Of Saints and Shadows (1994)

by Christopher Golden

  “Sandro, roll tape . . . okay, friend, who are you?”

  “Colonel William F. Cody, at your service,” he said, and saluted. He figured he might as well humor the woman. She was awful pretty and he’d hate to have to harm her.

  “Colonel of what?” she asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “And this woman?”

  “Meaghan Gallagher, a friend of mine.”

  “But you killed her?”

  “No, ma’am I did not. And the fact of the matter is, she’s not quite dead.”

  “She looks pretty dead to us,” Tracey said, and Sandro swung the camera to take in the body.

  Cody switched on the overhead light and Tracey almost shot him in surprise.

  “Sorry. Thought it would be easier. Do you mind if I put some clothes on, darlin’? It’s a mite embarrassin’ giving an interview in my birthday suit.”

  “Just move real slow,” Tracey said, backing off and steadying her aim, only the tiniest bit put off guard by his casualness.

  “Now, what I meant to say is, that there girl is maybe technically dead, but not for long.”

  “So you’re admitting it!” Tracey almost yelled.

  “Admitting what?” Cody asked, almost innocently.

  “That you’re a vampire!”

  Sandro cringed. He didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. If you’d wanted to know that, you should’ve just asked. And Meaghan’s going to become one in a short time. Seems she was so in love with her boyfriend—that’s Peter—that she asked him to do it. Kind of romantic, don’t you think?”

  “Prove it!” Sandro snapped.

  “What?” Tracey said.

  “I want him to prove it,” he repeated.

  “What exactly did you have in mind, friend?” Cody asked, and then he moved.

  One minute he’d been standing in the middle of the room in socks and Jeans, and the next he was behind Tracey with the gun in his hand. She barely felt it being ripped from her grip and then turned to face him, waiting for the shot to come. It didn’t.

  “How’s that?” he asked, but neither of them spoke.

  “Okay, I see this calls for something more drastic, how ’bout . . .”

  His face changed. Over the space of several seconds it elongated. Hair sprouted and he drew back his lips to show terrible fangs. And then he was back to normal.

  “I’d do the whole thing for you, but the process really is uncomfortable,” he said, smiling.

  “Why are you doing this?” Traccy asked, when she could finally speak. Sandro was still struck dumb.

  “Doing what?”

  “You’re toying with us, aren’t you? Are you going to kill us? Are we going to end up in that basement room the same way all those others did?”

  Cody looked at her like she was crazy. Then it hit him.

  “Hell no, I consented to this interview, didn’t I? No, I’m going to give both of you what you truly deserve for having the gall to walk into this house and nose around like you did. It’s gonna get me in deep shit, but that’s no place I haven’t been before.

  “Forget this interview crap, I’m gonna give you a real story.”

  Standing before the crowd, Peter could not help but feel the confusion roiling among them. Here he stood, on the stage of the Venice Theater, with Sheng, Alex, Jazz, Ellen, and Rolf seated behind him, with Hannibal standing up next to him. Those who knew him at all knew he’d been a disappointment to Von Reinman and were none too happy with his actions themselves. Those who were politically aware knew too well how little Hannibal had thought of Karl and, therefore, his coven.

  And yet there they were. Had Peter stood there alone, nobody would have listened. But Hannibal was the host of the Venice carnival—had been for several centuries—and they were all obligated to come. Even the great Genghis was there, in the first row, with several members of their race who were even older, many of whom Peter had never met. Hannibal had told him that as far as he knew, the oldest present was the Defiant One who called himself Lazarus, though he certainly was not the Lazarus of biblical legend.

  Hannibal introduced Peter, with no attempt to hide his distaste, but in fairness, with an endorsement as to the truth of his statements. Any enmity between them would have to wait.

  Peter began.

  “My blood father, Karl Von Reinman, who also sired those you see behind us, is dead. Barbarossa is dead. Catherine is dead. Dozens of the eldest of our kind have been murdered. Each of you likely has a story of your own. Hannibal himself was the target of assassination, and eluded his would-be assassins by guiding them to Cody October in Monte Carlo.”

  There was a round of grumbling throughout the room. Of the hundreds of Defiant Ones in the room, few held any love in their hearts for Cody.

  “Cody himself escaped, and has been instrumental in my efforts on behalf of all of us. What you probably are not aware of is that Marcus Aurelius is also dead, killed on the same day that Hannibal was targeted, though none of us were aware of this until several minutes ago.”

  The room was an uproar. Aurelius had ever been one of the most respected and feared of their kind.

  “Why? That is the question on all of your lips. Second only to who. I have the answers to both questions.”

  The theater grew silent as Peter detailed Karl Von Reinman’s interest in The Gospel of Shadows, familiar to many of them, as well as his own involvement beginning in Boston and leading to his retrieval of the book in Rome. When he told them he had gone into the Vatican, the place erupted.

  “Impossible,” Genghis yelled, coming to his feel, and Peter was stunned to see the elder so overwrought.

  Others were yelling at him as well, and he looked to Hannibal for support.

  “Genghis!” Hannibal broke in, just in time as far as Peter was concerned. “All of you. With all due respect, the Byzantine is telling the truth.”

  Silence reigned. They could not but believe Hannibal, and they were stunned. Finally, it was the one called Lazarus who spoke.

  “Mr. Octavian,” he said, surprising the room further, “why don’t you tell us what is in this Gospel of Shadows, as you call it. That may clear things up for us, don’t you think?”

  Peter looked at him, and for a moment he thought he saw a shadow of a smile there, an imperceptible nod that might have said that Lazarus knew more than he was letting on.

  “Go on,” Lazarus urged. “If I’m reading you right, we probably don’t have a great deal of time.”

  “Well, it’s a very long book, and there are sections which were obviously removed from it at some point, early on. Other sections are completely indecipherable, though Hannibal has helped translate some if it just this evening.

  “The book is composed of three separate documents. The first is made up of portions of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which the Christian faithful were never allowed access to. This material recounts certain of the teachings of Jesus Christ specifically relating the laws of the netherworld and the reality of demons and other creatures. Christ also discusses the origins of these creatures and the nature of Lucifer and the angels in far more detail than anywhere in modern Christianity’s ‘Bible.’ Finally, though he has total mastery over these beings as a part of the divine nature which he claims, a human might acquire a similar control through lessons taught in the writings of his human father Joseph, to whom he had given these secrets when he himself was a young boy.

  “The second document in the book is a collection of the writings of Joseph referred to by Jesus. A book filled with spells and instruction which will allow one to master sorcery. This section is extensive, and quite difficult to decipher.

  “The third document is a journal, kept by the Vatican’s master sorcerers since the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church. It recounts the tale of the church’s total subjugation of all of the creatures of darkness, or ‘shadows,’ as they are often referred to in the text, with the exception of the De
fiant Ones, which is where the term comes from. I’m very saddened to say the portions of this book which would detail the origins of the Defiant Ones, our own kind, have been expunged from the record.’

  He paused a moment to let that sink in.

  “The subjugation of the shadows was an ongoing process; some of these beings, allegedly the twisted creations of Lucifer himself, were more difficult to control than others. Finally, early in the eighth century, there was a major effort to assert complete control, and it appeared that the majority of the shadows had been enslaved. Except us.

  “The church attempted genocide, and eventually, only slightly more than fifty Defiant Ones were known to survive. These hid so well that they could not be found, and the church was forced to resort to the most profound and devastating magic ever used. They altered the very fabric of the supernatural realm that coexists with our own, what Jesus and many before him referred to as hell. This action was the true basis for the split between Eastern and Western Christians at the time. The Iconoclasm Debate was but a smoke screen for the church’s followers, while the sorcerers argued whether their destructive methods would have been condoned by Jesus Christ, whether God would approve. After all, if they had developed the power to manipulate hell’s borders, what of heaven’s?

  “Eventually, many of the fifty survivors were found, but when the church realized it could not possibly destroy them all, or stay aware of all possibilities of proliferation, it decided on a new course of action. Over the course of nearly two hundred years, the church tampered with the minds of those Defiant Ones it could capture. Eventually, they could make our kind believe whatever they wished.

  “But they hadn’t gotten us all. There were a handful of extraordinarily powerful members of our race who finally banded together and attacked the sorcerers. The sorcerers’ magic had been stronger than any since Jesus had walked the earth as a human. They had entered hell itself, they had captured and brainwashed our kind, weakening us greatly. But they were together, and smug, and vulnerable. The attack killed all but one of the sorcerers, who managed to escape. He would later become Pope Benedict the Fourth. Details are scarce, but according to a record left by Benedict, all but four of those Defiant Ones with free minds were left to roam free, and the four seem to have all but disappeared from the records after that.

  “Then, in 903, Benedict the Fourth was murdered by his apprentice, who would then become Pope Leo the Fifth. The same happened to Leo, who was replaced by Pope Sergius the Third. Benedict and Leo were the last sorcerers to have been involved in tampering with the netherworld, and Sergius was not a sorcerer at all, but a cardinal ignorant of the magic goings-on around him. Since then, the majority of popes have been used as puppets by the true rulers of the church, the sorcerers.

  “By the end of the next century, the Defiant Ones, made somewhat less defiant, less of a threat, had propagated themselves once more. Though far easier to kill, our kind were still dangerous. Throughout the thirteenth century the church attempted to cull the herd, so to speak, by way of the Crusades. Though this practice continued afterward, it was never done on the scale of the Crusades again.

  “Until now.

  “Liam Mulkerrin is perhaps the most dangerous sorcerer the church has had since Pope Benedict the Fourth. He also has a number of apprentices and acolytes at different stages in their magical education. According to the final entry in this book by Cardinal Giancarlo Garbarino, made only days before the book was stolen by another cardinal ignorant of magical doings, technology and the media have combined with our own growing carelessness to make it virtually impossible for our kind to remain secret any longer. Though we have fought for such secrecy ourselves, it seems that what these sorcerers fear more than anything else is that a discovery of our existence would lead to the discovery of their existence as well. The power they have established over so many centuries would be destroyed.

  “A purge is coming. What they consider to be the final purge, something they’re calling the Blessed Event. They have every intention of destroying every last one of us, and we believe they will attack just hours from now, during the day, right in the middle of the major festivities of carnival.”

  Silence reigned.

  26

  AS SOON AS THE MEETING HAD BROKEN UP, with Hannibal holding counsel with the elder Defiant Ones, Peter and Alexandra flew back to their reluctant host’s house on Calle Bernardo. When they had reached the house and undergone the metamorphosis back to human form, Alex took his arm.

  “Just a second,” she said, looking uncomfortable. “This is none of my business, but I think you did the right thing with Meaghan. Bringing her to our life is better than losing her, and you know she’s got too much sass not to make herself a target for these bastards.”

  “You’re right about that,” he said. “As far as the other, it’s what she wanted, but I don’t know if it’s right. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  “Join the club.”

  “And you’re right about something else. It’s none of your business.”

  Alex blinked her surprise, and was further confused when Peter gave her a big hug.

  “But thank you for saying so just the same.”

  When he released her, she just looked at him, then smiled in a dreamy, faraway kind of smile. “You know,” she said, “as mad as I’ve been at you, and as hard as it’s been to understand you at times, I’ve never stopped thinking about all the good times. I’ve missed you.”

  “Yeah. We had it all, one time. Then we grew up, grew apart. I’ve missed you, too, old lady.”

  “Sez you!” She laughed, then stopped. The faraway look was still there, but the smile had gone. “I’m scared, Peter,” she said, so softly he could barely hear her, though she stood right next to him. “I haven’t been scared since I was first born into this life, but I’m really, really scared.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”

  “Sheng’s scared, too, only he’s too proud to show it. And he’s glad we’re all together again, but he can’t say it.”

  “He doesn’t need to. Rolf couldn’t say it if he wanted to, but I know it just the same. It’s been too long.”

  “Now we’re back together and it could be all over,” she said, looking away.

  “No,” he said, suddenly harsh. “It may be the pot calling the kettle black, because I know that according to human standards, we are a truly monstrous race, but these people, they’re human. What they do to their own kind, to their world, to the heavens themselves, is evil. As nasty and savage as our kind may be, we’re not evil. Meaghan thinks we have souls, and I don’t know if I could argue with her.”

  “You think all of it’s true, then? Not just myth? You think there’s a hell? I can’t seem to get my mind around Lucifer and heaven and hell.”

  “Don’t be blinded by Christian teachings. I’ve seen some of the ‘shadows’ they talked about . . . shit, I mean, we’re real enough, aren’t we? These are undefined things, not impossible ones. The church teaches now that hell doesn’t exist, but heaven docs. Did hell disappear? No; they’re hiding it the way they’re hiding us! I mean, Alex, think about it! They’ve been there! They’ve torn up the fabric of some alternate dimension filled with creatures even we don’t know about. They’ve been in our minds as well.”

  “It doesn’t seem like we stand much of a chance,” Alex said, and shook her head.

  “Wrong,” Peter said. “That was a long time ago, when we were weaker and they were stronger. Even two days ago we would have put up a good fight. Now, though. Now we have a chance to win.”

  “That brainwashing is all so incredible. What do you think happened to the four that got away?”

  “Four what?”

  “In the book. Four of the ancient ones who hadn’t been brainwashed, they took out the sorcerers and they got away. What do you think happened to them?”

  Peter was quiet. With everything going on, it hadn’t really occurred to him even to consider such a questi
on. Though his mind had accepted the book as truth, his heart still considered it a bygone time, with only historical relevance for the present. But Hannibal and Genghis were among those brainwashed, and Aurelius, loo. They were there. So where were the others?

  Even as he and Alex entered Hannibal’s house in silence, Peter’s mind was whirling with the possibilities. They heard voices coming from the living room, and entered to find Cody seated on the couch, and the young woman they’d freed earlier on a chair across from him, while a man Peter had never seen before filmed them both.

  “Howdy, folks!” Cody said happily.

  “Oh, God,” the woman said. “You scared the life out of me. I thought it was Hannibal.”

  Peter and Alexandra simply stood there, trying to make sense of the scene before them.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Alex snapped at him. She may have resolved her anger toward Peter, but her grudge against Will Cody was not so quickly cured.

  “What does it look like, darlin’?” He laughed. “I’m being interviewed for television! A showman once again, friends. Ah, it’s been too long!”

  “My blood! Are you out of your mind? Peter, we can’t let him . . .”

  She turned to him, but he was deep in thought. She looked back at Will, at the reporter—whom she instantly regretted treeing—and the cameraman, who looked like he’d just remembered he was supposed to be scared. The camera, that was what would have to go!

  “Wait a minute,” Peter said, just as she’d started to move in. Instead, he walked up to the young woman. “Who are you people?” he asked. It took the woman a moment to answer.

  “I’m Tracey Sacco,” she said, “I came here as a volunteer, supposedly to offer myself to your kind, the Defiant Ones. Actually, I’ve been working on this story for a long time, undercover, for CNN.

  “This is Sandro Ricci,” she tilted her head to indicate the cameraman. “I pretty much shanghaied him after you let me leave here earlier. . . . Thank you for that, by the way.”

  “You’re welcome,” Peter said, then turned and paced a moment. “Cody, how is Meaghan doing?”