Books 1–4

by Nancy A. Collins

  Father Eamon picked his way through the wreckage left by the riots; fire had wiped out many of the neighborhood’s tenements, reminding him of the newsreels of the Battle of Britain he’d seen as a boy. Corpses littered the sidewalks and the stink of blood and smoke filled the morning air. The majority of the dead were human, dressed in the identifying colors of the Five Points Gang and the Black Spoons. Several of the gang members looked like they had been torn limb from limb. He glanced up and spotted a pair of Nikes dangling from a telephone line, the owner’s feet still inside. Scattered amongst the carnage was the occasional fleshless skeleton with oversized canines, proving that Death had come for the devil’s own as well as the sons of Adam. He knew it was his duty as a priest to go among the dead and administer last rites, but the task was a daunting one.

  Everywhere he looked, he saw nothing but ruin. While the Dance Macabre on the Street With No Name appeared relatively untouched, Rackham’s Pool Hall had been reduced to a charred and gutted shell. Father Eamon noticed with a twinge of panic that the liquor store he frequented had been looted and torched as well, along with the handful of bodegas that served for what passed as Deadtown’s business community.

  The priest’s mind kept turning back to the creature in the basement of St. Everild. He was certain now, more than ever, that she was responsible for the destruction that surrounded him. Was the woman a demon or an angel of the pit? He wished he could be certain of her motivations. What the old hippie had told him confused him even further. Could a monster have a soul? Could an angel cause the innocent to suffer? And what did it mean that he—the most wretched of sinners—was the one to whose door she came crawling?

  He found her where he’d left her, curled up in a fetal position on the pile of moldy vestments. Her skin was cool and dry to the touch, like that of a snake, and she did not appear to be breathing. At first he was afraid she was dead, but when he prodded her with his foot she moved sluggishly and one of her eyelids flickered open, exposing a blood-filled white. Satisfied she was what passed for alive amongst her kind, he headed back upstairs.

  As he knelt at the altar-rail, he realized his hands were shaking. He closed his eyes and bowed his head even lower, praying for forgiveness and strength This was the first day in years he’d gone without a drink. He cursed himself for being weak and using alcohol to hide from himself, if not his God. His body trembled and his tongue felt as dry as sandpaper in his mouth. The saints looked down at him from their reliquaries in silent reproach.

  “What am I to do?” he asked the image of the Virgin Mary. “What is it that God wants of me? Am I to help the creature or destroy her? How am I to know His will? Give me a sign: weep tears, sweat blood—just do something.”

  He held his breath, awaiting a reply, but received only silence, as he had every day for the last twelve years.

  “Padre—?”

  Father Eamon started upright, his muscles cramping from the sudden action. Disoriented, he glanced up at the stained-glass windows, and was startled to see it was already dusk. He must have fallen asleep.

  Sonja was standing at the end of the nearest pew. Although pale to begin with, she managed to look unhealthy even for the undead. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’m fine,” he replied. “I was lost in prayer, that’s all. What are you doing up? You shouldn’t be walking about.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” she grunted, easing herself into the pew. “But I hate being cooped up.”

  Father Eamon got to his feet, wincing as the blood rushed back to his legs. “I saw your friend. He said he would help.”

  “Eddie’s an okay guy,” she grunted. “I just hope he doesn’t get nabbed by Esher’s goons. The bastard knows I wasn’t in the Black Lodge, and he’s not the kind to forgive and forget. I killed his lieutenant and stole his bride. He hates me more than he ever hated Sinjon. He won’t rest until he knows I’ve been destroyed.” She gave a dry laugh and thumped her chest. “I can feel his blood calling to me. It’s taking what little strength I have left not to get up and walk right back into his stronghold.”

  “You really should go lie back down,” Father Eamon said insistently. “You look like Death warmed over.”

  “You really know how to flatter a girl,” she laughed, pushing her sunglasses back up her nose. It was a surprisingly human gesture. “I’ll stay here for awhile, if it’s all right with you.” She glanced around, taking in the cracked stained glass, the toppled pews and the layers of dust. “Nice place you got. How long you been here?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “Don’t take this wrong, Father—but are you a real priest?”

  Eamon surprised himself by chuckling. “I can certainly understand why you’d ask that, given my circumstances. But to answer your question, I was ordained in 1975.” He glanced up at the cross, then back down at her. “I hope you don’t mind me asking something personal; but were you religious before you, um, before you, uh…”

  “Before I became what I am?” She suggested helpfully. Sonja looked thoughtful for a long moment. “I don’t think so. I mean, her family was as religious as your average American—which is to say, not very.”

  “Why do say ‘her’?” he asked. “Are you not the same person?”

  “It’s complicated,” she sighed. “The girl I used to be never died, but she didn’t survive what was done to her, either. I can remember every detail of her life, but it’s as if I watched it on a TV show, not actually experienced it. Like I said, I’m neither one thing or another. I’m a thing unto myself; a species of one. I can walk in the daylight and feed off the negative emotions of humans, as well as all the usual vampire bullshit. Some might even go so far as to say I possess superpowers.”

  “What do you think you are?”

  “I’m a monster who hunts monsters, and leave it at that,” she replied with a wry smile. “So, who is this Saint Everild when he’s at home?”

  “Everild is a female saint,” he replied. “But beyond that, no one really knows that much about her, save that she lived in England in the Seventh Century and that she founded an abbey. But no one remembers why she is a saint, and all traces of her convent have disappeared, and no traditions have preserved the memory of its site. An appropriate patron for a No Man’s Land like Deadtown, don’t you think?

  “I had heard stories about this place since I was an altar boy. There’s no documentation anywhere concerning St. Everild’s construction and consecration, but the legend goes that it is almost as old as Deadtown. Some said it was raised as a challenge to the dark powers that rule this place, while others claim the Holy See created it as a holding pen for its more troublesome clerics. All I know is that it was officially abandoned fifty years ago.”

  “So what are you doing here?” she asked.

  Father Eamon rubbed his mouth and glanced over at the statue of the Virgin Mother. Christ, he really needed a drink right at that moment. With a deep groan, he sat down beside her in the pew. He stared into the stranger’s mirrored gaze and saw the twinned reflection of what he’d become. Perhaps it was time, after all these years, to finally tell the tale.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got time,” she assured him.

  “I never really knew my parents. My mother was very young when she died of rheumatic fever. I was barely three months old at the time. Three years later, my father was killed in a traffic accident. After that I was sent to live with family. My aunt and uncle were good enough people, I suppose—but they were too old and set in their ways. They did not know what to do with me, except put me to work on their farm. They did not beat me or abuse me—at least no more than was considered normal back then. They treated me well, but I was never anything more than an obligation to them. I proved to be a good student, but it was difficult for me to make friends. My aunt and uncle did not dance. They did not listen to music. They did not entertain.
But they did go to Mass. It was there I met Father Raymond.

  “Father Raymond looked at me and saw a lonely, friendless boy, and took me under his wing. That is, after all, a parish priest’s role—to be father to all children. It was he who encouraged my scholastic ability and arranged a scholarship to Loyola University. Over the years he showed me nothing but kindness and support, and when the time came, I decided I wanted to become a priest just like him.

  “I wanted to help orphaned children find themselves, much as Father Raymond had helped me. My first few years in the priesthood were spent teaching in various parochial schools for the underprivileged. Then I was sent to St. Ivo’s Orphanage. It was not a particularly well-funded institution, and the Director’s duties were largely taken up with fundraising, so the priests and brothers who oversaw the welfare of the children weren’t overly supervised.

  “I came to notice how the hands of one of the other priests, a Father Marten, seemed to linger when he touched some of the younger boys. He also had an extreme interest in making sure none of the boys’ underwear bore signs of “self-pollution.” Then one of Father Marten’s favorites—a six-year-old with the face of an angel—was adopted by a long-lost relative. Apparently the boy said something to his new family that aroused their suspicions, and the police were notified. The Director went to the bishop, who managed to smooth things over. However, Father Marten was removed from St. Ivo’s and, so I believed, the priesthood.

  “I remained at the orphanage four more years, and then I was transferred to St. Levan’s. You can imagine my shock when I discovered Father Marten teaching there. I went to the Director of the orphanage, only to be accused of being a troublemaker. I tried my best to keep an eye on the children and see that no harm came to them—but in the end I failed.” He stopped and took a deep, shuddering breath and turned his face to the rafters. His eyes blinked rapidly for a few seconds as he struggled to regain his voice. “There was a boy named Christopher. He was four years old. He was an absolutely beautiful child. It broke your heart just to look at him.” The priest’s voice wavered. The memories were too much. Even after all these years, the pain was still sharp, the wound still fresh. He closed his eyes, but the image was still there, only now there was no whiskey to dull the edge. He wiped the tears from his face with a shaky hand. “I found him in the coat closet. His underpants were shoved so far down his throat he choked to death on them. I went looking for Father Marten. I found him in the basement, burning his clothes in the furnace. There was blood all over them. When I accused him of raping and murdering Christopher, the bastard attacked me with a coal shovel. Father Marten might have been a terror to small boys, but he was no match for a grown man. I got the shovel away from him…” The priest’s eyes narrowed and his face became rigid, like a man reliving the pain of unanesthetized surgery. “I knew that what he had done would be swept under the carpet, just like at St. Ivo’s. At best he would be defrocked. At worst they would simply ship him to a new parish, to start afresh. Either way children were in danger. Children like Christopher. So I beat his brains in with the shovel.

  “The same veil of secrecy that protected Father Marten from the consequences of his actions also protected me. I was relieved of my duties and sent on a long sabbatical to an isolated sanitarium. After six months, I signed myself out and claimed the small inheritance my aunt and uncle had left me.

  “I’d heard the stories about a ‘church of the damned’ while I studying at the seminary. It took me years of wandering to finally locate it, here in Deadtown. I figured if I belonged anywhere, it was here. Every night for the last twelve years I drink myself into oblivion, and every morning I pray for a sign from God that I have been forgiven. But I know it will never come, because I am not truly sorry for my trespasses. A priest is supposed to hate the sin but love the sinner. But as I stood listening to Father Marten try to explain himself—claiming that the boy had seduced him into sin—I felt no pity for his corrupted soul. There was nothing of God in me when I brought that shovel down on his head. I feel no joy for what I did, yet I feel no remorse, either.

  “My soul is indeed stained with the blood of another, but not that of Father Marten. Every night for the last twenty years, when I close my eyes, I still see Christopher lying there, cold and dead. Sometimes I wake up, choking as he must have choked in those last horrid moments of life. Everything that made me a priest died that day. I’m one of the damned, now. That’s why I sought Deadtown out. This is where I belong.” He suddenly stood up from the pew, his face gray as clay. “Please excuse me. I need some air. I’ll be in the bell tower.”

  Eddie scanned the alley, anxiously switching the cooler from his right to his left hand and back again. Tracking down the black-market blood dealer had taken up most of his day. The sun was already starting to set by the time he’d bought what he needed. Taking a stroll wasn’t the safest thing to be doing this time of night, but he had no choice. He’d promised to get her the blood, and he intended to stick to his word. Now all he had to do was make it to the church without getting nabbed by Esher’s goons. As he stepped out of the alley, a burly Pointer materialized from the shadows as if on cue, blocking his way.

  “Yo! Look what we got here, cuz!”

  A second, equally large Pointer emerged from the darkness behind Eddie. “Hey, old man! Don’t you know you’re under curfew?”

  Eddie shifted uneasily as they moved to circle him. “On whose orders?”

  “King Hell hisself: Esher, the fuckin’ Lord of Deadtown!” grinned the first Pointer. He jabbed a thick finger at the cooler Eddie was carrying. “Whatchoo got there, motherfucker?”

  “Nothing you’d be interested in, I promise you—just let me go, okay?”

  The second Pointer loomed closer, scowling menacingly. “He asked you what’s in the fuckin’ cooler, old man.”

  As the gang-member reached for the cooler, Eddie sliced at his hand with his Buck knife, severing the bigger man’s thumb. Eddie shot past the Pointer as he clutched his spurting hand, only to be tackled by his body, who knocked him to the ground with bone-jarring force. He cried out as his collar bone snapped.

  “I’ll fuckin’ kill your ass!” The Pointer with the missing thumb bellowed, kicking the old hippie hard enough to lift him off the ground.

  A third gang-member came trotting up, drawn by the yells. “What’s goin’ on here?”

  “This asshole fuckin’ cut me! That’s what’s goin’ on!” the wounded Pointer snarled, delivering another vicious kick to Eddie’s midsection.

  “What’s this?” the newcomer asked, pointing to the cooler.

  “Probably his hooch,” the one who did the tackling replied. “Ain’t nobody’ left in Deadtown but the hardcore alkies and junkies.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I could definitely use a drink,” the newcomer said, flipping open the lid. His look of anticipation was quickly replaced by one of revulsion upon spying the bag of human plasma inside. “Take him to Lord Esher. Now.”

  Esher sat on his dais, chin on fist, and stared into nowhere. After long years spent scheming, plotting, and planning, he was finally the unchallenged ruler of Deadtown. Sinjon’s drug trade, along with millions upon millions of dollars, was now his. At long last he was finally the most powerful Noble in America. But instead of the joy that come from grinding an enemy into the dust, there was only emptiness and ashes. What good was his triumph without Nikola, or even Decima, to share in his success?

  The fact that the traitor Sonja continued to elude capture made the situation all the more galling. He did not relish being played for a fool. The mirror-eyed bitch was going to pay dearly for what she cost him. There was a nervous cough, and he looked up from his reverie to frown at the Pointer standing in front of him, holding one of those plastic coolers that did double-duty as a lunch pail.

  “We’ve captured a prisoner, milord—one we thought you should see for yourself.” The Pointer m
otioned to his companions, who dragged an older man dressed in a blood-stained tie-dyed t-shirt into the audience chamber. Esher recognized their captive as the same man who had rescued the boy. “We found this piece of shit breaking curfew. Look at what he was carrying on him,” the gang-member explained, handing over the bag of plasma.

  Esher eyed the blood like a connoisseur studying a wine label, then turned his attention to his captive. “I told Sonja to destroy you. And yet here you stand before me. Tell me where she is, old man, and I’ll let you live.”

  “Fuck off, asshole!” Eddie spat. “You’re not getting a thing outta me!”

  Esher’s smile was as thin and sharp as a razor. “I wouldn’t be so certain of that, if I were you.”

  Sonja sat propped in the church pew, staring at the shadows cast by the flickering light of the votive candles. It was strange, feeling yourself die one cell at a time. She wondered how long it would continue before her consciousness would finally be obliterated. Maybe it wouldn’t. Perhaps that was the curse of the undead—to die and remain aware the whole while, experiencing your own rot in full detail yet helpless to stop it. That was a cheery thought.

  Suddenly the door that lead to the bell tower banged open and Father Eamon hurried back into the sanctuary, his face beet red. “They’ve got him!” he gasped. “I saw it from the belfry! They captured Eddie!”

  “That’s it, then,” Sonja said, pulling herself up onto wobbly leg. “There’s no point in delaying the inevitable.”

  “What are you doing?” Father Eamon asked as he moved to block her path.

  “I’m going to help Eddie.”

  “But you said you don’t stand a chance without blood!”