The Damned

by Nancy Holder; Debbie Viguié

  “Thanks,” she said. “Okay. Skye, you and Noah take the first patrol.”

  Skye stood up and brushed herself off. She smiled at Noah. “Shall we?”

  He crossed over to her, and the two of them melted into the forest.

  Skye was uneasy. She slowly walked the perimeter of their base camp and tried to calm herself. She had agreed to take watch with Noah. Holgar would patrol with Taamir. She understood the need to get to know their two other comrades better. And she and Holgar had been the obvious choices. Taamir and Noah didn’t yet know Antonio was a vampire, and she was pretty sure Jamie would say something obnoxious and start a fight. Still, she missed her partner.

  She sighed.

  “Okay?” Noah asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  She nodded.

  “You’re very young,” he noted.

  Skye hunched her shoulders. She and Eriko were both sixteen, but Skye was the youngest. She had run away to the university when she was fourteen. Everyone had thought it was because she wanted to fight Cursed Ones. She did, but she had far darker reasons. Estefan, where are you? she wondered.

  In her mind she compared Estefan to Jamie. Why was it she was attracted to bad boys? Of course, Estefan and Jamie only shared a dark edge and love of violence in common. Estefan was a witch who had sided with the Cursed Ones. Jamie was a human hunter who’d sworn to destroy the vampires.

  “Nobody’s young anymore,” she muttered.

  Noah nodded, seeming to take that as truth.

  She was grateful that Antonio had shown up, though she didn’t know why he was here. Clearly, there had been a change of plan, and it had taken Jenn by surprise as well.

  As she walked, she wove four tiny spells. There was the one to give them both enhanced vision. There was another to keep their path free from roots and snares. A third enhanced hearing. A fourth made their footsteps silent. There were others she would have liked to perform, to mask their smell or to help them locate danger, but she was already tired from all the spell casting she’d done to get them through the airports earlier, and performing the four was taking everything she had.

  “What are you doing?” Noah asked at last.

  Skye hesitated for a moment. In Witchery it wasn’t common to expose yourself to outsiders, but nothing about her journey since leaving home had been common. “I’m doing magicks to help us.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Magicks.”

  “I’m a witch. A White Witch,” she added quickly. “A good witch.”

  “Your master told mine about you,” Noah said.

  So Father Juan had outed her. That worried her a little, but she also realized it was a good strategy. Back in New Orleans, Marc Dupree and his freedom fighters had been very angry that they hadn’t been told. She doubted Father Juan had informed them about Antonio, though. Witches were not the enemy. Cursed Ones were.

  “Is that why I can see and hear better than I should?” Noah asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you please stop?”

  Her heart sank. “You don’t approve of witchcraft.”

  Noah half smiled. “I . . . approve of anything that will help defeat the Cursed Ones. But I’m attuned to my own senses, and this is, hmm, difficult to adjust to. I think it will hurt and not help.”

  She winced. “Sorry,” she muttered as she released them both from the two spells. Unfortunately, she couldn’t just release him, she had to release herself as well, and she stumbled into a tree with a grunt.

  He reached out a hand. “You okay?”

  She shook her head to clear it and then tried to recast the spell, but just for herself. She was too tired, though. She needed to rest.

  “I’m—”

  She stopped. Something was wrong. She turned her head, straining to listen. There was nothing.

  Nothing.

  And yet . . .

  “Something’s here,” she whispered.

  Noah half turned as a figure lunged at him from the darkness, grabbing him and tossing him into the air.

  Terror galvanized Skye, and the adrenaline flowed through her body, giving her the energy to weave a spell to lessen the impact as Noah hurtled to the ground.

  The creature turned toward her, and she shrank back. It was hideous. Its eyes were overly large in its face, its nose tiny and pinched, and its mouth bristled with longer fangs and more teeth than she had seen on a Cursed One. It looked more like the mouth of a wolf.

  A werewolf! she thought. But the body was not wolflike; it was more humanoid, and dressed in black pants and a padded black jacket. It wore boots. It was nothing like anything she had ever seen.

  The creature lumbered toward her, eyes glowing red. Skye sidestepped out of its path, surprised that her speed was on par with the beast’s. It turned, slow as a human, and swung at her with hands tipped with curved claws.

  Noah sprang up behind the creature and tried to drive a stake into it. She heard the sound of cracking wood, and with a shout Noah stepped back.

  “The stake won’t penetrate!” he yelled to her.

  Her hands flew to her belt, and Skye whipped out a bottle of holy water and a stake. She uncapped the bottle, darted forward, and splashed the holy water in the creature’s eyes. It stopped with a bellow and began clawing at its own eyes with its razor-sharp claws. It carved chunks of its flesh from its face until blood was flowing freely.

  Skye took a precious extra second as she angled the stake upward, lunged, and then shoved. The wood stopped less than a quarter of an inch into the creature. The muscles were too strong, too powerful, to punch through.

  She grabbed a cross next and slammed it against the creature’s skin. It began to smoke and burn. And before she could stop herself, she whispered, “Incendio.”

  The searing turned into full-fledged flames. The creature dropped to the snow, rolled, and extinguished them with a hiss and sizzle. Skye took a step back, blinking, horrified at what she had just done. Magick was only to be used for defense, never to hurt or attack.

  Using only his free hand, Noah unsheathed a short sword from under the back of his coat and swung the blade downward. It cut halfway through the creature’s neck and then lodged between the upper vertebrae of its spine. Grunting, he leaned, putting his full weight on it as the creature beneath him howled and writhed. One of the creature’s claws slashed across Noah’s knee, felling him instantly.

  Noah sprawled on the ground near the creature’s head, but he held desperately on to the sword, still trying to sever the neck.

  “Help me!” he yelled.

  Galvanized, Skye sprang forward, grabbing the hilt of the sword, taking care to avoid the clacking teeth and swinging claws, and she rammed downward for all she was worth, sobbing with the effort.

  At first the blade didn’t move. And then it did. Slowly, slowly, and then suddenly it sliced all the way through, cutting off the creature’s head. Skye fell into the snow, panting, next to Noah.

  While the adrenaline was still running through her body, she reached out and touched Noah’s leg, sending healing energy through it. Next she worked magicks on his arm. Now that he knew she was a White Witch, she could heal him without fear of discovery.

  He groaned appreciatively. “Now, that I don’t mind so much.”

  “What is this thing?” she asked, wincing as she stared at the decapitated head. The red eyes were smoking in the horrible, ruined face.

  “It must be one of Dantalion’s experiments,” Noah said slowly as he wadded up his sling and crammed it into a pocket in his jacket. His voice caught. “If it’s Svika . . .”

  Laboring from exertion and fear, Skye fixated on the body as parts of it slowly turned to ash. It happened so slowly that it began to unnerve her. After two or three minutes all that was left was the head, which was decaying at a much slower rate. The lifeless eyes stared up at her. Then, as monstrous bits on the face began to crumble, the fact that this head looked very human could not be denied.

  Cold chills turned
to nausea, and she forced herself to turn away. She had hurt something that had been a person.

  “Is it?” she asked him hoarsely. She cleared her throat. “Was it?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Noah murmured. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if Dantalion set him free to mock us.”

  RUSSIA

  DANTALION

  Down among the dead men, as the poem went. His mind racing, Dantalion surveyed his domain of operating rooms, caches of surgical equipment, cages, cells. The smell was hideous. The screaming, annoying.

  Hunters he had not yet used were chained to the walls, and heads dipped forward, unconscious. Vampires in cages raged at him as he swept through the basement of his headquarters, the Imperial Hunting Palace of the last czar of Russia. He was seething with anger and forcing the ragged edges of fear at bay. His chief scientist, Vladimir Khrushchev, walked beside him, unaware of the storm inside his superior.

  “Can we go out yet?” Khrushchev asked. His fangs were extended, and his eyes glowed scarlet. He looked a bit thinner than usual. He gestured to the six vampires in white coats—his team of scientists. “We need to hunt.”

  “The last two hunters from the Middle East are still out there,” Dantalion said, trying to sound calm and in control.

  “Only two?” Khrushchev asked pointedly.

  Dantalion didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure there were only two. It was impossible that two men could inflict this much damage on their hybrids. But he wasn’t about to admit that.

  “Perhaps it’s time to send out more matroyshkas?” Khrushchev ventured.

  Matroyshkas was their word for the hybrids they had created together, using captured hunters who’d dared to attack him; werewolves they had trapped from various packs they had identified; and vampires, some of whom had volunteered.

  Dantalion and Khrushchev had dubbed the hybrids matroyshkas after the famous Russian folk-art nesting dolls that tourists liked to buy. Upon seizing control of the palace-cum-lab that he and Khrushchev now stood in, Dantalion had set out his souvenirs from his glory days with Rasputin in czarist Russia. One of these had been a set of matroyshkas of the czar, czarina, Alexei, and Rasputin. An in-joke of a sort, it had captured the attention of Khrushchev. Playing with the nesting dolls, Khrushchev had envisioned how to make the hybrids: putting the genes of one creature into the genes of another, then into the genes of a third—vampire, werewolf, and human, sometimes two vampires and a werewolf, or some other combination.

  It was fascinating work. There were a lot of failures, some quite repulsive, but they were making splendid progress. Then, unfortunately, Solomon had heard about it and offered to pay for it in return for some hybrids of his own, and the information on how to make more. Dantalion had not wanted a partner, especially not the most powerful vampire known to the world. Dantalion wanted to be the most powerful vampire known to the world, and while he had some tricks up his sleeve to accomplish that, he didn’t want to share the secret to making hybrids with a rival. He didn’t even know how Solomon had found out about his plans. But Solomon had, and now Dantalion was stuck with him. On the plus side, Solomon had an unending supply of money, and Dantalion held back some of the crucial details of matroyshka creation, thereby retaining control.

  But something was up. Something was wrong. He had sent out a dozen hybrids, and then a dozen more, and none of them had returned with their quarry—just two hunters. It didn’t add up. He suspected reinforcements had arrived, but how many? Was it time to move to plan B?

  “Send out more,” he said to Khrushchev.

  RUSSIA

  TEAM SALAMANCA, TAAMIR, AND NOAH

  Antonio realized he should have talked over his next order of business with Jenn first, while they’d been alone, but his mind had been on other things. That was bad. She was his leader, and he shouldn’t surprise her like this. And he should have brought it up before Skye and Noah went on watch together. He was out of sorts. He didn’t want Jenn to be here.

  “There’s something we need to discuss,” he said.

  “Now what?” Jamie said, groaning.

  Antonio sat beside Jenn on a log, his boot heels crunching in the snow. “Do you remember those men with the black Jerusalem crosses? The ones who sent us home in the jet from New Orleans?”

  “The ones who grabbed the scientist, the one who was working on the virus?” Eriko asked.

  “Sherman,” Jamie put in. “Yeah, those guys blasted in after we did all the heavy lifting.”

  “What scientist? What virus?” Taamir asked.

  “It was a kind of anemia,” Jamie said. “Sherman wanted to infect the Cursers with it, but they turned him first.”

  “Excuse me, Jamie-kun. It was leukemia,” Eriko corrected.

  “Well, it was germ warfare, at any rate,” Jamie said. “Like these Russian lads were doin’ before Dantalion took over.”

  “Vale, the same,” Antonio said. “Well, I saw three more of them today.”

  The team stirred. Taamir watched them, baffled.

  “Where?” Holgar asked.

  “One of them was in the airport. I saw two more in a car, so I followed them. They’re camping about a dozen miles from here.”

  Jamie swore.

  Taamir leaned in. “Sorry, but who? What? A dozen miles?”

  “That’s about nineteen kilometers,” Jamie informed him.

  “You’re not amusing,” Taamir snapped.

  Jenn took a deep breath. “Men wearing Jerusalem crosses were at my grandfather’s funeral, too. At least one of them worked for the government.”

  “The Spanish government?” Taamir asked, clearly not following.

  Jenn shook her head. “American.”

  “She’s a Yank,” Jamie said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his cold-weather jacket.

  “I think they might be part of a covert organization,” Antonio declared. “Beyond the official American government.”

  “You show up, and now they’re here?” Taamir said angrily. “And they were after you?” He glared at Jenn.

  “I think they’re good covert,” Jenn said quickly. “One of them—I think it was one of them—said something to me at the funeral about filling my grandfather’s shoes. His name was Greg. He wasn’t hostile.”

  I should have asked Gramma about him, she thought. She wished she knew how to contact her. Jenn hadn’t been able to reply to her grandmother’s one text message: Montana. The phone her grandmother had used must have been a throwaway; Jenn’s Thank you had bounced. The message had come in after they had parted, when her grandmother had put Jenn on a plane so she could go rescue Heather. Then Gramma had picked up Jenn’s mom, and the two had escaped from San Francisco.

  “Dantalion,” Eriko said. “They must be here for him too.”

  “Yeah, but to kill him or kidnap him? Or maybe they want him to work on the virus. They’ve obviously got a thing for Curser scientists,” Jamie said.

  Jenn shook her head. “Dantalion’s on the wrong side to help people wearing crosses.”

  “What should we do about them?” Eriko asked.

  Antonio looked at Jenn. She was the leader, and it needed to be her decision, but something told him that these men were very, very dangerous. Each time the two groups had crossed paths, the men had carried themselves like predators.

  And that just might be a good thing.

  “We should try to make contact,” Jenn said. “Reach out.”

  “Lovely, we’ll invite them for tea,” Jamie snorted.

  “No way,” Taamir said angrily. “We’re on a mission, and we don’t know these guys. They could even be working for Dantalion.”

  “I don’t think so,” Holgar said.

  “I agree with Jenn,” Eriko added, bobbing her head, looking uncomfortable as confrontation reared its head.

  “Jenn’s the leader; it’s Jenn’s call,” Holgar said briskly.

  “Dantalion wiped out your team,” Jenn reminded Taamir. “If these guys can help us, we should get tog
ether with them.” She flushed. “So to speak.”

  “No. It’s a risk we shouldn’t take.” Taamir folded his arms across his chest. His cheeks were red. Antonio wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or because he didn’t like being reminded of his team’s failure.

  “So, how do you want us to go about it, Jenn?” Holgar asked pointedly, turning away from Taamir. “Antonio could take you back there. We’ve got a van, and Antonio, you must have a car.”

  “I do,” Antonio confirmed. “Listen, Father Juan’s been contacted by a number of masters. They want to put together more teams like ours. You’d be surprised at some of the places where Hunters have been fighting Cursed Ones.”

  “So surprise us,” Jamie said.

  Antonio wasn’t about to discuss it any further in front of a stranger. Besides, they were getting off the subject. “Back to the black-cross agents,” Antonio said.

  “We go,” Jenn said. “Now.”

  “Hey,” Taamir protested. “Noah and I have a say in this too. And I don’t think—”

  There was a sudden rustling in the underbrush.

  Antonio glanced up as Skye and Noah entered camp. Noah tossed something onto the ground, which rolled slightly before coming to a stop in front of them all. It was a human head, only slightly decayed, and bristling with teeth.

  Eriko clicked on a flashlight, aimed the beam at the head. “What is that?” she asked.

  “Something we killed ten minutes ago,” Skye said.

  “Bloody hell,” Jamie spat, as Holgar picked it up to examine it.

  “How come there’s a head?” Jenn asked, her voice filled with quiet horror.

  “One of Dantalion’s experiments?” Antonio guessed. Holgar tossed it to him, but he let it drop in the snow, not wanting to touch it. There was something so unnatural about it that it unnerved even him. He forced himself to look down at the twisted features. A huge jawbone, lots of teeth but with the canines missing. Possibly those missing teeth had been vampire fangs. Human skin, mostly, although ash was creeping across the cheeks and forehead.

  “Yes,” Skye said. “It attacked us. The body disintegrated, until only the head was left.”

  “It’s decaying too,” Eriko noted as she bent over to take a closer look.