Of Masques and Martyrs (34 page)

“Peter?” Nikki said gently. “What’s wrong?”

He sheathed his sword, wiped the tears from his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he confessed.

Carefully, he moved across the chapel to take her hand. The battle outside raged on, they could hear it. Yet somehow, it had changed for Peter. In an instant.

His memory of everything that occurred to him between his death in 1453 and the start of his new life only hours earlier began to fade. Not to disappear, exactly. The emotions they incited were still there, but the details of his life in the shadows began to gray around the edges a little. He remembered events. Remembered those close to him and still loved them. Remembered his magick, or at least, some of it.

But it was as though, with his shadow destroyed, he had excised some major part of his life. Part of what made him who he was. A melancholy feeling began to sweep over him, a feeling of loss. But he wondered, very gravely, if that loss weren’t for the best.

He led Nikki down the corridor, their fingers intertwined.

“I was so scared,” she admitted. “For both of us.”

“Me too,” he whispered.

“Don’t go back out there,” she said, the pleading in her voice enough evidence that she knew just what she was asking of him. Betrayal. Yet she had asked just the same.

Peter was tempted. As the part of him that had been a shadow faded further from his mind, from his life, the conflict seemed to grow less vital to him. And yet, even if the shadows outside were not following his instructions, his example, he knew that the battle must be fought. For the lives of the world, if not for the race called vampires.

Humanity must be protected at all costs.

At all costs.

 

“Does
giri
mean nothing to you now?” Kuromaku asked Tsumi in a rage.

He held one hand to the gaping wound in his side, holding his guts in while his body tried to heal. Tsumi was leaning heavily on her right leg, waiting for the tendons in her left ankle to knit themselves back together. They had given each other these grievous wounds on their last pass, and neither had a chance to take advantage of them.

“Get away from us!” Tsumi roared suddenly, and Kuromaku turned to see a pack of slavering vampires stagger to a halt just before they could attack him.

They looked at Tsumi uncertainly, then at Kuromaku, and back at his sister. Then they moved on, dragging another shadow down nearby. The number of combatants on the street had thinned dramatically; the large mass was breaking up into pockets of bloody battle, leaving behind ash and cinder in some cases, corpses or barely enfleshed bones in others.

Kuromaku and Tsumi were alone now, on a far corner a short way from the convent. And she had not forgotten his insult.

“Giri?”
Tsumi sniffed. “My honor and duty are to my family and my master. Once upon a time, these were human beings. But we are not Japanese anymore, my brother. We are vampires now. Our coven is our family, and Hannibal is our only master. What honor and duty I have belongs to him.”

Kuromaku’s heart sank.

“Then come, little sister,” he said softly, raising his
katana
once more. “It is time for your final lesson.”

Tsumi’s eyes narrowed, a storm raging within.

“You were my
sensei
once, Kuromaku,” she replied angrily, “but never my master.”

They lunged at one another then, vampiric strength and speed driving them forward. Tsumi raised her
katana
and brought it down at an angle meant to cut his chest open to the heart. With her strength, she might have done it. But Kuromaku had learned much since he had taught his sister how to fight. How to kill.

His sword clashed against her blade, sparks flying, but instead of parrying, instead of turning away, he moved in toward her. His blade slid down, holding hers back, until their guards met. Even then, Kuromaku was turning. He ducked and spun, controlling her blade with his own, turning to face her, but now slipping
inside
her sword arm.

Kuromaku tried to ignore the surprise on her face. The despair. Tried not to interpret those things as sorrow or as grief for anything but the loss of her life.

It had been one swift, fluid motion from the moment they clashed, and he completed that movement now as he brought his
katana
around and decapitated his sister with one thunderous blow. Her body hit the ground long before her head, and Kuromaku’s bloody tears fell to the pavement soon after.

“We’re losing!” Bethany shouted in Kevin’s ear. “Kev, what are we gonna do? There are just too many of them!”

Kevin raked silver claws through the chest of a beautiful female vampire, and she shrieked in pain and horror. He grabbed her by the throat and punched a hand into her chest, tore her black heart from her slender corpse.

When he turned to Bethany, he still held the cold, slick organ in his hand.

“Don’t even fucking say that,” he growled. “We will win because we have to win. Losing isn’t an option. You have any idea what’s at stake here?”

Bethany looked frightened, but she fought with admirable ferocity. Kevin turned back to the fight himself, dropping the vampire heart to the street where it was quickly trampled.

“Hey, Beth!” he heard Caleb call behind him. “Don’t worry about it. We’re evening the odds up pretty quick!”

Kevin winced at the other shadow’s words. Caleb was a good fighter, and loyal as hell, but he wasn’t the most intelligent of their coven. There was no denying the odds. No denying that things looked grim, and that without a miracle, their chances of surviving, of stopping Hannibal, were dismal.

The difference was, Kevin had faith. A vampire leaped for him and he turned his whole arm to fire, setting the savage thing ablaze. It fell to the ground, rolling, trying desperately to put out the flames. Bethany, having watched, repeated the same move to great effect.

She might be afraid, but no way in hell was she giving up. Kevin admired her for that. A moment later, and they were back to back again.

“Don’t worry, Bethany,” he said aloud. “These assholes are following the devil. But we’ve got God on our side. Right, Caleb?”

That last he shouted. But there was no answer. Bethany kept fighting; she hadn’t noticed.

“Caleb?” Kevin called.

With silver claws, he ripped out an enemy’s throat, then turned to search the battlefield for Caleb. Bethany noticed his concern and appeared at his side, also scanning.

A path opened up through the killing, and Kevin saw him. Hannibal stood more than six feet tall, huge for the era of his birth, and his long hair was unnaturally white. His grin was bloody, his teeth stained and covered with bits of viscera. At his feet was Caleb’s crumpled body.

In his left hand, Hannibal, lord of the vampires, held Caleb’s head by its blood-matted blond hair.

“God?” Hannibal roared, amused. “What makes you think there’s any such thing as God, boy?”

Rage and grief swept over Kevin, but he held it in check. Rushing in would only give Hannibal one more target. He was controlled enough to know that.

“I’m here to stop you,” Kevin replied through gritted teeth. “That’s evidence enough, far as I’m concerned.”

Hannibal shook his head, a bemused, mocking smile on his face. He tossed Caleb’s head and it rolled across the pavement and came to rest a few inches from Kevin’s right foot.

“You’re here to die,” Hannibal said. “All of you.”

“Oh, God, Caleb,” Bethany whispered at Kevin’s side.

Then she screamed, the most horrible scream Kevin had ever heard. Before he could reach for her, try to hold her back, Bethany went after Hannibal. That left Kevin with no choice. Together, they might have a chance. Him alone against Hannibal? He’d be slaughtered.

Hannibal seemed to flow like the darkness itself. Where Bethany reached for him was only shadow, and then he was right in front of her, gripping her by the hair and the front of her jacket, lifting her, putting her in Kevin’s way.. . .

Kevin raked silver claws across Beth’s face and breasts.

He mumbled something weakly, then stood and stared at his hands in shock and disgust. Only a second, but by the time he looked up, Hannibal was tearing Bethany in half.

“Nooooo!” he screamed.

Caleb’s body finally imploded in a pile of dust and cinders, and then Bethany’s did the same. They just didn’t have the control the elders had; the sun might not kill them, but some traumas were just too much even for a shadow schooled by Peter Octavian.

Kevin went after Hannibal, but he might as well have thrown his life away. The lord of vampires was simply too powerful. He had such experience, such confidence; no matter what ancient traditions he had handicapped himself with, Hannibal could not be beaten.

“If it’s a comfort, try to remind yourself that you never really had a chance,” Hannibal said, that leering smile still on his face. Mocking. Victorious.

Kevin wanted so badly to rip that smile from his face.

Hannibal’s fangs tore into Kevin’s throat. He felt his flesh tear. Mist! He could change to mist, just float away and return to the battle in another place! If he just could concentrate, he could . . . change.

But not to mist. There was a better way to change. Something Kuromaku had taught him earlier that day. If it worked.

Eyes fluttering as Hannibal feasted on him, Kevin reached to his hip.

“That’s right, don’t fight it,” Hannibal whispered. “You know it’s over.”

Suddenly the gun was there, in his hand, its grip rough against his palm, the holster snug around the metal. Kevin drew the weapon out, held it to Hannibal’s left eye, and pulled the trigger.

Hannibal screamed louder than the gun’s report and staggered back, holding the place where flames licked at his face. At the hole where his eye had been, where silver had burned a hole through his head.

Now change!
Kevin told himself.
Change!

But he couldn’t focus. Couldn’t will the change to happen. The gun fell from his hand to the street, and several vampires swept over him, tearing into the enemy who had the audacity to hurt their master.

And Hannibal had been hurt. Was even now screaming in pain. Kevin felt triumphant. They could still win, he knew. But without him. He was dimly aware of his arm being torn off.

Then the vampires were gone. No tearing claws. No screamed epithets. No burning eyes. The battle still raged, he could hear it, the slap of flesh and the spatter of bloody spray, the roars of pain and fury. Hannibal still cursed him, but his voice came from far off.

Kevin opened his eyes.

“Don’t go away, Kevin,” a gruff voice said. “This little Wild West show ain’t over yet.”

A smile stretched Kevin’s mouth wide, and he gazed up at the grizzled face of Will Cody. He’d come back, and if Kevin knew anything about the old cavalry scout, from personal experience and from history, he knew that when Cody came to the rescue, he never came alone.

“I . . .” Kevin began, then coughed a laugh, even as his wounds began to painfully heal. “I think I’m in love all over again.”

 

“Well, if it isn’t Buffalo Bill!” Hannibal cried happily. “I’d thought my darling Erika had killed you already, since you didn’t show up earlier.”

“I was busy,” Cody replied.

Allison ran a hand across Kevin’s forehead, glanced at him one last time to make certain he would be all right. Then she stood and stepped up next to Will.

“And Allison,” Hannibal said, the menace in his voice overpowered only by the lecherous tone of it. “You’re looking very tasty, my dear. Couldn’t stay away, could you? Come back for another round, I suppose.”

It all came back to her then. Every agonizing moment, every humiliating violation, every wound, every last second as her life ebbed away and he made her something she never wanted to be.

Allison couldn’t help herself. She began to change.

Just as though she were becoming a wolf, or an eagle, her body rippled and contorted. Pain swept through her and she relished it. Her clothing was gone and she stood awkwardly, bleeding onto the pavement from open wounds. One nipple was gone, chewed up and spat into the dust of Sing-Sing prison. Ragged hunks of flesh hung from her belly and legs. She had become the corpse that Hannibal had made of her. Just the same.

Except for the change in her face. Except for the long needle fangs that jutted three inches and more from her short snout.

Silver fangs.

Cody looked at her, his face contorted with despair.

“Oh, Alli,” he whispered.

But she paid no attention to him. Hannibal was all that mattered at the moment.

“A real improvement, my dear,” the vampire lord said cruelly, snarling. “I find you much more appealing this way. To think I can have my way with you all over again.”

Yet in spite of his words, Allison saw the way his eyes kept flicking to her mouth, to the silver fangs that flashed there, filling her throat with bile at the pain and the poison in her mouth. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except for the fact that she had made Hannibal nervous.