Angel Souls and Devil Hearts (27 page)

Liam Mulkerrin, madman, believed it all.

And now he stood amid the bloody warfare, his magic reaching out from the fortress he’d made his own, surveying the landscape around it, aware of the soldiers fleeing his influence, of the
Defiant Ones working with them. That alone was proof that these humans must be purified, cleansed or sent to Hell if purification were impossible. As for the Defiant Ones, Mulkerrin sensed that
he’d known some of these, even just one or two, before, but could not locate them just yet. But his power, his magic, still grew.

Mulkerrin was past simple spells, though they were still sometimes useful. No, now he controlled true magic, could manipulate the flow, the essence, of the world around him. But such magic was
difficult. His primary concentration must go to his own protection, self-preservation. His hold on the other magics he controlled—the portals, the ghosts of dead soldiers, the
weather—was much more tenuous.

Mulkerrin would rest now, though his influence would continue to grow and spread further out from the fortress. For the moment, he was content to replenish his supply of demon-slaves from the
portals, and to wait for the humans to attack him again. That was their test and one he knew they would fail miserably. They could not face their own evil, and so they would fight
his—God’s—judgment. Fight it, yes, but not escape it.

As a priest, Liam Mulkerrin had been fond of saying that God’s work was never done. But now that God had set him this task of judgment, the day would soon come when the Lord’s work
would finally be complete.

Judgment Day had arrived.

Inside Mount Untersberg, Austria, European Union.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 2:03
A.M.
:

“Are you blushing?” John Courage asked with a smile. Allison Vigeant turned away, furious at having been discovered and blushing even more. Behind them, Charlemagne
and his men bathed in the underwater stream that ran through the cavern. The emperor had ordered all of his men into the water, but there was only room for perhaps a dozen at a time, so they
crowded at the stream’s edge awaiting their turn. For his part, the emperor swam as best he could in the shallow stream, up and down its length, not bothered at all when one of his men would
block his path. In truth, he seemed to be enjoying himself

When they had disrobed, Allison had been more interested in their vampiric nature than in their nakedness. These shadows were different from all those she had known, even Cody and Peter
Octavian. Though they were naked in her presence, not one of the men turned to leer at her. There was no bickering among them, no shoving, no posturing, only a deference to their emperor (and to
Courage) and pride in themselves. And then Allison realized that there was one shadow who seemed somewhat like these soldiers, and that was Courage himself.

Pushing her thoughts aside for later examination, when she would confront John with her many questions, Allison realized that while she had been staring into nothing, not focusing, her eyes had
been on the naked men at the stream’s edge. Now she noticed that some of them, at least, had noticed her looking their way and seemed uncomfortable themselves. And that was what had caused
her to blush, and then to look away as John made a joke of it.

Allison’s eyes came to rest on the bed carved of stone where she had given her blood to the sleeping emperor, and the strangeness of what had happened since came back to her. She
didn’t know what she had expected, but the surprises grew by the moment, and not the kind of surprises she had been prepared for. First, Charlemagne had seemed ready to kneel before John
Courage, but John had stopped him. No matter what else it might indicate, it certainly proved that Courage was far older than he let on, as he had admitted to her that Charlemagne had not been out
of the cavern in nearly twelve hundred years!

If that were not enough to think about, the emperor had then knelt, along with Courage, and led one hundred vampire soldiers in what was apparently a prayer, at the end of which all present made
the sign of the cross! And that she didn’t understand at all. The vampires greatest enemy had been the Church, and here they were using its symbols, praying to its God. After the prayer,
Courage had looked at her and smiled, and Allison had wanted to slap him. He knew what was going through her mind, the confusion she felt, and he was enjoying it!

Charlemagne had then taken John aside, and Courage had suggested Allison get some rest while he explained all that had happened and tried to prepare the emperor for what was ahead, not only in
battle, but in the world outside as a whole. They had spoken quietly in Latin as they sat together on Charlemagne’s stone bed, and the soldiers had become silently industrious, sharpening and
cleaning their weapons and repairing worn clothing. It amused Allison quite a bit to see these ancient warriors performing such quiet duties. And so, though she had assumed she could not possibly
do so, Allison had fallen asleep on the cold, stone steps leading up and out of the mountain.

She had come awake a short time ago, only to be confronted by the sight of one hundred naked men. And now she sat with John Courage as Charlemagne pulled himself out of the stream, dried himself
and dressed.

“Do you speak Latin?” Courage asked her, even as the former emperor approached.

“No, sorry.”

“Italian?”

“Just a little bit, a few words,” Allison said apologetically.

“Greek?” John suggested, but Allison only raised an eyebrow, which was answer enough.

“I do speak some Spanish, if that helps,” she said, finally, as Charlemagne joined them, and Courage’s face lit up.

“Spanish!” he said. “Excellent. Charles spent years fighting in Spain.”

Charles
?

Allison had the urge to giggle, but suppressed it as Courage turned to the other shadow and began speaking rapidly in Spanish. It was a dialect she was unfamiliar with, and she hadn’t
studied the language for years, but concentrating hard, she picked up enough to know that John was simply asking “Charles” to speak in Spanish when he could, as well as asking if he
minded the two of them referring to him as Charles. Apparently, he did not like the name “Charlemagne” very much. In any case, he didn’t seem to care, and so Charles it was.

The more he spoke, the easier it became for Allison to understand him, and once he got going, Charles spoke quite a bit. He was fascinated by her, and yet she sensed it was not because she was a
woman, but rather because of her newness, her youth, her familiarity with a world nearly alien to him. Eventually, as the soldiers finished their bathing and set about drying and dressing, John
Courage wandered off to leave her alone with Charles, and Allison barely realized it. She liked this old king, who smiled at her in a grandfatherly way and patted her hand when she said something
that amused or concerned him. His eyes had crow’s feet around them, which became quite pronounced with either emotion.

“I’m proud to know you,” he said, or at least that was how she understood his Spanish. “I gave my daughters the same education as my sons and, so many centuries later,
see what the world has moved on to.”

“Thank you,” she said, beaming herself, for his energy was infectious.

Allison knew that Cody had gotten younger after he became a vampire, and though she thought Charlemagne—Charles, rather, had been older when he died, she wondered aloud why he hadn’t
reverted to a more youthful appearance. She complimented him on his looks, admired his beard and mustache to soften the question, but he waved her words away.

“I am satisfied with my appearance,” he told her. “It is appropriate that an emperor look somewhat older, more . . .”

And then she couldn’t understand him, but she knew that he meant many things: distinguished, regal, noble, venerable. And he had all that. Yet still, he was far friendlier than she had
ever imagined such a ruler could be. In school, she had always imagined historical figures to be either vicious madmen, or wise, grave, slightly curmudgeonly old men. Charles was a pleasant
surprise.

And a vampire. It was so strange to think of one of the most pious of historical figures becoming such a great enemy of the Church, and yet she seemed to recall vaguely that Charlemagne had
dealt harshly with those who had executed people believed to be witches. And her mother had told her she’d never do anything with a history major!

They were laughing about something, and for Allison it was not important what that something was, only that they were, indeed, laughing. And then the vampire’s face grew dark, and serious,
and he looked at that moment precisely as she might have pictured him.

“We must go,” he said. “You are a beautiful girl, who does not belong in this thing. But I understand that women are no longer made to stay safe at home. Your lover is captive,
and we will free him, so let us go, and pray to God for his assistance. With the Lord’s help, we will destroy this Mulkerrin. The Irish were my subjects once, and it seems that this one needs
to be reminded.

“Come,” he said, and stood, offering Allison his hand and helping her to her feet.

When she looked around, she was surprised to see his soldiers, one hundred of them, prepared to depart and awaiting only his command. John Courage stood with them, but apart, and those nearest
him would not even look in his direction.

Allison realized that once again she had not been able really to question John, but promised herself that she would make the time on the march. For that was what was ahead of them: a march
across miles of Austrian countryside. They could have flown, sharing the burden of carrying the token human in the bunch, but Courage had said they wanted to conserve all of their energy. Certainly
it would not be easy for her to keep up with the shadows, who would walk the entire way without tiring a bit, but she would make it.

For Will.

Morzg, Austria, European Union.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 7:17
A.M.
:

A dozen ravens flew in arrow formation a mile or so to the north, and to anyone else looking up, they would have appeared to be nothing more than birds. But Allison knew that
they were far more. There had been so many other things to wonder about that she’d barely considered the strange deaths of those ravens that had flown at the top of Mount Untersberg, but she
thought of them now. She watched the progress of the birds, scouting ahead as they’d been ordered, and not for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to fly, to be one of
them.

Not a raven, of course. A vampire. For that is what those birds were, soldiers of Charlemagne, surveying their path, mentally communicating the images of the land around them to their emperor.
And Allison had to wonder what it would be like to have wings, to glide on the wind. It wouldn’t be the last time she would wonder such things, but she knew that she would always push such
thoughts aside. For the pain, the sadness, the little tragedies of immortal life seemed far too terrible to her. Though her friends, even her lover (if they got through this), would live on while
she grew old and died, she could never accept the “gift” that the so-called Revenant Transformation offered. She saw it as a double-edged sword at best.

She walked between John Courage and Charles, and though the two tried to engage her from time to time, they invariably lapsed into Latin, apparently discussing both the battle to come and the
status of the world. She noticed more and more that Charles deferred to John, but decided to wait until they were alone to ask Courage about it.

Their exit from the mountain, or at least Allison’s, had been less than graceful. A return to the cavern ledge by which she and Courage had entered led to a slope disappearing down inside
the mountain. They had gone down that slope, many shifting to forms better suited for the descent, and eventually, she had ridden on the back of a bear that was actually John Courage himself
Regardless of everything else she had seen, that ride, holding so tightly to this thing that had become her friend, had unsettled her. Then she had realized that they were out of the mountain, and
on the march.

Now, with the ravens at the point, they trooped along Morzgerstrasse, a wide highway, already cleared of cars in the evacuation. Twice they had been confronted by Austrian and German military
roadblocks, and both times Allison had been called upon to speak for them. Though they obviously did not trust the shadows, and the German soldiers wanted to hold them back, or try at least, the
Austrians wanted their nation saved, and so waved the shadows on. Allison didn’t know whether to be more surprised that they had been confronted, or that they had been allowed to move
forward.

“Demons,” Charles said, finally, and Courage barely noted the word. Apparently the ravens had alerted their blood-father—for Allison was fairly certain that that was what
Charles was to his soldiers—of the presence of Hellish creatures ahead.

Quickly, the vampires moved around Allison and John Courage, and Allison realized they were protecting her the way a herd would protect its young from predators. Courage was with her as extra
insurance, but Charles was at the front of the group, preparing to confront the few demons they had come upon.