Dust to Dust (24 page)

“She's still breathing,” Sister Ana said. “But…” She sat back, stretching her spine and neck as if she had been bent over for too long. “He is coming,” she said. “He is coming.”

“Bael?” Scott asked.

“No,” Sister Ana said. “The Oracle.”

“But Sister Maria Elizabeta is the Oracle,” Scott protested. She couldn't die. If she did, they were lost.

“Just as you were chosen to receive the power of another, so will there be another Oracle,” Sister Ana said. “We must keep her alive until he comes, lest the weakness of her flesh let Bael in to corrupt her soul.”

“Then let's get her to a hospital,” Melanie said.

“A hospital will not change things,” Sister Ana said.

Sister Maria Elizabeta opened her eyes then. She saw Melanie and reached out, groping for her. Melanie took her hand and sank down by her as the old nun squeezed her hand painfully. Then the aged nun began to speak.

“The fissures…they are opening all over. Everywhere. Faith comes from within, and it's what…I've seen them. Tell your friends that faith comes from within…. For centuries this church, and even the pagan temple below, have caged him, but he is escaping. The battle begins here, but it will not end here. I was weak, and he broke the seal. You've seen…you've seen the shadows. There is another place. I have seen it in my sleep, and you…you have
felt it. Do not worry. You will find it. But the word must be spread. Tell them…to remember, faith is what frees us. We bear it within us, and it is different for us all.”

Her grip on Melanie eased, and Melanie stared at Sister Ana in panic. Sister Ana smiled. “She is still with us. She will not leave until the new Oracle is with us.”

“Should we take her back to the convent?” Rainier asked.

“She is comfortable here. I have her heart medicines, and so long as we are here, we can see what comes from the earth, can stand what vigil we are able to, and she can still touch you in her dreams. You must rest now, and prepare for the next assault.”

“Perhaps we should take the offense, rather than waiting for the attack,” Scott said.

Rainier disagreed. “There's so much we still don't know. If only we understood what it will take to win the
final
battle…”

“The Roman Empire did not collapse because of a single great cataclysm,” Sister Ana reminded them. “It was eaten away from within and weakened. You must fight your battle and your battle alone. The answers will come if you hold true to your course. Go now and rest. We are watching, we are guarding.”

There was nothing else to do. Scott nodded. Melanie planted a kiss on Sister Maria Elizabeta's forehead, and they filed out.

The sun was still high above the horizon. Birds chirped, and a soft breeze blew. It was a beautiful summer's day. The world seemed ridiculously normal
as the three of them stood before the church, looking at one another in shock and exhaustion and fear.

“She
is
dying. And she's our link. If we don't finish this…” Melanie said. “And we
can't
finish it without her.”

“You heard Sister Ana. Someone else is coming,” Scott said.

“Well, we're not getting anywhere standing here,” Rainier said. “We need to reload and rearm, read more, keep going until we do have the answers.”

“I know what we need to do,” Scott said, suddenly certain. “Take a tour.”

“What?” Melanie said, puzzled.

“A tour. The Coliseum, the Palatine Hill, the Forum.”

“Scott, I'm not really sure this is the time for seeing the sights,” Melanie said.

“I know what you mean,” Rainier said, looking at Scott. “The shadows.”

Scott nodded. “Maybe I'm crazy. But, hey, everything else is crazy, so why not me, too?”

“Let's do it,” Rainier said. “We'll stop by the church for some more weapons, then head out like good little tourists and see what we can see.”

“Why not? It's not like I'm going to be able to sleep, anyway,” Melanie agreed.

“One day, hopefully, I'll get to sleep for a week,” Scott said. He looked at Melanie, not caring that Rainier was there in his certainty that she needed to hear what he was going to say next. “With you beside me,” he said softly.

She studied him gravely. “I guess we have to keep
the world spinning on its axis if we're going to sleep for a week.”

“Shall we get on with it, then?” Rainier suggested. He was staring at Scott with an odd light in his eyes and a half smile curving his lips. The other man approved, Scott thought, and the knowledge made him happy.

As they headed to the church for supplies, Melanie, heedless of the time back in L.A., put through a call to Maggie and repeated everything that Sister Maria Elizabeta had said.

Especially the part about faith.

 

Maggie, Sean, Blake and Judy were all gathered in Melanie's apartment, along with both dogs. Blake, Maggie knew, was worrying about Judy's sanity, and Sean was silent, just looking out the window, watching.

“Blake, you didn't see them. I did,” Judy insisted stubbornly.

“Sweetie,
vampires?
”

It was Bruno who warned them with a huge baying sound.

“They're here,” Sean said, and stepped back from the window just as a massive black bat came crashing through the glass.

Sean was ready, but the creature was fast. It began to transform even before it landed. The face became that of a wizened old man, whose expression mirrored the creature's snub-nosed visage. The fangs didn't change at all. They only enlarged. The vampire was bald and hideous.

Sean grabbed the broomstick he had broken and
sharpened earlier; even as the thing rose, he slammed the point into its chest. It let out a furious shriek, and began flapping and jerking spasmodically, before bursting into ash and dust.

Blake Reynaldo, seasoned cop, was on his feet then, staring in disbelief. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he breathed and crossed himself.

“There will be more,” Maggie warned.

There was a sudden flurry of wings and shrill, squeaking cries that filled the night, and then the creatures began coming and coming and coming.

Judy Bobalink didn't scream when one of the creatures headed for Miss Tiffany. “Bastard!” she declared, and she grabbed a lamp from the table, swinging it with all her might against the thing. It crashed against the wall, and Sean speared it.

Maggie went to work. Even before her conversation with Melanie, she'd made sure that she was sitting with the fire poker and a lighter in hand. She set several of them on fire, and when they faltered and fell, she speared them with the poker. Blake was one hell of a good cop; he caught on quickly. He drew a lighter from his pocket and mimicked Maggie, going after them with fire.

The dogs bayed.

The creatures screamed, burst into ash and fell.

And then it was over.

Blake was shaking, and staring at Judy.

“See?” she said.

Blake nodded, then looked questioningly at Maggie.

“They're coming out of at least one of the fissures left from the quake,” she said.

“What the hell are we supposed to do? I can't arrest steam or smoke or—bats!” Blake complained.

“No, you can't arrest bats, and you can't force the world to believe,” Sean said. He looked at his wife, and smiled that smile she loved so much. “What did Melanie say?”

Maggie looked over at Judy and Blake. Judy looked stronger—and angry. Blake was still in shock. Bruno and Miss Tiffany were staring up at her, too.

“All right,” Maggie said at last. “We have to go to the fissures and…well, douse them with holy water and perform the ritual of exorcism.”

“Vampires are living in the fissures?” Blake asked.

“No. The…the spirit possessing them and people like your physics professor is coming from the fissures,” Sean explained.

Blake grimaced. “What if I'm recognized by some of the other cops on the street?”

“What if some of the other cops on the street start getting bitten—or worse, taken over themselves?” Sean asked.

Blake sat down heavily on the couch, then looked up at Maggie and Sean. “Ah, hell. Do I need to know Latin to help perform an exorcism?” he asked.

 

The Forum was like a time capsule. Century after century, rulers and rich men had changed it. Christian houses of worship had replaced temples to forgotten gods. To wander this ancient relic of the one-time empire was fascinating. Scott remembered his first visit, when he'd thought that the large stone containers
he saw were some type of strange ancient urinal, only to find out that he was sadly mistaken—they were part of the world's first fast-food cafés, where a passerby could purchase a glass of wine dipped from one, along with food to eat as he hurried on his way.

“‘The area was drained at the beginning of the rule of the Etruscan kings,'” Melanie read aloud from the guidebook in her hand. “‘In the iron age, it was a necropolis. At other times in its history it was frequented by lawyers and politicians, strumpets and shopkeepers. Legal matters were dealt with at the basilicas.'”

Rainier had wandered off on his own, so Melanie and Scott strolled along together.

They passed by the Temple of Vespa, and he marveled that the architecture, even in ruins, could still provide incontrovertible proof of ancient talent.

Scott stopped, looking beyond massive pillars and arches, and blinked.

Black mist was swirling through the air just beyond his reach.

Melanie was still reading, but he didn't even hear her.

The mist—or maybe it was smoke?—kept eluding him, keeping just ahead of him as he tried to catch it.

“Scott?”

Melanie's voice seemed to come from far away. Suddenly he saw a girl in front of him. She had long blond hair, and wore a fashionable blouse and plaid school-uniform skirt. She looked very serious, even worried, as she stood there just staring at him.

“Help me,” she whispered.

“What's wrong?” he asked her.

“Please, come help me,” she repeated, her tone desperate.

He was tempted to do as she asked, but something held him back.

“You have to tell me what's wrong,” he said.

He noticed that the sun was setting, the shadows beginning to lengthen.

He thought he heard a hint of the now-familiar sound of fluttering wings on the air.

The girl looked around, then took a step toward him. “I need…I need…”

She flew at him. Her fingers, like talons, hooked into his shoulders. He gripped her around the waist, trying to rip her away and felt the searing heat of liquid fire as she opened her mouth, still clinging tenaciously to him.

And then he felt the first scrape of her teeth.

“T
his is insane,” Blake whispered.

It was the wee hours of the morning in Los Angeles, and the street was quiet. A car went by now and then, and the distant sound of music from a late-night bar down the long stretch of the road wafted by on the air.

“You know, I'm Roman Catholic,” Blake said. “I could wind up excommunicated for this.”

“Blake, dear, shut up,” Judy told him.

“I'm ready,” Sean said. He took the prayer book they'd acquired at Judy's church and he started to read.

Maggie began to sprinkle the holy water they'd acquired at the same place over the gaping break in the road.

“Insane,” Blake said again.

Then he froze, as Sean skipped a beat.

The earth was moaning. A low howl was emanating from deep in the fissure, touched with fury and the coarse sound of nails on a blackboard. It was soft at first, but was increasing in volume.

“This is real, isn't it?” Blake whispered.

Sean's voice rose as he began to read again; Judy
screamed as the ground began to tremble, and she lost her balance, but Blake caught her before she could fall.

Maggie joined in with her husband's chanting, followed by Judy and Blake, all of them reading as if their lives depended on it.

The moaning rose to a high pitch.

Black dirt suddenly blew into the sky with the force of water from a geyser, then thundered back to earth.

The moaning stopped.

They stood, covered in dirt, staring at one another.

“Is that it?” Judy whispered.

“I don't know,” Maggie admitted.

“I know that there are a dozen more of these in the city,” Sean said. “I know that we need to keep moving.”

 

Maria Elizabeta was young and beautiful, trusting, and naive. She believed in goodness, and she was also at that age where the world was filled with adventure. She stood in that middle realm between reality and dreams, between the dark and the light, the truth sleeping somewhere in the back of her mind, and the wonder of her fantasies at the forefront.

He was an arrestingly handsome man. He sat down beside her, and she realized that they were at a café. A half-filled cup of cappuccino sat before her on the table, and her friends had wandered off. She thought she heard them laughing and tittering behind her; they had been raised by the sisters at the convent school where they lived, and boys—and certainly men—were objects of deep intrigue. They all dreamed and fantasized and talked about the opposite sex. Even those who were
destined to go into service to the Church liked to talk and tease and dream. It was allowed, because they were still so young.

He had winked at her, and asked, if he might take the chair next to her. Then he asked her name, and told her that she was beautiful. His eyes were dancing and dark, and his voice was husky and masculine and seductive. In the end, he wanted to walk with her, and she didn't mind taking a walk. He was a perfect gentleman, never touching her, just making her laugh, because he was so charming.

But that night she was suddenly awakened from her deep sleep.

He was there, standing by her bed, and he brought a finger to his lips, warning her not to cry out. She tried to tell him that she was worried about him, that he had to get out, that someone else might awaken. “You will become a bride of illusion,” he told her. “Thus you cannot betray your calling. After all, you must know what it is that you will miss.”

She said no, but something within her was weak, because suddenly, she was no longer sleeping in her sparse little cot at the girls' school. She was with him in a room where the fire in the hearth burned hot and she, too, was warm. She felt as if there were a strange drumbeat in the air, something that whispered of passion and urgency. She could feel him; more, she could feel herself. She could feel the throb and the fire in her own body, and she wanted so desperately to feel more of his. He touched her flesh, and she longed to know everything that was carnal between a man and a
woman, wanted to feel his kisses, and his hardness between her thighs.

He was so handsome, so strong. His dark eyes elicited her response as pleasurably as the sound of his voice. Whispers deep in her mind told her that this shouldn't be happening, that she had made up her mind long ago. She had felt her calling, and she believed it to be a true one. She would be needed one day; she had known it, just as she had known that she always had to be strong.

However beautiful he might be, she had to break away.

“I cannot,” she told him simply. “I cannot. I am sworn to another.”

And that was when he changed.

His voice became like the roar of thunder; his breath was a blast of rancid heat. And the face that had been so charming and handsome changed. She saw the flesh tightening into a horrible mask. His nose lengthened, and protrusions rose from his reddening forehead. He was not straight but hunched, and his backbone was studded with knobs, like the scales of a crocodile. His chin grew pointed, and his eyes glittered with the greatest malice and evil imaginable.

“I tried to give you beauty, but you would rather be an old hag. Well, old hag, you are weakening. You almost believed in youth and passion, and you almost surrendered to me. Your days are numbered. You will die without first succumbing to my fires, and you will know that you betrayed your life and yourself.”

She cried out in horror. He had become a demon.
Scaly, red, with pustules breaking through his skin and a cruel fire burning in his eyes, a fire that reflected an inferno of lives and souls, the silent screams of those who had been seduced, then fallen from his grace to burn and smolder in agony forever and ever.

“Sister! Sister, wake up!”

She wasn't alone. Someone was coming. It was Lucien DeVeau, and though he was still far away, he was racing toward her, trying desperately to reach her. “Sister, please, he's only in your mind. He hasn't touched you. He can't hurt you if you don't let him. He's only in your dreams, trying to seduce you from your task.”

She looked at her own hands then, as the demon howled with rage and thrust her away. She saw the wrinkles on her hands, the age spots. She had lived her life; she wasn't a young girl. She had grown strong with the years. She had known in her heart, since she was very young and had turned away from all the material pleasures of life, that hers was more than just a calling by any one religion. It was a calling to goodness.

She was old now, dying.

She was weak, and he was preying upon her. But Lucien, too, could enter her dreams, and he was coming to help her.

 

“Sister! Maria Elizabeta!”

The horrible face of the demon, was gone, and she heard Sister Ana's voice calling her from the torment of her dream.

She knew that she was dying, losing strength. She
was falling easily now into those fantasies of youth and beauty. She was letting him come closer and closer.

She couldn't forget her mission; she was the Oracle. Until she could pass on the burden and the knowledge in her soul, she had to find the strength to withstand his temptations.

Around her, many of the sisters were softly crying.

“Do not cry,” she told them. “I will be strong,” she vowed. “Foul creature cast from heaven!” she cried out, addressing the demon. “You can do nothing to hurt me.”

The ground trembled.

 

Scott's grip on the young female vampire intensified, but she was like a snake, limbs wound everywhere about him. His shirt pulled open as he strained. She screamed suddenly, and he realized that the cross on the rosary Rainier had given him had touched her naked flesh.

He smelled the burning that rose from the spot.

He wrenched the girl away from him at last, throwing her hard against a tall pillar gleaming golden as the sun set and the moon began to rise. The great fluttering of wings began again, a cacophony that rose along with the sound of chattering and screeching. A bellow seemed to roar up from the earth.

The ground trembled beneath his feet.

“Scott!”

He heard Melanie calling to him, but he couldn't see her.

And suddenly, once again, he was facing a horde of
bloodthirsty creatures, teeth bared and lips drawn back in furious snarls, hatred sizzling from their eyes.

His canvas bag was in the car; he had never expected the attack to begin in daylight. Bael must be growing stronger. Now Scott's rosary was his only weapon, and they were flying at him with a vengeance. All he had was his strength, and he sought desperately for a way to use it.

He pulled the remnant of a broken pillar from the ground and hurled it lengthwise at the crowd descending upon him. It bought him time. Small bushes and trees grew in the area, and he wrenched a small olive tree from the earth and used it to impale the large man who attacked him next. He backed away, taking stones from the ground and aiming for their heads with his most merciless pitches. Still, they kept coming.

He could still feel her teeth scraping his neck, so close to his jugular. Even as he fought, not daring to lose focus for a split second, he felt the burn of her touch, the blood drying along the thin scratch in his flesh.

He bent low, watching as they began to circle around him, and searched the ground blindly for another weapon. He ripped a bush from the ground and hurled it, then a massive rock and then another jagged pillar. The pillar struck home, smashing a head. And still he wasn't killing them quickly enough.

“Scott!” He turned at the sound of Rainier's voice. And then the other man was at his side, tossing him one of the stakes. Scott grinned. Melanie
had
seen him, then found Rainier, and they had gone to the car for their weapons.

He was no longer on the defensive. Melanie was uncorking vials of holy water, spraying the crowd that ringed them. Rainier was battling with sharpened crosses and a fierce resolve.

Scott moved forward, impaling one after another of the creatures. His power seemed to have multiplied with the presence of the other two. He was quick. They were dying, exploding, decaying and falling to bits around him.

There were screeches, cries and howls of fury. Then he impaled his last. They had all died or were fast retreating in a cloud of smoke.

He heard another scream and turned. Melanie was holding the blond girl who had first accosted him. He moved forward, ready to strike.

“No!” Melanie cried. “No, we need her.”

The girl let out a cry like a wounded banshee. Her teeth were gnashing. She began to change before them, a bat's face replacing the youth and innocence of her human form. She shook, and fur seemed to cover her flesh as her arms morphed into wings. She escaped Melanie's hold but flopped to the ground, and Melanie stepped hard on one wing, then reached down for the thing, shaking it until the girl began to morph back, furious but exhausted.

“We've got to get her back to the hotel,” Melanie said.

“How?” Rainier demanded.

Scott stepped forward, sized her up and took aim. He planted a firm right hook on her jaw. Vampire or no, she went down flat.

“That'll do,” Melanie said. “Until we can take better measures. Rainier, we can't let her get too close to Scott, we can't take the chance. Help me. We'll make it look as if she's drunk.”

They each slipped an arm around her. She wasn't walking at all; they had to drag her, but she was slight and small, and it worked. Scott looked around for any of their paraphernalia they might have left, then headed after them, cross at the ready.

They got her to the car easy enough. At the hotel, Melanie explained to Signor Marchetto that her young niece had gotten in with the wrong crowd, and she was going to take care of her.

Scott had the feeling that Marchetto knew the girl wasn't Melanie's niece. He also had the feeling that Signor Marchetto knew exactly what Melanie and Rainier were.

They got her to the suite. Rainier set her in one of the upholstered chairs. She lolled back, still out cold.

Scott sat down across the room from her, staring at her and trying to rub away the tension in his neck. She looked like a kid, no more than eighteen or nineteen. Slumped down and unconscious, she could have been a sweet sorority girl, one who'd had a few too many at a fraternity bash.

“Watch out,” Melanie warned.

“She's just a kid,” Scott said.

“She had enough evil in her for
him
to be able to use her,” Melanie warned.

“Do bad vamps ever go good?” he asked.