The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead 2 A Post-Apocalyptic Epic (37 page)

“That was then, Jack. Now, there are too many evil things out there gunning for me. I can’t just retire. And besides, I’m not exactly afraid of you. You have nothing in the tank and Cyn is, well she’s a born-again necromancer and there’s nothing more sad than that. So, I don’t think I’ll be accepting your offer of a jail cell, thank you. Gregory, clear that door while I take care of these two.”

Without warning, he turned the spear’s point toward Jack. From its tip a blast of what looked like concentrated air shot out. It was strange to see the air wobble as the force raced at Jack. He tried to dive to the side, but was caught in the left leg and spun like a frisbee.

He landed on the top of a crypt twenty feet away, shaken but not exactly hurt. With a grunt, he leapt down just as Robert pointed the spear in Cyn’s direction. She tried to duck away, but was too slow and was caught full on and sent flying. When she landed in a heap, there was an ugly sound of bone striking rock and she remained motionless.

Seeing her lying there caused Jack to hesitate but only for a second, and then with a curse on his lips, he charged. As expected Robert pivoted and pointed his spear. Without hesitation, Jack dove to the side, rolling across the tile floor in a neat ball. Something passed near him and there was a crash behind him, and then there came the sound of rock falling.

Part of the ceiling had come crashing down, filling the darkened grotto with clouds of dust, making it that much harder to see. Jack could only pinpoint Robert by the gleam from the silver tip of his spear, which tracked Jack mercilessly as he dodged here and there, leaping away time and again as Robert sent blasts his way with excellent aim.

It was only after he had been struck a third partial blow, which left him clutching his side, that Jack realized that he would never be able to get close to his cousin as long as held a sword that glowed like a torch. He sheathed it and the gloom of the grotto became almost full on dark.

“What are you doing, Jack?” Robert asked. Where a second before, he had been grinning and confident as he fired his blasts, now he spun right and left in jerky moves. “Stop playing, Jack. Let’s finish this.”

Jack kept silent and still, hiding in the dark, hoping that his cousin would come closer so that he could spring out and strike him down. Robert refused to be drawn away; he kept to the middle of the hall between the low alcoves.

“Let me tell you how this is going to end,” Robert said, his voice echoing in the dark. “Gregory is going to clear that door in a few minutes and then on my way out I’m going to use this spear to drop the roof on you and Cyn. Or we can fulfill Greg’s prophecy. You come out of hiding and I’ll kill just you. I’ll leave Cyn out of this. I promise.”

With great difficulty, Jack bit back another snarling curse. Robert had him over a barrel. Jack was stuck. He couldn’t get close to his cousin to kill him and waiting only played into Robert’s hands. It seemed he had only two choices: a desperate and useless charge across thirty feet of open space, or he could pray that Robert would actually keep his promise and not hurt Cyn anymore that she had been.

It wasn’t much of a choice. Robert could not be trusted. “Please, God,” Jack whispered and then jumped up from behind the tomb of some long dead pope and raced at his cousin. He should have been killed right then. Robert should have heard the sound of his boots kicking stone and tile. Robert should have triggered his spear; however, at that exact moment Cyn moaned and stirred.

“Jack?” she asked, her voice sounding ghostly in the dark as if she was only a spirit.

Robert spun to point the Lance at her, and that little move allowed Jack just enough time to get in close. He swept the Holy sword from its golden sheath and its light bathed the room in a fantastic blue-white glow and showed Jack that he had a perfect shot at ending the fight once and for all. Robert had jerked in surprise at the sudden light and seemed frozen in place by the fierce onslaught.

With a cry, Jack drove the sword down in a killing stroke, knowing that there was no way his cousin would be able to get the Lance around in time to block it.

And yet, astonishingly, he did.

Metal clanged on metal and sparks flew. Jack blinked in surprise. Robert had moved faster than his eye could follow. It had been magical, but the magic hadn’t come from Robert. Feeling dread crawl into his gut that he was once again in way over his head, Jack attacked again, driving his sword under the spear.

Robert had the Lance held in an uncertain grip as if he was just as perplexed as Jack, and the sword thrust should have pierced Robert’s heart—but again his cousin managed to twist the spear sending the sword point off to the side.

“Huh,” Robert grunted, marveling at the spear. Jack used his distraction to attack again and again in a swirl of flashing metal. Never in his life had his strokes been so exact, his lunges so perfect. The Holy sword threw sparks and clanged metal on metal and the blade never got within an inch of Robert’s skin.

After half a minute, he broke off and the two stood panting with only two feet separating them. “It’s the spear,” Robert said. He grinned like a child right into Jack’s face as if Jack should be just as excited. “When the Romans went to break Christ’s legs, they saw that he was already dead. Not believing it, one centurion, pierced Jesus’ side with this spear and what came out?”

“Blood and water,” Jack answered. “But it wasn’t, really.”

Robert’s grin grew so that the wicked thing went from ear to ear. “No it wasn’t. It was a part of him, perhaps a part of his immortality. Nothing could have harmed the Son of God, unless he allowed it. And he gave it up so he could give up his life. And who knew that anyone would stab his lifeless body? And who knew what would happen to the spear? Who knew that it would make whoever possesses it invincible?”

If Jack had known, he would never have come to Rome, but now he was there and only two feet from his death and yet something Robert had said triggered a thought.

“Possesses?” That suggested that its owner was fluid in nature. Immediately, Jack dropped his sword and latched onto the lance with both hands. He was so quick that he almost yanked it away from Robert in the first second. Grimly, he held on and the two, very much equal in size, tussled in the dark until Jack started to get the upper hand.

In desperation, Robert started triggering the power of the spear, sending out blasts at random. The ceiling rained rock and marble, walls crumbled and two support columns collapsed from direct hits. Above them the weight of the basilica pressing down, caused the ceiling to let out a loud groan. It was the only indication that all hell was about to break loose.

Jack let go of the spear and threw himself to the side, just as the ceiling came down. He rolled and rolled until he rammed up against a tomb and then he crawled up into its protective alcove until the ground stopped shaking. He found himself in near total darkness; the only light came straining through a wall of rock. It was meager and yet it drew him. He wobbled across an uneven ground until he could peer through a narrow opening the size of his fist.

“Cyn?” he whispered into the opening, his heart caught up in his throat, afraid that she was the death in Gregory’s prediction.

“Jack?” she answered, matching his whisper. He almost collapsed in relief. He clutched the wall to hold himself up as she asked: “Where are you?”

He didn’t know the answer to that. He felt as though he was in an alternant universe peering through a portal into the world…as if he was in hell looking through the gate. “Am I dead?” he whispered, touching himself, wondering what it felt like to be dead.

Cyn was bathed in a pale blue light—
the moon
, Jack thought. The ceiling on the other side of the wall of stone was completely gone and the moon shone down bright enough to cast shadows and one fell across her as she was trying to climb the pile of rocks toward him. It was Robert. His spear glinted as he used it as a club and knocked her legs out from beneath her. With a cry, she fell, rolling to the base of the mound.

“Leave her alone!” Jack thundered. “She can’t hurt you, so just leave her out of this.”

“She may not be able to hurt me, but she can help me,” Robert answered. “I am drained and she is brimming with energy. I love it.” He waved a hand just inches over her as she tried to sit up.

“Maybe you can love this,” she replied. She had Vance’s Beretta in her hand and without hesitation, shoved it up into his crotch and pulled the trigger. The blast echoed as did Robert’s laughter.

“I’m invincible, Cyn darling. And pretty soon, I’ll be all-powerful and you will help me with that, by giving me that precious soul of yours.”

“Stop!” Jack screamed. “Take mine instead.”

This had Robert crying with laughter. “Your soul? You don’t have a soul. Instead of a soul, you have some sort of jigsaw puzzle. Pieces of this and that, of people you probably don’t even know. There’s so much ugliness inside of you that even I don’t want any part of. But that doesn’t mean I won’t kill you. Give me a moment and after I take care of Cyn, I’ll show you what true power looks like.”

There was a sound of velcro tearing and then Cyn said: “You’ll do no such thing.” She had the Beretta in hand and had finally found a use for it—her armored vest was open and she had the gun pointed directly into her heart.

Jack went cold. “Cyn,” he whispered. “Don’t, please.”

“What choice do I have?” she asked, through sudden tears. “My soul is doomed. If he kills me, my soul will go the Mother as payment for the spells he wields. That’s how it works, right?”

Robert held up his hands, one empty, the other holding the spear. “Yes, but if you kill yourself, you’ll be going to hell anyway. You see? At least this way someone gains from this unfortunate turn of events.”

“Unfortunate?” she asked in harsh whisper. “That’s what you call killing thousands of innocent people? Unfortunate?”

He sneered down a her. “It is what it is. Now go ahead and pull the trigger if you have the guts to damn yourself for all eternity. Which I doubt you will.” He lifted the butt of the spear, looking to ram down ion her head.

“If it means stopping you, I will.” Her face was rigid, held in determined, angry lines. Only a single tear belied her anguish. She turned away from Robert and looked toward the wall of rock, her eyes searching for Jack, hidden away in his little portal.

“Stop him, Jack, but don’t lose yourself in the process.”

Jack was in a perfect state of shock. He was beyond emotion. He was broken. He should have been crying and begging for her not to pull the trigger, only he knew that wouldn’t save her. She was lost and now he was as well. Cyn was his anchor and now that she was on the verge of death, he felt disconnected from his body as if he was already a wandering spirit. It took all of his concentration just to form the words: “I will.”

“I love you,” she said and she too seemed to be losing her emotions. The words were hollow and hung, lifeless in the air. They were just words. She was almost gone.

He wanted to answer her. He desperately wanted to express the fullness of his love, but that would take hours and would never be contained in the mere words:
I love you
. He wanted to say something, anything but all that came out was her name.

“Cyn,” he said in a whisper. As the word left his mouth, Robert desperately tried to bash her head with the blunt part of the spear in order to keep her from killing herself so that he could kill her his way. So that he could gain and grow.

He was too slow. She pulled the trigger, bucked from the violence and the shock as the bullet tore out her heart, and then she fell back, her eyes blank, her soul doomed.

Chapter 36

Rome, Italy

Jack Dreyden

The echoes seemed to go on and on, rattling the walls of the grotto and shaking Jack to the core of his being. “Robert,” Jack said, when the ruinous sound had died away. “I think you had better run far away. I think you better run and you had better keep on running.”

“She brought it on herself,” Robert answered. “Just like you brought this on yourself.” He pointed his spear at the wall and there were crashes and explosions and all light disappeared, and the air was filled with choking dust.

Jack could hear mumbled curses—they competed with the sound of a drum banging in his head. The drum wouldn’t stop. It was a rhythm of hate. After a minute, the cursing faded and there were no more crashes. He could feel the soul of St. Gregory retreating.

Immediately, Jack went to work on the wall, not feeling the pain in his fingers as the rocks bit into his flesh. He felt nothing but the rage.

It took two hours to dig a hole through the wall. On a certain level, Jack knew he was exhausted beyond anything he had ever experienced, and he had experienced his fair share of exhaustion. But this was different. He was so dead inside that when he finally saw Cyn’s lifeless body, he didn’t breakdown crying as he had expected.

He’d been sure that when he found her, he’d be so overcome that he wouldn’t be able to carry on. Instead, he knelt over her, studying every soft curve of her beautiful face until the sound of birds twittering sounded. The moon sat banked well over in the sky and on the opposite side of the world, the night was no longer the deep velvet it had been.

Dawn was coming; a new awakening.

His power had been coming back to him little by little and when the first light of the new day crept over the horizon, Jack cut himself. Drops of perfectly red blood fell in a pattern as he walked around Cyn’s body and as they fell they formed intricate shapes. Not a drop went wasted.

He spoke each word of the spell clearly, precisely, deliberately. Jack wasn’t about to let Cyn languish in hell, even if it drained him to death. And it was close. He reeled back in exhaustion as the broken and dirty floor beneath her body turned the deepest black and within that black was a single mote that grew until it took up the entire circle, and then the glow faded and Cyn began blinking her blue eyes.

“What happened?” she asked. Her voice came up out of her throat in a breathy rush. She stood quickly and looked down at herself. “Am I dead?”

“Just a little,” Jack answered, laughing at the same time that tears ran through the grime on his face. “But we’ll figure some way to fix that. I don’t know if a priest can heal a dead body, but we’ll find a way even if we have to use a voodoo priest. And then all we have to do is fuse your soul back in you and you’ll be good to go.”

He expected her to raise an eyebrow at that and when she didn’t, he figured that she was having a little trouble controlling her body. Jack was so tired that it was a struggle to get to his feet and when he did he found that his body was shaking all over; it happened sometimes and he thought nothing of it; however, Cyn saw.

“You’re cold? I’m cold too. Hold me, Jack. Hold me so I can feel something again.”

“Sure,” he said, tripping on the loose stones under feet. “I honestly thought that you would have more of a problem with this. I thought you’d fret over my soul and read me the riot act.”

“Hell changes a girl,” she answered and then held out her arms.

Jack stopped a foot away, worried for her. “How long were you there? I mean, is time different in hell? Is five hours equal to five centuries?”

“It was long enough for me to miss your touch.” Her arms had not dropped, they stood straight out in front of her. The embrace would be awkward and stiff and very cold. He hesitated, fearing that his reaction wouldn’t be what either of them were looking for.

“What are you waiting for? You did this to me. The least you could do is comfort me.” The arms were still out.

Jack took a step back, suddenly wary. Hell certainly could change a person, but Cyn wasn’t acting like the others that had been brought back. His father had still been his father and acted like it, and Dr Loret had been just as prissy as when he had been alive.

“If you want a hug, come to me.” Jack stuck out his own arms in an ugly imitation of Cyn. She didn’t budge. She remained in the circle and now she sneered. “Who are you, really?” Jack asked. “Are you the Mother?”

Cyn’s demeanor changed in an instant. The faux anger was replaced by something which resembled her old impish smirk. “I almost suckered you in. I nearly got the ol’ two for one deal.”

“Where is Cyn?” Jack demanded. “I called her not you.”

“Oh, she is down here somewhere, probably having a gay old time being raped or flayed or forced to eat her own intestines in an endless loop. I can find her for you, of course, except you’ve been so mean to me. Yelling at me and saying lies about me, and then there’s the fact that you’ve said
no
to me time and again.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he answered, trying his best to remain calm. Losing his temper meant that he could lose Cyn for good. “All of that was a mistake and I’m sorry. So please let me have Cyn or…or just step aside and I’ll call her. You won’t have to do anything.”

The Mother forced another sneer onto Cyn’s beautiful lips. “Is that the best you have? Remember what I said the last time you were so rude to me? I said you would beg on your knees.”

Jack didn’t hesitate. He dropped down, clasped his hands together and debased himself in front of the Mother. He begged for Cyn’s soul, shamelessly.

She let him go on for five minutes and then said: “No.”

“I’ll give you my soul for hers.”

The sneer turned to a look of disgust. “Are you kidding me? Her soul is wonderful while yours is a joke. It’s in pieces. It’s nothing but rags. It would probably fall apart down here and leave me with a whole lot of nothing.”

“Then what can I do? What can I give you for her soul?”

“You know what I want. Let me out of here! Find someone willing to sacrifice their true love. Only then will I let you use my gate to call Cyn. And you had better hurry. Cyn is everyone’s favorite down here. Her screams are simply delicious. And it won’t be long until she
changes
, if you know what I mean.”

He didn’t know and was about to ask when she waved Cyn’s hand and left the body and the world.

Just like that, the endless black of the gate disappeared with a snapping sound, becoming only dirt and rock once again. Cyn’s dead body fell as if all the bones in her body had become rubber and when she struck the ground her head knocked so hard against a rock that there was a grisly sound like a hammer striking bone.

“Oh Lord,” Jack cried and rushed to her side. She was horribly cold and stiff…dead. “No, not yet!” For a minute, he inexplicably rubbed her limbs and blew on her hands as he cried over her.

Then as the stiffness refused to pass and her skin stayed cold, his anger returned. He slid his hands beneath her body, picking her up. She lolled in his arms, a loose bag of bones. It was horrible. He cried and raged as he stumbled up out of the ruins of the basilica.

The sun stood on point over the city and he let it beat into his face before he looked around him. The destruction seemed total; a few walls stood, none connected to another. The rest of the basilica consisted of jagged mounds of rock and glass. Jack mounted one a hundred feet in height and the sight below him took his breath away. The Vatican and the city around it swarmed with undead. Bone-creatures and skeletons and partial corpses in rags were everywhere, down every block and street—millions of them crushed together.

It was a moment before he realized that these were his soldiers. This was the army he had raised. In silence, they waited on his command.

Smack dab in the middle of the horde of dead were three helicopters sitting silent and still. In a ring around the machines were priests and Swiss guards, staring fearfully at the undead, gripping their guns and crosses with sweaty hands. The Pope was there. Jack could feel him, the light of his soul, the antithesis of his own.

He carried Cyn to the helicopters and for some reason, seeing the priests rekindled Jack’s fury, but he stuffed it away. He had debased himself before the Mother of Demons and he would do the same for the Pope if it would help.

The undead parted allowing him to pass through. Strangely, even the priests and the soldiers stepped aside as well as if they had been expecting him. A battle weary cardinal greeted him, speaking in Italian, concern in his tired eyes for the girl in Jack’s arms. He led Jack to Pope Romanus, who drew the sign of the cross over her.

“I need your help,” Jack said, keeping his eyes down. “I need God’s intervention.”

The Pope sighed, tired and worn. “You come to the Lord as your second choice? And then you come with an impossible demand?”

The rage had Jack shaking, but he bit back the words of acid and said: “Nothing is impossible with God. That’s what I’ve always been taught.”

Romanus nodded. “Nothing is. But the Lord does not interfere with choice. Cynthia chose to commit suicide…and as a devout catholic, she knew the consequences.”

Jack was suddenly in such a fury that he was afraid that he would dump Cyn on the ground in order to strangle the Pope. Gently, he lowered her and then knelt, spreading his fingers on the smooth pavement of the square and bowing his head. Through gritted teeth, he said: “That’s where you’re wrong, she had no choice.”

“There is always a choice. A thousand choices led her here today. Just like a thousand led you to bring her here with you. Now, we are all out of choices.”

It was a fight to keep his hand off the hilt of the Holy sword that Romanus had given him, but it was a much more difficult fight to keep the fire of anger out of his voice. “Pray. Please,” Jack begged. “If God won’t listen, pray to Gabriel or Michael. Pray to the heavenly host. There is a child in hell who is blameless and altogether good. She doesn’t belong there.”

Romanus shook his head. He had sad, weary eyes and his hands were maroon with the dried blood of priests and soldiers who had died in his arms. He spoke in full honesty and complete compassion when he said: “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”

Now the rage had Jack in a death grip. His splayed hands scritched across the pavement, his nails bending back and peeling away as his hands balled into fists. The pain was almost welcome and the truth was that he wished with all his heart that he could feel more pain. He wished that he could take away Cyn’s pain and take it all on himself. But he couldn’t.

“If you won’t help, there are those who will,” he said, picking Cyn up once more.

“Do not go down that path, my son,” Romanus pleaded. “It is a false path. It is a road built of lies and it will only lead to more misery, for everyone.”

Jack chomped down on the inside of his cheeks, tasting blood and enjoying it. He was drained of power, but that blood was a reminder of where he could get all the power he would ever need. Silently, he commanded a demon who stood nearby to take Cyn from his arms. “Do not let even a single hair on her head be harmed,” he ordered and then turned his back on the Pope.

He strode through the crowd of skeletons, ignoring the stink and the static of their unnatural evil that hung around them in a cloud. Jack parted them and went through to the gate of the Vatican and then led his army into Rome. It was early morning and yet the city was in the throes of panic. The coming of his army, peaceful as it had been, had sent the city into a frenzy. They had abandoned everything and had fled empty-handed.

And that was good; there were
things
left behind that Jack needed. He stopped the demon holding Cyn’s cold body and searched her pockets. The first thing he found was a red ponytail holder. He stuck it on his wrist, snuffled back snot and tears and went searching again. He found two candy bars, chapstick, five shotgun shells, lipstick and a whetstone, and then he found what he was looking for: her phone.

A five second Google search showed where he needed to go and a twenty-two minute walk got him to the closest
Case Di Reclusione Maschilirison
—a prison for male convicts.

The city had been abandoned; however the guards had not fled, though they seemed to be regretting it. They were hiding in their guard towers at the approach of millions of walking dead. Jack strode right up to the gate and yelled to a guard: “Open the gate or I’ll tear it down.”

In seconds the gate was open. First one guard, then a dozen of them ran. Only three held their ground beside the iron doors, thought they all looked on the verge of wetting themselves as Jack’s army flooded the inner courtyard of the prison and flowed around the walls.

Although Jack admired their courage, he knew he would destroy the first man who wasted his time by making a gallant stand on principle. With the insolence of a Roman emperor, he ordered. “Fetch me the worst, most evil man you have. Bring him to me or I will break down these doors and get him myself.”

Two of the guards looked to a third, whose fanciful uniform suggested that he possessed some sort of superior rank. He wasn’t superior to Jack’s power and after a quarter second he said: “Si…si,” and fled inside.

The other two followed after, leaving Jack alone for five minutes. He knelt on the brick courtyard, his knees crying out in pain that went ignored as he looked up at the sky and, in all honestly, pleaded: “Please, Lord, help me. Help me to get her out of there. I’ll take any sign whatsoever.”