Angel Souls and Devil Hearts (7 page)

“Communications are out, satellites are out and now you’ve had an earthquake!” Julie interrupted, stepping behind the President so Strauss could see them both on his own
screen. “Is this all coincidence, Erich?”

Henry and Julie both watched the President’s screen as Strauss fidgeted in his chair. Julie knew the man had seen footage of the Venice Jihad, and he couldn’t accept that such
tragedy might be occurring in his own country. But she also knew that quite soon, he wouldn’t have a choice.

“What of the shadows?” Strauss asked. “I don’t want them tearing my country apart, Julie. Henry. I think I’d better do this myself.”

Henry Russo and Julie Graham exchanged doubtful glances, each silently questioning Strauss’s grasp of reality.

“As far as the SJS is concerned,” Julie said, “they’ve agreed to act as just another part of the UN security force on this one. There will be no raping and pillaging of
your nation by shadows; that’s what the SJS was set up to
prevent
.”

Even while Julie was talking, she could see Henry’s face reddening. Time was wasting, and the President could not bear to waste time.

“Erich,” Henry snapped. “You are, of course, free to send all the troops you want into Salzburg, but our
suggestion
is that you attempt to evacuate what citizens you can
and surround the city. Rafael Nieto has assured us that UN security forces will begin to arrive within the hour to assist you in that.”

“I said I don’t want—” Erich Strauss began.

“
Jeeezus Christ
!” Henry snapped, and Julie dug her fingers into his shoulder as soon as the words were out. Too late.

“Listen here, Erich: it doesn’t matter worth a damn what you want. Rafael Nieto is secretary general of the UN, and the Security Council has passed an emergency resolution to go in
there and pull that bastard out like a rotten tooth. Now, you can cooperate, or get your boys out of the way, but one way or another, you’re not going to take on that crazy son of a bitch by
yourself. Got it?”

“I really don’t appreciate . . .,” Strauss began, but Julie wouldn’t let him go on. She forcibly slid the President’s chair from behind his desk and leaned over to
look closely into the videophone, giving the Austrian president a clear view of her face.

“Erich, Henry’s lost his temper, and we both apologize. But he does have a point. Don’t be parochial about this; it isn’t just an Austrian matter, it’s a UN matter.
As a member nation, you must respond to that. You have my word that the shadow troops will behave themselves, and that the rest of the security force will do its best to keep the damage at a
minimum. But let’s face it, you’ve already had an earthquake in Salzburg. The city is going to take some heavy hits.”

Silence, uncomfortable enough on a phone, was made even worse by being able to see the person with whom you were speaking. As Henry Russo pulled his chair back up to his desk, appropriately
ashamed of his behavior, he and Julie watched as the face of Erich Strauss finally registered the pain in his heart.

“You’re right, of course, I just . . . I don’t want Salzburg to become a war zone. I was born there, you know. My . . . my mother is there.”

All the fire went out of Henry Russo. He didn’t like Erich Strauss, but “like” had nothing to do with it.

“Erich, I’m sorry,” Henry said. “I didn’t mean to, well, I didn’t know. Of course we’ll all proceed with caution, and you should get in there as soon as
possible, but you do realize . . .”

The President of the United States wished he’d kept his mouth shut, as his Austrian counterpart turned his face away from the videophone. Then the screen went dark as the video portion of
the signal was turned off from the other end. Only the audio remained.

“Of course I do,” Erich’s voice said. “I’ve already said good-bye to the city in my heart. I only hope my mother fares better.”

Then the connection was severed.

In the oval office of the White House, the President and secretary of state of the United States of America looked at each other with a terrible mixture of anger, fear and sadness. As homey as
Henry Russo had tried to make the office when he was first elected, at that moment it felt colder and more heartless than ever.

Henry touched an intercom button on his phone and asked his aide to get George Marcopoulos on the line. Then he turned back to Julie, his only true “friend” in politics.

“This is going to be a nightmare,” he said, remembering the tapes of Venice.

“Henry,” Julie said, letting out a breath and shaking her head, “there’ll be no waking up from this one.”

London, England, European Union.
Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 3:01
P.M.
:

His trench coat was not nearly enough to keep him dry, as Hannibal trudged along London’s Baker Street in the pouring rain. He passed the address where a fictional
detective had once made his home, and gave a broad, exaggerated smile to those humans he encountered. Its effect was exactly as he desired, clearing the sidewalk in front of him. A smile from
Hannibal was sometimes more unsettling than a scowl.

Hannibal had discovered that, contrary to popular opinion, it didn’t always rain in London. Just most of the time. Hannibal smiled again, and passersby gave him a wide berth. He was amused
to find that the locals were more frightened than the tourists. Still, London had had more than its share of the weird and terrible over the centuries. The British had grown smart enough to fear,
where Americans were still dumb with fascination.

The rain fell in a blanketing torrent which turned the already black-and-white streets of London into a misty gray wasteland, a classic film, but out of focus. It could be a truly enjoyable
city, especially if one was familiar with the ins and outs of its nightlife, but the days were horrible. On the other hand, the gray rain meant no sun, and no sun meant Hannibal didn’t have
to think about it for once, about Venice and the change, and how his entire unlife was filled to bursting with lies and deception. He’d never had a problem with deception in the past, when he
had been the engineer of such acts, but now that he
had
to lie, was forced to live a deception . . . He despised it.

A life of peace.

Hannibal had lived for centuries, first as a leader among men, then as a lonely, rebellious vampire, and finally, as time went on, as the leader of one of the most powerful covens of the Defiant
Ones, helping to establish the traditions of his kind. He had been instrumental in building a corps of volunteers, humans who offered themselves once a year as blood sacrifices to Hannibal’s
kind. He had organized an international array of agents who answered only to him, who spied on whomever he wished them to, who kept him informed on every aspect of his people’s evolution. He
had been respected . . . feared . . .

Worshipped.

But no more. No, the actions of the clergyman, Mulkerrin, and the foolishness of Will Cody and Peter Octavian, had revealed the existence of vampires to the entire world—a world programmed
by fictional representations of his kind as evil, vile, villainous creatures who must, at all costs, be destroyed. Humanity had been placated by soothing words, tales of the church’s attempts
at genocide, and the efforts by certain members of the shadow community to be accepted into human society.

Only Hannibal didn’t want to be accepted.

Hannibal wanted to kill.

To feast, to drink the blood of
unwilling
human hosts—this was the destiny of his kind, the Defiant Ones. They were parasites who lived off the body of humanity, and Hannibal
reveled in that knowledge. Evil, vile, villainous—this was an image he embraced, and a life he missed. But no, the children of his one-time adversary, the late Karl Von Reinman, now ascribed
to a different philosophy, one which allowed a merging of two societies, shadow and human. But Hannibal knew such a merging was impossible.

Shadows and humans were natural enemies, predator and prey. They might toy with peace, but it could not last. The nature of shadows was to kill, to feed, to take without permission, without
warning and without mercy, whatever was needed. And that way of life was not gone, only held in abeyance. For now, those shadows who, like Hannibal, lusted for the old ways, must hide themselves
among the sheep, falsely advocating peace, or die. Hannibal himself had found the perfect hiding place, for in his position as chief marshal of the SJS, it was his job to hunt and often destroy
those shadows who reverted to the old ways.

“Rebels” and “criminals” they were called. Hannibal called them brothers. While he was forced to destroy some, many others had been saved, organized, hidden away until
the day Hannibal called them forward.

For the peace could not last. He would not allow it. Unified, the shadows would destroy their human counterparts. And if unity did not come naturally to them, especially to the children of Von
Reinman, well then Hannibal would force it upon them.

Soon.

Now his plan had a new wrinkle. Mulkerrin had returned. Father Liam Mulkerrin, the last of a line of powerful sorcerers, a sect within the Roman Catholic Church, who had used magic to control
all supernatural creatures, all shadows, except Hannibal’s people. The church came to call the vampires “Defiant Ones,” and sought to subjugate them for centuries, attempting
genocide several times. The last attempt had been in Venice, the Jihad, when Mulkerrin had opened doors into hell from which emerged the true shadows, demon-things born of brimstone and death.

Though the Jihad revealed the existence of the shadows to the world, it also held a glimpse of the future for Hannibal. For the first time, he had seen the true potential in the unity of his
people. Mulkerrin and his demons had been defeated, the sorcerer himself carried into Hell on the back of the shadows’ self-appointed savior, the arrogant whelp Peter Octavian. And the Church
had been brought to its knees.

Somehow, Mulkerrin had returned. Once again, Von Reinman’s blood-children were at the center of things. And Hannibal had been ordered,
ordered
, by Meaghan Gallagher—herself
not even the spawn of Von Reinman but of Octavian—to obey the United Nations commander, Jimenez. Well, that remained to be seen. Hannibal wanted Mulkerrin destroyed once and for all, a goal
he shared with all other shadows, and humans as well.

But if Mulkerrin’s presence could be used as the means to an end?

“Watch your step, ya bloody git!!” came the gruff voice of a burly Englishman, just as Hannibal collided with him knocking the big man back on his ass.

In seconds the man had regained his feet and pulled Hannibal up by the collar of his coat.

“Lissen ’ere, you fancy bast—”

No change had come upon Hannibal, he had not even bared fangs, but the man somehow sensed that something terrible was there and that he’d stepped in it. He smoothed the lapels on
Hannibal’s coat, then began to back away slowly at first, and then in a light jog. He was lost to the misty, rain-shrouded street in seconds, devoured.

The collision had done Hannibal some good, though. He had spent far too much time in the past five years brooding, lost in his thoughts. The big man had just jolted him from that reverie, and
now he found himself just a block from his office, the headquarters of the SJS.

He took the steps two at a time, not to hurry, simply to get there. A shorter stride was uncomfortable for him, unnatural. The door was closed, but a light shone through the opaque windows at
either side of the entrance. Inside Hannibal quickly doffed his trench coat and shook the rain from his long white hair. The receptionist, a human named Marie, who was obsessed with vampires,
nearly came to attention when he entered. She was as fascinated as she was frightened, and he smiled at her as she got up to make him a cup of tea. Thirsty for blood though he might be, he was
never above a good cup of tea. And this Marie was attractive. Eventually, he would have her in all the ways they both imagined, and some she would never have dreamed.

Hannibal heard a file drawer sliding shut in the other room, and then the approach of his deputy chief, Rolf Sechs. The shadow was large, as burly as the man Hannibal had knocked down, and yet
almost gentle, if such could be believed of any vampire. And silent. He had light brown hair and crystal blue eyes, and his kindly features belied his size and strength.

Mute, Rolf communicated with his face and hands, and when necessary with a voice-pad which vocalized his writing. Intelligent, loyal and a fierce warrior, he would have been the logical choice
for deputy chief if he had wanted the job. Hannibal knew better. Rolf had no interest in the SJS. He had been asked to take his present position by Meaghan Gallagher, the de facto leader of the
world’s shadows. Rolf was also a blood-son of Karl Von Reinman, and Gallagher had given him the job to keep an eye on Hannibal.

“You have taken the appropriate measures, I presume,” Hannibal said, but did not wait for a reply. “We leave for Salzburg in one hour. Be certain the entire unit is
prepared.”

Rolf simply nodded. Hannibal was comfortable with the knowledge that whatever happened, when he finally made his move, Rolf would have to be destroyed.

The mute German watched as Hannibal carried a cup of tea into his office and shut the door. When he was gone, Rolf flirted silently with Marie. Though he felt no special attachment to her, they
had been lovers for more than a year, and she often told him about things she shouldn’t have, things she’d heard Hannibal saying in the office. Rolf knew far more than Hannibal
imagined, and was preparing for their eventual confrontation. Hannibal would have killed Marie if he’d known.

Rolf knew that thought thrilled her.

Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 11:39
A.M.
:

As far as Meaghan Gallagher was concerned, it was a stroke of luck that George Marcopoulos was still in Boston. He and his wife Valerie, who had been ill, did still live in
town, but George spent so much of his time running back and forth to New York and Washington that it was unusual to find him at home. If Valerie’s recovery were less than complete, George
would most likely have to retire as shadow ambassador. The thought disturbed Meaghan, for she could think of no other acceptable human candidates.