by Laura Legend
When the car finally stopped, Cass woke up, embarrassed by the drool she’d left on Richard’s shoulder.
Great, Jones, now you’re literally drooling on the man. Have a little dignity.
She smiled weakly in Richard’s direction and hopped out of the car.
The chapel was old—dating from the thirteenth century—but well preserved. More, it sat against the type of hill they expected.
Cass led the way. It was dark and the site was poorly lit. This time she didn’t hesitate to bring her mother’s sword. Part of her ached to swing the sword and feel its perfect balance and supernatural edge cut through whatever obstacles they might face—and part of her wanted nothing more than to go home, lock it in a closet, and never take it out again.
As far as any of them could see, they were alone. But, despite what their eyes indicated, it didn’t feel to Cass like they were alone. It felt like the chapel was watching them.
They made their way around to the side of the building. Unlike in Valencia, they weren’t interested in the chapel itself. They were interested in the adjoining graveyard. They were looking for the crypt where Richard’s poisoned Bishop was buried. The fake Vizzini had pointed them in this general direction, but he hadn’t been able to say exactly where to look or how to find the relic. Without some concrete clues, they’d be looking for a needle in a haystack.
But this was, after all, why they—well, Richard and the mystery person who had texted her—needed Cass. They might be able to narrow down the possibilities, but they needed her to get them across the finish line.
Fine, Cass thought, I’ve been playing Indiana Jones in the backyard since I was five. I can do the real thing now.
She glanced at Zach. “Let’s go.”
Then, before he could respond, she opened the gate.
The graveyard was tucked up against the side of the chapel. But it was small, much smaller than Cass had expected, and hemmed in by a relatively modern wrought iron fence. Some of the headstones were hundreds of years old, but most of them only dated from the 1800s. Doubtless, bodies had been buried on top of bodies for generations in this yard, but there weren’t any crypts in sight.
“Damn,” Cass said under her breath. “This is close, but it’s not what we’re looking for. A lot can change in six hundred years and the chapel feels right, but this isn’t the graveyard I saw in my vision.”
“I agree,” Richard said, kicking at a loose stone.
Miranda was hanging back near the entrance, keeping an eye on the street. Zach, meanwhile, had already wandered clear to the back of the yard. When he reached the fence, he swung himself over the top with a casual strength and kept walking.
“Zach,” Cass called.
Zach didn’t respond. He just kept walking.
Cass followed and jumped the fence herself. She followed him into the deeper darkness of the overgrown hill behind the chapel. He continued on about a hundred yards and then stopped. When she caught up with him, he touched her arm and pointed.
“There,” Zach said. “Do you see it?”
At first Cass couldn’t make anything out. But when she leaned in closer and looked straight down the length of Zach’s arm, she saw what he was pointing at: the ruins of a sprawling, forgotten graveyard were scattered through the tall grass and clumps of trees that covered the hillside.
Richard joined them. In the woods, at night, he moved without making a sound. When he spoke, Zach jumped, surprised.
“This is it,” Richard said, placing his hand in the small of Cass’s back. “This is the place we’re looking for.”
Cass nodded as she leaned back, just a hair, into his touch.
“Yes,” she confirmed, “yes it is.”
“Of course it is,” Zach interjected. “That’s why I pointed it out. And also,” he waved his hand at the ground in front of them, “that’s why there’s a big X marking the spot.”
Cass looked down, squeaked, and took a startled step back, bumping into Richard. She had to cover her mouth to stifle a laugh.
They were practically standing on the granite ruins of a headstone, shaped like an X.
“Close,” Cass said. “But it’s not quite an X.”
She grabbed Zach by the shoulders and moved him forty-five degrees to the right, until they were both looking right down the length of the X’s longest side.
“It’s better than an X. It’s a cross. And it’s pointing straight ahead.”
Cass pushed through the underbrush, ignoring the thorns. The broken headstone wasn’t magic, but it had orientated her to the shape of the hill and she could see, now, how to superimpose what she’d seen in her vision onto the ground in front of them.
The crypt they were looking for should be about thirty yards ahead, just to the left. Even though she kept her eyes peeled for any indication that she was on the right track, she still almost walked right past the crypt itself. The small structure lay in ruins, overgrown with weeds and almost reclaimed by the earth.
“Over here!” she called, unable to contain her excitement.
She cleared some of the brush and located the door.
She was about to grab the handle and give it a heave when a voice from the darkness interrupted her. Was it coming from the sky? Was God speaking to her?
No, it was coming from the trees.
“Thank you for your help,” the voice said. “Our master will be very pleased.”
And then, before Cass could react, the trees came alive and a score of vampires leapt from their branches.
32
Cass’s first thought—God help her—was to wonder if European vampires also dressed exclusively in black leather.
As the group’s leader fluttered to the ground in front of her in a long, black, leather trench coat, she was glad to see that a minor shift from the American-biker-gang vibe to an upscale-Italian-leather vibe hadn’t broken with the underlying trend. She appreciated consistency.
Okay, Jones, you can handle this. Just do what you did before.
Nineteen other vampires dropped from the trees, surrounding them.
Times twenty.
Without thinking, Cass reacted reflexively. The sword felt true in her hand as she took the offensive, sending the trench coat vampire spinning out of the way with a handful of opening strokes. As he spun, though, his coat flared dramatically, fanning out around him.
And that is why you don’t wear a trench coat to a sword fight, Cass thought.
She grabbed the coat’s long tail with her free hand, yanked the vampire back within the arc of her sword, and lopped off his head. Both head and body spontaneously dissolved into ash. The sword was so sharp, Cass barely felt any resistance as it sliced through meat and bone.
Having drawn first blood, the sword came alive in her hand. It shone with a smoky, white light that drifted upward off the blade. Cass could feel the light penetrate deep into the bones of her right hand and spread from the blade up her arm and into her heart, lungs, and head. Her weak eye focused and cleared and time expanded again, giving her room to see the truth and react to it. Her mother’s necklace glowed white hot between her breasts. From Cass’s point of view, the whole hillside was flooded with this same white light. The crypt she’d uncovered pulsed like a beacon. She could see the whole scene with perfect clarity.
“Uhh, Cass,” Zach said, touching her elbow. “Your eyes are … uh … burning? With light?
Cass cleared her throat.
“Right,” she said, as if she’d expected that all along.
She shrugged off her jacket and tossed it to one side.
“Which one of you is in charge now?” she asked, brandishing the sword.
The only response was some scattered hissing and a lot of scurrying around.
“Right,” she said. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
Before all hell could break loose, Cass tried to take stock of where Richard, Zach, and Miranda were positioned. Watching out for them—especially Zach, who even now spor
ted an inappropriately dopey grin—was going to complicate matters.
She tried to position herself defensively between Zach and the nearest vampire and did a double-take when she saw that Zach was sporting a pair of heavy oak truncheons. The business end of each truncheon was whittled to a sharp point and perpendicular handles were positioned about a third of the way down the shaft. They looked old, heavy, and unbreakable. And Zach spun them like he knew what he was doing.
Where the hell did my mild mannered friend from work go?
A vampire dressed in some kind of s-and-m fetish outfit launched itself at Zach. Cass moved to intercept it but was waylaid by two more coming from the other side. Zach, though, didn’t really need her help. He sidestepped the attack, clocked the guy in the head with a skull-cracking blow, and staked him in the heart just below his nipple ring.
Ash.
Cass was busy lopping an arm off one assailant and beheading the other, but she’d seen the whole sequence.
“Uhh, Zach,” Cass said.
“Yeah?”
“You’re a badass?”
“Uhh, yeah.”
“Right,” Cass concluded.
Things devolved quickly from there. The vampires decided their best tactic would be to just overrun the four of them with superior numbers.
Miranda didn’t look to be at her best but the green spell she wove and shouted was strong. She cast a shimmering green field around the four of them that their attackers had to fight through to reach them.
“Brilliant,” Cass called. Now they could deal with just a couple at a time while the others were still fighting their way through.
It didn’t take long, though, for company to start arriving.
Cass dispatched a pair of vampires—in matching leather pants and vests?—as they were still fighting through the wall.
One head, two heads. Ash.
But while she was doing this, three others made it inside. Miranda couldn’t help on this front. It took everything she had to keep the wall up.
Two of them went straight for Richard, one for Cass.
Richard leaned down and picked up a fist-sized stone, tossing it casually in the air with one hand. As the vampires closed, he grabbed the first by the shirt, swung him to the ground, and jumped off his back into the air. With the full force of gravity added to his strength, Richard punched down into the face of the other one with his rock, breaking bones. The vampire was stunned but not down. But before Richard could take advantage of his dazed state, the first vampire swept his legs out from under him and pinned him to the ground. He absorbed a couple of blows from Richard but kept him pinned. He was trying to get a grip on Richard’s head, but Richard bucked and squirmed.
As soon as the second one recovered, Richard would be in big trouble. Cass could already see the second one coming out of the corner of her eye when the vampire dissolved into a shower of ash to reveal Zach standing behind him. Zach had staked him in the heart from behind.
With a running start, Zach kicked the other in the head and sent him tumbling, freeing Richard. Richard scrambled, caught the vampire’s ankles, and held him down while Zach delivered the final blow. Another pile of ash.
“Thank you,” Richard rasped.
“You’re welcome,” Zach said, but then couldn’t stop himself from adding. “Asshole.” He extended a hand and helped Richard to his feet, then said in his ear, “And if you hurt her—in any way—I will do the same to you.”
Richard swallowed his first, angry response, and just nodded.
Gripping Zach by the shoulder he said again, “Thank you. And if you hurt her, I’ll do the same.”
“Fellas,” Cass called. “If you’re done bonding now, I could use a little help over here.”
Cass had called for some help, but it didn’t especially look like she needed it. Her sword flashed, the light poured off her like smoke, and she moved with uncanny speed and anticipation. A lifetime of training and her newly awakened gifts converged. Vampires were dropping like flies.
Miranda, though, was fading. Every ounce of her concentration was directed at maintaining the wall and she appeared to be totally oblivious to what was happening immediately around her.
Cass dispatched two vampires that were headed for Miranda. But the idea caught on and pretty soon every vampire through the wall was aiming for her. Cass struggled to fend them off but when one got too close, Cass was bumped into Miranda’s magic wall, with her sword hand trapped in its green, molasses light.
“Cassandra!” Richard called.
Zach took over the job of defending Miranda and Richard rushed to help Cass. Taking a cue from Cass’s own predicament, he shoved a vampire angling for Cass into the wall and trapped him there.
“Cass,” Richard said, taking her free hand. “Do you trust me?”
Cass hesitated for a moment, just as she had last time, and wondered if she truly did. She felt her connection to her power flicker in response.
What if you get the answer wrong, Jones? What if you don’t even know what you really think?
A look of regret flashed across Richard’s face as he registered her hesitation.
Screw it, Cass thought, trust isn’t a fact like a rock, it’s a choice.
“I trust you,” she said. And she was telling the truth.
Her power flared in a blaze of white light. Richard let go of her hand, grabbed a heavy tree branch off the ground, and swung right for Miranda’s head, knocking her unconscious. Miranda collapsed in a heap and the wall collapsed with her.
Cass was free.
There were only a handful of vampires left now and in a whirlwind of light and ash Cass finished them off.
Richard and Zach both just watched, frozen in place by the sheer destructive beauty of Cass’s movements.
Once she was done, though, Cass went straight for Miranda. She cradled her head.
“Miranda,” Cass whispered. “Miranda, can you hear me?”
Miranda didn’t stir. She lay limp in Cass’s arms.
“Miranda,” she called again, wiping away tears with the heel of her hand.
Cass bent over and touched her forehead to Miranda’s and, when she did, her necklace, still glowing white, swung free of her shirt and brushed Miranda’s cheek.
Miranda’s eyes snapped open.
“Are we safe?” she asked.
“Yes,” Cass said, “we’re safe. Thanks to you.”
33
Richard grabbed hold of the door to the crypt and gave it a pull. It didn’t budge. It was stuck fast. So he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
“You’re literally rolling up your sleeves,” Cass teased.
“Yes,” he said. Glancing back over his shoulder, he added defensively, “It’s a very English thing to do.”
He planted his feet wide at the base of the door, grabbed the handle with both hands, and pulled again. For a moment, nothing happened—nothing except his shoulders and biceps straining against the fabric of his shirt. Then he tore the whole door from its hinges and tossed it aside.
Zach busied himself steadying Miranda and pretended not to notice that feat of strength.
Where the door had been, a dark hole in the ground opened like a mouth onto a set of stairs that descended into the crypt.
Cass exchanged looks with Zach, then Miranda, then Richard. They all silently agreed that there was nothing to be done now but descend into the darkness.
She was worried, though, about what might be waiting for them down there.
What if there are werewolves down there, Jones, she thought. Are werewolves a thing? Would Miranda and Richard laugh at her if she brought it up, as if she were somehow supposed to know that witches and vampires were real but that, of course, werewolves were totally imaginary? And what about leprechauns? Or unicorns? Were those a thing?
That train of thought was going nowhere, so Cass let it go and turned back to the business at hand.
“Zach, stay here with Miranda and rest for a few mi
nutes. There’s no reason to haul you both into the dark with me.”
Zach wanted to disagree but, feeling Miranda’s weight lean against him, he bit his tongue.
Miranda, on the other hand, just looked grateful.
Then Cass looked squarely at Richard.
“You, though,” she said, “are expendable. You’re coming with me.”
They started to go, but Zach interrupted them.
“Wait,” Zach said, holding out a truncheon to Richard, “take this.”
Richard nodded and accepted it gratefully.
Cass led the way into the dark. Her powers had cooled, but she still gave off a faint glow. And, in particular, her mother’s blade and necklace left a wispy trail of light as she descended the steps. Richard stayed close behind. Cass turned on her phone’s flashlight app and Richard did the same.
They only had to descend half a flight of stairs until they’d reached the floor of the crypt itself.
In the center of the floor, there was a heavy stone box containing the bishop’s coffin. Apart from the box, there wasn’t much else to see.
To Cass’s eyes, the pulsing light of the crypt was less dramatic now than it had been earlier, but the box was definitely its epicenter. And the closer they got, the more obvious it was to Cass that her pendant was pulsing in sync.
Richard moved to slide the stone lid off the box, but a cross was chiseled into the length of it. Cass saw him waver and took the initiative, pushing hard until the lid slid off with a rumbling groan. Reaching inside the box, she lifted the coffin lid and there, in all his rotted glory, was the one-time bishop of Montgat. And there, around his neck, was the relic that she’d seen in her vision.
She leaned in and, with a handkerchief, lifted it from the coffin, the string from which it had hung disintegrating in her hands. She held it up in the light for Richard to see.
“This is the real thing,” Cass affirmed, though she could hardly believe it. In forty-eight hours she’d gone from having an abandoned and discredited dissertation about Christian relics to having, in her personal possession, two authentic fragments of the One True Cross.
