Drew D'Amato:Bloodlines:02 (27 page)

“You are damned.”

“Trust me Bandini
,
that is the one thing a God like me and a fuck like you have in common. 
We are both damned. 
I’m just better at being a killer.  You have been judged.”

Vlad let go of Bandini and he started to fall to ground.  Vlad
unholstered his gun
.  He shot Bandini right between his eyes as he fell.  The body fell against the back
altar
wall of the
Sistine chapel, the painting calle
d The Last Judgment.  A fresco
about Jesus coming down to judge all on the last day of existence. 
Bandini’s body curled in the right corner of the altar wall,
underneath the painting. 
Some of h
is blood and brains
had splattered on the bottom right quadrant of the painting.  Some of it landed onto the boat of the ferry
man
,
who appeared to be shipping the damned to hell.

5

V
lad dropped his gun and breathed out.  He had the
power back, but he no longer had Jasmine. 
This was his cross to bear
, but making this choice might be his salvation.  H
e was a savior, and like any good savior, he accepted his fate.

It took him a while to take everything in.  Pacami was de
ad, but he couldn’t think of leaving his body here.  A man who led such a righteous life should not be left to be confused in whatever mess the authorities would believe happened here.  He walked back into the Basilica.  He could hear sirens in the distance, but he knew he had time.  He lifted up the canopy of the Baldacchino and threw it to one side.
Roberto’s skull had seen better days.  He picked up the Dark Bible that had somehow managed to stay intact and put it in the back of his jeans.  He then took off the C-4 vest on Pacami’s body.  Looking at his lost friend, he started to cry.  He had lost so many close to him recently.  It was hard to tell himself that tonight was actually a success, but it could have been far worse. 

He carried Pacami’s body and flew out of the Basilica, through a window at the top, up into the air just as the first sight of cop cars had started to appear.  He hovered above the dome of the Basilica with Pacami in his left hand and dug for something in his pocket with his right. 
It was the real trigger to the C-4 vest.  Before the first cop got out of his car, Vlad pressed the button. 

A massive explosion roared from inside the Vatican.  The police would now have an even tougher time piecing together what had occurred there.  Vlad had
no remorse for what he did to such a sacred place like the Vatican.  The way he felt, the place
had it coming
. 
Years of living off corrupt money, giving clemency to war criminals, and sexually abusing children.  They needed a reckoning, and Vlad gave it to them.

NINE

1

V
lad called Warburton as he flew back toward England.  He was traveling faster in the air than he ever had before.  He estimated maybe 300 miles per hour.  He concluded this new speed and strength had to be the result that this time he
chose
to drink the blood.  He had the same powers and same tricks—they just had more of a kick to them. 

He had to stop flying because the wind made it impossible to hear and speak into the phone.  It was close to three in the morning and he was around the coast of France.  He could only imagine what was going on at the Vatican right then.  But it would only be questions, no answers.  Maybe a wave of panic would spread around Western Civilization, maybe a Muslim Extremist faction would take credit for the act.  It didn’t matter, as long as no one knew about vampires. 

However, he couldn’t escape the fear that Radu would now put two and two together and learn Vlad was up to his old tricks.  He didn’t want Radu to feel like he had to rush his plans.  He didn’t want Radu to be concerned with Vlad.

Vatican, dead Crusaders,
how could he not figure that out?  Vlad would worry about that later.  His only option, it appeared, was to plead ignorance. 
Maybe the Crusaders turned on themselves.
  Maybe they had the real blood all along.  Radu would have no problem believing
they could be deceitful themselves.  He had been in business with them for years.  Right now he couldn’t think of Radu or even Jasmine.  Now he just thought about the man in his arms.

He wanted to give Pacami a proper burial.  He deserved it.  He couldn’t let his body be found in that disaster at the Vatican, and his memory tied to some suspicious attack.  He concluded his option was to fake both their deaths.  He thought about taking two bodies—one of them Pacami’s—and blow them up in a car beyond recognition.  Then back home in LA his body, though charred, would get a proper burial and people could grieve for him.  He knew he could just drop his body into the ocean and be done what it, but Pacami did not deserve for his fate to be a mystery.

Faking a death would require the help of Warburton.  He would know what the cops would and would not find out.  They had to not learn of the bullet wound to the head, and the time of death would also be a few hours off.  He needed the police to know nothing except the identification in the wallet to explain Pacami’s fate.

But Warburton wasn’t answering.  England was approaching and so was the sun.  He had to put the body somewhere while he still had his powers.  He flew closer to the island and approached London.  He could see some acres of grassland to the east of London.  It was the Thames Chase Forest Center.  It would be empty now, it would have to work.

Vlad found an isolated area and flew down.  He dove straight into the ground like a diver into a pool.  He buried himself and Pacami’s body deep into the dirt with him.  Clouds of dirt rocketed up as he dug himself in.  He got down ten feet under the ground.  He clawed himself up and left the body in there.  He checked his watch—a little past five, the sun would be up soon.  Pacami would have to be buried there, at least for now.  There were not many trees,
just open land, but he knew this place had its share of rangers to look over it.  It would go unnoticed and yet protected at the same time.

Dirt found its way into every crease in his clothes.  He decided to start walking back to London.  Warburton would be up soon. He was a cop, he would know how to fake a death.

2

G
onzalez didn’t make it to the Vatican until 3 in the morning.  A direct flight from Berlin to Rome.  He was called to the scene because of two words:
silver bullets. 
When he got there the place was still crawling with cops, Interpol agents, and of course the press. 

He made his way inside, into the rubble.  The domed roof was pretty much intact, except for a hole in one of the windows, but he couldn’t say the same about what was below it.  The Baldacchino was destroyed to rubbish.  Dead bodies littered everywhere, and silver bullets were found in the bodies and in the walls. 

He was briefed on the way over.  A C-4 explosion had done the majority of the damage.  The bodies that were not burned beyond recognition were found all dressed in a similar red robe.  Of course the Vatican had no official explanation for what occurred here, but Gonzalez didn’t believe that.  He didn’t trust the church.  Some of the bodies had already been identified as cops in some form of police enforcement scattered throughout Europe. 
Dirty cops and silver bullets, his hunch was right.

When he got there, the Interpol agent first on the scene, Gianni Biancuomo, told him the layout.  The bullets were fired before the explosion.  The explosion actually happened just when the Gendarmerie of the Vatican first showed up.

“Interestingly though, one of the dead bodies we found here is the Inspector General of the Gendarmerie,” Biancuomo said.

“Bandini?”

“Yes, Silverado Bandini, how did you know?”

“I met the man before, take me to his body.”

“It’s in the Sistine Chapel.”

Biancuomo led him to Bandini’s body laying on its back underneath the painting
The Last Judgment.
  The body was against the right of the altar wall the fresco was painted on, directly below King Minos in the bottom right corner of the painting.  The face of King Minos was actually that of Biagio da Cesena, the Pope’s Master of Ceremonies that was appalled to Michaelangelo’s use of naked figures in this work.  Michaelangelo in response drew a snake over the King’s genitals and worked Cesena’s face along with donkey ears onto Minos. 

Gonzalez leaned over the body and said, “Dirty cops,” under his breath.

“What was that sir?” Biancuomo asked.

“This wasn’t a terrorist act, these men are some kind of dirty cops.  Maybe they are in league with some group of terrorists, we can’t rule that out.  The Vatican is a possible target for Muslim extremists, but these men are not Arabic.”

“No sir none of them are.  They are all cops.”

“Just like the ones found at the airports in Munich and Geneva, also bullets painted silver.”

“Are they hunting werewolves?” Biancuomo said with a laugh.

Gonzalez turned to him, frustrated.  “This situation is far too serious to go thinking about impossibilities.  The silver has to represent that they are cops.  This is some sort of dirty
organization and we need to find everything we can about them.  Who they are in league with, what their goals are, and how to stop their next attack.  I don’t want to hear any talk of werewolves, vampires or anything unholy relating to silver.”  He wasn’t sure how the idea of vampires popped into his head.  “You tell the press nothing for now.  They will want an explanation, but once we tell the Holy See their own Inspector General was involved in this they will push for discretion too.  I knew this man was lying to me when I met him.  He showed up at that house in Sibiu that also had silver bullets shot inside it.  There is something big going on here, and I’m tired of cleaning up messes.  I want answers.”

But for all his life Gonzalez would never find any answers.  He would go to the grave wondering what the connecting bond was between all of these attacks and the silver bullets.  He would find accounts of other gunfights in the past with silver bullets found at the scene—like at a nightclub in England a few weeks previously—but still, he would never get any answers.  He would pass this burden onto his son, who would also grow up to be an agent of Interpol, knowing that this was the one case his father could not put to bed.  What had always left him the most unsettled about all of these events was what he noticed the moment he was done lecturing Biancuomo. 

Biancuomo left Gonzalez and Gonzalez was alone in the Sistine Chapel.  He turned to look back at Bandini, and then he felt it.  A drop of blood on his shoulder.  He looked up and saw the blood dripping from the painting
The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Earth.
  He also noticed the small crack in the ceiling in the center of the blood.  He looked right and saw another pool of blood on the next painting,
Seperation of Light from Darkness
.  He looked to the left and didn’t see any more blood but cracks in the panel for
The Creation of Adam.
 

Gonzalez walked over the the body and checked the back of Bandini’s head.  There was a cut and a welt that probably didn’t get a chance to grow to its full potential, because Bandini’s heart stopped beating.  It would appear his head was banged against the ceiling moving toward the altar until he was killed.  But the ceiling was 20 meters high.  It’s just not possible for a human being to do that to someone.

And that enigma would stay with Gonzalez until the cancer would take his life less than twenty years later.  

3

A
little after noon Vlad met up with Warburton at the The Prospect of Whitby pub off Wapping Wall.  When he finally got in touch with Warburton a little after eight in the morning, he told him they got the Blood, he was a vampire, the Vatican was destroyed and Pacami was dead.  He wanted to give the man a proper burial.  Before he could get any deeper into it, Warburton told him to stop and meet him at the bar in Wapping; it opened at noon.  Vlad bought a new set of clothes right off the rack at the first department store he found.  Warburton told him when he got there he would start talking about soccer, and wanted Vlad to counter with supporting American football.  He stressed to Vlad to act like they were strangers that just mutually started up a discussion. 

Warburton noticed Vlad stride into the bar.  Warburton was standing against the pewter top of the main bar.  As Vlad made his way toward him, he checked out the place.  The Prospect was a famous pub in London.  It had a wooden décor one would expect from a pub in London.  There was an open fireplace, and columns that looked like a ship’s mast.  The Prospect was also
one of the oldest pubs in London, called Devil’s Tavern back in the 18
th
century thanks to the type of clientele it attracted.

Warburton paid no recognition to Vlad.  The only other person in the bar was the bartender who was focused on the small flat screen television.  It was a Sunday morning, not many people were in the pubs right now.  On the TV was a reporter at the Vatican covering the story of the attack the night before.

“Hey, Will, can you put on the Sporting Bengals?” Warburton asked the bartender.

“This coverage is on the all the channels.  Terrorists blew up St. Peter’s Basilica, 21 men found dead inside.  The place is ruined, it will never be the same.”

“Well I guess that is more important than the hapless Bengals.”  In the 2008-2009 season the Sporting Bengal United managed to go the entire season without winning a single game, the first time it had ever happened in the Kent League, but they were from the Tower Hamlets and so Warburton loved them unconditionally.  “But they play the best bloody sport in the world.”

Vlad took this as his sign to chime in.  “I don’t see how this sport can be better than
real
football, where you get to use your hands.”

“Oh American football, you Americans always think whatever you do is the best,” William the bartender chimed in, turning away from the news coverage of the Vatican.

“We’re also pretty good at fighting for our freedom from a mother country.”

Will started to get tense, and Warburton saw Vlad might not be playing this game exactly the way Warburton wanted him to.

“Let’s keep this debate civil, just sports,” Warburton interjected.  “Besides you Americans know it is very difficult to defeat a country fighting for its freedom on its own soil.  I think you Americans pronounce it
vee-et-NAHM.
”

“Fair point, but our sport is tougher.”

“How can it be tougher?  You guys take breaks in between plays,” Warburton said before he sipped his beer.

“That’s because they are kicking each other’s ass every play, while you fairies just run around, fall down and cry,” Vlad countered playfully.

“That’s called stamina, most of those on the field run non-stop for ninety minutes.”

“Let them take one hit from Clay Matthews and see how much running around they will do after that.”

“Oh you Americans always think might makes right.  What about the finesse of the game, the mental aspect?”

“Are you kidding, quarterbacks have to know hundreds of plays, there is a squad of coaches on a team, they study film for hours.  How can soccer have more thinking—run, kick the ball, run some more.”

Warburton laughed.  “I can see we could have much to argue about this.  Let’s go to the balcony and hear the Thames hit the earth.  It’s a nice day, and I would hate for some of my fellow Londoners to hear of this conversation and turn this casual debate ugly.”

“If you Londoners take your soccer so seriously, why don’t you make a better attempt at the next World Cup?  Didn’t we tie you in the last one, and this is your sport?”

“This is why we should walk away before others overhear, for your sake.  I’ll get the next round.”

Warburton paid for two more Guest Ales and the two of them made their way up to the balcony out back.  The two of them sat down at the table.  Nobody else was outside with them.