“And you can be destroyed. As can a demon,” Lucien assured her.
“We need to head out,” Rainier said.
But Scott wasn’t ready. He was still staring at Melanie’s drawing. “What if we were to analyze the picture?” he wondered aloud.
“What do you mean, ‘analyze’ it?” Lucien asked.
Scott flashed him a smile and pointed to the picture. “Melanie’s drawings have always meant something. In the body, Sister Maria Elizabeta has left us, so this picture of her fighting demons indicates her spirit. Somehow she’s still here with us.”
“Why the rain?” Rainier asked.
“I don’t think it’s rain. See how she’s holding her arms and her hands? I can’t actually cut up the ground and move it around, but imagine moving her a bit to the left, and…then it’s as if those drops are coming from her wrists,” Scott said.
“As if she’d cut them?” Melanie said in horror. “She certainly wasn’t a suicide,” she protested.
“No…,” Scott agreed. “I think it’s to show the power of her spirit to drive the demons away. And I’m not sure that what she’s holding is a sword. I think it’s more of a dagger. I’m not sure what the drawing means, really, other than that she’s with us.”
“We can only hope,” Lucien said.
Melanie looked at him. She realized that he was still disturbed by his new responsibilities.
She looked over at Celia, still asleep, eyes closed, caged within the boundary of nuns and symbols. The girl looked so young, sweet and peaceful. But she had been under the demon’s influence and perhaps still was.
She turned back to Lucien as Scott hunkered down by her drawing, studying it further. “Are you coming with us?”
He shook his head. “This is a battle the earth signs must fight. I can only rally what help I can across the globe. It’s growing late. It’s time now for you, Rainier and Scott to head out to Bael’s lair beneath the earth.”
“I know what they mean!” Scott proclaimed, looking up excitedly.
“What?”
“The words you told me,” he said to Lucien. “That night when we went to the bar. ‘The blood of the pure is toxic to the darkness of evil.’ You said you’d heard those words but you didn’t know what they meant. Maybe Sister Maria Elizabeta knew she wouldn’t survive until the end, so she sent these words to me after establishing a connection in the dream. She needed you to hear those words, to know…”
“What are you talking about?” Melanie demanded.
“There was probably never a human being who had so pure a heart,” Scott said.
“You want us to cut her open and take her blood?” Melanie demanded.
“We don’t have to cut her open,” Rainier said.
“Look at your picture, Melanie,” Scott said. “We…uh, only have to slit her wrists. The blood of the innocent, the blood of the pure. Maybe it’s even a test, in a way.” He cleared his throat. “I mean…you two need blood. But this isn’t blood for sustenance. This is the blood of someone totally pure. She’s offering it to us. It’s her final act against Bael, and the part she was given to play in this battle to prevent Armageddon and let the world live on.”
Melanie turned away. “I can’t do it,” she whispered.
Scott looked at Lucien, then at Rainier. He groaned softly. “I suppose this has to be my task.”
Rainier shrugged. “It’s not that we won’t, it’s just best if you deal with this situation.”
Scott left the picture drawn in the dust, then walked away to kneel beside the aged nun’s body. Melanie couldn’t watch. She walked to the other side of the church, wondering how she, of all creatures, could be so squeamish. She just prayed that Scott was right in his interpretation of her drawing.
Sister Ana, ever competent and prepared, walked over to Scott and gave him a small scalpel from her medical bag. She also offered him several empty vials, the kind often filled with holy water for supplicants to wear around their necks. The most amazing thing, Melanie thought, was that Sister Ana didn’t question anything.
She worked with them based on faith alone.
Faith—including faith in me, Melanie thought.
She knew that Scott was careful and tender, but to her distress, the scent of fresh blood seemed to hang on the air, and she winced as the scent aroused the hunger she always prayed she had learned to quench.
“We’re ready,” Scott said.
I’m not good enough for this. I’m not pure, Melanie thought.
No, she wasn’t pure, not in any way, shape or form.
As night began to fall, the hectic pace of the business heart of Rome started to slow. Tourists no longer thronged the Coliseum and the Forum. Actors dressed as Roman soldiers and gladiators disappeared from the nearby sidewalks, along with their photo-selling assistants.
The Forum was now given over to the cats that came out to slink through the darkness. And the nearby streets grew quiet.
Deadly quiet. Melanie was certain that the news about the worldwide epidemic of violence was probably keeping people in. That was a very good thing tonight.
They had left the car in a nearby parking lot and walked from there. Along the way they saw a number of police cars cruising the streets. They tried to stick to the shadows, because they looked like a strange group to be walking the city streets at that hour. Choosing what they might need had not been easy; they couldn’t be too encumbered to move, so their pockets held vials of holy water—and one vial apiece of Sister Maria Elizabeta’s precious blood. Scott had opted for the flame thrower they’d found at the church in the city, while Rainier had acquired a semiautomatic pistol—just in case, he’d decided.
“I wonder what we’re looking for,” Melanie said, walking at Scott’s side.
“I don’t think we need to worry. Whatever it is, it will find us,” he said.
They were nearing the arch Celia had described. Scott suddenly slowed his pace as Rainier, who had been walking just ahead of them, stopped.
“We should do this without Melanie,” Scott said, staring down at her. “Seriously, I think maybe you should be back at the church with Lucien. Helping the nuns keep Celia under control.”
Melanie smiled slowly, touched. He was trying to protect her. Her cavalier, hoping to fight the battle for her.
“I think those nuns will do just fine. And I believe that Sister Maria Elizabeta’s body will be an effective deterrent to whatever part of Bael tries to escape through the catacombs,” Melanie said softly. “I’m needed here. With you.”
Rainier had been looking away, trying to give them a private moment. Now he shook his head impatiently. “She’s right. It has to be the three of us,” he said to Scott. “Capricorn, Virgo and Taurus. That’s the prophecy.” He started walking again.
Scott was still staring at Melanie. “I just wish you—”
She reached up and touched his face. “Scott…you’ve led a decent life. I wasn’t always so upstanding. Maybe this is my way of earning…earning a right to go on existing. It doesn’t matter. We have to do this together. But it is strange. For so many years I’ve been content just to exist, but now…now I want to live.”
His grin was crooked. “With me?” he asked.
She nodded, meeting his eyes. He had beautiful eyes. Deep, dark, expressive, intelligent. She felt an inner pang. Where had he been all these years? Why hadn’t she met him, gotten to know him, until…now?
They were startled by a hoarse cry from ahead. Scott sprinted forward, Melanie following on his heels.
“Rainier!” she cried out.
He was standing in the center of the sidewalk, huge black shadows swooping all around him. He wore both his rosary and a large silver crucifix on his chest. The shadows weren’t touching him—yet—but they were swooping low enough to keep him busy. Scott raced and positioned himself back-to-back with Rainier, so that neither of them could be taken from the rear. Melanie went on the offensive, tossing holy water at the creatures every time
they drew near. She measured her success in hisses and cries of fury, and then the black shadow-bats began to fall.
One of them fell at Melanie’s feet, and she looked down. The creature had been caught in midmetamorphosis, half in human form, half still shadow-bat, burning, hissing and steaming. But it had a grip on her leg and was drawing itself to her, fangs gnashing.
She stooped low, a sharpened cross in her hand, and slammed the point down into the creature’s head. The jaws snapped, and the thing went up in a puff of smoke.
She saw Scott using a large cross like a scythe, swinging it back and forth, batting the creatures away. She moved forward, tossing more holy water as she went.
Slowly they began to even the odds against them. As the battlefield narrowed, Melanie tried desperately to stay at his side. She was afraid for him; the gnashing fangs and teeth could not do to her or Rainier what they could to Scott.
Scott was still swinging when the last of the shadow-bats went down.
Rainier set a hand on his shoulder. “They’re gone,” he said.
Scott went still, but he only said, “We’ve just begun.” He pointed ahead of them. They had reached the place where Bael waited.
They crossed beneath the remains of the ancient arch and saw, to the far right of the roadside, a ledge of stone, perhaps a fallen roof. Beneath it, the world was entirely black.
“Do we go down?” Melanie asked.
“I think we have to,” Scott said, but before they could go farther, a shriek of pure terror sounded from around the corner ahead.
Even as they sprinted toward the sound, someone threw a rock at the nearest light, pitching the street into darkness as another flurry of pitch black shadows began to take form.
A young woman was being tossed back and forth between two groups of hoods. Some had spiked hair; a few sported tattoos. The young woman was clearly terrified.
“Politizia! Politizia!” she screamed.
One of the thugs grabbed her and turned her toward him, showing his fangs as his face twisted into a monster’s mask.
She let out another horrified scream.
At that moment a police car came screeching around the corner. “Politizia! Politizia!” she shrieked again.
The police car jerked to a halt. Two officers jumped out, shouting for the thugs to let the girl go, but the vampires only laughed derisively.
And then several of them flew at the officers.
“Hell,” Scott whispered, then sprang forward, Rainier and Melanie following close behind. Melanie was ready with the holy water, and Rainier lifted off the ground himself, flying toward the creatures and catching two of them, then heaving them aside with a force that sent them crashing into the nearest building.
Scott drew out the flame thrower, catching the cocky bastard who had nearly bitten the young woman.
The first officer fell back against the car, fingers trembling as he drew a crucifix from beneath his shirt and held it out before him. The second swore and started shooting into the melee.
But bullets didn’t stop the things. And though their triumvirate had saved the young woman, they weren’t close enough to reach the gun-firing officer before one of the thugs took hold of him, lifted him close and ripped his throat out.
The sound was horrible. The ripping, tearing wetness of it seemed to drown out everything else.
The vampire finished with his victim, twisted the neck and ripped the head from the shoulders, then tossed the pieces to the ground.
Scott let out a horrific wail of pure fury and raced in. Melanie cried out: he hadn’t taken out a weapon, he had merely thrown himself at the vampire. He was moving at an amazing speed, but she flew after him, terrified. She knew the power of her kind, knew the ferocity of well-honed fangs.
Rainier was engaged with the others, bringing most of them down quickly with his expertise in wielding the sharpened crosses. But Scott…
She was stunned to see that he had already engaged the vampire, which had made a run for Scott, like a bull, and Scott hadn’t even tried to dodge him. He’d met him head on and caught him by the shoulders, slammed him against the police car, and then taken hold of his head between his hands.
And twisted.
The creature fell to the ground.
“He’s not dead!” Melanie shrieked. “Stop him!”
The vampire had been playing possum, trying to gather his strength and his fury. As Melanie cried out, he reached for Scott’s leg. But Scott was ready; he slammed the spiked end of a cross straight through the creature’s head.
She heard a babbling sound and realized it was the remaining police officer.
“Get into the car! Now!” she shouted at him.
The officer, shaking, let her maneuver him into the car. As she did so, Scott reached for the man’s gun, then turned and shot another of the creatures in the head.
Screaming and still babbling, the officer drove the car straight into the wall of the ruins.
Melanie was about to turn to run after him, but Rainier let out a hiss, and then she heard it.
Marching.
An army of bones was rising from the depths now. Some had only one arm, others were missing ribs. Mouths dropped open and snapped closed; hands carried old knives and swords.
Melanie began swinging one of her crosses, knocking the first rank to pieces, but Scott stepped quickly past her.
“They’ll just put themselves back together,” he warned, then he used the flame thrower again, charring the bones to ash. When one slipped through, he used the snub-nosed revolver he had taken from the cop to explode its skull. Rainier became a whirl of motion, kicking and shooting, bringing them down in piles of dust, stamping on limbs that continued to move blindly across the ground.
Someone screamed from a block away; Melanie decided she was the least important in the current fight, and turned and ran in the direction of the scream. “I’m on it!” she shouted back over her shoulder.
The night seemed unnaturally dark. Even with the full moon rising in the sky, the ruins cast impenetrable shadows, and the surrounding trees blocked out the glow. She heard the hair-raising scream again, a cry of pure terror, but she saw nothing.
Finally she saw a dark form in front of her, low on the ground, curled up like a large ball. She slowed her pace, staring all around, looking for danger.
A breeze rose from nowhere, lifting her hair.
The next sound she heard wasn’t a scream but a low moan, which quickly turned into the wrenching sound of a child’s sobbing.
“It’s all right,” Melanie said soothingly, moving more quickly toward the huddled shadow. “It’s all right. Who are you? Sono gentile. Che…?”
She reached the huddled child and hunkered down, lifting the child’s face by the chin. And then she gasped, stunned. She was staring into the face of her little sister, the child she had been so tempted to rip into and drain so many years before.
“No,” she moaned, trembling.
And then her sister laughed and grew to a massive height, a giant shadow that covered the face of the moon. She backed away as it suddenly exploded into a massive rain of fetid decay, and charred flesh and bone, all of which began to swirl, like a nightmare eddy, all around her.
16
Scott swung around, certain that he’d heard something behind him. When he turned, he saw that Rainier, too, was reconnoitering, anxious to be prepared for whatever form of the living—or the dead—might be coming after them next. But for the moment they were alone in a field of bone dust and scraps of rotting shrouds. The air was alive with the remnants of gunpowder and bone dust, and the smell of charring was strong. The fissure to the black gaping underworld was quiet, as if waiting for them to enter.
“I think we have to go in,” Rainier said regretfully.
“I agree. But…where’s Melanie?” Scott asked.
“She ran after that last scream. We…have to prevent all the violence we can, but…”
“He’s trying to split us up,
” Scott said.
Together, they turned, racing as one in the direction Melanie had taken. As soon as they rounded the corner, they saw her.
She was caught in the center of a strange back whirlwind. Her eyes were dazed, and she was making no attempt to move.
Scott rushed forward but was thrown back by the violence of the storm. Rainier helped him scramble to his feet.
“Together!” Rainier roared over the wailing of the whirlwind. “The holy water!”
Scott made it to his feet and braced himself. They approached the maelstrom together, tossing holy water as they went. Scott started chanting Latin prayers he remembered from school as they made headway, a fraction of an inch at a time. When they got closer, both men yelled Melanie’s name, but she showed no sign of having heard them. They penetrated the whirling black storm at last, and Scott’s fingers touched Melanie’s arm.
But they couldn’t pull her free. All three of them became caught up in the black eddy, trapped where they stood. There was one weapon they hadn’t used yet; none of them had wanted to use it—it was their last measure. But now Scott reached into his pocket, straining against the force of the dark whirlwind, to slip his fingers around the vial of Sister Maria Elizabeta’s blood.
And he released it into the stream.
A terrifying shrieking rose around them, as if a thousand banshees were wailing all at once in fury.
You will die in the end. You will die in the mire of the earth, in the fires of hell. You will suffer eternal agony….
But despite the words that insinuated themselves into Scott’s mind, the storm began to slow. Scott strained with all his might and dragged the others with him. They crashed down onto the ground a few feet beyond the borders of the dying storm, and as they lay there the fetid muck hailed down over them.
“It worked,” Melanie said in awe. “Maria Elizabeta is still with us. But Bael…I saw…my sister, Scott.” The pain in her eyes was agonizing to see.
Scott pushed himself up, offered Melanie a hand.
Rainier was already back on his feet.
“It’s time to go in,” he said quietly.