Angel Souls and Devil Hearts (39 page)

The shadows who were already fire when Mulkerrin’s green blaze erupted were themselves engulfed. Most were driven back, away from the sorcerer, but several were absorbed into the green
flame, their orange light winking out merging with the magic, creatures meant to destroy the sorcerer now part of his protection.

Martha held back from the attack, searching for vulnerabilities in the shield, in the sorcerer. The murder of half their number happened so quickly that she could not have helped even if she had
an idea how to do so. In moments. Stefan and seventeen others stood with her, recovering from their struggle with the green flame, and she was at a loss as to their next move. Martha looked to
Stefan for his help and suggestions, but he could only stare at the fireball that now hung in the air, with Liam Mulkerrin as its unburning center.

Amazingly
, Martha thought,
they could still see him.

And then there came a cry from behind her, quite unexpected. She whirled to see that a large portal had opened up, a doorway to Hell. Martha could see her own reflection in the silvery,
shimmering vertical pool that led to a terrible fate. It was huge, the largest she had seen, and Martha knew then that they had no hope. If the sorcerer was still powerful enough to open such a
portal, then they had merely distracted him before, rather than weakening him. His power had not diminished, only been distracted for a moment.
As soon as he felt like it
, Martha thought,
it was likely Mulkerrin could do it all again, anytime he wanted, anywhere he wanted—the ghostly soldiers, the hellish beasts, the earthquakes—all over the world.

“No!” she shouted, but Mulkerrin was already rushing toward them, rushing toward the huge portal, which hung against the rubble where a wall had once stood, a wall which now lay on
Will Cody, who might or might not still be alive underneath the debris. Trapped between the green fire that had killed most of their comrades and a doorway into Hell itself, Stefan and the others
attempted to dive away, beyond the range of the portal. Martha did not move, knowing it was going to be too wide for such an escape.

Several vampires ran straight ahead, preferring to face the fire, to die while attempting to reach Mulkerrin, and they made it part of the way through the field before being nearly vaporized by
the green flame. The rest were caught between the fire and the portal. Faced with certain death on one hand and the unknown on the other, they chose life and backed through the liquid silver of the
door to Hell.

Knowing she could not dodge the flames, Martha simply lay down, just before the fire slammed into her, and dug her hands into the rubble, searching for some kind of grip. The green flames
blasted over her, charring and cracking her skin. She shut her eyes tight, but they would not last long under that onslaught. There was terrible pain in her legs, as if one of them were being torn
off from the knee down, and she turned back and opened her eyes to see that the force of the blow had pushed the lower half of her body through the portal. Her hands had dragged a pile of stones
three feet as she tried to save herself.

And now something beyond that door was ravaging her. She was overwhelmed by the sadness of the knowledge that those of her people who had already passed through would be destroyed by what lay
beyond. It yanked at her, began chewing on her, and Martha was dragged farther even as she screamed.

Then, finally, she found a solid handhold under the debris, between two large stones in the courtyard. She pulled herself forward, ignoring the gnawing tug on her leg from beyond the door. She
had dragged herself out as far as her waist, when she remembered Mulkerrin . . . and then his shoes were there, in front of her, and she looked up to see him smiling. He had given up all but a
glowing aura, which hung from him like a suit of armor, and now he sat on a rock to watch her struggle and suffer.

Martha was dragged back several inches by a terrible tug, and she felt the muscle tear away from the calf of her good leg. If she could turn to flame herself, she might escape the portal and
destroy whatever it was that was preying upon her, but in all her pain, she did not have the concentration for it. If it was her time, she would accept it and gladly go to meet God. She only wished
that she could have sent Mulkerrin on ahead of her, especially now, as the smile spread across his aging face.

And then she saw it, beyond him, a low mist rising from the rubble where Mulkerrin had tumbled a stone wall onto Will Cody. Martha knew what it meant, who it was. Will had survived, of course,
and had allowed himself a few minutes to recover before turning to mist and floating back up through the rocks to rejoin the battle.

“Will!” Martha shouted in her pain, and Mulkerrin snapped his head around to see the mist floating toward them. “Get out of here! Retreat! Find Courage and return to destroy
the madman when you have a hope of surviving!”

And Martha smiled as the mist became a hawk, and the hawk sped up and over the wall of the fortress. A tendril of green fire arched out from Mulkerrin’s upraised palm, surrounding the
hawk, but nothing happened. Cody was immune to the magic. Huge stones lifted from the floor of the fortress and shot after the hawk, but it was out of range. As it dropped below the wall of the
fortress, out of sight Martha laughed.

“You will not prevail, madman,” she said, even as something tore into her buttocks, pulling her back into the portal up to her breasts.

Mulkerrin glared at her, then the aura around him extended once again, and he rose from the ground, floating within the magical field, above the wall, preparing to pursue Cody. Martha winced
with pain, but gritted her teeth against the scream that lodged in her throat as the sorcerer called over his shoulder to her.

“God’s work is never done, Defiant One. At least, not until I say it is.”

And then he was gone, and the portal closed, cutting Martha in two.

As the portal closed, Stefan’s hiding place dissolved leaving him vulnerable. He had been the only one to escape the press between fire and Hell, and had jumped behind
the shimmering portal, onto the crumbling wall. He stepped down now and went to Martha’s side. Her already burnt flesh was beginning to char further in the sunshine and soon there would be
nothing left of her but ashes.

Stefan shapeshifted into a black raven, a change reflecting his sorrow, and took flight. Far behind, he followed Mulkerrin’s slow progress. He would rejoin the fight as soon as Cody did,
and die if he must. For there was no place for the shadow people in a world with Mulkerrin as its master.

Hell.
One Hundred Sixty-Seven Days,
Fifty-Five Minutes After Departure:

“I’m sorry,” Peter Octavian said softly, and fell to his knees, sticking his hands out to keep from landing on his face. He slumped back, took a deep breath,
then looked up at Meaghan, his eyes empty of life, filled with despair.

“It’s been . . . so long,” he said, and Meaghan’s heart crumbled.

“It’s okay,” she said, kneeling by him. “I can’t claim to understand what you’re feeling, but it’s okay now. We’re going to go home.”

Peter nodded, not even attempting a smile, and then turned to where Lazarus was standing, flipping through
The Gospel of Shadows
, searching for the spell that could take them back to
their world. Meaghan had expected Peter to have a lot of questions, especially for Lazarus, who he had once hoped had all the answers. But the questions never came.

“Peter, this whole time I’ve been trying to talk to you, in my head, and I get nothing,” she said as she helped him to his feet, partially supporting his weight. “Have
the years taken that contact away from us, or were you blocking me?”

Peter shook his head slowly, then stretched, as if waking from a long sleep. Finally his eyes began to take on a small spark of life, a slowly dawning awareness of his situation.

“I don’t . . . No, I wasn’t purposely keeping you out,” he said. “In fact, I wasn’t sure it was really you, since I didn’t hear you in my
head.”

Peter looked at her, then—the old Peter, though weak and haggard.

“How long were you trapped here?” Meaghan asked him as she stepped back, giving him room to stretch further, to test his strength. “Were you aware of the passing of
time?”

She sensed a stirring from Lazarus, but he said nothing. Peter looked thoughtful, but confident again.

“I’ve been here nearly a thousand years.”

Meaghan wanted to be shocked, stunned at least. But she had already whispered these things to herself, guessing Peter’s fate based upon the time she and Lazarus had spent in Hell. Still,
it was horrible to hear the truth of it, to sense even a tiny bit of the suffering. And yet Meaghan had long since acknowledged that, if they did find Peter alive, things would never be the way
they were. Alexandra’s death only widened the gulf between them. As such she gained some comfort from the elapsed time, knowing that Peter could not possibly feel about her the way he had
when he had crossed over into Hell, so long ago.

And then she wondered again why he asked no questions. That wasn’t like him. Once upon a time he had fancied himself a detective. Curiosity had led him into his first confrontation with
Liam Mulkerrin.
Maybe after all this time
, Meaghan thought,
he doesn’t care about anything anymore
.

“Peter,” Lazarus spoke to him for the first time, “how did you come to have the book?”

He held it forward, to be certain Octavian understood him, but Peter did not respond.

“We arrived here just over five months ago,” Lazarus said. “You can’t have been here, trapped in the crystal, for longer than that, because we had the book up until then.
Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know,” Peter said after a moment’s consideration. “But we’ll need it to get out of here.”

Lazarus harrumphed, indicating that Octavian was stating the obvious, and wasn’t helping matters any, then he when back to scanning the book

“What’s going on back home.?” Peter did finally ask.

Grateful for the question, Meaghan told him everything all that had happened in his absence, while they thought he was dead. She told him of the Shadow Justice System and the new world order, of
Allison’s new jobs and Cody’s return to filmmaking and mass media shows, of their search for Lazarus and his timely arrival . . . of Mulkerrin’s return, with extraordinary new
power. In the silence that followed, while he digested all of this new information, Meaghan also told him that she and Alexandra had become lovers, and that Alex was now dead.

“What?” he asked and blinked, then turned to face Lazarus, pushing the book from his hands to get the elder’s attention.

“You son of a bitch,” Peter said coldly. “You knew I was here, knew I was suffering, and you didn’t do a fucking thing about it. Then your friend Father Mulkerrin
returns, and suddenly you need me. So you drag the two people who are most important to me down into Hell with you and you let one of them die!”

Peter was furious, his lips drawn back, his teeth gleaming. But Lazarus only stood, staring passively back at him, as Meaghan came to his rescue.

“No, Peter, it wasn’t like that. Lazarus didn’t know, he only guessed because Mulkerrin had returned, and so we all hoped that meant you were still alive as well. And he
couldn’t have saved Alex; I was there.”

“I don’t give a damn!” he roared, turning on Meaghan now. “And why are you so chummy suddenly with this traitor?”

“Octavian,” Lazarus said quietly, attempting to soothe, to calm, to command respect with his reserve. Peter wasn’t having any of it.

“Listen, you bastard,” Peter snapped, turning back to Lazarus, “we both know that your friend the Stranger knew I was down here, and didn’t lift a finger, so don’t
even try to—”

Peter’s voice trailed off as Lazarus held up a hand, a command really, to stop speaking. The older vampire’s face became suspicious, his right eyebrow lifting as he turned his
head.

“What do you know of the Stranger?” Lazarus asked. “You sent your loved ones on a worldwide search for me, to find out about our race, about me. You know nothing you did not
learn here, in Hell. So I ask you plainly now what Meaghan would only dance around: what happened here when you and Mulkerrin arrived? What happened between you? How did he escape? Why
haven’t we been attacked while trying to rescue you? Where did Mulkerrin come by his new abilities and you your new knowledge?

“Who are you, now, Octavian? Who have we come to bring home?”

Meaghan was staring, slack-jawed at both of them.

“Don’t you think this can wait until . . .,” she began, but Lazarus shook his head before she was even through.

“He’s changed,” Lazarus said. “I want to find out how much.”

“You’ve changed over the past thousand years, I’ll wager,” Meaghan said to Lazarus, unwilling to confess that she shared some of his anxiety. “And you haven’t
been suffering the entire time.”

“Meaghan, it’s all right,” Peter said. “He doesn’t have a right to ask, but you, blood-daughter, have a right to know.”

Blood-daughter
, she thought,
that’s what I am to him now
. And she felt a little sadness for all they had lost.

“I will save the whole story for a more appropriate time and setting,” Peter said, “but I’ll answer the most important questions now. When Mulkerrin and I arrived, I was
preparing to kill him, though his magic still allowed him to call some of the demon-slaves here to his aid. But Beelzebub, whose escape to Earth I had prevented by bringing Mulkerrin here, was
there to stop us. Instead of killing us on the spot, which I have wished infinitely he had done, we were kept alive, made to suffer . . .”

He trailed off for a moment, and Meaghan wanted to go to him, to hold him, but she needed to hear more. Peter detailed much of the suffering he and Mulkerrin had endured side by side, how Lord
Beelzebub had worked some kind of dark magic on the sorcerer to keep him from dying, to keep him suffering.

“Many times, the demon-lord mentioned his hatred of the Stranger, and in describing why vampires had no real mooring in our world, he revealed a little of our people’s true history,
though he vowed he would not do so. He could not help it, so enraged would he become. Of course, Mulkerrin did not believe a word of it, dealing as we were with the Prince of Lies. I will not tell
you, now, of the other tortures and indignities he devised for me, and for the despicable sorcerer. Instead, I will say only that I had a moment of rationality during a particularly agonizing time,
and realized that Mulkerrin was gone. Somehow I sensed that he was not only gone from me, but from Hell. Of new power, I know nothing. Of our people, and the Stranger, I know only what the devil
told me.”