trembling earth, the cobblestones beneath their feet cracked wide open, a fissure fifty yards long and ten wide tore across the plaza, and half of his soldiers were gone in the space of seconds, falling away into a hole that seemed to have no bottom.
The ground continued to rumble around the hole though it stopped growing. Perhaps two-thirds of the survivors were on the southern side of the gorge, not far from where Charlemagne’s troops were engaging Mulkerrin to no avail. The other one-third were making an effort to reform into some kind of cohesive unit, in case anything came out of the hole, a definite possibility where Mulkerrin was concerned.
“Withdraw,” a voice said right next to Commander Jimenez, and with his nerves as taut as they were, he nearly fired on John Courage, who had come to stand next to him without a sound. Or perhaps, in all this insanity, Jimenez had lost the alarm systems his training had instilled in him.
“What?” he asked.
“Your people are dying, your weapons have no effect. You must withdraw,” Courage said again.
He was so calm, his logic so clear, that Jimenez momentarily regretted not shooting him.
“What makes you think your people will do any better?” he snapped.
“We’ve defeated him before,” Courage said. “We have a better chance, but if we all die, why would you care? You plan to kill us anyway, don’t you? Withdraw your troops and let us have our shot. If we don’t kill him, you’ll have time to get reinforcements ready. Though I suspect there might be another alternative brewing, one which might destroy us all.”
Jimenez knew exactly what Courage was talking about. He had wondered all along whether the nuclear fail-safe on this mission would really be used. Now he realized that it very well might.
“What about my people on the other side?” he asked.
“You’ll have to leave them,” Courage answered.
“Fuck that!” Jimenez said, turning back to survey their situation. He’d find a way to get those soldiers out of there.
And then a portal shimmered to life, and Roberto thought he understood Mulkerrin’s plan. The reflective surface of the doorway sprang into being beyond the UN soldiers, separating them from Liam Mulkerrin. They were trapped between a deadly fall into that hole, and whatever was going to come out of this new portal. Or they would be in a moment.
“Surro!” Jimenez shouted into his collarcomm, seeing that the French commander was among those on the far side of the hole.
“Evac right now! Everybody fall back, head east to . . .,” Roberto mentally scanned the map he’d memorized, “. . . Rudolfsplatz. Diego, get the choppers moving.”
There was no reply other than the chatter of several hundred retreating soldiers.
“Diego? What’s the problem?”
Still nothing. Roberto’s mind raced. It was possible, he supposed, that Diego and the rest of the Evac team had been attacked and killed by demons, by vampires, by something—but not very likely. They were out of the way, prepared to evac the troops in case a retreat became necessary. They should have been safe. It was possible, but Roberto knew better. Evac Unit had withdrawn; Operation: Jericho had been abandoned. Which left only one possible answer. And he wasn’t about to let his soldiers in on it.
“Surro, if Evac hasn’t arrived when you reach the river, swim the fucking thing! Go! Go! Go!”
But he didn’t have to tell them again; they were going. Behind him, the troops on Roberto’s side of the gorge were already heading east at a run, leaving the battle to the vampires. Across that terrible gash in the cobblestones, soldiers on the eastern edge of the plaza had already escaped. But Commander Jimenez could feel in his gut that time was short.
Before he could shout another command, even urge them to hurry, before he could turn back to John Courage for some reassurance, dark things began to emerge from the portal. They were very tall, thin creatures with black, leathery skin. From the side, they were nearly invisible, and gossamer, glistening wings hung under their arms. Their eyes burned with a terrible crimson glow visible even in the daylight, though it seemed to Roberto that the world had suddenly grown darker, as if thunderclouds had rolled in to block the sun. These new creatures, whatever they were, terrified him.
They had pointed ears, like animals’, blood red on the vulnerable inside and black outside. Their hands were three-fingered, and would have looked delicate were it not for the impossibly long, red-tinged claws at the ends of the fingers. Rather than feet, their lower appendages were not quite hooves and not quite paws, but similar to each, hard like bone, with short, sharp nails that clicked on the stones of the plaza. Filled with glistening, red-black needle fangs, dripping bloody drool, their mouths were more like terrible snouts. And their eyes proclaimed the difference between these creatures and the other demons Mulkerrin had dredged from Hell—they were aware.
Intelligent.
And there were a lot of them.
The creatures poured from the doorway, moving with a fluid grace that was captivating, almost hypnotic, distracting those within range from the terrible smell the things gave off. Roberto’s stomach
roiled with displeasure, his nose wrinkled, and for a moment, he stopped breathing, then covered his face with one hand. And yet, the allure of the creatures’ motion was such that he wasn’t even aware of this reaction to the stench.
And then his soldiers, men and women, human beings under his command, began to scream and die, and the allure was gone.
“Fire on the godforsaken things!” he screamed into his collarcomm, his finger tightening on the trigger of his H-K auto. “But don’t hit our people!”
“What the hell are they?” he wondered aloud.
“Vampires,” a voice said behind him, and Jimenez snapped his head around quickly. He’d forgotten Courage was standing there, and once again he had almost fired on him.
“What are you doing here?” Jimenez asked. He wanted to ask for help, but couldn’t, not from this . . . And then Courage’s words sank in.
“Did you say these things were vampires?” He kept firing.
“Did I?”
And then Will Cody was there, with the woman from CNN, Allison whatever, and Jimenez couldn’t think anymore. He turned back to the slaughter of his men, wincing at every scream, trembling with the sound of gunfire and the kick of the weapon in his hands. He ignored the chatter behind him for a moment. Reloading, he saw that the creatures were not harmed by bullets, not in the least. They were flesh, that was certain, and they could be blown apart. as more than one had been already. But they came back together.
The things seemed indestructible. They herded soldiers into the gorge, some even flying down after them, knowing the men and women would already be dead at the bottom, wherever that was. He saw Commander Surro, then, grabbed under the armpits by one of the creatures, its talons sinking deep into her flesh as its snout dug into Surro’s throat and tore, and it tossed back its head to gulp down the flesh. And then the snout returned, dug in deep and began, it seemed, to drink.
As he slammed a new cartridge home into the H-K, Roberto knew.
“They are vampires!” he yelled, turning his auto on Courage, knowing it was useless but needing answers. “What the hell is going on?”
Apparently Courage had just been explaining it to Buffalo Bill and the girl, and from the look on their faces, Roberto wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“As I said,” Courage answered, with a calm that almost made Jimenez’s trigger finger twitch, “they are vampires. But none of their kind has set foot in this world for nearly two thousand years. In time, if enough of their bodies is left, the humans killed by these vampires will mutate into creatures precisely like them, creatures of utter and complete darkness.”
“How do you know all this?” Cody asked.
“I killed the last one myself,” he said. “Though it had already infected me with its essence before it died.”
“Then why didn’t you become one of them?” Allison asked him.
Courage looked at her with an indulgent smile, as if she’d asked a terribly stupid question, but Roberto couldn’t read any more from it than that. He didn’t think Courage was going to answer, but then the vampire’s face became serious once again.
“I wasn’t entirely human myself,” he said. Jimenez didn’t know what the hell he was saying, but Cody and Allison seemed to understand, and both their mouths hung open in astonishment.
“Now,” Courage said, “enough of this foolishness. Cody, Charlemagne’s remaining troops will engage these vampires while I assist him and the others in their direct assault on the mad priest. You, meanwhile, are going to come at him from behind, quickly, silently . . . and kill him.”
“With what?”
John Courage reached inside his shirt and removed the silver crucifix whose bottom had been honed into a dagger, and which he had earlier taken from Commander Jimenez himself. Cody looked at it in silence, clearly remembering the last time he had seen such a weapon, and for some reason, though he was not a coward, Roberto Jimenez was glad that Will Cody didn’t know where Courage had gotten the weapon.
Now, though, Roberto was terribly confused. If none of these other shadows could break through whatever force field Mulkerrin had erected, he didn’t know how Cody was going to do it. He wanted to argue. But he didn’t. At this point, whatever Courage had planned had better happen soon, and he wasn’t about to stand in the way.
“Commander,” Courage said, “gather your surviving troops and withdraw, just as you had ordered.”
Jimenez looked at him, then across at where so many of his people were dying. His eyes closed before he knew they were going to.
“There is nothing you can do for them, Roberto. Work to save those still living.”
Commander Roberto Jimenez met John Courage’s eyes, and he found something there, a profound sadness, almost mourning, and a resolution to do whatever was necessary to save the lives of his people. Jimenez wondered if he didn’t have something in common with this vampire, though the thought disturbed him greatly. His heart felt frozen, shattered by Gloria’s terrible death, Mulkerrin’s violation of her. Hannibal’s defection and that entire catastrophe had enraged him, and now not more than two hundred members of the United Nations security force survived. Operation: Jericho was a complete failure. Only the vampires could do anything about it.
“I owe you this at least,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that this battle is being observed very closely. If it looks like you’re going to lose, they’ll probably nuke the whole city.”
“No way!” Allison couldn’t believe it. “They wouldn’t do that. There are too many people here, civilians, homes . . . and the radiation.”
“Everyone’s been evac-ed,” Jimenez said. “There are no more civilians, and if we can’t take out Mulkerrin, who can? And as for people, well, vampires just killed the President of your country, Allison. I don’t think anybody considers them people anymore. Just the enemy.”
She spun to look at Cody. Let’s get out of here, she wanted to say, but wouldn’t. Cody couldn’t go. Whatever was happening here, he was a part of it, an integral part. And if he couldn’t leave, she wouldn’t either. She loved him, and the time they’d been separated, when she hadn’t known if he was alive or dead, had been the worst time of her life.
But then Commander Jimenez took her by the arm.
“Let’s go,” he said. “You’re the only civilian left to evacuate.”
“Don’t touch me!” she snapped, holding on to Cody. “I was there during the Jihad. I’ve dealt with demons before.”
Cody’s eyes were sad, doubtful.
“Shit,” she said. “I gave my blood to wake Charlemagne to bring these reinforcements here. I’m in this thing, Will, all the way.”
Nobody said a word. Allison’s nostrils were filled with the smell of the vampires from the portal, and bile rose in her throat. She could see that Cody wasn’t going for it, and she wanted to slap his face. Instead, she threw her arrns around him and hugged him tight, and he retumed the embrace. She was crying, and she buried her eyes in his shoulder so he wouldn’t see it.
“I know you can take care of yourself, darlin’,” Cody said. “But if you go down, chances are you won’t get up again. I can’t let you take that risk.”
“So I’m not as good, not as brave, as you because I die easier?” she asked, angry, sad.
And now Cody was mad too, pushing her to arm’s length, making sure their eyes met.
“Don’t ever say that,” he said gravely. “You’re a hell of a lot braver, and a lot luckier than the rest of us. You’re still human!”
Allison was stung; her face crumbled and the tears came in earnest. She hugged Cody again and whispered, “I love you” in his ear, and his face softened. He returned the words, and then Allison turned toward Commander Jimenez.
“Got another weapon?” she asked, and he produced a semi-auto Beretta handgun and passed it to her. She looked it over quickly and wiped at her tears.
“It’ll do,” she said. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
When they’d gone, Co
dy let out the breath he’d been holding. Whatever Jimenez was, he was honorable. Allison could take care of herself, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. Jimenez would consider Allison his responsibility the same way the rest of his troops were, and if there were any way to get them all clear, he’d do it. And yet their departure didn’t lighten his heart any. Rather, Cody felt more pressure now, to stay alive, to be with Allison again.
There was just this little matter of killing Mulkerrin to deal with. Sure, Cody could pass right through Mulkerrin’s magical protection. He was immune to magic. But if Mulkerrin could somehow sense him coming, well there were other ways the sorcerer could fight back. He could set these newly arrived “vampires” on him for one thing. And Cody was starting to think that if he didn’t kill Mulkerrin, nobody would be able to.
And then what?
Did you know these creatures would come? Cody asked John Courage, in his mind.
No, Courage admitted. And they frighten me. We can destroy them fairly simply. We are much more powerful, but they are so savage, so gleefully . . . evil.
But you’ve faced them before, and won, Cody said. You said yourself that you purged them from our world, after you had been tainted by their evil.
Courage faced him. You’ve figured everything out now, haven’t you?
Most of it, I think, he agreed. You said before what once lived in you had left a trace of itself behind. Add to that the poison taint of the true vampire, and you have . . .
“Yes,” Courage said aloud. “Us.”
There was silence, both verbal and mental, between them for a moment. Cody could not think of a thing to say, was completely overwhelmed by what he now believed to be true. He sensed movement behind him and turned to see that Stefan, the young vampire who had been Rolf’s assistant while the SJS was still in operation, had come up behind him. Cody had liked Stefan immediately upon their first meeting, two years earlier, and was pleased, though curious, to see he had survived.
“I thought you were dead,” Cody said to him, wondering how the other had escaped Mulkerrin’s wrath at the fortress.
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