Crusade

by Nancy Holder; Debbie Viguié

  “One time I was down here alone,” Marc murmured, “and a vampire fell on me from overhead. They use the manholes same as us.”

  “Is it so bad up there that we have to travel like this?” Jenn asked.

  “For us? Mais oui,” he replied. “We’re known. But if you walked outside like a person, no, it wouldn’t look so bad. People smile. They’re celebrating Mardi Gras. Vampires are charmers. And killers.”

  “You sound angry.”

  He looked at her, really looked. She saw lines around his face. “You’re very smart, Jenn. I am angry. We’re risking our lives to get rid of the suckers, and most of the people on the street hate us. They’ll do what they can to survive.”

  “But you’d rather die.”

  “Hell, no, I don’t want to die. But they may as well be real zombies. They’re not living. They’re just treading water.”

  He fell silent. Jenn took her cue from him and asked no more questions. Her back ached from hunching over, and sweat was stinging her eyes.

  Antonio’s lips grazed her neck; they were cool against her throbbing vein. She jerked, hard, shocked and frightened. She tried to turn her head to look at him, but just then the boat dropped about five feet, creating a splash as it slammed back down, and Antonio caught her arm, steadying her.

  “Sorry, should have warned you,” Marc murmured.

  Antonio wrapped his hand around hers and squeezed it. Was he apologizing? Had he meant to touch her like that? Her heart thundered as she warily gripped the edge of the bench. Then, as carefully as she could, she looked in his direction.

  Red eyes flickered like flames dancing on the water. Deep, crimson, smoldering. She caught her breath. If Marc saw, he would know Antonio’s secret. What would he do? She fingered her Uzi. What would she do?

  She reached out and found Antonio’s hand again; lacing her fingers with his, she gripped him, hard, giving him a quick shake.

  He hissed.

  “What was that?” Marc whispered. “Father Juan, move your flashlight around.”

  She heard the hesitation in Father Juan’s voice. “Very well.”

  Their master knew the hiss was from Antonio. Father Juan knew that Antonio had changed. Jenn began to tremble. Joining forces had been a terrible mistake. They should have stayed on their own. Now they had to worry about the vampires and the Resistance.

  “Estoy bien,” Antonio whispered against her ear. I’m fine. He had taken command of himself. She hazarded a look and saw nothing. Then Father Juan’s flashlight bounced off a wall, and she dimly traced Antonio’s profile. His eye was no longer glowing. “Lo siento.” I’m sorry.

  “We’re here,” Marc announced. “Father, please aim your flashlight straight up. It’s our code, signaling that we’re friends. In case any of our people are about.”

  Marc extended his pole in front and pushed downward at an angle, using it as a braking mechanism. The yellow light played over a graveled slope that reached upward into the blackness. Rats chattered and disappeared. With a whoosh of water, the bow of the pirogue scraped onto the gravel; the boat jerked forward, and then Marc jumped out. Father Juan followed suit, and then Jenn and Antonio.

  Soon the other boats were lined up beside Jenn’s. Marc took the flashlight from Father Juan, passing the beam over two tunnels ahead of them. Skye came up beside him, holding her scrying stone.

  “From what you described, I think we need to take the tunnel to the left,” Marc said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I should lead.”

  “You don’t have a weapon.”

  “I’ll concentrate on my magick trail,” she replied, and Jenn heard a strange catch in Skye’s voice. She looked at Antonio again, but his face was shrouded in darkness.

  “I’ll cover you, since you’ll be unarmed,” Jamie said. “Me and Eriko. We’ve both got Uzis.”

  “Hai hai.” Eriko was speaking in Japanese. She was stressing. She’d lost control of the mission, and they weren’t doing it her way.

  Please, you guys, please keep it together. This is my sister, Jenn thought.

  “Father Juan,” Antonio murmured. “I thought I heard something in the other tunnel.”

  “Let’s investigate,” Father Juan said quickly. To Marc, “We’ll check it out and catch up.”

  “No, it’s too dangerous,” Eriko cut in. “Don’t leave the group.”

  “Yes. We should make sure there are no vampires there,” Father Juan replied smoothly. But Jenn heard the tension.

  Antonio can’t stop his transformation. She clenched her hands around her submachine gun. This was going badly. All these guns, all around them, Eriko losing control, Antonio losing control.

  “Vite,” Marc said to Father Juan. Dark shapes shifted around Jenn; she caught a flash of red—Antonio’s eyes—and then she saw nothing more; he must have turned away. She took a tentative step in his direction; then the pressure of a hand stopped her, and someone bent to whisper in her ear.

  “Let ’em go. No fussin’.” It was Jamie. So he’d seen too. She nodded, turning away, and he followed after her.

  “Be cool. Act cool,” Jamie said.

  She was grateful for his steadying voice.

  “If you can,” he muttered.

  Maybe not so grateful.

  “There’s a problem,” Skye said in a low voice. “I can’t find my magick trail. Are you sure this is the correct tunnel?”

  Boots shifted on gravel. Jenn watched as Father Juan and Antonio walked into the other tunnel, Father Juan holding a flashlight down low, although Antonio could have guided him in the darkness. But they had to maintain appearances.

  “You started out beneath Decatur Street, oui?” Marc said. “In front of Jackson Square? You saw the statue of Andrew Jackson on the horse?”

  “Yes, that’s where I went down into the tunnel, but we—I—came out a different way. I wound up by the levee,” she replied.

  Jenn blinked. Did I just hear her say “we”?

  “Then either way you would have had to walk through the other end of this tunnel. That’s where the tunnels intersect,” Marc said. “Maybe we’re too far away from your ‘bread crumbs.’ Let’s head into the tunnel.”

  She heard clacking—weapons being reslung over necks, soldiers checking their ammo clips. Boots clumped on the damp gravel. Flashlights grazed the fighters as they entered the tunnel. Jenn saw the look on Skye’s face—worried, frustrated—as the witch murmured and waved her free hand across the surface of the stone. She walked slowly, and Jenn hurried over to her.

  “Can you do something like put a glamour on Antonio?” she asked in a low voice. “He’s having trouble.”

  “Oh, my Goddess,” Skye breathed, staring at her. “I don’t know if I can, Jenn. I mean, I’m not sure if I can do it in the first place. But right now my magicks are being blocked.”

  Jenn caught her breath. “But you were able to put a glamour on yourself so you could pass as a vampire. That worked.”

  Skye hesitated. Then she said, in a voice so low that Jenn could hardly hear her, “I had help.”

  We, Jenn thought. So she had heard her correctly. Had no one else?

  “Help?” Jenn cocked her head. “Like other witches?”

  Skye made fists with both her hands and pounded her forehead. “Bloody hell, I just broke my vow. We’re sworn to secrecy. What we’re doing is so wrong in the eyes of Witchery.”

  Her shoulders rounded, and she shook her head. “And I’m doing things witches are forbidden to do: fighting, using weapons. With bullets. And now I’ve gone and told you about the others.”

  Jenn put her hand on Skye’s shoulder. “You’re trying to keep my sister from dying. Or worse.” Her voice cracked. “You have to tell Father Juan about these other witches. We need their help. How many are there?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Skye said tightly. “I misspoke, Jenn.”

  “Maybe you can ask them to help us.” Jenn kept her voice as even as she could, but she wanted to shake Sk
ye until her teeth rattled. How could you not tell us? she wanted to scream at her. How could you keep something like that from us?

  “I have asked. They were willing to help me as long as I promised not to reveal their existence.” She puffed a braid off her forehead. “So I may have just lost all my allies.”

  “But if they know a human life is at stake,” Jenn argued, “then—”

  “The vampires of New Orleans have someone from the magickal world who is helping them.” Skye’s voice shook. She was scared. “I think whoever it is is blocking me right now. And maybe they’re casting a spell on Antonio as well.”

  Jenn gaped at her. “Do you mean that someone is making Antonio change?”

  “I don’t know,” Skye whispered back. “I’ve heard it said that some can. But my scrying stone is drawing a blank. That shouldn’t be. It should respond to me. My magick trail should appear in the stone, and it should glow more strongly the closer we get to it.”

  Skye thought a moment, then spoke rapidly in Latin, creating a ball of bluish-white light about the size of her thumb that drifted ahead of her.

  “That worked, at least. I’m going to talk to Marc.”

  “But you won’t say anything,” Jenn said. “Not about Antonio.”

  “Or my fighting partner, Holgar,” Skye huffed. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  Jenn bit her tongue.

  “And you need to keep quiet about my friends,” Skye added.

  “You have to tell Father Juan, at least,” Jenn begged.

  “Look, I just told you that I’ve already asked them to help us. They’re doing what they can. They won’t come forward. What they’re doing now is it, Jenn.”

  Skye minced away on the balls of her boots, a stealthy version of stomping her feet, and tapped Marc on the shoulder. He stopped, and they conferred. He turned his head toward the group, then looked back at Skye. They walked about ten feet farther away and craned their necks over Skye’s scrying stone. They walked another ten feet into the tunnel, then twenty, taking the light with them.

  Her hand cupped over a flashlight, Suzy caught up to Jenn. “Did she create that light?” she asked. “With magick?”

  Jenn didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t used to explaining the actions of the group to outsiders. And what Skye had revealed had shocked her. Not only did Skye have a secret life, but it was pretty clear to Jenn that she wasn’t as powerful a witch as Jenn had assumed. Father Juan might be similarly dismayed.

  Father Juan must be told.

  Her spine stiffened as Skye and Marc headed back toward them. Then Eriko moved around Jenn, placing herself between Jenn and Marc, trying to re-establish herself as the person in charge.

  “Something’s not right,” Marc said to the Hunter. “Skye says her stone isn’t working.”

  Eriko shrugged. “Maybe sometimes it doesn’t work.”

  “No,” Jenn put in. “That’s the thing about magick. If it doesn’t work, there’s a reason.” Unlike prayer.

  “My best guess is that there’s someone else using magicks to keep me blind,” Skye said. She licked her lips as if she were about to say something more, then pursed them, looked over at Jenn, and gazed down at the stone. “Maybe there are spells all over the city. Maybe that’s why your cell phones don’t work.”

  Bernard’s dark skin looked purple in Skye’s bluish light. “That may be. There’s also technology that can jam cell phone usage, though. And the Internet,” he added, before anyone could interrupt.

  “So what is magick and what is technology?” Marc murmured.

  “If they’re keeping you from using magick, then why does your light thingie work?” Suzy asked Skye.

  Skye shifted her weight. “Magick is a force, like electricity. A spell caster shapes it. If someone turned off the lights in a room, for example, your iPod wouldn’t stop working. It would take a very powerful spell, or set of spells, to dampen all my spells. Whoever blocked my trail is doing it to protect Aurora.”

  There’s more to Skye’s freak-out than that, Jenn thought, studying her teammate. She’s not just worried; she’s terrified. Skye’s eyes were darting left and right, almost as if she were bracing herself for something to happen.

  As if she were waiting for someone to show up.

  And suddenly, Jenn had the surest sense that they were in terrible danger. It felt like insects crawling all over her, or tiny electrical shocks.

  “We should get out of here now!” Jenn cried.

  The tunnel roared to life like a living monster as shapes dropped from the ceiling and crashed hard on the gravel. Skye’s light blinked out, and in the darkness the ratatatatat staccato of machine-gun fire slammed against Jenn’s eardrums.

  “Hold your fire!” Eriko bellowed. “You might shoot one of us!”

  The noise roared all around Jenn, thrusting her into chaos and bedlam; then something hit her in the face, and she fell backward, smacking the back of her head against the sharp rocks. Rolling to the left, she reached in the pocket along her thigh for a stake while she grabbed a plastic vial of holy water out of her jacket. Unable to see, she flung the blessed water in an arc, and was rewarded with a sharp hiss. She followed through, throwing the vial, then pushing herself and jabbing into the darkness with her stake. The sharp end penetrated something—or someone—but her assailant kicked her hard in the ribs. Her body armor helped absorb the shock.

  What if it’s Antonio? she thought, flinging herself toward her attacker.

  More machine-gun fire blasted through the tunnel like exploding dynamite, and her eardrums closed. The world shattered into a soundless void as Jenn punched, kicked, and stabbed empty air. The vampire had moved away. It knew where she was, but she couldn’t say the same. She whirled in a circle, blind, deaf, stabbing at nothing.

  Something hit her hard. She didn’t know where. Icy numbness spread through her body as her legs gave way and she collapsed to the ground. With a grunt she fought to get back up—nothing was holding her down—but her muscles began to quiver. She was spinning, freezing.

  I’m wounded. She couldn’t tell if she’d been shot or hit or what. That wasn’t the issue. She was out of the fight. Get up, she ordered herself. Now.

  “Antonio,” she murmured, although she couldn’t hear the word. Where was he? What was happening to him?

  Then someone scooped her up, and she was either floating or they were carrying her; gradually, she began to hear words, and they were Spanish and Latin mixed together. In her dazed mind it sounded like a lullaby. It was Antonio, praying over her. Her head lolled on his chest, and she slid her arm around his neck.

  “Jenn,” he said. “Jenn, I have you.” His voice shook.

  “Oh, God, I feel so cold.”

  Chilly air hit her cheeks, and she listened to the rhythm of his footfalls. He was running faster than anyone could, except for Eriko. He was outing himself; someone would notice, and ask questions.

  “Antonio, slow down,” she said.

  He didn’t answer. Then he shifted her weight to one arm and climbed up a metal ladder. Rain poured down on them. Other hands took her—Holgar—and he raced with her across the street, around a building, and down a small alley strewn with purple and green banners. There was a large poster for Mardi Gras; they flashed past it so quickly she couldn’t read it.

  “What happened?” she asked, as a purple door flew open and Holgar carried her inside. In murky light the foyer was grimy and loaded with mailboxes, trash, and two stacks of office chairs piled one on top of another. Rounding a corner, they went through a doorway of peeling white wood, and Father Juan ushered Holgar to an unfolded sleeping bag on the floor.

  “You passed out. We couldn’t find you. Antonio went back,” Holgar said, as he laid her down. He looked at Father Juan. “This is crazy, Master. There is nothing safe about this safe house. We had to run across the street. A dozen vampires could have seen us.”

  “Or informers,” Jamie chimed in. He leaned over Holgar and gazed down at
Jenn. “Want some whiskey? It’ll dull the pain.”

  “Yes,” she replied, surprising both herself and everyone else.

  “Have at it, then.” As Holgar helped her sit up, Jamie put the bottle to her lips. It seared her throat and flashed into her bloodstream. She stifled a cough; Jamie saw it and grinned, putting the bottle to his lips.

  “How are the rest of the team?” she asked. “Where are Skye and Eriko?”

  “Skye’s helping the wounded. Eriko’s walking the perimeter. She doesn’t like this place either,” Father Juan replied.

  “Ground floor. It’s feckin’ arseways,” Jamie muttered. “We should get out of here now. We’re not far enough away from the sewer. They’ll smell all the blood.”

  “But no one was killed,” Father Juan added, answering Jenn’s question.

  “Was I shot?” she asked.

  “Let’s find out,” he said, placing his hands on her arm. She looked down and gasped at the amount of blood that had soaked her jacket. She was still bleeding.

  He looked at Jamie. “Would you please ask Skye to come here, mi hijo?”

  “Where’s Antonio?” She lifted her head, feeling dizzy.

  “He’s staying in the tunnel for a bit,” her master told her. He gave her a hard look, as if warning her not to say anything. Troubled, she obeyed.

  The front door opened. Heavy footfalls sounded in the hall, and Marc and Eriko leaned into the room. Marc said, “We’ve rounded up transportation. Let’s go.”

  Father Juan knit his brows. “This hunter has been hurt.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” Marc said directly to Jenn. “We were surprised.”

  “There were no human attackers in that tunnel.” Eriko ran her hand over her hair. “Just vampires. So the bullets caused only harm.”

  “We didn’t know that when we opened fire,” Marc replied.

  Jamie glared at Marc. “We have to go. It’s not safe here.”

  “We are going,” Marc replied. “We’re getting out of the city.” He looked down at Jenn. “We have to make a stop first.”