Of Saints and Shadows (1994) (52 page)

He turned toward the portal, where all that held the demon back was the pull of its own world on its right leg, just at the knee, and its huge tail, which they had not seen before. On its face were the signs of its struggle to break through, its concentration utterly and completely on escaping into this new world. And then what? Peter had to wonder, and the thought chilled him.

He went to lift Mulkerrin again. . . .

And the priest was gone.

“NO!”

“Above you!” Meaghan yelled.

Peter looked up to see Mulkerrin, broken and twisted but alive, borne aloft by the mist-wraiths he had dispersed before.

“Keep the book safe,” he said as he changed, and then his thoughts took over as he flew after them.
You may need it very soon. Just get out of here, as quickly as you can. Get them all away. Use that hook! Find out what we
really
are!

Meaghan ran back to where Cody and Alexandra were standing. Rolf and Hannibal were there, too, and many others. She held tight to the book and watched the sky, the terrible sky from which hell was emerging, and where the man who had remade her—even before she’d been reborn—into a new being, a being with a destiny, was fighting to save a family that had denied him.

The griffin-thing again, but without the silver claws, Peter attacked the wraiths in flight, one talon latching onto Mulkerrin’s arm while the other tried to bat away the wraiths. Abandoning their master to Peter’s grasp, they attacked him as was their nature, seeping in through his eyes and fanged mouth, filling his body. From where she was, Meaghan could see Peter become bloated, as if he would explode, and then he burst into flame. Black smoke that might have been the wraiths seemed to stream from the fire, almost as if it were escaping. But the lire leaped over it, and the wraiths were gone.

Peter had destroyed them, but not without a cost. Mulkerrin was falling, and if what Peter said was true, his death could undo all that they were attempting. Meaghan prepared to rush to catch him, but slopped herself as she saw Peter.

Half flame, half griffin, or simply a creature on fire, Peter screamed in agony as he beat his wings after Mulkerrin’s falling form. Only seconds before the priest would become a part of the rubble that had been Hannibal’s home, Peter was there, straining skyward, breaking Mulkerrin’s fall. Or trying. They both hit the ground. Meaghan wanted to run to him, but Alexandra grabbed her and hugged tight.

“You can’t!” she said. “Look!”

Above them, the demon had pulled its right leg through. It set its foot down now so that Peter and Mulkerrin lay between its legs. Only the creature’s tail held it back, and it relaxed a moment. It looked at the immortals gathered around, and Meaghan thought the face looked confused.

It must be wondering why we haven’t run, she thought.

And then it looked down.

“PETER, GO!” she screamed as the demon raised its newly freed foot, a three-toed doglike haunch with tufts of black hair crowning each digit. It would crush them both. Peter might be able to change and get away, but Mulkerrin never would.

Peter had only one move, the one he’d planned. It was no longer a matter of choice.

GO!
She screamed in her mind.

And he did.

Under Mulkerrin, he returned to his own form, to the face he’d worn at the fall of Constantinople, when Nicephorus Dragases became immortal. With the speed of his heritage, he threw the sorcerer over his shoulder and leaped toward their mirror image in the portal, headfirst.

Mulkerrin’s feet went in first, and from unconsciousness, the pain of the passing brought him awake, screaming, as the demon’s foot slammed down, cutting off the onlooker’s view of the scene.

The ground shook with the footfall, drowning out the priest’s wailing, but Meaghan knew they were gone.

It began. As slowly as he had extricated himself, bellowing all the while, scrabbling and clawing at the earth, tearing up the street, the demon was drawn back to hell. Where it belonged.

I COULD HAVE TAUGHT YOU! it yelled. YOU MIGHT HAVE RULED THIS WORLD IF ONLY YOU KNEW YOUR TRUE SELVES!

But mostly it saved its breath for the effort to escape.

Peter had followed his heart and found the answer, Meaghan thought. Farther along the devastated Calle Bernardo, they all watched as the thing’s hands were drawn into the portal, which, when the demon was completely gone, seemed to melt, or flow, in on itself until it had disappeared.

Meaghan turned to them. Blood streaked their faces and she could see that they, too, had been crying.

“What now?” Alexandra asked her.

Meaghan smiled, feeling suddenly brave, and hopeful. “I think Cody knows the answer to that,” she said, looking at him expectantly.

He was back to normal, though slightly weak, but it took him a moment before he got her meaning, and when he finally did, he laughed out loud. “Now,” he said to Alex, “we get to deal with the press.”

“Reporters?” Her eyes went wide.

“Darlin’,” he said, “it’s a brave new world, and an old showman like myself can’t turn away the spotlight once it’s shinin’. Besides, Tracey and Sandro are probably halfway to Rome by now. We don’t have much of a choice.”

As they spoke Meaghan let her gaze wander back to the ruins of Hannibal’s house. Many of their kind had started to wander toward the mess, lost in Cody’s “brave new world.”

“Will,” she said without turning, and the tone of her voice quieted them, “one thing. They’ve got to know we were human once. It’s in us. That’s what Peter’s actions have always meant.”

She faced them, then, and her eyes were sad but strong. “Never let it be said that we have no souls.”

“MEAGHAN, HONEY, WAKE UP. YOU’RE GOING to miss your plane.”

The insistent nudging, both physical and vocal, finally roused her from a much-needed sleep. She stretched and yawned, then turned onto her back and looked up at her lover. Both of them were naked, and the room still smelled from their lovemaking of several hours earlier. Sleepily, Meaghan reached up for a hug, and when it came, she pulled Alexandra down onto the bed with her, their breasts pressed together and their mouths meeting in a hungry kiss.

The sun shone through the wide windows of their bedroom, one of many in the antique house they now shared. They rolled around playfully for a few moments, hugging and enjoying the moment, the little time they had to be silly in their lives.

“Get in the shower,” Alexandra said to her. “You’re going to be late.”

“Come with me,” Meaghan answered.

“Oh, good. Then you’ll really be late.”

Meaghan made a sour face, gave her lover’s breast a final, friendly squeeze, then was up and on her way to the shower. “You know what today is?” she called as she made her way to the bathroom.

“How could I forget?” Alex answered. “Wait till you see the
Globe’s
headlines.”

“What’s going on?”

“‘Hearings on UN Membership, Land Grants for Vampires Begin Today . . . First Anniversary of Venice Jihad Leaves Many Questions,’” Alex quoted, reading from the
Boston Globe
they had delivered to their doorstep. The paper girl still stood several yards away when tossing the paper on their porch.

“Shit,” Meaghan said. “Tell us something we don’t know. When are they going to do something about the Vatican?”

“I wish I knew, sweetheart.”

The phone rang, and Alex went to pick it up. “
Will?
Where are you?”

“Where do you think I am, darlin’? I’m all over the damn place. There are more of us than we ever realized, and they’re coming out of the woodwork.”

“You were supposed to be here today.”

“I’ll meet Meaghan in New York tomorrow,” Cody answered. “I thought I was close to finding Lazarus, but my lead dried up.”

“You better be there,
Colonel
Cody. Meaghan needs your backup, and then I’ve got another lead for you.”

“You haven’t seen the news, have you?” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Put on CNN.”

Alex grabbed the remote and tapped the power on, jabbing in the channel command for CNN. On the screen was Allison Vigeant, better known to them as Tracey Sacco, who’d become a major force both on the air and behind the scenes at CNN in just twelve months. She was considered the world media’s number-one authority on the Defiant Ones.

Alex turned up the volume.

“ . . . has announced that the president has pledged to use any means necessary to backup United Nations resolutions regarding the Venice Jihad. The announcement comes after months of church interference in the ongoing UN investigation into possible Vatican involvement in the Venice Jihad and what has been called ‘attempted genocide’ regarding the so-called Defiant Ones. The press secretary implied that the White House refused to rule out the use of military force at this time.”

“YES!” Alex shouted, dropping the phone as she ran to the bathroom door, banging for Meaghan to hurry so they could share the news. When she came back into the room, she reached for the phone but was drawn again to Allison’s words on the television.

“ . . . sad note, one of the people indirectly responsible for the ‘new order’ we find ourselves in today, as well as one of the spearheads of the UN’s Vatican investigation, is dead. Former Cardinal Henri Guiscard died last night, apparently of natural causes. While thousands of people have pursued the possibility of undergoing what is being called the Revenant Transformation, and many others have volunteered to be blood donors, Guiscard was reportedly
offered
the transformation dozens of times, and obviously refused.

“By all accounts a man of great wisdom and courage, Henri Guiscard will be missed.”

Alex was quiet for a minute, the phone held loosely against her face. She shook her head sadly, and then heard Cody’s voice on the phone.

“Alex,” it said, sounding far away.

“Damn,” she whispered, then put the phone to her ear again. “I can’t believe nobody’s called us before now. I mean, the news knew before we did. That sucks.”

natural causes

“Listen,” Alex said, “you don’t think . . .”

“You have to wonder, though, don’t you?” Cody said, and he was as serious as he ever got.

“See you tomorrow,” Alexandra said.

“You’re coming, too?”

“I am now.”

Alex hung up the phone, mind racing with terrible possibilities. Didn’t they have enough to worry about without this? The whole UN thing, the Vatican investigation, volunteerism, combating both human and inhuman predators, and the obvious and understandable fears and prejudices (hat faced them; weren’t all these things enough?

Find out what we are!

They had vowed to themselves that Peter’s last request would be fulfilled. They had all loved him, and respected him. Alex and Meaghan had been his lovers. The question he died asking was still the number-one question on their minds, and on the minds of governments, scientists, and just plain people all over the world.

What were they, really?

She and Cody and Meaghan had dedicated their lives to answering that question. Finding Lazarus would be the first big break, if they could find him, but there seemed to be so many things that took precedence.

Not the least of which was analyzing
The Gospel of Shadows
, learning as much as possible about the magic in that book. There had to be some control over the shadows, and nobody but the Pentagon thought that the American military should have that power. Alex knew it had only been left in their hands because nobody had gotten brave enough to try to take it from them yet. Still, who better?

So many questions. So many responsibilities. And now another dead friend and more questions.

Meaghan stepped out of the shower, still rubbing vigorously at her wet hair. Alexandra couldn’t help noticing how beautiful she looked naked, drops of water still beading on her breasts and belly. She loved Meaghan more than she had ever loved anyone or anything, a difficult thing after so many of their friends had died. But they had power and, with it, tremendous responsibility, a lesson even Hannibal and his followers were beginning to learn. Alexandra didn’t know if they’d ever have time just for each other.

But they had forever to find out.

Dr. George Marcopoulos sat in his rocking chair smoking his pipe. He’d never thought of it as smoking, really, more like relaxation. Few people knew he smoked. His wife, Valerie, knew, of course, and some of his family. Nobody at the hospital, though. These days you got a hard time about smoking wherever you went, and that was for regular folks. If you were a doctor, someone who ought to know better, well, then you were truly the lowest form of life.

He rocked just a bit, back and forth, slow and methodical, the way he knew an old rocker like that was meant to be rocked. The rocker had once belonged to his uncle George, after whom he was named and who also smoked. It was the wonderful smell of his uncle’s pipe that started him smoking, and perhaps rocking, and convinced him that a pipe wasn’t like real smoking no matter what the surgeon general said.