She had to give Heather other choices.
As the afternoon wore on, people started to leave. Finally, only family and her grandparents’ closest friends were left. Jenn took the opportunity to slip off by herself for a few minutes.
She wound up in Papa Che’s study and sat down in his chair, closing her eyes as she pictured him, hunched over the keyboard of his computer. The room smelled like him, and it brought fresh tears to her eyes.
She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. Father Juan had told her to call whenever despite the time difference, and she was incredibly grateful as she dialed his private number.
He answered on the third ring. “Jenn, are you okay?”
She could tell she hadn’t woken him up. He and the others were almost as nocturnal as the vampires they hunted.
“I’m fine,” she said, closing her eyes, imagining herself back in Spain and far away from Berkeley. “Sort of.”
“How was the funeral?” His voice was kind.
“Good. Although there were a lot of empty graves at the cemetery.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Juan said, “Not good.”
“Exactly what I thought. My sister told me that San Francisco has become a vampire stronghold. The local government is compromised. Did you know that?”
“I’d heard rumors, but I wasn’t sure. Most of the reports we get from the States are hard to sort out. There is so much propaganda and censoring, we don’t know what is true.”
She thought about telling him about the government agents at the funeral. But she and Father Juan dealt with vampires, not law enforcement types.
“Heather, my sister, wants to come back with me to Salamanca. She begged me. She wants to become a hunter. She said she doesn’t feel safe here anymore.”
“Becoming a hunter is not a decision to make in haste,” Father Juan said. “And it’s the wrong thing to do if one wishes to feel safe.”
“I tried to tell her that.”
“And?”
“I think there’s something else going on with her, but . . . she said the vampires are becoming such a problem here that she’s scared.”
“Many sisters are scared,” Father Juan pointed out, his voice unreadable.
“Yeah, but this one’s mine,” Jenn said with a sigh.
Father Juan took a moment. Then he said, “Have you told her about Holgar? Or Skye? Does she truly know what your world is like?”
“No, but I know what her world is like,” Jenn replied. “And ours is better.”
There was another pause.
“If she wishes to study, as you did, she would be welcome at the Academia.”
“But I’m . . . busy back home with missions. I—I’m afraid I won’t be able to look out for her,” Jenn confessed. “Protect her.”
“You can’t. You have duties, as you say.”
“Then what should I do?” she asked, trying not to let her frustration show.
“Hide her away and pray for her safety, or let her choose her own path and learn to protect herself.”
“What are you saying?” Jenn pressed. “Please—”
“It is your decision, and hers. Not mine. But she is welcome.”
“Okay. All right,” Jenn said. “I should go now.”
“Be safe,” he said.
“Thank you. And . . . thank you for saying she can come.”
“Jenn,” he said.
She waited. He didn’t say anything more. For a moment she thought the call had been disconnected, but then she heard him sigh very softly.
“Father?” She heard the anxiety in her voice.
Silence.
“Father Juan?”
“It’s all right,” he said finally.
“Something’s wrong.”
“We’re handling it,” he replied. “Be with your family.”
You are my family, she thought as she hung up. Then she stood.
A rustle of cloth startled her; she glanced toward the landing just in time to see the edge of a dark coat before it disappeared. She hurried to the doorway as her father descended the stairs.
Did he hear me? she wondered.
She shook her head. He couldn’t have. If he had, he would have barged in and started yelling. That was what he did when he was afraid: yelled and screamed and stormed around. God, he was going to freak when he found out she was taking Heather with her.
Oh, God, she realized. I am taking her. He’ll never forgive me for that.
She took a deep breath and thought of what her grandmother had said earlier. Time enough to fight tomorrow. Here, and in Spain.
SAN FRANCISCO
AURORA AND LORIEN
Aurora smiled at Lorien, the vampire lord of San Francisco, as he bowed low at the doorway of his lavish art deco penthouse apartment. She could smell his fear as easily as she could read the surprise on his truly beautiful face. He hadn’t known she was in town, hadn’t expected her at his party. The other vampires, dressed up for their gathering in couture gowns and tuxes, all followed his lead, giving way as she strolled across a floor tiled in jade. She was wearing scarlet, her favorite color; it set off her jet-black hair so nicely.
A white marble fountain of a naked woman pouring water from a jar trickled in the respectful silence. Some of the vampires knew who she was; others were openly curious. She heard the whispers: Aurora, Sergio’s former lover. Yes, Sergio is Lorien’s sire. I don’t know why she’s here. There’s a vendetta . . . secret plan . . . no, I don’t know . . . and I don’t think Solomon does either.
But you didn’t hear any of that from me.
In her four-inch heels she glided slowly to the window. She had learned centuries before that among those who could move with blinding speed, nothing aroused fear as one who moved slowly. The lights on the Golden Gate Bridge glittered like embers, and she admired the view.
“My lady Aurora, to what do we owe this unexpected honor?” Lorien asked, his tone smooth yet deferential.
She kept her back to him. On another night she would have drawn out his anticipation, played with him a little. He was one of Sergio’s fledglings, not hers. That alone, in her estimation, was reason enough to torment him. Ordinarily, she would not have passed up the opportunity. The night was far from ordinary, though.
She turned . . . slowly, and pinned him with her stare. She extended her arm and pointed toward the window. “There, across the bay, lies an enemy to us all. I’m here to take her out.”
The vampires murmured among themselves, excitement and bloodlust flickering across their faces as they waited for her to continue. Instead Aurora glanced at a cage in the corner. A human girl huddled inside, limp and raglike, half dead. Pathetic. Lorien was allowing his followers to grow decadent, drinking from caged animals who could never hope to protect themselves. His vampires would forget how to hunt.
She turned back to the window. It was no matter. Lorien’s life was hers to give or take when and if she chose. Sergio would be angry, but she could handle her old lover. Besides, Lorien was of no real concern to her; there, in the darkness, was one who was.
“Who is this enemy?” Lorien asked.
Aurora smiled. “A Hunter. From Salamanca.”
Behind her there was an instant buzz of voices. All vampires aspired to drink from a Hunter—the more clever the opponent, the sweeter the kill.
“Are you sure?” someone asked, and she looked from the window into the gathering. A tall, very handsome vampire shrank from her steady gaze. Aurora made a personal promise to herself to kill him before she left San Francisco.
Her icy silence was her answer.
“The Salamancans? I’ve heard of them,” Lorien said nervously, obviously trying to smooth over his guest’s faux pas and curry favor with Aurora. “They have one of those new hunter teams.”
That drew murmurs. Aurora preened. “Yes, a team,” she repeated. “Hunters are dangerous, not for the few pitiful kills they manage before being destroyed, but for the inspiratio
n they provide.”
That alone was worth crossing an ocean to snuff out. Let Sergio dare to do better. Let him find the traitor among the Salamancans—his own fledgling, Antonio. Sergio had no idea Antonio was still alive, much less that he had fallen so low as to aid and abet human beings.
Antonio de la Cruz was the true Cursed One. For when he was found, no god would show him mercy, whether he or she reigned above or below ground, in heaven or in hell. She certainly wouldn’t, when she delivered him to secure her position in the new world order that was so soon to come.
“Not soon enough,” she said aloud, as Lorien smiled at her quizzically. He was pretty, but he was an idiot.
Maybe Sergio wouldn’t notice if she staked Lorien out of his misery. But he would certainly take notice when she delivered Antonio de la Cruz to their liege lord. Ah, yes, he would notice that.
She smiled at the window, as if she could see her own reflection. But of course she had lost it, over five hundred years ago. In a dungeon . . .
CHAPTER FOUR
We offer only peace and love
We will watch you from above
Trust us, love us, all we ask
Mankind’s welfare our only task
We who dwell within the night
We who hold unyielding might
We can free you from your cares
Untangle your feet from all life’s snares
AD 1490, TOLEDO, SPAIN
AURORA DEL CARMEN MONTOYA
DE LA MOLINA ABREGóN
“Mujer,” whispered the young, pockmarked guard as he unlocked her cell. The door squealed, and the rats, startled, scurried into the hay. “Woman.”
He looked at her, then dropped his gaze as he stuffed the key into the pocket of his filthy smock. His dark eyes were ringed and sunken, proof that the Inquisition had robbed him of the ability to sleep. His distress meant that he still had a conscience and, God willing, a soul. “Prepare yourself. The Grand Inquisitor himself is coming.” His gaunt face paled as he crossed himself.
“Ay, Dios me guarda,” she whispered, unable to do the same. Her wrists were chained together and attached to a rusty stake in the center of the floor. As she tried to rise to a kneeling position, her soiled, unbleached shift caught beneath her knees. She jerked, and the guard reached toward her as if to help, then pulled his hands back as footfalls echoed in the corridor.
With a groan she tumbled back down on her sore hip, trembling with terror. Still the footfalls echoed; she jerked her head, her long black hair tangling between her fingers.
“I’m so sorry,” the young man whispered. “If I could help . . .” He smelled of garlic and meat. Were it not for the chains, she would have lunged at him as if he himself were food. She couldn’t remember her last meal. She was starving.
“He is coming,” the man said. He pulled the key out of his pocket and stared at it. There were sores on his fingers, chilblains from the cold. “If I could, I would, believe me. . . .”
“Oh, please, por favor, get me out of here! Save me!”
She threw herself at him, grabbing at his hand. The key fell into the straw, and she groped for it. Her mind raced in a crazed fantasy where she found the key, opened the lock, and raced down the corridor to the cells where they kept her mother and the little ones, then to her older brothers and her sister Maria Luisa, and—
The guard gasped and sank to his knees beside her. She froze, and the shadow of Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of all Spain, fell across her like a net made of frozen iron. She stilled her hands, knowing the key was still there but that it was a useless piece of metal and nothing more.
It was said that Torquemada could read the minds of his prisoners, then break them down to speak the truth—that they were witches, or blasphemers, or Jews who had only pretended to convert to Christianity.
Jews like Aurora and her family.
Queen Isabella herself had invited Tomás de Torquemada to begin his reign of terror, and blessed and praised him for it. Aurora’s father had spoken against the arrests and the resultant confessions and public executions—claiming that the god of his own understanding was a god of love. For daring to question the wisdom of the queen and the methods of God’s servant, Torquemada, Diego Abregón had been declared a heretic and imprisoned, his lands taken by the Church. But during torture he had shouted not to the Virgin for her sweet intercession, but to the god of the Hebrews. He was declared a Marrano, a Jew who had only pretended to embrace the One True Faith. A liar, corrupting the city of Toledo with his unchristian ways. After being forced to witness his fiery death, Diego’s wife and children had been thrown into Torquemada’s dungeons.
And now Torquemada had come for Aurora, Diego’s oldest daughter.
“Mi hija,” said a low, deep voice. Aurora’s stomach lurched, and bile flooded her mouth. That terrible voice had gloated as the flames crackled around her father, warning Satan that the ranks of his earthly minions were being thinned as Diego’s bones fell to ash. Aurora tried to swallow the acid down and began to cough.
Torquemada: madman, monster, demon.
“Leave us,” he said to the guard. The man jumped to his feet and scampered away, leaving Aurora to face the Grand Inquisitor alone.
The key was still in the straw. It was still there. If she could find it and ram it into his eye, if she could cut her throat with it . . .
“Raise your head, my daughter,” he said silkily. “Do not fear me.”
Aurora sobbed once, hard. “And why should I not?”
“Only the guilty need fear God. If you are not guilty . . .”
Guilty of being a Jew? Guilty of loving my faith and my heritage?
She kept her head lowered as tears rolled down her cheeks. Then something hit the back of her right hand. Small, beautifully wrought, it was a crucifix with a cluster of rubies in the center, to honor the blood of Christ—her own; she had bribed one of the guards with the necklace in exchange for news of her mother.
“I return this to you,” he said. “It was taken in error.”
She closed her hand around the cross. Was this a generous act? Could it be God had softened Torquemada’s heart?
She dared to look up. A torch burned on the wall behind the Grand Inquisitor, blurring her vision. He wore a black hooded robe with a white stole across his shoulders. Shrouded by darkness, his long face swam before her, but from the folds of his hood his eyes blazed as if he were burning from the inside out. And then he smiled. His teeth were scraggly and black, and his head looked like a skull. Her heart stuttered.
“Taken in error, because you were told that your mother was still alive,” he concluded.
There was no air in the room. No thoughts in her head or feeling in her body.
She stared at him as he made the sign of the cross over her with his arthritic fingers, the talons of a demon. She couldn’t remember how to speak. She could only stare at him in mute horror.
“Your mother confessed, as I knew she would, that she was a converso in name only. That, like your father, she had accepted baptism into the Catholic faith only to keep your family living off the fat of the land here in Toledo. That she had worshipped in the Jewish way, and had kept her house according to Jewish customs.”
“No,” Aurora said. He was trying to trick her. She would not confess—pitting her word against that of her mother. Catalina Elena, her beautiful madre, could still be alive.
“She forbade you to make the sign of the cross in her home. She would not allow you to mix meat and milk. You never ate pork.”
Aurora clutched her hands together, digging her fingernails into her palms. These were lies. Her mother had served pork often, in full view of the servants. And they had all eaten it, silently asking God for forgiveness, and forgiving each other. They had prayed in the Catholic way. It was only on Fridays, on Shabbat, that they’d allowed any trace of their true beliefs into their home—they’d lit candles, and prayed once to Adonai. And then, for every other hour of their lives, they�
��d lived as Christians.
“We eat pork,” she said. “Bring me some, for the love of God; I am starving.”
He ignored her. “The Church has been watching. For fifty years the Abregón family has been under our scrutiny. Ever since the Jewish rebellion led fifty years ago by your great-grandfather—”
She shook her head, surer now that he was trying to frighten her into exposing her family.
Then Torquemada reached into the pocket of his robe and tossed a handful of glittering gold and delicate silver onto the straw. Eight crucifixes. She recognized each one. The larger ones had belonged to her three brothers, and the more delicate ones to her sisters. The smallest one, adorned with roses, was her little sister Elizabeta’s, the infanta only four years old.
“You are the last,” he said, dropping to one knee beside her as she began to heave. “But each soul answers to God. You may save yourself, my daughter. With my help.”
He laid his hand on the crown of her head. Under its weight she collapsed facedown into the straw, and everything went black.
“He’ll win,” someone said. “And you will die in agony.”
Aurora opened her eyes to darkness. Wet straw clung to her cheek as she turned her head. A man sat beside her. Like Torquemada he wore a monk’s hooded robe. He was wrapped in darkness, the shadows shifting and spreading like a pool of black water, of which he was a part. Narrowing her eyes, she tried to make out his features, but she could not.
“Buenas tardes,” the figure said. His voice was low and soft, and she had trouble hearing it. “Yes, I am really here.”
“Por Dios,” she whispered, cringing. “Please, please don’t hurt me.”
There was silence. Then the figure laughed. “You think I’m one of Torquemada’s minions.”
She caught her breath. “And you . . . are not?”
“I am not.”
“Then . . . who . . . ?” And then she feared that he had come to attack her. She was an unmarried virgin, and the guards had said things, threatened things. . . .
Weak as she was, she balled her fists, ready to fight him. Her siblings’ crucifixes were gathered in her right hand. If she screamed, would anyone come to help her? Or would others simply gather in her cell to join in the torment?
Crusade Page 7
