Jack Templar and the Lord of the Vampires (17 page)

“So what do we do?” Will asked.

Lightning cracked overhead, and the rain came down harder. I pointed toward Notre Dame Cathedral, now shielded by the low fog and the rain. “I need whatever is on top of that spire. And I need it right now.”

“In this weather? Are you crazy?” T-Rex said.

“They have Eva,” I shouted. “We can’t just wait around!”

“I have two sets of climbing gear, but I’ve only done about half of the modifications I wanted,” Xavier said.

“That’s going to have to do,” I said.

“I’m coming with you,” Daniel stated so flatly that I knew there was no way I could change his mind.

I looked up at the hulking, dark shadow of Notre Dame, lit sporadically by flashes of lightning. During the day, the climb had only seemed impossible. Now it seemed nothing less than suicidal. But there was no choice. If there was any hope of rescuing Eva, I had to have that weapon, and I had to have it that night. “OK,” I said grimly, “Let’s do this.”

I
f anything, the weather deteriorated even more on the short walk to the cathedral. The storm raged around us on our way to the backside of the structure where the flying buttresses extended out from the roof like giant spider legs. These narrow limbs were going to be key to our climb, but they didn’t extend all the way to the ground so we could get under them and throw a grappling hook. That would be too easy.

Instead, two layers of steep, narrow stone limbs arched down from the inner wall, starting below the main roof and ending in columns atop an outer wall that was a good thirty feet tall. Just getting up the outer wall was going to be tough. After that, we had to climb the columns, crawl across the highest flying buttress, somehow get up onto the roof that was too steep to stand on, and make our way across that to the center of the cathedral. All of that was just to get to the base of the spire. I wasn’t even sure what my plan was once I got that far. 

As I pulled on the climbing gear, the wind grew even wilder, tearing off leaves and small twigs from the trees bent over as if we were in a hurricane. Rain came in sideways, stinging our faces. The foul weather had sent all the tourists scurrying for cover. If we fell to our deaths attempting the climb, at least we would do it without an audience. 

“Once you secure an anchor point, attach your line here,” Xavier yelled, barely making himself heard over the howling wind. He showed me how to operate the gear, including a few cool modifications he’d made to help out. “You’ve done this before, right?” he yelled.

“Climbed a five-hundred-year-old cathedral in the middle of a lightning storm so I could crawl up a metal spire to get a super-weapon to use against vampires?” I shouted back. “Yeah, this is my third time this week.”

“Hey, I thought I was the smart mouth around here,” Will yelled, smiling.

T-Rex leaned in so I could hear him. “Is there anything we can do?”

I took a walkie-talkie from Xavier and handed it to T-Rex. “Keep a look-out, buddy. You’re my eyes down here, okay?”

T-Rex gripped the radio with both hands as if he thought it might squirt out from his hands like a wet fish. “You got it, Jack. Good luck.” He lifted the radio to his mouth and hit the button. “Try not to fall.”

An electronic version of his voice crackled from the radio attached to my climbing gear. T-Rex gave me a thumbs-up, delighted with his new job.

“I should be going with you,” Will shouted. Even in the dark, I could make out the pained expression on his face. He was worried.

I nodded over to Daniel, making final adjustments to his climbing gear. He was stone-faced and intense like a professional athlete right before a competition. “You want to try to convince him to change places?” I asked.

Will shook his head. “Maybe we should wait until this blows over?”

“If I was the one they captured, do you think Eva would wait? Would you?” I asked.

Will looked like he might press the issue but then relented. He punched me in the chest, the adrenaline in his system probably making it a little harder than he intended. I knew it was
Be careful
,
I’m worried
and
Try not to die
, all in one gesture.   

Daniel walked over. “Are we climbing this thing or not?”

I cinched the final strap on my climbing gear. “Just waiting for you.”

Lightning flashed, strobe-lighting the world around us. I looked up high on the wall and was rewarded with a row of gargoyles staring back at me. Rainwater poured from their gaping mouths, making them look even more grotesque. As I stared, I could have sworn some of the gargoyles moved. That they twisted in place and stared back at me, their expressions pulling back into sneers, their eyes opening wider and turning in place to look at me. But once the lightning ended and the boom of thunder shook the air, the cathedral was cast back into shadow with the gargoyles in place, doing their job as glorified gutters.

“C’mon, Jack,” I muttered to myself. “Get a hold of yourself.”

I looked over to Daniel. He was staring up at the gargoyles, looking as freaked out as I felt. Now I wondered if it had been my imagination and the dancing light of the shadows after all. “Everything OK?” I asked. “Did you see something?”

Daniel’s expression changed back to steely confidence. “No, did you?”

I shook my head.

“Right then. I’ll go first,” he said. “Age before ugly.”

“I think the saying is age before beauty,” I replied.

“Well, I can’t go first twice, now can I?” he said, grinning. “Come on, we don’t have all night. Let’s see if Xavier’s toys work.”

Daniel raised a small gun with a nasty barbed hook sticking out of the barrel. It was the same contraption that had saved my life in the Cave of Trials. Using this tool to get up to the arch of flying buttresses was an essential part of the climb. Daniel took aim overhead and pulled the trigger. The projection shot from the barrel, a thin wire trailing behind it. In the dark, we couldn’t see where it hit, but it stretched tight when Daniel pulled on the wire.

While he attached the wire to his climbing gear, I walked down to the next flying buttress and fired my hook up into the night. I tugged on the wire and it held firm. As I inserted it into the winch tied around my belt, I saw Daniel float up into the air, one hand over his head holding the wire so he would stay upright. I pressed the button on my winch. The tiny powerful motor kicked on with a whirr and I rose in the air, my feet dangling beneath me.

Without an anchor to the ground, I felt the true force of the wind. I swayed back and forth, buffeted by the howling gale. The wall in front of me was mostly stained glass, so I had to be careful not to slam into it too hard. I imagined the faithful praying inside and what they would think if I smashed through the priceless window. So far, I was able to cushion each hit enough not to cause any damage. As I neared the end of the ascent, I saw Daniel had already pulled himself up on top of the flying buttress and was waiting for me. I readied myself to do the same when my winch stopped working.

I was still five feet from the top, which may not sound like a lot, but when you’re hanging by a tiny wire in the middle of the night with a major thunderstorm all around you, it gets your attention.

“What’s wrong? Why’d you stop?” Daniel’s voice crackled in my radio.

“My winch stopped working,” I replied. “Give me a second.” I fiddled with the controls, trying to get it going. I must have pressed the wrong button because the winch disengaged. The wire spun out with a high-pitched squeal, and I plummeted downward. I recovered quickly and jammed the safety into place. My climbing harness caught me as I jerked to a painful stop. A gust of wind blew me in a wide arc, like a tiny spider dangling on web caught in a breeze.

When the wind let go of me, I fell back toward the stained glass window, out of control. I hit it hard with my back, and I heard the unmistakable sound of glass breaking. I turned and flattened myself against the window, grabbing the thick stone windowpane dividers and trying to stay out of the wind.

A crack appeared in the glass right by my face and branched out in a wild pattern. A single shard about the size of my fist slid out and fell into the cathedral. I held my breath, thinking our climb was over. We were going to be found out. But the cracks in the glass stopped expanding, and no other shards fell. Deciding I had nothing to lose and feeling the need to know how bad our situation was, I pulled myself up to look through the hole.

Warm air that smelled of candles and incense flowed out from the brightly lit interior. I saw rows of empty pews facing the main altar in the center of the cathedral. Only a few people sat in them, lost deep in prayer or simply seeking refuge from the bad weather. No one seemed to have heard the breaking glass. We were still safe.

A flash of lightning followed by nearly simultaneous thunder reminded me that safe was a relative term.

I steadied myself and pressed the winch button. Nothing.

“Uhh…Xavier,” I said into my radio. “I’m trying all the right buttons. It’s not working. Any ideas?”

There was a long pause with nothing but static on the open line. Finally, Xavier came on. “Did you try hitting it?”

“Hitting it?” I asked. “I was hoping for something a little more…scientific.”

Another long pause. “Sorry, Jack. That’s all I’ve got.”

“Great,” I muttered to myself. I clenched my fist and hit the small box that housed the winch attached to my harness. It didn’t do much more than hurt my hand. I pulled out my sword and placed the hilt on top of the box. I raised it up and gave to two quick strikes. On the second hit, the winch came to life. Going about five times as fast as before!

I flew through the air as the winch wound up the wire. Faster and faster. The top came before I was ready, and I smashed into the stone face where the projectile had embedded into the stone. The winch kept whirring, straining against itself. I smelled smoke and felt heat around my stomach. I hit the winch with my sword again, now trying to get it to turn off. It took three hits this time, and the winch stopped. Then it released all tension, and I fell again.

On impulse, I let go of my sword and grabbed onto the slippery stone wall.

A small ledge gave me a handhold, and I stopped my fall after only a couple of feet. Grunting from the effort, I pulled myself up and over the top of the wall to where the column supporting the flying buttress started.

“You know,” Daniel crackled over my radio, “that was the easy part.”

“Good,” I replied. “I was getting worried this was going to be boring.”

Hugging the column, I looked up at the steep, narrow flying buttress. It sloped up at about a sixty-degree angle, was only two feet wide with a trough carved into the stone as a gutter, making footing even more treacherous. On a sunny day with a safety net beneath me, I would have been scared. In the middle of the night with a storm raging around me, I was terrified.

“We have your sword, Jack,” T-Rex said over the radio. “Missed Will by a couple of inches, but he’s okay.”

I felt guilty that I hadn’t even thought about their safety after I dropped my sword. Of course, they were right under us, so the sword would have headed right toward them. “Sorry about that, guys.”

“We shouldn’t need swords up here anyway,” Daniel said.

I was about to agree with him, but my voice caught in my throat. I looked to the far wall where I was heading. I couldn’t see very far into the gloomy night, but what little I could see filled me with terror.

The gargoyles were gone. All of them. There were just empty gashes in the stonework where they had crawled out. They were somewhere on the roof. Now I really wished I hadn’t dropped my sword.

“
E
verything okay?” Daniel blurted over the radio. The sudden sound made me jump. I reached up and lowered the volume control, aware that we were no longer alone on the roof.

“Daniel,” I whispered into the mic. “Look at the gargoyles around you. Tell me what you see.”

A long pause, then, “There aren’t any. Just holes in the rock. You don’t think…” His voice trailed off as he reached the only possible conclusion. Somehow, the gargoyles had pulled themselves out of the stone and were now on the prowl.

“Just keep an eye out for them, okay?” I replied. I looked at the narrow stone buttress rising above me. “Let’s get this over with.”

 It only took me two steps onto the buttress to realize it was hopeless to try to walk up. Even without water gushing through the trough down its center, the steep angle alone would have made that a challenge. But there were two more factors working against me. The most obvious was the gale-force wind ripping through the area, pelting me with rain and doing everything it could to knock me off the roof. The second was the surface of the stone itself. I’d expected it to be a little slippery from the rain, but nothing prepared me for what I found. The entire surface had a thin layer of moss on it. Between the moss and the torrent of water in the trough, the stone was so slippery that it might as well be covered in butter.

I mentally thanked Xavier for modifying our climbing suits to provide for something like this happening. I dropped down on all fours and tested the small hooks strategically placed on my harness and clothes. The most important ones were attached to my shoes and looked like crampons used by ice climbers. In addition to these, I had extra hooks on my knees, elbows and wrists, basically all the points of contact. I dug each of these into the slick surface of the flying buttress and tested them. I slipped back a couple inches until the hooks caught hold but then held firm. Again, one of Xavier’s inventions saved my life. I just hoped I’d make it back to the ground to thank him in person.

I looked over and saw Daniel already a quarter of the way across his buttress. I reached up with the hooks on my arm and pulled myself forward. It was slow progress, trying to keep my face above the water trough. The wind buffeted me more mercilessly the higher I got. While the cathedral looked impossibly solid from the ground, up here I could see the effects that centuries of weather had on even the toughest stone. A few times the rock on the edge of the buttress crumbled under my weight, making me scramble back to the middle through a spray of water. I was three quarters of the way across when my radio squawked to life.

“Behind you, Jack,” Daniel shouted so loud that his voice distorted. “Watch out!”

Reacting to the panic in his voice, I spun around faster than I should. I didn’t have enough anchor points, and I slid backward and off to the side. My legs went over the edge and dangled over empty space. I slammed my elbows painfully back into the rock and reattached myself, holding on for dear life. I looked to my right and saw what Daniel was talking about.

A gargoyle was walking up the buttress toward me.

It had a long, feline body and crouched low as it walked, giving it the appearance of a cat on the prowl. Its face was a grotesque combination of several animals, part human, part bird, part some long-dead sculptor’s idea of what the devil must look like. Large eyes dominated a narrow face that curved into a beak-like mouth. When the creature opened its mouth to hiss at me, there were thick, sharp teeth. Pointed ears like a cat’s lay flat against its head. Oversized feet covered with wicked looking claws gripped the stone. Most disturbing was that it appeared to be made out of rock. Now that it knew I’d seen it, the gargoyle gave up any attempt at stealth and roared at me. Even with the wind howling around me, it was loud and carried a very clear message. It didn’t like me messing with its cathedral. And it was going to make me pay.

 I wasn’t sure how to fight a stone gargoyle, especially without a sword, and I didn’t want to wait around to find out how either. I pulled myself back up onto the arch and scrambled up as fast as I could. Another roar erupted behind me and I knew the thing was right on my tail.

“It’s coming!” Daniel yelled into the radio.

As I climbed, I saw him running along the roofline from his buttress to mine. I didn’t dare look behind me. Without my sword, there wasn’t much I could do. I just crawled as fast as possible, swallowing water, my adrenaline overriding the painful knocks I took to my knees and elbows as I slammed them into the rock.

The gargoyle slapped at my feet with its claws and smacked them to one side. Fortunately, I had a good grip with my other anchor points, so I was able to hang on. With a cry, I swung my legs back, kicking blindly behind me.

I felt contact and a roar behind me told me I’d hit the creature in the face. It felt like kicking a boulder, but a quick look over my shoulder made the pain in my foot worth it. The gargoyle had slid back about ten feet, shaking its head. The good news was that it could be hurt. The bad news was that it looked really mad.

I climbed harder. The stone beneath me shook as the gargoyle bounded up after me, splashing through the water torrent. As I reached the top, Daniel grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the roof. He had his sword out, and together we faced the creature coming at us.

I expected the gargoyle would pause when faced with two adversaries, but it never even broke step. It hit the top of the arch and jumped into the air, clawed feet stretched out in front of it. Daniel swung his sword, but it just clanged off the hard stone as the gargoyle barreled into him. They flew backward and smashed into the steeply sloped cathedral roof.

I ran at them, jumped with both feet in front, and hit the creature in the ribs. This time, the creature didn’t even budge. I crumpled to the roof behind it like I’d just tried to kick down a brick wall. The gargoyle swatted at me. I rolled, and its claws tore into the roof right next to my head.

It roared and raised its massive paw in the air over me. I was wedged into a water trough on the roof and couldn’t move. Even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good, I put my hands in front of my face. I braced for impact.

Just then, I heard a hiss through the air. Peeking through my fingers, I saw where an arrow had pierced through the creature’s paw. The gargoyle mewled in anger as it tried to shake the arrow off. But it was attached to something. I realized it was one of Xavier’s projectiles. Daniel had shot it, and the wire was keeping the gargoyle from swatting me. It bit at its own paw, shaking it violently, trying to break free. It was off-balance now, positioned awkwardly. I waited until the right moment, then lunged forward with all my might, hitting the creature with my lowered shoulder. The gargoyle screamed in surprise. It tried to catch itself, but the paw held back by the wire threw it more off-balance. With a cry, I hit it again. The creature slipped backward, scrambling. Then with a roar, it fell over the edge and off the roof.

“Detach the wire!” I shouted, afraid Daniel would be pulled down with the creature. But I didn’t have to worry. Daniel had tied off the wire to part of the cathedral, which explained why the gargoyle hadn’t been able to fight it. The wire snapped tight and a chunk of stone tore out from the building. The creature fell all the way to the ground and smashed into hundreds of pieces.

 “Watch out,” T-Rex cried over the radio. “You’re sending an avalanche of rocks down here. Try to be careful, will you?”

Daniel and I shared a smile. I toggled my radio. “Sorry guys. We’re on the roof. Making our way over to the spire now. Out.”

Daniel and I got to our feet and surveyed the roof. The best way was to go straight up the incline section above us to the ridge that ran the length of the cathedral. Once there, it was a straight, level shot to the spire.

“Keep an eye out for more of those gargoyles,” I said. “I saw at least three other holes where they crawled out.”

“Same here,” said Daniel. “If all the gargoyles on this place have come to life, this is going to get interesting real fast.”

I shuddered at the thought. “Do you think we should turn around?”

Daniel shook his head. We both knew that wasn’t really an option. The clock was ticking for Eva. The truth was it might already be too late. She might have already been killed by the Romani vampires. Part of me knew this was more than a possibility. It was likely. Still, I clung to the hope that she was still somehow alive. Either way, I still needed to get the weapon inside the rooster on top of the spire. If not to save her life, then to avenge her death.

Using our specially rigged climbing gear, Daniel and I started the climb up the steep incline to the center of the roof. This was every bit as slippery as the flying buttresses. The surface was a smooth grey slate covered with a mix of slick moss and presents left over from the thousands of birds who called the cathedral home. I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried walking on a wet layer of bird poop, but it’s as slick as ice.

Good thing the roof was in bad shape, showing wear and tear from the weather. Small pockmarks covered the surface, giving us something to hold onto with our hooks attached to our harnesses. But it was slow, painstaking work, like climbing the world’s most rickety ladder when you knew the price of miscalculation meant falling to a violent and sudden death. I had hoped the storm would dissipate as we climbed, but it actually got worse. It almost seemed like the storm was trying to keep us from the spire too.

After an arduous ten-minute climb, we both reached the top. I stared at an ornate spiked ridge that would make our walk worse than a high-wire balancing act. It would be like walking on a single row of nails the whole length of the back half of the cathedral all the way to the base of the spire in the center. The roof plunged downward on either side of us. As I looked down, lightning flashed and lit up the entire roof for a few seconds as if we were standing in the noonday sun. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

Dozens of stone gargoyles climbed up toward us from both sides of the roof!

They came in various sizes. Some as small as squirrels but with oversized claws nearly as long as their bodies. Others so large that the slate roof cracked under each step. A few flapped wings behind them to help balance and push them up the roof. Thankfully, being made of stone, it didn’t look like they could actually fly. But all of them had one thing in common. Their mouths pulled back into viscous snarls as they climbed up toward the intruders on their cathedral. There were too many of them. There was no way we could fight them.

“Down,” I cried. “This way.”

I sat on the roof and slid down toward the spot with the fewest gargoyles. Daniel followed my lead and we barreled back downward together, slamming into a handful of them and knocking them back like bowling pins.

We hit the low wall that ran along the roof edge and scrambled to our feet.

“To the spire,” I yelled.

Daniel led the way, running on top of the flat wall. The gargoyles reached out for us as we ran. A couple made a lunge for us and we handled them with a kick to the head. But for each one we sent sprawling, two more took its place.

“Faster!” I yelled. “They’re coming!”

The spire rose up in front of us where the four cathedral wings met, the roofs forming a horizontal cross with steep valleys between the arms. The spire’s wide octagonal base was covered with ornate stonework. A perfect climbing surface.

“Who’re they?” Daniel shouted.

Looking past him, I saw three men standing one above another in the valley next to the spire. My first thought was that we’d been caught, and somehow the authorities were here to take us to jail. Frankly, I would have taken jail at that point to get away from the dozens of gargoyles chasing behind us. But I remembered from Xavier’s pictures that each corner of the spire had four bronze statues. Three men and one animal per side, symbolizing the twelve apostles and four saints. I realized they weren’t going to be any help. It never occurred to me that they would be the next threat.

As we ran toward the spire, the Templar Ring on my finger suddenly burned bright. I felt the intense heat fill me, the now-familiar sensation as heat poured into every part of my body. I hoped this meant I would have extra strength for the fight ahead because I was going to need it.

As I watched in horror, all four statues at the base of the spire came to life!

First was the animal, a bronze eagle that stretched its wings out stiffly and flexed its talons. The men were slower, moving like rusted automatons forcing old gears back into action. But that only lasted a few seconds. With a sudden fluidity, the men each spun around, reached out, and tore off a decorative spike of metal from the base of the spire. They whipped the air with these in elaborate flourishes like master swordsmen and then took fighting positions facing us. The eagle cried out, its wings flapping, ready to spring.