“Out!” Cody yelled. “All of you get out of here, now! Get out of the city, as far away as you can. Go!”
The manager approached, determined to put a stop to Cody’s raving.
“Sir,” he began, his English flawless, “I’m afraid if you do not lower your—”
Cody rounded on him, changing, his face growing fierce, feral, eyes burning red and canines lengthening to almost absurd proportions. His voice was a bass growl, from deep inside him.
“Let me make something perfectly clear! Hell is breaking loose! If you want to live, leave. NOW!”
The manager was gone. Cody whirled back toward the giant fissure, awaiting the emergence of whatever was beyond that portal, his blood boiling, hunger rising within him along with anger and frustration.
“No.” A hand grabbed his arm, and he turned with a snarl only to see Allison looking at him sternly, no fear in her face.
But she should fear, he thought sadly, when the hunger comes on. Normally he was in complete control, but when his temper flared the hunger became nearly overwhelming. Bloodlust.
“I’m hungry,” he growled.
“Come on, Will! We’ll deal with hungry in a minute. For now, let’s get out of here. We’ve got to figure out the extent of what’s happening, otherwise the cavalry may be useless. Let’s go.”
Into the street they ran, only to find that the people from the hotel had simply gathered there.
“Away,” Allison yelled at them. “You have no idea what’s coming. Run, damn you! Have you forgotten Venice so quickly?”
That got to them. The whole world had seen the videotape of Venice, and now as they looked into fissures in the street, and saw the silver pools glistening there under the sun, they remembered where they had seen such things before, and terror took them. In the rush to escape whatever would drag itself through, several people were shoved, knocked or simply slipped into the pits. It was too late to help them, and Allison finally reached the harsh realization that the others would have to fend for themselves as well. Many of them would not make it. First priority, though, was Will.
Allison drew him close, amid the rising tide of panic that swept across the street and through the city, and forced him to take some of her blood. He argued that she would need all her strength, but she insisted he take a little, to tide him over until they could find a volunteer, or if necessary, an unknowing donor. She felt a sharp pain and a weird arousal which had become very familiar to her, and she smelled lilacs, as always. She never understood that, the lilacs, but the smell was there. When she had pushed his head away, she finally voiced her questions.
“This isn’t a meeting place for shadows! Why is Mulkerrin doing this?”
“He wants to rule, that’s my guess.”
Cody and Allison turned to see John Courage standing quietly by. Allison noticed for the first time how handsome the shadow was, with his perfect smile, close-cropped brown hair and blue eyes.
“We’d better be getting out of here, don’t you think?” Courage spoke again, and Allison let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“Leaving!” she said. “What a good idea!”
“Where to, John?” Cody asked him, deferring to the other shadow’s knowledge of the area. “We’ll talk about theories later.”
“I think I know where we’ll be safe for now,” Courage said. “And I know where we might find some reinforcements as well. Unfortunately, it looks like we may have to fight our way out.”
They turned to see soldiers coming toward them down the street, soldiers wearing armor at least four centuries old, swords drawn high above them. The screaming began as people were cut down in the street, and behind them something huge was rising from the fissure within the hotel. Cody realized that the soldiers were tourists from the fortress, possessed by the ghosts of dead warriors.
“Holy shit!” Allison gasped.
“Damnation!” Cody shouted.
“An excellent choice of words, both of you,” Courage said with a smirk, already beginning to change into something else. “Obviously you share a certain eloquence . . .”
Allison reached inside Will’s jacket and pulled his Beretta from its holster, aimed it at the oncoming soldiers and squeezed off a round. She addressed Courage without looking at him.
“Shut up and fight, wiseguy.”
3
Washington, D.C., United States of America.
Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 9:36 A.M.:
The President of the United States spoke urgently into the videophone on his cherrywood desk while Julie Graham paced across the large Oriental rug. Julie liked the President, thought of him as a stand-up kind of guy, but she was worried about his temper.
Henry Russo had won the presidency primarily because of his stern view regarding the trade imbalance with Germany, but a large part of his popularity came from his wary, vigilant acceptance of the shadows. Russo was a serious man. In fact, he had little or no sense of humor about him. The President spent his days dealing harshly with corruption and slackers, trying to clean up Washington, so that even if he failed to visibly accomplish anything, his successor would have a much easier time changing the world. To some, Henry Russo was the best thing that had happened to Washington in a long time; to others, he was the Inquisition all over again. Either way he was a rarity, a President who, as he often said in private, didn’t “give a flying fuck” about his image.
Julie Graham thought it was a miracle Russo had been elected at all.
They made a poor team, really, a gravely serious President with a temper and little patience, and his closest confidante, the first female secretary of state, whose own temper was notoriously short. Henry Russo knew he’d never be reelected, and he had resolved to accomplish what he could in the time alotted.
Regarding the German trade imbalance, he and Julie were in almost constant contact with all of Europe’s leaders, including Erich Strauss, the president of Austria. Henry didn’t like the man, but liking him wasn’t a part of the job.
“Erich, listen to me,” Henry said. “The emergency resolution has passed. Britain, France, Germany, the U.S.—we are coming. Just cooperate with the UN on this, will you? You need our help!”
“Ja,” Strauss said with a sneer. “I have seen the kind of help you offer, Henry. I don’t want any. Even if this problem exists—”
“Communications are out, satellites are out and now you’ve had an earthquake!” Julie interrupted, stepping behind the President so Strauss could see them both on his own screen. “Is this all coincidence, Erich?”
Henry and Julie both watched the President’s screen as Strauss fidgeted in his chair. Julie knew the man had seen footage of the Venice Jihad, and he couldn’t accept that such tragedy might be occurring in his own country. But she also knew that quite soon, he wouldn’t have a choice.
“What of the shadows?” Strauss asked. “I don’t want them tearing my country apart, Julie. Henry. I think I’d better do this myself.”
Henry Russo and Julie Graham exchanged doubtful glances, each silently questioning Strauss’s grasp of reality.
“As far as the SJS is concerned,” Julie said, “they’ve agreed to act as just another part of the UN security force on this one. There will be no raping and pillaging of your nation by shadows; that’s what the SJS was set up to prevent.”
Even while Julie was talking, she could see Henry’s face reddening. Time was wasting, and the President could not bear to waste time.
“Erich,” Henry snapped. “You are, of course, free to send all the troops you want into Salzburg, but our suggestion is that you attempt to evacuate what citizens you can and surround the city. Rafael Nieto has assured us that UN security forces will begin to arrive within the hour to assist you in that.”
“I said I don’t want—” Erich Strauss began.
“Jeeezus Christ!” Henry snapped, and Julie dug her fingers into his shoulder as soon as the words were out. Too late.
“Listen
here, Erich: it doesn’t matter worth a damn what you want. Rafael Nieto is secretary general of the UN, and the Security Council has passed an emergency resolution to go in there and pull that bastard out like a rotten tooth. Now, you can cooperate, or get your boys out of the way, but one way or another, you’re not going to take on that crazy son of a bitch by yourself. Got it?”
“I really don’t appreciate . . .,” Strauss began, but Julie wouldn’t let him go on. She forcibly slid the President’s chair from behind his desk and leaned over to look closely into the videophone, giving the Austrian president a clear view of her face.
“Erich, Henry’s lost his temper, and we both apologize. But he does have a point. Don’t be parochial about this; it isn’t just an Austrian matter, it’s a UN matter. As a member nation, you must respond to that. You have my word that the shadow troops will behave themselves, and that the rest of the security force will do its best to keep the damage at a minimum. But let’s face it, you’ve already had an earthquake in Salzburg. The city is going to take some heavy hits.”
Silence, uncomfortable enough on a phone, was made even worse by being able to see the person with whom you were speaking. As Henry Russo pulled his chair back up to his desk, appropriately ashamed of his behavior, he and Julie watched as the face of Erich Strauss finally registered the pain in his heart.
“You’re right, of course, I just . . . I don’t want Salzburg to become a war zone. I was born there, you know. My . . . my mother is there.”
All the fire went out of Henry Russo. He didn’t like Erich Strauss, but “like” had nothing to do with it.
“Erich, I’m sorry,” Henry said. “I didn’t mean to, well, I didn’t know. Of course we’ll all proceed with caution, and you should get in there as soon as possible, but you do realize . . .”
The President of the United States wished he’d kept his mouth shut, as his Austrian counterpart turned his face away from the videophone. Then the screen went dark as the video portion of the signal was turned off from the other end. Only the audio remained.
“Of course I do,” Erich’s voice said. “I’ve already said good-bye to the city in my heart. I only hope my mother fares better.”
Then the connection was severed.
In the oval office of the White House, the President and secretary of state of the United States of America looked at each other with a terrible mixture of anger, fear and sadness. As homey as Henry Russo had tried to make the office when he was first elected, at that moment it felt colder and more heartless than ever.
Henry touched an intercom button on his phone and asked his aide to get George Marcopoulos on the line. Then he turned back to Julie, his only true “friend” in politics.
“This is going to be a nightmare,” he said, remembering the tapes of Venice.
“Henry,” Julie said, letting out a breath and shaking her head, “there’ll be no waking up from this one.”
London, England, European Union.
Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 3:01 P.M.:
His trench coat was not nearly enough to keep him dry, as Hannibal trudged along London’s Baker Street in the pouring rain. He passed the address where a fictional detective had once made his home, and gave a broad, exaggerated smile to those humans he encountered. Its effect was exactly as he desired, clearing the sidewalk in front of him. A smile from Hannibal was sometimes more unsettling than a scowl.
Hannibal had discovered that, contrary to popular opinion, it didn’t always rain in London. Just most of the time. Hannibal smiled again, and passersby gave him a wide berth. He was amused to find that the locals were more frightened than the tourists. Still, London had had more than its share of the weird and terrible over the centuries. The British had grown smart enough to fear, where Americans were still dumb with fascination.
The rain fell in a blanketing torrent which turned the already black-and-white streets of London into a misty gray wasteland, a classic film, but out of focus. It could be a truly enjoyable city, especially if one was familiar with the ins and outs of its nightlife, but the days were horrible. On the other hand, the gray rain meant no sun, and no sun meant Hannibal didn’t have to think about it for once, about Venice and the change, and how his entire unlife was filled to bursting with lies and deception. He’d never had a problem with deception in the past, when he had been the engineer of such acts, but now that he had to lie, was forced to live a deception . . . He despised it.
A life of peace.
Hannibal had lived for centuries, first as a leader among men, then as a lonely, rebellious vampire, and finally, as time went on, as the leader of one of the most powerful covens of the Defiant Ones, helping to establish the traditions of his kind. He had been instrumental in building a corps of volunteers, humans who offered themselves once a year as blood sacrifices to Hannibal’s kind. He had organized an international array of agents who answered only to him, who spied on whomever he wished them to, who kept him informed on every aspect of his people’s evolution. He had been respected . . . feared . . .
Worshipped.
But no more. No, the actions of the clergyman, Mulkerrin, and the foolishness of Will Cody and Peter Octavian, had revealed the existence of vampires to the entire world—a world programmed by fictional representations of his kind as evil, vile, villainous creatures who must, at all costs, be destroyed. Humanity had been placated by soothing words, tales of the church’s attempts at genocide, and the efforts by certain members of the shadow community to be accepted into human society.
Only Hannibal didn’t want to be accepted.
Hannibal wanted to kill.
To feast, to drink the blood of unwilling human hosts—this was the destiny of his kind, the Defiant Ones. They were parasites who lived off the body of humanity, and Hannibal reveled in that knowledge. Evil, vile, villainous—this was an image he embraced, and a life he missed. But no, the children of his one-time adversary, the late Karl Von Reinman, now ascribed to a different philosophy, one which allowed a merging of two societies, shadow and human. But Hannibal knew such a merging was impossible.
Shadows and humans were natural enemies, predator and prey. They might toy with peace, but it could not last. The nature of shadows was to kill, to feed, to take without permission, without warning and without mercy, whatever was needed. And that way of life was not gone, only held in abeyance. For now, those shadows who, like Hannibal, lusted for the old ways, must hide themselves among the sheep, falsely advocating peace, or die. Hannibal himself had found the perfect hiding place, for in his position as chief marshal of the SJS, it was his job to hunt and often destroy those shadows who reverted to the old ways.
“Rebels” and “criminals” they were called. Hannibal called them brothers. While he was forced to destroy some, many others had been saved, organized, hidden away until the day Hannibal called them forward.
For the peace could not last. He would not allow it. Unified, the shadows would destroy their human counterparts. And if unity did not come naturally to them, especially to the children of Von Reinman, well then Hannibal would force it upon them.
Soon.
Now his plan had a new wrinkle. Mulkerrin had returned. Father Liam Mulkerrin, the last of a line of powerful sorcerers, a sect within the Roman Catholic Church, who had used magic to control all supernatural creatures, all shadows, except Hannibal’s people. The church came to call the vampires “Defiant Ones,” and sought to subjugate them for centuries, attempting genocide several times. The last attempt had been in Venice, the Jihad, when Mulkerrin had opened doors into hell from which emerged the true shadows, demon-things born of brimstone and death.
Though the Jihad revealed the existence of the shadows to the world, it also held a glimpse of the future for Hannibal. For the first time, he had seen the true potential in the unity of his people. Mulkerrin and his demons had been defeated, the sorcerer himself carried into Hell on the back of the shadows’ self-appointed savior, the arrogant whelp Peter Octavian. And the Church
had been brought to its knees.
Somehow, Mulkerrin had returned. Once again, Von Reinman’s blood-children were at the center of things. And Hannibal had been ordered, ordered, by Meaghan Gallagher—herself not even the spawn of Von Reinman but of Octavian—to obey the United Nations commander, Jimenez. Well, that remained to be seen. Hannibal wanted Mulkerrin destroyed once and for all, a goal he shared with all other shadows, and humans as well.
But if Mulkerrin’s presence could be used as the means to an end?
“Watch your step, ya bloody git!!” came the gruff voice of a burly Englishman, just as Hannibal collided with him knocking the big man back on his ass.
In seconds the man had regained his feet and pulled Hannibal up by the collar of his coat.
“Lissen ’ere, you fancy bast—”
No change had come upon Hannibal, he had not even bared fangs, but the man somehow sensed that something terrible was there and that he’d stepped in it. He smoothed the lapels on Hannibal’s coat, then began to back away slowly at first, and then in a light jog. He was lost to the misty, rain-shrouded street in seconds, devoured.
The collision had done Hannibal some good, though. He had spent far too much time in the past five years brooding, lost in his thoughts. The big man had just jolted him from that reverie, and now he found himself just a block from his office, the headquarters of the SJS.
He took the steps two at a time, not to hurry, simply to get there. A shorter stride was uncomfortable for him, unnatural. The door was closed, but a light shone through the opaque windows at either side of the entrance. Inside Hannibal quickly doffed his trench coat and shook the rain from his long white hair. The receptionist, a human named Marie, who was obsessed with vampires, nearly came to attention when he entered. She was as fascinated as she was frightened, and he smiled at her as she got up to make him a cup of tea. Thirsty for blood though he might be, he was never above a good cup of tea. And this Marie was attractive. Eventually, he would have her in all the ways they both imagined, and some she would never have dreamed.
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