The elderly priest smile at Scott, and blessed him swiftly, speaking Latin. Then he led them to a door, and opened it, revealing a stone stairway that led to the crypts below.
“Why are we here?” Scott asked. Should he be afraid? he wondered. Was he being lured to the lair of some cult—the Alliance, maybe—so he could be drained of blood?
Could he be drained of blood?
Logically, the answer was yes. He still nicked himself shaving.
At the base of the old stone stairway were iron gates that led to a seemingly endless row of crypts. But they didn’t head into the crypts. Instead, the priest opened the door to a storage chamber. He pulled three canvas bags from one shelf and began to fill them with strange odds and ends, including mysterious vials and crosses—all of which looked very old—of wood, silver and gold. Along with the ancient relics, he included a number of flashlights, lanterns, small sharply honed spikes, cigarette lighters, flares and what looked and smelled like small torches doused in oil. When he had completed his task, he spoke so rapidly to Rainier that Scott caught nothing but chiesa, church, and the name Maria Elizabeta. And this man was a priest who, like Father O’Hara, seemed to know Rainier well. And Rainier seemed to respect the priest.
Vampire. Right.
With a smile, Scott thanked the priest. He was good at “Grazie.”
“Now we can go back,” Rainier told him.
The bags were heavy. Scott tossed the two he carried into the back of the car, staring at Rainier. “We’re fighting a demon with holy water and stakes? I thought that was how you fought vampires?”
“Ritual. The power lies in faith and belief,” Rainier said. “I know where we can get guns, too, but I honestly don’t think they’d do us much good.”
Scott looked at his watch as he slid into the driver’s seat. “Melanie should be awake by now,” he said. “We should hurry back. It’s nearly noon. We need to get to the church and pray that Sister Maria Elizabeta is doing better.”
Sean was somewhere with Blake, Lucien was finalizing his plans to fly to Rome, and she missed her children and was anxious to go home, Maggie mused. But Lucien had asked that she and Sean stay where they were, because he was certain that events in L.A. weren’t over yet. At least Judy had stopped by to keep her company.
Even though a slow romance seemed to be developing between Blake and Judy—even the two dogs got along great—the other woman still sometimes seemed lonely, so the two of them had met for dinner at the same place on the Strip where she and Melanie had been when the quake struck. They ate, talked about kids, dogs and men, and then headed out.
It wasn’t late, but the street didn’t seem to be crowded. As they walked down the block toward Judy’s car, Maggie paused. The fissure that had opened in the street there had yet to be repaired. Cones and aluminum fences and warning signs surrounded it, but it still gaped in the combined light of the moon and the streetlights. As she glanced over toward it, a sense of unease filled her. She blinked, and suddenly she heard a fluttering in the air and saw a thick stream of black mist rising from the fissure.
“Dogs are the best companions,” Judy was saying. “They love you no matter what. But—”
“Judy, we have to get to the car now,” Maggie said. “Hurry.”
She took Judy’s arm, ready to run. But Judy was wearing spike heels, and running was not a possibility.
“Maggie, what’s the matter with you?” Judy demanded.
The fluttering sound was growing louder. Then the first of them stepped from around a telephone pole.
He was a young man in his twenties. He was in a casual suit and looked a little bit like a wannabe producer, except that his hair was too long.
And his teeth, when he opened his mouth, were way too long.
Maggie felt the second presence circling around from behind them and turned to look. This one was a girl in a slinky silk dress that would have done Carole Lombard proud. Her lips were bloodred but not dripping yet, which eased Maggie’s mind somewhat.
The third had apparently been a rapper at one time. He was laden with heavy gold chains. And the fourth was a Valley girl, miniskirt and all.
“Judy, keep behind me,” Maggie warned.
“What are you talk—” Judy started to protest, but then the first vampire flew right at them. Maggie had her hand in her purse already, her fingers curling around one of the small stakes she carried at all times. She caught him dead center in the chest and he dropped.
The Valley girl let out a howl of fury and came at them next, teeth bared, fangs dripping with saliva. Maggie pushed Judy behind her and reached for a second stake. The girl ducked, but Maggie grabbed her shoulder and threw her off, then gored her.
The rapper came next, along with the Carole Lombard clone. Two of them. Maggie fought two-handed, catching the rapper in the chest but missing Carole Lombard. The vampiress was almost on top of her when she suddenly stopped in shock and fell.
Maggie turned. Behind her stood Judy Bobalink, one shoe in hand, the stiletto heel dripping with the gory brown blood of the creature. As the corpses began to putrefy and fall to dust before them, Judy started to shake.
Maggie grabbed her. They had to get away. Quickly. She managed to rid the other woman of her second shoe. Then she grabbed her arm and dragged her the remaining distance to the car.
What the hell…? Maggie wondered as they ran.
The fissure in the road seemed to be a conduit for evil to enter the world, controlling those it touched.
Just how many similar fissures were there in the city?
And in the world?
Because of the SUV’s strange cargo, Scott was very careful to lock it when they got back to the hotel. He hurried to the suite, Rainier following, and all but threw the door open.
His note had been replaced by one from Melanie.
Went for coffee; be right back, it read.
“She’s getting coffee,” Scott told Rainier, then went into Melanie’s bedroom. He knew he should have felt as if he were trespassing, but he didn’t. He looked around, even checked under the bed. Hell, if she had traveled with a coffin, he would know it, wouldn’t he? Just one more reason to dismiss Rainier’s claims out of hand.
And speak of the devil, Rainier was standing in the doorway, watching him sympathetically, as if he knew the thoughts and feelings Scott was struggling with.
“Okay, so having to sleep in a coffin filled with one’s native earth is myth, right?” Scott asked harshly.
Rainier only walked into the room and looked around for a moment. There was a small jewelry case by the bed. He picked it up and offered it to Scott.
Scott did feel guilty now, really delving into her personal belongings, but he couldn’t help himself. He opened the jewelry box and almost dropped it. It was filled with earth.
“Technically, we can get away from it for quite some time, but having some nearby does make sleeping easier. You know—like a baby’s blankie,” Rainier explained.
Scott closed the box and set it back down on her bedside table. He felt sick—no, beyond sick—as the indisputable truth stared him in the face.
“You want more proof?” Rainier asked softly. “Open the minibar.”
Scott stared at him. He didn’t want to do it.
He did it anyway.
He saw several bottles of what looked, at first glance, like cherry soda.
He thought of the red drop near her lips when she had returned from the restroom on the plane.
He locked the minibar door and stared at Rainier. “None of this means anything. I’m from New Orleans. I’ve met lots of so-called vampires.”
Rainier stared back at him and shrugged. Then suddenly, and with a violence and viciousness that seemed like a dagger straight through Scott’s heart, he changed. His face became a mask made to evoke terror. He bared his teeth and revealed eyeteeth that had elongated and looked like the fangs of a cobra.
As quickly as it had come, the change was gone. If he had bli
nked at the wrong moment, Scott would have missed it.
They were still standing there, staring at one another, when the outer door opened. “Hey, where are you two?” Melanie called.
She saw Rainier first, then rushed through the doorway into her room and stared at Scott, stricken.
If he hadn’t already believed before, he would have then. The look on her face told him that it was true, all true. He didn’t know what he felt anymore, what he should do. He did know that the way he handled this moment would affect the rest of his life.
However long that might be.
Melanie spun on Rainier. “You…what did you tell him?” she demanded.
“The truth,” Rainier said softly. “He had to know. He has to be prepared.”
“But we’re not even prepared for this,” she said weakly, and then she turned to stare at Scott again.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have let you know…. I mean, you have the right to be…to loathe me.”
“Loathe you?” Scott asked quietly. “Melanie, I adore you. Nothing could make me feel any different about you.”
Okay, he was lying like hell, but he was confused. He did adore her—or the woman he’d thought she was, anyway—so where did that put him? Where did that put any of them? What the hell had happened to the normal world?
She was still just staring at him, her eyes filled with torment.
He kept talking.
“I think I have it all straight. Somewhere along the line, we’re all souls. And in death, the same as in life, we’re good, bad and in between. And what we are in life, that’s what we are in death. And in being…undead. So seeing as how we’re trying to fight a demon, I think it’s very important that we have me—whatever I am—and you, with whatever talents you have that I don’t really know about yet.” Had he made the least bit of sense? he wondered.
Maybe not, because she didn’t say a thing in response, just turned to stare accusingly at Rainier.
“Melanie, he had the right to know. I had to tell him,” Rainier said.
She nodded finally.
Did he feel the same way about her? Scott wondered.
He walked over to her and set his hands on her shoulders. Her eyes were still that beautiful crystal-blue—with that tinge of gold. He couldn’t help wondering if they’d been that way in life, too.
She should have been cold, according to legend, but she still felt warm and vibrant. He looked into her eyes and still saw her…soul? The wonder, beauty and courage that were uniquely her, certainly.
He smiled and he kissed her lips, and she started to cry. He felt the saltiness of her tears. She didn’t kiss him back at first, but finally her arms went around him, and if someone had told him that she was Medusa in the flesh and snakes would sprout from her head and kill him if he looked, he wouldn’t have cared.
From the doorway, Rainier cleared his throat. “Enough with all the mushy stuff, huh? We need to get back to the church.”
Melanie still had a shimmer of a question in her eyes as they broke apart. Scott offered her his most gentle smile. “We’re going to do our part to save the world,” he said. “And we’re going to be together.”
She smiled at last. Maybe there was still a little disbelief in her smile, but there was hope, too.
Scott took her hand and headed for the doorway. He was about to exit the suite when he paused, then went back to the table for one of the books he’d been looking at earlier.
“We’re going after a demon,” he reminded the others. “We need all the help we can get.”
Then they then headed out to the car, as if nothing in the world had happened, nothing had changed.
As they drove, Melanie inspected one of the canvas bags they had acquired at the church. As she did, Scott’s phone rang, and he handed it to her to answer. She glanced at the caller ID, and answered it. “Maggie?” A pause and then, “You have to try, and you have to get the word out. Have you spoken to Lucien?” Another pause.
“All right. If I can figure out anything that will help, I’ll call you right away.”
She hung up.
Scott glanced over at her. She was pale again. Very pale.
“Maggie was out with Judy and they were attacked by four vampires who seemed to have come out of a fissure left over from the earthquake. She said that she saw something black, like a shadow, and then the vampires came.”
“Is she all right?” Rainier asked.
“Is she a vampire, too?” Scott heard himself ask.
“No, not anymore,” Melanie said, distracted. She glanced at him then. “She’s the only case I have ever heard about in which…someone became totally human again. And Sean never was a vampire. She said that Judy is still in shock. And Lucien is coming.”
Imagine that, Scott thought dryly.
“Lucien is on his way here?” Rainier asked.
“Yes, and that’s good, but also kind of strange, because he thought his only role was to point me in the right direction…. And it’s bad, too, because now Maggie is having problems in California,” Melanie said.
“Maggie—who isn’t a vampire,” Scott said.
“But she does know how to kill one,” Melanie said grimly. “As does Sean…. I think maybe now they’ll have to tell Blake Reynaldo what’s going on.”
She fell silent, thoughtful.
Scott had a million questions he wanted to ask, though he wasn’t sure he really wanted all the answers. Can you fly? Can you turn into a bat…? How about a wolf? Can you disappear in a cloud of dust?
When did you become a vampire?
He decided to let it rest for the moment, except for one critical question.
“In a fight, how does this work?” he asked. “Do you have any special powers I should know about?”
“We can be injured, but we heal quickly,” Rainier answered. “Lop off our heads—and we die, just like anybody else. A stake through the heart will do it, too. That much is true. We do need blood to survive. Neither Melanie nor I have bitten anyone in…well, a very long time. We acquire our blood, if not always legally, at all times morally. And, yes, we can do something that’s a lot like flying. It’s something to do with the molecules in the body, but no one—not even the scientists and doctors among us—has actually figured it out.”
“And you paid for a flight?” Scott asked Melanie. “First class, even.”
“It’s very hard to get this far,” Melanie said, looking out the window. “It’s draining. I needed my strength for when I got here.”
“All right,” Scott said. It certainly made sense, anyway.
Rainier leaned forward to talk more easily. “I was the defender of the church,” he said. “I was knighted. I could best any man at a tournament. Then a noble of Ascencia attacked and tried to sack the church. We fought them off, but I was badly wounded. The priests tended to me in the church, but despite their efforts, I died. The thing is, I had been having an affair with the nobleman’s daughter, and I hadn’t realized just how thoroughly I had been seduced. She was one of those wickedly passionate lovers. I’d never really realized that her ardent grazes and nips were bites. I woke that night in the church with a ravenous hunger, and so I went after my enemy and his cohorts. Not a man survived. It was a bloodbath, and when it was over, even I was horrified. I was a hero, yes, but everyone was terrified of me. I managed to stage a new death for myself, and I watched as I was buried with tremendous honor. I spent hundreds of years wandering, and for many of those years, I—and the others of my kind I encountered—stayed hidden, and we were selective in choosing our victims. Many of our number were destroyed, and many more should have been. For quite a while, I was a kind of vigilante. When someone was slipping through the loopholes in the legal system after committing a terrible crime, I decided they were fair game. But as the world and technology changed, blood banks and hospitals became far more available. I met Lucien, and I went back to my church. The priest you met today knows who and what I am, and has helped me, a
s his father helped me before him. I’ve traveled widely, but Roma is my home, and I cannot see it destroyed.”
Scott knew that he was looking expectantly at Melanie, but she wasn’t saying a thing. He’d claimed that it didn’t matter. Maybe he needed to prove that to himself.
Once again, he parked as close to the church as he could get, and they walked the rest of the way, each of them carrying one of the canvas bags. Looking around as they approached, Scott couldn’t see a single sign of the battle they had fought that morning.
“Do you think Sister Maria Elizabeta is still here? That she’s all right?” Melanie asked, whispering suddenly. “Or do you think they’ve taken her back to the convent?”
“I think she’s here,” Scott said. “I’m sure some of the other nuns are with her, but I don’t think she would have left.”
He was right. The elderly nun was still there, as were Sister Ana and a few of the younger sisters. Sister Maria Elizabeta was still lying on one of the pews, her head on a small kneeler pillow, and they had brought water for her. Her fellow nuns surrounded her as if she were the queen penguin and they were her offspring.
Scott walked over and knelt down in front of her. “Is it time?”
She looked at him, and she seemed distraught. “This church has guarded the world from evil for many years. The catacombs themselves are not evil, nor are the dead. It is the demon who lurks below the earth, hating us for basking in the light of the sun and the love of God. The demon is seeking escape, and my fear is that he will find it because there are people who fear the wrath of the prophecy and so, whether they mean to or not, they will make it come true.” She took a deep breath, her expression one of pain, and not only physical pain. “I wasn’t strong enough. He has slipped through because of me.”
“No, I don’t believe that. We were down there. Perhaps we somehow freed him.”