Vanquished (31 page)

Holgar and Antonio were a couple hundred yards from the monastery when the werewolf approached, still in wolf form. Holgar scowled. They could still understand each other, but it was rude, particularly when Antonio could not.

“What’s wrong?” Holgar asked.

The wolf danced from one foot to the other.

Why is he stalling?
Holgar wondered.

Suddenly the wind shifted, and Holgar could smell the wolf’s fear and hatred. And there was something—

“Run!” he shouted to Antonio, turning back toward the
monastery. A moment later something ripped through him, and he fell to the snow as he heard the report of a rifle.

A second shot rang out, this one sounding completely different from the first, and Antonio hit the snow beside him. A tranquilizer dart was protruding from the vampire’s neck.

They tranqued him. They tranqued him and they shot me.

And then his insides began to burn, and fire traced its way along his veins.

They shot me with silver.

* * *

Something was wrong; Noah could feel it. Holgar and Antonio should have been back already. At the very least they should have heard more howling, but there hadn’t been any since the pair had left.

Jenn’s fear was there in her eyes for all the world to see, and Father Juan wouldn’t stop pacing.

Noah stood. “I’m going out there,” he said.

It was the signal everyone seemed to have been waiting for, and they all exploded into action. He didn’t bother to tell them to stay put. It would do no good. So a minute later he, Jenn, and Father Juan strode outside.

Esther was stationed just inside the monastery doors with half a dozen monks, all armed, all prepared for an assault.

Because that was what it felt like was happening. It felt like they were under siege.

Fortunately, it wasn’t snowing, so the tracks the two had left were crisp and clear. Noah followed them at a jog,
keeping eyes and ears focused for any attacks that might come from the side.

Jenn kept pace with him while Father Juan followed behind, covering them with a stake in one hand and a gun in the other.

The farther they went, the more Noah’s skin crawled. Then, finally, he saw a dark shape in the snow. He pointed to it, and Jenn took off at a dead run. Lighter than he, she didn’t sink as far into the snow with every step.

He swept his Uzi from side to side, trying to see where danger would be coming from. Father Juan caught up to him, and together they approached Jenn, who had fallen to her knees beside a body in the snow.

Noah looked down.

Holgar.

His chest looked like hamburger, and there was so much blood in the snow.

Too much blood.

“He’s dead!” Jenn screamed.

Aurora had kept her promise to her dark lord. She had brought him the traitor Antonio, proving her love, her devotion to him. Why then did she feel more nervous than before?

The werewolves who had helped her, those still loyal to Lucifer, laid the unconscious vampire on the floor and then departed quickly. She’d shot Antonio with enough tranquilizers to keep him out for two nights at least. The last thing she’d wanted was for him to awake on the journey and escape.

Or get himself killed in the process.

As for the werewolf, she had shot it through the heart with a silver bullet. It turned out you
could
keep a good man down. You just had to have the right weaponry.

“I’m so proud of you,” Lucifer congratulated Aurora, his eyes glowing like embers as he stared at Antonio’s inert form.

“Thank you,” she whispered, smiling up at him with what she hoped were doting eyes.

“So, the enigma. We can see it at last for ourselves,” Dantalion said as he entered the room.

Aurora fought the urge to bare her fangs at him. She hated him and was infuriated that he hadn’t died in Russia like he was supposed to. But as long as Lucifer favored him, there was nothing she could do.

Dantalion was crafty. She had yet to figure out a way to discredit him with her sire. She was sure that he knew she hated him and returned it in full measure. Which meant she needed to watch her back as well.

“Do you think it’s his blood?” Dantalion asked.

“We’ll find out,” Lucifer replied. “Bleed him, study it.”

“And if it’s not his blood?” Aurora asked, trying to calm her fear. After all, hadn’t she already experimented with bleeding him? Of course, she had been more interested in his psyche than his physiology.

“Then we’ll carve him up inch by inch until we figure out exactly what makes Sergio’s little priest tick,” Lucifer said, his voice dripping with menace.

Aurora shivered as she studied the unconscious Spanish vampire. She had sworn to kill Antonio de la Cruz. She wanted him dead. But somehow the thought of what Dantalion and Lucifer had in mind sent her into a near-mindless panic. They were butchers, both of them. Antonio deserved everything they did to him, and more. Just . . . what if they ever did anything like that to
her
?

She’d have to find a way to get rid of Dantalion soon. Maybe then she could rest easier. With the Russian vampire out of the picture, it would be just her and Lucifer . . . and the memory of whatever they had done to Antonio.

It’s not that I pity him,
she insisted. But she found herself thinking of the Inquisition, and how they had tortured her entire family, making them confess that they observed Jewish customs, to save their souls for Christ. But the Church hadn’t cared about their immortal souls. The greedy bishops had wanted their lands.

Everyone in her family burned alive, even her little sister.

I’ve done worse,
she thought.
And taken pride in it. Antonio killed Sergio, my love. I should save my worst tortures for him.

She’d already tortured him with the finesse of centuries of cruelty. She had driven him back to the fold of evil, only to lose him. And to hear from Dantalion via his spy, the little hunting student Sade, that Antonio had undertaken some kind of pilgrimage to Romania to make sure he remained “good.” Didn’t it seem that fate decreed a reunion?

Despite torture and torment, something inside Antonio de la Cruz reached its arms toward heaven. Sergio had attacked him and changed him into a vampire while he’d been trying to save someone else. Aurora had been changed into a vampire while trying to save herself. Was that the difference?

I don’t care. It doesn’t matter,
she thought. But ever since her dream, somehow, it did matter.

Jenn heard no sound as she knelt over Holgar’s body. Maybe she was screaming, maybe the others were shouting orders at each other to cover her and Holgar while they searched for the shooter—she heard nothing. Shock was like a live wire that made her tremble and jerk. Holgar was the best of them. He couldn’t be dead.

Her hands fluttered uselessly over the bloody mess that
had once been flesh and bone. He had been shredded to pieces.

Returning to her side, Noah flicked on a flashlight. A glint of something shiny in the snow caught her eye. She picked it up. It was a small shotgun pellet. No wonder he looked like he had been riddled with bullets. She held it up to the flashlight and heard Father Juan suck in his breath, and his words pierced her silence:

“It’s silver.”

Silver. Silver killed werewolves. That was why Holgar wasn’t sitting up and complaining to her about how much the pellets had stung. Whoever had done this had done so on purpose. They had come hunting a werewolf.

But what of a vampire?

She didn’t see Antonio anywhere. Was it possible he was tracking down Holgar’s killer? Or had he, too, been killed, his ashes scattered on the winds so that she could never find them, never know for sure?

She heard Noah talking, something about the number of tracks in the snow, but she couldn’t focus on what he was saying.

She lowered her forehead and pressed it against Holgar’s. She wanted to cry, but there were no tears left. And the loss was too great. She could hear Father Juan and Noah resume their search of the area, trying to understand what had happened.

And then, as her fingertips held Holgar’s head, she felt something stir beneath them.

She blinked, then held her breath, focusing all her energy on what it was she had felt.

There, beneath her fingertips, was the tiniest pulse in the vein in his temple.

“He’s alive!” she shouted.

Skye was having a hard time catching her breath in the cold morning air. Either that or it was her growing sense of excitement since they’d crossed into Transylvania. If she never rode another train in her life, she’d be happy. Armed with passports both real and fake, glamouring themselves to deflect attention, the group had actually picked up some recruits along the way. They were thirty strong now, and strong was an excellent word to describe them.

They had requisitioned some vehicles—Jamie stole them—and they would soon be at the monastery where the others were waiting for them. When last they’d spoken with Father Juan, they’d agreed to maintain radio silence until their arrival. As they got closer, the excitement over seeing her teammates, and especially Holgar, grew.

But a shadow was also growing in Skye’s mind the closer they got to the monastery. There was a darkness, an
evil that seemed to permeate the very air itself. She’d felt evil before, particularly in the presence of the Cursed Ones and definitely from Estefan, but nothing like this. It was as if it poisoned the very air around them.

She could tell the other witches felt it too. They were growing quieter, and when they did speak, it was in hushed tones. A sense of dread and apprehension began to fill the void.

“What is it?” Autumn, the youngest witch, finally asked. No older than ten or eleven, she rode beside Skye in the lead vehicle, an old army truck.

“I don’t know,” Skye said. “But I have a feeling we’ll find out soon enough.” The contact they had had with Father Juan had been extremely brief, and they didn’t know much of what had been happening.

“Look!” Lune cried suddenly, pointing out the window.

Skye looked out each of the windows in turn. Wolves ran silently beside them. The one in the lead was jet black, and turned glowing yellow eyes toward her for just a moment.

“Werewolves,” she declared.

The other witches gasped, and Skye realized that none of them had seen one before.

“Are they going to hurt us?” someone asked fearfully.

Skye stared out at them, and a peaceful feeling settled over her. She had heard stories about dolphins guiding ships into port. “I think they’re our escort,” she said at last, raising her hand in greeting.

That gave everyone something to talk about, and Skye was able to push the dark thoughts and feelings to the back of her mind for a while as she listened to the chatter and watched the wolves. She wondered if Holgar was out there. It was daylight out, and there would be no full moon that night. But she knew how much he’d wanted to be able to change at will.

“There it is,” the driver, the English freedom fighter, said at last. Skye looked out the front window and saw the monastery perched on the mountaintop, as if it were reaching for the heavens. She sucked in her breath. If Holgar wasn’t running with the pack, then he was there. She could see his face now and almost feel the warmth of his embrace. Her heart began to lift, and in that moment she felt as if she could defeat all the vampires in the world by herself.

She heard Jamie on the radio from the other vehicle, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. The next few minutes crawled by as she thought about Holgar.

“Blimey, Autumn,” she murmured, and the little witch smiled at her excitedly and gave her hand a squeeze.

At last they stopped the vehicles at the base of the mountain and got out. The priests met them and drove them to the monastery on snowmobiles. Father Juan and Jenn were waiting for them at the door.

With a laugh Skye threw her arms around Jenn and hugged her tight. Then she did the same to Father Juan, who embraced her just as tightly.

“Gracias a Dios,”
he said in Spanish. “Thanks be to God that you are safe.”

“And the Goddess,” Skye said pertly as the witches and resistance fighters entered the monastery behind her. She pulled away and peered around Father Juan. “Where’s Holgar?”

“Skye,” Jenn began, then stopped.

Skye screamed. She didn’t know at first why she was screaming. She felt ripped out of her body; it was as if she stood outside it, observing. She was screaming and pushing past them. Noah came running and reached for her, but she shook him off. Somewhere a long ways off, Jamie was swearing more than usual.

And then Skye was running through the monastery. Even though she had never been there before, somehow her feet seemed to know where to go. She burst into what looked like a rudimentary hospital room. There were crosses everywhere, an enormous crucifix of wood hung on the wall, and men in brown robes knelt on stone in clusters, praying.

There.

Stretched out on a bed.

Was what was left of Holgar.