by Paul Freeman
“Pastor’s just a man. One old man,” he said and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
They ran through the corridors and halls of the monastery, their boots echoing off the floors. They no longer cared what noise they made; the vampires were going to ground as the sun began its inexorable arc across the sky. Asbeel had led his creatures of darkness into the monastery to kill them and had somehow made the ultimate mistake for a vampire – to be trapped when the sun climbed out of hiding.
When they reached the entrance of the crypt the door was slightly ajar. “Did you leave it open when you came out?” Pastor turned to Jeb.
“I… I don’t remember.” He turned to Eva for help.
“I don’t think so, but maybe. We were in a hurry.”
“You sure this is going to work?” Pastor slung the crossbow off his back and loaded a quarrel.
“It is the weapon of a Venator, God’s own warriors, and carried into battle many times.”
Pastor nodded but his face said he wasn’t convinced. He pulled back the door and peered into the gloom.
“If he’s down there will he be sleepin’? Or whatever the hell it is they do,” Jeb asked, his voice quivering slightly.
“If he was a normal feeder, sure, any of the nests I’ve come across they’ve all been unconscious during the day, it takes a lot to wake them up. But this one is different.”
“Yes, he is very different. He is a child of the Nephilim and not subject to the laws of man or beast, but he is a creature of darkness and like those other vampires cannot tolerate daylight. He will be weakened but it is unlikely he would allow himself to become so vulnerable that a state of sleep would bring,” Eva said.
“You sure do know a lot about this stuff, ma’am,” Jeb said.
“Too much,” she answered softly.
“Both of you stay here,” Pastor said as he placed one foot onto the top step.
“No way, that thing might not be alone down there,” Jeb said.
“God damn,” Pastor cursed. He used a torch to light others lining the walls of the stairs in sconces; a dozen flickering glows lighting their way as they progressed down the steps.
“Them torches was lit when we left,” Jeb whispered. “What the hell is that smell?” he then added.
“The smell of death,” Eva said.
“This is one God damned creepy place.”
When they reached the bottom of the stairs the chamber smelled of dust and time, and the added stench of decay. He touched the flame of his torch to two others either side of the passage, giving illumination to the ancient catacomb. Pastor could see numerous wooden boxes held in recesses along the walls, all of them so old the wood looked as if it would disintegrate at a touch.
“Do we open the coffins?” Jeb asked softly.
Pastor shook his head as he stepped deeper into the chamber, lighting more torches as he passed them. Jeb and Eva followed both of their faces tight with tension. “You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered in Eva’s ear as he leaned in close to her. Her answer was to draw an ornate dagger from the folds of her gown.
Slowly they crept along the chamber, checking each recess as they progressed. Pastor took one side, with Eva inches behind him. Jeb took the other, sweat trickled down his face as he cautiously peered into each gap in the wall, checking to see if any of the coffins had been disturbed. Pastor passed his torch to Eva and notched a bolt to the crossbow, his finger trembling as it hovered over the trigger. He could sense the woman behind him. Her scent a gentle fragrance of the forest floated in the air between them, almost masking the stench of decay prevalent in the crypt – almost.
They moved slowly and carefully, chasing away the shadows with their flickering torches. Pastor could feel the heat from the flames on his neck as Eva gently swung hers into a black alcove containing an old wooden box coated in dust with a silky shroud of ancient cobwebs, the final resting place of a long forgotten monk. When they reached the end they looked at each other in silence, unwilling to move, afraid to breathe.
“Maybe he hid someplace else,” Jeb finally said. Eva simply shook her head.
Pastor looked into the dark eyes of the woman; he saw fear borne from a certainty that their enemy was close. He found himself inclined to agree with her. “We’ll need to search the coffins,” he said and felt sympathy with the horror and fear he saw on Jeb’s face.
He felt a breeze caress his cheek then and the torches flickered. A thrill of fear ran down his spine, its iciness making him shiver. Eva’s hand gripped his arm, her fingers digging into him, pinching him. His mind was filled with images of blood and death; of men and monsters he’d slain since the Fall; of people he’d known who’d lost their lives and their souls to the beast. He felt the weight of guilt and despair pressing down on him. What was he but a man, not even a man of God, he’d walked away from that path, not willingly but away nonetheless, just a man. He could see the face of Asbeel, beautiful and cruel, in his mind – the son of a demon begot by an angel on a human woman – how could he stand against such a foe? He felt an almost overwhelming urge to fall to his knees and shout out that he was just a man, weak and soft. The Lord chose to abandon His flock to the wolves, He turned his back on all that He had professed to love in favor of a darkness that had betrayed Him and corrupted the world He created for His children. The world would be ruled by beasts once banished to the shadows, once thought to be creatures of imagination and superstition. Who was he to say he could stop such a tide of darkness?
He was just a man.
He felt Eva’s breath on his cheek, inhaled the sweetness of her. Her voice shook off the cloud of doom, bringing light to the veil of darkness. “He’s here. I can feel him in my mind.”
Pastor nodded and shook Jeb who appeared to have slipped into some kind of trance, staring wide-eyed into the gloom, looking at nothing but seeing too much. He jerked and blinked. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Jeb answered, but didn’t sound too sure.
A shift in the air, a dimming of light and a cold shadow fell from above. The vampire was lightning quick, making Pastor curse as he tried to raise the crossbow and aim. He cursed his age, although he doubted he’d come close to matching the speed of the vampire even in his prime. He cursed the darkness of the crypt, even with the torches throwing out a pulsating glow of golden light. He cursed God for deserting them. He cursed his own eyesight and poor reflexes. But most of all he cursed the dark demon who was more cunning than any he’d faced before, who hid in the shadows above them while they searched below.
Before Pastor could loose a shot the vampire had wrapped Eva in its snare, encircling her with its long arms, placing her between them. He’d barely made a sound as he fell upon them; the most deadly of hunters. Its razor sharp fangs gleamed in the torchlight as he opened his jaws. Eva squirmed to be free of his grip, but might as well have been fighting to free herself from the iron grip of a vise. Asbeel sunk his fangs into the exposed flesh of her neck. She screamed as blood spurted from the wound, drenching both the vampire and his victim. In moments her pallor paled as strength and life drained from her eyes. Asbeel flung her away from him then as if he was discarding a life-sized doll. He spat out a stream of blood; the dusty floor greedily drank the crimson pool leaving behind a dark stain. “Tainted,” he snarled in disgust, sneering at the woman who now lay stricken on the ground.
Pastor squeezed the trigger of the unfamiliar weapon. His hands were shaking at the awesome speed the vampire had demonstrated when he fell upon them. In a couple of heartbeats Eva was on the floor dead or dying, he didn’t know which. His heart was pounding wildly as he fought to control the terror flooding through him in waves of icy knots. For the second time he missed. “God damn it!” he snarled, already fumbling for a second arrow.
Jeb was beside him in an instant and flung his hunting knife. The sound of his roars were deafening as they echoed around the enclosed chamber. The knife hit the demon in the chest knocking him back against the
wall. Dark malevolent eyes regarded them coldly.
“I’ll kill you last and enslave your soul for all time,” Asbeel’s voice rumbled as he spoke the words sending fear lancing through both men. Both knew the vampire spoke truth. If he were to feed on either of them their souls would be lost to the darkness for eternity.
Before they had time to stir Asbeel was on Jeb. Long claw-like nails pressing against his chest. Pastor remembered George’s gruesome death and lunged at the vampire, a desperate bid to save the life of his friend, ignoring the threat to his own. “Not this time you son of a bitch,” he growled, pulling the wooden stake from his belt.
From the depths of some evil, demonic dimension Asbeel seemed to sense the danger and dropped Jeb and backhanded Pastor with a forceful blow, lifting the one-time preacher from his feet and slamming him against the wall. The vampire leaped onto him then. Pastor could smell the blood and rot from him; the stench caught his breath in a suffocating grip.
“You’re mine now.” His grin was a humorless exposure of fangs still stained with Eva’s blood.
Pastor felt despair wash over him. He was not afraid to die; he was not even frightened for his eternal soul. It was knowledge that wrapped him in a mantle of depression; the knowledge of who the real enemy was, of the hopelessness of the cause of man. That beyond the darkness of the feeders and the Fall lay a far deeper evil that few would ever understand. This hopelessness leeched all strength from his arms and any willingness to fight for survival. That is what the vampires do, that is their deadliest of weapons.
Eva stirred beside him and Jeb loomed over him. They had not given up the fight and nor would he. With all the effort he could summon he rammed the stake – a simple piece of sharpened wood that had broken from an ancient cross and carried through the millennia by warriors and priests – into the chest of Asbeel. The vampire’s face creased into shock and he fell back. Pastor pushed himself up, ignoring the stinging pain in his legs, and the agonizing aches all over his body, and pushed harder on the stake. He could feel the point grating on bone. Were the bones of demons any different to those of man? The vampire seemed helpless to retaliate or even resist. Its flesh began to blister and burn where the tip of the wood pierced its body. Black blood seeped from the wound in thin streams. With a final shove Pastor forced the wooden stake through the breastbone of Asbeel and pierced his black heart. Both of them fell on the ground with Pastor on top of Asbeel.
The demon died with his black eyes on his killer and with barely a whimper to mark his passing. Pastor rolled away from body and onto his back where he gulped air into his heaving chest.
“Pastor? You okay, Pastor?” Jeb knelt beside him.
He looked into the eyes of the man who’d accompanied him into Hell and forced a smile. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“If you say so.”
He heard a rustle of cloth on stone and turned towards Eva. She shifted in the shadow of the wall. The torch she carried lay some distance from her lying in its own pool of golden light. Pastor leaped up – if dragging an aching body off the floor could be called leaping – and ran to where she lay. The top of her gown was soaked in blood where it had flowed freely from the wound on her neck. “Stay still,” he said softly and turned her head as gently as he could to examine her wound. He was surprised to see she had stopped bleeding and if anything the wound seemed to have healed somewhat, not a lot, but more than he would have believed in such a short time.
“I’m tired,” she said then, her words coming out in a whisper.
“It’s okay. Your wound has stopped bleeding, you can pull through this,” Pastor said.
“No. I’m tired of living. I will not die from the bite of a vampire, I have too much of their blood flowing through me. I want to die.”
Pastor looked at her, searching her eyes for the sincerity in her words, not really knowing how to respond.
“Pastor,” Jeb said and pointed towards the vampire’s body. It had turned to black dust while he was tending to Eva.
“Good riddance,” he muttered.
“You can do it.” His attention snapped back to the Spanish woman. “You can end my eternal suffering. You are a Venator now, God’s own warrior. Do it, Michael, kill me. I curse the day I drank that evil potion.” She closed her eyes and put her head back on the hard, dusty ground. “Please,” she whispered.
Pastor’s hand reached for the stake, still stained with the black blood of Asbeel. It felt warm and solid in his hand. He still had not come to terms with the fact the piece of wood in his hand came from the cross of Christ, may even have been touched by his flesh, his blood. He opened the top button of Eva’s gown, her chest rose and fell as she breathed in the stale air of the crypt. Her eyes were closed; the lids twitched as he brought the stake up and examined it. The holiest of relics, now a weapon infused with the power of God. A weapon to combat evil, to drive the servants of Satan from the world. Not to kill women whose mistake was to trust in the honesty of the church. “No,” he simply said, dropping the stake. He caressed her forehead and as carefully as he could wiped the blood from her face and neck.
“Then I shall remain alone forever,” she said in a resigned tone. A tear pushed its way through her long dark eyelashes and trailed down her cheek.
They buried George in a small, overgrown graveyard inside the monastery walls. It had been sometime since a fresh grave was dug there and most of the gravestones were hidden from view by the veil of time and the advance of nature. Pastor said a few simple words and prayed to the Lord to find a place for a brave man in his own house.
“The girl?” Pastor asked as he and George prepared to leave the following morning.
“Gone. She may come back or she may not,” Eva answered.
He took her hands in his own. “You can come with us. Why stay here?” he said.
“I don’t belong anywhere,” she said, her words tinged with sadness. “You could stay here,” she said, looking up sharply.
He shook his head. “My place is with the people who need me. But it is not so far that I cannot visit.”
“I’d like that.” She smiled then, a radiant beaming smile that warmed his heart and stirred something inside him he thought long dead.
“Stay safe, Eva Gonzalez Castello.”
“Stay safe, Pastor Michael, warrior of God.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
They took their time heading back towards Colony. It was a journey that would take them a few days and would necessitate taking shelter at night to avoid any unwanted nocturnal visits. Both men had had their fill of feeders for a lifetime.
“You think she’ll survive on her own?” Jeb asked as he and Pastor settled down to a sparse meal of smoked meat and bread Eva had given them before they left the monastery. A small fire crackled and danced between them as their shadows stretched up the walls of the abandoned church Pastor often used on his travels.
“She’s survived a hell of a long time so far,” Pastor said.
“You believe her? You think she’s lived for hundreds of years?”
Pastor shrugged. “She says so.”
“I didn’t believe in vampires until I saw one of ’em suck the blood from a guy right in front of me. When you see somethin’ like that with your own eyes you’ll start believin’ in most things.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“It’s hard to remember a world without feeders… a world without fear.”
“It is,” Pastor said.
“Yeah.” Jeb poked the fire with a stick, sending sparks spiraling into the air. “I miss that freedom. And laughing, there is no joy left in the world. What would you bring back if you had a choice?”
Pastor thought about the question before answering. “Hope,” he said and settled down on his rolled out blanket. Beside him was his shotgun and automatic pistol, neither of which he had any ammunition for, his cavalry saber, the ancient crossbow and a simple wooden stake older than any of the rest of the weapons. Older than anything he’d eve
r owned… or even held.
The next morning they set out for Colony. The sun rose steadily into a blue sky as they rode across the plains. They rode in silent companionship mostly, each man with his own thoughts, dissecting and handling the horrors they’d seen and experienced over the past few days in his own way. Good men had given their lives and Pastor could not help but wonder if it had been worth it. He’d made some new discoveries and been gifted some powerful weapons in the battle against the vampires. And a title: Venator – Hunter. It did not sit well with him. The weight of responsibility bore down on him. Would it crush him? Only time would tell.
“You’ll see your girl soon,” he said, pushing the dark thoughts from his mind.
“Yeah, she’s a good kid, but damn it I hope she hasn’t gotten herself into trouble again.”
“She learned a hard lesson I think,” Pastor said. Jeb simply nodded and retreated back into his own thoughts.
When they reached the cornfield all was quiet. Daylight was beginning to seep from the sky and it was no surprise to find no one working in the field. Pastor felt a thrill of anxiety flow through him at the thoughts of home; a strange cocktail of joy and sadness, happy to be home yet with a heavy heart at the thought of facing the families of the men who’d died following him. Never again, he decided, would he lead men into the shadows. He would continue to fight evil wherever he could find it, but he would do it alone.
The wooden walls of Colony appeared in the distance – sanctuary… or as close to it as was possible in a post-Fall world. Pastor turned to Jeb to share a brief moment of joy with his friend. Before either of them could speak a loud crack rang out. The eyes of both men opened wide in recognition, but before either could act, Jeb was punched from his horse. He landed flat on is back; a red stain appeared and spread across his chest.