Angel Souls and Devil Hearts (46 page)

Mulkerrin looked back at Octavian, and saw that his face had broken into a grin so impossibly wide it must have been assisted by vampiric metamorphosis. It was a terrible grin, with murderous
intent, and all thoughts of the angelic appearance of his wings were gone from Mulkerrin’s mind, not that he ever would have admitted to such a thought.

“Die, you bastard!” Cody shouted, and Octavian did not move to assist the other vampire as Mulkerrin conjured a trio of mist-wraiths, creatures who had long been his slaves. In the
days when he was nothing more than a sorcerer, he had bound them to him, their wills nearly nonexistent, and used them as his most common ally, often for emergency transportation. When he first
encountered Octavian, he had used mist-wraiths. In Venice, during the Jihad, he had relied on them heavily. Now, with so much going strangely wrong around him, it was reflex to call on them to
attack Cody, and he didn’t have time for more.

In seconds, the three wraiths covered Will Cody, and he could not concentrate on holding the winged form he had assumed. To avoid falling, Cody turned to mist, and the silver dagger he had been
holding fell, tumbling, to the bloody cobblestones far below. Out of the corner of his eye, Mulkerrin saw Meaghan Gallagher and a male shadow he did not know, almost too close, but he ignored them.
Perhaps he could not attack Octavian directly, but thus far the vampire hadn’t made a move, which indicated that unlike Cody, he could not pass through Mulkerrin’s protective shell.

Stalemate. It was time to shake off these minor considerations and battles, to stretch his new abilities to their limits. He would begin with the destruction of the city below, and let them
attempt to stop him. The only one capable was Cody, and Mulkerrin would not let that shadow out of his sight, would summon demons to keep him away whenever necessary. He would do . . .

Nothing
! the voice of God boomed in his head.
You will do nothing more, Liam. You have failed, been distracted far too long by your petty angers, tiny fears.

“No, Lord!” Mulkerrin said aloud. “Don’t do this to me. I am your fire of purification, your weapon.”

Not a weapon. You have never been more than a tool.

“Please,” the sorcerer pleaded. “Do not say such things.”

And then his shield was gone and he was falling, summoning two more mist-wraiths even as he fell, the extra strength granted him now gone. Despair cast a pall over his soul. Abandoned by his
God, he was suddenly without any guidance. Still, he was a sorcerer, and had knowledge of many spells of power—he would survive.

And then Octavian was there, his hands clasped around Mulkerrin’s head, tightly squeezing, and the mist-wraiths had dissipated as if they had never been there. A hundred feet above the
ground, Mulkerrin was held aloft by those hands on his head, and Octavian’s wings lifted them both higher, then higher still.

“Admit it,” Octavian said, his face so close to Mulkerrin’s that their noses almost brushed. He spoke softly, like a lover. “Admit it, Liam.”

“What are you talking about?” Mulkerrin screeched, even as his mind fought to concentrate on spells despite the pressure on his skull.

“Admit that you know what the vampires are, who the Stranger is. Admit that you knew, all along, in your heart of hearts, that it wasn’t God speaking to you,” Octavian
purred.

“My God,” Mulkerrin cried to the sky, “why have you abandoned me?”

“Come now, priest,” Octavian chuckled dryly, “he abandoned you long ago, and you knew it. You knew. You were never on the side of the angels. Admit it to me, now. Forget your
petty angers, your tiny fears, and admit that which you knew, but feared to recognize!”

The words burned into Mulkerrin’s mind, past the blinding pressure in his head. Petty angers. Tiny fears. And he knew. Knew who had been speaking to him all along, who had freed him from
Hell, made him such a formidable weapon and sent him forth. Liam Mulkerrin knew whom he served. It was not God, never God. And it was not, most certainly, Peter Octavian.

You
! Mulkerrin thought.

Oh, yes
, the voice came back to him, in his head. And Octavian smiled, kissing him on the forehead.

“Don’t worry, Liam,” Octavian said. “You were already damned.”

Octavian stopped rising, now more than three hundred feet above the ruined Residence Plaza, lifted the old priest above his head and slammed the man’s body across his lifted knee, the
shattering of bones audible in the terrible silence that had fallen over the entire city. Then he simply let go, and with life slipping from him, finally, Mulkerrin saw the pleasure on
Octavian’s face as he fell. His last thought was a fervent wish for mercy, a hope that he would die before he hit the ground.

And then he did hit, and the time for wishes was at an end.

Salzburg, Austria, European Union.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 10:36
A.M.
:

“Let me go, you son of a bitch!” Allison Vigeant screamed, finally, losing it, and started slamming her elbow into Roberto Jimenez’s chest. They had crossed
the Salzach, and Roberto had been hustling her along, trying to get them all out of there, when one of his soldiers, a black woman, had shouted for them all to look. Dozens of heads turned toward
the sky and watched as, high above the city, one lone shadow broke Liam Mulkerrin, and hurled him to his doom on the street below.

“They did it!” Roberto said, astonished, and Allison turned to go back, but Jimenez wouldn’t let her. So she fought him.

“Let go!” she yelled again, and used all her strength to flip him onto the pavement in front of her. Jimenez was an expert fighter, and she’d only been able to do it because he
hadn’t expected her to be able to do anything of the sort. She wanted to laugh at the look on his face and the stunned silence of the soldiers in their immediate vicinity But it wasn’t
time for laughing.

She went to kneel by him, but Jimenez wasn’t having any of it; he was up and in her face in seconds. Still, she wasn’t about to back off.

“What the hell are you up to?” she asked. “It’s over, don’t you see? We’ve won.”

“You’ve got it all wrong,” he said sternly. “
They’ve
won. The vampires. If we went back there now, it would be two to one in our favor, and with vampires,
that’s shit for odds. I’m not going back there without an army of hunters, specially prepared to take out vampires. And then we’ll go after them and Hannibal at the same
time.”

“They wouldn’t attack you, you fool!” She shook her head. “They’ve always been on your side; you could go after Hannibal together!”

Jimenez didn’t have to say a word; the look on his face was enough.

“You’re not going to stop the nukes, are you?” she asked. “Once you’re safe, you’ll tell them to go ahead.”

“Don’t be an idiot!” he told her. “With Mulkerrin out of the way, they won’t want to destroy the whole city just to kill some vampires. Don’t worry. If I can
get in contact with the secretary general fast enough, there won’t be any nuclear attack.”

Jimenez had motioned for his troops to move on, and that’s what they were doing, searching for a phone that hadn’t been knocked out by earthquake or fire. Now he and Allison Vigeant
only looked at each other with disgust.

“I’m not a vampire,” she said. “Are you going to hunt me?”

“I’m trying to save you,” he answered, softening a moment, but Allison was having none of it. His tone only angered her more.

“Good hunting, asshole,” she said, giving him the finger.

“Good riddance, traitor,” he answered as she turned and began walking back the way they’d come, back to her lover and his people.

It had just begun, she realized, and at the same time she understood that her old life had come to an end. Allison knew she ought to have mourned that passing, the end of an era, but somehow she
didn’t have the energy.

Salzburg, Austria, European Union.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 10:35
P.M.
:

“Oh, my God!” Courage said, and Cody would have agreed, but he was speechless. He had joined Meaghan, Courage and the nearly speechless Stefan on the ground as
Peter soared skyward with Mulkerrin in tow, and had watched in astonishment as the sorcerer’s body shattered wetly not far from where they stood.

“How in hell did he do that?” Stefan blurted finally.

All is not what it seems
, John Courage’s calm voice said in Cody’s head, taking the edge off his own anxiety, though he knew from the Stranger’s initial reaction that he
was not as calm as he sounded.

“What’s going on, Stranger?” Meaghan demanded of Courage, and Cody wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was, that this was not the Peter Octavian they knew. A
thousand years in Hell explained a lot, but how much?

And then Cody saw that the answers would not be long in coming, because Octavian was descending, gliding down toward them even as Charlemagne’s troops formed up in military fashion behind
himself, Courage and Meaghan. Charlemagne himself had gone to inspect Mulkerrin’s body, even as Octavian landed on the cobblestones twenty feet in front of the gathered vampires. In seconds,
the sorcerer’s death was confirmed.

It said something, Will Cody felt, that he and Meaghan did not immediately rush to Octavian’s side, and he glanced over at her, nodding almost unconsciously as they made the decision not
to approach him at all. Everything about Peter, his manner of moving, of speaking, had suddenly become alien to them. Certainly Courage had sent Meaghan, Alexandra and Lazarus to Hell to retrieve
Peter because he’d thought Octavian could be of help. Peter had obviously shared his time in Hell with Mulkerrin, and if one had grown powerful, it was assumed the other might have benefited
as well.

But what powers had Octavian gained, to so easily murder a madman they had fought so hard and so fruitlessly to overcome?

“Your time away from this world has changed you, Nicephorus Dragases,” John Courage said, and Cody was only partially surprised that Courage knew Peter Octavian’s birth name.
After all, he knew about all his blood-children. On the other hand, Cody expected Octavian to be shocked by it, and perhaps Courage did as well. But such was not the case. Octavian merely
smiled.

“Such a simple ploy, Stranger,” Octavian said, his voice sounding harsh, guttural. “So you know my true name, and names have power, as we know. But I know you, as well. I know
who and what you are, and I know your name. I know the games you play on this plane, with these creatures.”

“You know nothing,” Courage said flatly, his eyes not betraying either hostility or concern.

“On the contrary,” Octavian said grimly, his eyes slitted now, mouth set in a line, “it is you who know nothing, are nothing.”

Octavian took several steps toward them, and Cody and Meaghan automatically took up fighting stances, while Courage, Charlemagne and his one hundred soldiers did little more than blink.

“Charlemagne,” Courage said, and Cody felt as if he’d been broken out of a trance. Here was a vampire, the first vampire and the true king of shadows if everything Cody
believed were true, calling to battle one of the most powerful kings in Europe’s history, also a vampire, against a shadow who had only five years earlier saved their race, not to mention the
fact that Octavian and Cody were blood-brothers, and friends.

“Peter,” Cody said, and caught Meaghan’s warning look out of the corner of his eye. “What’s the matter with you? What’s going on here?”

He stepped away from the group, and toward Peter, even as Charlemagne came forward and drew his sword, a challenge to Octavian, only two yards away. But Cody was having none of it, stepping
between that gleaming silver sword and his strangely acting friend.

“You’ve finally defeated Mulkerrin, and we may not have the answers, but it’s what we all wanted,” Cody said, meeting Peter’s eyes and finding only ice there.
“We’re friends, brothers. Why are we suddenly at odds?”

He could see that his words were having no effect, so he reached out to lay a hand on Octavian’s shoulder.

“Peter, please explain . . .,” Cody began, and then erupted into a terrible scream as his hand landed on Octavian’s shoulder. His hand was burning, burning with a pain unlike
anything he had ever experienced, nearly blinding him. And he couldn’t let go.

“Dolt!” Octavian yelled. “Those who touch me, die!”

And Cody realized that, somehow, he was dying. As the burning began to spread up his arm from his hand, he knew its tendrils would reach his heart and brain, and immortal or no, he would die.
Whatever Mulkerrin had, Peter had that and much more.

Then the pain was gone, and his hand with it. Cody found himself lying on the cobblestones, clutching at the place where his hand had been. He looked up to see Charlemagne bringing his sword
down in a crushing sweep toward Octavian’s neck, and Cody realized that the old king had cut off his hand, saving his life. Apparently, he was not invulnerable to all magic. Something told
him that, whatever Octavian had done to him, it would be a while before he could grow his hand back.

Charlemagne’s sword sliced toward Octavian’s neck, and his soldiers were already moving in to back him up as Octavian reached up and stopped the blade with his bare hand then yanked
it from Charlemagne’s grip. Peter turned the blade on its owner then, with a lightning-fast thrust that skewered the bearded ancient before he could move out of the way, and long before any
of his soldiers could defend him. Octavian pressed close, hugging Charlemagne to him, and pulled up on the hilt of the sword, ripping the old king’s insides even as a half dozen of
Charlemagne’s warriors tore the two apart and drove Octavian to the ground.

Even as the warriors struggled with him, they screamed with the pain of the same fire that had burned Will Cody, and Courage yelled, “Leave him alone!” But it was too late for those
six, as their bodies withered to grotesque husks in seconds and began crumbling into flaky ash.

“You son of a bitch, who are you?” Meaghan shrieked as she leapt forward, her right hand extended to become a metal claw which tore the flesh off the left side of Octavian’s
face.