by Jan McDonald
Mihai’s open chest wound had stopped leaking blood and appeared to be closing, albeit slowly. Helena, continued to press hard on the wound as a low moan came from his lips. He couldn’t speak but she knew instinctively what he wanted from her. Pressing her shirt hard onto the wound was actually preventing his wound from closing. She pulled it away, her heart doing somersaults, and she held her breath as Mihai’s wound began to heal.
Lilitu continued to try and dislodge Jude and eventually he was sent to the floor. With a screech of triumph, Lilitu moved in.
Jude was exhausted and shaking but the wolf was unbowed. He was on his feet in an instant and leaping at Lilitu’s throat.
Thunder and lightening continued to crash around them illuminating the scene of carnage. Jude fought with all he had left as the demon screeched and hissed and slashed at him.
Lilitu suddenly froze, the screech on her lips unuttered. Everyone was still, watching and wondering as slowly, very slowly, Lilitu staggered and fell forwards.
At that moment, the final fork of lightening lit up the beleaguered chapel. Beckett stood behind her, chest heaving and his breath coming in laboured gasps, and sticking from her back, at a crazy angle, was the huge silver crucifix from the chapel’s altar. Beckett had used such force it had crushed the ancient ribs and penetrated her heart and lungs, and the silver was already reacting with her vampire cells.
He fell on to his knees, unable to speak, simply staring at the fallen Lilitu. Demon she may have been, but dead demon she now was.
The storm abated as quickly as it had grown and the clear light of the dawn was reaching into the chapel through the window.
“Helena,” Jo said in a low voice. “Come. Look.”
Angel’s face was a pale pink instead of the deathly grey of recent hours and her breathing was steady. Helena felt her pulse and smiled. “She’s going to be all right. You know what that means? We’re on the right track. I’m certain that giving the dose at the very moment she turned had everything to do with it, but we’re on the right track, I know it. If I work more on the gene silencing, I think that will crack it.”
Darius struggled to his feet, winded and battered from his previous beating but otherwise unscathed. He limped over to the far corner of the room and picked up the wooden rosary that lay where Lilitu had hurled it in fury. He spent several moments just holding it and then he hung it around his neck. “Thank you, Sister,” he said. He lifted his head and walked painfully over to Angel and knelt beside her.
“Hey, Angel. Wake up. You owe me a drink.”
Beckett was on his feet, staggering forwards with Lane’s sword raised high. In one savage blow Lilitu’s head parted company with the rest of her body. He threw the sword onto the floor and walked out of the chapel.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN: BLESSING WAY
The door to Lane’s room stood ajar and he gently pushed it wide.
She lay like a statue. At her bedside he stood holding her hand; calmer than he could ever remember.
“Well, you missed out on some heavy shit, Legs. I mean a bloody demon for God’s sake. Lilitu. Mihai said she was The Ancient One. Was, being the operative word, thanks to Jude. You should have seen him, or the wolf, or both of them, hell, I don’t know one from the other any more. Remind me never to piss him off. He was the one who saved our collective arses, gave me time to finish her off. I’m so sorry my love, but we couldn’t save Maria. Jude and Jo are burying her now and then I’ll go and see to her. She saved Darius’s life, but it cost her own. We paid a high price tonight.
“Angel looks like she’ll make it, and the boy is okay. She’ll sort him out once she’s on her feet again. Mihai took a bad hit but he’s healing, and our Dr Helena looks like she’ll make it her business to see that he does. I didn’t see that coming did you? But I think they’re well suited. Her serum looks as though it’s going to work, though she says it needs tweaking, whatever that means.” He paused, unable to contain his emotions in mere commentary.
“I don’t want to leave you here. You know that. But Mihai said we couldn’t move you and I believe him. I’m not going to take the chance.”
His voice cracked and he took a deep breath.
“I have to go back with them, love. But I’ll be back as soon as I can. Please believe me, I wouldn’t leave you here unless I had to, there are still things that need to be finished. You take your time and sleep and heal, because when you wake up, I’m going to be here. “
His tears were hot on his cheek as he bent to kiss her but he was saved from sobbing openly as Darius stood in the doorway gently tapping on the door.
“Is it okay for me to come in? The others are getting ready to leave and I just wanted … well, I just wanted to …”
His words failed him as Beckett put his arm around him. “She knows, son.”
Sister Anna stood outside head down, hands crossed in front of her.
“Sister, we will see to the repairs and there will always be enough funds sent to you to keep this place and to look after her. Get help from the village if you need it. We will also make arrangements for that … that obscenity of a silver shrine to be taken from here. I know you’re a closed order but I need to be able to speak with you regularly.”
Anna raised her hand to stop him. “There is no order now, just her and me. I promised you I would look after her and I’ll stay here for as long as she needs me. You can leave me your cell phone and only you will know how to contact me. I will speak with you as often as you need. You should go now and let me take care of her.”
“Why would you do this?”
“We all have our purpose, and perhaps this is mine.” She dropped her head, effectively ending the conversation.
Mihai was on his feet and leaning on Helena when they returned to the chapel.
“You can do the honours so we can get rid of it,” he said to Beckett.
Beckett nodded and moved over to what remained of Lilitu, whose body had already begun to collapse into slimy decay. He threw both arms around the silver crucifix and heaved it from her body, ignoring the sucking noise it made. It was light in his arms as he took it outside to a stone trough that was now full, courtesy of the rainstorm. Immersing it in the crystal clear water, he blessed it as he removed the contamination.
Inside, Darius had been one step ahead of him and had replaced the upturned altar awaiting the cross. Beckett strode purposefully to it and placed it centrally. Sabine had found some candles and placed them on either side. Beckett lit them.
When he turned around, they were all standing with their heads bowed. He swallowed the hard lump in his throat.
Jude and Sabine had dragged the foul remains outside and already the flames were doing their work. They stood arms tight around each other. There would be no prayers over Lilitu; her soul had long since been claimed by the abyss.
Beckett drew a deep breath in, “Well, I guess we’re ready.
It took only an hour to clear out of the hotel in Parthavos and the network had lived up to expectations at Kozani airport. The journey home was solemn as they were locked in their individual thoughts and grief. They had lost a lot that night and Vasile Tepes was still out there.
Mihai had decided to go with them; he had business with a certain red headed geneticist with elfin features.
The Cedars felt cold and empty, it already missed her, but her presence was everywhere, comforting and reassuring. Beckett stood in her consulting room and decided to move his old chair behind her desk; he would keep vigil from there. He opened the ornate cigarette case on the leather top and took one, lighting it with her matching lighter.
“Well, it’s hardly going to kill me is it?” he asked aloud.
Darius was behind him before he realised it, his mind was many miles across the Aegean.
“Hey,” Darius said, “It’s time.”
They were all assembled in the Hogan waiting for him. Jo was about to perform the Blessing Way ceremony on Jude. He wore his old bandana and there was a
still, calm atmosphere inside the Hogan. He had placed the oak boughs in the four corners to announce to the Holy People that a ceremony was about to take place. Pungent herbs were smoking on the central fire. And several small bowls were on the floor, each containing different coloured ground vegetable material, pollen, flowers, and cornmeal. Next to them lay a large white buckskin ready for the sand painting that would be an important part of the ceremony.
“Blessing Way takes several days and nights,” Jo said, “And as the Enemy Way rite was ended before its time it is important that we honour this. “ he turned to Sabine, “You should wear the shawl, child. It is symbolic. In the tradition of my people, the Dine, it is worn by the wife of the one who seeks healing from The Holy Ones. Great healing will take place here, allowing this man and wolf to walk together in harmony. Neither one nor the other in dominance. It is well with this man that you wear the symbol of his wife.”
Sabine flushed and drew the shawl tightly around her as if it had indeed been Jude’s arms.
Jo began the first chant as Jude lay on the floor covered once more with pine branches and flower heads. Singing to Mother Earth, or Changing Woman, Jo sang as he began to sprinkle the fine colours from the bowls onto the buckskin.
His chants brought calm to them as they listened and watched as Jo created images that took away their breath.
The four principal colours of white, blue, yellow and black, were symbolic of the directions: white with the dawn and the east, blue with the midday sky and the south, yellow with evening twilight and the west, and black with the night sky and the north. He laid the colours using his right hand and allowed the material to trickle out between his thumb and forefinger. Dimensions and balance between certain figures had to be exact in order for the sand painting to be effective, for the proper balance to be achieved. He kept the figures that were emerging in proper alignment with pieces of string as he created images of The Holy People to insure their presence and aid in the ceremony.
The sandpainting was oriented so that the top was in the east and surrounded by a guardian on the other three sides, protecting it from evil, allowing strength and all good things which come from the east with the dawn to enter. For three days and nights he chanted to Earth Mother and Sky Father, seeking healing from The Holy Ones for the man who was now his friend. Jude slept for most of the time waking only for sips of water and to eat a mouthful of bread.
When the sandpainting was finished it portrayed the figures of The Holy Ones, along with traditional symbolism, representations of the sacred mountains and at the foot of Earth Mother and Sky Father a wolf joined with a man encircled in scared Navajo icons. The painting itself moved them all.
At the end of the third day, Jo knew it was time for the night chant and after they were all refreshed, he began the last of his songs. His voice and the rattle and drum put them all in place far removed from the carnage and grief that they had left behind.
Jude awoke just before dawn and Beckett could see the change that had taken place while he journeyed with The Ancient Ones and The Holy People. He remembered Sister Anna’s words, ‘We all have a purpose …perhaps this is mine’. Jude knew his purpose and as Beckett looked around him at Mihai and Helena, Jude and Sabine, Darius and Angel, his heart opened wide as he reached across the ocean to a small monastery in Greece. He had a purpose now and would fulfill it while he waited for her and he thanked God for it.
As dawn gave way to morning sun, he sat next to Jude. “Do you still mean to return to Tora Bora?”
Jude nodded. “But first I mean to have me a Gypsy wedding. We were sort of hoping you would do the honours, Beckett. “
Beckett flushed with pleasure, “I’d love to, but I’m no longer an ordained priest, it wouldn’t be legal.”
Jude shrugged, “Piece of paper. It has no meaning to me, or her. It is what is in the heart that matters. So, will you?”
Beckett grinned at him. “It will be my pleasure. Then I will come with you to Tora Bora. I’ve a lot of time to kill.”
“And then?” asked Jude.
“And then I have an appointment with Vasile Tepes.”
THE END
Book Three
Sanctuary
SANCTUARY – Definition in Oxford English Dictionary – Refuge, or place of safety from pursuit or other danger.
CHAPTER ONE: BLOODY HERITAGE
High in Transylvania’s Carpathian Mountains, Vasile Tepes sat in his favourite armchair contemplating the view from the massive picture window as the sun slipped behind the mountain; the mountain that fell away to the ancient castle ruins perched on the crags overlooking the Arges River at Poenari, and it was this view that drove and inspired him daily. As head of the House of Tepes, the ruins were once the fortress home of his great-grandfather Vlad III, more commonly known as Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad Dracula.
This was Vasile’s sanctuary- his place- and this view was for no other eyes than his own and those of his most trusted servant, Nicolae. Tourists arrived at the ruins at Poenari daily to climb the hundreds of steps leading up to what was left of Dracula’s fortress home, and Vasile longed for the day when all that would stop; when he restored the pile of stone once more to Castle Dracula.
The Dracula of fiction paled almost into insignificance next to the real Vlad, whose father, Vlad II, fought with every muscle, sinew and thought, against the invading Turks, determined to keep his homeland and his people safe, and in 1431 was invested with the Order of the Dragon, an organisation dedicated to fighting the Turkish invaders.
The dreadful name of Dracula was spawned from the old Romanian word Dracul, which means Dragon, and Draculea which means Son of the Dragon, an epithet that attached itself to Vlad at his birth, though in later years it became simply – Dracula. If fate is dictated by name, the word Dracul in Romanian also translates as Devil – so Dracula, Son of the Dragon, was also known as Dracula, Son of the Devil.
As children, Vlad and his younger brother, Radu, were taken hostage by the Turks in an effort to bring his father to heel, during which time – years in fact – Radu changed his allegiance to the Turks and Vlad’s anger and hatred were honed to the razor-sharp perfection of a Toledo steel blade. He emerged from captivity, a ruthless, blood-thirsty leader of his people who eventually regained the throne of Wallachia for the House of Tepes: Prince Vlad of Wallachia. Exactly when his taste for blood became literal no-one knows, but from him the ancient vampire lineage of the Born continued and continues.
Thoughts such as these were constant in Vasile’s mind. Exquisitely aware of his heritage and his responsibilities, he was consumed with hatred for the Created – vampires that had been turned by another – and, as he watched throughout the centuries, he witnessed his ancestral home become nothing more than a pile of stone to be trampled underfoot by gawping tourists and vowed that one day the House of Tepes would rise again and that he would be the one to restore it, however long and whatever it would take.
His disdain for the Vampire High Council and their codes and ethics were another thorn in his side, as were some of its officials. Mihai Rabinescu – Michael Rabb to the human world - was the Patriarch of the Council. He was as incorruptible as he was stubborn and his fierce defence of the Created was an abomination to Vasile.
After the debacle in Greece - when his brothers Luca and Mircea were killed at the hands of Mihai, Beckett and Lane Dearing – Vasile had retreated to his lair in the Carpathians in a savage and incandescent rage against them all. There would be another war; the Created were an abomination, and they were multiplying nightly as they became hungry, vicious and reckless. They had to be wiped out and there was nothing the Council could do to stop it.
An alliance with the Greek vampire House of Vasilakis would be prudent. They were weak after the death of Drakos, the head of their house, at those same hands that took his kin in Greece. There was a price to pay and he, Vasile Tepes, would exact the highest fee. The House of Vasilakis would serve his purpose; swelling his ranks, add
ing strength with their numbers and, in their weakened state, they would be easy to manipulate. After the war they would either be assimilated into the House of Tepes or they would perish; he didn’t much care which.
His thoughts were interrupted by his awareness of the approach of his servant Nicolae. His raised his head in anticipation.
“Sir, your visitors have begun to arrive. Alexis Vasilakis bids you thanks for your invitation. He has arrived with four others of his house. Georgios Popescu is also here with two of his brothers. They bring news of the Born in the United Kingdom, who regret their absence but pledge their allegiance.”
Vasile allowed himself a small, satisfied smile. The Born were gathering; his time had come.
He dismissed his servant with a brief nod and strode to the huge window with its view of the ruins of Castle Dracula on the crags above the Arges River; the same crags and river that had claimed the life of his great-grandmother, Vlad’s first wife, over six centuries ago, when she flung herself from the castle, over the jagged rocks and into the Arges River below, rather than be captured by the Turks.
“You will rise again Vlad. Our house will once again give birth to terror in our enemies. I have kept your secret all these centuries and I am close to finding that which will give you life again; your chalice will give you life, my ancestor, and the House of Tepes will be great once more.”
He turned abruptly and went to greet his guests.
They were waiting for him in the great hall, built and decorated in true Gothic style with a huge baronial fireplace, ablaze and dominating one wall. Several couches and massive armchairs were scattered throughout the hall and Vasile’s guests had been made welcome. Sumptuous tapestries and ancient portraits adorned the walls of stone; stone that had been hacked from the very bedrock of the mountain.