by Jeff Gunhus
Pahvi swiped his hand down and all hell broke loose.
The Romani around the cave, vampires every one of them, fell on the backpackers. Terrified screams filled the air.
I pulled on my dagger but before I had it halfway out, something that felt like a moving car slammed into me. My dagger flew out of my hand and skittered across the floor. I had no more than blinked when my arms were cranked back painfully behind me. I struggled, but there was no give. It felt like iron bars held me in place. Something worse than an iron bar found its way to my throat. The sharp edge of a cold metal blade pressed against my skin. Every time I struggled, it dug a little deeper until I felt a warm trickle of my blood.
“Release him,” Eva yelled, her voice nearly lost in the panicked screams in the cave.
Only then, did things slow down enough for me to understand what had happened. Eva had Kuchar in a chokehold, her hook to his throat. He snarled and spit like a rabid dog. The other Romani vampires were making their way through the backpackers, taking their time since all the exits to the cave were sealed. That meant that the immovable force holding me could only be Pahvi.
I strained against him with everything I had, but he didn’t even budge. It felt like pushing against a building. I’d never come across a Creach with that kind of strength before. My efforts were rewarded with another sting of the blade on my throat. Nothing serious, but enough to get my attention. I stopped struggling and the cries from the other backpackers being devoured by the vampires washed over me. It was a massacre, and I was powerless to stop it.
“I said release him!” Eva shouted. “Or I kill this one and then you next.”
Pahvi’s voice came from right next to my ear. “Eva the one-handed hunter. I’ve heard of you. We even have a name for you. Mans de Mort. Hand of Death. You have quite a reputation.”
“Then you know I’m serious,” Eva said. She met my eye, searching for any sign I might be able to make a move. I tried to shake my head only to have Pahvi’s blade cut into my skin.
“Yes, and so I know this probably doesn’t end well,” Pahvi said. One of the burly Germans ran toward us screaming. A Romani vampire flew through the air and latched onto his back. The German fell to the floor, and the vampire sank its face into his neck. The German cried out, his feet kicking violently as the vampire gorged on his blood. Pahvi smiled. “The evening certainly isn’t ending well for any of them.”
“Or for Kuchar here if you don’t let my trainee go and let us walk out of here,” Eva threatened.
Pahvi laughed. I felt his hot breath on my ear, and his body shook from it. I seized the moment and twisted my body, intending to pull out of the arm lock, execute a leg sweep and incapacitate this bothersome vampire with a swift kick to his head. Instead, I strained and didn’t move an inch. Pahvi stopped laughing.
“Your trainee isn’t very smart, is he?” Pahvi breathed into my ear. “Let me guess. Just past the safety of the Law of Quattuordecim? Think you can take on all of us nasty Creach single-handed now that you’re a member of the Black Watch?”
I glanced at Eva and saw it in her eyes. He doesn’t know who you are. Keep it that way. I struggled against his powerful arms again to no effect. My feet were free, so I kicked backward as hard as I could, connecting my heel to Pahvi’s shin. I might as well have kicked one of the stone walls. It might not have hurt the vampire, but it still made him mad.
Pahvi snarled into my ear. “Maybe if I carved out one of your eyes you’d acquire some better manners.” I felt the blade lift from my throat and saw the point hover over my left eye. “You struggle one more time, trainee, and I take your eye, understand?”
I didn’t nod because the point of the dagger was so close to my eye that I felt it when I blinked.
“That’s better,” Pahvi said. “If you’re smart, you might be the one who makes it out of here alive.”
“What are you suggesting?” Eva asked.
“Simple. I know that if I kill this boy, you will kill my poor friend Kuchar there,” Pahvi explained. “Then you will try to kill me. You will fail, obviously, but if you are anything like your reputation, there is good chance I will need to kill you to stop you.”
“Don’t be too sure she’d fail,” I managed to say. Pahvi cuffed my head like he was scolding a dog.
“Touch him again and I’ll kill you slow instead of quickly,” Eva said. She obviously was playing up her reputation.
Pahvi laughed again. “I like the fire in you. And your looks. I was considering keeping you even before I realized who you were.”
“How fortunate for me,” Eva said. Suddenly, Kuchar thrashed around in her arms. Eva slammed the flat side of her hook into his face, breaking his nose. Kuchar calmed down, whimpering. Pahvi shifted his weight behind me. It seemed that he cared what happened to his fellow vampire, a fact I knew Eva would exploit. I noticed the cave was quieter now. The Romani vampires had made short work of the backpackers and there were a few whimpers from the last ones being feasted on while they were still alive. “This is getting tiresome. If you have a point, make it,” Eva said.
“My master will want to talk to you,” Pahvi said. “I will let your trainee go if you swear on your honor that you will come peacefully.”
“No!” I shouted. Pahvi’s forearm was suddenly across my throat, choking off my air supply.
“How do I know you will keep your word?” Eva said.
“On the graves of my Romani ancestors,” Pahvi said gravely. “I will have your trainee placed on the streets of Paris.”
“Alive and unharmed,” Eva added. “I’m not a fool, Romani. Otherwise you could kill him and dump him on the street to satisfy your pledge.”
No! Don’t do it, I wanted to scream. But already my vision was starting to blur from lack of oxygen from the chokehold.
Pahvi laughed. “You are smart as well. Very well, alive and unharmed. Do we have a bargain?
Eva made eye contact with me. There was defiance in the look, but also great sadness. She was brave, always brave. But I could tell she knew this was goodbye. I’d seen that look before. From my Aunt Sophie when she sacrificed herself for me. From Hester. From Aquinas when she’d taken an arrow meant for me. From my friends at the Academy when they stood by my side against the goblin army. It was a look I never wanted to see again, especially from Eva. I didn’t want anyone to sacrifice themselves for me. Not anymore. I wanted to tell this to Eva. Along with so many other things. But, as I saw her lips part to speak the words, I felt my last chance to ever say anything to her speed toward me.
“I agree,” she said, releasing Kuchar.
I remember feeling a blow to the side of my head. I remember falling to the ground and darkness rushing over me.
Just like that, my last chance to ever say anything to Eva had passed me by. Gone forever.
I don’t know how much time passed before I regained consciousness. I felt the rain on my face before I could get my eyes to open. I fought my way out of the black fog and managed to sit up. Fat raindrops pelted me, and I realized my clothes were soaked through. I rubbed my eyes and stared at the sight in front of me. The Eiffel Tower. Its enormous metal framework rose into the sky so high that the top was lost in the mist of the storm. The clouds lit up from lightning, followed by a boom of thunder. Under different circumstances, the sight would have amazed me. Right then, all I cared about was getting Eva back.
I staggered to my feet, holding my head where Pahvi had knocked me unconscious. I wondered what would happen to him once the Lord of the Vampires realized who I was and how close Pahvi had been to capturing me. I hoped she was the vengeful type and punished him horribly.
I shook my head, trying to focus. I knew from the maps of Paris that it was a long hike back to Notre Dame and the others. The Seine River passed near both the Eiffel Tower and the cathedral, so a water taxi would be perfect. I felt my pockets. Empty. They had taken my wallet, so a taxi of any kind was out of the question.
Across the street, I spotted
a man on a moped pull up to a restaurant and run inside. There was a box attached to the back with an advertisement on it with the universal word Pizza written in bold letters. A delivery guy. And the moped appeared to be running.
Seconds later, I was hauling down the streets of Paris toward Notre Dame. I felt a pang of guilt for stealing the moped, but it was nothing compared to my anxiety about Eva. Besides, I wasn’t stealing it so much as borrowing it.
Even with the moped, it took me over fifteen minutes to reach the rundown motel where we were supposed to have met the others hours ago. As soon as I pulled up, Daniel ran out to the street.
“Where have you been?” He looked up the street. “Where’s Eva?”
Will, T-Rex, and Xavier streamed out, surrounding me.
“They got her,” I panted. “The vampires. She’s alive, but I don’t know for how much longer.”
Daniel made a move as if he planned to run and go look for her on his own. I grabbed his arm. “There are too many. And they’re too strong.”
“Then how did you get away?” Daniel demanded, not even bothering to hide the accusation in his voice.
I resented the remark, but I understood emotions were high. “She traded her life for mine. They didn’t know who I was. I was in a chokehold with a knife to my throat. Otherwise I would have told them.”
Daniel looked away, knowing Eva well enough to know it was something she would do.
“So what do we do?” Will asked.
Lightning cracked overhead, and the rain came down harder. I pointed toward Notre Dame Cathedral, now shielded by the low fog and the rain. “I need whatever is on top of that spire. And I need it right now.”
“In this weather? Are you crazy?” T-Rex said.
“They have Eva,” I shouted. “We can’t just wait around!”
“I have two sets of climbing gear, but I’ve only done about half of the modifications I wanted,” Xavier said.
“That’s going to have to do,” I said.
“I’m coming with you,” Daniel stated so flatly that I knew there was no way I could change his mind.
I looked up at the hulking, dark shadow of Notre Dame, lit sporadically by flashes of lightning. During the day, the climb had only seemed impossible. Now it seemed nothing less than suicidal. But there was no choice. If there was any hope of rescuing Eva, I had to have that weapon, and I had to have it that night. “OK,” I said grimly, “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Sixteen
If anything, the weather deteriorated even more on the short walk to the cathedral. The storm raged around us on our way to the backside of the structure where the flying buttresses extended out from the roof like giant spider legs. These narrow limbs were going to be key to our climb, but they didn’t extend all the way to the ground so we could get under them and throw a grappling hook. That would be too easy.
Instead, two layers of steep, narrow stone limbs arched down from the inner wall, starting below the main roof and ending in columns atop an outer wall that was a good thirty feet tall. Just getting up the outer wall was going to be tough. After that, we had to climb the columns, crawl across the highest flying buttress, somehow get up onto the roof that was too steep to stand on, and make our way across that to the center of the cathedral. All of that was just to get to the base of the spire. I wasn’t even sure what my plan was once I got that far.
As I pulled on the climbing gear, the wind grew even wilder, tearing off leaves and small twigs from the trees bent over as if we were in a hurricane. Rain came in sideways, stinging our faces. The foul weather had sent all the tourists scurrying for cover. If we fell to our deaths attempting the climb, at least we would do it without an audience.
“Once you secure an anchor point, attach your line here,” Xavier yelled, barely making himself heard over the howling wind. He showed me how to operate the gear, including a few cool modifications he’d made to help out. “You’ve done this before, right?” he yelled.
“Climbed a five-hundred-year-old cathedral in the middle of a lightning storm so I could crawl up a metal spire to get a super-weapon to use against vampires?” I shouted back. “Yeah, this is my third time this week.”
“Hey, I thought I was the smart mouth around here,” Will yelled, smiling.
T-Rex leaned in so I could hear him. “Is there anything we can do?”
I took a walkie-talkie from Xavier and handed it to T-Rex. “Keep a look-out, buddy. You’re my eyes down here, okay?”
T-Rex gripped the radio with both hands as if he thought it might squirt out from his hands like a wet fish. “You got it, Jack. Good luck.” He lifted the radio to his mouth and hit the button. “Try not to fall.”
An electronic version of his voice crackled from the radio attached to my climbing gear. T-Rex gave me a thumbs-up, delighted with his new job.
“I should be going with you,” Will shouted. Even in the dark, I could make out the pained expression on his face. He was worried.
I nodded over to Daniel, making final adjustments to his climbing gear. He was stone-faced and intense like a professional athlete right before a competition. “You want to try to convince him to change places?” I asked.
Will shook his head. “Maybe we should wait until this blows over?”
“If I was the one they captured, do you think Eva would wait? Would you?” I asked.
Will looked like he might press the issue but then relented. He punched me in the chest, the adrenaline in his system probably making it a little harder than he intended. I knew it was Be careful, I’m worried and Try not to die, all in one gesture.
Daniel walked over. “Are we climbing this thing or not?”
I cinched the final strap on my climbing gear. “Just waiting for you.”
Lightning flashed, strobe-lighting the world around us. I looked up high on the wall and was rewarded with a row of gargoyles staring back at me. Rainwater poured from their gaping mouths, making them look even more grotesque. As I stared, I could have sworn some of the gargoyles moved. That they twisted in place and stared back at me, their expressions pulling back into sneers, their eyes opening wider and turning in place to look at me. But once the lightning ended and the boom of thunder shook the air, the cathedral was cast back into shadow with the gargoyles in place, doing their job as glorified gutters.
“C’mon, Jack,” I muttered to myself. “Get a hold of yourself.”
I looked over to Daniel. He was staring up at the gargoyles, looking as freaked out as I felt. Now I wondered if it had been my imagination and the dancing light of the shadows after all. “Everything OK?” I asked. “Did you see something?”
Daniel’s expression changed back to steely confidence. “No, did you?”
I shook my head.
“Right then. I’ll go first,” he said. “Age before ugly.”
“I think the saying is age before beauty,” I replied.
“Well, I can’t go first twice, now can I?” he said, grinning. “Come on, we don’t have all night. Let’s see if Xavier’s toys work.”
Daniel raised a small gun with a nasty barbed hook sticking out of the barrel. It was the same contraption that had saved my life in the Cave of Trials. Using this tool to get up to the arch of flying buttresses was an essential part of the climb. Daniel took aim overhead and pulled the trigger. The projection shot from the barrel, a thin wire trailing behind it. In the dark, we couldn’t see where it hit, but it stretched tight when Daniel pulled on the wire.
While he attached the wire to his climbing gear, I walked down to the next flying buttress and fired my hook up into the night. I tugged on the wire and it held firm. As I inserted it into the winch tied around my belt, I saw Daniel float up into the air, one hand over his head holding the wire so he would stay upright. I pressed the button on my winch. The tiny powerful motor kicked on with a whirr and I rose in the air, my feet dangling beneath me.
Without an anchor to the ground, I felt the true force of the wind. I swayed back and forth,
buffeted by the howling gale. The wall in front of me was mostly stained glass, so I had to be careful not to slam into it too hard. I imagined the faithful praying inside and what they would think if I smashed through the priceless window. So far, I was able to cushion each hit enough not to cause any damage. As I neared the end of the ascent, I saw Daniel had already pulled himself up on top of the flying buttress and was waiting for me. I readied myself to do the same when my winch stopped working.
I was still five feet from the top, which may not sound like a lot, but when you’re hanging by a tiny wire in the middle of the night with a major thunderstorm all around you, it gets your attention.
“What’s wrong? Why’d you stop?” Daniel’s voice crackled in my radio.
“My winch stopped working,” I replied. “Give me a second.” I fiddled with the controls, trying to get it going. I must have pressed the wrong button because the winch disengaged. The wire spun out with a high-pitched squeal, and I plummeted downward. I recovered quickly and jammed the safety into place. My climbing harness caught me as I jerked to a painful stop. A gust of wind blew me in a wide arc, like a tiny spider dangling on web caught in a breeze.
When the wind let go of me, I fell back toward the stained glass window, out of control. I hit it hard with my back, and I heard the unmistakable sound of glass breaking. I turned and flattened myself against the window, grabbing the thick stone windowpane dividers and trying to stay out of the wind.
A crack appeared in the glass right by my face and branched out in a wild pattern. A single shard about the size of my fist slid out and fell into the cathedral. I held my breath, thinking our climb was over. We were going to be found out. But the cracks in the glass stopped expanding, and no other shards fell. Deciding I had nothing to lose and feeling the need to know how bad our situation was, I pulled myself up to look through the hole.