Of Saints and Shadows (1994)

by Christopher Golden

  But the Defiant One, Octavian, he would look more closely, and Mulkerrin couldn’t allow that.

  The “lightning bug” Liam conjured had done the job nicely. A common demon, an easy spell, but oh so efficient. With a flutter of his fingers and a jumble of words, he had caused the thing to appear in Benedict’s office. One more word, and the creature had flared, its explosion destroying not just the office, but a rather large portion of that corner of the building. All Mulkerrin needed was a couple of days’ uncertainty as to the origin of the fire. He’d be long gone by then. Not as if they could trace it to him in the first place. Not as if they would if they could.

  No. He was covering his tracks. He would love to get rid of Octavian and Gallagher, but he would have to come back for them. The book was of prime importance. Any longer and he could jeopardize the efficiency of the Blessed Event, and that would be the ultimate transgression.

  No, he had to get the book back to Rome within forty-eight hours, which gave him one day and night to accomplish his task.

  And Guiscard. Oh, Guiscard would definitely have to die.

  Ted Gardiner drifted slowly off to sleep, hoping desperately that he would not dream of the hospital. He was pleased with himself. Just minutes ago he’d called in for messages and been told about Dan Benedict’s office exploding. His eyes fluttered open one last time and he grinned sleepily as he looked at the rectangular piece of cardboard on the nightstand.

  Wouldn’t Peter be surprised. Two could play that Sherlock Holmes game, he’d tell his friend when they met at noon to start the hunt. The game is afoot, he’d say, waving the card in Peter’s face. His little trip by Benedict’s office earlier had probably saved them hours of legwork.

  His fellow officers had left everything in the office intact, but Ted had slipped that one rectangle into his pocket. His conversations with Peter had made it stick out like a sore thumb. After the explosion, Ted had realized they were probably far closer to the end of this thing than any of them knew.

  It was a card from Benedict’s Rolodex. On the card was a name, a number, and a hotel.

  Octavian wasn’t the only one who’d be surprised.

  11

  “HOW DID IT START?” MEAGHAN ASKED, HER eyes squinting with concentration, with fascination. “How did you first meet Von Reinman?”

  George looked up, first at Peter, then at Meaghan. He was still amazed at the level of acceptance she had reached in such a short time.

  “Memory is a strange thing for my kind,” Peter said, sipping his tea. “Humans lose many things in the haze of time, but we lose weeks, months, even years. Recall is active, rather than passive. An exercise, if you will. But what memory I do have is clear as crystal, as if I lived it only moments before. Fortunately, my first meeting with Karl is still with me.”

  “Sort of like having it on video,” Meaghan said, and George smiled.

  “Not really,” Peter answered, smiling as well, “but if it helps you to think of it that way, it’s close enough.”

  There was a moment of silence then, and Peter’s face relaxed, a slight smile still on his lips and the look in his eyes very far away.

  “Tell us,” George said, only now realizing how little he truly knew.

  “It was Thursday, the twenty-fourth day of May, the year of the Lord fourteen hundred and fifty-three. The Turks were at the wall. Indeed, they had been at the wall for what seemed like forever to us then. ‘Us’ meant myself, Gregory, young Andronicus, and an Italian sailor named Carlo.”

  “Your friends?” George asked.

  “Yes,” Peter said, sipping his tea once again. “My old friends.”

  It was impossible not to notice how much he missed them.

  “We were soldiers in the service of Lucas Notaras, the megadux, but we’d been assigned to assist the German, Johannes Grant, in preventing the Turks from tunneling under the city walls. Half the time we wasted covering sections of the wall supposedly protected by the troops of Minotlo Bocchiardi, the Venetian—there were a lot of Italians, mostly sailors, and other Christians there, defending the city. Mainly we dug countertunnels by the Caligarian Gate on the Blachaernae Wall, dropping down on the Turks and the Serbian silver miners they had pressed into service.

  “While the sultan surrounded the city’s fourteen miles of wall with more than eighty thousand men, inside we numbered less than seven thousand. We’d had few casualties, but there were many wounded, and supplies of food and arms were running low. Even so, we might have held out until help could arrive; the Venetian captain Trevisano had held the Turks in the strait of Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara; they could not pass the boom which guarded our bay, the Golden Horn. But the Turks did the impossible—they moved their ships overland into the Horn.

  “So now we dug countertunnels and fought each new siege against the wall, knowing that the city’s fate had already been decreed. That day, the twenty-fourth, had been very strange. As we worked, a procession passed us carrying our holiest icon, of the Mother of Christ, to whom the city was dedicated. Every man, woman, and child who could be spared from the walls had joined the procession.”

  “And they dropped it,” Meaghan said. “I read about this, but I can’t believe you were there.”

  George said nothing.

  “Oh, yes, I was there,” Peter continued. “Not only did they drop it, but for several moments after, they could not lift it up. Could not lift it. Period. Eight men tried to do so. Not only were people terrified that Mary had forsaken them, but the icon had landed on one of the men, shattering his leg, and they struggled to free him. That went on for several minutes, the statue impossible to move, and then it did, returning to its usual weight, light enough for four men to comfortably march with it on their shoulders.

  “Needless to say, the procession was over. But as the people scattered, matters worsened. The sky literally split open and water poured from the heavens like nothing I’d ever seen before or have ever seen since. A flash flood washed through the city, taking several lives. Our saving grace was that rain fell on the Turks as well; otherwise that might have been the end right there.

  “That night, when we had time to ourselves, my friends and I sat in the grove, drinking and sharing our fear. There the strange events continued, and that night I met Karl Von Reinman. . . .

  It was a warm, bitter wine that tasted the way Nicephorus imagined the urine of oxen might. But it was all they had. The wine was passed around in silence, the four men lost in their own thoughts. Women and children and the men assigned to the task after nightfall worked steadily to repair the damage done by cannon fire during the day. Where these four sat, the light of the full moon filtered through tree limbs above them, where nightingales sang.

  “Strange, isn’t it?” an unfamiliar voice asked, and the four turned to see a stranger approaching.

  “ What, besides yourself?” Nicephorus answered.

  The new arrival raised an eyebrow and smirked as if amused and leaned against a tree. When he spoke, it was with an accent they all recognized as German. After all, they worked with Johannes every day.

  “The nightingales. You would think, especially in light of what will happen here fairly soon, that they would have migrated with all the other birds. But they are still here, and they continue to sing.”

  “Why should they not?” Gregory asked. “Do you think they feel an obligation to the emperor, and that is why they stay? They stay because they wish to . . . who can know a bird? And they sing because that is what birds do.”

  “Perhaps,” the stranger said, a wistful smile on his face.

  “Besides,” said Andronicus, “what makes you so certain the city will fall?”

  At that, they all looked at him with tired eyes. He knew enough to be quiet.

  “You know what else?” the stranger continued, almost as if he hadn’t heard their statements. “The roses. It simply amazes me that they’re in bloom.”

  “Roses?” Nicephorus asked.

  “Yes, the r
oses, can’t you smell them?”

  “All I smell is the dung of oxen,” Carlo answered, with some finality.

  “All the sadder for you,” the stranger said, actually looking at them all for the first time, his gaze finally resting on Nicephorus.

  “Could I join you?”

  “The wine is almost gone,” Andronicus said, though they all knew it to be a lie.

  “I am not a wine drinker,” the stranger said.

  After a moment of uncomfortable silence, made even more unsettling for Nicephorus by the way the stranger seemed to stare directly at him, Gregory finally spoke up.

  “Well then, by all means sit down and introduce yourself”

  The stranger accepted the invitation.

  “I am Karl, from Bavaria,” he said as he sat, and the others introduced themselves to him.

  “How do you find yourself dying with Constantinople?” Nicephorus asked.

  “By no will of my own, I assure you. I was passenger aboard a Venetian ship, en route from the Black Sea to the Aegean. This was in November, when the sultan had first warned he would sink any ship in the strait. Of course, he was not believed.”

  “Rizzo’s ship?” Carlo asked.

  “Yes, that’s right. She was sunk, and all hands who survived and didn’t make the city walls were beheaded. Of course, Rizzo was impaled.”

  “It surely seems,” said Carlo, “that sailors have taken the hardest blows in this siege.”

  “That it does,” Andronicus said, anger rising. “But we showed them in return. Two hundred and sixty Turks were executed for the forty-odd Christian crewmen from Rizzo’s ship who were murdered. In any battle, that’s a fair trade.”

  “No, ’Droncus.” Gregory shook his head. “That’s not a trade. That’s three hundred Vives destroyed for greed, for power.”

  “For life! For freedom! For God!” Nicephorus was angry now. “I won’t hear another word from you, Greg. Friend though you may he, we fight to the death for the glory of God and I hope we kill every last one of those heaven-forsaken devils. We fight for all that we are, so fighting becomes what we are. If that is how it is to be, I welcome it! Let them come and see what they have made us through their evil lust.”

  They were all silent again, eyes on the ground, brooding and angry and afraid. All except one. Karl looked at Nicephorus Dragases with a wide smile on Ms face, his eyes bright with admiration.

  “‘Well said.”

  Nicephorus decided he liked the stranger, whether or not his tale was a true one.

  “Only faith can save us now,” Gregory insisted, “the power of Christ and the Holy Mother, and the good will of Saint Constantine the Great.”

  “Then we’re dead,” Nicephorus said, for a black mood had come over him since the night before. “Heaven itself has turned against Constantinople. Greg, you remember the prophecies. Andronicus, do you?”

  “The last Christian emperor of Byzantium will share his name with the first, Constantine, son of Helena,” Andronicus answered, eyes downcast. He was the youngest of the group, and not afraid to show his fear.

  “Wasn’t there something about the moon ?” Carlo asked hopefully.

  “That the city may not fall under a waxing moon,” Andronicus answered, hopeful for a moment.

  “And last night the moon was full,” Nicephorus snapped back. “Now we can hope for nothing.”

  As the men spoke a heavy fog, highly unusual for this time of year, had rolled through the city, and just as quickly departed. Nicephorus and the others heard citizens by the wall, wailing that the fog was a veil hiding the Holy Spirit as it abandoned the city.

  “Nonsense,” he told his friends.

  “Ah, hut they all believe it,” Andronicus answered.

  “They believe a lot of things,” Nicephorus said. “Most of them ridiculous. I’m getting tired of the superstitions.”

  “God is not a superstition!” Gregory said sharply.

  “You know that’s not what I meant, Greg.”

  “Well, now the fog has lifted, the moon is full and bright,” Carlo pointed out, and they all looked up.

  “Up here!” the voice of the sentry came down to them, sudden and urgent.

  “What is it, George?” Andronicus called back.

  “Lights!” the voice came again, and they were all scrambling for the ladder.

  Once they were at the top, no words were spoken. The sentry merely pointed east, across the Golden Horn, where in the countryside, far beyond the Turkish camp, the same strange green light could be seen glowing in several spots.

  “Do you think,” George began, “that it could be Hunyadi, the Transylvanian prince, come to our aid at last?”

  There was so much hope in. his words that Nicephorus was loath to answer. “Perhaps,” was all he said.

  “Somehow,” Carlo added, behind him, “I think not.”

  They all stood on the wall, gazing toward the strange lights, but Nicephorus held back, thoughtful.

  “My friend.” Karl’s voice came in a whisper. “I think we should talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Revenge. The future.”

  “We have no future, here,” Nicephorus said flatly.

  “My point precisely,” Karl said, and now Nicephorus looked into his eyes and saw a pain and hate burning there alongside the intelligence he had already sensed in the man.

  “Let’s go.”

  They descended the ladder together and were silent for the half-mile walk to Petra, where Nicephorus had a temporary dwelling. There was a small grove behind the building, and it was there that their conversation began in earnest.

  “Do you wish to die?” Karl began.

  “No man does.”

  “Do you wish to kill?”

  “Turks. The sultan.”

  “Do you wish to leave here?”

  “If I don’t do one, and excel at the other, I will leave here, yes. There is much of the world I would like to see,” Nicephorus answered, and then looked more closely at his companion. The questions were upsetting him.

  “What if I could promise you that you would not die, would kill many Turks, and would see all of the world you desire? Would you leave here with me tomorrow?”

  “How can you promise such things?”

  “Answer the question,” Karl replied, amused, not impatient.

  Contrary to what Karl may have thought, Nicephorus Dragases had indeed left Constantinople many times. He had traveled to Serbia, to Wallachia, to Venice, to Rome, to Russia. Despite his lack of true education, he was a very intelligent man. He knew what he faced.

  “Vrykolaka,” Nicephorus said with utmost certainly.

  “Come now,” Karl chided, “I heard you say earlier that you were tired of the superstitions.”

  “So I did, though I didn’t know you were listening at the time.”

  “You were not meant to know.”

  “Of course not. However, I am a man who knows the difference between superstition and legend, and that most legends exist for a purpose, to represent something.”

  “Just so,” Karl answered smugly.

  “You are vrykolaka,” he said again, without a trace of doubt.

  “To use your logic, I am one of those who has inspired the legend.”

  “Well, we have established what you are, and what you offer me. Why do you ask me, and what is the price?”

  “The price is precisely what you think. You die without dying. The sun is your enemy as is the Roman church, eating will become difficult, but there is plenty of sustenance in the blood of Turks, and you lose your name.”

  “I do not understand what it is to ‘die without dying,’” Nicephorus answered. “I have ever preferred the night, and the Roman church is already my enemy. I cannot imagine not needing food, yet spilling the blood of Turks obviously appeals to me. As to my name, it is nothing. Again, why do you ask me? There are many soldiers here who would kill Turks with you, vrykolaka.”

  “Yes, hut how many a
re the son of Constantine? How many are warriors born, as you are? How many would have the courage to willingly meet death to return to the battlefield as death itself?”

  There was silence as the light of the full moon tore through the trees overhead and the two beings stood face-to-face, watching each other’s eyes. Nicephorus had spent his life nurturing an anger that was well hidden beneath the guise his fellows knew. As often as he returned to Constantinople, he wanted to leave again. He sought something he had found nowhere in the world, something he had not been able to name. A courage, a knowledge, a power, an answer that would free him from the questions in his head, the search for a purpose, the release of the anger. The answer was clear.

  “How many would have that courage?” Karl asked again.

  “One.”

  “And that’s how it began,” Peter said, finishing his tea as George and Meaghan visibly relaxed, letting out breaths they had been holding.

  “But there must be so much more,” Meaghan began.

  “Which will have to wait for later,” Peter said. “We’ve got far too many other things to worry about for now. Another time I’ll tell you what came later, and about the coven.”

  “But what about the sun, and the tea, and the cross, and all that garbage?” Meaghan asked.

  “Well, to the best of my knowledge—”

  “Whoa, back up there. What do you mean ‘to the best of?”

  “If you’d allow me a moment”—he arched an eyebrow—“I’ll explain.”

  She apologized with a scolded look and an encouraging shrug of the shoulders.

  “I don’t cat. I can, but I always throw it up later. Delicate metabolism, you know. I can drink most substances that aren’t too strong or too thick. As George said, he supplies me—”

  “How do you get away with that? Aren’t the stocks so well guarded these days?”

  She’s right on top of this whole thing, George thought, smiling in wonder. He really admired this girl.

  “It’s easier than you would think. Peter can—are you sure you want to hear this?”