by Graham Brown
“This can’t be happening,” Christian said. “Stay with me Doc.” No response. “Doc, can you hear me? Faust?”
A whisper came forth, a whisper from a dying man. “Take… my… phone… the answer… is in there…”
Faust leaned back on the seat and spoke no more, and Christian’s mind snapped. He turned from Faust’s bullet riddled body to the tunnel entrance far behind. He could hear the helicopter hovering. The hunters were waiting.
He grabbed the blood soaked phone, put it in his pocket and then turned and kicked the door off the hinges.
He stepped out, grabbed a shaft of metal from the wreckage and marched toward the entrance to the tunnel. He walked in a blind rage, intending to find Henrick and beat him to death with the shaft, to break every bone in Henrick’s damned body before plunging the shaft into his enemy’s heart. Twice Henrick had stolen the life of a friend of his, and enough was enough.
Priests, angels and demons.
The thought came unasked for and unwanted.
At each turn he became more lost. Elsa was trying to show him the path, but it was not a path of revenge.
Every fiber in his body told him to go forward and punish Henrick for all he’d done. But somehow, he listened to the thought. Filled with hatred but unwilling to give all hope away, he stopped in his tracks, turned back the other way and ran off into the dark.
Chapter 36
Paris, France
Do you hear me Kate? Are you listening? I need you to remember.
Drake was in the depths of the Paris catacombs, images were streaming from Kate’s mind to his. Childhood memories, her mother and father, her first boyfriend, then college, the academy, her wedding, the murder of her husband, finding him dead on the kitchen floor, case after worthless case, file names and numbers and images of the suspects.
Christian. I want you to think of Christian.
A trickle of images arrived. The bayou, Billy Ray, even Vivian Dasher, and finally her son. And then it was her son, her son, her son, until Drake was sick of it. “Focus! Or I will bring you pain like you’ve never imagined.”
The connection broke and Kate fell to her knees, held up only by two of Drake’s soldiers. He waved his hand. They let go of her and she hit the cold stone floor of the catacombs.
Drake looked at her. She was beaten. Physically, mentally, emotionally. He’d tortured her for the past three days in every way he could think of, and yet somehow, she’d held on. Something was giving her power, something was combating the onslaught and he was becoming increasingly frustrated.
Only one other ever gave him this much trouble and that was Anya.
“Maybe you should just kill her,” Artimous said.
Drake turned. “You really don’t see very far do you, Artimous?”
“This is dangerous,” the bearded vampire replied. “She’s not conforming. Perhaps she has special training from her days in the FBI. Perhaps she can’t be made to be one of us. Meanwhile we’re wasting time, while Christian escapes with Faust.”
“Christian could go only one place with Faust: the Holy See. Do you want to go there?”
Artimous said nothing. Of course he didn’t.
“If the Church knows of it, Christian will discover the location of the Dark Star,” Drake continued. “But we’ll have Kate to deceive him. And she will tell us. Mark my words: once I turn her, she’ll become the key to defeating Christian.”
“And if the church doesn’t know?”
“Then Christian is wasting his time or getting himself killed by Ignis Purgata. And we will still have Tereza’s path to follow.”
Drake looked down at Kate. She was a shadow of herself now.
“She’s falling into the abyss,” Artimous said. “She wants to die. Without Christian here, she’s given up hope.”
Drake ignored him. He knelt down and whispered in Kate’s ear. “You will help me; it’s just a matter of time. Sooner or later, I’ll find the key, and then you’ll do my bidding…forever.”
At that moment a door opened and one of the servants came in. “Tereza has arrived, as you requested.”
Drake left Kate and returned to his throne as Tereza was shown in.
“Tell me good news,” he demanded.
“We’ve found the location of the Dark Star,” she said. “It lies in the Empty Quarter, hidden there by an order who still protect it. There’s a single oasis from which can take our heading. From there it’s no more than a day’s journey, if we have the right vehicles.”
Drake grinned. “You’ve done well, my princess, but what troubles you?”
“As I feared, Akash was pulled by the desire for the power.”
“What do you mean?”
“He tried to kill Zwana and me. He’s going for the Dark Star on his own.”
“You fools!” Drake boomed.
“It’s not our fault. He’s broken. Beyond reason.”
“How far behind are we?” Drake asked.
“Several days,” she said. “But disfigured and must conceal himself. He no longer has a face. I tried to kill him, but he escaped. And he doesn’t know the final heading. Whereas I do.”
“Then how does he expect to find the prize?”
“There’s little thinking in him,” she said. “He’s like an animal, but a cunning one. He’ll try to find one of these guardians. In their foolish attempt to protect the stone, they might attack him, and you and I know what he’ll do to them. They’ll fail and he’ll end up gaining the secret from them.”
Drake turned, deep in thought; not only did he have Christian to deal with, but his own disciple. Drake searched the Court, looking over his army and his wealth, and all he had. Although he was the king, he was king alone. He couldn’t really trust anyone. It was only fear that kept some sense of a semblance of order. The truth was that vultures and thieves stood all around. He had built an army of those that would usurp him if the chance presented itself. The worst type of minds inhabited his world. He could trust no one.
His mind drifted to a time he hadn’t thought about in almost two thousand years: when he was a soldier of Rome there was honor, a code, duty. In this new empire there was none of that. It was survival. Every man for himself. Drake’s mind flashed to Akash. He would make an example of this one, or someone. Order must be restored.
“We depart at once,” he said to Artimous. “Bring thirty and leave the rest.”
Tereza looked over at Kate. “And who is this mess on the floor? A new recruit?”
Drake looked at Tereza. “She could be, but I can’t break her. She seems to be holding on to something that gives her great strength. I’ll probably have to destroy her.”
Tereza bent down. “She’s pretty. Don’t kill her yet. Let me take a run at her.”
“You think you can do better than me?”
“I think you’re not asking the right questions.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’re too much like all men, Drake,” Tereza said. “You keep asking and demanding and you do everything but listen. But I can hear it already. She has questions of her own.” Tereza looked down at Kate. “Don’t you pretty one?”
Kate was too beaten to respond, but Drake sensed immediately what Tereza was suggesting.
“More than anything she wants to know who killed her husband,” Tereza added. “Since we know, I believe we should tell her.”
Chapter 37
Port of Qaboos, Muscat, Oman
Half an hour after sunset, the cargo ship Fortune Hunter bumped against the dock at Qaboos, the largest port in Oman. Christian stood on the deck as the lines were secured and the rusting old hulk was lashed to the concrete pier.
As he waited for the gangplank to be lowered, Christian stared at the phone Faust had given him and the strange document with the dots. The starting point was the city of Muscat, but the dots were still a mystery. They didn’t line up with established settlements. A fact that didn’t surprise him since the parchment was sev
eral thousand years old. But what could they be? Coordinates of some oasis? Resting places? Or some other creation of ancient men?
The ship’s horn sounded letting all in port know they were docking. Christian shut off the phone and looked up into the sky. In the late twilight, the stars were beginning their magic act, appearing out of the darkness. Little dots all over the night’s sky.
It couldn’t be that simple.
But it was. As he stared, the map’s meaning suddenly became clear. The map’s directions had been charted in the sky like the navigators of the ancient world. He’d spent three days inside his cabin, looking down at the image, when he should have been looking up.
Of course, he thought. There were only two ways to navigate across the sea in the ancient times, by the sun and moon, or by the stars. And the desert was basically a sea made of sand. Follow the star pattern and one would find the stone that came to Earth from the heavens.
Christian knew the race was on, but he guessed that finally he’d put Drake behind him. Kate didn’t know about the map and that meant she couldn’t tell Drake about it, even if he broke her spirit. For once he was ahead of the game.
He stepped onto the dock alone, as it should have been from the start. Kate and Faust, Simon and Elsa, he was tired of seeing others suffer because of who and what he was. The only way to make their sacrifices worth anything was to find this weapon of the heavens before Drake did; otherwise, all of their deaths, all their agony, would be in vain.
He made his way from the docks to the streets of Muscat. As he walked, Christian noticed the pain in his arms and legs. His body had taken a pounding over the last few months. He was weaker than he could ever remember. Ever since Boston he’d been in one kind of confrontation or another. Burned, shot, stabbed, irradiated; even for a member of the Fallen, that took its toll. Maybe when it was all over he would rest. Maybe for eternity, the idea didn’t sound too bad at all.
He entered the market looking for a rental shop that one of the sailors had referred him to. The owner apparently took many travelers into the Empty Quarter on expeditions.
He walked up to the shop, eyeing the Jeeps, Land Rovers, and a trio of squared off Mercedes Benz SUVs that sat in the yard beside it. They looked like they had a million miles on them but they also appeared to be formidable, with big knobby tires, extra fuel cans and shovels on the side, as well as battering rams, light bars and winches on the front. Exactly what he needed.
He stepped inside the shop, which was nothing more than a garage. In the far corner an old man sat staring into space, while a young boy was sweeping the floor. A clerk, whose age suggested he was one man’s grandson and the other man’s father, turned out to be the owner.
He looked over Christian with uncertainty. Christian didn’t even have to read his mind: he knew he didn’t fit in. He was an outlander, a foreigner here, an American traveler in a country that was not all that friendly to Westerners.
“I was referred to you by a sailor on the Fortune Hunter,” Christian said. “A sailor named Aziz.”
The clerk’s face softened a bit. “Aziz, is a friend, yes.”
“He told me you would rent me a Land Rover outfitted for the desert.”
The clerk just shook his head. “No rent,” he said. “Charter. A driver goes with you.”
Christian leaned forward. Not in this case. He spread a large wad of cash on the desk. Enough to buy the Land Rover. After what happened to the Ferrari, he figured it was only fair.
The shopkeeper stared at the cash.
It will be okay.
The clerk took the cash, scribbled up some paperwork and then handed it over to Christian along with a set of keys. As he signed, Christian caught a sense of fear in the man’s mind. It seemed Christian wasn’t the first stranger to come here tonight. Another man had come in and forced them to give him a vehicle.
Christian saw the picture of the man. A man without a face, wearing white gauze over everything but his eyes. Christian released the shopkeeper. The man wobbled a bit. He was dizzy, light headed. He looked confused and sat down.
“When did this man leave?” Christian asked.
“An hour ago. He’s heading for Ibis. Nothing but shifting sands and blistering heat after that, there is no gasoline or supplies. Ibis it the last stop before hell.”
Christen had seen a glimpse or two of hell, and this desert was nothing like it. He took the keys and left. He’d landed in Oman thinking he was ahead. But as usual, he was one step behind.
Chapter 38
For years, Henrick Vanderwall had imagined the moment that was now upon him: validation, coronation, a moment of victory. In his vision of it, he wore the dress uniform of the Ignis Purgata; looking like a knight of the Crusades, he would be standing in front of the Quorum of Five—the group of bishops who’d foresworn any right to ascend to the Papacy in exchange for entry into the Righteous Fire.
As he imagined it, the moment came with long speeches in which they praised him and lauded his accomplishments, anointing him as their champion. There would be blessings and prayers and Holy Communion. At the conclusion of the ceremony, they would place in his hand the weapon he coveted above all else, the weapon he’d kept from the claws of the demon he now hunted – The Sword of God, made from the nails that pierced the hands and feet of Christ, two thousand years before.
But the moment came to him differently, he and the greatest of his hunters were in the noisy confines of a chartered cargo plane, descending towards the blazing sands of the Arabian Peninsula. Instead of dressing like a knight, Henrick wore tawny camouflage like a military man. Around him were armored Jeeps, stacks of supplies and the weapons of his trade. The honor itself was bestowed via the scratchy, intermittent signal relayed to them from the cockpit on a black, plastic phone.
“… the Quorum has met,” a Bishop named Hershel told him.
“And?”
“Your request has been granted, Henrick. All of us realize this is a moment of danger. A moment to act.”
Henrick allowed a slight sense of joy to course through his body; though in truth, he’d reached the point where approval mattered little, even the approval of the Quorum.
“Please understand,” Bishop Hershel added, “this was not an easy decision. But these are desperate times. Simon’s death, followed so closely by Messini’s, has put us in a quandary. We are all but leaderless, and for that reason and that reason only, we’re trusting in you. It could have gone otherwise; the incident on the highway has been difficult to accept.”
Henrick thought the Bishop was overstating it a little. The incident along the SS 148 had been swept under the rug quite easily. All it took was a simple agreement between the Vatican and the Italian authorities. As the saying went, money changes everything and the Vatican was not short on cash while Italy was almost broke. The final report would read as nothing more than a tragic accident between a helicopter and fuel tanker, end of story.
Henrick chose not to point this out in his moment of victory. “I understand Bishop. I won’t let you down. I firmly believe that Faust had something to do with Messini’s death. And that he acted under the power of the demon who calls himself Christian. As you know, this was the same one who killed Simon. You, or whomever of the five assumes Messini’s position, would do well to be cautious. You may all be targets of this demon. For reasons known only to him, he seems bent on destroying our leaders.”
“Yes… well…no decision has been made yet. For now, the council will meet and allow you to lead as you will.”
Henrick smiled. They were afraid. Old men who’d lived life behind the lines suddenly felt the battle coming to their doorstep. If he was right they would never appoint another, at least not until Henrick had rid the world of this vampire scourge. Then they’d need someone to take the credit.
“And the sword?” Henrick asked. “Will it be in Oman when I arrive?”
Henrick had asked for the sword, even as they spoke of dismissing him. It was a bold demand,
but the revelation of what Faust was looking for in the archives combined with the thought of a demon wielding a thing such as the Dark Star—if it existed—had swung the vote opposite.
Henrick had them in a corner. In a moment of crisis he’d seized the reins. It was simple really. The men were already in disarray. The demons seemed to be on a rampage. There was no time to find another leader. And that leader needed a weapon like no other if he was to inspire them to victory.
“A Vatican aircraft left here an hour ago,” Hershel said. “Bishop Milago is accompanying it. He should arrive in Oman a few hours after you. Be careful Henrick. You’re entering a land we have little sway over.”
“I’ll be cautious.”
John Wellington came up to him. “We touch down in thirty minutes.”
Henrick covered the phone. “We’ll have to divide up. The sword won’t be arriving for several hours.”
“I’m not sure we should delay,” Wellington said. “If the demons find this Dark Star…”
Henrick nodded. “Take a scout team ahead,” he said, then changed his mind. “Actually, take the main group. If you encounter them, you’ll need numbers. I’ll remain here with Doros and three others until the sword is delivered.”
Wellington nodded and Henrick returned to the call. “I must go Bishop. I’ll wait for the sword and then I’ll find these demons before they discover the Dark Star.”
“We can only hope,” the Bishop said. “God be with you.”
Chapter 39
The Empty Quarter,
near the border with Saudi Arabia
The yellow, oxidized headlights on the fifteen-year-old Land Rover barely lit up the desert floor as Christian rumbled across it. The interior of the cabin was faded, the windshield cracked, even the seat was held together with duct tape, but the engine sounded like it was in good shape, well maintained as the clerk promised, and Christian was making good time.