The Devil's Bed

by Doug Lamoreux

  She knelt beside her fiancé as the dark cloaked knight drew near.

  “It's all right, Ray,” she told him, fighting back tears. “It's all right.”

  The Templar reached for her.

  The new uninvited vampire hopped atop the broken gallery rail. He hissed, perched on his haunches, and readied to leap.

  From the nave, Trevelyan pitched his arm up and over his head, spritzing holy water in wide arcs, into the air and at the monster, in the shape of a cross. “Abominable creature, give way,” the priest screamed. “You monster, give way to Christ!”

  In his disheveled shirt, his arm in a sling, the left lens of his glasses cracked, the gray tufts at his temples splayed wildly, teetering on the edge of sanity, Trevelyan threw the vial. The vampire ducked and hissed. Aimee grabbed the Father's crucifix and hoisted it into the air. The creature barked, covered its face and dropped backward off the rail. It disappeared into the gallery.

  Aimee raced into the hall and took the stairs two at a time with the crucifix before her like a shield. The vampire was on the top step, descending, when Aimee got there. The reporter held the crucifix up, locked her elbow, and continued forward. The creature hissed, clawed blindly covering his eyes as he retreated, and abandoned the gallery for the balcony. Aimee slammed the door closed.

  She secured the locking bar and fell against it. Eyes closed, she caught her breath. Then Aimee smiled as it dawned on her how she'd held her ground. She ran to the rail to tell Luis. She looked below, to the floor of the nave, and her smile vanished.

  Jerome's corpse had not only gone up in flames, but had set the floor, candles and the broken pieces of railing on fire. In the swirling smoke Aimee saw the priest trying to extinguish it.

  He grabbed a wine bottle from a case on the floor, uncorked it and shook it at the flames. The fire died, until a splash hit the vampire's body, then it flared brilliantly. It took a moment for the priest to realize his mistake but, when he did, Trevelyan tossed the bottle away. Holy water, evidently, made a beautiful weapon and a damned poor extinguishing agent. On second thought, he grabbed a hanging pall and, slapping one-handed, tamped at the flames while stamping the embers with his feet.

  “Father, are you all right?”

  “It's all right. Be careful of the railing. Don't come near the edge. I've got this.”

  Indeed, despite his handicap, the fire appeared under control and mostly out. Still the smoke, clearing below, rolled up to sting Aimee's eyes. She waved it away, coughing. “Father,” she called in growing alarm, “Father, where is Luis?”

  Breathing heavily, Trevelyan followed her eyes around the chapel.

  Aimee joined the priest below. “Where is Luis?”

  “I, eh, er, don't know, Aimee. He was there a moment ago. I was watching you. And then the fire. I, eh, don't know.”

  Aimee's heart began to race. She hurried to the vestibule, ran back into the hall, then headed for the kitchen calling for Luis. There was no response and Father Trevelyan watched after her in growing fear.

  Twenty Three

  The dark cloaked Templar, eyes blazing red, bloated black tongue wagging, grabbed at Brandy - while she grabbed the sword of the Savior.

  She grunted and spun, swinging the weapon with both hands and all of her strength. The blade sang a low-pitched song as it cleaved the air, generated a sickening thunk as it met the dried flesh at the mummy's throat, a nerve-rending snap as it parted the second and third cervical vertebrae and, a breathless instant later, a muffled plunk as the chaplain's decapitated head hit the weeds and rolled to a stop on the ground.

  The momentum created swinging thirty-two pounds of forged steel threw Brandy off her feet. On her butt, on the ground, she swallowed hard, taking in her handiwork. The skull of the dark cloaked Templar lay on its side in the tall grass, grinding its teeth and blinking its red eyes. Brandy rose, uncorked a bottle, and showered the corpse. Then, without waiting for the results, she dragged the sword back to the tomb.

  She waved the open bottle of holy water, warning back the two remaining knights, and sank to the ground beside Ray. He groaned as she took him in her arms.

  “I love you, Ray,” she said, fighting not to cry.

  “And you're… sorry… you slapped me?”

  “No. You deserved it.”

  Ray laughed a pained, breathless laugh that became a cough. Tasting iron, he spit blood into the grass. “It was a good fight, baby. It was a good fight.”

  Brandy held him, covered his wound with the flat of her hand, and kissed him. “I was wrong,” she said. “There's nothing in this grave but a corpse. I was a fool to even… I am so sorry for everything. I…”

  “You don't have time for that. You've got to get out of here. You gotta run.”

  Brandy looked at the hovering Templars. She looked at Ray. She looked at the mummy lying in the tomb… and she shook her head angrily. “No! I'm not giving up.”

  “Brandy, please… Get back to…”

  “I'm not giving up!” She ran the back of her hand across her cheek, to wipe away the tears and streaked herself with a war paint of Ray's blood. “I'm not giving up. Not on this… and not on you.”

  The Templars, wary of her holy water, hovered watching; the disabling of the big human, their chaplain's immolation at the hands of the girl, and now this pathetic love scene. Amused, the knights laughed hideously, the tall, and the archer. Their laughter melted into a demonic chant which, like a drum beat before a battle, led them forward toward Brandy and Ray.

  Aimee stood shaking, tears running down her cheeks, staring at the sanctuary floor. The Communion table had been pushed aside and the trap door to the ossuary stood open. Father Trevelyan was beside her, holding her up and holding her back.

  “I found it this way,” the priest said. “He's gone outside.”

  “Why,” she cried. “Why would he do that? He wouldn't panic. He wouldn't run!”

  “Of course not. He didn't just run away.”

  “Then why?”

  “He must have overheard us. He's not convinced we can hold on in here until the sun rises. He's gone to do something about it.”

  “He can't go alone.” Aimee tried to pull away and Trevelyan held tight.

  “Luis is doing what he thinks he must,” the priest said. “If he wanted you with him he would have asked. He certainly would have told you he was going. He wants you safely in here. That's the point. Besides, an old man with one arm cannot defend this place by himself. I don't mean to sound selfish, Aimee, but I need you.”

  She looked to the priest then around the chapel. And she listened. The prying, the scratching, the chopping continued. Her tears flowed freely as she listened to the undead creatures holding siege. Her heart ached and she quietly said a prayer for Luis.

  It had been a quick trip through the ancient ossuary, the tunnel under the courtyard, and the dungeon of Castle Freedom; a trip Luis had made a million times. He did it in the dark. He did it on the run. Most of all, he did it on account of Aimee. The awkward but beautiful reporter was the first woman Luis had looked at since the death of his beloved Micheline. After all the heartache he'd been through, Luis no longer had any notion of what love was or if it even existed. He knew only that he must do something to give Aimee, and the priest, a fighting chance of being alive when the sun came up. That meant getting those monsters away from the chapel and keeping them away and busy with something, someone, else.

  There were few options for weapons. He had several of the Father's crucifixes in a back pocket (of Ray's baggie pants) along with his little worn book, three bottles of holy water – all he could carry, his fear for a group of strangers who had in one night become friends, and his feelings, whatever they were, for Aimee.

  Luis entered the small tunnel, then the well, and knew instantly something had gone wrong for the Americans. The well pit smelled of smoke and burned flesh. Fear grabbed him. His mind took off, wildly imagining what had happened here. But he stopped it by sheer force of wi
ll. He didn't know. Nothing had changed.

  Luis popped up from the well and, though he couldn't see them, heard the monsters at work. He made his way along the western wall, followed the curve and continued along the wall to the north. Ahead lay the courtyard, the chapel, and the shadowy forms of the Templars and the gendarme vampires, fervently scratching at the building; aware the night was nearly gone and desperate to get in.

  In the distance, beyond the chapel and bell tower, jutted the hazy black zig-zag of the timber's treetops – and the deep blue of the night sky as it readied to receive the day. 'The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day'. It was a line from the great Bard's Scottish play, spoken by a traveler hoping for the Inn by sundown. Luis' hope was akin; a prayer not for the last glimmers of sun, but for the first; not for a staving off of the night but for its end.

  He'd had no time to plan. He knew only that he needed to act, to get those things away from the chapel, and to create a diversion. He lifted a bottle of holy water above his head and scanned the courtyard for a target. Then he heard a faint noise, a pebble falling, sand raining down beside him. He turned to the wall on his right and saw bits of ruin falling away. He looked up for the source of the debris… into the yellow eyes of a gendarme hanging upside down above him. The creature cocked his head, twisted his gray lips in a hateful grimace, and hissed.

  Luis bolted and, as he ran, screamed as long and as loud as he could. If this was it, if his time had come, he would do all he could to draw the attention of as many of these things as he could. So he screamed.

  The creature, momentarily taken aback by Luis' outburst, recovered and sprang from the castle wall. He landed upright in the grass and took chase.

  Even behind the bizarre reflective eyes, and at that ludicrous angle, Luis recognized the vampire behind him. In life, he'd been Tristan Maigny; not a man to mess with. Which was, of course, why Luis always made it a point to mess with him.

  From grade two, his enseignement secondaire at the age of 15, he'd played scofflaw to Maigny's law man and the chase had been on. Sometimes his old nemesis prevailed and he wound up in cuffs. Sometimes Luis escaped to start all over. Maigny thought himself the victor with Socrates' manslaughter conviction but the celebration had been premature. It was ironic, Luis thought, that even death hadn't ended the chase.

  With Maigny on his heels returning to the well was out of the question. The courtyard with its Templars was also out of bounds. The stable was his only option and Luis ran for it… ran for his life.

  The stable was originally a ponderous structure, sixty feet long, fourteen high, with stone walls and a slate roof, housing knights' horses and work horses alike. It fell into disrepair and was rebuilt, many times throughout the ages, but was again flagging. The northern end, once opening into pasture land, had been all but destroyed by fire during its World War II occupation. It stood only because of support poles hammered into place. These held off a collapse but did little to prevent the sag which eventually doomed the north wall. A stretched tarpaulin was jerry-rigged in its place.

  The south end, on the other hand, had been fully restored by Luis' father for his beloved mule. Now buzzing black flies, filthy scattered straw and a maroon stain on the floor of his stall were all that remained of Zorion. His father always said his mule had earned a dry place to rest after a hard day's work. He certainly deserved better than to be hacked to death and carted away like so much rubbish.

  There wasn't an instant to mourn or to hide. Maigny, the vampire, burst through the crack in the partially open south door. He spotted Luis on the run and leapt over the stall railing – airborne and headed straight at him.

  The Templars, inching forward, had begun their awful chanting again:

  “Diabolus quod Hierarchies' of Abyssus.”

  Brandy kissed Ray and helped him gently back down in the grass.

  Then, rising to her knees, she turned her attention to the opened tomb. She spoke to the mummy of Jacques de Molay lying within. “You… you were imprisoned with them but were not one of them.”

  She reached into the tomb, her hands covered in Ray's blood, and grabbed the knight's skull on each side of his wiry gray beard. The blood matted the mummy's hair, filled the creases of his stretched flesh, oozed into the gaps in his grinning teeth and dripped into his mouth. “You suffered with them but were not of them.”

  “Lucifer, quisnam to order totus.”

  Brandy was crying; desperate and terrified. Tears raced down her cheeks, mixed with the blood smeared there, and fell like rain on the corpse. “You bore the torment of their curses. You died with them. But you were an innocent man; a man of God!”

  The lead Templar waved the other toward Brandy. The archer nodded and drew a dagger from the scabbard on his belt. He raised the weapon and started forward.

  “Beelzebub Leviathan Sonneillon. Tribuo nos vox.”

  Brandy ignored it all; the terrifying chanting, the shapes moving behind her, and the portent of death each promised. She spoke to the mummy in the tomb, wailing, “You stood strong. You believed. You shouted, I will hope in the resurrection!”

  “Plumbum nos in victoria super nostrum hostilis.”

  With everything she had in her, Brandy yelled it again… “I will hope in the resurrection!”

  The eyes of the mummy of Jacques de Molay shot open.

  Twenty Four

  Brandy screamed. Although she and Ray had risked their lives for it… Although the resurrection of the wrongly convicted Templar knight had been her hope. Still Brandy was startled and still she screamed.

  Then Molay turned his eyes on her. They were not the blazing red slices of hell that made up the eyes of the other Templars, nor the dead black islands floating in yellow swamps like their vampire minions. Despite being sunk in deep orbital caverns, with gray skin stretched over a skull-like face, these eyes, these 'mirrors of the soul' were soft and warm, light brown with green flecks like shining chips of diamond.

  Behind her, Ray tried to stop the encroaching archer but, injured as he was, was easily thrown aside. Then, his dagger glinting in the moonlight, the knight hissed acidly and reached for Brandy.

  Molay sat up in his grave, reached beyond the startled girl and grabbed her attacker by the front of his rotted mantle. He yanked him forward, bringing their two screaming skulls together.

  Jacques de Molay remembered.

  In life, seven centuries before, Geoffrey de Charney had entered the Templar Order at his right hand. The Grand Master had taken him under wing, instructed him in the Lord, in the ways of the Order and in combat. Had turned him over to his friend, Francois de Raiis, to serve God, the Pope, the King and France. Raiis and Charney had betrayed them all.

  Molay howled with rage. From his supine position, the Grand Master threw Charney over his sarcophagus.

  The younger Templar, if age could mean anything after seven hundred years in the tomb, slid to a landing against the cemetery fence. He righted himself, a chore beneath armor and cloak, rose to a knee, then stood. His dagger was lost in the tall grass. The archer drew his sword.

  Molay came out of his tomb and lifted his sword of the Savior from where Brandy laid it beside the grave. Then, almost casually, Molay threw it with one hand; flat and underhanded. The weapon impaled Charney, while the weight of the blade and force of the blow knocked him backwards. The knight toppled and the point of Molay's sword, protruding from his back, pinned him to the ground.

  Brandy jumped to her feet and, by the time she'd reached the disabled creature, had yanked two bottles of holy water from the pockets of her jacket. She stood over the pinned knight and slammed the bottles together. Glass shards flew, blessed water rained down. Charney's unsettling scream was drowned out by the sizzling eruption of flesh and the explosion of fire which immolated the knight.

  It would be difficult to imagine the eyes of a Templar any brighter, redder, more terrifying then what they'd witnessed throughout the night. But those of the leader now burned with all the fir
e of hell behind them. He stepped toward Brandy.

  Ray tried again to move her way but had to stop, yelling in pain. Not from the stab wound in his back, though that hurt like hell, not from the collapsed lung or the internal bleeding, both of which he had, but from something jabbing him in the groin. He fought with Trevelyan's cassock, damned dress, worked his hand beneath and wrestled the twist from his pants pocket. Then he pulled out the object stabbing him; the crucifix he'd taken from the ossuary.

  The relief was instantaneous. Better still, Ray held the crucifix up before the approaching Templar. The mummy reacted as if he'd jabbed a hot poker into his red eyes - and violently backed away.

  Brandy took the gold hilt of Molay's sword in both hands, jerked it from the ground, and out of the charred muck that had been the Templar archer. She lugged the weapon back and, terrified, lifted it to the knight standing beside his sarcophagus. Molay took his sword of the Savior and, swinging it over his head, turned on the knight that Ray was holding at bay.

  The Templars squared off.

  Jacques de Molay, Father Christmas reborn, with bald dome, matted white hair and beard, brown flecked eyes, wearing his trademark black cross on mantle and cloak. Raiis, hell incarnate, dried gray flesh over ancient bone, salted-black wiry hair and beard, red eyes matching the blood-soaked, rotted tunic and cloak emblazoned with the cross of the old Order. They strode toward each other and clashed swords.

  They pushed off and swung on each other again. Molay missed. Raiis' strike landed. The Grand Master's mantle tore but his chain hauberk flexed round the blade and the soft gambeson beneath absorbed the blow. Raiis delivered a blow to Molay's leg. The Grand Master went down and defended from one knee while he fought back to his feet.