by Graham Brown
“What wrong with the…?”
Without warning, the mirror shattered under the butt of Kate’s Glock. Startled, Ashley turned to Kate, her mouth gapping open in shock. She saw only a blur as Kate’s pistol smashed her temple and she went down like a sack of rice.
With quick efficiency, Kate dragged her into one of the stalls and cuffed her to the main pipe behind the toilet.
“You’re not taking my son away from me! You hear me? No one’s gonna take him away!”
Ashley started to come around, so Kate gave her a left jab to her temple knocking her out again. “Sweet dreams, partner.”
Grabbing Ashley’s phone, gun and wallet, Kate locked the stall from the inside and crawled out under the door. She straightened her clothes and walked out of the bathroom. She was now, or would be momentarily, a fugitive on the run.
The blond man. She would find him. She would make him talk. Force him to undo whatever he’d done to her. That was her only hope.
She made her way out of the building. The sunlight felt like sandpaper on her skin, but she pressed forward, rushing down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk. She passed dozens of people on the way. None of them took a second glance, until a voice shouted to her.
“Agent Pfeiffer!”
She looked out of instinct, spotting an African-American woman in a wheelchair whom she didn’t know. “Agent Pfeiffer, I need to talk to you,” the woman shouted, wheeling toward Kate.
Kate stared for a second and then she panicked and ran. She raced for the metro station, hearing the woman calling even as she rounded a turn and jumped onto the steep escalator that dove beneath the city streets. Unable to control her emotions she began pushing people out of the way in her haste to reach the bottom.
What had she done? Her career was over. If they caught her, they’d put her in prison or an institution somewhere.
She made it to the platform at slowed down. At least the darkness of the underground station relieved the pain of the sunlight. She tried to calm down but felt the paranoia of being followed. She was certain they were after her already. Who was that woman? How did she know my name?
She had to get out of Washington. The city was covered with security cameras and the FBI would review them all. They’d piece together what was happening. They’d build a task force and hunt her down. All she had was this one chance, one tiny window of opportunity before Ashely woke up and screamed for help. She couldn’t go home, couldn’t see Cal one last time, or collect him and take him with her. If she had any hope at all she had to leave now.
Mixing with the horde of commuters gave her a sense of invisibility, and as soon as the next train arrived, she climbed on board. The car slowly filled with people going about their daily business. No one was looking at her. But the train didn’t move.
Come on. Let’s go…. Let’s go!
The Metro refused to budge and the doors stood wide and inviting. The other passengers around her began to shift on their feet. Even they felt something was off.
She was ready to bolt when the doors closed with a hiss. No one came busting through the crowd shouting out her name. No agents appeared on the platform making a last minute dash to catch the train as it sped away. She breathed a sigh of relief. She was safe for the moment. Maybe, just maybe, she had enough time to get away.
Chapter 9
West Africa
The King of the Undead lay in a pit of filth, submerged in slimy, fetid water filled with algae, bacteria and leeches. A thousand of them covered him; his arms, his legs, his chest, even his face. From the edge of the pit, almost nothing of Drake’s bare skin could be seen.
Zwana insisted this was necessary, the most vital step of all, but covered in the blood-sucking creatures Drake felt weaker and weaker.
Only hatred spurred him on. Christian. Elsa. The Church. Drake hated all of them. He would see them fall. One by one, he would bring them down. His will to live burned as bright as ever, and he would survive through this madness. He would find this weapon and destroy them one by one.
With this in mind, he’d lay in the pit for hours each day. At night, Zwana would drag him out, pry the leeches off of him and force him to drink some kind of firewater.
The leeches draw the poison. Zwana continued to insist. The drink is to replenish your demon’s blood.
“You see,” Zwana said, looking a pile of the creatures, “the leeches are dead.” Many appeared to be. Their color drained. Their slimy skin shriveled and dry.
“Like you, they take blood,” Zwana added. “The poison of the witch was attacking your blood. Now it’s gone.”
Delirious and powerless, Drake focused on Tereza who stood close by. He placed one thought in her mind: If this doesn’t work, kill him.
She nodded imperceptibly, her eyes drawn to a message on her satellite phone. “Perhaps this will strengthen you,” she said. “Christian has been destroyed.”
Drake narrowed his gaze but said nothing.
“According to Evelyn your plan worked perfectly,” Tereza said. “Christian was so preoccupied with finding you that he never saw or sensed the attack coming. She watched him burn.”
Drake wanted to believe it.
“The woman lies,” Zwana said, chewing on one of the dead leeches, spitting its head back into the pit.
“Which woman?” Drake asked.
“The one farthest from you.”
“And how would you know?”
“I see things,” Zwana insisted. “As I saw your coming here, I also watched as your enemy fall into the waters. But he is not the one who burned. The woman lies to gain your favor.”
In his cold, dead heart Drake knew Zwana was correct. His enemy could not be so easily destroyed. “What else do you see?”
“It is far distant,” Zwana said. “But he will not come alone. He will stand at the head of an army.”
Another of Drake’s unspoken fears.
“You’ll need your own army to fight him,” Zwana said. “And you’ll need it soon.”
Christian had forsworn the turning of humans a long time ago. Would he really change his ways and build his own army of the Fallen? Drake didn’t believe this and, if Zwana saw this, then Drake doubted his abilities. But there was something else…“Has Christian begun taking humans into the void?”
“There is one,” Zwana said.
“One is hardly an army,” Drake said. “Do you know if he will change more of them?”
Zwana stared at Drake as if wondering at his game.
“I am your master,” Drake demanded. “You will speak when I command you to. And if you have the sight, you will share it with me.”
Zwana looked off into the distance as if he was staring through time. “At the end, Christian will have only humans on his side,” he said. “You will have an army of demons and the Dark Star in your hand. You will break him. You will break his body and his immortal power will be vanquished from this earth.”
Funny, Drake thought, how a fortune teller who promised good things always seemed more reliable than one who foretold ill. Still, it made sense, Christian and his love of the humans. Of course he would rouse some to his side.
This Drake could accept and even look forward to, but there was one problem. The shattering of the Brethren had thrown his plans into disarray. In the absence of their masters, armies that had taken a millennium to build would devour themselves in weeks or months. There was no time to rebuild his organization. No time to turn enough new soldiers and train them to avoid the addiction of the blood. He was at a loss until a thought occurred to him. There was one place that remained untouched by Christian’s meddling, one army of the Fallen that was still intact. The Army of Seine. The foot-soldiers of Artimous.
The name rang in Drake’s heart with thoughts of betrayal and contempt, second only to Christian’s. But now… now it offered hope.
“Continue the treatment,” Drake ordered.
“Tomorrow,” Zwana said.
“No,” Drake demand
ed. “Now! I will be healed by morning, or you will suffer the consequences.”
Zwana nodded. Reluctantly he helped Drake back into the pit and stirred the water allowing the surviving leaches swarm over Drake’s body.
As they covered him, it dawned on Drake that roles in his great struggle had now been reversed. He was the hunted and Christian was now the hunter, perhaps even aligned with the Church if Zwana’s vision was correct. But Drake now possessed what Christian had lost: an oracle, a seer of his own who could look into the future and foretell its myriad of wrinkles and folds.
Zwana would be his version of the witch who’d been at Christian’s side for so long. With such foresight, he would surprise Christian. Appearing when and where his old friend least expected it, much as Elsa had surprised him in the swamp.
He would put a dagger in Christian’s heart and take as much pleasure from the surprised look on his old enemy’s face as he did in the ultimate victory it would give him.
Chapter 10
Vatican City, Italy
The curled parchment before them was more than a thousand years old. And still its mystery had not been solved.
It is said we shall become blind,
even as they begin to see.
Bishop Anton Messini read these words from the ancient parchment written in Greek. His aged hands trembled with the first stage of Parkinson’s and his tired eyes strained to focus on the faded ink. He’d wanted to see the words for himself, to make sure they hadn’t been misinterpreted or mistranslated by the scribes all those years ago.
“You still look upon the prophecy as if it moves you, Bishop.”
The voice was firm and strong, everything Messini was not. It came from Henrick Vanderwall, the new Primus, the leader of the hunters of the Ignis Purgata: Holy Order of the Righteous Fire. His men were the Church’s army in the battle with the Fallen. They walked the front lines. They fought and died facing the demons in the night. Messini was their spiritual leader. Their commander in chief. He looked after their souls. But Henrick was their field general.
“Simon believed it,” Messini whispered, thinking of the prophecy and his dead friend who had been the Primus for decades before Henrick. “Simon believed it enough to allow the demon to turn his mind against us. Just as John of Alexandria was taken in centuries ago.”
He put the paper down, his hands now shaking with anger. “If I could, I’d burn this parchment. I would destroy it, erasing all record of this accursed prophecy from existence.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“You know very well why,” Messini said bitterly. “It’s not my place to decide.”
“You could disavow it,” Henrick suggested. “Make a pronouncement. The men would appreciate the clarity.”
“Yes,” Messini said. “I could.”
“Then you should,” Henrick insisted. “Immediately.”
Messini cut his eyes at Henrick. “Be careful. You exceed your position with such demands.”
“My apologies,” Henrick said. “I’m only trying to…”
Messini waved at him as if the apology wasn’t necessary. He turned and gazed out his office window. Soft clouds floated by, adrift on a slight breeze in a blue, Mediterranean sky. But the beauty of the day did not register. For the Bishop was living deep within his mind, contemplating the future. The further out he looked, the darker his thoughts became. He was troubled and confused. He was angry with his brother of so many years, Simon Lathach. Angry that he’d left the fight. Angry that he’d made such a foolish choice as to trust a demon.
Still, Messini thought, it was strange he should be angry. For he lived, and Simon Lathach was dead. Yet, he couldn’t escape the feeling that his old friend had let him down. “Careless at the end,” he whispered. “Reckless.”
In truth, Simon’s acts bordered on insanity. The thought of giving the Church’s most prized possession to a demon. Why didn’t Simon just listen to him and retire? He’d still be here, still be around to counsel him and help him in these difficult times. He’d still be alive to argue his points endlessly as he so loved to do.
Messini sighed to himself. In some ways the words of the parchment were already proving true. Without Simon to guide him, Bishop Messini felt blind. Until the end at least, Simon’s judgment had never failed either of them. If the gift of discernment was truly bestowed from above, it had landed on Simon’s shoulders squarely and doubly so, even if it failed him at the last.
He turned back to Henrick, who’d been injured in the fight with the demon. One bullet had hit him in the leg, but that wound had been easily repaired. A second shot had taken out his right eye and nicked his ocular bone, leaving an angled scar that streaked back up into Henrick’s hair. A patch covered the missing eye.
“Not many leave the order without battle wounds,” Messini said, putting his hand on Henrick’s powerful shoulder. “But your wounds seem only to have made you harder, stronger and more determined.”
“Thank you, Bishop. They have.”
Messini nodded. Henrick was young and tough as nails. Well trained after years as Simon’s second. He would do well as the new leader, but even so Messini would not allow him free reign. That had been his mistake with Simon.
Remembering that Henrick had arrived unannounced, he changed the subject. “What do you have for me?”
“Changes,” Henrick said. “Beginning with this.”
Henrick placed on the Bishop’s nine-hundred-year-old desk what appeared to be a large rifle case.
Messini could guess what lay inside. He’d heard the rumors. Henrick intended to modernize the Ignis Purgata, to change the way they fought.
“My men will now use weapons crafted in this century not those designed in the distant past. They’ll wear body armor. They’ll carry guns.”
“Guns cannot harm the demons, Henrick. You know that.”
“This is no ordinary gun, Bishop.” He opened the case and pulled out the most advanced rifle Bishop Messini had ever seen.
“What is this new machine you have?” the Bishop asked. “Is it a flame thrower of sorts?”
It was a good guess, for it had long been known that fire also killed the Fallen.
“No, your Excellence. This is a million watt, ultraviolet emitter. A rifle that fires light. I’ve had these in development for years and finally they’re ready. They mimic the radiation of the Sun. If a demon gets caught in the beam from one of these, their powers are subdued almost instantly. Then the hunter can move in for the kill without fear of their great strength.”
The Bishop was intrigued. “Is it safe to turn on? Can I see it working?”
“Yes to both,” Henrick said. He donned a pair of unusually large sunglasses with lenses as black as night. He handed the Bishop a matching pair.
The Bishop put them on. The world became almost pitch dark.
“It’s very difficult to see. How will you fight with these?”
“You’ll see the whole room in a moment.”
The Bishop heard the weapon powering up. It sounded like the wind rushing through a tunnel. An instant later the whole room lit up as if it were broad daylight. Within the aura of light was a circular beam of a slightly different shade, bluer in tint, more concentrated. A spot light, Messini thought, a focused beam within a beam.
As Henrick moved the rifle and the spotlight around the room, he explained. “We know the demons are unaffected by artificial light. This is due to both the general weakness of artificial light and its lack of an ultraviolet component. What you see before you remedies both of those concerns. The smaller light is a concentrated and focused beam of ultraviolet rays. A million watts of energy at its center.”
Henrick switched off the gun. The room went dark instantly.
Bishop Messini removed his glasses. “Very impressive. What do you call this new creation of yours?”
“I call it the Nova Rifle.”
A glimmer of hope returned to the Bishop’s mind. Maybe technology would help win
the war against the Nosferatu. Maybe they had been stuck in the seventeenth century for too long.
Unfortunately, the moment of hope was replaced by apprehension regarding the conversation that he and Henrick were about to have. “Please have a seat Henrick. We have much to discuss.”
Henrick showed a slight look of disappointment as he placed the weapon back in its case, and sat down across from the Bishop.
“Henrick, you will lead these men, but you will report to me on a daily basis. Not ad hoc as Simon was allowed to do. Also, you must assure me that you will follow my orders to the letter.”
“I’m confused your excellence. If I am to lead these men, I must decide the strategy for the destruction of the Fallen. I--”
“You are the leader, yes,” Messini interrupted. “But from here on out you will take your orders from me. And your first order is to search for the angel referred to in this prophecy.”
“So you do believe it,” Henrick said accusingly.
“No,” the Bishop said. “But unless it is proven untrue, then it is my duty—our duty—to protect this being from Drake and his kind.”
“Wasted time,” Henrick said. “Such a thing does not exist.”
“We need to be certain,” the Bishop said.
Henrick grew more furious with each passing second. The Bishop imagined his thoughts. To be watched over like a schoolboy. To be given a task he disagreed with. These orders would test any man.
“I beg of you,” Henrick said. “Commission others to search for this false idol, others who believe it can be found.”
“No,” Messini said firmly. “They would be swayed as Simon was, but you… you alone would never give in to any demon’s trick. You alone are suited for this task by your very disbelief. If others come to me and say, ‘I have seen this thing; I have felt its power,’ I must by prudence doubt them. But if you come to me with such a claim, I will know it’s true.”
Henrick stewed, unable to refute what was essentially a grand compliment.