by S. H. Roddey
The girl taken from the street was nowhere to be seen. My attention, however, was drawn to the center of the room. Channels were cut into the stone floor at strange angles, leading from low, spouted pedestals on a light slope to form the arms of a pentacle, which emptied into a deep, round center well. A white marble altar rose from the center of the well, an intricate and magnificent construct intended to showcase a grand offering.
A sacrificial chamber. These people intended to pave the way to immortality with innocent blood. There were spaces enough for six victims. This new girl I’d watched them drag underground would be the sixth, just as the little man at the entrance said. My stomach turned.
A soft snuffling sound followed by a whimper drew my attention to a doorway set into the far wall. On the other side, I found an empty chamber with three doorways. One was locked. The second led to an empty room. The third stood open, leading to another short stairwell.
Candles burned in wall sconces, giving the room at the bottom a dim, eerie glow. The snuffling sounds were louder here, and as my eyes adjusted to the new level of darkness, I discovered the source. Marching along the far wall were a series of wide-barred iron cages containing people. Four young girls and one boy.
Their clothes were gone, and they appeared to have not eaten in days. Their skin was dirty and streaked with dried blood and other detritus, their hair matted.
“Aidez-nous, s’il vous plait,” a small girl with dirty, red hair asked. Tears streamed down her face, leaving pale streaks in the dirt. “Please. Please. Please.” She begged me to free her, her quiet words a chant against the silence.
The five faces staring back at me were the same ones I remembered from the newspapers. Tear-stained and muddy, yes, but easily recognizable. A sliver of excitement worked through me as I took hold of the first lock and pulled. The metal twisted and eventually gave way with a squeal. The cage itself opened with an equally loud shriek, and the naked, frightened girl—Lenore was her name—fell into my arms. I pulled off my cloak and, tearing it in half, wrapped it around her before moving to the next cage.
Martin, the boy, stood by the door, sobbing his thanks again and again as I wrenched open his cage. Handing him the remaining portion of my cloak, I pushed Lenore into his hands.
“Take the girl and run,” I told him, and urged the two of them toward the door. “Be fast and silent.”
He nodded, wide-eyed, and urged the girl into a run.
The door came away from the third cage as angry shouts echoed behind me. I tore the fourth lock loose and spun as the voices entered the room, pulling the gun from the holster on my side.
The sight of the wide barrel halted the advance. I leveled the gun at the head of the first zealot and pulled the trigger. The sound echoed through the chamber with a loud crackow, causing my ears to ring.
The shot missed.
The second did not. The ball entered through his left eye-socket and exploded out the back of his head, coating his two companions in bits of blood and brain matter as he slumped to the ground, dead.
The man closest to the exit turned and ran with a nauseated gurgle, leaving only the one. I fired a third shot and missed. He rushed me as the fourth shot flew past his head. He drew a sword from beneath his robes, which I deflected, and pressing the muzzle of the gun to his chest, I pulled the trigger. As he fell, I recognized him as one of the men who attacked me in the house only days ago.
I pulled the cloaks from the two bodies and draped them around the shoulders of the girls as they exited their cages. Sabine, the smallest of the three, huddled inside one of the large swaths of fabric with another girl—Sylvie—and they followed silently.
My final bullet flew past the head of a man dragging an incapacitated Martin through the previously locked door. There were other children crying inside.
I would have to come back. Sabine clung to my hand, unafraid of me as I led the girls toward the exit. Tucking the gun into the holster, I pulled a torch from the wall and led the crying girls around the altar, into the darkened passage.
“Stay close and stay behind me,” I said. They huddled together and crowded against my legs.
At the top of the stairs, I expected an ambush but found the cemetery deserted. The girls were eager to leave, coming up into the cold night air. A warm flare of pain blossomed in my side. The children screamed at the sight of the knife protruding from the space beneath my ribs. The sudden agony caused me to drop the torch I carried. Lenore scooped it up, clutching the heavy stick to her body as if to protect her.
I looked around for the source of the attack and found the familiar face hiding behind the tree. His attack was one of cowardice.
“You betrayed us!” he cried.
“Stay here,” I ordered and, pulling the knife from my side, closed in on him. He let go a strangled cry and tried to back away, but I was faster, ripping the cloak from his body and burying the blade into his throat.
As I pulled the knife free and watched him bleed on the ground, I briefly wondered what would become of the fights, if I had ruined the one chance I’d discovered of holding onto my sanity.
I draped the last cloak around Sabine’s shoulders and led the girls out of the cemetery. They were cold and hungry, and in need of shelter. I remembered a police station nearby and pulled the children along behind me. They were pitiful creatures, barefoot and shivering, and the slivers of my dead, blackened heart ached for them.
Lenore had no home to return to. Her mother was dead and her father long gone, thinking he’d lost his family. She would find her entire life in ruins, and an orphanage would be no place for this traumatized child… I only hoped she could find a modicum of peace.
I led Lenore and Sylvie up the steps to the police station and urged them inside. Before the single night-guard could come to the door and question me, I lifted Sabine into my arms and walked away. I’d promised her mother she would return. I intended to keep that promise.
The girl slept in my arms as I carried her through the deserted streets. I’d been able to save three, but what of the others? I could not shake their frightened faces from my mind. Would their captors kill them and begin again, or would they intensify their hunt for pure blood? Had I failed them?
Turning the corner, I crossed the bridge onto Rue Saint-Louis. Sabine’s mother would be asleep this time of night. Hopefully she would welcome this interruption.
“Wake up, Sabine,” I said to the girl as I shifted her in my arms. “You are home.”
Sleepy eyes peered up at me from the depths of the stolen cloak, and she smiled.
I knocked on the door and slid the child to her feet, holding her steady by the shoulders. No answer came from the first knock, so I repeated, louder.
When the door opened, a mixed sound of anguish and joy escaped the woman’s lips.
“Sabine!” she cried and swept the sleepy child into her arms.
“Mama!” Sabine responded. The two held tightly to one another and cried happy tears. To watch such an intimate display of love felt somehow wrong, yet when I tried to back away, her mother stopped me with her stare.
The woman disengaged from her daughter’s grip and came to me. The emotion reflected in her eyes was not disgust, as I usually found, but admiration. She smiled at me and took my hand.
“You performed a miracle,” she said, her voice thick from the tears streaming down her face. “You brought my Sabine back to me. Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a tight embrace. “Thank you. Thank you,” she mumbled into my chest. When she pulled away, blood coated her right arm. She gasped and tugged at my ruined shirt to find the wound.
“You are hurt. Come inside and let me help.”
“I will live,” I assured her. “Take your daughter off this street and tend to her.” I urged her back toward the shivering girl. By now the shock of her situation would be wearing off. Sabine needed her mother and the comfort of her own home. “Go celebrate your miracle.”
“Celebrate
with us.”
“I am not much for celebrations,” I said and pushed her toward Sabine. She took the girl into her arms as I turned away.
“Who are you?” she asked after me.
I paused and glanced back over my shoulder. “Adam,” I said simply, and walked away.
Chapter 10
I paused in the middle of the bridge to the Isle de Cite and looked around. The air held a chill. The world around me seemed paralyzed by the night. From the position of the moon overhead, I could tell it was much later than I originally realized.
“I know you are still in Paris,” I said out loud as I stepped off the bridge onto the Isle. “You never leave a job unfinished.” I wasn’t certain Luke was here. I was certain of nothing anymore, except perhaps my anger. But I hoped.
“I want you to know that those three children I left tonight…their blood is on your hands. You could have stopped this at any time, Vlad. But your selfishness…your inability to do the right thing caused this!” I struggled to keep my tone even so not to wake the locals. “Three children are alive, but they hold three more captive, and another three are dead. Because of you.”
My back hit a nearby wall with enough force to crumble the stones around me. The wind left my lungs in a rush, and the wound in my side pulsed with new pain. Beady, red eyes glared up at me. Luke snarled, his fangs bared. He looked the part of the bloodthirsty predator tonight, and all of his fury was directed at me. I welcomed the fight.
“My selfishness?” he growled. “What part of my existence, exactly, is selfish to you? Despite your belief that I am some sort of god, I am not capable of being everywhere at once.”
Pushing my hands between our bodies, I shoved him way. He let me. “I know you could be helping me,” I replied tersely. I righted myself, brushing the debris of the ruined wall from my shoulders and arms. “I know that you—with your heightened abilities and your preternatural speed and strength—could have ended this long ago.”
“Yes,” Luke said with a bitter laugh, “while I have been out ending all manner of atrocities, my primary purpose should have remained holding your hand.” He scoffed. “I wasn’t here to lead… That is quite rich coming from an abomination like you, the one who never seems to follow directions.”
“You have known what I was since before we met.” The urge to tear his head off rose as my anger flowed. “Now if you want to fix this, help me get those other three children out of that dungeon.”
Luke’s expression changed, softened. I still wanted to hit him. “What is it about these children that fuels you so?”
“Innocence deserves no punishment,” I said. “Those children should have no part in this depravity.”
“How noble.”
“Go to Hell.”
I walked way as the fragments of my friendship with the vampire collapsed around me. I no longer cared whether or not he followed. I hated the very sight of him. I wanted him to hurt the way I hurt, to suffer as I did. My side throbbed. I pushed the pain from my mind and focused on my destination. I doubted the Brotherhood would allow the children to remain in that dungeon, but I needed to try.
Four blocks later, the vampire fell into step beside me. His gaze no longer glowed, but tension radiated from him.
“Perhaps I am too close to this,” he said, “but I have never wished harm on you or those children.”
“You have a damned funny way of showing it.”
“Believe me, Adam,” he said, grabbing my arm to pull me to a stop, “if there was any way in this world to end what is happening, I would have done it already.”
“You want to begin making restitution? Find that child’s father and bring him back to Paris. Show him his daughter is alive and needs him.”
“What child?”
“Lenore. The first one,” I said. “Her mother is dead, and her father left three weeks ago. Track him down and bring him back to her.” I narrowed my gaze at him. “Make this right.”
“I will do my best. There is more you need to know about this situation, but if you have any intention of saving those children, we must go now.”
Luke and I ran, side by side, through the streets of Paris back toward that small cemetery. Luke entered the crypt first, his steps measured.
“They are not here,” he said. “What blood I smell is old.”
“Go anyway,” I demanded, all but shoving him down the path into the darkness below. “I have to see for myself.”
He said nothing else as we made our way into the chamber and, as expected, found nothing but those I’d killed earlier. The ruined cages lay in shambles, and the previously locked room contained nothing but a long table and several overturned chairs. When they evacuated, they did so in a hurry.
“Surely they didn’t take the children to her house,” I said. Luke shook his head. “No. The temptation to take their blood for her own would be much too strong.”
“I have found no other sign of them in this city, and I have walked every square of it.”
“They are resourceful,” Luke reminded me as we started out of the chamber, him in the lead. “Normally they would run, but Erzsébet cannot possibly be strong enough to travel again.”
“Surely freeing some of the children will stall them.”
Luke shrugged one shoulder. “Not likely. They will want to complete this ritual as quickly as possible.”
“If that altar is any indication, they’re going to need six bodies. They only have three.”
“Bodies are easy to come by in a large city, Adam,” Luke chided.
“Obviously, but my research leads me to believe that she needs innocent blood. People are keeping their children well-guarded these days.”
“For their sake, I hope you are correct,” he replied.
“I should go kill her now.”
“She will not be there. You’ve taken their offerings; they will close ranks to protect her.”
“How do you know all of this?” I asked as we breached the surface. The moon was gone behind the buildings as night marched on toward morning. “What else do you know? What are you not telling me?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “It is late, and I must go. Load your gun and be prepared for anything. I will return tomorrow evening.”
And with that, he was gone.
Chapter 11
The door slammed behind me. I turned, drawing the pistol from my side as I did so, and fired at the door. A loud bang echoed in the small room. As the smoke cleared, a man stood before me, his left hand raised in a fist before his chest.
“Not quite the welcome I expected,” he said, his mouth twisting in a smirk, “but it’ll do. A pleasure to meet you, Adam.” He dropped his hand to his side and trained his gaze on my weapon. “Mind lowering that?”
“Who the hell are you?” I asked keeping the gun leveled on him.
“Judas Iscariot,” he answered. “Vlad tells me you have a coin I need to see.”
“Judas…”
“Iscariot,” he repeated patiently, stepping forward and holding out his hand. “I need the coin, Adam.”
I stared down at the man in disbelief. He should have been dead for nearly two centuries, yet here he stood, the Betrayer of Christ in the flesh. He was tall with sun-darkened skin and deep brown features. For a man so far out of his time, he appeared remarkably young and well-kept. While I was skeptical of any newcomer, there was something inherently likeable about him. Or perhaps it was my own religious optimism that drew me to him.
So long have I battled with the truth of the God under which I was born and educated. I believed, then I did not. I cursed His name while simultaneously begging His forgiveness. But the very existence of this man before me turned every thought, every doubt on end. I wanted badly to question the events surrounding his betrayal, to learn the secrets of Christianity from this new source.
“The coin, please,” he urged a third time, shaking his open palm at me. “I haven’t all day to dawdle.”
Dragging myself from t
his new, existential confusion, I placed the revolver back into its holster, then pulled the coin from my pocket and handed it to him. He inspected it and nodded. I waited for him to speak, but he seemed rather reluctant to do so.
“Luke says—”
“Luke?” His brow furrowed in thought. “Oh, the vampire? Is that what he calls himself these days? I had no idea.”
“He said you know something of this coin’s origins. Tell me.”
“How much time do you have?”
“As much as you need. Sit.”
Judas crossed the room and perched himself on the wide windowsill. He flicked the coin absently along the backs of his knuckles. “It isn’t a coin,” he said, “not in the contemporary sense of currency. Do you know of Charon, the Ferryman?”
Fury ripped through me.
“I ask for answers and you bring me fairy tales?”
Judas raised an eyebrow at me. “I imagine Charon would be none too happy with your disbelief. Not much of a sense of humor on that one.” He cleared his throat. “As it goes, the dead require currency with which to pay the ferryman for the journey to the gates of the afterlife. This,” he held the bit of bloodstained silver up, “is not a traditional obol. Where those deliver, these return.”
“Return what?”
He held up a finger, as if to scold me. “Not what, but who. These tokens were stolen from Lucifer himself and presented as a gift in return for a dark favor. Their carriers were the original Brotherhood of Blood—a cult that consisted of thirty zealots in the service of a demigod by the name of Ephraim.”
“Ephraim?”
Judas waved his hand dismissively. “Not important.” He paused to clear his throat as he stared down at the coin. “I betrayed my friend for these coins.” A sour look puckered his face.
“What does all of this mean?”
“Jesus Christ was an experiment of sorts, but his story is also one for another evening. The coins were entrusted to me to protect the people, but at great cost.” He flipped the coin into the air and caught it between his fingers. “They were stolen from me after the events in your Christian Bible took place—which, by the way, are out of order. Again,” he gave another small, dismissive wave, “not important. The coins were distributed to innocents who ultimately became sacrifices to resurrect Ephraim’s zealots. Good men became monsters, and those who followed them grew into twisted madmen.”