by Nancy Holder
Solomon went silent. Antonio and Father Wadim gave Father Juan a nod. Priest power.
“We’re very busy here,” Jenn said. “So let’s get to the point. If you want to join forces to fight Lucifer, prove it.”
Solomon chuckled. “I have to say, Jennifer. You’re twice the man your father is.”
“Maybe what we’ll do is wait you both out and let you die from the virus,” Jenn said.
“Oh, if only it were that simple,” Solomon said. “You have to know I have massive numbers of my followers on their way right now to blow up Project Crusade.”
She looked at the others in the room. If Solomon had an inside man, then he knew where Project Crusade was.
“But if they fail,” Jenn said.
“The virus will only inconvenience me, Jennifer. Some of my supersoldiers have no vampire parts in them. The virus won’t affect them. And of course we have escape routes. We haven’t survived on this planet for centuries without our own safe-houses.”
She glanced over at Antonio, who shrugged and shook his head, signifying he didn’t know if that was true.
“Think about it. We don’t have to breathe. We don’t need air. So if this is an airborne virus . . .” Solomon chuckled.
“Then why do you want the antidote?” Jenn persisted.
“I haven’t lived this long by narrowing my options.”
Antonio raised his chin. “Lucifer,” he said aloud.
So much for keeping off the radar, Jenn thought, confused why Antonio had spoken up.
“Antonio, amigo, hi,” Solomon said, but his voice shook. “You know, it occurred to me to offer you to Lucifer as a way into his good graces.”
“He has no good graces. He doesn’t need you,” Antonio said. “You’re going to be fighting on two fronts—stopping the virus, surviving Lucifer. Our side doesn’t have to worry about the virus. You’re running scared. But we’ve decided to stand and fight.”
“Fine.” Solomon sounded defeated. “Fine.”
Antonio nodded at Jenn, who took back over. “So send us fighters,” she said. “A lot of them. Vampires, supersoldiers, and humans loyal to you. Send them right away, Solomon.”
She hung up.
“Greg will make sure the virus gets out,” Gramma Esther said. “Even if the black crosses have to blow the whole lab sky-high themselves to stop Solomon.”
“And Lucifer.” Antonio frowned. “Forgive me for jumping in during the call,” he said to Jenn. “But I know what Lucifer means to vampires.”
“Is he as scary as a virus that will kill every vampire on earth?” Esther asked him.
Antonio nodded once. “Scarier,” he said.
The room fell silent for a moment.
“Then it’s more important than ever that we create more elixir, so we can fight him,” Father Juan announced. “You said that the werewolves gave us permission to search for the Transit of Venus on their territory?”
“Yes,” Jenn said. “Father Juan, take Holgar and go. Go quickly.”
She turned away to hide her terror, and her resolve: Once she drank the elixir, maybe she could save Antonio. Or maybe after he drank it, he would be immune.
Let something save him, she thought.
But it was not a prayer.
Jenn Leitner did not pray.
TRANSYLVANIA
HOLGAR AND FATHER JUAN
It was nearly dark when Holgar and Father Juan reached the territory of Viorica’s werewolf pack. As the two climbed out of their SUV, howls filled the sky. As if in response, snowflakes began to drift down.
Then a black wolf appeared at the top of the rise above them. It was a female, and Father Juan bowed.
“Viorica,” he said.
The wolf chuffed in response, and looked expectantly at Holgar, who took a breath and held it. He sniffed the air and growled deep in his chest.
The snow drifted down.
“For helvede,” Holgar swore. “Nothing.”
He had confessed to Father Juan on the way there that he had begun to change when Solomon’s helicopter had landed and Paul Leitner had appeared. And that Viorica wanted him to.
Father Juan hadn’t asked if Holgar intended to do anything and everything that Viorica wished of him. They didn’t have time for werewolf-pack politics. He didn’t know that much about werewolves, but in his mind’s eye he imagined males fighting for dominance, blood on the snow, injuries—and more distraction. The team couldn’t afford distractions.
The sleek black wolf slunk toward them. Her eyes glowed, and she purred. Then, as Father Juan looked on, she transformed into a fully clothed human woman. She was wearing white snow gear: parka, pants, and fur boots.
“Holgar,” she said, then spoke to him in what sounded to Father Juan like Russian.
He didn’t know what she said, but Holgar threw back his head and howled. Viorica joined him after a moment.
And other wolves—werewolves—appeared on the rise, observing. Their breath spun clouds in the icy air. One male wolf, silvery and huge, bared his teeth. The one beside him moved her head, a gesture of warning.
As Father Juan ticked his attention back to Holgar, he saw that Holgar’s ears had extended, flattened. Holgar’s jaw was longer, and tufts of gray wolf hair extended over his white-blond human hair. The woman murmured to him, then growled and pawed at him. She was making it clear that she wanted him. Then she took off one of Holgar’s snow mittens and examined his hand. The fingers had elongated, and fur rippled over the knuckles, but it was still a human hand. She turned it over and ran her tongue down the center of it.
Holgar howled again. Father Juan heard the frustration in it, and possibly the defeat.
And Father Juan closed his eyes and prayed.
AD 1591, UBEDA, SPAIN
ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS
St. John of the Cross lay on a pallet in a plain and simple room in December 1591, and everyone had given him up for dead. He held his beads, and made a prayer:
The soul takes flight, to repair the world. Oh, my soul, make good out of this long journey, so that I will achieve my true purpose and end my days in bliss.
Prayers are like magick, moving through the ethers of time and space. Like finds like, need finds need.
Fate finds destiny.
A prayer found the vampire Antonio de la Cruz. In 1942.
A prayer found Jenn Leitner when the vampire war broke out.
And in the snowfall in the mountains of Transylvania, Father Juan’s prayer found the mystical essence of St. Edmund, the patron saint of wolves, who had himself prayed many times for the protection of all species of canines, including those enchanted by moonblood.
The strands of their prayerful selves wrapped around each other, and Father Juan reeled, feeling himself changed as he prayed for Holgar. He tingled, and then he burned, and he knew that when the prayer was over, he would be different forever.
But such a thing had happened to Father Juan over and over again. For had not God Himself said, “Behold, I make all things new”?
TRANSYLVANIA
FATHER JUAN AND HOLGAR
Whatever needs to happen, let it happen, Father Juan prayed.
He had prayed many times for the will of God to manifest through himself. It was God’s grace, and no special quality of his own, that made it possible. But it was not a thing to be undertaken lightly—because it did change him, and it was a changed Father Juan who would make the next prayer for the next battle. And so down through time had his prayers changed his essence and the world’s, until he was no longer sure where he ended and Mother Earth began.
Amen.
And of course one so blessed, so deeply blessed, knew that the Earth was as alive and as real as God—and so Father Juan worshipped Her, in Her incarnation of the Goddess.
So mote it be.
When he opened his eyes, a black wolf and a large silver one loped toward the waiting pack. Howls stretched toward the stars, toward heaven and the moon.
“Arrouu
oo.”
The silver wolf looked over his shoulder at Father Juan, and howled.
“Arrouuoo.”
The pack answered Holgar, as the black wolf pranced around him.
Then the pack disappeared over the rise. Tired but happy, Father Juan started working his way through the snow in the same direction.
“Arrouuoo.”
And the howls became a chant that in Father Juan’s mind became a prayer for another: Antonio.
And so little by little the world changed, because those who prayed changed.
A man who had prayed on his deathbed in 1591 wished for his soul to take flight, to repair the world.
Across the moon a bat flew, small and fierce and beautiful. Father Juan crossed himself, and prayed to God for strength.
DOVER, ENGLAND
JAMIE AND SKYE
“Bloody hell!” Jamie shouted from the snowy forest, planting his feet as winds blew hard at his duster, buffeting him like a kite. Through the waving tree branches, lightning illuminated the burning inn as the roof and timbers collapsed, crushing everything inside. Jamie swore, and swore again.
Surrounded by flickering ebony shadows, a man appeared in front of the inn. He strode toward the forest in a blurred, slow motion. Magick. Flames danced over him, then extinguished, then danced again. His eyes burned like coals.
Vampire, Jamie thought; then, Estefan.
“Skye!” he screamed. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Get the hell out!”
Jamie tried to step forward, but the wind knocked him down and sent him tumbling. Digging his hands into the dirt, he latched on to a root and held tight as the wind blasted at him. He saw the man walking, then saw nothing; then the man closer, and always his burning eyes.
Jamie hurt everywhere. He didn’t care. He smelled the stench of the dead in the fire.
The man seemed to move in unison with a heartbeat that thrummed through the ground. The root Jamie clutched pulsed like an artery.
Lightning burst in all directions from Estefan, crackling and smacking into trees. They sizzled and exploded, one after another, to the heartbeat rhythm. Crashing, bursting apart.
Estefan kept coming. He was staring with his burning eyes at something on the ground, and his smile cracked open his face. Teeth shot out in all directions like double, triple sets of fangs. Smoke poured from around his head and shoulders.
“No, you don’t, you soddin’ bastard,” Jamie cried, struggling to get up. Estefan had hold of something. An arm.
Skye’s arm.
“Are you seeing this?” he shouted into the night. “You witches, you standing over a cauldron in your safe little hidey-hole? Cacklin’ away because you’re not hurting a fly?”
Estefan’s mouth opened wide, fangs gleaming.
“You going to let this happen?”
“No,” said a familiar voice behind him.
“No,” said another.
Then something was wrapped around him, and the wind let go of him. It was one of the witches’ white cloaks with spangles. Flanking him were Skye’s friend Dye Job, in a white sweater and jeans, and Soleil, wearing a cloak same as his. They raised their hands and began to shout against the wind. He didn’t know the language, and he wasn’t about to stand there while Estefan pulled up Skye like a marionette. Her head lolled back, and the Dark Witch leered at her white neck.
Jamie broke into a run, vaguely aware that behind him there were more than two girls chanting. Voices roared over the rush, lots of them. More witches: Skye’s mates, come to the rescue.
He ran harder, approaching the hideous tableau of Estefan bending over Skye like a pantomime villain, about to bite her. Jamie let out a good Belfast yell and doubled his fists. Estefan glanced up, his eyes crimson and evil, and Jamie let out another yell because he was pretty sure he wasn’t coming back from this fray, not this one.
But as long as Skye did, that was all that mattered.
Then Estefan’s two mates from their last encounter appeared on either side of the warlock and tossed something Jamie’s way—huge, spinning fireballs. Jamie dove toward the ground as something shot over his head from behind and smacked into the fireball on his left. A golden stream of sparklers from his right hurtled toward the remaining fireball. They collided with an enormous explosion that shook snow from the trees.
The witches were taking up arms, then. Or else defending Jamie so he could dismember Estefan himself. Digging in his elbows, he crawled toward Estefan, who had paused to watch.
“God, if I could rip you apart from here, I bloody would,” Jamie ground out.
Estefan smiled straight at him, as if he could hear him—
And then, suddenly, blood streamed from Estefan’s mouth, as if he were vomiting it. Thick, red, clotted. It spewed from his eyes, and his nose, and even his ears.
Estefan began to shout like a man on fire. Blood poured down his chest and back; Jamie had no idea exactly how it was happening, but he didn’t care. Too right, witchies, he thought, as he pushed himself to his feet, raced forward, and threw himself at Estefan.
Arms and legs tangled as Jamie and Estefan fell to the ground, rolling over and over. Jamie was soaked in Estefan’s blood. All he heard was the roaring of his own voice as he damned Estefan to hell and back again. Then he rose up on his knees and pummeled whatever part of Estefan he made contact with.
Estefan flopped on his back, completely limp, and Jamie took advantage. Hitting, kicking, pounding, until hands were wrapping around his arms and dragging him away. The witch girls, at least three on each side, all in their robes except the one. As they moved him, he tried to kick Estefan. He tried to kick anything.
There was no wind. Estefan’s two henchmen lay inert on the ground as well, surrounded by dark pools that Jamie guessed were blood.
“Skye,” he yelled, struggling to get free of the witches.
“Oh, Jamie,” Skye cried, stumbling toward him. She was holding her side. “Jamie.”
He broke free of the girls and threw his arms around her. She winced and he caught her up, holding her in his blood-coated arms. He was as red as the dead men on the ground, and everywhere Skye’s body came in contact with his, she was soaked in blood as well.
Turning to face the others, he was shocked to see at least twenty of them, most in robes, and most holding each other and crying. They were staring at him and pointing at Estefan, and sobbing.
“Sisters, my sisters,” Skye said. “Jamie, please put me down.”
“Never. Never in a million years, Skye,” he said, and tears streamed down his face. “Skye, if I had lost you, I would have . . .” He trailed off. He didn’t know what he would have done.
As he set her down, he collapsed onto his knees and put his arms around her waist. He rested there, completely and totally undone.
“I love you,” he said. “Oh, dear God, Skye, you have to know it. And if you’d gone . . .”
He saw Eriko lying dead. He felt the roughness of the rocks he had piled to make her grave. And he said good-bye to her.
“Jamie,” Skye said, shushing him as she put her hands on his head. “I—I . . . you’re my brother in all things. And that’s how I love you, too.”
He froze as the meaning of her words penetrated the tidal wave of his emotions. “I’m not too late. I didn’t tell you too late,” he said desperately.
She hesitated. And then she said, “Holgar.”
No. Jamie’s world stopped.
“Skye, what are we to do?” Soleil wailed, as the witches gathered around the two of them. “We’ve broken the code. What we did to them! We didn’t have to do that. But we did.”
No.
“We were vicious,” said another.
“Murderous,” a third moaned.
No.
“Sisters. Warriors,” Skye said, embracing each of them, one after the other. Estefan’s blood blotted their spangly robes. “You were powerful. That’s what we need, to win this fight.”
She looked over her shoulder at the
bereft Irishman. “Jamie, you’ll come back with us.”
They kept crying, and Skye comforted them, painting a rosy picture of what it would be like to die in battle with a vampire ripping out your throat. A vampire, or a treacherous werewolf.
Holgar. Jamie let his own near-animalistic rage rush through his body. He shook from the adrenaline surge caused by the battle. She couldn’t love that monster. Couldn’t.
No.
No.
No.
He felt the same way he had when Father Patrick had held him back and he’d watched the werewolves rip his little sister, Maeve, apart. Fangs and claws slashing, her screaming—
No.
Then Jamie got hold of himself. Shaking, he exhaled slowly. Street fighters didn’t live long if they gave in entirely to their anger. He began to strategize. Wolf had once left a deer head in Jamie’s bed.
Fine, then. Jamie would leave something for the wolf: a silver bullet, deep in his head. Marked with an H. And another in the heart for good measure.
Yes.
Once the battle was done.
THE MONASTERY OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF ST. ANDREW
FATHER JUAN
Father Juan knelt in the gloomy chapel of the monastery and gave thanks for the heaps of Transit of Venus beside him. The leaves of the herb glowed like moonstone. By the light of the Goddess the werewolves had found a large patch of it, and they had transformed into human form to harvest it for Father Juan.
Afterward, when Holgar had slid behind the wheel of their SUV, Viorica had raised her slender arm in farewell. He’d rolled down the window, and she’d said something in Russian. He had replied very softly under his breath. Softly, and tenderly.
In the chapel Father Juan’s cell phone rang. Crossing himself, he answered it. When he heard Bishop Diego’s voice on the other end, he couldn’t help but smile.
“How’s it going, old friend?” he asked by way of greeting.
“Better, I think, than for you,” Diego said, sounding skeptical.
“Any luck on turning the tide in Rome in our favor?”
“I’m afraid not. But courage, Juan. There are many here who would help if they were only shown the way.”
“Isn’t that what I sent you there for, to show the way?” Juan teased gently.