At this, Mulkerrin motioned to the leather bag he carried, which he set down on the floor next to his chair.
“And how goes the recruitment process for the Vatican Historical Council?” Mulkerrin asked, and it was the right question. Their mutual hatred would wait until the Purge was complete, for now they needed each other.
“The Vatican Historical Council, my friend, is alive and well, hundreds strong and growing. Nearly all of the clergy we had slated for recruitment were salivating at the thought, and the others will be more than willing to go along with the plan once they realize they don’t have a choice.”
Neither man noticed as a fine mist began to flow under the door of Garbarino’s office.
“Wonderful,” Mulkerrin said, eyes intense. “And my acolytes?”
“They have studied all they could without the volume you have retrieved. Certainly they have mastered what you had taught them before you were so rudely interrupted by that old fool Guiscard, but they could not have completed their training without the book.”
“Well, the book is back and so am I. Give me a week to prepare them.”
“Unfortunately, you lose track of time. We do not have a week. Rather, we should have moved the day after tomorrow. In reality, we can wait no more than three days to begin, to make the Blessed Event come to pass.”
“It shall be done,” Mulkerrin said, his eyes smoldering as he thought of it, the glory, the Purge. He swallowed involuntarily and choked back a cry of manic joy. He looked at Garbarino and could tell that he, too, was on the verge of lunatic giggling at the thought of their ultimate triumph. The two of them would make real a goal the church had desired to reach for two thousand years.
As Garbarino turned to the credenza behind him and retrieved a bottle of red wine and two glasses, Mulkerrin quickly tried to regain some modicum of composure. It wasn’t easy. Garbarino poured them each half a glass, then lifted his own to toast and Mulkerrin followed suit.
At Mulkerrin’s right leg, a tendril of mist formed into fingers, then a hand, which closed about the handle of the priest’s briefcase.
“To Venice,” Garbarino toasted, and Mulkerrin hastily agreed, the glee creeping up on him again, threatening to distort the corner of his mouth.
But then a man appeared, standing right up against the side of the desk, Mulkerrin’s briefcase in his hand. Both wineglasses went tumbling onto the desk, spilling red stains across weeks of paperwork. Garbarino’s head snapped back as he took in their visitor with incredulous eyes, and Mulkerrin stood quickly, knocking over his chair and backing away from the intruder.
“Octavian,” he roared, and it was pain, hatred, surprise, and self-loathing that poured forth in that one word. And the next word came on spider legs, almost a whisper; “How?”
“Assholes,” Peter said, and the two, who had once thought themselves prepared for any eventuality, were so stunned that their sanctuary had been poisoned by the presence of this Defiant One that neither could react any further as he turned, the metamorphosis from man to huge bat happening quicker than their eyes could follow, and flew straight at the window.
Talons holding tight to leather, Octavian burst into the night, shattered glass glittering red as it exploded above the courtyard. He’d never flown so hard or fast in his life, even with the enormous weight of the book in its case.
He was angry, and now, for the first time in a long time, he was also frightened. Not for himself.
For his people.
Peter wasn’t just running late, he was late. The train was five miles out of the station, moving east, when he caught up with it. Meaghan must be going crazy, he thought. They’d flown to Rome after making certain Guiscard and his nephew had the care they needed, not even waiting for Ted’s funeral. That was what pained Peter the most, and yet he and Meaghan had agreed that time was of the essence. They could not afford to lose an hour, much less a day, and tonight had proven them right.
It still confused him that he had not argued when Meaghan announced that she would be accompanying him. Of course, he knew the reasons, but they were baffling. He felt like a teacher with a mad crush on his student, a guilty pleasure indeed, but the stodgy old professor would go out of his way to spend a few minutes of solo chitchat with the girl. That was Peter. He didn’t know if he was falling in love with her. You’d think after centuries of women he’d know better than to let an acquaintance numbered in days have such an effect on him. So he told himself it wasn’t love.
But it was one hell of a crush.
He landed none too gently on the roof of the train, tired from too much shape shifting and from flying so hard with the damned heavy satchel in his talons. His change back into human form was slow, almost leisurely, and when it was done, he stood, checking first for bridges (hell, if Wile E. Coyote had taught him anything, that was it), and tried to establish which car he stood atop of.
It was the third from the front, so maybe he wasn’t as tired as he thought he was. Precariously near the edge of the roof, he glanced over the side and counted windows. That was it, the third from the rear. He just needed to remember which side Meaghan was supposed to be on. It wouldn’t do to be tapping on the window of the wrong berth on a train doing one hundred miles per hour at past three in the morning. Third car from the front, third window from the rear and on the left, that was what they’d agreed.
But what was the left side of the train? Left facing forward or facing backward? Well, forward was the logical answer.
Logic prevailed. A couple of taps on that window, holding tightly to the metal rail on the roof’s edge, and Meaghan’s face appeared at the window looking extraordinarily relieved. Luckily the windows on these European trains slid down more than two feet. Peter didn’t think he’d have had the energy to transform again.
“Well, it’s about time,” she said when he’d crawled inside, and through the smirk on her face that broadcast amusement, he could see how worried she had actually been. He didn’t blame her; they both knew what kind of power Mulkerrin had, and they had already wondered aloud whether there were more like him at home.
“It was easy,” he said, earning a raised eyebrow. “No, I mean it. They were so completely taken aback by the fact that I was there, in the damned Vatican, that they could hardly speak, never mind try to stop me.”
“Thank God,” she said, making no attempt to hide her concern now, and Peter thought once again that his feelings for Meaghan were more than mutual. “But that’s it, you know.”
“What’s it?” he asked.
“That’s it, Peter. We’ll never have a chance to take them by surprise again.” She looked worried again.
“Oh,” Peter said, by way of consolation, “we’ll see about that.”
Meaghan looked at him sternly for a moment and then giggled, a sound that was as alien, and as wonderful, to Peter as the sound of her beating heart when she hugged him.
“You arrogant man. One would think half a millennium would teach you something, after all!” She sighed in feigned exasperation and hugged him tight.
Peter wished he was as sure as he sounded. In reality, he had no idea where all this would lead. He supposed it would all depend on—
“So that’s it?” Meaghan said, breaking their embrace and glancing at the leather case. “The cardinal was so vague about its contents, yet the thought of its existence frightens me. It’s terrifying to realize that everything you’ve ever known is a lie.”
“It’s not everything, just one church,” he said, shrugging off his coat.
“Just the one in which I happened to have been raised,” Meaghan added.
“Well,” Peter said with a shrug, “I suppose we ought to have a look at the thing.”
He picked up the case and went to turn on the light, but Meaghan’s hand on his arm stopped him. She took the ease from him and put it on the top bunk, then sat and patted the spot next to her where she wanted him to sit.
“First thing in the morning, I promise,” she said.
“Meaghan . . .” Peter began while sitting; he was tired after all. “I don’t know about—”
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Then shut up and kiss me, fool.”
It was an offer he couldn’t refuse. As soon as their lips touched, his exhaustion retreated. It didn’t leave precisely, only took a backseat to observe the festivities. The first kiss was warm and soft and accompanied by a most peculiar feeling, that of energy leaving his body through every pore, and yet when it was gone, he felt better than ever.
Their tongues touched and Meaghan ran hers over Peter’s sharp teeth. He felt a barely perceptible shiver run through her and she squeezed her legs together. Meaghan wore only a robe over her nightshirt and panties. The robe came off at the pull of her belt, revealing the bandage she still wore on her arm where Janet’s teeth had torn the skin. Peter gently stroked Meaghan’s breasts through the fabric as she unbuttoned his own shirt.
And then a knock came, and it wasn’t on the door.
Peter and Meaghan felt complete and utter panic combined with terror and an anger neither would recall a moment later. They were up in half a second, staring at the window, Meaghan with her little fists balled to attack, Peter quickly obstructing her view of the window.
Though neither Peter nor Meaghan had ever seen the man before, they both thought he looked oddly familiar.
The two stared at the intruder, who smiled awkwardly, upside down, then slowly, deliberately, knocked again. Then he held one hand out, raising his eyebrows in an expression clearly meant to say, Well, what exactly are you waiting for?
Peter moved toward the window, cautiously.
“I’m going to let him in,” he said.
“What else can we do?” Meaghan asked in response. “I don’t suppose sorcerers knock before they enter.”
The intruder pulled himself into the room as the night rushed past outside the window. Peter and Meaghan stood well back, she and the book behind him. They both saw the look of recognition that passed over the intruder’s face when he got his first good look at Peter in the dim light.
“Nicephorus Dragases,” the intruder said. “My distinct pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
17
VENICE’S HOTEL ATLANTICO IS ONLY A FEW short blocks from Piazza San Marco, or St. Mark’s Square, and its front windows offer an intriguing view of the Bridge of Sighs. Its guests can make love at night with the moonlight streaming in through the windows and the breeze carrying the voices of gondoliers calling to warn their comrades around the next corner that they’re coming through. The gondoliers do sing; that’s not a lie. It’s quite romantic, actually.
On the lower floors, guests must change clothes in the dark and pull the curtains during the day. Gondoliers and their passengers generally have roving eyes. But then, who doesn’t? If a picture interests you, you look. It’s human nature.
Traccy Sacco and Linda Metcalf weren’t there for the romance. They were there to worship, to be taken and used by their masters, the Defiant Ones.
They were volunteers.
Their room at the Hotel Atlantico overlooked the canal. Though they did not know it, it was the same room in which a young couple had offered themselves up to Alexandra Nueva only days earlier. If you looked out the window and to the left, you could see the Bridge of Sighs. Linda and Tracey were ostensibly friends, but they were very different people. Linda was too obsessed with the Defiant Ones to notice the romance of the city. Tracey, though she dared not mention it to her “friend,” failed in a miserable attempt not to notice it. She felt lonely, and afraid.
Linda had survived Venice, New Orleans, and Venezuela, each time paying the hotel bill of whomever she’d been sharing the room with, each time going home alone. She was sure that this time she’d be one of the chosen, she’d be honored. She was far from stupid. You had to be pretty damn smart to get as far into the circle of the volunteers as she’d gotten. But intelligence, in the long history of man, had never had a bearing on worship.
And she could not deny that worship was exactly what this was. Martyrdom, sacrifice, purification. Faith. Those were the principles of religion. Linda didn’t think she had ever actually seen a Defiant One. She had no idea if they paid any attention to the sacrifices offered up to them.
But she had faith.
Tracey had faith in nothing but herself. That was the way it was and always had been. Tracey had never seen a Defiant One either, but that and the fact that she, also, was far from stupid were the only things the two of them shared. This was Tracey’s first year as a volunteer, though it had taken her three to get into the loop and a fourth to convince Linda that she’d be the perfect roommate. The differences between them would have been substantial even if Tracey had been everything she seemed.
Which she was not.
In truth, she lacked not only faith, but religion. Oh, she believed all right, but she believed because of the things she had seen and heard, believed because she was terrified, and because it made good copy, and making good copy was her job.
Tracey Sacco worked for CNN.
“So,” Tracey said with a quaver in her voice that she hoped passed for excitement rather than terror, “you’re the expert, babe. What do we do now?”
It was 10:00 P.M. (yeah, ma, Tracey thought, do you know where your children are?) Linda had said they’d go out later, when the streets weren’t quite so crowded, quite so safe. God, it was crazy. And yet it fit right in with the whole point of this thing. They were here to sacrifice themselves, after all. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
Only the biggest news story of the decade. An international cult operating around a community of dark, shadowy figures that the cult deified, worshiped, and to whom they attributed a wide array of magical and demonic powers, and she’d managed to get right into the middle.
When she’d first gotten wind of it, through an old friend whose sister had disappeared in a small town in Germany one year, well, she’d been a little skeptical. But as soon as she started doing her homework, she realized it was there. And she couldn’t possibly be the only one aware of it; there were just too many disappearances, too many murders, too many patterns.
So why was it not public knowledge?
For very simple reasons. People with power didn’t want it to be. Stories were censored around the world, facts blurred, homicide reports vague, times and dates of death adjusted and the media absolutely under control. It was done the same way government, especially the American government, keeps people in the dark.
Sure, JFK was killed with one bullet.
Sure, George Bush knew nothing about Iran-Contra.
Uh-huh.
As soon as Tracey realized the extent of this story—her story, she had started to call it—she had gone behind closed doors with her boss, Jim Thomas. When she was officially and very publicly fired from CNN, nobody asked why Jim’s salary suddenly doubled. And there was no Mrs. Thomas to wonder why half that salary went into a bank account in the name of Terry Shaughnessy. Of course, Tracey Sacco had a passport that identified her as Terry Shaughnessy, and several with other names as well, just in case. Even Tracey Sacco wasn’t her real name, but she’d been Tracey for so long that she was becoming accustomed to it, almost like a nickname. In her heart, she might still be Allison Vigeant, for that was her real name, but in her head she had become Tracey.
As far as Tracey and Jim knew, it was the deepest cover any investigative journalist had ever gone under. She risked her life every day. And now she wasn’t just risking it, she was throwing back her head and baring her throat to the wolves—the Defiant Ones, they were called. She had to learn exactly what she was up against, and stay alive to tell the story. Nothing else mattered.
“Tracey!”
Tracey snapped back to reality.
“I’m talking to you!” Linda whined in an unattractive way that Tracey hadn’t heard from her before. Her nose wrinkled and she realized it was also the fi
rst time she’d smelled perfume on Linda, never mind that it wasn’t a particularly pleasing scent.
“Sorry, Lin,” Tracey said, putting on her best smile. “I’m just so—I don’t know—blown away by the whole thing. So, what are we doing first?”
“Well,” and now Tracey saw a girlish excitement return to Linda’s face, and her voice took on the mesmerized tone of a child reciting her Christmas list to a department-store Santa. “I’m just so nervous. We’re invited to a party.”
“A party? You never said anything about—”
“I know. That’s because I never knew about it. I guess it happens every year, but only a few of us are invited. It’s just such an honor, isn’t it?”
“Sure,” Tracey answered.
I’ll bet it’s a meat market.
“Why do you come to us?” Alexandra Nueva asked, brows knitted in a mixture of anger and concern.
They stood in a library of sorts, a collection of rare, museum-quality books on occult subjects. The library, and the house that surrounded it, were owned by the Defiant One who stood in front of them. A true elder, he’d been known by many names, the latest a millennium old.
“Yes, Hannibal. What exactly do you expect us to do?” Sheng pushed.
The tall man paused a moment, his mouth forming a question that would go unasked. He cocked his head to one side and studied Alexandra before answering.
“Well, I should think it ought to be pretty obvious by now that a pattern is developing.”
“Obvious to anyone with an ear to the ground,” Alexandra agreed. “Old bastards like you are being stalked by the church. They’ll probably get to us eventually, but the pattern lies with age.”
“Oh, they’ll get to you eventually, I’m pretty sure of that now. But what about Karl? He was not nearly so old as the rest of those who’ve been killed.”
“An error?” Sheng suggested. “Practice?”
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