Angel Souls and Devil Hearts (6 page)

“No!” Allison shouted at the mayor of Salzburg over the phone. “You don’t understand . . . Yes, I am with Colonel Cody right now, and the threat is real. That is why your
communications are malfunctioning. Believe me, troops are on the way, you must evacuate.”

She was silent for a moment, and even across the room, Cody could hear every word the mayor said in reply. There was no way he was going to take any action based on her word alone, even if
“Colonel” Cody backed her up. He just couldn’t take such a risk.

“Can you afford the risk if you don’t evacuate?” Allison said, getting angry now.

And then the earthquake began.

The hotel shook to its foundations, windows shattered and the floor beneath the bed began to buckle. Cody moved barely fast enough to knock Allison away from the bed and onto the marble bathroom
threshold. Above them the ceiling was about to cave in, and Cody saw it just in time. He covered Allison with his own body as it gave way.

The quake lasted seventeen seconds. When it was over, Cody’s back had been torn open by a falling beam, which even now he held up, away from Allison, with his body. As soon as the ground
stopped shaking, he used his strength to turn slowly, sending the beam sliding into the hole that had opened in the center of the room. For the moment, their spot half-in, half-out of the bathroom
seemed safe enough.

Even as he checked Allison for injuries, and found none, Cody’s back was healing. By the time Allison had the presence of mind to look him over, the only evidence of any wound was his torn
and bloody shirt. He looked around for a fresh one, and saw that most of their belongings had fallen down to the floors below. Aftershocks could come at any time, Cody knew, so he didn’t
waste a second worrying about clothing. He made do with an old Allman Brothers Band concert T-shirt that he’d worn to bed the night before. His tan-colored light cotton jacket was hung on the
bathroom door, and he grabbed that as well.

The one other thing he was able to salvage, from behind a heating grate in the wall, was his holstered Beretta—nine-millimeter, semiautomatic, loaded with hollow points, fifteen in the
clip and one in the chamber. He was a better rifle shot, but rifles were a tad conspicuous on most days. He slid into both holster and jacket, and turned to find Allison observing the entire
transformation with raised eyebrows.

“I’ve never understood why you feel the need to carry that,” she said.

“Call it a security blanket,” he answered. “I’ll never shoot as well as my old friend Annie Oakley, but then, I’m still around, aren’t I?”

She looked as if she were going to say something, and then must have realized it was not the time.

“Well, I’m certain the mayor will get with the program now, so what’s our next move?” Allison asked.

“You mean after we get out of here?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s talk about it after we get out of here.”

They smiled together, and then Cody walked to the edge of the hole, stepping gingerly. He wouldn’t have any trouble getting back up if he fell, but it
would
be inconvenient.

What he saw when he looked down was unexpected. Where he had assumed that their bed and most of their furniture had collapsed into the room below, in truth a chain reaction had taken place, with
the weight of each floor collapsing the next until they had all fallen in. And at the bottom . . . At the bottom there was only darkness. Cody struggled to concentrate, to focus his vision, and
then realized what he was seeing. A huge fissure had opened up right beneath the hotel, tearing its foundation wide enough that much of its bulk had fallen into that hole. But then how deep was the
hole if most of the debris had disappeared into it?

“Allison,” he said, “look out the window and tell me what you see.”

“Cracks,” she answered. “A lot of cracks, why?”

They shared a look then, which was nearly as effective as telepathy. It had been obvious from the first tremor that Mulkerrin’s power had caused the earthquake. They didn’t know how,
but they were certain it was him. Therefore, they could no longer put any limit on his abilities, not until they learned those limits for themselves. In the meantime they had to get out of the
hotel, perhaps out of the city proper, before another quake hit. They had both realized that there would very likely be another.

The first problem to be surmounted was that between them and the door was approximately twelve feet of open space, its edges crumbling, and a fall of sixty or seventy feet, minimum, waiting
below. The easiest way to go was out the window and onto the ledge which ran around the building on each of its three topmost floors. Once there, it was a simple task, as long as the next quake
took its time to make their way along the ledge to the next room.

Cody smashed the remaining glass away from the shattered window frame and helped Allison through. The couple who’d been staying in the next room had either not been in the room or had
already fled the hotel. The stairs, on the way down, were cracked and crumbling, and when they reached the lobby, they joined a large group trying to get a look into the hole without falling. As
was true in any disaster, it would be some time before the police could clear the gawkers away.

Cody could see the bottom of the hole now, and all of the debris and furniture strewn there. In fact, he could see Allison’s suitcase sticking out of the pile. The top of the junkheap was
about thirty feet down. Cody thought of coming back for Allison’s case later. But first . . .

“Okay, people,” Allison said, in English, to the crowd. “We don’t know when there will be another . . . an aftershock, and this is about the worst place to be if and when
that comes. Why don’t we all get into the street and wait for help to arrive?”

She received a dirty look from the hotel manager, who was now surrounded by people chattering at him about their losses. Several people were apparently injured, but it didn’t seem as
though anyone had been killed, at least not any guests of the hotel. In any case, people were beginning to file out now, and she and Cody turned to follow.

“
Ma che diavolo succede
?” a voice exclaimed behind them.

Neither Cody nor Allison understood more than a few words in Italian, but they got the idea. Back at the hole, an older, white-haired man was peering into the depths, and as they watched, he
backed off slightly, as if frightened.

Before they had reached the edge, Allison knew what they would find, and she was sure that Cody knew it too. But to see it was horror. The hole was now only ten feet deep, blocked after that
point by a shimmering pool, a silver mirror that rippled with each stone that fell from the crumbling floor to touch its surface.

“
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.”

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—”