“Enough!” he screamed, and reached into the crowd to grab the shirtfront of the bald man with tattoos around his eyes. Kuromaku spun him around, knocking the rest of them away. The thirst had grown with his fury, and he dipped his mouth to the big man’s neck and tore into his pulsing throat. Blood pumped into Kuromaku’s mouth, hot and thick and with the coppery odor that always aroused him.
After a moment of bliss, he remembered the crowd.
“Is that what you want?” he roared.
He wrapped the fingers of his left hand around Black-eyes’s neck and snapped it with a quick flick of his wrist.
“Is that what you want?”
Silence again. Somewhere, a clock ticking. A cellular phone trilled in the back of the club. Then a whisper. “Oh, Jesus, me next . . .”
Kuromaku leaned his head back, massaged his temples. His eyes hurt. It was a simple thing he was asking. But these . . . these freaks were so completely obsessed that it was like dealing with small children or the severely retarded.
Then it hit him.
“All right,” he said magnanimously. “I’ll make you a deal. Whoever can tell me where the vampire clan of this city makes its home will be chosen as my next meal.”
They fell all over each other, even brutalized one another, to get to him. The general consensus was that Octavian’s coven made their home in an old convent in the French Quarter. Kuromaku smiled at the appropriateness of Peter’s choice. The woman who was the first to mention the Ursuline convent asked if he would sink his fangs into her breast, and he obliged, lingering a moment. She was quite beautiful.
Despite the chants to the contrary of those around him, Kuromaku left her alive.
Outside the gray walls of the convent, Kuromaku paused in the darkness. It was quiet within, particularly in comparison with the garish lights and roar of tourism from elsewhere in the Quarter. Quiet, yes, but there was life there. Kuromaku could sense it, could almost hear a whisper on the wind.
He held Peter’s sword in his right hand, its scabbard wrapped in green silk and tied with a thin black cord. Almost there, he thought. And somehow, he knew he was in time.
As mist, he slipped through the huge iron gate, reforming inside. There were lights on inside the convent, though very few. A small lantern hung not far from the main interior door, on the other side of the garden. It could only be reached by following a winding path through the flora.
Slipping through the shadows, silent among the flowers, Kuromaku moved toward the house. He’d barely gone half a dozen yards when the plants began to rustle around him. A snake, or rat, or dog . . . something. More than one something. And a small pool of mist, just at ground level, creeping across the garden.
With one swift motion, Kuromaku reached around under his long jacket, unsnapped the catch of its scabbard, and withdrew his wakizashi, which had hung there upside down. The short sword’s guard was nontraditionally flat, so it could hang there undetected.
Moon and lantern light glinted on the edge of the short sword as Kuromaku moved into a defensive posture. But the shadows took their time. They were confident in their greater numbers. At some signal he could not detect, they changed. One moment he was alone on the garden path, and the next, surrounded by five vampires.
Absurdly, he thought of the girl, Lolly, and the ecstasy she would feel if she could trade places with him.
Kuromaku smiled.
“So you’ve found us,” one of the shadows said. “I’m surprised one of Hannibal’s beasts had the balls to come onto sacred ground, but it won’t do you any good, spy. Hannibal will never hear from you again.”
The shadow who’d spoken, a slim black man, paused then, as if waiting for some response. None of the others, two women and two men, spoke at all.
Kuromaku decided to ignore them.
“I’m here to see Peter Octavian,” he explained. “If you would be kind enough to fetch him for me, I have something for him.”
The shadow’s eyes flicked to the silk-wrapped sword, then to Kuromaku’s wakizashi, and back to his face.
“I’m sure you do,” he said. “We’ll make sure he gets it.”
Kuromaku held the sword a bit closer to his body then and glared at the shadow. He would kill them all, no matter their allegiance, if they attempted to take Peter’s sword from him. There must have been something of his resolve in his eyes, for the hateful look he gave the shadow caused the man to frown, to hesitate.
“As you say,” Kuromaku pointed out, “we are on sacred ground. You have only your suspicion and paranoia to inform you. Why not let Octavian decide for himself? He is more than capable of protecting himself, in case you did not know.”
The standoff continued in silence as several more seconds ticked past.
“Kevin?” a voice came from behind them on the path, closer to the center of the garden and the convent’s main interior doors. “What is it?”
“Stay back, George!” the shadow called Kevin shouted. “We’ve got a spy.”
“If I were a spy, you’d be dead,” Kuromaku said impatiently.
“Who are you, friend?” the voice from the garden came again, and now Kuromaku could see an old man emerging from deeper within the garden.
“My name is Kuromaku, and I have come to see Peter Octavian, and to bring him a gift,” he explained. “Just bring me to Octavian, and he will vouch for me. I understand your paranoia, but I swear by the moon that I bear you no ill will, nor mean you any harm.”
The old man, George, was silent. Kevin turned and snapped at him. “George, you can’t even consider—”
“Come with me,” George said. “I’ve something to show you—”
“Kuromaku,” he offered.
“Yes, Kuromaku,” George said, “just a ways down the path here.”
He followed the old man to what appeared to be the center of the courtyard, where wrought iron benches sat on either side of a small circle. But one of the benches was barely visible, covered as it was by some kind of massive growth or fungus. It looked, for all the world, like the bud of a flower yet to bloom, or the chrysalis of a butterfly.
“There you are,” George said. “What do you make of that?”
He stared at Kuromaku’s face, obviously searching for some reaction. Other than revulsion, Kuromaku didn’t know how to react.
“What is it?” he said, finally.
“We’re not certain,” George replied, “but we think it’s Peter.”
Kuromaku blinked, felt his hand grip the silk-wrapped scabbard more tightly in his fingers. He stared at the shell that somehow held his comrade within.
“We had talked about trying to break it open—”
“No!” Kuromaku snapped, glaring at George. “You must not.”
“What?” George replied, obviously taken aback and confused. “Do you know what’s happened to him? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Kuromaku whispered, staring at the chrysalis once more.
“Then how can you be so sure it’s not killing him, that we shouldn’t break it open?” the old man demanded.
Kuromaku didn’t turn to look at him again. Simply stared at the black, flaking outer skin of the cocoon.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “When a caterpillar builds a chrysalis, it does so in order to evolve. Something has happened to Peter. I don’t know what any more than you, but it only stands to reason that, inside that hideous sheath, he must be changing. ”
“Changing,” George repeated. “Of course, but . . . into what?”
Kuromaku smiled, his eyes flaring. He slid Peter’s silk-wrapped sword into his belt and turned to face the old human and the vampires who seemed more than willing to obey him.
“I don’t know,” Kuromaku said. “But I am eager to find out.”
They all stared at him.
“Anyone want to join me for some café au lait?” he asked.
9
Images of broken light that dance before me like a million eyes . . .
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—THE BEATLES, “Across the Universe”
ROBERTO’S HUMVEE SAT SIDEWAYS ACROSS the highway; the broken white line disappeared under the belly of the massive vehicle. There were two others, one on either side and, with the vehicles, more than a dozen soldiers spread out across the five eastbound and five westbound lanes. They all wore oxygen masks with rebreathers to keep from inhaling too much smoke.
But there was nothing they could do about the heat.
It was long after dark, near on midnight now, but night had still not fallen on Atlanta. The fires were too bright, flames leaping high and consuming entire city blocks with a savagery that rivaled any other animal in nature. And there was no doubt in Roberto’s mind that fire was a predator. From the moment the first thermite charge went up, he’d watched the beast rear back and tear into the city without any shred of mercy.
They’d fallen back to just under a quarter mile from the city and donned their masks. For the first time in years, Roberto Jimenez had cried. A part of him felt, as he watched the blaze spread, that by destroying such a testament to man’s greatness, they had already lost.
Now he stood just shy of fifty yards away from the Humvee, closer to the burning city than any of the others. The heat kept him sharp, angry, even cruel. He knew they’d killed people, that there would have been certain homeless people, and perhaps a few stubborn and stupid enough to hide from the soldiers as they came through, who had been left behind.
They’d killed those people.
Roberto prayed for himself, for his soldiers, and for those abandoned souls. But when the prayer was through, he didn’t think about them anymore. He thought about the job.
And now this was the job. Just standing guard, watching it all burn. Most of the vampires in Atlanta had probably been incinerated hours ago, or burned up while trying to escape. Some, he was sure, would have tried to get away by turning to mist. But the intense heat of the thermite would have vaporized any mist that it touched. Still, there would be some escapes.
Already, different posts around the city had radioed in the extermination of five vampires in total, who had escaped the flames. So, certainly, some had been intelligent enough and focused enough to realize they had to fly out.
It made Roberto sick to think of allowing even one to escape, but he knew it was inevitable. So he pushed those thoughts aside and watched the fire, the vicious rainbow of colors that spiked through it, the flashing of exploding office windows, the black smoke that billowed up in different spots. He listened to the blaze, the roar of the fire’s voice, the explosions, the screech and crash of crumbling metal and concrete.
He gripped his HK4 Maglite automatic rifle in both hands, waiting for something to kill.
For a moment, over the roar of the fire, he didn’t hear the shouts and screams behind him. Then someone fired an HK4, and that did it. Roberto spun, weapon at the ready. A vampire lunged across the pavement toward him, its claws extended, acid saliva dripping from its distended jaws, yellow fangs gnashing.
“Bastards!” the vampire managed to snarl, despite the deformity of its mouth.
“Fuck off!” Berto snarled back and, flicking off the safety on his weapon, pulled the trigger just as the bloodsucker reached for his throat.
The thing shrieked impossibly loud as eighty silver rounds ripped it apart, scattering its parts in a shrapnel shower of blood and flesh. He’d torch its remains after, to make sure, he thought, but that fucker wouldn’t be putting itself together too soon.
“Commander!” Sniegoski shouted again.
Jimenez ran for the Humvees. He saw at least four corpses in uniform. Sniegoski was pumping silver bullets into a ragged-looking fang-boy, trying to regroup with the rest of the roadblock squad now that the element of surprise had been exhausted. Two soldiers had taken refuge inside one of the Humvees, while a pair of vampire women literally peeled back the armored doors.
“Goddamn you!” he roared.
His HK4 jumped in his hands again and one of the vamp girls was torn apart. The other took cover behind the Humvee, then turned to mist.
“Someone get a fucking flame thrower over here!” he shouted. “For Christ’s sake, what the hell did we train you all for?”
A scream. He turned, and something was flying through the air at him, spraying blood as it came. It hit him in the upper chest with great force, and Roberto went down on his ass, almost lost control of his weapon, but held on with the tips of his fingers and drew it back to him. He rolled and came up on his knees in time to fire a burst from his weapon right into the face of the vamp-girl who’d turned to mist only seconds before.
They could be anywhere. There was no way even to know if they’d killed all of them.
As he turned to see what had become of the rest of his team, Jimenez looked down to see what it was that had struck his chest before. He saw the blood splashed across his uniform. On the ground, Lieutenant Sniegoski’s face looked up at him, without a lower jaw. His head had been torn off from the mouth up.
Roberto’s gorge rose, but he forced himself not to vomit. Instead, he turned and ran for the Humvees. The two soldiers who had hidden inside one had opened the doors and were stepping out, weapons at the ready. There were two others still alive, trying to get a bead on a vampire who was stalking them.
He came to the corpse of Kathy Marshall, a major who’d already lost her father to the vampires. Roberto made a mental note to visit Major Marshall’s mother personally, even as he stripped the flame thrower from her back. It wasn’t hard. Her arms were gone.
Without even bothering to slip it on, without bothering to hide his approach, he stormed across the pavement and leaped on top of his own Humvee. The vampire that had been playing cat and mouse with Suarez and Duffy turned at the sound of Berto’s boots on the hood.
The vampire smiled, opened its mouth to speak.
Commander Jimenez didn’t want to hear it. He strafed the monster with the flame thrower, even as the others opened fire with silverpoints. The vampire didn’t stand a chance.
Roberto walked from place to place, incinerating the remains of the vampires that were there. When he was through, he tapped the commlink on his blood spattered uniform.
“This is Commander Jimenez, all units Alpha through Omega, check in now, please.”
He waited until he’d heard from all of them. No other attacks so far. But he warned them to be on guard for an attack from behind.
“The bloodsuckers are all pissed off that we’ve spoiled their party,” he said, in his anger abandoning his usual attention to military propriety.
“Chapin! Delacruz!” he snapped.
The two soldiers who’d hidden inside the Humvee scrambled to attention. He stared at them, but neither man would meet his gaze.
“I should have you two cowards fucking court-martialed,” he growled.
The two soldiers shifted uncomfortably.
“Shouldn’t I?”
“Yes, Commander!” they both snapped back.
“But I won’t,” he said.
He saw them visibly relax at his words. Which only angered him more. Roberto moved closer, stared eye to eye with each man, walked around behind them, stood between them, and whispered so that the other survivors, Suarez and Duffy, couldn’t hear him.
“If I ever see anything like that again, if you leave another soldier to the enemy during a battle, I’ll kill you myself,” he said softly. “I promise I will.”
A cool wind, almost chilly, breezed lightly through the trees beyond the fence that surrounded the modest airport in White Plains, New York. Two fat crows and a bat flew together, an unlikely trio, while a third bird, a bluejay, followed behind. The crows and the bat fluttered to the ground and, a second later, began to change, to take on their human forms.
Will Cody watched as Erika and Sebastiano changed, and he wondered if he could trust either of them. Sebastiano especially. He’d only met the other shadow once or twice before, in the days before Peter’s return. In the
days before Sebastiano had betrayed Rolf, and all the rest of them, to follow Hannibal. And unlike Erika’s claims about her own seeming betrayal, Sebastiano admitted his treason.
On the other hand, their story seemed to check out. The only reason Will had gotten in and out of Sing-Sing so easily was because the burning of Atlanta had forced Hannibal to speed up his plans. Hannibal had the bait ready for him, but by the time Cody got there, there was no longer any hook. Hannibal’s entire clan was on the move, and Cody had taken advantage of that confusion.
So their story checked out. Didn’t mean he trusted them.
But as Sebastiano completed his change, the intentionally aged shadow looked up at Will, then quite purposefully looked away. If anything weighed on his conscience, he might have tried to present a false enthusiasm, or been inclined to turn away more quickly to hide his guilty feelings. Will read Sebastiano’s attitude, right down to the way he carried himself, as an expression of shame.
He hoped he was right.
Erika was a different story. With her, he just had to go on faith. In her, in his own judgment, and in Rolf’s instincts and taste in women. Will wanted to believe Erika, so he did. But he’d be watching her closely just the same.
Sebastiano and Erika glided forward and stood staring through the fence at the airport runways on the other side. Even as they watched, a small passenger plane was coming in, its engine the only sound but for the wind in the trees and the occasional nightbird. Will glanced at it, and allowed himself a moment to appreciate the majesty of human flight. To get something of that size off the ground . . . hell, that was a miracle in itself.
There was a quick fluttering above and behind him, and Will turned to watch the bluejay land on the dirt and scrub grass of the small forested area. He watched as the bird—as Allison—shuffled back and forth on the ground a moment, waiting for newborn instincts to direct her next action. And suddenly Will felt sick.
His stomach churned with acid and he felt as though his chest was pressing in, squeezing his heart. Will felt his lip begin to curl in anger, but he forced a smile onto his face as Allison returned to her self. The bluejay was gone, and before him stood the woman he’d loved like no other.
Of Masques and Martyrs Page 15