Of Saints and Shadows (1994) (49 page)

“Tracey,” Sandro said quickly, “how ’bout some reporting here?”

She stepped in front of the camera, Sandro making adjustments to keep both her and the action behind her in the shot.

“The battle rages on,” she began. “It’s difficult for anyone to understand the reasoning behind it, or to choose sides. Both forces have blood on their hands, though it would appear the more righteous of the groups is, surprisingly, not what you might expect. Still, no matter the outcome, it seems that the one benefit of this unnatural conflict is going to be something we’ve long been denied—the truth.

“Okay,” Tracey said, no longer the reporter, “let’s move up.”

“Shit,” Sandro said, but he moved up anyway.

Staying along the wall of the Archaeological Museum, he slid forward with his camera to his right eye, Tracey right behind him. The shoulder pad was ripped, and dug into his flesh, but he ignored it. They ducked into doorways to avoid being seen, and though the action was still far from them, Sandro knew that they’d be spotted, given time.

“That’s far enough,” Tracey said, but Sandro kept moving, and she kept following. His attitude had changed.

Tracey had talked about a story, and what a story this was. His career was already made, but if he lived through this, he’d be a hero.

They had almost reached the corner of the building, where a right would take them into the piazzetta and to the canal, and a quick, straight run would take them to the front of the Doge’s Palace, where one of the acolytes had been slain just moments ago. But the way was clear now. From there they could make their way to Basilica San Marco, a perfectly ironic place from which to tape.

Sandro thought they might be safer there.

Running across the piazzetta with Tracey in tow, Sandro knew he had miscalculated. One of the demons menacing Cody and his friends had looked away from the bat and the huge bird that had landed and were changing shape into . . . something. It looked directly at him.

“Tracey,” Sandro barked, “get the hell out of here.”

She didn’t argue. Sandro stayed put, and for a moment he was relieved when the thing kept its eyes on him and did not veer off to follow Tracey. Then the terror hit him. There was nowhere to run as the beast thundered toward him, its jaws split in what seemed like a hellish, slavering leer.

He’d fucked up, but he hoped at least Tracey would survive. She’d get the tapes they’d already made to Rome, and maybe the camera wouldn’t be too badly damaged and she could get this last one as well. . . .

Sandro lifted his camera like a weapon, pointing it at the thing bearing down on him, and through the camera’s eye he watched his salvation. Cody appeared out of nowhere, having leaped from the ground, and landed on the running thing’s shoulders. Before the creature had a chance to try to buck him off, Cody had stabbed down through its skull, dropping the thing out from under him and tumbling himself into a roll that ended at Sandro’s feel. Sandro had never felt so relieved.

Cody stood up, dusted himself off, and smiled at Sandro. “What a shot that must have been,” he said loudly. “I made a film myself once, you know.”

He flashed that smile again, posing in profile for the camera, then turned and ran back into the midst of the melee, almost slipping on the gore that covered him.

“Thanks,” Sandro said weakly, then moved quickly to join Tracey in the deepening shadows at the front of the Doge’s Palace. She threw her arms around him, then they both knelt down and stayed there. The camera was still rolling.

No way in hell was he moving again.

Lazarus had joined his brothers as they fought off the creatures that surrounded them. He only smiled as the rest of them looked upon the strange pair, the bat and falcon, with wide eyes and slack jaws. Peter and Hannibal kept stealing glances as they fought, and the two new arrivals transformed in their midst. The bat changed quickly, and when Peter glanced that way, he could see black flesh and knew it was Alexandra Nueva. The falcon, though, changed in a flash, and he had barely blinked away the lessening snow before he recognized her.

“Meaghan?”

“Peter!” she shouted back, but in warning rather than greeting. He turned just in time to fend off a strike by a tiny, vicious-looking shadow whose spidery limbs were like deadly spikes.

In a moment the thing had one less of those spikes.

And then Meaghan was fighting beside him..

“How did you do that?” he asked her.

“What?” she answered, picking up a stray sword.

“You were a hawk!”

“Falcon, actually.”

“
How?”

“Come on, Peter. The man I love is smarter than that! I told you I thought I knew more than the rest of you, and I do—not to brag or anything.”

She broke off as she leaped above the spider shadow’s reach and landed atop it, driving her sword down through its many-eyed center. It dissolved under her almost immediately.

“This is dirty work,” she called to him.

“This is ail part of it then?” he asked, a concept forming in his head.

“Yes!” she answered happily. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”

Hannibal had overheard them, but didn’t understand. “What the hell are you talking about?” he yelled at them. “Just kill these things.”

“What she’s talking about,” Alex said, smiling as she defended Meaghan’s back, “is that as much as Peter had figured out, he didn’t go the next logical step. If we have the kind of control Peter has proved that we do have—”

“
My blood!”
Hannibal said at the implications, then turned to defend against a stinking, rotting attacker.

“We can be anything,” Peter said, and Meaghan smiled.

Cody had run off to save the cameraman, and when he came back, he stopped several yards from the melee. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Meaghan had changed again.

Into a tiger.

Mulkerrin watched in horror. . . .

Sandro swung his camera to follow the yellow-and-black streak. . . .

Hundreds of millions of humans would later deny the reality of what the camera showed. . . .

Peter laughed as Meaghan responded to his single request: “Kill the magicians.” She sped toward the two remaining acolytes, Thomas Montesi and Sister Mary Magdalene, dodging the demons protecting them with incredible speed, tearing through the silver-wielding soldiers without a thought, settling upon Thomas Montesi before the man could utter a word or bring his weapon to bear.

Huge gleaming jaws of iron sinew and devastating hunger tore off the top of his head. Watching it, Peter felt elation, and was only brought back to his present, to his surroundings, by a nudge from Lazarus. He turned to the elder, grateful to be reminded of their immediate danger, and shapeshifted into mist, dropping his weapon, to avoid being thrashed by two deadly shadows.

Lazarus did not move. Rather, he stayed where he was and shifted into another form—that of a giant black bear, as big as many of the shadow demons attacking them. With its huge paws, the bear grabbed first one, then the other of the demons, ramming its claws through their middles and tearing out withered gray sacks of stinking flesh that must have been the creatures’ hearts.

Then they were both in man-form again, and Peter looked at Lazarus in doubt, suspicions and questions forming in his mind, not as to the elder’s loyalty, but his nature.

“You’re a quick learner,” Peter said as Hannibal and Cody protected them for a moment.

“Yes, I suppose I am.”

Then Lazarus leaned in and spoke softly to him. “I’m done here, my friend,” he said. “I’ll see you again, sometime.”

“Wait,” Peter said, shouting as the snow blew up again, as he heard the wail of a new banshee begin. Mulkerrin was getting desperate now.

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Peter asked. “One of the four survivors, the ones who were never under the church’s control?”

Lazarus looked at him kindly. “You’re getting warm, Peter. Let me know when you figure it out.”

“Let you . . .” Peter said, watching as Lazarus transformed into a bat, though he knew the elder could have chosen any form. “Figure what out?” he cried.

But Lazarus was gone.

Things had gone so wrong, so fast, Father Mulkerrin felt as if he would explode from the nervous energy building with every second of indecision.

What to do?

All three Montesis were dead, and the female Defiant One had become a tiger, something none of them ought to be able to do. And she’d been human just days earlier! Now the tiger was going for Sister Mary, and
that
he could not allow. Octavian, Cody, Hannibal, and the black woman were slaying their demon attackers easily, and many of the demons had wandered away. He was desperate.

“
Un sptha pythfer, dothiende
,” he screamed, repeating the words several times, and a mirror portal opened in the center of the square, pouring demons forth. The portal would disappear when he left, and he could not control the demons with such a reckless spell, but he had no choice.

When he looked again, the tiger was mauling Mary with its claws, and one spoken word saved her life. Responding to Mulkerrin’s call, creatures of solid power and complete darkness rose from the brick beneath the acolyte, carried the tiger hundreds of feet in the air, then let it fall.

Before Meaghan could complete her transformation to something with the power of flight, Mulkerrin and Sister Mary were borne aloft by the mist-wraiths, speeding west, toward the home of Hannibal, toward
The Gospel of Shadows.
Mulkerrin had failed to destroy the Defiant Ones, but with the book, he would be able to bide his time and return to finish the job.

Once he was airborne he realized that dusk had arrived. When the rest of the immortal creatures had woken, his demons would be easily overcome. From the sky he could sec that the fires still burned, far and wide across the city, and he imagined that among the humans, many demons still roamed. Silently, he prayed for those innocents that the shadows might encounter. He would make certain their sacrifice was not in vain. God would provide.

“Where the hell are they going?” Sandro snapped at Tracey.

“How should I know?” she answered.

“Should we follow them?” he asked.

“Hell, no. We’ve got more than enough. It’s almost over, we know who won . . . and the streets are about to become even more dangerous.

“
It’s dark out.
”

The third demon that Rolf faced was the largest, and still he thought he might destroy it. He knew he had only moments before his task was complete, before the light was gone and his family could join the battle.

And then he fell.

The creature had overpowered him, tearing one arm from its socket, and now it bore down on him as he lay there. Still, he did not quit, tearing at it with his good hand in the gathering dark, and then changing, reshaping himself as a wolf. His arm was still gone, but out of the corner of his eye, even as he thrust his silent muzzle toward the demon’s throat, he saw a miraculous thing.

His arm, too, had changed form.

He knew that his people had only just begun to understand themselves. He would not let them be robbed of that chance.

Rolf tore into the demon’s flesh, and the boiling bile it called blood seared his throat and burned his lips. His tongue melted; useless as it had always been, the pain was still extreme. And then the soldiers were there, the clergy, and the burning flame from their weapons engulfed him and the demon both.

“Triumph,” a man yelled, the same apprentice who had created these demons. His pride was immeasurable. “Quickly now. Inside before they rise.”

“No,” another yelled. “It is too late, we must flee.”

“Coward,” said a third, drawing his sword.

None of them saw the flames change, subtly, as if blown by an invisible wind, spreading across the ground to touch the hairy forepaw that lay torn on the street in front of the theater, engulfing the paw in a leaping flame, leaving at first smoldering ash, and then nothing.

Many of them started for the door of the theater, but jumped back as the tire flashed before them, ten feet in the air, blocking their entry before settling back down several feet.

To the height of a man.

They all saw it change, smoking, solidifying.

Rolf, still silent, ever-vigilant, had ignored the last seconds of the day, and put his faith in Octavian. He lived, and he was whole.

Raising a finger to his face, he waved it in front of them, admonishing them for thinking to enter the theater.

A moment later, as the men turned to run, the inner doors to the theater burst open behind him, and Rolf turned to see his brothers and sisters emerge, angry and hungry and bent on vengeance for the many deaths they felt in their sleep. In his homeland, the end of the Reich and its power-mad manipulators, its evil puppeteers, had come too late to save his great-grandchildren, and his few human friends. He had been powerless.

Never again.

As the darkness settled like the silent snow Rolf led his family into the night.

Miles away, Tracey Sacco and Sandro Ricci were on the road to Rome.