by Declan Finn
Marco looked off to the side, thinking about it. Or trying to. But Misha’s statement helped. That was easy enough of a list for him to consider: Cuba, North Korea, China, Vietnam, most of the Sandbox. The list of non-tyrannies was probably a shorter list. Then he chuckled. “What did you tell them? That you can automatically control any new vampires? Like new werewolves? Except it doesn’t work like that. You turn them to vampires, and … what, sic them on their captors?” He furrowed his brow, thinking over how everything else would happen next.
“You forget,” Misha said, “every group on the world who ever hated every other group? They will want to join the ranks of the vampires in self-defense. Your racial groups will join us so they can advance their agendas. Your abortion groups, who are already sacrificing millions of children to our cause, will want to join for their self-defense. It will spiral from there.”
Marco nodded, as though he already knew that. “And you can probably pull this off as part of your function as The Council. But still, it’s a basic take-over-the-world plan, isn’t it? I mean, that’s it? That is the whole plot? Thousands of years between you, Day, your brother, and Nuala, and you basically have the plot of a Saturday-morning cartoon show. And really, the Council? You couldn’t have come up with a better name for the four of you?”
Misha shook his head. “No. This is Hell on Earth by the time we’re done,” he explained. “A paradise for vampire and demon alike. Chaos and wrath. An eternal night, where vampires reign and humans live in cages for our dining pleasure.” He jabbed Marco in the chest with a finger. “And your leaders will hand it over to us. And you will hand it over to us.”
Marco shook his head. “But why come after me? You blew major resources of the Council on… me. Mikhail I understand; I was killing off his people en masse. But Day? Sending him after me? That was a heck of a resource to burn.”
Misha grinned. “True. But that was why we sent him after you, and later Nuala. You killed my brother. Day had nothing else to do for a few days, and he was happy to oblige. He is a demon of wrath and lust. He would kill you, and rape Alina to death.”
Marco’s eyes went dark at the sound of Amanda’s real name in this creature’s mouth. Marco grimaced. He grabbed the chains with his bare hands. His skin sizzled, and he held onto them and pulled at the chains, despite the silver. “I’ll freaking kill you. I will rip your head off, and use it for a soccer ball before it turns to dust.”
Misha laughed and slapped him on the chest. “After you dispatched Day, we knew that you were a threat to us and to the plan. That was Nuala’s job.”
The vampire swiped his finger at the tip of Marco’s nose, slashing it with a fingernail. It healed in seconds. Misha nodded, sure the lycanthropy was entirely in charge of Marco’s system. “We knew you were dangerous, a threat we needed to eliminate. Nuala just took her time assembling her forces.” Misha rolled his eyes at that. “Obviously, it didn’t work. But tonight, we have the ultimate weapon against the forces of God.” He jabbed Marco in the chest, cracking the sternum. It healed immediately, but it still hurt. “You. You will be at our beck and call, whether you like it or not, beyond your control. Alina would not dare harm you.”
Marco squinted at him, then looked around the room. The werewolf called John was gone, and there was only Misha and Marco. “Who the Hell is this we, anyway? Your brother is dead. Day is vanquished. Nuala is really dead. Far as I can tell, it’s just you. You can’t possibly be counting those lousy wolves. You’re not the type that shares power.”
Misha grinned and stared at Marco. The pupils of his eyes grew. First, they covered the iris, and then the whites of Misha’s eyes. They were the bottomless black compound eyes of a fly.
Misha spoke again, but it wasn’t just Misha this time. Beneath the easy, mellow Russian voice was a second one, a smooth, cultured thing Marco had heard once before, and occasionally in his nightmares. It was possibly the only monster Marco had ever faced that had scared him into actively praying for his own sake during a battle. It had taken him in its great black hands and nearly smashed him. Only a miracle had saved Marco’s hide.
And now, it was back from the abyss.
“Demons never die, Marco,” came the voice of Misha and Asmodeus. “We just go back to Hell. And we always come back.”
Chapter 27
After Action Report
Merle Kraft looked at George Berkeley through the bleary eyes of a man who desperately needed coffee.
He’d had a rough twenty hours, and an even rougher seventy-two hours. He hadn’t had much in the way of sleep since his arrival in New York City.
After the assault, Merle had spent hours being yelled at by about everybody who knew he existed. They yelled about the sovereignty of nations. They yelled about treaties. They yelled about neutrality, and bargains, and diplomatic immunity, and assassination—at least one of the ambassadors, and multiple aides, had been vampires. At least one person brought up parking tickets.
After a while, Merle became fed up and told off the politicos, in painstaking and explicit detail.
Merle explained to them that vampires affected by holy water weren’t just “people with fangs,” or an “endangered species,” or “people we can bargain with”; but that they had once been human beings who traded anything that resembled their humanity for power.
Merle told them of every vampire he had ever seen, and every vampire he had ever killed, and exactly how much they had cost him, personally, and the cities of San Francisco and New York.
Merle told them of “Mister Day,” who had turned into a dragon and nearly burned down the Wharf, who also made deals and bargains with the United Nations. Who had been sent, quite literally, screaming back to Hell by a guardian angel who had peeled himself out of stone and concrete.
After a few minutes of doing just that, the calls finally stopped, and he was allowed to at least look at his bed.
But, then, George had come in to tell Merle about the attack on Marco’s home in Greenpoint. That led to an interesting conference call between Police Commissioner Wilson, Enrico the Mobster, Jennifer Bosley the Vampire Queen of New York, Monsignor William Rodgers, as well as the head of at least one street gang.
At long last, after being awake and on the move for well over forty-eight hours, Merle Kraft was finally allowed to sleep.
He woke up to this.
“What do you mean, Marco was taken?” He looked at George as though the commando had grown another head. “You had the Vatican Ninjas, you had your own guys, and you had Rory and Amanda. How is it even possible they made it through?”
“They had a platoon of wolves,” George said simply. “It took everyone we have to even hold back the ones we saw. They had an armor-plated vehicle with run-flat tires, so we couldn’t stop them with the spike strips we had laid down. We thought RPGs would have been too much for a residential neighborhood.”
Merle sighed and grabbed the nearest cup of coffee. He couldn’t remember if it was his or George’s, but he needed the caffeine so much, he didn’t care.
His midnight blue eyes studied George for a long moment. George was very stiff and very formal. His eyes had locked onto a point just above Merle’s head and didn’t flicker away from it. This wasn’t exactly in George’s wheelhouse. George had been a civilian less than a year ago and was only allowed on the SpecOps team because he was both a werewolf and had enough discipline to follow orders. He became de facto team leader after a few months, due to a knowledge of vampires, and his willingness to take even more risks than anyone else. The first team leader Merle was assigned had died. Even though George didn’t have the rank, he had enough skills in front-line combat with the undead that no one was going to ignore his thoughts during an engagement. The men took to calling him “Sarge,” since he wasn’t an officer, but everyone followed him anyway.
George’s quiet stoicism now worried him.
“What have you left out, George?”
George cleared his throat. His eyes didn
’t move from the point on the wall. “Yana and Jackie didn’t make it. The werewolves took Jackie by surprise, and Yana got in their way during their exfil.”
Merle winced. When he first started the little anti-vampire crusade back in San Francisco, Yana had actually approached him about putting together a team. She had brought Rory on board, and her friend Sarah.
Then Sarah had been ripped apart. Now Yana. She had been the trusting one. The one who had seen Marco beat a human being to a pulp before she realized he was more than just someone who killed vampires for a hobby.
Merle sighed. Mourning was a luxury he didn’t have time for. “Did we take any of the attackers alive?”
George shook his head. “None of the wolves would stop until we killed them, or were so damaged they couldn’t survive their injuries.”
Damn it, Dalf was right, he thought. I have boots on the ground and I need more firepower. Just when I thought I could do something as breathtakingly odd as sleeping for a few hours.
Merle frowned. “Of course. Just our luck. Okay. I need to know where the hell everyone is, and right now.”
In the Church of Saint Anthony-Saint Alphonsus, Doctor Robert Catalano held his face in his hand and tried not to slam his forehead into the rectory’s coffee table.
The sniper, Bram, stood across the table from him, standing at attention. His rifle was against the wall, and his Uzi sidearm was slung over one shoulder. His soft brown eyes studied the older man, struggling for some bit of good news.
Next to Robert was Monsignor Rodgers, his hand on the doctor’s back in an attempt to be reassuring. But the old priest didn’t look too great himself. He had already lost Hendershot, and he had baptized Marco as an infant. The Catalanos were not just parishioners, but friends from way back.
“Here’s the good news,” Bram said, trying to get their attention. “They took Marco. They want him alive.”
“Or torture him to death,” Robert corrected. He lowered his hands and raised his eyes. “They are demonic creatures from blackest Hell, after all—and if they’re not, they worked with them. Wasn’t there this Mister Day creature you folks talked about? Some sort of demon?”
“Yes. But it’s hard to torture Marco,” Bram replied. He gave a little smile. “Please remember, he tried going a few rounds with Hendershot, and didn’t do too badly. He has enough mental control to look into a vampire’s eyes and read their mind. Torture? Won’t work. The longer he goes without Amanda’s bite or blood, the stronger he’ll become, and harder it is to hurt him.”
Robert met Bram’s eyes with a cynical look. “Or they use silver.”
The Vatican ninja-sniper sighed, frustrated. Sometimes talking with civilians, even rational civilians, strained his patience. “Yes, but Marco has been shown to be more trouble than he’s worth. And they’re on the run. Despite our losses, we’ve been winning. The vampires are flooded out of the UN. Their leader can’t make deals when the carpets and the floors are soaked with holy water. Merle has FBI agents watching the top brass of the UN, so they’re covered. They lost a lot of wolves last night. They tried to directly engage us because they’re desperate. In the case of Marco, torture would be counter-productive.”
Robert’s look turned sharp. “What do you mean?” He looked to Rodgers. “What does he mean? Why wouldn’t they want to hurt Marco?”
The priest gave a heavy sigh, then looked to Bram, more sad than anything else. It would be little comfort for Robert to know what was most likely in store for his son.
“Remember when we said that any werewolf could give a new lycanthrope a command during the first few full moons?” Bram asked. “This makes Marco the best weapon they have against Amanda. After Marco, she has to be the biggest threat to them. They’ve been trying to kill both of them since this started. So…”
Robert narrowed his eyes. “So you thought you’d gloss over Your Son Won’t Be Tortured to Death with He’ll Be Used as a Weapon To Murder His Girlfriend? This, by you, is comforting?” He shook his head. “Speaking of which, where is Amanda? How is she taking all of this?”
“According to George, she had him get her a specific piece of clothing, then took off like a bat out of Hell.”
Robert arched an eyebrow and looked out the window. The sky had gotten darker, which meant, in perfect New York City fashion, that the weather had actually gotten warmer out there. The gray cloud cover was probably enough that Amanda could survive if she took proper precautions, and kept an eye on the skies. But that just left one question.
“Where the heck would she go?”
Chapter 28
There Will Be Blood
The vampire known only as Kalsey had an ornate office designed to intimidate. The upper runner of the room was lined with swords of various and sundry types, all sharp and functional. The rugs and wall tapestries were Indian. The desk was mahogany, and older than most of the buildings in New York City.
All of the ornate decorations covered a very practical room. Beneath the tapestries and the wood overlay was solid concrete, for the floors, walls, and ceilings. The door was armored, with bars like a bank vault, locking it into the door frame.
Kalsey himself was tall, dark, Sikh, and dressed in Joss Whedon chic: long black leather duster, and everything else solid black. Armani from top to bottom. The only exception to all of this was his gold, top of the line Rolex Le President. He was somewhat handsome; his looks were aristocratic, with a sharp nose, smooth features, and proper posture, even when he was seated behind his desk.
When the door to his office exploded, he barely flinched, moving just enough to avoid being decapitated by the steel door as it went flying off its hinges. The door sheered off the back of his desk chair and clipped off several hairs from his head. It embedded firmly in the wall behind him—through the wood, and deep into the concrete below.
A red-cloaked figure followed hotly behind the door, leaping atop of Kalsey’s desk. It grabbed Kalsey by the lapels of his jacket and lifted him straight out of his chair, cracking his head against the ceiling. The only source of light illuminating the face within the hood was two points of amber glowing where the eyes should have been.
The figured slammed Kalsey’s head against the ceiling with each punctuation mark. “Where. Is. Marco?”
Kalsey shook his head. He was being abused by a woman, that much he could tell from the voice. But– “What? I haven’t seen him—”
She hopped back, off the desk, and slammed Kalsey face-first onto the blotter. Her right hand came down on the back of his head, as her left drove the front of a crucifix into his cheek. “Where is he? You’re one of the few evil bastards in the city who would make a move on him. And if you don’t know where he is, you know where he might be.”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “That is the truth, Miss Colt.”
Amanda waited for Kalsey’s skin to start sizzling and smoking from the touch of the crucifix. Three seconds were usually enough to leave a mark.
She waited.
And waited.
The part of Kalsey’s face that wasn’t embedded in his desk was blasé, even tolerant of being manhandled. “If you’re waiting for the cross to hurt me, it won’t anymore.”
Amanda unhanded him and stepped back, her eyes no longer enraged, but confused. She pushed the hood back, revealing the rest of her face. Her hair spilled out, over her shoulders and down her front.
Kalsey slid off the desk and straightened his jacket. He looked at the damage done to the door frame. “I hope you haven’t killed too many of my men.”
“Nail guns don’t kill vampires,” she replied.
Kalsey leaned to one side, looking around Amanda. Two of his bodyguards were up against the wall, with railroad spikes pinning them to the wall like butterflies, three feet off the ground. He straightened and shrugged. “I hate to break it to you, but we have all turned over a new leaf.”
Amanda raised an eyebrow. “I am skeptical.”
Kalsey gave her a smirk. “I do try
to be practical about such things, Miss Colt. Once you and the entire Vatican Ninja squad became a difficulty, it became obvious that virtue was going to be easier than vice. Especially in my case.” His eyes narrowed at her. “Do you know what I had to endure just to confess?” His voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “It. Hurt.”
Her mouth twisted into a smile. “I can imagine.”
Kalsey nodded. “You’ve apparently had a slight power upgrade. Nice to see that virtue agrees with you.”
“I confess weekly,” she answered. “It helps.” Her eyes narrowed. “Right now, I am trying to save the man I love. Who is an innocent victim.”
Kalsey gave a humorless chuckle. “I would hardly call him innocent, but I understand. Your motives are pure.” He slid out a pack of Turkish cigarettes and popped one into his mouth. “But, really, I don’t have anything for you. I have stopped being associated with that crowd for months now.” He picked up a lighter from his desk that looked so heavy, it doubled as a paperweight. He took a few puffs and placed it down. “After all, wouldn’t want to endanger my immortal soul, now would I?”
Amanda’s eyes narrowed at him. He laughed. “Yes, I know, I was stringing up humans for lunch only last year, but it was business. I didn’t care as long as it didn’t hurt me.” He shrugged. “Then it hurt when you and your lousy ninjas got involved.” He smiled at the wreckage. “How many of them did you need to get through my men this time?”
“None.”
He studied Amanda for a long moment, looking her up and down. Yes, the red cloak covered her from head to toe, but still, moving like that with her level of strength during the daytime was still a feat. “Impressive. Are you trying for sainthood?”
“No. I have no such pretensions. I just want Marco back before tonight.”
He gestured at her outfit with his cigarette. “That explains the Little Red Riding Hood outfit.” He took a long, drawn-out drag on the cigarette, and let it out slowly. “What’s the rush, exactly? If he’s not dead already—and I’m surprised he’s not, he’s not the sort of person I’d keep around—then why will tonight spell his doom?”