Crusade

by Nancy Holder; Debbie Viguié

  The roar of an approaching vehicle covered Jenn’s cry as Father Juan helped her sit up. Now she did hurt. Everything hurt. Her arm throbbed, and she felt sick to her stomach. She took a deep steadying breath as Father Juan raised her to her feet. She swayed.

  “Come on, Jenn.” Holgar picked her up in his arms, grinning down at her. “You need to go on a diet.”

  “I’ll see to Lucky,” Father Juan said.

  Then everyone was barreling back out of the building and into the heavy rain—except for Lucky, who was carried out on two pieces of wood bound together to make a stretcher. Marc had one end and Father Juan the other. Wrapped in a dark green blanket, Lucky was groaning, and his face was dead white. Skye walked beside him, making circles with her hands. Her forehead was furrowed with concentration.

  “Oh, no,” Jenn murmured, as two vans rolled to a stop and their doors slid back. One was the black van that had nearly run her down, black with tinted windows. The other was white, with black paint on the windows. Bernard was behind the wheel of the white one, and Suzy was driving the other. “What happened to him?”

  “Gut shot,” Jamie said. “Looks bad. Of course, they can’t take him to a hospital.”

  “A doctor will be meeting up with us,” Marc said.

  Jamie shook his head. “Listen to me. You shouldn’t move him. He’s going to die if you do.”

  “We have no other choice.” Marc scowled at him. “You want war? This is Belfast during the Troubles, before you and I were born. This is tanks moving in on innocent people in their pajamas.”

  “This happened because of the guns,” Eriko said as she looked left, then right, and jerked her head at Holgar. “Get Jenn inside one of the vans.”

  “Where’s Antonio?” she asked.

  “I’m here,” he replied quietly, as Holgar half carried, half slid her into the black van with the tinted windows. There were no seats, only the floor, which was crammed with more blankets and weapons, and a large first-aid kit. Antonio had gathered up a dry blanket, and he gently wrapped it around Jenn. Her arm felt as if it had been set on fire, and she sucked in her breath.

  “Bien, bien, mi amor,” he said, wiping her forehead with a trembling hand, gazing down at her with his dark Spanish eyes. They held no fire; he’d gotten himself under control. Or else, in his fear, the fire had gone out.

  “Am I dying?” she asked.

  His lips parted. “No, never.” He grabbed her hand, squeezing so tightly she winced. He studied her face, his eyes half closed, and she felt herself slide farther away, as if she were in an elevator. She was cold.

  “Hey, how’d you get in here so fast?” Marc demanded, poking his head into the van. Then he was distracted, murmuring, “Easy with Lucky.” He left and went ahead to the white van.

  Father Juan climbed in next, then Holgar. Holgar slid the door shut, and the two vehicles rolled. Less than a minute had elapsed. By the light from the windows Jenn could see that dawn was approaching. Fighting not to whimper from the pain, she studied Antonio, who had wrapped himself in a blanket. The gathered material around his head looked like a monk’s hood.

  Holgar raised up on his knees, gazing out the tinted window. “Hold kaeft,” he said in Danish. Hazy with pain, Jenn grunted weakly. It was the Danish equivalent of “Holy shit,” and he hadn’t said it in a long time.

  “There are soldiers everywhere,” Holgar announced. “Heavily armed.”

  “And police officers,” Suzy said from the driver’s seat. “So you see, Marc wasn’t wrong.” She cleared her throat as if she knew she should change the subject. “When we get on the main road, you’ll see the billboards.”

  The van bumped along. Jenn was getting a headache, and she felt sick to her stomach. Antonio held her hand very tightly—too tightly, almost as if he was pinning her down rather than comforting her. She was bleeding. What was that doing to him?

  “Ja, I see the big road signs,” Holgar reported. “With slogans written in huge letters. This one says ‘Friends.’ And it shows a man and woman with big fangs smiling at an old lady and a kid.”

  “See that one? ‘Peace for All,’” Father Juan read, craning his neck. “Por el amor de Dios, look at that. A vampire with his arms spread, like Christ.”

  Antonio grunted.

  “‘Stand Up to the Resistance,’” Suzy intoned over her shoulder, as if she knew all the slogans by heart. “We’re the bad guys, hurting the nice vampires. Now that it’s pretty obvious that they’re the bad guys, no one has the guts to say any different.”

  Holgar growled low in his throat. “The world has gone mad.”

  The van hit another bump, then a pothole, and Jenn groaned. Antonio cupped her cheek. His skin was even colder than hers.

  “’Tonio,” she said, “this is messed up.”

  “No,” he began, and then he looked down at her. Points of scarlet light danced in his eyes. “Sí, Jenn, you’re right. It’s very messed up.”

  And hearing him say that made it worse. Wounded, scared, despairing, she began to weep. His fingertips were gentle against her face.

  “Oh, God, Antonio, what’s going to happen to my sister?” She dissolved into tears.

  He squeezed her hand as he stroked her forehead, her temple, her cheek. “Yo se.” I know. “God has a plan. I’m sure that He does.”

  “That does nothing,” she said between sobs, “to make me feel better.”

  “He is here, with His hands out, if you just take them.”

  And so am I, Antonio thought.

  But what he was was a vampire. A vampire who had served in the court of his sire and lord, Sergio. One of Sergio’s many vampiric subjects, who had savaged street girls and the waifs of Madrid for their blood. Unable to control his desires, his needs. Watching as a disobedient Maldito was tied to a pyre like a victim of the Inquisition, waiting for the sun to take him, finally, from the earth. Learning of the Cursed Ones’ gods, such as the one Sergio followed—Orcus, bringer of light, punisher of those who broke their vows. Hell gods, who promised to bring light to the darkness—like Lucifer, chief of all the gods of hell, the luminous one. Who, if he was seen in this life, would burn his witness to death. Blinded by the light—not by angels, but by demons. That was why vampires burned in daylight, or so it was said. And why humans burned too, only much more slowly.

  The van rolled on, as the sky lightened, and Antonio gazed down at Jenn. If he gave up his vows, if he let go of his rigid self-control . . .

  He would walk into the brightest day on the sunniest spot on the planet first. He’d face the light gladly, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, scattered on the wind.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It is a crusade, at least for most of us. A holy cause. We are dedicated to it. We will give our lives for it. We fight with the idealism of the young and struggle with the emotions and confusions of growing up at the same time. For us love and hatred can spin into life or death, especially for me, Jenn Leitner.

  And for some of us, death can never come. Which means this war can rage on . . .

  . . . forever.

  —from the diary of Jenn Leitner

  NEW ORLEANS

  THE HUNTERS AND THE RESISTANCE

  The van picked up speed, bumping and swerving, as Jenn drowsed. She dreamed she was walking along the beach, with Heather, warning her about the sharks.

  They can smell you, she said.

  And dream Heather replied, I know. I’m a shark now too.

  Jenn shouted herself awake. Antonio and Holgar were leaning over her, and the van door was open.

  “It’s all right,” Antonio soothed. His face was pinched with concern, and he looked very much the way she remembered him from her first day at the academy, hair long and curly, his face earnest. He wore his single earring with the ruby cross. His physical appearance was that of an older teen. That hadn’t changed.

  Father Juan had introduced him as a seminarian, a man studying to be a priest. He’d neglected to mention that Antonio had been a s
eminarian for over seventy years.

  “We’re parked in the shade,” Holgar said quietly. “So Antonio won’t get a sunburn.”

  She flashed them both a wan, weepy smile and sat up, surprised to find that her shirtsleeve had been pushed up around her elbow and her jacket slung across her shoulders. Her forearm had been bandaged and put in a sling that went around her neck, same as the submachine gun that was now gone.

  At her questioning expression Antonio said, “I did it. Field dressing.”

  “Let’s go,” Father Juan told them, poking his head into the van. “Antonio, the roof should shelter you, but go inside and move to the center of the house.”

  “Sí, Padre. Take care of her.”

  Holgar helped Jenn climb out of the van while Antonio waited. Her arm throbbed. They had parked beneath the overhang of an enormous ruined mansion. It was three stories tall, and blue and white paint flaked off graceful balconies encircling each floor, half destroyed by time and weather. Three dormer windows were centered in the sloping roof, which had caved in in many places. The rain had stopped, and clouds blanketed the sky. Antonio cautiously emerged next, ducking beneath the awning and positioning Jenn’s good arm over his shoulders.

  A door stood open, and Holgar held back, allowing Antonio to get inside. He looked uncomfortable—even the small amount of sun was too much for him. Moving swiftly into a corridor, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

  Holgar walked Jenn across a parquet floor gaping with holes to a burgundy-upholstered settee, the kind with a tilted headrest and a single padded side, made for lying on one’s side and reading, daydreaming. It was in beautiful condition, belying the ruins of the mansion it furnished. Jenn scrunched herself up so that her boots stayed off the upholstery, hanging in midair. It was supremely uncomfortable.

  She lay quietly, dozing, feeling weak, aware that she was the only hunter who had been wounded in the attack. She hadn’t moved fast enough, or been observant enough, or something. Closing her eyes, she spared thoughts for Lucky, even if she didn’t exactly pray.

  Why don’t I pray? Why can’t I believe? Crosses and holy water hurt them. He prays, and he’s untouched. Isn’t that proof enough that Antonio’s god is involved in this?

  Footsteps jerked her awake. Antonio was sitting with his back against the edge of the settee, keeping watch. Shadows had slid along the wall and spread across the floor.

  “Is this my other patient?” asked a plump, mocha-skinned woman. She was wearing a billowing black, purple, and white muumuu-like dress that concealed her feet. Her hair was caught up in a purple-and-black kerchief, and she wore large hoop enamel earrings decorated with big black crosses. A necklace of what had to be animal bones and chicken feet hung down over ample breasts.

  “Are you the doctor?” Antonio blurted, sounding incredulous.

  The woman smiled. “Doctor and voudou mambo. Voodoo woman,” she translated. “And let me tell you, cher, the drums are talking.”

  “How’s Lucky?” Jenn and Antonio asked in the same breath.

  The woman sighed and crossed herself. Antonio did the same.

  “Not good,” she confessed. “Father Juan is with him.”

  “Is he giving him last rites?” Antonio asked her. “What that means is—”

  “I know what last rites are,” she said. “I don’t know if he has . . . yet.”

  She cleared her throat. “But I’m here now for you, cher. You’ve waited a long time to see me.”

  The woman untied Jenn’s sling from behind her neck. The muscles in Jenn’s forearm seized as the woman straightened her arm and began to unwrap the dressing.

  “Nice work,” she said, and Antonio lowered his head. “You did it? Are you a paramedic?”

  “Of a sort,” he said.

  “I’m Alice Dupree, Marc’s maw-maw. That’s grandmother to you folks.”

  “Antonio de la Cruz, a sus órdenes,” he replied, inclining his head.

  “I’m just Jenn. Leitner,” Jenn said, flashing with anger as she remembered Aurora’s mocking tone. “Is this your house?”

  Alice sighed. “Oh, no, Just Jenn. Les Maudits took my house years ago. Killed Marc’s wife, too.”

  “I’m sorry for your losses,” Jenn said through clenched teeth, trying not to show how much pain she was in.

  “Maw-maw,” Marc said, striding into the room, planting a kiss on her cheek. He nodded to Antonio and Jenn. “How is she?”

  “Can’t say yet. Where you been?” she asked him.

  “Making sure everybody’s safe. We have to stay by here for a while. It’s too hot for us in the Quarter. And we got bad voudou after us. Hope you can lend a hand.”

  Alice frowned as she inspected Jenn’s arm. “How do you know you got voudou?”

  “Did you see the blonde with the crazy braids? Her name is Skye. She says she’s a witch, and I saw her make a ball of light. She was going to lead us to the new doyenne vampire in town, but she said something was blocking her. Then a bunch of vampires attacked us, and I’m wondering if they were tracking us through her.”

  Alice tsk-tsked and pursed her lips. “Could be. I’ll make some talk tonight, see what I can come up with. You help me, petit?”

  “Oui, Maw-maw, you know I will.” Marc watched a moment. “Bullet?”

  “Don’t know, baby; get my bag,” she said to Marc. “I’m a physician,” she assured Jenn. “I had a practice in Algiers, across the river. Mayor shut me down, said I was patching up the rebels.” She winked. “I was. Still am.”

  “Oh,” Jenn said.

  Marc left, returning with a large black leather bag, just like doctors had in old-timey movies, and Alice opened it.

  “I heard you are all from Spain. You don’t sound like you’re from Spain. Why don’t you tell me about it?” Alice asked Jenn.

  “I’m from California,” Jenn began. Then she felt a prick by her elbow, and her arm went numb from the funny bone down.

  “That’s just Lidocaine,” Alice said. “Now I’ll take a look around.”

  Marc leaned in closely. “Was she bitten?”

  “Or shot?” Antonio asked.

  “Doesn’t look like either. I’d say cut. I’m cleaning it out. Then a few stitches.”

  “Does she need a blood transfusion?” Antonio asked.

  “We don’t have any units here.” Alice’s voice was tight.

  Oh, God, she knows Antonio is a vampire, Jenn thought, tensing.

  “That boy, Lucky, lost a lot of blood,” Alice murmured. “He’s very young . . .”

  Of course, that was why she sounded so stressed. Not because of Antonio, but because a young boy might die. Jenn had to get a grip.

  Not until we have Heather back.

  “There, done. You’ll need to rest,” Alice told her, managing a small smile as scissors flashed and she held up a large needle and black suture thread. “Do you need something to help you sleep?”

  “Sí, she does,” Antonio broke in. “She’s been under a lot of strain, and she’s overtired.”

  “Jenn?” Alice asked pointedly, looking straight at her.

  If vampires attacked tonight, she had to be ready. She couldn’t be drugged. But Antonio had a point, patronizing as he was. She was overtired. She couldn’t stop worrying about Heather.

  “Can I have just a little something?” she asked. “Not to make me groggy, just to help me get to sleep. I might be needed.”

  “Yes, you might,” Alice replied. She rummaged in her black bag. “Here.”

  “I’ll get her some water,” Antonio said.

  He came back with a water bottle, and Alice gave her a small blue pill. She started to get sleepy almost immediately.

  “Thank you,” Jenn said faintly.

  Jenn’s eyelashes fluttered shut, and Antonio made the sign of the cross over her. Then he unfastened the Crusaders’ cross Father Francisco had blessed and given to him the night he had fallen half dead into the Salamanca chapel back in 1942, begging for sanctuary
—and put it around Jenn’s neck. His fingers brushed her pulsing vein there, and he shut his eyes against the wave of intense desire that roared through him. It didn’t have a shape—it wasn’t physical lust or a craving for her blood—he simply wanted.

  Antonio drew up a chair for a while, keeping vigil over Jenn as he had so many nights at the Academia. He was probably embarrassing her; she wore her insecurity about her role as a hunter like a patch on her sleeve. She tried hard to appear the equal of the others; didn’t she know that she was?

  Like the convent, the mansion had no electricity or running water, but as it had been used as a safe house for some time, there were battery-powered lights throughout. In the kitchen there was a propane stove and a refrigerator, and Suzy got to work preparing dinner. The mundane tasks attended to, Eriko, Marc, and Father Juan assembled to discuss strategy while Alice gathered together the ritual objects she needed to conduct her voodoo ceremony.

  There was a lot of coming and going, with most rebels checking in with Marc. Marc was the leader of the Resistance, but there were dozens of small cells of threes and fours all over New Orleans and its surroundings, making it harder to kill the movement if a safe house were discovered.

  Sighing, Antonio pulled his rosary from his pocket and held his beads, praying for Jenn, and the team, and the victory of humanity over his brethren.

  Though he had been changed, he had not converted in the religious sense: He had not embraced the faith of his vampire sire, Sergio Almodóvar, who worshipped Orcus, lord of the underworld and punisher of those who broke their oaths. In the eyes of Sergio, Antonio had broken the most basic of vampiric oaths—absolute loyalty to one’s maker. Instead he clung to the One True Faith, unsure if he could be saved from the fires of hell. The religion of Cursed Ones was not something understood or even heard of by most humans. Orcus was just one of the gods worshipped. It seemed as if each vampire worshipped a different one, fiercely loyal to that one alone. It was almost always the same god worshipped by their sire.

  Someone behind him cleared his throat; Antonio turned to find Father Juan standing respectfully with his head bowed. He raised a brow, and Father Juan crooked his finger, beckoning him to follow. Antonio wrapped his rosary beads around his fist and rose.