Crusade

by Nancy Holder; Debbie Viguié

  Theo held up a finger. “Don’t breathe. Or at least don’t look like you’re breathing.”

  “Got it. No breathing,” she said. She blanched. “I hope I can pull this off.”

  “Goddess be with you,” Mikhu said, as they both dropped kisses on her forehead. “We’ll alert the Circuit to give prayers for one of our own in danger.”

  “But no details,” Skye said.

  “Zero,” Theo promised.

  Then they walked into the shadows. She listened to their receding footsteps, tempted to call them back a dozen times. But she had to do this. She had volunteered for the mission, and she was the one most likely to pull it off.

  She glanced down at her silver thumb ring and wondered if she should have taken it off. It was shaped like a crescent moon wrapped around a moonstone. She wore it as a constant reminder of who she was, so she wouldn’t risk losing herself again. And now here she was trying to lose herself. A moment later she smiled grudgingly. Vampires had every reason to worship the moon as much as witches. The thought gave her the strength not to call the others back and instead to start walking.

  As she walked alone, trembling, she prayed that Estefan would not be among those who gravitated toward her now. That he’d finally given up, or was still back in Europe, or—best of all—that he had died. How horrible, to wish someone’s death. An it harm none, do what thou wilt.

  Fingers crossed that the new vampire in town was Aurora.

  Fingers crossed that the vampire staring out of the shadows with demonic red eyes right now could lead Skye to her.

  The vampire hissed at her. Chills tickled Skye’s shoulder blades and down her spine. Goddess, protect me, I charge you, she prayed. I am your daughter. I am in your care.

  And then she hissed back.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Witches, wolves, and mortal friend

  There is a horror that does not end

  War is waged and battles fought

  But have you stopped to count the cost?

  We are the ones backed by right

  We must strike with bold and might

  The Cursed Ones blameless be

  Warn them of the Hunters you see

  NEW ORLEANS

  FATHER JUAN, JENN, HOLGAR, ERIKO, JAMIE, AND ANTONIO

  Father Juan escorted the team to the chapel of the abandoned convent. With its secret stairway from the tunnel, said to have been used by escaped slaves and pirates, the convent didn’t feel like a very safe safe house. Marc and his group had pooh-poohed Jenn’s follow-up questions about why Lucky had said the place was haunted. She’d wanted to ask more questions when Lucky refused to join them in the chapel for Mass but asked Father Juan to hear his confession later. Unnerved, she was sure that they were hiding something. Maybe they were afraid that if the hunters found out what it was, the Salamancans would leave.

  There was no electricity in the building, and all the windows had been painted with black paint, then boarded over to hide evidence that it was being lived in. In addition, they didn’t use the outer rooms, only those with no windows at all. It was cold and damp, and Jenn didn’t know how to describe it in any other way except “unfriendly.”

  The corridor to the chapel was pitch-dark, and as they made their way with flashlights, Jenn remained hyperalert for movement, for attack. Antonio carried a flashlight too, although he didn’t really need it. Passing beneath a stone arch into the icy room, Jenn smelled old dust and incense. She thought about the ghosts of nuns in black and white habits, gliding through the darkness.

  The chapel held a blank-eyed stone statue of the Virgin, and an empty place on the wall behind the altar where a crucifix must once have hung. Jenn started uneasily at the blank spot, looking around for more crosses. Vampires had taken over churches all over the world, tossing out any offending religious symbols.

  The priest lit a candle and placed it on the altar as Marc hastily cleaned the once-sacred space with a dish towel. Gently, Father Juan stopped him, and Marc joined the row of five at the front pew, which was half rotted away, the splintered wood crumbling beneath Jenn’s hand as she stood beside Antonio. Father Juan raised his hands, and the six—Jenn, Antonio, Jamie, Eriko, Marc, and Bernard—knelt on bed pillows to protect their knees from the cold. Jenn swayed beside Antonio, shivering, wishing for body heat. But Antonio had no physical warmth to give her.

  Since she wasn’t a baptized Catholic, she didn’t take communion, but Antonio did. She watched, fascinated, as Father Juan placed the host on Antonio’s tongue, then offered him the cup. Any other vampire she’d ever seen would have screamed in agony. But Antonio closed his eyes and crossed himself, then lowered his head over his hands and prayed.

  Father Juan talked about patience. He quoted 2 Corinthians 6:4, first in Latin—“‘sed in omnibus exhibeamus nosmet ipsos sicut Dei ministros in multa patientia in tribulationibus in necessitatibus in angustiis’”—and then in English: “‘But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses. . . .’”

  Jenn was sure he had chosen the verse—and the sermon—for her. Despite the frigid temperature she was sweating bullets. It was all she could do to keep from jumping to her feet and bursting outside, running down the streets of the French Quarter, and screaming Heather’s name. It seemed so wrong to be praying, essentially doing nothing.

  Then, with his nearly magickal sense of knowing what she was thinking, Antonio laid his left hand over her right and laced his fingers through hers, assuming a gesture of prayer.

  “This is doing something,” he whispered, in a voice so low only she could hear it. “You believe in magick spells, sí ? What are they but prayers?”

  She didn’t answer him. How many millions of people had prayed for the defeat of the Cursed Ones? For loved ones who had been butchered, or converted? When spoken by a witch, a magikc spell worked.

  And violence worked.

  While Suzy and Lucky prepared a dinner of dirty rice and sausage, Father Juan offered a demonstration of Krav Maga, a street-combat martial art practiced by the Mossad, the special forces of Israel. It was the first form of self-defense offered at the academy.

  “It builds on basic street fighting,” Father Juan explained to Marc as Jamie assumed a starting position—legs apart and loose, hands up in front of his face.

  Marc mirrored Jamie, ready to do battle. He was taller than Jamie, and possibly more muscular—Jamie was wiry, Marc more beefed up—and light on his feet. Eriko and Father Juan had set up the demonstration in the convent’s former common dining room, lit with battery-powered fluorescent camping lanterns. Half-decomposed tables and shabby wooden chairs, pushed to the walls, were bathed in stark bluish-white light.

  Beside Antonio, Jenn studied the priest, who sat in a chair with a dark blue blanket over his lap, drinking a glass of wine. His resemblance to the statue of St. John of the Cross that guarded the university gates was diminished—he seemed like a regular person—and Jenn reconsidered all the stories she’d heard about Father Juan. Maybe people needed him to be special, magickal, because then he would train hunters that really would save them.

  “Anyone can use Krav Maga,” Eriko began, standing between the two potential combatants. “Older people, those with no martial arts training. Krav Maga exploits people’s natural defensive reactions and shows how to use them as weapons. Jamie will show you.” She moved her hands together and stepped backward, signaling the beginning of the bout.

  “The idea is not to dance some fancy dance, but to walk away alive,” Jamie said, advancing and striking at Marc’s jaw, pulling his punch but making sure it was clear that what he’d done would have resulted in Marc’s teeth being knocked out.

  “You’d know best,” Holgar said from his place in the corner, gesturing to Jamie’s two front teeth, which were actually a bridge. Jamie had lost his original teeth in a practice session three months after joining the academy. He was supposed to have been wearing a mouth gua
rd, but he’d been too macho to use it. Tisha, the girl who had bested him, had lost her life to a vampire on the night of their final exam.

  Jamie and Marc went through a few more moves. Jenn watched distractedly, obsessively pulling out her cell phone and checking the time since she couldn’t receive any messages. No one knew when and if Skye would get in contact. Bursting with anxiety, barely able to sit still, she wanted to go out and search for Aurora too, not watch Jamie showing off.

  “This is great,” Marc said, slicking back his hair as Eriko announced that the bout was over and awarded Jamie all the points. Marc obviously didn’t care that he’d lost. Drenched with sweat, he was pumped. “We can really use this. We have access to a gym a few streets over. Would you be willing to run some training sessions for us there?”

  How can you be talking about this now? Jenn wanted to scream. Aurora has my sister! And we don’t know if Skye’s alive or—worse.

  “I think we could manage that,” Father Juan said, lifting his wine glass as Marc guzzled down a sports bottle of water. “To peace.”

  “To the war,” Marc countered.

  Jenn looked down at her cell-phone face again. One minute had passed since the last time she’d checked it. A shadow crossed over it; Antonio stood up and walked over to Father Juan, looking down at him, and it was obvious to Jenn that something was wrong. Waves of anxiety were rolling off him; his dark hair framed his hooded eyes and clenched jaw, and his usually full lips pursed into a thin white line. His fists were balled at his sides.

  He leaned over and said something in the priest’s ear. Father Juan listened carefully, then finished his wine and rose. Antonio glanced over at Jenn but didn’t meet her eyes. Shame pinched his features.

  “Antonio and I need to discuss a few things,” Father Juan said to the group. “We’ll meet you at dinner.”

  “Yeah, you do that,” Jamie drawled. Then Holgar and Eriko both stared at the Irishman, and he turned on his heel and grabbed his towel, which was hanging off the back of a chair. He wiped his face and muttered something, then turned back around as Antonio and Father Juan walked out of the room.

  “They lie,” Jamie said straight to Jenn. “Remember your manual?”

  “What?” Marc asked, making crinkling noises with his empty water bottle as he squeezed it in his fist. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” Eriko said. She stretched her hands over her head, then bent from the waist and touched her toes. The next time Jenn could track her, Eriko was on the floor in a wide split, resting her head on the floor. She glanced over at Marc, who was gaping at her in admiration. Being around Eriko was like getting stuck with an older, hotter sister. Heather thought Jenn was a hero, but as soon as Marc’s group had found out that Eriko was the capital-H Hunter, most of their attention had shifted to her. It was not lost on Jenn that Eriko didn’t like the limelight. Jenn wouldn’t have, either; she didn’t want to be fussed over. She just wanted to feel like she had a real place among the Salamancans.

  And to find her sister.

  “Have you heard anything about Japan, Marc? My family live in Kyoto,” Eriko said, sounding British. Her English shifted between slangy American and what she’d learned in school, which was the English of the British upper classes.

  “Kyoto is such a beautiful city,” Marc said, causing Eriko to lift her head and look at him. He smiled.

  “Ah so desuka,” Eriko said, smiling back very wanly. “Hai.”

  “Both sides—vampires and humans—tried hard to preserve the treasures there. I traveled in Asia before the war. I was an art student.”

  Before the war. Everyone had been something else, before the war.

  Except for Antonio.

  Father Juan is feeding him. She’d known it when they left the room together. She had never seen Antonio feed. He’d never permitted it. And as for feeding off her . . . once she had tried to offer, and he’d cut off her words so forcefully, practically shouting at her, that she’d never offered again.

  She’d been intensely relieved.

  If he needed my blood, I would give it to him, she told herself. It was what she always told herself. But the mere thought sent her reeling. It made her feel sick and dizzy. Could she really love him, if that was her honest reaction? Wasn’t the fact that he had refused her offer proof that he loved her?

  Suzy stuck her head into the room, breaking Jenn’s thoughts. “Dinner’s ready,” she announced.

  Eriko was up and at the door before Jenn saw her again. She bowed and waited for Marc to go first, which, after a moment’s hesitation, he did. Jamie glowered at Marc’s back, and Eriko, unaware, also left.

  Then Jenn got up and crossed the room. As she passed Jamie, he followed so closely behind her that she could feel his warmth—the warmth that had been missing from Antonio, back in the chapel.

  “They lie,” Jamie whispered viciously. “Wait and see.”

  NEW ORLEANS

  SKYE

  “Sorry to do this, but you can’t be too careful, you know?” the vampire told Skye as they moved through the sewers beneath the French Quarter.

  Skye could see perfectly well through the ebony silk blindfold the vampire, whose name was Nick, had wrapped over her eyes before leading her to Aurora’s lair. She’d dared to perform a seeing spell, hoping that the vampires still hadn’t acquired the ability to detect the use of magicks. He’d had no clue, and she was weak with relief. If things got dicey, she had a vast arsenal of things she could do to protect herself—all of which went against the most sacred tenet of her beliefs, which was to do no harm.

  Nick reminded her a little of Jamie—young, bald, but no tattoos, and with a California-surfer sort of accent. He was new to Aurora’s court, having proven his worth in the attack on Jenn and Heather. Nick boasted that he’d been the one to drag “the sister of the Hunter” by her hair and push her into a cage, then had helped load it onto Aurora’s private jet. Skye masked her reaction and told him she wished she’d been there.

  “I’ve never seen a Hunter,” she’d lied.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to,” he’d answered.

  Now, her cold hand in his equally cold hand, Nick led her out of the sewer and into the moonlight. She was shocked to see that night had fallen; she had no idea what time it was. His face was bleached like bone by the watery light. The air was fresh, and she had to fight not to inhale deeply.

  Steadily, without pausing to check if he was seen, he led her up a flight of concrete stairs onto a walkway bordered by oak trees, then through a charming oval courtyard punctuated with a spiral staircase of white wrought iron, leading to an upper apartment bordered by two white columns. On the cobblestone ground floor, elegant alabaster urns brimmed with hot pink and deep pumpkin-orange flowers. Keeping the pretext that the blindfold was working, she pretended to knock her toe against the riser, making him mutter, “Oops, sorry, step up.”

  Their feet clanged on the wrought iron. The door opened before Nick reached it, and another vampire stood on the other side, surrounded by darkness. Vampires had excellent hearing, but anyone could have heard that racket. Either Nick had been announcing their arrival, or the vampires didn’t care who knew where they were staying. If so, then, why the blindfold?

  The vampire at the door was a young girl with purple hair trailing over a black bustier and steampunk olive-green pants decorated with black leather straps and bronze buckles. She was smoking, which was impressive, since vampires had to consciously force air into and out of their lungs, making smoking more challenging. Her fingernails were painted black, overlaid with red slashes, and her lips were the same shade of purple as her hair.

  “Who’s this?” the vampire asked Nick, narrowing her black-rimmed eyes.

  Skye had used magicks to muffle her heartbeat and make her skin feel clammy to the touch. She prayed she’d done enough.

  “Her name’s Brianna. She’s a local,” Nick replied. “Well, sort of. She’s an orphan.”

  Black eyelashes me
t as she studied Skye. “Oh?” She ticked her gaze to Nick. “Your sire was murdered?”

  “I’m not certain I’m an orphan,” Skye replied, using her own voice, her own accent. She’d decided to use as much of her real self as she could, in order to be able to concentrate on the effects of the glamour. No need to worry about a foreign accent on top of everything else. “I—Desmond attacked me in Toronto. I was visiting my aunt.”

  “He converted you, you mean,” the vampire prompted, “to the true religion.”

  “Yes.” Skye nodded, even though she didn’t understand exactly what she meant by that. She was unbelievably nervous, terrified she was going to make a muddle of things and get her throat torn out for the trouble—and Heather’s, too, if she was here.

  “And you wound up here because . . .,” the vampire said suspiciously. She gave Nick a sharp nod.

  There was a pause, and the blindfold loosened from around Skye’s head. Skye stared straight into the burning red eyes and long, sharp fangs as the vampire studied her. Then Nick appeared at the vampire’s shoulder, moving with exaggerated speed. Despite all her magicks Skye couldn’t do the same, but she could cast spells that caused other people to lose track of bursts of time, giving the illusion that she was moving at a faster pace. Of course, all magicks cost her in concentration and energy; she would have to be as sparing as possible.

  “I’ve been looking for Desmond,” she said, crossing her fingers that that would sound reasonable. “I found another vampire he’d converted on the Internet, and Jon—that’s his name—said Desmond had been seen here.”

  “I haven’t heard of any Desmond. Did you get permission to stay in the French Quarter? You have to ask to stay on someone else’s property. This part of the city is owned by Christian Gaudet. My sire.” Straightening her shoulders, she tossed her hair.

  Then her eyes bulged, and she made a gagging sound. Nick gasped and scurried back across the threshold just as the vampire girl burst into dust, coating Skye, who forced back a cough and held onto Nick.