The Graves of Saints (3 page)

Vampires.

With a handful of allies, Peter Octavian had changed that. He had led them to an understanding of their true nature, to realize that they were not simply monsters. The Vatican sorcerers had
tried to exterminate them once and for all in a single, climactic battle in Venice, but the Shadows had defeated and destroyed them, the entirety of the truth revealed to the world through a live
camera feed from the site. The church had collapsed as a result, and from that day forward, the Shadows had been trying to live side by side with humanity.

Most of them.

Some had no interest in coming out of the darkness. They were unwilling to give up the blood and violence and the hunting of humans. These creatures embraced the name ‘vampire’ and
all that it entailed. They wanted to be the soulless leeches portrayed in folklore, to sleep in grave dirt and kill and feed indiscriminately. But now that the existence of vampires was public
knowledge, preying on humanity was more difficult than it had been in earlier ages. International laws were in place. The United Nations not only had Shadows advising them, they established a
global Shadow Justice System that required all Shadows to sign their names to a Covenant outlining a code of behavior they swore to follow. Those who refused to sign were labeled rogues, and could
be imprisoned for their refusal. The worst of them, the ones who still called themselves vampires, were hunted by a special unit called Task Force Victor.

Charlotte didn’t want to be hunted. She had never wanted to be a Shadow or a vampire or anything other than what she had been, a San Diego beach bum who dreamed of being an actress
someday. Then her nineteenth birthday had rolled around, and she had found herself dragged into the back of a van by two men who had beaten and raped her, and who had liked the way she fought them
enough to bring her home to their master. Cortez had nursed her back to health and then he had turned her and indoctrinated her into the life of a predator. If she closed her eyes now, she could
still remember the way her first taste of human blood had made her feel, the rush of pleasure and power and primal celebration. She could practically still taste it on her tongue, and it made her
shiver every time she thought of it.

She had run away from Cortez, thinking every moment that he would find her and kill her, that she would awake with him standing over her bed, or turn a corner on the street in Manhattan and see
him standing on the sidewalk, still as a statue while the crush of pedestrians flowed around him. His brown eyes and his long, proud nose and thin goatee should have combined to make him handsome,
but Cortez only looked cruel. Her fear of him prevented her from ever going home or trying to get in touch with any of her friends from San Diego, so she had started over in New York, hiding from
Cortez but also hiding from the rest of the world. Since she had not signed the Covenant, she was a fugitive. A rogue vampire. One of the reasons that she had come to New York in the first place
had been to register with the UN, but days had passed, and then weeks, and then months, and she had never gotten up the courage. They would want to know where she came from – who had made her
– and that would mean she would be questioned by Task Force Victor.

Meeting Peter Octavian had changed everything.

Charlotte had found herself inexplicably drawn to a small town on the north shore of Massachusetts, a place tainted by chaos which had been growing exponentially. Octavian could have killed her
the moment he found out what she was, but he had heard her out – he had trusted her – and she had helped him to take down the ancient chaos queen, Navalica. But Octavian had made it
clear that stopping Navalica hadn’t put an end to the danger the world was in. The chaos bitch had metaphorically planted a flag and tried to claim the world, and Octavian said that other
things – demons and the like – would know it. They’d feel it. And they would come to try to finish the job that she had started.

As a young girl, Charlotte had had dreams. Now, for the first time in her life, she had a purpose. But if she was going to help Octavian, she had to make sure Task Force Victor wasn’t
going to kill her on sight.

‘Shit,’ she rasped, holding up a hand to block the wan morning light seeping through her blinds.

A glance at the clock on the nightstand told her it was going on ten a.m. She hadn’t been so completely brainwashed by Cortez that she had actually believed the sun would burn her to
cinders. The whole world knew the history of Shadows, so when he turned her into a vampire, he couldn’t make her afraid of the daylight. The closest he could come was making her afraid of
him. Still, four months of sleeping during the day and shying away from the sun had taken its toll. She stayed up well into the night and dozed through most mornings.

Not today. Charlotte wouldn’t be going back to her job at the theatre, but she had an appointment to keep.

She threw back the covers and slid to the edge of her bed, sitting up and burying her face in her hands.

‘Oh, shit,’ she mumbled again into her cupped palms.

Crazy powerful as she was – and there were times when, despite the horror of how she had become like this, she reveled in it – the idea of walking up to the UN Shadow Registry Office
scared the hell out of her. The typical person off the street would have no idea how to even hurt her, never mind kill her, but those guys had to have figured out half a dozen ways to obliterate
vampires by now.

She felt sick just thinking about it, but Octavian had promised her that she would be all right. He had coached her on what to say and how to approach them, and had asked her to call him as soon
as it was done so that he could tell her where he wanted her next. In her human life, Charlotte had never liked authority, always bristling when anyone tried to tell her what to do. But she was
joining Octavian’s fight and she wanted to help him. He would know best how to use her.

A tiny smile ticked up the edges of her mouth. Then she shook her head, chuckling softly.
No naughty thoughts
, she chided herself. She had always liked older men, and Octavian looked
maybe thirty-six or so, but the guy had been hundreds of years old even before he’d been to Hell. No, there’d be none of that.
Not that he’d even try
, she thought.
To
him, you’re a kid
.

She stood and stretched. Glancing at herself in the mirror above her bureau, she wrinkled her nose in distaste.
Looking like this, even dirty old men aren’t gonna give you a second
glance.

Charlotte shot her reflection the middle finger and laughed as she headed for the bathroom. She turned the water up as hot as she could stand it, soaped and shampooed, then spent another ten
minutes just letting the heat get into her flesh and down to her bones. When she stepped out, she toweled off, blew dry her wavy, fox-red hair, and brushed her teeth. Padding back into her bedroom,
she put on a pair of gray skinny jeans and a red, long-sleeved top with pencil stripes. She pulled on her beat-up Timberland boots and slipped into a wool jacket that she only wore for special
occasions. She didn’t feel clean; since the first time Cortez had made her kill a human being for blood, she had never felt clean. But the clothes were laundered and warm and comfortable and
this time when she glanced in the mirror, she thought she looked damn good.

If she was about to be arrested or killed, at least she’d look pretty.

The thought made her laugh as she turned and went to the door, making sure she had her keys, even though she couldn’t be sure she’d ever come back.

When Charlotte opened the door, the vampires were waiting for her in the hall.

New York City, New York

Charlotte knew what they were on sight. Two men in long black coats with the collars turned up, wearing black gloves and wide-brimmed black hats and mirrored sunglasses on a
cloudy late September morning? It stunned her that they’d been able to move around New York City without arousing suspicion, but here they were in her apartment building, on her doorstep, and
she had no doubt that Cortez had sent them.

Skittish, one hand still on the knob of her open apartment door, she glanced from one to the other, seeing nothing in their mirrored sunglasses, not even herself.

‘I’m not going back,’ she said, mustering up enough courage to raise her chin and stare boldly at them.

One of the vampires smiled, showing pearlescent fangs. ‘He doesn’t want you back.’

The two reached into their jackets, hands vanishing into folds of fabric with inhuman quickness and reappearing with guns. Before the first glint of the metal gun barrels showed in the dim light
of the overhead fixture, Charlotte moved. She pushed back into her apartment and swung the door closed behind her with all her strength, not bothering to slow down to attempt to bar their entry.
Their entrance was not in question. Cortez might bow to vampiric traditions, encourage his coven to return to the monstrous predators of legend, but he wasn’t a fool – his children did
not need an invitation to come through the door.

Bullets came first, splintering wood and plunking into walls and furniture and shattering glass. Charlotte dived to the floor as the first of the shots seared the air above her, transforming
even as she landed on the carpet. She had adapted to the true abilities of the Shadows, but it was still easiest for her to metamorphose into one of the standard forms, and by instinct she chose
mist. Her flesh and bone and clothing dissipated in an instant, as if the impact of her body on the floor caused her to turn to smoke.

Mist would be best, because she had a feeling Cortez’s killers weren’t firing ordinary bullets at her. They wouldn’t be that foolish. A bullet would do nothing to a vampire or
Shadow but irritate them. But from everything she’d been taught, Task Force Victor had another sort of bullet, one infused with a toxin that inhibited the molecular alteration that allowed
Shadows to shapeshift. That was how they caught rogue vampires . . . how her kind could be killed. Now, somehow, Cortez had gotten his hands on some of the UN’s ammo.

The door split in two as the first vampire crashed through it, and the black-clad figure glanced around the apartment, those mirrored sunglasses making him look even less human than he was. As
mist, Charlotte churned toward the window above the breakfast table in her tiny kitchen, knowing he would notice her any moment. The second vampire slid fluidly into the apartment, distracting the
first for just an instant, giving Charlotte a fraction of a second to solve a problem.

As mist she had no mass, and the window was closed up tightly.

A ripple went through the white mist and she drew herself together, resculpting flesh and bone at the speed of thought. Copper-red hair, wool coat, beat-up Timberlands, she crashed through the
glass five stories above 2nd Avenue. One of the vampires shouted and both guns coughed again, but by the time the bullets reached her she was mist again, slipping downward toward the street. She
was half a block from 50th Street, maybe half a dozen from the UN. The Shadow Registry Office was on 46th, even closer, if she could just get there.

The gunfire stopped. They knew she’d run for it and that meant they had to get down to the street, but Cortez had trained them too well to be nocturnal creatures. These fools were so
dedicated to ancient legend, to being the nightmares that had terrified humanity for eons, that they had themselves
believing
, just like old times. Without the cover of their creepy black
ensembles, they’d burn, which meant they had to be damned careful.

Charlotte couldn’t afford to be careful.

Transforming into a crow, she let out a caw and stretched out her wings, wheeling into the narrow alley that separated her building from the one next door. With a quick glance to make sure she
wouldn’t be observed, she shifted again, alighting upon the ground as herself and shuddering slightly, getting used to her own form. Shifting so much in such a short time always made her true
body feel a little foreign at first. She had never liked shapeshifting; it made her feel less human, reminded her she was a monster.

A service door clanged open in the alley and she spun toward the sound, mind whirling. No way they’d gotten down from her floor this quickly. Charlotte blinked when she saw the vampire
emerge into the alley. She was tall and thin, with long blond hair beneath the same black hat the others wore, and Charlotte recognized her right off. Annabel, one of Cortez’s wives.

Idiot
, she thought. She’d never considered there might be a third.

In her frustration, she didn’t move quickly enough. The gun was already in Annabel’s hand. Charlotte felt the pain sear her chest as the bullet struck, even before she heard the
shot. A wave of nausea swept her immediately and she knew that her guess had been correct – Cortez had the toxin. She didn’t know what the UN had officially named it, but vampires
called it Medusa, because it effectively turned them to stone.

Stone.

She wasn’t a statue. She could move. She couldn’t shapeshift but she could run, and though the sky was white with thin clouds, the sun was strong behind them. Staggering backward,
she practically spilled out onto the sidewalk, cursing herself for her foolishness. If she had just stayed a crow she could have flown the distance to the Shadow Registry in a couple of minutes,
but she preferred to be herself, to stay on two feet, and she’d thought she had left the vampires behind.

‘Charlotte, you won’t get far like that!’ Annabel called after her.

More shots rang out. One of them struck the back of her shoulder, spinning her halfway around. She flashed Annabel the finger and let her momentum carry her into the street. Brakes screamed as
cars skidded to a halt, two of them colliding with a crunch. Then she was across the street, racing down 2nd Avenue. Medusa had taken away her shifting, but she was still a Shadow, stronger and
faster by far than a human being.

Annabel shouted something she couldn’t hear over the bleating car horns and the angry shouts of drivers. Charlotte glanced back at her building and saw the other two vampires emerge, and
then all three of Cortez’s assassins were giving chase. The wind blew the hat off of the taller male and his face began to burn instantly, blackening and smoking. Screaming, he raced after
his hat and the others ignored him, running on, but now they clutched their own hats to their heads, making sure the wide brims blocked most of the sun. They looked so utterly ridiculous that any
other day Charlotte would have taken the time to laugh, but there was nothing funny about being hunted, and that was exactly where she found herself – hunted on the streets of New York.