Shaking, clacking, laughing hoarsely again, the thing took a step closer.
“You can’t love, and you can’t be loved. You are despised. You are like a snake in the grass, a rodent, a roach. You are vile. You are loathsome.”
The skeleton jerked suddenly, and straightened its aim at her with its extended arm. “You think there’s a God who will hear you? You, you, you, you, you…?”
She felt faint, dizzy, terrified, and yet almost ready to welcome whatever punishment or execution the skeleton offered. She felt as if she’d been drugged, hypnotized, and that she couldn’t prevent the evil in her from taking over, from giving in.
“You are a killer who deserves to die. And why not take the wretched man with you? It would be so easy. Take up your sword and kill, and when the blood sluices over you, you will feel again. Slice his flesh, let his blood fill you. Or die now, by your own hand, like the coward you are. I know what you are, and soon others will, too. And then you will be despised, hated, loathed, as the evil toxin that you are. I know, I know, I know….”
It knew her fears. It recognized the pain that filled her. She could feel the anger and the hatred—the self-hatred—creeping into her as if it were part of the air she breathed, air that carried with it the fresh scent of blood, the scent of…
She curled her fingers around the rosary she still wore around her neck.
“I’m good,” she managed to whisper. “You’re wrong. I know that—my soul is clean.”
The cackling stopped. The skeleton missed a beat. Then it seemed to gather its thoughts and spoke again.
“In your dreams. Who will ever believe that you—you!—are in any way a being that is good?”
It was speaking, but its voice was weaker. She had to pull herself back together, had to fight this thing.
“I know what you are, I know you are evil. I know what you are, what you are!” it said.
“And I know what you are. You’re nothing but a trick of the mind. You’re the essence of greed and need, envy and evil,” she retorted.
It began to shrink back.
“Melanie?”
She shook with relief when she heard his voice. Scott’s voice. How long had she been standing there, facing that thing, letting it talk to her? It was moving again, getting ready to impale her with its sharp-boned arm.
“Melanie!”
She came back to life, jumping backward as Scott came tearing past. He wasn’t armed, but he didn’t need to be. With his bare hands he grabbed the creature by its bony shoulders and hurled it to the ground, then stamped as hard as he could on the skull.
Dust. Fragments of bone. Nothing else was left. She stared at the remnants of her enemy and saw the black mist that seemed to seep from those shards—and from her—before wafting into the ground.
Scott took her by the shoulders then, staring into her eyes.
“My God,” she breathed. What would have happened to her without Scott, ever the cavalier, always rushing in, ready to die to save her.
“Are you all right? Did it hurt you? Melanie?”
Bone, she thought. The creature that taunted her had been made of bone and yet…not. It had been animated by something viscous from the earth, something evil, possessed of the power to slip into the dead…
And the living.
“My God, I’m sorry!” she cried. “Sister Maria Elizabeta, how is she? Oh, God…”
Scott didn’t take the time to answer, only gripped her hand and started dragging her at a run along the path to the convent. They threaded past small trees, dodged bushes, pushed through bracken, and then at last they saw the old stone walls of the convent before them. Scott banged on the heavy wooden door, and, in a moment it opened.
There were several sisters there, crowded behind the one who had opened the door. “Sister Ana?” Scott asked, and the nun nodded. “Sister Maria Elizabeta is ill, and…she wants you. She won’t let me take her to the hospital.”
The sister at the door turned, speaking in a dialect Melanie didn’t understand. From somewhere a black bag was passed to her. Then she pushed by Scott and Melanie, and hurried along the trail back to the church.
Scott was still holding Melanie’s hand, and he pulled her with them as they followed Sister Ana. The nun was not young—she looked to be in her seventies—but she moved with determination as well as speed, and it was difficult to keep up with her, with the bracken slapping back at them as they hurried in her wake.
When Sister Ana reached the place where the skeleton had accosted Melanie, she paused for a minute and looked back at them shrewdly, then started moving again.
As soon as they reached the church, Sister Ana fell to her knees next to Sister Maria Elizabeta, who still lay stretched out on the pew. Sister Ana spoke again in that dialect Melanie couldn’t follow, then reached into her bag and produced a tiny pill, which she slid beneath the older sister’s tongue. Sister Maria Elizabeta closed her eyes, lying very still.
“She’s…?” Scott began weakly.
“She’s resting,” Sister Ana said, her English just barely accented. “For now, you must leave her be.” She looked all three of them up and down. “You can come back later and seek what you need. But now, it is time for you to leave so she can rest.” Her eyes fell to Scott’s chest and the rosary he wore, visible in the open V of his shirt. “You will need more, but she has planned for that. Go now. She is the general, and you are her army. She has been weakened, but her soul is very strong. Give her time. She will be well.”
“She’ll need more than a morning,” Scott said. “Her heart…has she suffered a heart attack?”
“She will live, and she will be strong for as long as she is needed. Until the changing of the guard. Please. The other sisters and I will care for her. Right now, you must go.”
Scott took Melanie’s hand again. Followed by Rainier, they walked out the front doors of the church.
For the first time, there were other people there. The sisters. In their black habits and carrying brooms. They were sweeping up the bone dust, but they paused, bowing their heads slightly in acknowledgment, as the three of them left.
“How do we know how long to stay gone?” Scott asked.
“I say we come back by full noon,” Rainier said. “When the sun is highest.”
They reached the car and drove back to the hotel. Melanie leaned her head against the window and wondered if the evil thing—essence? demon?—had been able to get into her head because in some way she truly was evil herself.
She felt Rainier place a hand on her shoulder in comfort, though she knew he had no idea what had happened. When they reached the hotel, she offered the two men a smile. “I wonder what people think? This is the second time we’ve shown back up here looking filthy, so let’s go through the courtyard this time. Gentlemen, I’m off to shower. And to sleep. I’ll get a wakeup call for eleven.”
She quickly left them, hurrying down the hall. She headed straight for her shower, discarding her clothing as she walked, suddenly anxious to remove anything that had been touched by that skeletal army.
In the shower, she let the steam swirl around her. She scrubbed her hair, thinking how ironic it was that she was cleaning up only to go right back into the land of dead.
She didn’t want to hear the echo of the voice in her mind, and she tried to drown it out with the pounding of the water.
But it wasn’t enough.
I know what you are. I know what you are….
Evil.
11
Scott saw that the door to Melanie’s room was closed, and he respected her obvious need for distance. As he turned toward his own door, he found himself trying to understand the look he’d seen on her face when he had come upon her facing the last of the standing skeletons.
Horror.
But why?
There had been a time when he might have been paralyzed by the concept of a reanimated skeleton, but since that night in the alley—the night of his Becoming—as he thought of it
—he wasn’t easily daunted. Just last night, dozens of bizarrely dressed people had appeared in an alley to attack him, and that now seemed only one more part of the strange journey. Melanie had faced everything he had and probably more. She’d gone after the attackers the night of the quake like a pro, without even blinking. She hadn’t even wanted his help. She’d entered the fray in the alley as if she were a seasoned soldier.
But today…
He didn’t understand. He wanted to. He had ached to see her looking so horrified, so filled with…self-loathing….
He got out of the shower and donned clean clothes, anxious to see if she had emerged from her room. She wasn’t there, though she must have made a brief appearance, because Rainier was sitting there, a stack of maps, guidebooks and texts at his side, a cup of coffee in front of him, and a pensive look on his face. Scott sat next to him, and picked up something called The New Testament Guide to Angels and Demons.
“There’s a difference between demonic possession and the influence of a demon, did you know that?” Rainier asked him, then mused, “I wonder how ancient demons really are?”
“I don’t know, but the Bible says angels existed long before man, and demons are fallen angels, so I assume they were around before men, too.”
Rainier tossed him another book. It held quotes from the Torah, the New Testament, the Koran and many more ancient texts, including several written by the Canaanites.
“As far as I can discover,” Rainier said, “the trouble with demons is that we let them in. They’re jealous, so once they’re here, they hate us and want what we have. There are also a lot of references in there regarding prophecies and how we make them self-fulfilling. The Mayans were waiting for the return of Kulkulcan—and instead they got the Spanish invaders, who they looked on as gods, leading to their own destruction. Their prophecies and calendars run in cycles, and every twenty years a new cycle begins. Pretty much every society believed in a supreme being—even in polytheistic societies, there was one god above all the others. Which corresponds to our God, and the angels, saints—and demons.”
“And, according to my reading, most saw man as a creature with a soul, a life force, that would live on, or live again, in one way or another,” Scott added as he leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “I grew up Roman Catholic—with a little voodoo thrown in here and there. I’m one of those weird people who still really loves ritual, I guess. But, even as a kid, I couldn’t fathom why a child born in Africa or Asia, who had never heard of Catholicism, would go to Hell. My assumption is that we really are one people, and we just see some things in different ways. So the way to fight a demon, any demon, old or new, would be with the ritual of our own beliefs. The prophecy isn’t that the Christian world will face Armageddon, but that mankind itself will face the Apocalypse.”
Rainier nodded, smiling at him in agreement. He stood up suddenly. “Let’s take a drive.”
Scott straightened, frowning. “What about Melanie…? I’m not sure we should leave her alone. She seemed a bit…off.”
“She’ll be all right. She’s stronger than she knows herself. And we won’t be more than half an hour,” Rainier assured him.
“Give me a minute.”
He walked to Melanie’s door and considered knocking, but cracked the door open instead. She was on her bed and appeared to be sleeping. Good. She needed the rest.
“All right, I’ll just leave her a note, letting her know we’ll be right back,” Scott told him.
“We can pick up a few things while we’re out.”
“All right,” Scott agreed.
They drove first toward the Palatine Hill. As he navigated the heavy traffic, Scott found himself marveling anew at the beauty and character of Rome. Ancient ruins everywhere, interspersed with the legacy of the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Rococo. Following Rainier’s directions, he turned down a side street before reaching the Forum and the Coliseum. The roads were crowded, but Rainier guided him to a parking lot near a church dating back to the medieval era. Great cherubs guarded gold-inlaid doors, and marble reliefs—St. George slaying the dragon, the Madonna and Child, the Last Supper, and more—decorated the outside of the church. “St. Peter in the Garden,” Rainier pointed out, as they headed toward the doors.
“Very nice. Are we sightseeing?” Scott asked him.
“In a way. Just follow me. Another church stood here originally, built in the fourth century. The present structure dates from the fifteenth. Generations of the Montenegro family are buried here.”
“Your family?” Scott asked.
“Yes.”
The church was active: pews crowded with people at prayer; a young priest lighting candles at the main altar, a simple marble structure. Side altars and small chapels lined the walls to either side.
“My family,” Rainier said, as if in introduction. He had led Scott along the row of chapels on the east side of the church before coming to a dead stop at the tomb of Conte Rainier Michelo Montenegro—God’s Warrior, according to the inscription in the stone.
Atop the marble sarcophagus that held the remains of the long-dead conte was a sculpture of the man, clad in medieval armor, his sword lying atop his body, his hands folded over the hilt.
What struck Scott was how much the marble likeness of the man in the tomb resembled Rainier.
Scott let out a soft whistle, then stopped himself in embarrassment when he remembered he was in a church. “That’s quite a family resemblance. I’d never have taken you for Italian, you’re so fair.”
“My mother was a Dane,” Rainier said.
“Still, it’s amazing. So how many great-greats back is he?” Scott asked.
“None.”
The reply was so flat that Scott turned to look at the other man in complete surprise. “What…?”
“I have no ancestor interred here.”
“Then who is interred here?” Scott asked.
“No one.”
“All right, family-legend time. Is this going to help us any?”
“I hope so. This sarcophagus, this tomb, was meant for me.”
Scott inhaled. “All right—it’s not enough that we’re battling skeletons and trying to figure out how to save the world, now you want me to believe that you somehow escaped the grave and you’re approximately eight hundred years old?”
“Yes,” Rainier said.
Scott turned away in disgust and started walking.
Rainier caught up to him with long strides. “My God, man, haven’t you figured it out yet?”
“What are you talking about?” Scott asked.
They were passing the basin of holy water. By rote, he paused and dipped his finger in it, and made the sign of the cross on his forehead. Rainier smiled and did the same.
“Why do you keep denying what might be when you’re already seen what is?” Rainier demanded.
Scott crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Rainier. “Okay, you’re eight hundred years old. You wear your age damned well.”
“Because I am a vampire,” Rainier said. “I am a vampire, Lucien is a vampire—and Melanie is a vampire.”
Scott stared at him, then laughed. “Is that what your Alliance is? You’re a group of lunatics who think you have to drink blood to stay young?”
“No,” Rainier said icily. “We drink blood to stay alive. Or…undead.”
Scott swore. “You know what? Vampires are nasty, smelly beings with bad teeth. They’re evil. They have no souls. I hardly think that the task of saving of the earth would fall to beings who are just as bad as the demons they’re supposed to be destroying. If you’re trying to make me think less of Melanie, you can give it up. There’s nothing evil in her whatsoever.”
“You fool,” Rainier said. “I’m trying to help you understand her.”
“This is bull,” Scott said angrily. In the midst of everything else that was going on, he didn’t need this kind of crap from Rainier. “Right. You’re a vampire. Going out in broad daylight.
Standing in a church. Crossing yourself with holy water. I don’t think so.”
“Really? You know so many vampires? They’ve clued you in to the truth—and not the legend? You—who have battled living skeletons and dreamed of catacombs with a link to Hell—dare to call me a liar?”
Scott didn’t know what he thought. Rainier appeared to be serious, but…he couldn’t be. This was just…
Totally insane, but…not…impossible.
“What do you think you were fighting in that alley by the church the other night?”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Scott said, staring the other man in the eye. “You’re trying to tell me that you’re a vampire—all warm and fuzzy—and those wackos the other night were vampires, too? Make up your mind, why don’t you?”
Scott realized he had spoken too loudly when he saw a nun at prayer looked up at him in disapproval.
He shook his head in disgust, turned and left the church. Rainier followed him, stopping him before he reached the car.
“Wait. We need more than flashlights before we go back to the catacombs,” Rainier said. “Follow me.”
Scott followed. He was so on edge that it felt as if electricity were twitching through his limbs. This was all just too bizarre. Rainier seemed to be a decent guy, except for the part where he thought he was a vampire.
The man was certifiably crazy.
No. He wasn’t. He was telling the truth.
Admittedly, there was no way they had all hallucinated the bone army, or that he had made up what happened the night in the alley when he had been touched by a dying man, or the disappearing corpses from the alley by the church. But that was a far cry from vampires—especially good vampires.
And Melanie a vampire? That was ridiculous. He’d held her, kissed her, made mad love with her, and she was human. Smart, strong, good in a fight—but human.
They walked along the outside of the church until they reached a side door. Rainier tapped on it, and someone opened it just a crack. Rainier spoke in rapid Italian, and the door opened fully. A small, wizened priest let them into a small room holding only a bed, a desk and an open closet that held vestments. A Bible was open on the desk, and there was but a single lamp. This was a man of the cloth who lived simply indeed.