by Graham Brown
“Out of Shreveport. They’re sending everything, including infrared equipment.”
By now, the jet had reached the end of the taxiway and turned onto the runway. The engines were spooling up, accelerating the aircraft like an expensive sports car.
“You’re taking a big chance here,” Billy Ray said.
Kate thought about that as the aircraft raced along the runway and pulled free of the ground. It was a big risk, but playing by the rules had gotten them nowhere. And whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was getting desperate.
CHAPTER 34
LEROY ATHERTON was back on foot, hiking his way to the Greyhound bus station. At least he had his shoes on.
High in the sky and off to the east, the supernova was rising over the horizon like a full moon.
When it first appeared, people were afraid. Now, after days of news reports explaining what a supernova was and that the exploding star was forty thousand light-years away and posed no danger to the earth, people looked forward to its return every night. As Leroy reached the bus station, at least a hundred waiting passengers were outside staring at it, taking pictures and commenting.
Unlike the moon, which orbited the earth and was often seen in the daytime, the supernova maintained its exact position almost directly opposite the sun in the sky’s constellations. It appeared every night, thirty minutes after sunset, illuminating the darkness once again. It lingered all night, riding highest at midnight and setting just after dawn.
Because its light came from an expanding field of plasma, it changed slowly every day, and by the time it came out, it often appeared remarkably different than it had the night before. Leroy noticed that orange and red tints had begun to fill its spreading arms.
He found it comforting somehow. A lot had happened to him over the last year. After so many monotone days, it felt as if colors had begun seeping back into his life.
He stepped inside the station. With everybody staring at the night sky, there was no one at the ticket counter except an employee who had to be there.
“Where to?” the guy asked.
“I don’t know,” Leroy said. “When’s the next bus outta here?”
The ticket master punched a couple of keys and looked at his computer. “We got one leavin’ in thirty minutes.”
“Where’s it going?”
“Lost Wages,” the man said.
Leroy gave him a blank look.
“Vegas,” the man said. “Las Vegas, Nevada.”
Leroy thought about that. He’d been to Vegas before. “What else you got?”
“The next bus after that leaves at midnight,” the guy said. “It’s heading east.” He looked at the schedule. “Tucson, Las Crucas, El Paso, Houston,” the guy said, reading off the stops. “Ends up in New Orleans.”
New Orleans—a place he’d always wanted to go. Cool jazz. Warm, humid nights. And something else. Leroy turned, facing east. Yeah, he thought, that is the way. It just felt right.
“Put me on it,” he said to the ticket man.
He pulled out his wallet and began to count out some cash. That was the way, all right. East to New Orleans. He almost felt as if the city were calling him.
CHAPTER 35
THE PINE forest north of Lake Pontchartrain bordered some of the largest swamps in the state of Louisiana. Deep within the forest, a small fire burned. It gave very little warmth or light, but that was not its purpose.
Drake stood nearby, and not far behind him in the shadows cast by the moonlight was his second, Lagos. There, they waited for the Brethren to show themselves.
Drake felt them, knew they were out in the forest just beyond his field of vision. They approached slowly. He could sense their fear, and they were right to be afraid. In their own worlds, they were kings, but here, tonight they came as servants, confused by recent events, but propelled on by the power of the calling.
“You have nothing to fear this night,” he said. “I know why you’ve come this far from the homelands I gave you to rule.”
From Drake’s left, the sound of pine needles being crushed under heavy boots was heard. A huge African man named Kwese appeared. Drake had turned him three hundred years ago in a slave port as he waited to pass through the Gate of No Return. When the ships finally arrived, Kwese destroyed the whites and turned the other slaves into his first soldiers. To this day, rumors of that event circled the West African countries, tales of demons that drank their enemies’ blood.
Of all the Brethren, Kwese was the boldest and the most loyal. His clans spread through the failed nations of West and Central Africa, where locals called them “devils of the darkness.” Even the continents’ endlessly clashing armies avoided certain areas.
He stepped forward, all six foot four, two hundred and fifty pounds of him. He wore a black leather cloak beneath which a curved scimitar of the Barbary Pirates remained hidden. He reached a position on the other side of the small fire from Drake and bowed his head in acknowledgment of his master.
One by one, the others came forth. Xi was next. His original home was in the small seaside fishing town north of what is now modern Hong Kong, but he had long since hidden himself deep within the mainland of China. He had flourished since the time of Genghis Khan, and his clan spread throughout Asia, from the killing fields of Cambodia to the peasant lands of Western China.
Dressed in gray silk, he carried a samurai sword made by the same master who’d forged Drake’s.
Anya Ericson was the third to appear. As fair as a ghost with hair of golden blonde, she looked almost like a porcelain figurine. She stood farthest away from Drake, the small fire barely casting its light on her. She was as cold as the land she came from, a place so far north that, in winter, when there was no sun, she never had to sleep or hide.
Her clan was the smallest, and because of this, her presence was only guessed at by the Church. Twin daggers, eighteen inches in length, hung from a belt at her waist.
All Nosferatu were naturals at stealth and concealment, but Anya was like a spirit even among them. She was Drake’s specialist. Her skills were covert, both physically and mentally.
For reasons Drake could not understand, her mind was closed to him. She could hear his thoughts, but searching her mind was like sailing in an endless fog. He had never yet found the shore. A certain amount of distrust remained between them. But such power made her valuable. And Drake chose to use it to his advantage.
Xi spoke first. “What is this new trickery? How have you been able to lead us here against our own will?”
Anya’s dark eyes flashed from Lagos to Drake to Xi. Her hands remained on the daggers at the ready. “Reasons matter little. We are called to serve, so we come.”
Kwese nodded.
“Not all of us are here,” Xi said. “Where are Drovan and Hecht?”
“Drovan is dead,” Drake said, “murdered by the Church. As the time grows closer, the death squads will grow more active. They know what is to come, even more clearly than we do. The world is sliding from their grasp.”
“And Hecht is lost,” Anya said. “He was always careless. Too little control. Too much boasting. He indulged in the blood of the mortals despite our law.”
“Perhaps,” Xi said, looking across the fire at Drake. “But they are not the ones I speak of.”
Of all Drake’s disciples, Xi was the wisest. He saw the bigger picture.
“Where is Christian?” Xi asked. “It is rumored that you and he clashed in Germany.”
As their creator, Drake could sense their thoughts. He knew they would ask about Christian, as the images and words had begun forming in their minds.
“He lives,” Drake said, “for now.”
“Why?” Xi asked suspiciously.
“Because I choose to let him.”
Drake looked from face to face. As his eyes found theirs, each of them cast his or her gaze down onto the earth.
“I understand your desire to confront him,” Drake added. “But I can destroy Chri
stian whenever I wish. Something more important is at hand. A being has entered this world—an entity more dangerous to us than Christian could ever be. The same way you were drawn here, unable to resist the call, this being will also draw you out eventually. It will tempt you with the life you long ago rejected.”
“What are you saying?” Xi asked.
“The Church calls it a messenger,” Drake said, “a wingless angel. But, to us, it is an abomination, sent to unravel all that we’ve done. Each of you has built empires in the dark under my guidance. Can you imagine them being eaten away bit by bit as your minions are turned from you?”
None of them looked happy about that.
“We can kill it,” Kwese said.
Drake shook his head. “If you see it, if it looks you in the eyes, you will fall.”
“Then how do we fight it?” Kwese asked.
“Through cunning and guile,” Drake explained. “To our advantage, this seraphim does not yet know its purpose or strength. Though, even now, its power grows. This calling will bring it to us. I have a plan. A victim it will seek to heal. When its heart and mind are focused on this broken soul, we will strike. And when I have destroyed it, Christian will rejoin us and retake his rightful place.”
“And me,” Lagos asked. “Do you expect me to relinquish my place at your side to Christian so easily?”
Drake studied Lagos. “No,” he said. “I expect you to sharpen your sword and be ready, for he most certainly will be.”
“What if he refuses?” Lagos asked.
“Then the four of you will kill him together.”
They seemed uneasy at the answer. Even Lagos, for all his boasting, hesitated at the thought. None of them truly wanted to meet Christian in battle.
“So what is you bidding now?” Anya asked.
“Your brothers will stay with me,” Drake replied. “But I have a task for you, my ghost.”
As Drake conjured the thoughts in his mind, Anya bowed, never low enough that her eyes came off him.
Placing a hand on each dagger, she nodded. “I will do as you command.”
CHAPTER 36
CHRISTIAN DROVE a borrowed Cadillac Escalade through the streets of New Orleans. The sound of the calling still rung in his head, but he’d beaten it back now, replacing it with the belief that he might finally have a chance to defeat Drake.
To feel any kind of hope was odd. It brought on a sense of tension and even fear. To have hope meant hope could be destroyed. He’d been there before.
Well aware of the Nosferatu flowing into New Orleans, Christian took to the streets. He now felt an even greater duty to prevent the murders his kind was committing. He’d stopped one murder the night before and broken up another gathering of bottom-feeders who might have gone on a rampage.
He destroyed them in a whirl of violence and then dodged a group of the Church’s hunters a short time later. By the pile of ashes he found, it appeared as if they’d happened upon another of the Nosferatu and sent it into the abyss.
Like no time or place he could remember, this city had become an undeclared war zone, with dusk and dawn as the borders of the battlefield. The police were out, and in some sections, men sat on their porches with guns, but neither group had any idea what they were dealing with. Official numbers of the missing were high, but they missed most of the victims, those who were homeless and others who’d fallen off the grid.
A vehicle passed him going the opposite way, and Christian sensed a familiar presence at the controls.
Hecht.
Christian made a U-turn and began to follow. They were heading straight for the Ninth Ward.
The abandoned house in the Lower Ninth Ward looked a lot like all the others scattered about: surrounded by chest-high weeds, covered in graffiti, and boarded up over its broken windows.
At the end of the block, a similar house had been transformed into a command post. Kate Pfeiffer, Billy Ray Massimo, and four members of the FBI’s Shreveport Tactical Squad were holed up inside it. They shared the space with radios, flat-screen monitors, and other pieces of equipment, none of which included a fan or an air conditioner.
Kate looked at her watch. It was almost 3:00 a.m. She looked over at her partner; he was wiping his head down with a towel.
“Is it me, or does it get hotter at night down here?”
“Welcome to the South,” Billy Ray said. “I’ve seen nights where the walls dripped.”
The seasons were on the cusp of changing. Eighties and humid in the South. Fifties up North.
Kate looked back at the screens in front of her; two monitors, each divided into four panels, displayed camera shots from inside and outside the dump house down the block.
The stench inside the house had been horrendous, as much from the rotting wood and furniture as from the bodies. The roof had holes, and the floor was covered in mud from the original flood, and every time it rained, the decay got worse.
“Can’t believe they haven’t demolished these places,” Kate said.
“After Katrina, the Ninth Ward pretty much became a wasteland,” Billy Ray said. “They can’t rebuild it, because it sits below sea level. No insurance company is ever going to touch a house in this part of town again. From what I heard, that’s half the reason some of these places are still standing, because the arguments over who’s gonna pay haven’t been settled yet.”
“Meanwhile, this place becomes a war zone.”
NOPD had warned them about gangs and drug houses and even dogs that roamed the streets in packs late at night. It was a dangerous place, but as lawless and secluded as it had become, it was almost paradise for a killer.
Or killers.
“You know, they could have other houses,” Billy Ray said.
“Don’t remind me,” Kate said.
“Or they could have moved on,” Billy Ray added.
She turned back to him. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m just trying to be the voice of reason,” he said. “All these cops, all these reports on the news of missing people and investigations—if I were a criminal, I’d be on the next train out.”
“Let’s hope our killers aren’t that smart.”
Billy Ray unscrewed the top of a thermos and poured some coffee. “You know, if we don’t catch these guys, it’s pretty much our jobs.”
He was probably right. Whispers had made their way down to her from friends high above in the agency who thought this case was killing her career. Before she could reply, the radio crackled. A voice shot through the speaker.
“We have the target. Incoming vehicle making its way into your area. Male driving, with a female in the passenger seat.”
Kate snapped her head around and back to the screens. She tapped a keyboard and brought up the cameras that were watching the street. In the dark, all she could see were blazing lights coming toward them.
“Get ready,” she whispered.
Billy Ray tapped the leader of the tactical squad, who had his men up and running already. Quietly, they began to assemble themselves. Bulletproof vests were pulled on and strapped tight. Gun belts carrying all sorts of attachments—radios, extra clips of ammo, flashlights—were wrapped around their waists.
Kate was already armored up, but she opened her pack and pulled out a small aerosol container. It looked like a can of mace or pepper spray. It was not much larger than those weapons, but it was bulkier and heavier. A small symbol on the front showed three triangles in a circle.
“Where’d you get that?” Billy Ray asked.
“You don’t want to know,” she said.
“Vehicle pulling to a stop.”
Billy Ray stared at her, shook his head, and then went back to what he was doing.
Kate turned back to the screen. The car had parked in front of the dump house and doused its lights. A man and woman climbed out.
“Should we take them?” the team leader asked.
“Not exactly being coerced,” Billy Ray said.
K
ate agreed. “Let’s make sure they’re not just a couple of joyriders.”
Billy Ray grabbed the radio. “Nobody move until we give the signal.”
The other team members replied from different spots.
“Roger that.”
“Ten four.”
The two figures started walking toward the door of the abandoned house. The woman hesitated, and then the man put a hand on her arm.
“That’s not Vivian,” Billy Ray noted.
Kate had realized that.
They moved closer to the house, traveling in a strange sort of slow-motion dance.
“Their steps are matched exactly,” Kate said.
“What?”
“She moves her foot exactly when he does. She stops exactly when he stops. It’s weird. People don’t walk like that.”
“Is he dragging her?” Billy Ray said.
“It doesn’t look like it.”
“Maybe she’s drugged.”
As they crossed the overgrown remnant of a yard, every instinct in Kate’s body was calling out for her to hit this guy now, to take him down before he got the woman inside that death trap. But she had to wait. Right now, they didn’t even have him on trespassing.
The guy put his hand on the door. Kate lifted the walkie-talkie to her mouth. She was about to give the signal to rush the house when another radio call startled her.
“We have a second target inbound,” the spotter said. “A white male on foot.”
She flicked her gaze back and forth between the screens. She didn’t want to take her eyes off the woman or the suspect, but a quick glance at the street camera showed her nothing. “On foot? Where? I don’t see anything.”
“He’s off camera,” the spotter replied, “not on the street. He’s headed right for the house, moving cross-country.”
The radio went silent.
“It’s your call,” Billy Ray said. “What do you want to do?”
Kate wasn’t sure.
“First target is going inside.”
Kate hesitated. She believed these crimes had come from a group or even a cult. She wondered if others would arrive for some kind of sick ritual. They still hadn’t seen any sign of Vivian Dasher, their prime and missing suspect.