Thank you, God, for all these blessings.
Juan walked outside, the night air cool on his face. Antonio was better. Had he and Skye done something permanent to him with their magicks? Something we can do to other vampires? When Skye returned, they could attempt the same rituals and magicks on Heather. He was certain the Circuit would prove to be a big help.
Statues of saints gazed down on him as he pulled a set of stones covered with ancient runes from his pocket and showed them to the moon. It was three-quarters full, large, and yellow. When he had aided Skye in Drawing Down the Moon, he had been filled with the love of the Goddess.
As a gesture to the Lady in addition to the Lord, he went into the chapel and took the lilies meant for the Holy Virgin and spread them on the chapel steps, beneath the moonlight. Who was She but the Goddess, in another form? Then he lit a white candle and set it among the lilies.
“Are you with me?” he asked the Lady.
A wind blew up, and the flame of the white candle flared.
“Blessed be,” he said.
He prayed over the runes in Latin and tossed them. His heart seized as he read the signs. Everything pointed to something dark on the horizon—this horizon, Salamanca. More than that he couldn’t discern. He couldn’t even tell from which direction danger was coming, or whom it was targeting. Perhaps it was the trouble they were already in—the closing of the school, the war.
“Jenn,” he murmured aloud, as if calling to her. “Be careful, my child.”
He gathered the stones and put them in his pocket.
EN ROUTE TO SALAMANCA
TEAM SALAMANCA MINUS ANTONIO
As was their habit while flying, Jenn’s team scattered through the cabin of the plane. Skye cast glamours on each of them to make them less interesting, but when it came to Noah, the glamour was not working for Jenn. He was sitting beside her, reading a book in Hebrew, and she kept staring at his hands without meaning to. What Antonio had said had cut her to the quick. Rededicating himself to the priesthood?
Breaking up with me, she translated. As if they had ever really been together. That was just some crazy dream she’d been having all by herself. But he said he loves me.
But he’s a vampire.
She became aware that Noah was looking at her, and ticked her glance up at him.
“Reading over my shoulder?” he asked her, chuckling.
“Yeah, sorry.” She started to pull away. He made a show of moving the book closer.
“This is one of the good parts,” he said.
“I know. I’ve read it before.” Of course she was kidding.
He chuckled again.
“Where did you even get a book in Hebrew?” she asked him.
“Your grandmother, oddly enough. She said she found it ‘during her travels.’ It’s a bestseller, too.”
“My grandmother gets around.”
“She does,” he agreed. Then he cocked his head. “Are you okay?”
“Define your terms.”
He nodded. “Crazy world. I’m looking forward to seeing your home.”
“It’s not—,” she began, then realized that of course it was. She grimaced. “My room’s a mess.”
“I’m sure I’ll like it.” His smile made that place at her lower back grow warm and tingly. Noah went back to reading. “One more hour till we land,” he added. “Don’t get eyestrain looking over my shoulder.”
“I’ll just wait until you’re done, then read it myself.”
“It’s a long book,” he warned her.
“I’m a patient person.”
“So am I, Jenn,” he replied, grinning as he resumed his reading.
SALAMANCA
FATHER JUAN AND THE STUDENTS
Father Juan passed from the chapel to the building that had become the dormitory. In his absence they had completed the move so that everyone on the campus grounds was housed in the same area. It had built an even stronger bond of respect and camaraderie among the students and the teachers. It also made it difficult to have private conversations. And it made for close living quarters. Tempers were flaring. Students were complaining. Some of them had cause: Apparently, there was a young student named Sade, from Africa, who bathed in garlic salve to protect herself from the Cursed Ones. Literally coated herself with it. Once it dawned on the rest of the students that if they applied the salve as well, no one would be able to smell the garlic anymore, they slathered it on as liberally as sunscreen.
When the troops garrisoned at the university had been ordered to leave, a few who were loyal to the cause had set up an academy-wide security system complete with motion sensors. Father Giovanni, who had once studied to be an electrical engineer, was in heaven. Father Juan told himself that the alarms would give them fair warning, but he still had the sense that he would be blindsided at any moment.
The runes had been tossed. Father Juan had put the lilies back on the chapel altar and set his votive candle in front of the statue of St. John of the Cross. Now his hand was on the door to the dorm building when the hair on the back of his neck rose. Something was wrong. Before he could open the door, it was flung wide by Father Giovanni. The young priest’s face was ghostly pale.
“What is it?” Father Juan asked.
“Father, the alarms are going crazy. We’ve got dozens of signals from the sensors.”
“Dozens?” Juan asked. That couldn’t be his hunters, then. They should still be in the air.
Juan pushed past Giovanni and entered the hallway. He began pounding on the doors on the left-hand side. “Get up! Intruders!”
Giovanni raced along the right side of the hall doing the same thing. By the time the two priests reached the end of the corridor, the students there were already up and preparing for battle. The hallway was filled. Everyone stood in front of their door, more or less dressed, strapping on stakes and vials of holy water and wielding crosses. So young. So fierce.
Giovanni’s pale face turned ash gray.
“You saw this in your vision?” Juan asked softly.
Giovanni nodded.
“Someone’s coming,” Juan said, raising his voice enough to be heard by all. “We don’t know who or what is out there, but it’s a good bet they’re not friendly.” He made the sign of the cross over each row, then over Giovanni, then over himself.
“Bless you, my children,” he said. Then he turned to Giovanni. “I have to go downstairs to check on Antonio and Heather.”
“Father, prego, don’t go anywhere,” Giovanni begged him.
Juan hesitated. Then he nodded. There was no time.
Juan ran back down the hall, his student hunters and instructors falling in behind him. They burst out into the night, and the air felt electric. Giovanni kept pace.
“Is it a good idea to leave the building?” he asked.
“We’re not set up to handle a siege in there,” Juan replied.
“We should have been better prepared,” Giovanni said.
A roar boomed through the night like the tide coming in and crashing against the shore. It buffeted Father Juan’s eardrums and rattled his spine.
Father God. Blessed Mother, he thought, crossing himself.
“I don’t think we could have prepared for this,” Father Juan replied.
“What do you—?”
A wave of Cursed Ones came over the wall, dropping down inside the university walls. There were a dozen vampires dressed like soldiers in black clothing, their eyes molten rubies, fangs extended like stilettos. A dozen more appeared at the top of the wall. And they kept coming. There weren’t dozens of invaders, Juan realized. There were hundreds.
Just on the other side of the gate, Father Juan heard the howling of werewolves. Up and down the line students gasped.
“Holgar?” he said aloud. Are the werewolves coming to help us?
Next to him Sade, the tall, willowy Ethiopian girl with the ebony skin, slathered more garlic-infused salve on her face, then popped half a tin of garlic mints in her mouth.
The stench was overwhelming even to his human nose. Smart girl, that one.
“Use your garlic!” he shouted up the line.
And then, then the vampires rushed over them like a flood.
In her cage, Heather hissed and shrieked. Eyes scarlet, fangs glistening, she hurtled herself at the bars in an uncontrolled frenzy. Screams from above pierced Antonio’s eardrums, and explosions rocked the foundations of the ancient building. Smoke and the smell of blood poured into the tight space. His fangs extended. He hissed.
Vampires, attacking. It must be Aurora, he thought. Here for me.
Antonio gripped the bars and shook hard, fighting to get free. Aurora didn’t have to do this. He’d go with her, if she’d spare the others.
But he couldn’t get out. He and Father Juan had been careful to make sure he couldn’t escape his confinement.
“They’re coming!” Heather screamed, panicking. So Heather was afraid of the invading Cursed Ones. She didn’t see them as liberators. That was good . . . if he could get her to be quiet. Her shouts would alert the vampires to her location—and his. If he’d been alone, he would have called out to the vampires himself. He would have demanded that they take him to Aurora. But Heather was Jenn’s sister, and he would die to protect her.
“Look at me, look,” Antonio said. He had to calm her down. “Heather. When I say for you to do a thing, you must do it.”
The room shook hard, and bricks and plaster rained down on him. For a few moments he lay dazed on the wooden floor of his cell while Heather screamed and screamed. Along the floor, smoke rolled like a dark gray carpet. A fire had broken out in the catacombs. He felt the heat against his cheek.
“Get me out of here!” Heather yelled.
Werewolves howled, creating a crescendo of wild sound. He thought of Jamie, whose family had been murdered by werewolves. Thought of Father Juan and the others aboveground. Worried about Heather.
“Heather,” he said soothingly, calmly, as he got to his hands and knees. He pushed up from the rubble; just as he did, more fragments cascaded from the ceiling. “I can help you, mi Luz. I’ll save you. Listen to me, and I’ll tell you exactly what to do.”
“No!” she shrieked, but as she turned to look at him, he caught her eye. Pushed. She thrashed and looked away.
Then looked back.
Another wolf howl erupted somewhere close by. The rat-a-tat of gunfire.
“Heather.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. She was a vampire; she would be able to hear him. He pushed warmth into his voice. Enticement. Seduction. “I’m here, and I will keep you safe.”
He heard the shouts of humans dying. The cruel laughter of vampires on the hunt. More howls. The smoke grew thicker. Plaster dusted his shoulders. They were locked in.
Vampires could burn to death.
“Escúchame,” he said distractedly then switched to English. “Listen to me, Heather.”
Focusing, he finally got her to lie in the corner and pull her blanket over herself. He wished he had the power to mesmerize from afar. Then he could summon someone to come let them out.
The building rocked again. Dios, would it fall down around them? That was one way to get out of here.
The wood beneath his shoes began to smoke.
Above him there were fewer shouts.
No gunfire.
A single wolf howl.
And a vampire was coming down the stairs.
Ay, here it is, then, he thought. I won’t let them take me alive again. I won’t go back to what I was.
There was no movement in Heather’s cage. He had to get her out.
He reached into his pocket for the rosary given to him by Father Juan upon their return. Then smoke billowed around a tall, dark figure, and Antonio left the cross in his pocket. Orange flames danced behind the figure. Two red glowing eyes lasered directly at Antonio.
Then the figure took a step forward, and Antonio jerked in surprise. It wasn’t Aurora.
It was Sergio, his sire.
Sergio Almodóvar, whom he had humiliated before all vampiredom. Sergio, whose unnamed sire wanted the renegade Antonio de la Cruz brought before him.
Sergio, whom Antonio feared more than Aurora, despite everything she had done to him.
Antonio felt a horrible tug, as if on his very soul. A call from the darkness, where it was cool and where there was no fire raging around his celf. From the shadows, where Antonio could be invincible, immortal.
Ay, no, he thought fearfully. No, I won’t go back.
The darkness tugged. He is my sire. I owe him my existence.
No! I won’t be damned.
Sergio looked hard at Antonio, and then he smiled as Antonio fell to his knees and bowed his head.
“Antonio,” Sergio said. He smelled the fear rolling off his erstwhile protégé. Which did Antonio fear, himself or the flames? This basement was a death trap. He’d thought simply to collect Antonio, not to rescue him. “Long time.”
“My lord,” Antonio whispered. “Orcus has brought me to you at last.”
“You don’t fool me,” Sergio replied, testing him. He watched the smoke rising from the floor in Antonio’s cell. There was another cage beside his, apparently empty. “You’re a traitor.”
“I was. And for that I accept any punishment you offer. But I was . . . I recently found myself again. I don’t know what happened to me, Sergio. But whatever it was, it’s gone.”
Antonio de la Cruz raised his head. Brilliant red eyes, such cheekbones. Perfect fangs. Sergio felt an ache. The young vampire was so handsome. He’d been such an excellent killer. Had Aurora really brought him back into the fold?
Smoke was rising from the floor beneath his own boots. He would have to make this quick.
“Why are you locked in here?” Sergio asked him.
Antonio smiled bitterly. “Why do you think?”
Sergio covered his head as fiery debris plummeted from the ceiling. By Orcus, there was a lot of it! Wooden beams, a desk, books crisping in a flash fire. Ironically, Sergio’s young quarry was safer inside the cage—at least for the time being.
“Why did these people not kill you?” Sergio asked, dodging a shower of embers.
Antonio smiled lazily. “They want to make me good again.”
“Can that happen?”
Flames licked the floor and began to devour it. Sergio stepped closer to the cage, and the section he’d been standing on broke apart. Embers flew up. He looked around, assessing the danger. His sire wanted Antonio alive.
“I don’t know if it can happen. But if you will take me back, perhaps we can prevent it from happening to others,” Antonio said.
Cagey.
“Let me out. Let me join you in the fight,” Antonio said. “I know I need to prove myself to you. But I am back, Sergio.”
The wall behind Antonio’s cage burst into flame. Antonio darted to the front, put his hands on the bars, and hissed. He let go, and Sergio saw burn marks on his palms.
“Sergio,” Antonio said. His eyes matched the flames licking at his back. His fangs gleamed in the ruby light. “Sergio, please.”
“Why did you leave? What happened to you?” Sergio asked.
Antonio inched as close as he could to the front of the cage without holding on to the bars again. He hissed and hopped from one foot to the other.
“Tell me,” Sergio demanded.
“I don’t know,” Antonio said. “It was like . . . waking from a dream. I was suddenly revolted by what I’d done.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it.” He brushed the bar with his hand, and it sizzled against his skin again.
“Sergio, please,” he said.
“Repudiate your god,” Sergio said, “and I might begin to believe you.” He smiled, recalling his sire’s story of rescuing Aurora from the hands of the Spanish Inquisition. Those men of God had barbarically tortured her entire family and burned all of them alive, leaving her for last. Antonio had killed their descendants. Now Antonio was threatened with the b
onfire unless he renounced his heresy.
“He is not my god. I spit on Him,” Antonio said fiercely. And when he did spit, Sergio heard a sizzle.
The room was getting very hot. Antonio might only have seconds before the flames grabbed him. Sergio had made his point.
“Bueno. Good,” Sergio said.
Then the wall behind Sergio burst into flame. Surprised, he leaped out of the way of a fiery flare. Moving backward, he stumbled against the hot metal of Antonio’s cage. If Sergio didn’t act fast, he and Antonio would soon be sandwiched between two walls of flame.
“Antonio!” cried a voice. It was a girl’s, coming from the empty cell—not so empty after all. A vampire had been hiding there.
“Antonio!”
“Who’s that?” Sergio asked.
“A new convert,” Antonio replied. “I’m not sure how much you know about what’s been happening.”
Sergio ducked as a large chunk of burning plaster plummeted from the ceiling. Antonio didn’t flinch.
“Try me,” Sergio said.
“Her name is Heather,” Antonio replied in English, so that Heather would know what was happening. “Aurora converted her to use as bait for the Salamanca hunters, so she could get to me. Her sister is Jenn Leitner, their leader.”
“You bastard! Shut up!” the girl—Heather—shouted.
“It worked,” Sergio said, also in English. “Aurora did get to you.”
“Aurora has a Dark Witch with her. I think he helped her bring me back.”
“Antonio, you are evil!” Heather started shrieking. “Get me out of here! Help me!”
A Dark Witch? Sergio was fascinated. What had Aurora been up to? He had to know.
So . . . I won’t kill her. And I’d better tell Philippe the deal’s off before he does it for me.
“Very well. I warn you, Antonio,” Sergio said in Spanish, bending down and grabbing a sharp piece of charred wood. “One false move and I will kill you.”
“I deserve death for what I’ve done,” Antonio replied, then showed his fangs. “But I’d rather live another ninety years at least.”
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