Of Masques and Martyrs Read online

  “Kevin,” Joe whispered, breaking their silence.

  The other three shadows gathered around him. Joe glanced around nervously, and had a strange flash of his childhood, when he and his friends would run in a neighborhood cemetery at night. Even though they knew that ghosts and ghouls and vampires didn’t really exist—and what an irony there—they couldn’t help but be a bit frightened anyway.

  In a way, Joe realized, children’s fears were far more practical than their parents’ weary confidence that such things were merely fantasy. But then, the whole world had learned that lesson six years ago. The terrors of childhood would never again be so easily brushed aside.

  Joe glanced around the cemetery again, but he sensed nothing, saw nothing, and he could tell that the others felt the same way.

  “We’ll split up,” he whispered. “Rachel and I will take to the air. Stefan, you and Kev walk through. Try to determine which section of the cemetery is least traveled.”

  Each of the others nodded in assent. Joe glanced at Rachel.

  “Pigeons?” she asked.

  “Right,” Joe agreed. “Nice and inconspicuous.”

  With Rachel at his side, Joe began to change. His body warped and twisted painfully and, somehow, its mass disappeared into the air around them and he became a fat, dirty pigeon. Together, they took flight, soaring up and over the cemetery.

  From above, Joe saw Stefan and Kevin begin to run soundlessly through the darkness, scouting the cemetery. It wasn’t long before Joe determined that the northwest corner of the cemetery seemed to be in the greatest disrepair, and therefore was probably the least visited. Other than their two fellow shadows, neither he nor Rachel saw anything moving on the ground.

  After less than two minutes in the air, Joe banked to one side and flew toward that crumbling northwest corner of St. Louis number one. He changed before he even reached the ground, dropping the last several yards as a man. His boots thumped softly on the dead earth. Behind him, he heard Rachel groan a bit as she changed. She wasn’t used to the pain. Not yet.

  Sure enough, less than twenty feet from where they landed, a crypt had been vandalized. Its door was unsealed, the top edge shattered, and was leaning against the interior of the doorway. A cursory examination might overlook it as just another example of deterioration, but this was definitely something more purposeful.

  “Here,” he whispered to Rachel and moved toward the crypt.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for the others?” she hissed from behind him.

  Joe shook his head. More than likely, Tsumi and the other vampires were hunting out in the city proper. Their best bet, the way he saw it, was to confirm that this was their lair, and then simply wait them out. After they’d all gone inside, and the sun had come out, that would be the time to take them. Hannibal’s warriors were legion but the superstitions he encouraged made them, generally speaking, easier prey. Particularly during the day.

  Yes, Joe thought, it would be best if they watched, and waited, until morning. Their advantage would be substantial then, even over greater numbers. But first, he had to make completely certain this was indeed their hiding place.

  Silent as the tombs that surrounded him, Joe moved up to the dark entrance to the vandalized vault. Where the door leaned against the inside of the frame, there was a gap through which he could see nothing but darkness. He edged closer, reached a hand out to run his fingers over the shattered upper edge of the door. He would have to move it aside to get a better look inside. But he knew he would need to do it quietly.

  Behind him Rachel tapped a foot impatiently.

  “Relax,” he whispered. “We’ll be out of here in a—”

  The granite door fell back into the tomb and shattered across the top of a metal casket inside. For a moment, Joe was so stunned he simply stood, blinking, with his mouth open. He hadn’t disturbed the door enough for it to have fallen in.

  There was another sound behind him. A wet, dripping sound.

  As he began to turn, something flashed in front of his eyes. Pain ratcheted from his chest all through his body. Something horribly jagged and painful tore into his back, severing his spine, and Joe crumpled to the ground.

  He tried to will himself to change to mist, or flame, or something with wings. He had to escape. He had to . . .

  Joe Boudreau saw the long silver dagger protruding from his heart, and his eyes widened. From the darkened crypt stepped a heartbreakingly beautiful Asian woman who could only have been Tsumi, the vampire Peter had sent them to hunt for.

  But it was they who were hunted.

  Tsumi glanced at him, tsked, and looked past him. Joe did his best, as darkness swept over him, to crane his head around to see what she was looking at.

  A huge, naked man, with long blond hair and beard like a Viking, stood on the damp cemetery ground covered in blood. At his feet, in a spray of hair, was Rachel’s head. Behind him her body lay on its side, and Joe thought he could see a large, dark hole in her chest.

  The naked Viking was eating her heart.

  “The new ones are always the tastiest,” the Viking grunted, blood and pulpy muscle on his chin and teeth.

  Joe wanted to weep for Rachel, but could think only of himself. And of Kevin; of the incredible softness of his black skin. Kevin and Stefan were still out there in the cemetery. What was to become of them? He had to help them. Pushing the darkness away, he focused his mind, ignored the pain, and felt the change begin to come over him.

  Fire. That’s what he would be. Burning flame that would scorch them all, razing them from the Earth.

  Then Tsumi took a second silver knife and castrated him. Joe screamed, and in the raging red haze of pain, he saw a swarm of vampires appear from the darkness around the tombs. They descended on him, fangs and silver blades flashing.

  5

  In a sky full of people, only some want to fly.

  Isn’t that crazy?

  —SEAL, “Crazy”

  CODY AND ERIKA FACED EACH OTHER IN A standoff that was quicker than a heartbeat. He’d given Allison a shove and sent her running in the opposite direction.

  Erika was one of them, part of Peter’s coven, and had been Rolf’s lover for nearly a year. But Will wasn’t taking any chances with the life of the only person who really meant anything to him.

  His own voice, when he’d shouted for Allison to run, still echoed in the corridor. He could hear the soles of her shoes slapping tile. Erika’s smile grew even wider and her eyes flicked again to Cody’s right, to the Avis car rental counter he knew was just behind him. There’d been an elderly couple there a moment ago, and a pair of customer service agents behind the counter.

  He didn’t turn, though.

  He didn’t want to take his eyes off Erika.

  Until he heard the rasping voice snarl, “Go after her!”

  Then he had to look. The two employees, a man and a woman, had died silently; their necks hung at odd angles where they lay across the counter. The elderly couple were elderly no longer. The female had shifted her form, become a perfect-complexioned, tall black woman. The other, the one who’d spoken, was a huge, bald man whose narrowed eyes spoke of murder, and meant it.

  He stood his ground while the black woman set off after Allison. Will moved to intercept her and was brought up short as fingers like metal spikes dug into his shoulder and spun him around.

  “No,” Erika said, unsmiling.

  “Hannibal wants you, Cody,” said the bald vampire.

  “I reckon Hannibal can fuck himself,” Will snarled.

  Behind him, Allison screamed. Will winced, ignored Erika’s talons where they tore into his shoulder, and forced her to move with him as he turned around. The tall, black vampire woman had Allison.

  By the hair, pulled back taut and tearing, her eyes screaming for help in a way she was too strong and proud to allow her throat to do. Her throat was exposed, skin stretched and ripe. The vampire woman was licking Allison’s throat, her long pink tongue unnaturally disten
ded as it ran along the neck to the jawbone and up to the ear. She bared her fangs and scraped them along Allison’s earlobe, drawing blood. Allison squeezed her eyes closed, and a solitary tear appeared.

  The vampire kept her eyes on Will’s during this entire process. Even when she twisted Allison’s body to lick her tongue across his lover’s lips, the vampire woman stared at Cody, taunting, defying him to do something. To take some kind of action.

  Will turned away. He stared back at Erika now, his heart grown cold as he watched her eyes, tried to decipher what it was he saw there. After a moment, he realized it didn’t matter. Maybe she was in conflict over what was happening, maybe she wasn’t, but he was certainly not going to expect any help from her. He stared at her hand where it still gripped his shoulder, and she released him. Perhaps she realized that she couldn’t have held him long against his will. Perhaps she simply knew that she had him.

  They had him.

  “Don’t hurt her,” he said grimly.

  “Beautiful,” the bald vampire said off to his right, his voice echoing along the tile corridor. “He’s begging now. Amazing what sex will do to a man. Even a dead man.”

  But Erika stared right into Will’s eyes and she knew the bald vamp had it figured wrong.

  “That wasn’t a plea, it was a warning,” she said. “Colonel Cody here was telling us what’s what, weren’t you, Will?”

  “That’s right, you traitorous bitch,” Will said evenly. “Now, what do you want?”

  “Vlad told you already,” the black woman snarled behind him, and he heard Erika whimper. This time, Cody didn’t turn to see how Allison was. He didn’t want to know. It would only make what was to come more difficult. “Hannibal wants to see you,” the black girl continued. “Just come with us, and your little human twat here won’t get herself hurt. Though, she is pretty tasty.”

  He ignored that.

  “Vlad?” Will asked and smiled. He turned to the bald vampire. “That’s your name?”

  Then he started to laugh. Long and hard. Erika raised her eyebrows, and Will heard a gasp behind him. From the Avis counter, Vlad roared and took three stalking steps toward Will. His face became distended, jaw becoming snout; his ears began to point as hair sprouted all over his body.

  “Don’t push me, cowboy,” Vlad growled.

  “Vlad,” Erika warned. “Hannibal gave specific instructions.”

  “Yes, Vlad, Will teased, his mind moving away from the comfortable midwestern twang of his youth to a harder, more cynical language he knew all too well.

  “You don’t want to piss off your master, Vlad. What the hell kind of name is that, anyway? Is Hannibal just taking every vampire wannabe in America, or only the ones with stage names?”

  “Will, stop it!” Erika shouted at him. “You want to save Allison’s life, you come with us now!”

  But she was too late. Vlad was going to snap any second. Will was certain of it—and it was just what he wanted. If he stayed and fought, Allison was dead for certain. And if he gave himself up, they would have gotten what they needed from her and, there again, she was certain to be killed. There was only one way to give her a respite, to buy some time for Allison—and for himself. Because without her, he might as well be dead.

  “Come with you?” Will asked. “Okay, but surely Vlad must have some neo-gothic teenybopper rave thing to go to? Somewhere people will be impressed by him?”

  The huge vampire had transformed himself into a true wolf-man, a savage, slavering thing walking on its hind legs. His eyes burned red, and they grew even wider as Cody said this last.

  Vlad lunged for him. Allison screamed.

  “No, Vlad, wait!” Erika shouted and started forward to stop the huge werewolf from disobeying Hannibal’s orders.

  Too late.

  Vlad was fast, Will had to give him that. But it was like an eight-year-old dealing with a toddler. Vlad still hadn’t mastered the abilities that vampirism gave him. That was the handicap shared by most of Hannibal’s followers. But not Erika. She was the one he had to watch.

  As Vlad came for him, Cody burst into flame. The werewolf staggered through fire and cinder, its fur catching ablaze. Even as he passed, Will was coalescing again, becoming himself. Now he faced Vlad’s staggering form from behind. With all his strength, he thrust a fist forward. Midstrike, it transformed into a stout, thick oak branch, carved to a point on the end. He drove it through Vlad’s back and into his heart.

  The wolf fell hard.

  For a moment, Cody thought about going for Allison, trying to save her. He glanced to one side and saw that the tall, black woman still held her tight, only now her fingers were long yellow claws.

  “Back off or she’s dead!” the vampire woman screamed.

  “No!” Erika shouted. “Not until he’s with us!”

  Will knew then. Erika had almost given him permission to do what he needed to do next. But it was the most difficult thing he’d ever had to do in his life.

  On the tile floor, blood pooling beneath him, Vlad was already starting to stir. Will was displeased to note that the big vamp was built of sterner stuff than he’d imagined. Not much time.

  “Will . . .” Erika said tentatively and reached out for him where he stood staring down at Vlad.

  She didn’t see it coming at all. But she was a traitor, and should have known better. Before Erika could react, before she could even conceive of what was going to happen, Will reached out and grabbed Erika’s hand. He spun her around and ratcheted her arm painfully up behind her. She opened her mouth to speak.

  With a roar and a burst of strength, Will Cody shoved Erika forward and ripped her right arm out of its socket. Her words turned to screams. Blood sprayed Will’s face and the tile floor. Erika staggered forward and slammed into Vlad where he was trying to rise from the floor.

  “Freeze right there or I do her, you crazy fucking bastard!” the black woman screamed in a panic.

  Will knew he couldn’t reach her before she killed Allison. There was only one thing he could do.

  “I’ll be back for you,” he said, staring into Allison’s terrified eyes, in a moment that would haunt him for the rest of his life. “I swear I will.”

  He turned and ran at the glass wall that separated corridor from parking lot. Will didn’t bother shapeshifting. He crashed through the glass in an explosion of jagged shards. Then his feet were slamming pavement.

  Fifteen steps, and he turned to mist. Floated up to the next parking level. When he re-formed, he didn’t even look like Will Cody anymore. Will was gone.

  Disappeared.

  “My God, this is hot!” Nikki said, fanning her open mouth.

  She speared a slice of cucumber smeared with French dressing from her salad and popped it into her mouth. It lay on her tongue, soothing.

  “I thought you liked jambalaya,” Peter said, a small grin on his face.

  “I do,” she said, mumbling past the cucumber as she chewed it, trying to swallow it quickly so that she could speak freely. “This is delicious, but it’s hotter than I’ve had it anywhere else.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Peter replied.

  Nikki glanced up at him a moment as if he were a madman, then she started to laugh. Several people turned to look at her, and she grew self-conscious. It was the kind of restaurant a tourist would never dare enter. Dark and aging like its staff, and yet, also like them, so much the soul of New Orleans. This was a place where the locals ate.

  A moment after they’d glanced over at her, several people at one table locked eyes on Peter’s face, then turned quickly away.

  “They’re afraid of you,” she whispered.

  “A little,” Peter admitted, and she thought she detected a bit of sadness in his voice. “But they respect us as well. Those of the locals who realize that we’re here at all understand what’s going on. Many of them have offered to help. I think when more of Hannibal’s followers join Tsumi here in New Orleans, even more people will come to help us. Human
s are a fearful race, but almost always willing to fight for what is theirs, and for the ones they love.”

  “Tsumi,” Nikki said thoughtfully, letting her hair fall in front of her face to hide her fear. “Aren’t you afraid she’ll see you out tonight, attack you again?”

  Peter nodded slowly. “I’m more afraid of what she might do to you, because she saw that I protected you. Or what she might do to any other innocent tonight. And the night after that. For myself, she can’t really hurt me. I’ve been a shadow far longer than she, and I have other . . . abilities that she doesn’t share.”

  Nikki understood. She had seen Peter work some kind of horrible sorcery when he saved her life. But there seemed to be something in his tone which asked her not to pursue that subject.

  “I take it she’s an old girlfriend or something?” she asked.

  “Or something,” Peter replied. “We had different philosophies. It didn’t work out. I actually got along far better with her brother when I met him for the first time. I haven’t seen him in decades, but he’s one of very few other shadows I’ve ever really trusted.”

  “What about Cody?” Nikki asked. “I’ve heard several people mention him. You and he are pretty good friends, right? What’s he like?”

  Peter chuckled. “Another time. You’ve had enough insane information to process today, I think.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that, Mr. Octavian,” Nikki said, eyebrows raised, flirting.

  Flirting.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she said, and let her hair fall across her face again as she reached up to cover her eyes.

  “What is it?” Peter asked.

  But what could she say? For a moment there, she’d forgotten. She was fascinated by him, by all of it. She’d been flirting, had forgotten that he wasn’t what he appeared to be.