Of Saints and Shadows (1994) (15 page)

He stomped up behind the shrimp, expecting him to turn around any moment. But he didn’t! He kept ignoring Richie like he wasn’t there. He was dead.

“
Vietnamese gook cocksucker!”
Richie screamed, and reached for Sheng’s head . . . and the next thing he knew, his own forehead was bouncing off the hard wooden bar.

Richie slid to the floor and lay there for a moment. His vision wavered, black spots in front of his eyes. He scanned the crowd: the bimbos and the dancing fags, MTV on screens you couldn’t see through the smoke, drinks tipped back. And here came his worst nightmare, gliding over to him as if floating. A goddamn gook who could whup his ass.

Shi-er Zhi Sheng leaned over the fallen man and whispered in his ear, “Wrong again, friend Richard,” then dragged a long fingernail across the man’s cheek, cutting deeply. The blood began to flow.

Richie’s vision began to waver again, yet he could see the crowd part for Sheng, the men especially keeping a respectful distance. The dancing resumed as Richie watched, hatred growing and raging, as the man disappeared among the bodies. He wanted to stand up, to call back the dirty fighter, have a fair chance at taking him apart, piece by piece.

Of course, he didn’t dare.

Over an hour later the blood had crusted over on his head and the crowd had dissipated. He knocked back the sixth and last shot he’d had since he’d lifted himself up off the floor. It would be dawn soon, and Venice’s only all-night club would be closed. It was only open this week because of the upcoming carnival.

He slid off his stool, paused for a moment to steady himself, and headed out the door, wrapping his coat around him.

It was cold. They said Italy was always warm, but that was tourist bullshit. It was just as cold in Venice as it was anywhere in New York during the winter. And even though the sun would be up soon, it was still black as sin outside. It’s always darkest . . . whatever. He couldn’t see a damn thing, could barely read the names of the small alleys he stumbled down. And the mist didn’t help any. It swirled all around in the dark, clouding what few lights there were and making it impossible to see to the next corner.

“Actually
ly
, it wasn’t a fair
fair
game
game
,” came the voice, drifting out of the mist from everywhere and nowhere.

“How could a fool
fool
like you
you
have guessed the Yun-Ling
Ling
range, separating Tibet
bet
and Sze-Chuen?”

Richie spun around, and around, like a dog chasing its tail. He wasn’t listening to the words, only the voice. He’d never been very smart.

“But then
then
,” the voice came again. “You were never
ver
supposed to guess
guess
correctly
ly
.”

And the wet mist swirled around his head.

It had teeth.

“
Everyone’s
here this year,” Alex said, her eyes communicating her disbelief. “Shit, I just saw Genghis and he’s the oldest I’ve ever met.”

“There are older,” Sheng said quietly, turning his face away from his lover’s so that she would not see the concern there.

“I know that. I’m not an infant.”

“I’m not suggesting that you are. What I’m saying is that there are older members of our race here, in Venice, right now.” He turned to look at her, and though he tried to hide his feelings, she could easily see how disturbed he was.

Alex went to him, a tall statuesque naked black woman comforting a short, thin, apparently aging Asian—a strange sight to be sure, though no mortal eyes could see in this darkened basement that to them was bright as day. They lay down together on the soft mattress, next to the stone wall. Outside of that wall a canal flowed. Though they had nothing to fear from it, the proximity of the water made them shiver, cold in a way no chill wind could ever make them.

“Why?” Alex asked, hoping he had an answer. “Why are they all coming this year?”

“It’s Karl.”

“Karl wasn’t that old, they couldn’t all have known him!”

“No,” Sheng said, finally looking, really looking at her. Finally addressing the concerns they both felt. “They’re here because they’re scared, just like we’re scared. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aurelius showed up, and maybe one or two—maybe a dozen others we’ve never even heard of. They’re afraid because of what happened to Von Reinman, and to Barbarossa and to Franco.”

“They’re still not sure about Franco,” Alex insisted.

“You get the point.”

They were quiet again, lying together, mourning the loss of their father, friend, and mentor, Karl Von Reinman, whose death they witnessed through their mind’s eye, and whose killers they had recognized unmistakably.

Shi-er Zhi Sheng broke the silence. “How deeply must that traitor Octavian have affected Karl for him to think he could survive in the sun?”

“But he did survive, for a time,” Alex reminded him.

“Testimony to his strength and age, but he should have stayed in the house.” Sheng shook his head.

“He would have died along with Una,” Alexandra said with feeling. “What good would have come of that?”

“He died anyway!”

“But at least he died trying to escape,” Alex said.

“Bullshit,” Sheng snapped. “He died pulling a fool stunt because Octavian filled him with lies and that load of drivel about a ‘moral code for our kind’ or some such. If Karl had stayed in the house, he might have had a chance. But Octavian had him believing he could survive outside. Dammit! We should have killed Peter when we had the chance. Almost a hundred years later and he’s still causing problems.”

“It’s not Peter’s fault and you know it,” Alex said, getting annoyed. “You’re projecting your anger at Karl’s death onto him. If you want to blame any of our kind,” she growled, becoming angry now, “blame Cody October. I’ll bet his pulling that renegade shit was what centered the Vatican’s attention on us again. If it weren’t for him, Von Reinman would still be alive today, Barbarossa would still be alive.”

She was crying now, and Sheng wiped the bloody pinkish tears from her eyes with his lingers, pushing the hair away from her face and kissing her forehead. Alex lay her head on Sheng’s chest.

“This is the first time”—she sniffled—“since Karl brought me to this life that I’ve cried. I didn’t think I could do that anymore . . . didn’t think
we
could do that.”

“Me either,” Sheng said, thoughtful for a moment. “Listen,” he continued, “I don’t even know if Cody’s still alive, but if we find out he is, believe me, we’ll hunt him down and get some answers, and we won’t be the only ones on the trail. But right now we’ve got more important things to worry about. The assassinations are getting more and more frequent. I don’t know how the church is finding us, but finding us they are. Over the next few days we network, have a good time, make contacts with the eldest among us, see who’s here. We let everyone enjoy carnival, enjoy Valentine’s Day, but when Tuesday’s over, we call a meeting. We’ve got to either go underground or go to war, and it doesn’t look like going underground would help much.”

“So it’s war, then,” Alex mused, shaking her head. “I never thought I’d see the day. I never thought the church would chance it. And I find myself wishing Peter were here, and I sure as hell never thought I’d say that. He was the best of us when it came to this life. A warrior prince he was born, and as much as it seems to have left him, I doubt he’s able to betray his own blood, his heritage, as easily as he did the coven.”

“That’s the truth”—Sheng nodded—“though I’m loath to admit it. And if that book holds in its pages what Karl believed was there, we’ll need Peter even more.”

“He didn’t even call when Karl died,” Alex said.

“Bastard.”

IT’D BE A FEW DAYS BEFORE OLD MANNY Soares would be able to start pinching nurses’ butts, but in the meantime, he was determined to get an eyeful. Ever since he’d woken up several hours earlier, he’d been floating between drug-induced nirvana and a very special kind of pain. The kind that doesn’t fool around but comes right on up and says, “Hey, fuckhead. You’re not from around here are you?”

Manny turned his attention back to the TV set. Unfortunately the injury to his left hand prevented him from adjusting the volume or changing the channel. The nurses had to do that for him, on top of everything else. Which wasn’t that big a deal, considering how much he slept. He supposed that at this wee hour of the morning, his set wasn’t even supposed to be on, but Carmela, the night nurse, liked him, and knew he’d be floating in and out all night. He wasn’t really sure of the time, but Gary Grant played the dapper businessman in glorious black-and-white on TV38’s late late show. Also, he didn’t like the room to be too dark. Darkness led to thoughts of Roger’s murder, and the guy he’d seen, the bastard who’d shot him. The flickering of light from the late show broke the darkness, sapped its strength, and kept his mind off the nasty thoughts. For the moment.

His attention span was about ninety seconds, and he began to slide again. Down, down into that liquid plane where the brain floated and the eyes sank. He was about to drop anchor in that softly rolling ocean when he heard it.

At first he ignored it, the clattering sound in the hallway, which he of course did not recognize as anything but a disturbance in the water. But when it came again, it could not be ignored, followed as it was by the click of the door handle and the turning of the knob.

This time there was no buzzing at the door, only an insistent knocking. This time she did not drift slowly out of sleep, but snapped immediately awake. This time it could not be Peter at the door, because he was on the couch
(rejected you).
This time Meaghan was worried, but not scared. Even if Peter had rebuffed her advances, his presence lent her an assurance that was invaluable to her at this moment.

They had found Janet’s body. She was certain of it. She could think of no other reason why someone would be knocking on her door at five o’clock in the morning. Not only that, but wasn’t this the way she had envisioned it from the moment she realized that Janet was missing. Janet, the only person in the world she had ever been in love with, disappeared without a trace, and so of course it’s only natural that the police would show up at five o’clock in the morning to tell her they’d found the body so she wouldn’t learn about it on the morning news.

At least Peter was here. At least there was that. Even though he had turned her away, in her heart she knew that he had not done it for lack of desire. She could feel that there was something else holding him back, and as soon as she found that something, she would destroy it, leaving him open to whatever their obvious lust for each other might bring.

And maybe now that she knew the worst possible news awaited her at the door, maybe now she needed the glimmer of positive thinking that Peter represented.

She wiped sleep from her eyes as she entered the living room. Peter was already on his feet when she came in, reaching for the holster draped over an armchair and covered by his jacket. He looked at her, worried as well, though she didn’t sec her own certainty at the knocker’s identity mirrored in his eyes. Rather, she saw a fierce curiosity. She shouldn’t wonder, though; it had been a long night for both of them, but especially for Peter. And one way or the other, it was about to get longer.

Though she didn’t realize it, her lack of sleep had put her in an almost trancelike state, so that when she went to draw back the dead bolt on the door and Peter slapped her hand away, she actually looked at him with wonder on her face, about to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing.

His look stopped her. And brought her to reality.

“No buzzer,” he hissed.

That’s right, Meaghan thought, you stupid bitch. No fucking buzzer and here you are sliding the dead bolt back when it could be just anyone, including the guy Peter was supposed to be here protecting you from.

She took a deep breath as the knock came again. Peter clicked off the safety on his gun and held it pointing toward the ceiling as Meaghan had seen detectives do in so many movies. Ah, another piece of TV myth confirmed. But I’m stalling, she knew, and only spoke when urged to do so by Peter’s silent exhortations.

“Who’s there?” she asked in a loud voice, louder and stronger than she would have expected. And the knocking ceased.