Angel Souls and Devil Hearts (18 page)

“
Do it!
” Meaghan screamed. “Change!”

And Alex began to transform, mist swirling in the throat cut out of stone. But the dead creatures there would not stop, and their mouths and nostrils opened, heads craning as far out from their
woven mingling as possible as they
inhaled
Alexandra, breathed in as much of the mist as they could.

Meaghan was nearly sick, about to scream to Alex again, and then one of the faces in the hole caught her eye. It was looking at her as it sucked in the essence of her lover. Its eyes locked on
hers and its grin widened. Meaghan looked around at the other faces and saw that many of them, some not human-looking at all, also stared at her, also grinned. And then she knew Alexandra had been
right. Their presence in Hell had been no secret, and whatever knew they were there was truly evil, and intelligent.

And before she could try to help any further, Alex changed again, to fire this time, and Meaghan wanted to cheer but could only watch and hope. She and Lazarus had to back away slightly, as the
throat seemed to widen and hands reached out and groped around its stone edges for them. She wished for
The Gospel of Shadows
, for any power it might have held, but knew that wishes were
only that.

A twinge of triumph swept through Meaghan as the flesh of the throat, the arms and bellies, breasts and legs, penises and buttocks, faces and eyes, especially eyes, began to blacken and blister
under the fire that was Alexandra Nueva. The eyes that had been staring at Meaghan burst, spurting some black, malodorous liquid, but the faces kept on grinning. With a scream of fury, Meaghan
began to crawl forward, but Lazarus held her back.

The dead mouths were sucking in the flame as easily as they had the mist. Even as lips charred to the teeth, the flames disappeared through the open mouths of the damned creatures. Meaghan broke
Lazarus’s hold and rushed forward, upward on her knees. She lay on the stone and reached down into the burning gullet and began smashing faces, breaking skulls, shattering bones.

And then they had her, and were pulling her down, headfirst, into the throat of Hell. She could feel Lazarus pulling from behind, and she thought she felt the bones in her left ankle break in
his grip. Claws tore at her face and throat; teeth took a bite from her cheek. She opened her eyes even as a burnt, skeletal hand reached out to pluck them from her skull—and then Alex was
there, face-to-face with her, blocking the attack of that hand. Her face was covered in blood, her beautiful chocolate skin shredded to the bone from the lips down. Hanging upside down as she was,
Meaghan could see that Alex’s left breast had been torn away with her left arm. Below that, she was just gone.

Gone.

Hanging gore was all that remained there, but still, Alexandra thrashed her upper body, her right arm broken but flailing at the voracious damned around her. Her efforts were a distraction to
the creatures of the throat, and their hold on Meaghan loosened, only for a moment, but long enough for Lazarus’s pulling on the other end to make a difference. Meaghan’s head,
shoulders and arms, all that had been pulled into the hole, popped out, and then she was being dragged on the stone. She had one, final glimpse of Alexandra, love and pain in her eyes, and tears on
her cheeks, and then nothing.

Meaghan sat up, backing away, and she could feel her broken ankle, the tears in the flesh of her face, neck and arms, all healing, even as she heard the sounds of what remained of her lover
being consumed. She backed into Lazarus, who had saved her, but neither had been able to save Alex. Their strength was meaningless, she thought. How could they have thought to survive such a
journey? Mulkerrin’s creatures had been mindless, but here, in Hell, it was different. She had seen those eyes, the cruelty there.

Hell was aware, and it knew them.

Meaghan turned her head from the sight of the burnt hands grasping at the air around the open throat, scratching at the stone for the food that had escaped. She fell into Lazarus’s arms,
and he held her uncomfortably, as she wept in a manner all too human. She knew he could not find words to comfort her, and she was glad. She did not want to be comforted.

“Alex,” she sobbed. “Oh, my God.”

Meaghan had purposely not addressed God since becoming a vampire during the Jihad five years before. She’d been confused, uncertain, no matter what she told her own kind. But now she
knew.

She’d seen it up close, and now Meaghan Gallagher knew that, no matter what she was, she was not evil.

“Dear God,” she sobbed, her heart crying, her chest exploding, “We need you . . . We all need you.”

Lazarus held her hand tight as he led her farther down into the tunnel, and soon the only sounds were of her weeping. First her parents, then her lover and best friend, Janet Harris, then Peter
Octavian, and now Alexandra—everyone Meaghan Gallagher loved, died. She could not help but think that she was just one more tortured soul, suffering, in Hell.

Washington, D.C., United States of America.
Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 8:14
P.M.
:

“Where the fuck did they go, George?”

Henry Russo was not fooling around. George Marcopoulos sat in the study of his Washington, D.C., home and argued with the President of the United States. In addition to the two men, both U.S.
Secretary of State Julie Graham and United Nations Secretary General Rafael Nieto were attending the video conference.

George wasn’t in the mood.

“Listen, Henry, you can play hardball all you want, but I’m in the dark just as much as you. The difference is, I care what happened to them, not just why they aren’t on their
way to Austria. Give me a break, will you? These are my friends!”

“That’s what has me worried, George,” Julie Graham said grimly.

“And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?” George snapped.

“What it means,” the President resumed, “is that we think you know what happened to Nueva and Gallagher, and we want to know if it poses a threat to us and to Operation:
Jericho!”

“If it poses . . . Are you out of your fucking mind?’` George lost it completely. “Don’t you know who you’re talking about here? These two women—”

“Vampires,” Graham said, stabbing.

“Vampires, yes!” George roared. “Women first, human beings whether you believe it or not. They are your greatest allies among their kind. Without them, the entire world might
have suffered in the wake of the Venice Jihad. They are almost solely responsible for the peace you have today, and you dare imply—”

“What peace?” Rafael Nieto finally spoke up, and the mere fact of his calm was enough to defuse George’s rage for a moment.

“Yes, yes, Austria,” George said and nodded, understanding Nieto’s implication. “But the shadows have nothing to do with that. Mulkerrin is their sworn enemy. They have
vowed to destroy him, with or without your help.”

George gave a
hmph
to let them know exactly what he thought of their insane suspicions. Why, the very idea! And did they think he was stupid? A man of his age and reputation, his
closeness to the shadows—well, he ought to know oughtn’t he?

But of course, he ought to know where Meaghan and Alex had gotten to as well. And now this news of Cody’s capture.

“And where does Rome fit into all this?” George asked. “Is anybody actually listening to the Vatican these days? If the Pope has got you guys all introspective, it’s
because he wants you to forget that Mulkerrin was a priest once, not to mention all the Vatican busboys who ended up corpses in Venice.”

“The Pope,” Rafael Nieto said patiently, “has not contacted anyone. In fact, I’d guess right about now he’s hiding under his desk. Now, if we could get back to our
subject, a moment ago you referred to the Shadow Justice System. That, dear Doctor, is exactly where all of this sudden mistrust is rooted. My Field Commander, Roberto Jimenez, is on record
regarding his feelings toward shadows in general, and now his suspicions relating to the SJS chief marshal.”

Hannibal
, George thought.
So that’s what this is about
.

“Now I understand,” he said and nodded. “You suspect Hannibal is up to no good, and you fear that Nueva and Gallagher’s disappearance bodes ill, perhaps indicates some
conspiracy?”

He chuckled, and watched all three faces on his viewscreen frown at the act.
The hell with them
, he thought.
They could indulge an old man
.

“If Meaghan and Alex’s disappearance is cause for alarm, it is because of some harm which may have befallen them,” George said sharply, nostrils flared. “Not, certainly,
because they have planned some insane insurrection at a time when their worst enemy walks the earth again. Talk about stupid! I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

Ah, he had their attention. Did he ever!

“Hannibal is a liar, a killer, and an incredibly intelligent creature with a network of operatives all his own. He is as vicious as the legends portray his kind to be, the antithesis of
everything Meaghan and her team stand for.”

“But,” the President sputtered, “what were you thinking when—”

“We know Hannibal too well,” George said, though he was really speaking for the shadows, for he’d never actually met Hannibal. “The creature wanted the SJS job so that he
would be above suspicion, and therefore, above punishment for his own misdeeds. He has pretended to be above reproach so that humanity will not demand his destruction. The position was intended to
be, in a way, a prison for him. A way for us to keep an eye on him.”

“But how can you—” Julie Graham began.

“Rolf Sechs, the deputy chief?” George continued. “He and Cody and Nueva shared the same blood-father, as they say. He is one of them, and he is also Hannibal’s watchdog.
Don’t worry, my friends. If Hannibal gets out of hand, Rolf will simply kill him, or die trying, and then you’ve got the rest of the SJS to keep the beast in check. Now, can we discuss
what’s truly important here, like destroying Mulkerrin before his madness spreads any further, and perhaps what’s being done to find Meaghan and Alexandra?”

George Marcopoulos looked at his viewscreen and saw three of the most powerful individuals in the world looking back at him like cowed schoolchildren.
Good
! he thought. They were acting
like fools, and here he was, nothing but an old sawbones, telling them what to do. A sudden memory nearly forced a smile onto his face, but he stifled the urge before they could see it. Still, the
memory came, of younger days, laughing with his kids in front of the television set.

Damnit, Jim
, he thought,
I’m a doctor not a diplomat
.

Who would have guessed?

St. Leonhard, Austria, European Union.
Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 6.23
P.M.
:

They had ridden in near complete silence as the miles ticked away on the odometer. The only thing Allison Vigeant and John Courage had learned about their driver was his name:
Kurt Wagner. Beyond that, the man was silent. He seemed both frightened and fascinated by being in the same car as Courage, and it occurred to Allison that humans had become quite adept at picking
the shadows out of the herd, which was ironic because the vampires had hidden among them for so many years. On the other hand, much to Wagner’s chagrin, his brother, the volunteer, had
babbled continuously, until Courage finally ordered him to be silent, which he was.

Now, though, they had pulled to a stop in Saint Leonhard, at the foot of Mount Untersberg, with the Alps rising all around them and a cable car hanging in the air on the mountainside. This,
apparently, was their destination, though Allison had held off asking the many questions sprinting across her mind. She was not comfortable with the Wagner brothers there.

As they got out of the car, with barely a few syllables to spare for the men, Courage set off toward the cable car at a brisk pace. Wagner’s tires turned up stones pulling away. Allison
looked up toward the mountain.

Shit!

The cable car was not moving. Assuming they needed the car to get where they were going, and John’s direction certainly hinted that they did, they had finally run into a major obstacle.
She followed him quickly and arrived at the car’s enclosed terminal several paces behind him. The door had shut, but even as she opened it, Allison could hear Courage yelling.

“. . . you’re dealing with!” he roared. “Do you have any idea what’s going on in Salzburg? If you don’t get this thing up and going, a lot more people will
die!”

Two men, obviously the operators of the car, were on the receiving end of this tirade, and they looked completely overwhelmed, but not necessarily cooperative. Courage leaned forward, his eyes
narrowing, and bared his fangs, hissing at them. His nose elongated slightly and his ears began to point.

The cable car was operational in seconds, and on its way down to them.

“What happened?” Allison whispered to him as the hum of the descending car filled the terminal.

“They’ve been shut down since the quake,” John whispered back, “expecting aftershocks.”