Overbite (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-seven

M
eena dashed up the steps and threw open the doors to what had once been St. Bernadette’s Catholic Elementary School. A thick cloud of white smoke hit her in the face. She fell back, coughing.

“Meena.” Lucien had come up behind her. He seized her by the shoulders and pulled her back down the steps. “Stop.”

“No,” she said, straining against his grip. “It’s all right. I’m all right.”

“You’re not.” He guided her back into the courtyard, toward the broken fountain, where the smoke wasn’t as thick. “It’s no good. You can’t go in there. You can’t breathe.”

“But . . .” she said. Tears had already begun to stream down her face from the acrid smoke. She wiped them away with her wrist. “Alaric—”

Lucien’s face tightened. He was as worried as she was, she could tell.

But only, she knew, about the fate of his book.

“
We’ll
go,” Mary Lou said, reaching out to give Meena a reassuring hug. “We’ll find him, honey, don’t worry. Smoke doesn’t affect us.”

“But fire does,” her husband reminded her, pointing at some windows along the building’s basement level. The smoke that had begun billowing from them was blacker than it was elsewhere, a sure sign of flames.

“Oh,” Mary Lou said, “
that
doesn’t look good.”

“What could be down there,” Meena wondered, “that could have caused such a huge explosion?”

“I don’t know,” Mary Lou said. “The boiler, maybe?”

Oh God.

“The boiler,” Meena repeated weakly. “It was ancient. This whole place is ancient. They closed it because it wasn’t safe for children. Abraham said there wasn’t any money in the budget to fix it up, but—”

She was starting to babble. Lucien put his arm around her, then walked with her until they stood beneath one of the archways and were out of the steady drizzle that had started up again.

“Meena.” Lucien grasped her by both shoulders once more. “Look at me. I’m quite sure that boiler did not explode accidentally. Do you understand me? That explosion was no accident.”

It took a full ten seconds for the meaning of what he was saying to sink in. Then, when it did, she turned around and dove once more for the doors.

This time Lucien didn’t have to stop her from going inside the building. The doors themselves did, by bursting open. Through them began to pour a stream of people, none of whom seemed to notice the three vampires or the teary-eyed, frightened girl in the courtyard. They were too focused on escaping the burning building . . .

Meena stood at the bottom of the steps, anxiously hoping. The rain began to flatten her hair against her head and turn her faux-leather purse a darker brown as she waited. People streamed past her, and she scanned each one, searching for a familiar face she could ask about Alaric.

But she didn’t recognize a single person.

“Who
are
these people?” she finally blurted out.

Lucien had come up beside her and wrapped his coat around her shoulders to ward off some of the rain. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

“I . . . ” Meena glanced around.

Her gaze drifted back to the front doors of the building, which someone had now wedged open to let out the smoke and the rest of the people coming through them. The knot she’d been feeling in her shoulders was tighter than ever.

“I . . . don’t know who these people are,” she said to Lucien. “I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

“My lord.” Emil stepped up beside them. “If I may . . . this is probably not the wisest place to be standing, as you are the most wanted man in Palatine history, and this
is
their Manhattan headquarters . . .”

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Mary Lou said. “Look.”

Other people had rushed into the courtyard, local shop owners with bottles of water and umbrellas, and the few stragglers who still happened to be out on the street, despite the weather, all eager to help in any way they could. Meena could hear the sound of sirens off in the distance.

They didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

“The streets are flooded,” Meena overheard the waitress from the café shout to everyone. She had her cell phone clutched to her ear. She was evidently speaking to a 911 operator. “The emergency vehicles can’t get through. Something about so much rain in such a short period of time . . . and some kind of underground stream. I don’t know what she’s talking about. I never heard of any underground stream.”

Meena looked up at Lucien in consternation. “The Minetta,” she said.

He just looked away.

But the victims of the explosion at St. Bernadette’s didn’t seem to care. They gathered in the courtyard in the pouring rain, not taking the umbrellas people were offering them, or even lifting a cell phone to call loved ones.

They just stood there . . .
waiting
.

“None of them is coughing,” Mary Lou said tightly. “Not so much as a watering eye in the bunch.”

Meena’s heart gave a lurch. Mary Lou was right.

“I thought this school had been shut down,” Meena overheard the deli owner from the café across the street mutter to his son, who’d helped him carry over a box full of umbrellas and water bottles.

“I heard a new Internet start-up bought the building,” his son said. “Obviously. I mean, look at them.”

It was true, Meena thought. Everyone who’d come out of the building was lean, wearing black, and looked exceptionally pale . . .

Oh God, she thought. What had happened? What had happened to the Palatine? Who had done this?
Where was Alaric?

Then Meena heard a cough. Never in her life had she been more grateful for the sound. She spun around . . . then let out a joyful shriek.

“Carolina!”

A tall, dark-haired woman who’d just tumbled from the open doorway turned at the sound of her name . . . then, seeing Meena racing toward her, held out her arms. The two women embraced.

“I thought you were dead,” Meena exclaimed.

“No,” Carolina said. “Just in New Jersey.”

“What about Abraham?” Meena asked. “Where’s Alaric? Is Alaric all right?”

“Abraham is fine,” Carolina said. “He should be right behind me. Alaric, too.”

A weight she never even knew had been there seemed to lift from Meena’s heart. The pain between her shoulder blades vanished, as well.

“He’s all right?” She felt almost giddy. “Alaric’s all right? Where is he?”

Carolina glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t know. They were both—oh, there’s Abraham.”

Abraham, looking far older than his actual age, appeared in the doorway, covered in soot and coughing with considerable force. Meena raced to his side. So did Carolina. The deli owner and his son rushed over to offer him water and an umbrella.

“What?” Abraham looked perplexed. “Oh my, yes, it’s raining. Thank you. Oh, Meena, hello. Water? No, no, I don’t need water, I’m fine.”

The coughing fit into which he promptly sank belied this statement, and despite his protests, water was forced onto him. They helped him onto a nearby bench, where he was resting, trying to catch his breath, when his eyes widened at the sight of something standing beyond Meena’s left shoulder. He lifted a trembling finger, his mouth opening.

“What the
hell
?” Carolina said, after she’d spun around to see what had startled him so badly. Then her face froze into a similar expression of fear. “Jesus Christ!”

“Quite the opposite,” Lucien said drily.

Carolina groped automatically at her belt . . . until she remembered she’d been relieved of her weapon. Then she groaned.

“Pardon me, sir,” the deli owner said to Lucien. “But do you need an umbrella?”

“No, thank you,” Lucien said.

“That man,” Abraham managed to choke out, “is the devil on earth! He is Satan’s messenger.”

“If Lucien was here to kill you, don’t you think he’d have done it already?” Meena leaned down to whisper to him. “We have way bigger problems than him right now, anyway.
All
of these people are vampires.” She pointed at the men and women in black who were standing in the courtyard, seeming to be awaiting an order. “The Palatine has been completely infiltrated. Maybe more than just the Palatine. Maybe even the entire Church.”

“That’s . . . that’s impossible,” Abraham said.

Carolina pressed her lips together. “No, it isn’t,” she said. “It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along, Abraham. Mauricio. He’s the one!” Then she threw Meena a startled look. “Alaric! He’s still in there. With Mauricio!”

Meena spun around. The doors to the building stood empty. The only thing coming out now was smoke.

Meena lifted her anxious gaze toward Lucien. “We’ve got to go in there,” she said. “We’ve got to help him. He can’t see. He can’t breathe—”

“I’ll go,” Lucien said, and laid a kiss on Meena’s forehead. “I’ll take care of everything.” He began striding toward the steps.

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” Abraham said.

“Oh, my dears . . .” Sister Gertrude appeared, one hand pressed to her chest as she tried to catch her breath while attempting to weave her way between the soaking-wet people standing around the courtyard. Father Bernard was hurrying behind her. “We came as quickly as we could. The streets are like rivers, so we had to wade to get here. But your brother said there might be trouble. And it looks as if he was right. Are we too late?”

Meena looked from them to Lucien as he climbed the steps to the building, an expression of grim determination on his face.

“I’ll let you know,” she said, and raced after him.

Chapter Thirty-eight

A
laric had known the explosion would plunge them into darkness. It would be impossible to see anything in all that smoke . . . at least for a human being.

So he’d memorized where each of the guards was standing.

Then, when the blast occurred, and everything went dark, he was able to reach out quickly and disarm them. After all, he’d been expecting it. They weren’t.

Suddenly he had two aluminum-stock crossbows, and they had none. This was a vast improvement over the situation he’d been in mere seconds earlier.

Of course, he also had ears that were ringing from the trauma of the blast, lungs that were quickly filling with acrid-smelling smoke, and he couldn’t see anything. The vampires with whom he was trapped in this hallway had none of these problems.

So, this was a definite minus.

On the plus side, he had a thorough knowledge of the layout of the building, even in the dark, because he’d spent so much time in it.

So as soon as he’d secured the crossbows, he performed a quick front shoulder roll (which kept him off his injured leg) through the door to the main stairwell, where he hoped the air might be a little clearer.

It was.

Unfortunately, the guards did not take kindly to having had their crossbows confiscated and followed him.

It didn’t take long to dispatch them, although Alaric was bitten several times. This was unfortunate, but hard to avoid in conditions of such low visibility. He also lost several arrows. He’d been able to snag the quiver of one of the guards, however, by groping him in the dark. This was an unpleasant experience for both of them, but couldn’t be helped.

What was even more unpleasant was hearing the door to the stairwell burst open and Henrique Mauricio shouting, “Wulf!” in a voice that sounded not unlike the one that had come from that little girl whose body had been taken over by a demonic spirit the night they’d met.

Alaric hastily loaded the crossbow, not an easy trick to perform with an unfamiliar weapon while crouched on the landing of a dark, smoky stairwell with an injured leg. Especially when he was distracted by the sound of sirens and the footsteps of people coming down the stairs, another flight up. Doors to the outside had been opened. The smoke, now that it had a place to go, was being sucked past him with even greater force.

“I know you’re there, Wulf,” Mauricio called up the stairwell. “You might as well give it up.”

“Or maybe I should run away,” Alaric said. “Like you did the night of exorcism in Vidigal.”

Mauricio chuckled. “Not one of my finer moments, I’ll admit,” he said. “Baptisms, Communions, masses . . . those are easy enough to fake. But expel the dark beast from the soul of a child? How could I do that . . . especially when the dark beast is my master? You’d have spotted me as a fake in a second. I had no choice but to run.”

“Wrong choice,” Alaric said. “I spotted you as a fake anyway.”

“I know. I should have killed you that night.”

“I should have killed
you
that night.”

“Clearly. But instead, here we are. You know, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are advantages to being on my team. You could have a very pleasant life if you chose—”

“Please don’t try to tell me about all the Vatican gold with which you intend to shower me,” Alaric interrupted tiredly. “I’m already very well off financially, and you are behind the times. The Vatican has been operating at a deficit for years.”

“That isn’t quite what I mean,” Mauricio said. “I meant that you’re obviously in pain right now. I can hear it in your voice. You’re tired, and I’m certain you’re feeling weak because of the smoke in your lungs. Imagine a life where you’d never have to feel weakness or pain again. Imagine a life where you never feel the need to sleep, never grow a day older,
and
have superhuman strength. Think how useful those abilities would be in defeating your enemies.”

“
You’re
my enemy,” Alaric pointed out.

“Am I?” Mauricio asked. “I took the liberty of peeking at your personnel file, Alaric, and I think I know who your real enemy is. And it isn’t me, or any vampire. It’s your father, isn’t it, Alaric? The man who abandoned you as a baby? Wouldn’t your becoming a vampire make the revenge I’m sure you must be planning to take on him someday just that much more glorious?”

“Why doesn’t anyone get it?” Alaric asked, really frustrated now. “
I don’t like vampires
.”

He stood up and fired. He couldn’t even see where he was aiming, because of the smoke.

But he’d been listening closely to Mauricio’s voice, and seen the red glow of the vampire’s eyes. The crossbow was an automatic repeater, which shot multiple arrows one after the other.
One
of them, at least, must have hit true.

Then he saw a foot emerge from the smoke and land on the step closest to him. Instinctively, he backed up.

Especially when the shadowy figure that emerged proved to have been hit by
all
the arrows he’d shot . . . every single one of them, each projecting dead center from where Henrique Mauricio’s heart should have been.

And yet he wasn’t dead. He was still coming toward Alaric, a tiny smile playing on his lips.

“I will say one for thing for you, Wulf,” Mauricio said. “You don’t give up easily. I like that about you. That’s what would make you such a winning asset to my team.”

“How . . . ?” Alaric was stunned. “How is this possible? You should be dead. All of those arrows hit you in the heart.”

“I know,” Father Henrique said with a shrug. “There’s only one thing that can kill me, however. And you haven’t found it. Now, let’s talk about where you put that book.”