Vanquished

by Nancy Holder

  * * *

  Holgar caught the unconscious Jenn in his arms. Brother Cristian made the sign of the cross over Holgar. Then the brother pointed to himself and to Jenn, saying, “I am taking care of her.”

  Holgar gave Jenn one last look as he opened up the van’s side door and stepped out, forcing himself to stay as calm as possible. His aggressive instincts had fully engaged, and he was hoping they would push him into transforming. Tonight was only a crescent moon, barely a fingernail slice, nearly as far from the full moon as could be.

  * * *

  Snow tumbled down. The alpha of the werewolf pack stood before him in human form. He wore white snow gear—pants and a parka with a hood lined with rabbit fur. He was tall, with high Slavic cheekbones and crystal blue eyes. His lips were curled in a sneer.

  The alpha held up a hand, and the rest of the pack slunk from behind trees and boulders. Six total, as Holgar had counted, wearing magnificent, silvery pelts. So they could all change at will. Impressive. And bad news for Holgar.

  They growled and fanned out, flashing their teeth at their common foe. Holgar monitored himself for signs of transformation. To his intense disappointment, he felt nothing.

  “Holgar Vibbard, is Marku Barbu,” the alpha introduced himself. “And is time for dying.” Sneer, sneer.

  “Vuy govorite po-russkiy?” Holgar asked him, which meant “Do you speak Russian?” in Russian. The alpha frowned, clearly not comprehending. Holgar had thought it was worth a shot. “Cartoon English for you, then, friend Marku,” Holgar said. “Is not time for Holgar dying. Is time for all werewolves killing vampires. Vampires evil. Werewolves good.”

  The alpha’s mouth twisted. “Pack of Marku are making peace with vampire king.”

  “Lucifer,” Holgar said loudly, and the wolves of the pack took a step backward—retreating in submission and fear. “Lucifer is not friend. Is killing Marku.”

  “I am alpha,” Marku declared, throwing back his chest. “Marku say, Holgar Vibbard die.”

  Without warning, the alpha wolfed. Holgar had never seen such a rapid transformation—muzzle stretching, ears flattening, eyes turning a golden yellow in mere seconds. His clothing exploded off him. Then the werewolf dropped to all fours, his front paws barely touching the snow as he sprang at Holgar.

  Holgar threw himself to the side as the werewolf knocked him down. Holgar clenched his jaw so that no scream would escape him, although the pain was terrible. As he tumbled backward into the snow, all he saw was a crescent moon and two glowing eyes.

  For helvede, he thought. I really am going to die.

  Then he heard a blast of Uzi fire and animal whimpering. Someone on his side had shot someone on Marku’s side. Beneath the fusillade he shouted out his fury as the alpha dragged him by one wrist, teeth sunk deep through the muscle into bone. Holgar twisted and flailed, trying to grab a rock with his free hand, a tree branch, anything, as he slid through the snow.

  All he could hear was the pop-pop-pop of Uzis and the outraged howling of the wolf pack. And he heard in their voices just how terrified of Lucifer they were. Although they howled about victory over their enemy and the imminent death of a rival alpha, what they were really singing about was a reprieve from their own death sentences if they brought Lucifer the body of Holgar Vibbard.

  As Marku dragged him, Holgar’s head slammed against a rock so hard it felt as if his brains were being scrambled. Karma for punching out Jenn, he supposed. Some werewolves worshipped various wolf gods—the Fenris Wolf, for one—but Holgar’s Danish family was nominally Lutheran. He sent up a prayer to God and Jesus just in case they really existed—asking not for admission into heaven, but for the strength to last long enough for Jenn and the others to get the hell out of there. He wanted the deafening roar of the Uzi to recede into the distance.

  I actually wish Jamie were here, he thought as his vision filmed over. He saw two crescent moons and dark smudges of treetops. If we had another good fighter on our side—

  His hand caught on to something sharp, and pain stabbed just as hard. Was Marku going to drag him to death?

  Then the air seemed to press down, and he almost saw something shooting through the air above him. Suddenly Marku let go of him. Dazed, Holgar managed to raise his head just in time to see Marku go flying toward the treetops. The alpha’s howls were punctuated by yips as the rest of the pack dodged and pitched in a swirling dervish of fur. A gout of blood spurted from the neck of a male, and it fell onto its back, shrieking in agony.

  As Holgar watched, Antonio seemed to materialize from out of nowhere, his eyes glowing like coals, on his knees bent over the werewolf, long fangs clamped on the werewolf’s throat. The werewolf kept struggling. One of the other wolves leaped at Antonio; Antonio threw his arms around the one he had attacked and whirled around, using the struggling werewolf as a weapon to slam into his assailant.

  Antonio still wore manacles around his wrists, but his chains had been broken. He threw the limp wolf to the snowy ground and scooped up Holgar, carrying him toward the van. A chorus of howls rose up behind them. Brother Dorin and Brother Cristian had Uzis, one trained on Antonio and one on the werewolf pack. Holgar gave them a dizzy wave to signify that he was all right.

  “In, in, in!” Brother Cristian shouted at Antonio as Brother Dorin let loose a hail of sub-machine gun fire over Antonio’s head. Werewolf blood was dripping down Antonio’s chin.

  The panel-van door was open. Jenn was in the middle of climbing out. She saw the blood on Antonio’s face and pointed her Uzi at him.

  “He’s attacked Holgar!” she shrieked.

  “Nej, nej,” Holgar said, jumping out of Antonio’s arms and restraining her. She couldn’t get past him—he was superstrong, like Antonio, and she was still weak. “He saved me. That’s someone else’s blood.” He pushed her back into the van. “Stay here.”

  As the last gleam of bloodlust left Antonio’s eyes, he wiped off his chin and turned his head. It was obvious he was trying to hide his face.

  “I think I killed the alpha,” Antonio announced. “Maybe one other. I’m not sure.”

  The two brothers of St. Andrew were shooting through the vehicle windows at the werewolves. Holgar heard death cries and fury.

  “I’ll go back out,” Antonio said, and in that instant his eyes turned red and his fangs lengthened. He was once more a terrifying vampire caught in bloodlust.

  “No, get in and stay in,” Jenn ordered him. She reached over and tapped Brother Cristian on the arm. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “I’ll go to the transport,” Antonio said.

  “For helvede, get in,” Holgar swore at him. “Brother Cristian, let’s go!”

  As Antonio climbed in, he kept his face turned away from Jenn. She touched the bandage on her neck. Holgar put his arm around her and stared straight at Antonio.

  “One move, Antonio, and you’re dust,” Holgar said pointedly.

  “Sí. Gracias,” Antonio replied feelingly.

  The two vehicles resumed their journey through the snowy mountain pass, the howls of werewolves trailing after them.

  TRANSYLVANIA, ROMANIA

  AURORA, LUCIFER, AND DANTALION

  Dracula’s castle.

  Home sweet home.

  Aurora watched from a windswept, moonlit balcony as Lucifer’s minions—human, vampiric, and hybrid—dragged in the beautiful antiques she had picked out for the castle. There were at least thirty of them, and more hybrids in an outbuilding where Dantalion was setting up his research facility.

  Lucifer had purchased Castle Bran—also known as Castle Dracula—from the former royal family of Romania years and years before. Lucifer liked to tease Aurora that the previous inhabitant—Dracula himself—still haunted the narrow passageways of stone and shadow. But Aurora doubted that Lucifer would have allowed Dracula to remain in any form—bat, mist, or wolf, as it was said he could transform. Lucifer wouldn’t have permitted the competition.

  To keep the Ottomans out of
his homeland, Dracula had impaled tens of thousands of his enemies—slid them down on sharpened stakes like skewered meat. Soon Lucifer would wipe out millions. The Vampire Kingdom was about to rise, and if she played her cards right, she would be its queen. She, Lucifer, and Sergio had often played cards together, back in the day. Sergio had loved to cheat. But Lucifer had chided Aurora gently whenever he caught her trying to let her sire win.

  “Fight strong, my beauty,” he’d instructed her. “Show no mercy.”

  His beauty. With a sigh she moved from the balcony—the hybrids were so repugnant that she didn’t want to look at them.

  She kept waiting for news of Antonio de la Cruz. Lucifer and Dantalion wanted to study him, but she was still uncertain if Lucifer knew that she’d had Antonio and lost him. Where the traitor was concerned, she had shown no mercy. She had heaped magicks and torment on him out of pure spite, and after she had lost him, he had killed Sergio.

  “I hate you, Antonio. Damn you,” Aurora whispered to the soulless heavens. But in her unbeating heart she knew that it was actually a good thing Sergio had died. Now she could concentrate her charms on Lucifer, free of any jealous dramatics.

  She turned around and faced the sweet little human minion Lucifer had given her as a maid. The girl had staggered up the spiral staircase behind her, bundled up like a snowman. There was no heat in the castle. All Aurora’s personal staff were new; Lucifer had forced her to leave her fledglings behind as well. No minions, no vampires she had made. Not because he didn’t trust her, he had assured her, but because she and he couldn’t trust them.

  Their plans must remain secret. And if Lucifer and Dantalion were able to infiltrate the Salamancans with a spy, the hunters might have been able to put a spy in Aurora’s entourage. That was the reason Lucifer gave her, but it meant that she was all alone. She had a feeling that he’d killed them all—Emilio, who had presided over Sergio’s funeral; Louis, her trusty lieutenant, who had told her that Sergio was going to Salamanca to fetch Antonio and take him to Lucifer. Now that she thought about it, it was probably good that Louis was dead. If Lucifer hadn’t killed him, she might have had to track him down herself and get rid of him so he couldn’t tell Lucifer about Antonio.

  Secrets could be so fatal.

  “Maria,” Aurora said brightly, changing mental tack, “let’s go shopping.”

  The little human blinked nervously and pushed her dark hair away from her face with a mittened hand. “Ah, madame, my name is Flavia, and the stores are closed. B-because it is midnight, madame.”

  “I didn’t mean in a store,” Aurora said. “And as for your name . . .” Aurora hesitated. What she was planning to do was say, “It was Flavia,” and then tear off the girl’s head. Because correcting one’s betters was rude, and because that would have some dramatic flair. But technically, this girl was Lucifer’s property. Aurora didn’t know how he would feel if she killed Flavia. He’d told her to drink from anyone she wanted. Every human in the castle was a willing donor, and the miracle of the human body was that it replenished its own blood supply. But kill one and it was like stealing food from her sire’s table.

  “And as for your name,” she repeated, “it’s lovely.” The wind tugged at her hair. “Maybe you need another coat?” she asked Flavia. “It’s cold outside.”

  CASTLE BRAN, TRANSYLVANIA

  HEATHER

  There she is.

  Aurora had appeared on a balcony at the back of the castle. Far below, Heather was crouched behind a cistern of slushy ice water.

  Heather’s fangs pierced her lower lip as she clenched her jaw. Eagerly she licked the blood away. She was hungry. She was impatient. She wanted to kill Aurora and then . . .

  . . . and then what?

  “Feeding,” she promised herself in a mournful whisper. How long did this have to take?

  Then her spirits lifted as Aurora announced that she wanted to leave the castle to go “shopping.” Out of the castle was good. Maybe there would be a chance to attack her.

  “Kill her,” Heather murmured.

  The dark-haired Spanish vampire was very beautiful. People used to tell Heather she was pretty, and that one day she would blossom into a beauty. She looked down into the water in the cistern to see if that was true.

  She had forgotten that she would be unable to see her reflection.

  A voice sounded suddenly, loud and nearby.

  “It doesn’t matter that a few of the hybrids have escaped. We can make all we want.” She recognized the voice: Spanish accent, speaking English. Commanding, elegant.

  Lucifer.

  Thrills of terror washed over Heather. He was even more dangerous than Aurora.

  “But, Lucifer, if they find them, and realize that they don’t last long . . .”

  Dantalion. Lucifer’s assistant, from what Heather could tell. Nearly just as dangerous.

  “What is the problem with that?” Lucifer interrupted Dantalion. “If they think the creatures pose no threat, they’re mistaken. It’s wonderful if they underestimate us. We can continue to replace the ones that wear out for as long as we need.”

  They were coming closer. Heather looked left, right, trying to find some way to get out of their way before they spotted her. She looked down at her hands. She had forgotten she was covered in filth and dried blood. Everyone in the castle, vampire and human alike, was so clean.

  “Aurora,” Lucifer called out. “What light from yonder window breaks?”

  Trapped, Heather thought. Caught. Then, panicking, she looked down at the water in the cistern again. Moving with the speed endowed her by vampirism, she looped one leg over the lip of the container, and then the other, and ducked her head beneath the surface. She could stay like that for hours. She wouldn’t need to come up for air, ever.

  Now Aurora was saying something about a party. As her words carried through the water, they were a bit muffled. But it was clear to Heather that Aurora wasn’t going to go out as she had originally planned.

  Fury rushed through Heather, and she balled her fists, feeling the water mixing with the layers of grime as her thumb ran over her knuckles, turning the blood and earthen crust to slime. She rubbed her fingers together, then trailed them up her arms. Then remembered that she was hiding, and that if her movements disturbed the surface of the water, she would be revealed.

  So she went back to waiting.

  And waiting.

  Then something dove into the water, grabbed her by the hair, and yanked her straight up. Her eyes filmy, she couldn’t see what had hold of her. She flailed as she dangled; then her vampire instincts took over, and she hissed and snapped, grabbing what she saw now was an arm, half rotted and covered with fur.

  Without warning she was dropped. She landed on her bare feet and threw herself at her attacker. Her force threw it on its back, and she straddled it, hissing and preparing to rip open its throat.

  But it whimpered.

  Heather was a Cursed One, which meant that she was evil. She would never show mercy just because someone sounded hurt. That was the time to go in for the kill. But as she paused and stared down at the thing beneath her, curiosity overcame her. It was so gross, like a Frankenstein monster sewn together from hacked-off bits of dead human . . . and decomposing werewolf and rotten vampire, complete with glowing eyes.

  Then the thing said in a tortured, gravelly voice, “Oh, so lovely.”

  Panicking all over again, Heather whirled around, fully expecting to see Aurora—and Dantalion and Lucifer—behind her. But there was no one there.

  The monster raised a hand and pointed at her. At Heather. And it said, “Lovely.”

  THE MONASTERY OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF ST. ANDREW

  JENN, HOLGAR, ANTONIO, FATHER JUAN, AND ESTHER

  Jenn was in hell. After the werewolf attack, it took only one more day to reach their destination. The monastery of St. Andrew topped a jagged mountain peak of hallowed ground, but rivers of spilled blood had soaked into the stones at the base of the castle
like fortress. Vampires had terrorized Transylvania for centuries. After hearing only a few stories of the massacres that had taken place at the doors of the gloomy, drafty monastery, Jenn was surprised that the snow on the hillsides stayed white.

  As soon as they arrived, Brother Cristian and Brother Dorin showed Jenn the special vampire prison cell the monks had built centuries before, when they began their work of “cleansing” vampires of their terrible curse. It was where they wanted to house Antonio. Religious murals of angels smiting demons covered the ceiling of the cell, and on the walls hundreds of crosses were crammed between wooden stakes that pointed inward from all directions. There were special wheels that could be turned so that the walls shot toward each other with astonishing speed. In the ever-narrowing space, a vampire would be forced to watch as the stakes approached him, then ended his undead life.

  Jenn wanted to protest, to say that Antonio didn’t belong in such a dangerous place. What if someone accidentally set the wheels in motion?

  Even worse, their reassurances of turning vampires to the light were hard to prove. The last vampire they claimed to have made “good” had left the monastery in 1896. According to their records, her name was Elizabet, and she had stopped drinking human blood. She left the monastery in the company of two monks, with the intention of traveling to the sacred grotto of Lourdes, France, where it was said that miraculous cures occurred when one prayed there to the Holy Mother.

  “Why would Elizabet go there, if she was no longer cursed?” Jenn asked dubiously.

  “She no longer drank human blood, but she was still a Cursed One,” Brother Dorin said. “She wanted to ask the Holy Mother to cure her of vampirism altogether.” He rarely spoke, and the sound of his voice startled her. It was very hoarse and labored, and she wondered if he’d had some sort of throat injury.

  Something similar to her own, perhaps.

  Jenn took a deep breath. “And did she get cured?”

  The two monks looked at each other, and then at her. “We don’t know. There was a fire, and many of our records were lost.”