Of Saints and Shadows (1994) (32 page)

“Yes, Peter,” Cody added, “I know why you left, but Von Reinman wouldn’t hear any talk of the circumstances. What happened?”

Cody leaned against the window and Meaghan sat on the bunk. Peter had been standing near the door, but now he performed a minor foot shuffle, which in the cramped space could have been interpreted as pacing. This went on for a few moments before he turned his attention back to them.

“It was in Boston, on New Year’s Eve, 1899. The turn of the century. There were thirteen of us, the coven. We were rarely all together, yet never very far apart. Bonds were formed, and animosity was born, and quite often the only thing that kept us from killing each other was Karl. A whisper was usually enough, when he was angry, to quell any furor. But that was an unusual night.

“We were introducing a new member to the coven, an Irish girl
we
called Shannon Twin. The tradition was to each tell our stories, to show the new member that we had nothing to hide, that we were a family. But New Year’s Eve had always been a night for hunting, and as they say, the natives were restless. . . .”

“
That’s fine, Jazz,” said Una, an older Brazilian woman who was Karl’s lover. She was thanking Jasmine Decard for welcoming the newcomer, Shannon, with her story.

“
Louis?”

She looked expectantly at the Frenchman, Louis Onze, who sat in a red-velvet-upholstered chair that matched the others around the room. Tastefully decorated in old European style, tapestries hanging from the walls, Karl’s Boston apartment had been their New Year’s Eve meeting place for five years. The locals were catching on, though, and the coven would have to find different hunting grounds for next year’s gathering. As simple as it was to make immigrants disappear in Boston
—
especially Irish and Italians fresh off the boat
—
they couldn’t get away with it forever.

“
Louis,” Karl said now as the Parisian had ignored Una’s request.

“
Enough,” a voice said, and all eyes turned toward its source, Shi-er Zhi Sheng, a fierce little Oriental man, with his temper at boiling point.

“
Aren’t you all a little tired of this?” he said, aiming his remarks primarily at Alexandra, Trini, and Xavier, his current clan within the coven. “I know that I, for one, was in favor of letting the second spot remain empty until the beginning of the year. The last thing we need is to be initiating a new member, lovely as she may be, at what has become for us, due to past actions here, the most dangerous city on Earth.”

“
Sheng.” Karl paused. “Sit. Down.”

He did.

“
Now, I can see that for whatever reason, the lot of you are less than enthusiastic about this initiation and introduction. I can only assume it is your urge to be down on the streets, among the thronging masses. You are forgiven, tonight. But two nights from now, we finish this process. Shannon will receive the same courtesies that you all received upon becoming a member of this coven. I will make absolutely certain of that.

“
Now,” he continued.

“
Let’s hunt!” Xavier shouted.

“
Hell, let’s eat,” Trini added.

Peter looked at them, scanning the room for some hesitation. He didn’t find any. Trini and Xavier had the bloodlust in their eyes, Veronica and Ellen were still glaring at each other, but they were putting their cloaks on, getting ready for the stroke of midnight, the moment the new year would begin and a dozen lives would end. It had always been a baker’s dozen, hut not this year. Jazz and Louis played in a corner, the lovers batting each other about like savage kittens. Una comforted Shannon, who looked frightened at the prospect of slaughtering her own people. Karl helped the two on with their cloaks. Rolf, the mute German, hovered about, searching for something to do with his hands.

Alexandra Nueva and Shi-er Zhi Sheng stood to one side. Like Peter, they had not reached for their coats, and now the two whispered to one another, each in turn glancing at Peter for a moment and then looking away. The most perceptive of the group, other than Karl of course, they’d seen it coming for months, and now here it was.

“
Let’s go, children,” Karl said, chiding kindly, “you’ve got to at least look human if you’re to feast at midnight.”

Alexandra and Sheng picked up their coats, looking at Peter with a mixture of anger and amusement. Peter looked away, unable to face them, though he knew in his heart he had made the right decision.

In my heart I know, he thought, but what right does a cold, dead heart have to feel such pain ?

“
Peter?” Karl said, asking many things in two syllables.

Why don’t you have your coat on ?

Why aren’t you looking at me?

Have you finally decided to speak your mind?

Oh, yes. Karl had almost certainly realized several months ago that there was something going on in Peter’s head. Something that might cause Karl to disown his favorite son. There was bad blood between them, and with their kind, such feelings could be avoided only for so long.

“
I’m not going.”

Their silence, the stares of his family, were more painful to him than the glare of the sun could ever he. He thought he might die right there.

“
What do you mean, you’re not going?” Xavier Penta asked him, the black man’s eyes wide, his jaw open in shock.

“
Just so. I’m not hunting with you tonight, or ever again.”

He looked up now, directly into the eyes of his mentor, his true father, his best friend, Karl Von Reinman. He found them exactly as he expected, sad rather than angry like the others.

“
You’re too good for us now, Peter? Is that it?” Ellen asked, spiteful that another man would leave her. The story of her life. This time, though, she and Veronica were of one mind.

“
No, Ellie. He just likes to slap his father in the face.”

That did it.

“
I will say this once, for the benefit of the entire coven, and especially for you, scared little Shannon,” he added, motioning to the girl. “Do not ever attempt to question my relationship with our father. It is not your place to do so.

“
As to why I will not hunt with you . . . simply put, I no longer hunt. Truly, I have not hunted humans in months.”

Karl’s sadness turned to shock. He had sensed Peter would be leaving, but this . . . They were all stunned.

“
Now, Peter,” Louis began, but Una interrupted.

“
How can you live?” she asked, concerned for him now.

“
I manage.”

“
Coward!” Trini yelled, stepping up to him now, right past Karl, who still had not said a word. “Weak, frightened woman, who are you to call yourself warrior? You shame your family!”

“
Trini,” Karl said, speaking up finally.

But Trini went on, shouting his hate into Peter’s face, yet Octavian simply stood there. “You are not one of us, gelding. You spit in your father’s face! We should hunt you ourselves, you arrogant, traitorous coward. If I
—”

And Karl struck him down. As Peter watched, Karl’s arm lashed out once and Trini crumpled to the ground, his next insult dying as it reached his tongue.

In the moment that followed, the heartbeat that intervened between that triumphant moment and the impending, heartrending pain, an awful tableau burned itself eternally onto the memory of Peter Octavian, he who had been Nicephorus Dragases until the father of his spirit and of his agony renamed him. Those he loved now despised him. Alexandra Nueva and Shi-er Zhi Sheng had been his closest friends other than Karl. He had purposely drifted away from them, intent upon freeing his spirit from the hell of conscience that had suddenly and irrevocably been horn within him. It had surprised him, but they did not seem surprised at all by his actions now. It was their silent presence, as silent as Rolf, which made the picture so painful. They had said nothing, but their eyes radiated more hate than all of the others. His friends . . .

“
Why?” Karl asked, finally, ending the moment, severing Peter’s bond with Alex and Sheng forever. Now to destroy his bond with Karl.

“
The humans,” he said quietly, though surely they could all hear him. “It was different when we were warriors, and even then it was a slaughter. But we were almost always fighting for something. For decades now, it’s been just killing and more killing.”

“
Peter.” Karl shook his head, not understanding. “They’re animals.”

“
You don’t understand,” Peter said, exasperated child to parent.

“
Explain it to me.”

“
They’re you! Don’t you see?” Now he turned to the group, sweeping his arm to include them all. “They’re you. That’s why you kill them. Surely, you need the blood, but they don’t have to die and you don’t have to take it without asking. You kill them because you hate them. What are these humans whom we discuss as if they were cattle?”

“
They are cattle!” Karl screamed, at last.

“
No, my friend,” Peter continued, softly still at first, then growing to a shout, “I say again, they are you. But not you. They are greater than we who can live forever, can take their lives at will. They have powerful spirits, the wonderful certainty of death, and warm, beating hearts. We hate them and kill them because they are us!”

Then, quiet again.

“
And I cannot do it anymore.”

Finally, Peter bent to pick up his long coat, slipping it on. He looked up again at Sheng and Alex, the tiny Oriental and his tall, black goddess of a lover. The hate was gone now, and Peter thought he saw a strange mixture of pity and amusement on their faces. He turned hack to Karl, whose own face was a mask of sadness.

“
Will I see you again?” his best friend asked.

“
Not soon.”

And he left.

As he told his story Peter turned away from them, fumbled for something to do with his hands. Meaghan felt for him. Peter knew he had done right, but the specter of betrayal still haunted him. She reached out and pulled him down to sit beside her on the bunk.

“And that was it?” she said.

“No. Later that same night I came upon Alexandra and Sheng attacking a pregnant woman, an Irish prostitute, on her way home apparently. I knew I could not stop them from hunting, but the infant was an innocent. I . . . stopped them. I took the woman to the nearest building which would open its doors.”

After a moment of silence Meaghan spoke. “The woman died?”

“Yes,” Peter said. “But I returned the next night and discovered that the child lived. A boy, he was taken to a church orphanage.”

“Well,” Cody said, turning back toward the window, “I wish they had let me go so easily.”

“They didn’t?” Meaghan asked, and she and Peter both looked at him.

“Oh, Karl told them to leave me be, but some of them didn’t listen. I guess I just rubbed them the wrong way, eh? But that’s a story for another time.” Cody looked at Peter and realized he wasn’t paying attention. “Peter?”

“Oh, sorry,” Octavian said, shaking his head. “Just thinking about all of this, about Karl.”

“It was awful,” Cody said, and the two immortals locked eyes for a moment. Like ail those creatures who had been made more than human by Karl Von Reinman, they had witnessed his death in their minds. “More than awful, as helpless as we were, but we will avenge him or truly die in the attempt.”

In the silence that followed, a pact had been made. Cody wasn’t the only one who fancied himself a hero, nor the only one who knew what honor was.

“All right, let’s get back to the here and now.” Meaghan broke the silence, recognizing the men’s grief but not wanting to allow it to affect their efforts. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Von Reinman hired this Gypsy to steal the book, and we know that the guy just sort of up and died when Henri Guiscard walked in on him. Are we to assume this master thief had a weak heart?”

“I sorta doubt that,” Cody said. “I’d be willing to bet Karl hypnotized the man, planted a mental time bomb in him that, in the event of his discovery, would cause his heart to simply explode on the spot.”

Meaghan was horrified.

“Get used to it, Meaghan. Cody and I aren’t innocent by a long shot, but we’re about as innocent as our kind gets. The majority are devils, all right. There’s a reason for every stereotype, and thankfully, an exception to every rule. But make no mistake when we get to Venice—Defiant Ones are, in the main, evil and vicious creatures. Forget that and it could kill you.”

Meaghan took this as seriously as Peter meant it, and yet there was something about his words that just didn’t sit right with her. Looking at the two that she had ever met, she found it hard to believe that the creatures could be evil simply by their nature.