Of Saints and Shadows (1994)

by Christopher Golden

  All were skilled in the arts of sorcery. Skilled, but not masters. The book must be retrieved for them to complete their studies and for those under them to also continue to learn. As Mulkerrin explained their situation Mary’s grave face became even more grim. Isaac and Thomas stood taller, preparing themselves mentally for what was to come. And Robert . . . Robert Montesi smiled.

  Oh, what a weapon he is, Mulkerrin thought.

  “How many do we have?” he asked them.

  “Two hundred twenty-two,” Robert answered, and even Mulkerrin was impressed with the number.

  “Nearly half a hundred more in and around Rome,” Mary added, referring to a group of women she herself had been training.

  “And more than one hundred and thirty near Venice,” Isaac said.

  “One fifty,” Thomas finished.

  “More than four hundred! What a glorious event,” and now Mulkerrin also stood taller, his eyes wide and his mind reaching to encompass the scope of their plan. Final victory was within their grasp.

  “For the love of God,” Mary intoned.

  “For the love of God,” the Montesi brothers repeated.

  This put a damper on Mulkerrin’s spirits. Certainly it was for the love of God. But it was for himself as well. He would be victorious. He would control all of the dark forces of the universe, as well as a powerful army of sorcerers. They would have to be away from the church for some time after the event. But in ten years, twenty, he would return and wrest control with whatever force, physical or magical, was necessary. He would be pope. And slowly the church would become nothing more than a magical extension of his will. His every darkest dream would be enacted. Garbarino and all others who purported to be his belters would be gone.

  All of his enemies.

  And then, of course, he would simply have to find new ones.

  “Liam!”

  It was Robert Montesi.

  “Yes, Robert. I’m sorry, I was lost in prayer for a moment. I ask God to bless our endeavor.” He paused. “You must pass the word down that today is the day. All of your soldiers must have their weapons and be gone from Vatican City before noon. Inconspicuously! By twos and threes and not to be seen as doing anything out of the ordinary if possible. Tell them . . . yes, tell them they will not be coming back and to be prepared for that. Regardless of the outcome, we cannot return here or we’ll jeopardize all the church has worked for.”

  He looked at them, but they seemed satisfied with his explanation. They would know nothing of Garbarino’s actions.

  “All Rome personnel will board the train we have prepared at the train yard. Make sure they all know where it is, two-point-five miles from the station. Thomas.”

  “Sir?”

  “Alert Venice personnel to our arrival. We will rendezvous with them at midnight exactly, just north of Santa Lucia station at the warehouse next to the Scalzi Church. At that time we will make our way into the city to take our positions so that we may move out at dawn.”

  “At night, Father,” Isaac asked. “Aren’t we sure to be spotted?”

  “Of course some of us will be seen by our quarry, perhaps even killed. Nevertheless, we must be ready by dawn. Give instructions that no Defiant One is to be attacked at night. If one of our people is attacked, they may defend themselves, but in such a case they must not allow the Defiant One to escape to warn its fellows.”

  “During the attack, sir, what of the civilians?”

  “We’ve been over this, Thomas. It shouldn’t come to that once people see the monsters we’re there to destroy. But if it does, you know the standing orders. Civilians are expendable. Property damage is expected and more than likely efficacious. Fire is one of our best natural weapons. “Any questions?”

  “None at the moment, Father,” Mary replied sweetly.

  “No, sir,” the Montesis answered together.

  “Meet me back here in one hour with a full report and to receive additional instructions.”

  “In the name of God,” they all said.

  “In the name of God,” Mulkerrin repeated.

  It was strange enough that this familiar-faced intruder should interrupt Peter and Meaghan—just when they were starting to get better acquainted—by knocking on the window of a speeding train. But now that they had let the stranger in, not only had he apparently recognized Peter, but he had called him by his birth name, his mortal name, Nicephorus Dragases. When the surprise wore off, Peter got annoyed.

  “You know me,” he said, not a question.

  “I reckon I do,” the intruder answered.

  “I don’t recall ever meeting you.”

  “Oh, you haven’t, but even so, I know you well, Nicephorus Dragases,” he said, using the offending name again.

  “How in hell do you know that name?” Peter growled, and the intruder retreated, hands up.

  “Please, sir. I don’t intend offense. We mourn the same tragedy, that of our shared friend and father, Karl Von Reinman,” the intruder said, and lowered his head and his hands.

  Peter was not convinced. “What is your name, brother?” he asked the stranger.

  “Cody October,” the intruder answered, with no small amount of pride.

  Peter Octavian laughed. He shook his head to show Cody that he meant no offense, and laughed a bit more.

  “Oh, shit, you scared us. I thought you looked familiar.”

  Now it was Cody’s turn to look confused. “But we’ve just established that we have never met,” he insisted.

  “Much to my regret, sir, and it’s an honor that we do so now,” Peter said, extending a hand, which was promptly shaken. “I’ve been an admirer of your insubordination for years, and of your talents long before then.”

  Cody blushed then, if such could ever be said of an immortal, and executed a deep bow to the both of them. “I’m flattered.”

  “Uh-mmm.” Meaghan cleared her throat, and Peter turned toward her, finally recovering from his nervous relief and genuine excitement at meeting this other creature, a fellow prodigal son to the same unnatural father.

  “I’m so sorry. Meaghan Gallagher, meet William F. Cody,” Peter said, and Cody bowed again as Meaghan nodded with an expectant smile. “Better known, of course, as Buffalo Bill.”

  Buffalo Bill? Meaghan smiled a genuine smile at Cody, then at Peter. “You gotta be kiddin’ me,” she said, her Boston accent making a rare appearance.

  Cody grimaced.

  “As uncomfortable as I am with the nickname, and as much as I’ve always preferred Will or just plain Cody, it is the label that made me famous. A mixed blessing, at best.”

  “Unbelievable,” Meaghan said, shaking her head. “Who’s next, Sitting Bull?”

  “Unfortunately not,” Cody answered, though it was obvious that Meaghan had expected none. “Thanks to a bastard named McLaughlin, my blood brother is far deader than I.

  “Now, Peter,” Cody continued, “unless of course you prefer your true name?”

  “No more than you do your stage name.”

  “Well taken. I’m sorry to have interrupted your and Meaghan’s, um, evening, but since I am here, perhaps we ought to have a look at that book?”

  That brought Peter and Meaghan back to reality.

  “How do you know about the book, and how do you come to know I’ve got it?” Peter asked as suspicion began to creep back in.

  “Well, I certainly didn’t just happen to guess you were on this train. I was watching the Vatican for an opportunity to grab someone who might have some answers. As for the book, I sort of assumed I knew about it from the same place you did.”

  “And where might that be?” Meaghan asked, still in the dark about so many things, and afraid, though she’d never show it, afraid of the dark.

  “Well, from Karl, of course,” Cody answered, frustrated.

  “From Karl?” Peter asked.

  “Certainly. He’s been after the thing for years. I figured that’s why Karl was assassinated, because he’d gone after the b
ook. He wasn’t nearly as old or powerful as the others.”

  “What others?” Peter asked, not really wanting to know.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Meaghan said, mostly to herself.

  Cody explained, what he knew anyway, about the assassinations, about Karl’s interest in the book, about the attempt on his own life in Monte Carlo and his stakeout of the Vatican. In return, Peter and Meaghan shared their side of the story, Cardinal Guiscard’s discovery of the book, the murders that led to their confrontation with Mulkerrin, the many coincidences that led Peter into the battle.

  “You know,” Peter finished, “I thought I would have to put off my search for Karl’s murderers until after I’d solved this case, or leave it to the coven. But now . . . all roads lead to Rome.”

  “You mentioned the coven again,” Meaghan said, “but you still haven’t explained it, the setup, everything. If you two are part of the same coven, how could you not know each other?”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Cody answered before Peter could. “Karl Von Reinman brought me to this life on my deathbed, because he knew me and didn’t want me to die. Only when Peter left did Karl bring me into the coven, years later. Hence my name. ‘October,’ ‘Octavian,’ see any similarity?”

  “Of course, but . . .”

  “Number eight, Meaghan,” Cody continued. “Karl, though I loved him, was an arrogant son of a bitch. When he renamed us, he numbered us. Una was his lover. Jasmine Decard, Louis Onze, Veronica Settimo, Rolf Sechs. These were the members of our coven, all numbered. It was one of the things that made me leave so soon after joining them. And Peter’s reasons, if I may be so presumptuous, were also my own.”

  “So when did . . .” Meaghan began, then redirected her question. “Peter, why did you leave? And when?”

  “Yes, Peter,” Cody added, “I know why you left, but Von Reinman wouldn’t hear any talk of the circumstances. What happened?”

  Cody leaned against the window and Meaghan sat on the bunk. Peter had been standing near the door, but now he performed a minor foot shuffle, which in the cramped space could have been interpreted as pacing. This went on for a few moments before he turned his attention back to them.

  “It was in Boston, on New Year’s Eve, 1899. The turn of the century. There were thirteen of us, the coven. We were rarely all together, yet never very far apart. Bonds were formed, and animosity was born, and quite often the only thing that kept us from killing each other was Karl. A whisper was usually enough, when he was angry, to quell any furor. But that was an unusual night.

  “We were introducing a new member to the coven, an Irish girl we called Shannon Twin. The tradition was to each tell our stories, to show the new member that we had nothing to hide, that we were a family. But New Year’s Eve had always been a night for hunting, and as they say, the natives were restless. . . .”

  “That’s fine, Jazz,” said Una, an older Brazilian woman who was Karl’s lover. She was thanking Jasmine Decard for welcoming the newcomer, Shannon, with her story.

  “Louis?”

  She looked expectantly at the Frenchman, Louis Onze, who sat in a red-velvet-upholstered chair that matched the others around the room. Tastefully decorated in old European style, tapestries hanging from the walls, Karl’s Boston apartment had been their New Year’s Eve meeting place for five years. The locals were catching on, though, and the coven would have to find different hunting grounds for next year’s gathering. As simple as it was to make immigrants disappear in Boston—especially Irish and Italians fresh off the boat—they couldn’t get away with it forever.

  “Louis,” Karl said now as the Parisian had ignored Una’s request.

  “Enough,” a voice said, and all eyes turned toward its source, Shi-er Zhi Sheng, a fierce little Oriental man, with his temper at boiling point.

  “Aren’t you all a little tired of this?” he said, aiming his remarks primarily at Alexandra, Trini, and Xavier, his current clan within the coven. “I know that I, for one, was in favor of letting the second spot remain empty until the beginning of the year. The last thing we need is to be initiating a new member, lovely as she may be, at what has become for us, due to past actions here, the most dangerous city on Earth.”

  “Sheng.” Karl paused. “Sit. Down.”

  He did.

  “Now, I can see that for whatever reason, the lot of you are less than enthusiastic about this initiation and introduction. I can only assume it is your urge to be down on the streets, among the thronging masses. You are forgiven, tonight. But two nights from now, we finish this process. Shannon will receive the same courtesies that you all received upon becoming a member of this coven. I will make absolutely certain of that.

  “Now,” he continued.

  “Let’s hunt!” Xavier shouted.

  “Hell, let’s eat,” Trini added.

  Peter looked at them, scanning the room for some hesitation. He didn’t find any. Trini and Xavier had the bloodlust in their eyes, Veronica and Ellen were still glaring at each other, but they were putting their cloaks on, getting ready for the stroke of midnight, the moment the new year would begin and a dozen lives would end. It had always been a baker’s dozen, hut not this year. Jazz and Louis played in a corner, the lovers batting each other about like savage kittens. Una comforted Shannon, who looked frightened at the prospect of slaughtering her own people. Karl helped the two on with their cloaks. Rolf, the mute German, hovered about, searching for something to do with his hands.

  Alexandra Nueva and Shi-er Zhi Sheng stood to one side. Like Peter, they had not reached for their coats, and now the two whispered to one another, each in turn glancing at Peter for a moment and then looking away. The most perceptive of the group, other than Karl of course, they’d seen it coming for months, and now here it was.

  “Let’s go, children,” Karl said, chiding kindly, “you’ve got to at least look human if you’re to feast at midnight.”

  Alexandra and Sheng picked up their coats, looking at Peter with a mixture of anger and amusement. Peter looked away, unable to face them, though he knew in his heart he had made the right decision.

  In my heart I know, he thought, but what right does a cold, dead heart have to feel such pain ?

  “Peter?” Karl said, asking many things in two syllables.

  Why don’t you have your coat on ?

  Why aren’t you looking at me?

  Have you finally decided to speak your mind?

  Oh, yes. Karl had almost certainly realized several months ago that there was something going on in Peter’s head. Something that might cause Karl to disown his favorite son. There was bad blood between them, and with their kind, such feelings could be avoided only for so long.

  “I’m not going.”

  Their silence, the stares of his family, were more painful to him than the glare of the sun could ever he. He thought he might die right there.

  “What do you mean, you’re not going?” Xavier Penta asked him, the black man’s eyes wide, his jaw open in shock.

  “Just so. I’m not hunting with you tonight, or ever again.”

  He looked up now, directly into the eyes of his mentor, his true father, his best friend, Karl Von Reinman. He found them exactly as he expected, sad rather than angry like the others.

  “You’re too good for us now, Peter? Is that it?” Ellen asked, spiteful that another man would leave her. The story of her life. This time, though, she and Veronica were of one mind.

  “No, Ellie. He just likes to slap his father in the face.”

  That did it.

  “I will say this once, for the benefit of the entire coven, and especially for you, scared little Shannon,” he added, motioning to the girl. “Do not ever attempt to question my relationship with our father. It is not your place to do so.

  “As to why I will not hunt with you . . . simply put, I no longer hunt. Truly, I have not hunted humans in months.”

  Karl’s sadness turned to shock. He had sensed Peter woul
d be leaving, but this . . . They were all stunned.

  “Now, Peter,” Louis began, but Una interrupted.

  “How can you live?” she asked, concerned for him now.

  “I manage.”

  “Coward!” Trini yelled, stepping up to him now, right past Karl, who still had not said a word. “Weak, frightened woman, who are you to call yourself warrior? You shame your family!”

  “Trini,” Karl said, speaking up finally.

  But Trini went on, shouting his hate into Peter’s face, yet Octavian simply stood there. “You are not one of us, gelding. You spit in your father’s face! We should hunt you ourselves, you arrogant, traitorous coward. If I—”

  And Karl struck him down. As Peter watched, Karl’s arm lashed out once and Trini crumpled to the ground, his next insult dying as it reached his tongue.

  In the moment that followed, the heartbeat that intervened between that triumphant moment and the impending, heartrending pain, an awful tableau burned itself eternally onto the memory of Peter Octavian, he who had been Nicephorus Dragases until the father of his spirit and of his agony renamed him. Those he loved now despised him. Alexandra Nueva and Shi-er Zhi Sheng had been his closest friends other than Karl. He had purposely drifted away from them, intent upon freeing his spirit from the hell of conscience that had suddenly and irrevocably been horn within him. It had surprised him, but they did not seem surprised at all by his actions now. It was their silent presence, as silent as Rolf, which made the picture so painful. They had said nothing, but their eyes radiated more hate than all of the others. His friends . . .

  “Why?” Karl asked, finally, ending the moment, severing Peter’s bond with Alex and Sheng forever. Now to destroy his bond with Karl.

  “The humans,” he said quietly, though surely they could all hear him. “It was different when we were warriors, and even then it was a slaughter. But we were almost always fighting for something. For decades now, it’s been just killing and more killing.”

  “Peter.” Karl shook his head, not understanding. “They’re animals.”