Angel Souls and Devil Hearts Read online

  Praise for THE SHADOW SAGA

  ‘Christopher Golden has reinvented the vampire myth into non-stop action, suspense, and fascinating dark fantasy. [He’s] an imaginative and prodigious talent who never lets genre boundaries hold him back’

  Douglas Clegg, author of the Vampirycon series

  ‘Filled with tension, breathtaking action . . . and a convincing depiction of worlds existing unseen within our own’ Science Fiction Chronicle

  ‘Harrowing, humorous, overflowing with characters and plot contortions, abundantly entertaining . . . a portent of great things to come’

  Douglas E. Winter, Cemetery Dance

  ‘Golden combines quiet, dark, subtle mood with Super-Giant monster action. Sort of M.R. James meets Godzilla!’

  Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy

  ‘A breathtaking story that succeeds in marrying gore and romance, sex and sentiment. A brilliant epic’

  Dark News (Paris)

  ‘The most refreshing books in the vampire genre since Anne Rice wrote Interviw with a Vampire, [Golden’s novels] are completely in a class by themselves’

  Pathway to Darkness

  ‘Passionate . . . excellent . . . and a surprise explanation for vampires. Brilliant’

  LitNews Online

  ‘Wildly entertaining . . . like mixing Laurell K. Hamilton with the dark ambivalence of an H. P. Lovecraft story. The pacing is always pedal-to-the-floor, the main characters are larger than life and the demons and other assorted monstrosities give Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos a run for their money’

  Barnes & Noble Online

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the bestselling author of such novels as The Myth Hunters, The Boys Are Back in Town, and Strangewood. He co-wrote the lavishly illustrated novel Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire with Mike Mignola, and the comic book series spin-off. With Tim Lebbon, he has co-written the Hidden Cities series, the latest of which, The Shadow Men, hits in 2011. With Thomas E. Sniegoski, he is the co-author of the book series OutCast and the comic book miniseries Talent. With Amber Benson, Golden co-created the online animated series Ghosts of Albion and co-wrote the book series of the same name. He is also known for his many media tie-in works, including novels, comics, and video games, in the worlds of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellboy, Angel, and X-Men, among others.

  Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His original novels have been published in more than fourteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com

  The Shadow Saga

  Of Saints and Shadows

  (July 2010)

  Angel Souls and Devil Hearts

  (October 2010)

  Of Masques and Martyrs

  (December 2010)

  The Gathering Dark

  (February 2011)

  Waking Nightmares

  (May 2011)

  First published in the USA by Berkley, 1995 and by Ace Books, 1998

  First published in Great Britain by Pocket Books, 2010

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Christopher Golden, 1995

  Excerpted material from Robert Service’s poem ‘The March of the Dead’ from The Best of Robert Service copyright © 1907, 1909, 1912, 1916, 1921, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953 by The Putnam Publishing Group. Copyright © 1940 by Robert Service

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved. Pocket Books & Design is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The right of Christopher Golden to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

  1st Floor

  222 Gray’s Inn Road

  London

  WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia

  Sydney

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-84739-925-0

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-84739-948-9

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the UK by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading RG1 8EX

  For my son, Nicholas James Cody Golden.

  I now have a measure by which to judge myself:

  his eyes.

  Nothing will ever mean so much.

  Acknowledgements

  As always, thanks to my lovely wife, Connie, whose understanding truly baffles some people, and whose enthusiasm for the work often equals my own. Thanks, also, to . . .

  Lori Perkins, who worked tirelessly to prepare me, emotionally and financially, for fatherhood.

  Ginjer Buchanan, who asked for a sequel.

  Everyone who read the first book, and still wanted to read this one.

  And finally, of course, to my family and friends, who have continued to support and encourage me, often against their better judgement, and some of whom believed from the beginning.

  “The world is full of other things. Some are friendly, some aren’t”

  —JONATHAN CARROLL, Outside the Dog Museum

  “While the camp fire held out to burn, the vilest sinner might return.”

  —WILLIAM F. CODY, The Life of Buffalo Bill

  Prologue

  The cruel war was over—oh, the triumph was so sweet!

  We watched the troops returning, through our tears;

  There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street,

  And you scarce could hear the music for the cheers.

  And you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew between;

  The bells were pealing madly to the sky;

  And everyone was shouting for the soldiers of the Queen,

  And the glory of an age was passing by.

  And then there came a shadow, swift and sudden, dark and drear;

  The bells were silent, not an echo stirred.

  The flags were drooping sullenly, the men forgot to cheer;

  We waited, and we never spoke a word.

  The sky grew darker, darker, till from out the gloomy rack

  There came a voice that checked the heart with dread:

  “Tear down, tear down your bunting now, and hang up sable black;

  They are coming—it’s the Army of the Dead.”

  —ROBERT SERVICE, “The March of the Dead”

  Humanity is jaded, that is true. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the capacity of human society to accept the extraordinary, the incredible, the fantastic, has reached almost infinite proportions. Less than five years ago, aided by a nearly omniscient media, the world discovered the existence of the Defiant Ones, known in the western lexicon as vampires.

  Of course, humanity’s initial reaction was fear, and rightly so in many cases. But one of the Defiant Ones is a master showman, a legend named Will Cody, known to millions around the world as Buffalo Bill. Cody’s natural rapport with the media, and the CNN news reports and video footage clearly showing the vampires as victims in the terrible conflict that destroyed the city of Venice, turned things around. Though these beings continue to refer to themselves as vampires, Cody has engendered within the world press the use of the term “shadow.” Once used by the Church to describe all supernatural beings, the word is now the politically correct referent fo
r a vampire.

  A United Nations probe guided by myself and the de facto leader of the shadows, Meaghan Gallagher, exposed to the public eye an ancient Roman Catholic conspiracy to destroy the shadows, as well as Catholic control of other supernatural elements through the use, incredibly, of magic. Rome, of course, denied all charges, putting the blame on international terrorists and a small sect within the church. But that was mere fantasy. In the wake of the Pope’s murder and the Venice Jihad, human governments and religions had no choice but to ignore Vatican claims. The UN ordered its own investigation.

  Vatican City shut its doors. Threats of force were empty, and Rome knew that. Regardless of what might have been suspected, the Roman Catholic Church was a monolithic figure, against which any open aggression would have been reviled the world over. Military solutions were, of course, ruled out.

  Still, the damage was done. The first to splinter, to nobody’s surprise, was the United States. Declaring themselves the American Christian Church, the formerly Catholic U.S. clergy avoided the use of the word “Catholic” altogether. Around the world, diplomatic ties were cut, Vatican ambassadors sent home. In time, Vatican City became an island unto itself, impregnable yet alone. By the time the smoke rose declaring a new Pope, few noticed. The church will have to build itself anew, drag itself kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century, or die an excommunicant dinosaur.

  Religions that worshipped the shadows themselves sprang up around the world, many quite naturally based on blood rituals, many rising from the ashes of the worldwide network of volunteers who had given their lives for centuries in a fanatical worship of some of the darkest elements of vampiric society.

  It was a PR nightmare.

  Alexandra Nueva, one of the heroes of Venice, testified in Congress and before international governments, spearheading efforts to create a justice system to control errant shadows. Today, all shadows must obey the laws of the countries in which they declare primary residence. Many of them are excessively wealthy, but those that are not must make a living, and all must pay taxes and take responsibility for their actions.

  What little analysis has been allowed by the shadows has shown that some of them are nearly indestructible, making it very difficult, and often nearly impossible, for human authorities to apprehend a shadow alone. Though loyalty to one another had prevented such things in the past, the necessity of living in the sunlit world of humanity requires that the law be enforced upon shadows by their own kind. The force charged with this mission is, of course, the Shadow Justice System. In the days before Venice, when the checks and balances of myth still held sway, a simple stake through the heart may have done the trick. Today, the more time that passes, the more invulnerable the vampires become, the more truth there is in the word “immortal.”

  Murder is not tolerated under any human legal system, but many shadows once survived through the murder of human beings. Fortunately that is no longer a necessity. As news of the shadows spreads, and more information becomes available about the effects of their bite, there seems to be no end to the number of new volunteers, new donors. Many seek the “gift” of death under the fang, to become shadows themselves, but apparently very few have received it. Of course, certain shadows were determined to live as they had in ages past, but in the new century, with satellite tracking and instant media, these rebels, criminals now, cannot avoid justice.

  Those were the developments of the first year after Venice, and it is easy to see how much they have affected us already. In the four years since, shadow culture has adapted to its new strictures, woven itself into the fabric of human society, and moved from front-page news to the Lifestyles section. As they used to say, back when I was a very young man, they’re all the rage.

  Will Cody said to me that “humanity has slowed its vehicle down as if to observe a terrible car wreck and now it’s moving on.” In truth, the squabbles are incessant on Capitol Hill and in the laboratories on every continent. Humanity has learned a new excitement, a new fascination. We’ve been wishing for centuries for such a revelation, and now that it has come true, we have thrown wide the door to the unknown with a sense of daring adventure born of fear and fear alone.

  And the politics continue.

  Lazarus shut the book from which he had been reading aloud, Allison Vigeant’s Jihad, a first-hand account of the battle between Roman assassins and the vampires who had gathered that year for the Venice Carnival. The selection he’d read was the afterword, by Dr. George Marcopoulos, a human who had become the shadows’ ambassador to the U.N. Lazarus thought Vigeant had scored quite a coup by including the ambassador’s contribution. The Stranger, on the other hand, was less than impressed.

  “No matter the uncertain tone of his words,” the Stranger said, tapping the arm of his chair, “it is clear Marcopoulos believes we will continue to be integrated, that left to our own devices, we will blend into the world until one day we become as invisible as before. Also clear however, is that he fears this will not happen, that the future will be far less, hmm, ordered.

  “I would like to tell this man that his worst nightmares, his most unsettling fears are true. Though he whistles in the dark with his words of caution, he does not believe them. But the time for invisibility has passed, for better or for worse. No matter our name, we have returned to the sunlight at last. We’ll never be able to hide in the shadows again. If chaos is our get, then so be it.”

  The Stranger had been speaking almost to himself, staring at nothing, but now he looked to where Lazarus stood in the door to the useless kitchen, awaiting a response.

  “So now what?” Lazarus obliged. “Do we sit back and watch time go by?”

  The Stranger stood and went to the window, where the hot Greek sun was finally beginning to sink back into the sea.

  “Gallagher, Cody and Nueva,” the Stranger said and shook his head. “Even Hannibal in his twisted way. Despite the burden that this . . . integration has laid upon their shoulders, they still find time to pursue Octavian’s quest, to search for an answer to his final question. Find out what we are, Octavian instructed them before he went through the portal to Hell.”

  “He was beginning to suspect,” Lazarus said as he joined the Stranger by the window.

  “Oh, yes,” the other said, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. “He would never have made the final connection, though. Even with the assistance of every scientist in the world, there is no way our brother and sister shadows will ever discover their heritage on their own.”

  “You plan to tell them, then?”

  “When they’re ready, Lazarus. When they’re ready.”

  “And what do we do in the meantime, my friend, now that we have joined the world, now that our hunters hunt no longer?”

  The smile disappeared from the Stranger’s lips. The burning light died in his eyes, and another, colder light grew there.

  “You are mistaken, Lazarus,” the Stranger said. “The struggle of our people is far from over. And as quickly as the humans opened their arms to us, on the day our existence puts them in danger they will strike a match to the pyre of our kind.

  “And believe me, that day is coming.”

  The Stranger turned and threw open the doors to the balcony. In the dying sunlight, he underwent a most fluid, graceful change, and took wing. Lazarus had been given instructions, but the Stranger kept his destination a mystery even to his one true friend. The words floated, a ghostly whisper in the air, and Lazarus could not brush them away.

  They will strike a match to the pyre of our kind

  Lazarus knew that could mean only one thing.

  Human and vampire would become hunters again.

  1

  Salzburg, Austria, European Union.

  Monday, June 5, 2000, 3:27 P.M.:

  “It’s actually quite intimidating,” Allison said. “I mean, the way it just sits up there, observing the city. Ominous, really.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Will answered. “I’m cert
ain when it was built it was quite reassuring. A fortress of that size and strength must have allowed people to sleep much better at night.”

  They walked through Mirabell Gardens, in the city of Salzburg, Austria, hand in hand. Allison Vigeant, a reporter who had once used the name Tracey Sacco, and her lover, Will Cody, who’d been known by many names. She was a petite blond woman with hazel eyes, and he was a rugged-looking, bearded rogue. His brown hair had been cut short only days before, and he still felt slightly naked. He was a shadow, and she decidedly human and determined to stay that way. They were lovers, and this rendezvous in one of Europe’s most romantic cities was their first real vacation in nearly a year.

  Five years earlier, Allison had been conducting a CNN undercover investigation into what at first appeared to be nothing more than a particularly vicious cult. But the Defiant Ones had turned out to be much more than that. They were vampires.

  Not the vampires of myth, to be sure, but the Defiant Ones, now simply called shadows, were the basis for that myth. Like humans, however, they were not all of one nature. Some were vicious and cruel, others kind and helpful, and many, oh so many, in between. One and all they gathered each year, with humans who had volunteered to feed their red hunger, in New Orleans, Rio, a small village in Germany, a rotating slate of a dozen or more cities around the world. Five years ago it had been Venice, and it was there that the vampires’ ancient enemy, the Roman church, had attacked them in force. The lives of the Venetian people were forfeit, as was the city itself.

  The vampires, or shadows as the world called them afterward, had been victorious, and Allison, with her cameraman Sandro Ricci, got it all on film. Yes, Allison had been present for the Venice Jihad, and if it had not been for her chance meeting with Will Cody, things might have gone quite differently in the months that followed. But she had met him, and Cody had changed her thinking completely regarding his kind, regarding shadows. And she was not alone. It had been her interview with Cody and Peter Octavian, coupled with footage of the vicious and darkly magical attacks by the clergy, that solidified the world’s opinion of shadows.