Of Masques and Martyrs (21 page)

“Hey!” the man said, standing suddenly and dropping his clipboard and pen in the process. “You can’t come in—”

Will snarled at him, lips drawn back in a savage snarl, fangs dripping with saliva. The man shouted and stumbled back against the plane’s instrument panel.

“Oh, Jesus, don’t kill me!” the man begged, not daring to look at Will’s face again.

“Can you fly this plane?” Will asked in a growl.

The man glanced up, then shook his head, opened his mouth to deny it. Will’s fingers lengthened into claws and he reached out and lifted the man’s chin, staring into his eyes.

“Don’t lie to me,” he said, the sharp point of a claw on the man’s throat warning enough.

“Yeah . . . yes, I’m the copilot,” the man admitted, a tear slipping down his face.

Will almost softened for a moment, seeing that tear. He felt badly for this man. But they needed him. The plane would get them to Atlanta far faster than they might under their own power.

“Fly,” he ordered and pointed at the pilot’s seat.

“We—we don’t have clearance,” the man said and cringed as he awaited retaliation.

“They’ll give you clearance,” Will snarled. “Tell them we’ll be taking off immediately. If they argue, we’ll kill everyone in the airport.”

Fear was replaced by horror in the copilot’s eyes. He nodded and slid into the pilot’s seat, and Will felt suddenly sick. This was it. The end. Once they had delivered the serum to Jimenez, once Hannibal was dead, that was the end. He would take Allison and disappear from the world. No more war or death or even fear.

Together, they would leave the shadows behind. Out of the darkness and into the light.

“Will?” Allison asked from behind him.

He turned to face her and she had her hand out. He twined his fingers within hers and nodded, unable to manage a smile. Out of the darkness and into the light, he reminded himself, as he saw the disturbing cast of her face. The scars there, beneath the skin.

Nice fantasy, he thought.

Then he turned away, trying to preserve the fantasy a little while longer.

 

On the second-story balcony overlooking the courtyard of the Ursuline convent, Kuromaku breathed in the night air and closed his eyes. The aromas of the French Quarter tantalized his enhanced senses—the sharp smell of coffee, the spicy tang of Creole and Cajun cooking, beignets baking at Café du Monde—but there were other odors as well, some not nearly as pleasant.

Human sweat. Decay. And death. Kuromaku had the scent of blood. It permeated the air and wafted on the breeze to him. There was death in the city tonight, more than ever before. Hannibal’s vampires had infiltrated the home of Peter Octavian’s coven, and they were hunting humans under Peter’s protection.

But there was nothing to be done for it now. A greater danger loomed close on the horizon. The final confrontation between the two sides of this war of philosophy and blood was imminent. Kuromaku could sense the other vampires, out in the dark, prowling the French Quarter, but also hunting the dark, filthy streets of the warehouse district and the waterfront. And somewhere out there, he could sense his sister.

Tsumi.

It had pained him greatly to learn that his sister was allied with Hannibal, that she had tried to murder Peter, whom she had once loved dearly. Pained him. But not surprised him. Kuromaku was a warrior, as was Peter, though from an entirely different culture. Though Kuromaku had been trained his entire life to believe that honor was more important than victory, he had come to realize over the centuries that in war, honor was secondary. The life of a warrior was expendable if it meant the triumph over the enemy, the preservation of not only thousands of other lives, but the culture of a city, or a nation, or a world.

Tsumi understood none of this. She made no distinctions between honor and duty, only pursued her own pleasure, only cared for her own survival. She was nothing more than a predator. Cunning, and all the more dangerous because, other than Kuromaku himself, Tsumi cared for nothing.

And in his secret heart, where he held close all the emotions that had once made him human, Kuromaku wondered if Tsumi’s heart was cold and dead even to him.

He didn’t want to have to kill her. But he would do so without hesitation if she stood against him.

Voices carried up to Kuromaku from the courtyard, and he opened his eyes. Several of the shadows he’d met earlier had gathered there, including the one called Kevin, who seemed to have rallied the others around him with little more than his own pain and grief at the death of his lover. The black chrysalis inside which they all believed Octavian had retreated remained unchanged. Nothing moved within. And yet their expectations hung in the air like the threat of rain in a thunderhead. They all sensed the other vampires in the city, the blood being shed, the lives being extinguished.

Destiny was rocketing them toward that final, explosive conflict. They could all feel it. Kuromaku shivered in anticipation. He had fought in hundreds of wars, several of which had, quite literally, changed the world. But he had never fought a battle whose outcome would determine the fate of the entire human race.

He relished its coming.

“Hello?”

Kuromaku had heard the woman’s soft footsteps the moment she’d come onto the balcony. Even in the question of her greeting, her voice was lightly touched by a sultry rasp, feminine yet confident. He turned to face her, nodded and offered her a smile, which she returned. She was beautiful in a way modern men could rarely appreciate. Her eyes shone with life, her reddish hair fell in a tumble around her face, her lips and cheeks were bright with an ethereal lustre. The angles of her face might have been carved by a master.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked.

“Are you Kuromaku?”

“I am. And you?”

“I’m Nikki Wydra,” she declared. “George tells me you may know something about . . . what’s happened to Peter.”

Her eyes flicked toward the courtyard, then back to focus on Kuromaku’s face. He knew her now. George had told him of this woman, and the nascent feelings she and Peter had begun to develop toward one another. She had been there the other night, almost been killed when . . .

“I’m sorry,” Kuromaku said.

Nikki tilted her head slightly. “What for?”

“My sister nearly killed you, I’m told,” he replied, then dipped his head in a small nod. “For her, I apologize.”

It seemed to take a moment before Nikki realized what he was referring to. Then surprise lit her face.

“Tsumi?” she asked. “That’s your sister?”

“Regrettably,” he admitted. “But please don’t hold it against me.”

Nikki blinked, apparently surprised by his humor, then smiled pleasantly.

“As far as what’s happened to Peter,” he said, “your guess, as they say, is as good as mine. However, if that thing down there isn’t a cocoon, I don’t know what it is.”

She flinched, then turned and went to the railing to look down at the courtyard. Nikki frowned, then hung her head slightly and her hair draped across her eyes, hiding her face from him.

“I’m having kind of a hard time with all this,” she said, but he still could not see her face through the curtain of her hair. “I mean, you all seem so . . . human. But you’re not human at all, are you? I mean, really, you’re scary bedtime stories come to life. It’s—shit, it’s almost funny.”

She snorted then, but he could tell that the laughter was only to cover her own despair.

“You’re right to think that we’re not entirely human,” Kuromaku admitted. “It would be dangerous to think otherwise. But neither are we, as a race, monsters. We are simply different. Alien, in a way that has nothing to do with space travel.”

She chuckled at that. Kuromaku went on.

“We have souls, Nikki,” he said. “I can promise you that. And hearts as well.”

Nikki lifted her chin, pushed her hair back from her eyes and met his gaze. There were tears on her face, and she wiped them away, embarrassed.

“I feel so stupid.”

“You care for Peter,” Kuromaku said simply. “What is stupid in that? He is an easy man to care for. One of the noblest, most passionate men I have ever encountered.”

“He’s a vampire!” she protested.

“Who has not at all forgotten what it means to be a man. To be human,” Kuromaku added.

There was a silence between them and. almost simultaneously, they looked down at the courtyard, at the shadows that milled around the chrysalis.

“You love him,” Kuromaku said. It was not a question.

“I haven’t known him long enough to love him,” Nikki snapped angrily, though she did not look up.

“No,” Kuromaku agreed. “But you do.”

She said nothing after that.

—THE EAGLES, “Learn to Be Still”

 

 

 

 

THOUGH ONLY THE CHAPEL HAD STAINED glass windows, nearly every room in the convent retained some symbol of its former use. Crucifixes hung on many walls, along with icons and images of the Sacred Heart or praying hands. In the huge dining room, one entire wall was filled with calligraphy-etched passages from the Bible.

It would be virtually impossible for a member of Hannibal’s clan to infiltrate their headquarters. Certainly not if they followed Hannibal’s return to the old ways, the old faith. If it weren’t for that fact, Kevin might have been suspicious of the sudden appearance of this Kuromaku. A warrior, once allied with Peter, he claimed. And yet, he had arrived just at the moment when Peter would not be able to identify him.

Curious, most definitely, but not damning. Not yet.

He watched as the Japanese entered the dining room with Nikki, whom Kevin had taken an instant liking to. He’d picked this room simply because it was the largest, and it would allow him to address everyone simultaneously. Everyone, of course, except for those shadows out in the city, trying to find vampires to kill.

And maybe one to bring back alive, if they followed Kevin’s instructions. It would help to know what Hannibal had planned. Even if they didn’t seem to have a chance in hell of doing anything about it. At least, not with any real success. Fortunately the odds stacked against them had apparently been lessened a bit, according to news reports CNN had been running out of its New York studio, now that its Atlanta headquarters had been destroyed along with the rest of the city. Hannibal wouldn’t be able to add that part of his clan to any attack plan. That was something, anyway.

Kuromaku had stopped on the other side of the room to read some of the scripture on the wall. Nikki stood with him, and George entered behind her. Kevin nodded to him. George knitted his brows, obviously wondering exactly what was going on here, but Kevin ignored him for the moment.

Kevin tried to remember what biblical passage was on the wall where Kuromaku was staring. Something from Exodus, he thought. Then Kuromaku seemed to sense his attention and turned to regard Kevin where he stood at the front of the room. After a moment he nodded and led Nikki and George to the long center table, where all three of them sat facing Kevin.

A few moments later, the room was full. George had asked the coven to spread the word, and they clearly had. There were more than fifty shadows in the room, not to mention the dozens out in the city already. And there were even more volunteers. Faces Kevin had never even seen before.

He sighed.

“Thanks for coming,” Kevin began. “All of you. I . . . as I look out there and see the faces of friends, and especially a lot of new faces, I realize that we really have made our home here. There are a lot of people in this city who know about our little family, and have made us welcome. Some of you are here tonight.

“You’ve all been asked, in the past twenty-four hours, to make a momentous decision,” he continued. “A decision that will alter your lives irrevocably—and possibly end them. Believe me when I say that this coven, the family of Peter Octavian, does not ask this question lightly. There isn’t time to be gentle. Hopefully, as each of you searches your heart and mind for an answer, enough of you will join us that the odds against us will be greatly lessened.

“But they are still extraordinary. And I firmly believe that we will need more than force if we are to even survive—never mind triumph—in the coming days.”

Kevin Marcus looked around the room. He had their attention. That was a good start. Even this newcomer, Kuromaku, gave a respectful nod when Kevin mentioned the odds.

“By now, even if you don’t know me, I’d lay odds you all know my story. Joe meant everything to me, and I want to thank all of you who offered your condolences. But I’m tired of it!”

Kevin had yelled out this last, and everyone in the room twitched a little. He was surprised at the vehemence in his own voice, but forged ahead.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That didn’t come out right. I appreciate your sympathy, all of you, but I’m afraid that I’ve had to put my grief on hold for a while. The reason I wanted everyone in one place is that I need to ask a question that I don’t think anyone has an answer for. That question is: what next? I mean, we all know the shit’s about to hit the fan, and other than recruiting, and doing a bit of recon . . .”

He chuckled. Actually smiled.

“Never thought you’d hear me use the word
recon
, did you, Caleb?” he asked and looked around for the blond vampire who’d been somewhat homophobic when they’d first met.

Caleb laughed. They’d become friends since then, and Kevin trusted Caleb Mariotte to watch his back in any fight.

“Anyway, all I want to know is, what are we planning?” Kevin went on. “Anyone? Does anyone have any idea what we’re doing next?”

When Kuromaku lifted his hand, Kevin frowned. They barely knew this shadow.