Angel Souls and Devil Hearts

by Christopher Golden

  And then it was too late. Before the debris of the dome had begun to fall, before Elissa could even drop the tube and long before Rolf could come to her aid, Elissa was in Hannibal’s arms. He spun her to face his pursuers, and she flailed behind her, striking him uselessly with her elbows and feet. But her head and upper body did not move, because Hannibal’s left arm was around her neck, the crook of his elbow powerful enough to snap it at any time. His right hand was at her face, and the long talons rested on her right cheek.

  Hannibal didn’t have to tell Rolf to stop. Changing back into human form, the mute vampire stood twenty feet from the car atop which Hannibal prepared to kill a woman he had so recently made love to, caressed. Rolf didn’t know what to do. He felt his loyal shadow warriors step up, behind him, and knew that Jimenez and his soldiers were back there too, every weapon aimed at Hannibal. It also occurred to him that Hannibal’s forces must be nearly destroyed for the battle to come to such a sudden halt.

  “Ah,” Hannibal said, a guttural laugh showing he was still in pain. “This woman will be the death of you, mute.”

  One long claw etched a red line across Elissa’s right cheek, and though she did not scream, Rolf could feel her pain, see her teeth clenched against the cry that lodged in her throat. She stood rigid, but no longer struggled, resigned to whatever might come. Rolf was proud of her, and knew that he cared about her more than he ought to care about someone he’d known for so brief a time. He considered the possibility that he might love her, and couldn’t deny it.

  A new rage began to build in him, fueled by the futility he recognized in it. For the moment, Hannibal held all the cards. He could only watch as his enemy let the same hand that had scarred her move down Elissa’s body to cup her breast through the cloth of her uniform.

  “Yes,” Hannibal said softly, and only then did Rolf realize the silence that truly had fallen on the plaza. “I can understand your attraction, mute. I’ll enjoy this woman quite a bit.”

  Why didn’t they fire? Rolf wondered. Why did the soldiers do nothing? She was just another human to them, surely. So many others of their kind had died there that day. But he knew why they did not, could not, fire. It was the way it had happened, the spectacle, the confrontation. And now, in the midst of a very impersonal, faceless battle, where death was a means to an end, a moment had arrived that made things very personal, made death a thing to be feared, made them all feel as vulnerable and helpless as Elissa was.

  He felt it too, and his rage burned higher, and darker.

  When Hannibal’s jaws opened wide, and his fangs sank tenderly into Elissa’s neck, Rolf could not move. But as he looked away, wanting to see anything but the atrocity Hannibal was committing, he saw that Elissa’s eyes were closed. He knew that she had wanted him to bite her the night before. She had not said it, but it had been clear just the same. Just as now, she said nothing, but Rolf could see what this meant to her, this violation, rape of a sort. She was a proud soldier, the commander of the American division of the UN security force, and a single tear ran down her cheek until it was stopped by the slash Hannibal had made there, disappearing in the bloody streaks that dripped to her chin.

  Before he was aware of it, Rolf was in motion.

  15

  U.S. Interstate 81, New Hope, Virginia,

  United States of America.

  Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 3:01 A.M.:

  George Marcopoulos couldn’t sleep. How had everything gone so wrong, so fast? The question was unanswerable, but its truth was evident in his every thought, every movement. Joe Boudreau had saved him from death at the hands of a man whom tragedy had just made the President of the United States of America. They had fled across the White House lawn, Joe not advanced enough to fly George out, and his vampiric savior had been forced to injure seriously several Secret Service agents to make that escape possible.

  George had been amazed, and relieved, to discover that Boudreau had a car parked nearby. A quick drive to his D.C. apartment, so that George could retrieve those few things that mattered, and they were off, cross-country, driving for the temporary safety of Virginia highways. It wasn’t long before they were headed south on Route 81, toward Tennessee.

  They had spoken little during all of this, for George had a lot on his mind. Valerie, for one. His wife and family in Boston would more than likely never see him again. He didn’t think he had to worry that they’d believe whatever charges Bill Galin (George had a hard time thinking of him as “the President”) lodged against him. But Valerie was very sick, and their humiliation by people who wouldn’t know better was a terrible thing to consider. George worried, but knew he was powerless.

  He was, after all, the worldwide symbol of human cooperation with the shadows. And the whole world had just seen shadows murder the President as a declaration of war. Their ambassador, once a mild-mannered medical examiner from Boston, had disappeared, and could only be considered to be in collusion with their efforts. George had considered trying to change his appearance somehow, but hadn’t come up with a plan so far.

  The world was at war, and it didn’t even know it yet.

  In the meantime, there was Salzburg.

  As they drove through Virginia, George watched with dread as events unfolded on the dash-screen cellular TV in Joe’s car. Armed guards had surrounded the United Nations building, and Rafael Nieto was under 24/7 protection. In Washington, Bill Galin was sworn in as President, and immediately ordered all agencies to investigate the disappearances of Meaghan Gallagher, Alexandra Nueva and George Marcopoulos! CNN reported that its own Allison Vigeant was under investigation, though her status in Salzburg was unknown.

  And an international manhunt was declared for Hannibal, the chief marshal of the Shadow Justice System. Of course, that order, made jointly by Galin and Nieto, was essentially an indictment of the SJS in its entirety, and a clear message that it was open season on all vampires.

  “What do you think is going to happen?” Joe asked, finally breaking a long silence, and in his voice George heard a tremor of vulnerable, childlike fear. He knew the answer, knew it was not what the young shadow wanted to hear, but its truth was inescapable.

  “Armageddon,” he said.

  Joe only nodded, and they were quiet again as the news anchor switched to a reporter flying above Salzburg in a helicopter. The aerial view was bizarre, to say the least. Where the ground rose up on one side of the river, in the spot where the reporter insisted the Hohensalzburg Fortress was, and where he noted that half of the battle was going on, the picture was completely out of focus, showing only a kaleidoscope of colors.

  The reporter claimed that the helicopter had been prohibited from taking off until it appeared that all of the “so-called” demons capable of flight had been destroyed, but also noted that it wouldn’t have done them any good previously, because until mere minutes earlier, none of the cameras within the main city had been able to get any picture at all. With that problem solved, the reporter said, a ground team was working its way through Salzburg, broadcasting the carnage it found, the destruction left by the earthquake, the fires and other, less natural disasters. The ground team was attempting to get closer to the fighting now taking place not at the fortress, which still proved impossible to film, but at a place called Residence Plaza. where human and shadow forces were clashing. It was a clear, bright, sunny morning in Austria, and the helicopter offered a fairly good view of the battle.

  It looked, to the world and to George Marcopoulos, as though the shadows were attempting to prevent the human troops from reaching the fortress. The reporter repeated several times that the blacked-out area, at the fortress, was where the shadows were battling the sorcerer Liam Mulkerrin. But the audience couldn’t see that. All they saw was shadows and humans killing one another. And after the President’s assassination, it was exactly what they expected to see.

  Joe looked at George out of the corner of his eye, the same way he’d been watching the TV while driving.

  �
�Meaghan knew this would happen eventually, but not so soon,” he said to George.

  She never talked about it with me, he thought, but didn’t open his mouth.

  “Is Meaghan the one who made you a—”

  “She gave me the gift, yes,” Joe said. “I asked her, begged her really. I told her I was dedicated to helping any way I could, and she said the best way I could help was by hiding out. She knew Hannibal had his agents, and I suppose I was meant to be the first of her own.

  “She never expected it to happen so soon,” he said again.

  “Is there a plan?” George asked.

  “Not really,” Joe admitted. “But there is a meeting place.”

  George raised an eyebrow. “Are we headed there now?”

  “Yeah,” he said and smiled a bit. “New Orleans.”

  “That’s a long drive.”

  “You sleep,” Joe said kindly. “I don’t need to, remember.”

  George thought a bit, especially about Meaghan’s disappearance. He asked Joe about it, about why Meaghan disappeared.

  “She contacted me, in my mind, you understand?” He looked at George, and when he saw that the old man did actually understand, he went on. “She and Alexandra and Lazarus—”

  “Lazarus?”

  “Yeah.” Joe nodded. “They went after Peter Octavian.”

  Now George was thoroughly confused.

  “But Octavian’s in . . .,” George began, but he couldn’t get the word out.

  And all Joe said was “Yeah.”

  “God help us all,” George said softly. Perhaps too softly, because Joe Boudreau didn’t say a word in reply.

  Salzburg, Austria, European Union.

  Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 9:03 A.M.:

  Mulkerrin had power enough to destroy them all, despite the confusion he’d begun to experience as the shadows infiltrated the fortress and slowly overwhelmed his hellish forces, his ghostly soldiers. He’d been preparing to do just that, drawing close much of his power, weaving his magic around him as a stronger protection, as well as a battering force with which to strike. This was all new to him, a new kind of power, and he was still growing comfortable with its uses, testing its limits. It seemed only to be limited by his own ability to concentrate on several things at once.

  He’d been preparing to destroy the Defiant Ones when the magic itself contracted around him, a familiar voice screaming his own name, in his head, tearing at his brain from inside like something struggling to be born. And then he’d known. Will Cody was alive and had access to the magic! His magic, the power God had given him to purify the world! It was impossible, not only that Cody was capable of such a feat, but that he was alive at all. Mulkerrin had torn his heart out!

  The former priest looked up, the action itself his first signal that things had gone drastically wrong. Rather than standing triumphant as his power swept over the vampires, he was on his knees, hands clamped vise-like to the sides of his head. In a moment, along the tendrils of sensation he felt through his magical influence, he knew that all of the portals were closed. The sky above was free from his control, communications would have returned, and the sun was shining down.

  And his own protective aura was rapidly deteriorating as vampires slashed and raked at it, coming ever nearer to him in their many forms.

  No! He had the power!

  “Away!” Mulkerrin shouted, and the aura surrounding him nearly exploded with the force of his magic, obliterating several of the vampires that had come nearest to him and throwing others across the courtyard, to slam into the stone walls around them.

  Even as he reached out with his mind to find Cody, to retaliate, he was on the attack once again, more ferocious than before. And yet he was startled once again, for now he could not find Will Cody anywhere. Only moments before the vampire had been as attuned to the flow of magic around the fortress as Mulkerrin himself, and now he was nowhere to be found.

  What then? Had the death of the vampire’s spirit created some backlash which struck while Mulkerrin was vulnerable? No, he could not accept it; Cody was truly still alive and yet Liam was blind to him. He felt very strongly that Cody lived, yet he could not sense his location. But enough foolishness, he thought. It was a mystery, but if Cody no longer had access to the magic, he could not truly harm Mulkerrin no matter where he was, and the battle was far from over. He was toying with them now, really. He could destroy them all, though he might have to drop his shields to do so, to summon the concentration. That would be foolish, when taking his time was so much more . . . gratifying.

  The time for play was finished. No more portals were necessary, for the moment. Later, demons would be useful to frighten the human race, to make them see exactly what their rotting lives had wrought upon the eternal scales of justice. But for now, Mulkerrin was concerned only with this shadow race of beings without any true place. Their insolence and interference, their defiance, was at an end.

  “Attack!” shouted the shadow he knew was called Martha. “Kill him now! He is weakening!”

  And the fool led the new charge against him. The scene had changed, but it was still familiar. Mulkerrin, all in black, white hair disheveled as the air around him, tinged green by magic, protected him from harm. But it was more that the reality around him was altered by the magic, than It was that the air itself had changed. The portals were gone, the demons all dead. Many of the spirits of dead soldiers he had raised had already found new human hosts and were making their way back to the fortress even now. But once they were killed again, they would return to their rest. He had given up sustaining them.

  It was now just Mulkerrin and the vampires, and his magic could protect him as long as he desired it to. But protection was not what he wished.

  “Fool,” Mulkerrin snarled at Martha as she rushed toward him, and she changed the course of her attack slightly as he held his hand out to her, palm up, as if he meant to hold hands with her, to walk, quietly, joined in that way like lovers. Even as Martha’s hands became talons, with which she planned to tear at Mulkerrin’s weird force shield, she watched a tiny cloud of smoky darkness whirl into life above the palm of his outstretched hand. The darkness sprang into being; half a second later it was as large, or larger, than she. Dozens of red embers burned within, and Martha knew they were the eyes of a sentient being, a creature from Hell, yes, but another Hell than the one from which Mulkerrin drew most of his slaves.

  There was the world, the universe, and then there was Hell, but her brother Lazarus had taught her that there was much in between those poles, many other worlds, other dimensions, and many races darker and more evil than the denizens of Hell. This thing of the burning eyes and the countless mouths filled with infinite gleaming ebony teeth, this was one of those things, a Nachzehrer, or at least fitting the description of one.

  And it was upon her even as she exploded in flame, attempting to use her natural shapeshifting ability to drive it off. But it was no more corporeal than she, and though it could not surround and douse the flames that Martha had become, it could unfortunately consume her, a bit at a time.

  “No!” Martha heard Isaac shout, even as the thing’s attack gave her some kind of psychic pain, and then he screamed as the thing fell upon him in her place.

  Martha changed back to her true form, lashing out immediately at the thing of darkness. Her talons passed through it, as did the hands and arms of those who had come to her aid. Even as dozens of vampires rushed past them to attack Mulkerrin’s shield, she could hear the sorcerer’s laughter as her nephew, Isaac, the son of Lazarus continued to scream. His shouts of agony, coupled with the slurping, bone-crunching sounds of the thing consuming him, emanated from within it, but he was not there. Martha could reach right through and touch Stefan, the SJS deputy, on the other side of the Nachzehrer.

  And then the screams stopped, but the gnawing sounds, and Mulkerrin’s laughter, continued.

  Cody had pulled a light sweatshirt off the first corpse that looked to be about his size
, a tourist who’d been possessed by one of Mulkerrin’s soldiers. And now he was making his way up a long walkway toward the courtyard. The bestial sounds of attacking vampires echoed back to him, but no gunfire, no traditional sounds of war.

  When the screams began, he ran toward them. At the top of the walkway, he found himself above the yard, a short stone staircase leading down into the thick of things. From up there, he saw it all; the thing of darkness, not a shadow or anything he’d ever seen before, and the vampires swarming around Mulkerrin, who laughed and laughed. And he’d seen quite enough.

  “Mulkerrin!” Cody shouted, and he could almost feel it as the sorcerer turned his attention away from his attackers and toward the new threat.

  Not almost, he realized. Cody could feel it, the magic around Mulkerrin, pouring through the castle, surrounding them all, really, ready to be bent to the sorcerer’s will if he had the strength to do it. Unlike before, when Cody’s spirit was in it, was a part of the magic, he could not sense anything through it, but he could feel its presence. He knew that it was there, and that Mulkerrin wielded it with violence and hatred.

  Even from forty yards away, as he descended the stairs, Cody could feel Mulkerrin’s power find its focus on him, could feel the anger seething, boiling into action. Cody knew an instant before that a tentacle of magic, formed from the greenish aura that surrounded Mulkerrin, would lash out at him, slamming like a battering ram into the stairs where he’d stood but a moment earlier. He knew when another of those fearsome night things was born in Mulkerrin’s hand and sent rocketing toward him.

  Cody went to defend himself, but in a moment, he found he did not need to. He could feel the thing’s confusion and, in a flash of his own, realized that it couldn’t see him. He was somehow invisible to it.

  “You will die, Cody,” Mulkerrin screamed as Will came closer, though the former priest did not attempt any new attack, perhaps sensing the disturbance Cody created in the magic. The aura around the sorcerer blossomed suddenly, growing in a flash from a ball surrounding his body to a dome which stretched ten feet above him and twenty feet all around. Vampires were thrown backward and to the ground. Others were borne aloft by the growth of the thing, and changed to flying creatures so they did not have to slide down the side of the shield, so they didn’t have to touch it more than necessary.