Angel Souls and Devil Hearts (33 page)

Blood and flesh flew around them. The gore-spattered faces of his comrades gravely looked on, but Rolf was blind to it all as he found an unguarded spot, an unprotected moment, and shoved his
right hand into Hannibal’s now hard and scaly belly. His claws were sharp, and his strength was enough to slide the hand in, grab a fistful of the vampire’s guts and pull. Even as he
struggled to eviscerate Hannibal, Rolf had left muck of himself unprotected, and the other’s terrible jaws clenched on what had become his own snout. His body reacted, changing shape again,
his flesh trying desperately to escape the many teeth of his enemy.

Part of his face tore away even as Hannibal’s intestines spilled out, flopping on the cobblestones at their feet. In his pain, Rolf’s awareness of his surroundings returned. Some of
his comrades were moving to assist, but Commander Jimenez motioned for them to stay where they were. Silently, Rolf thanked him. He would kill this creature, and perhaps the disaster Hannibal had
planned could still be avoided, perhaps peace was still possible for the weary shadows.

They held each other, like lovers, like weary boxers, though their claws were deep in each other’s back, head, neck, scoring to the bone. Hannibal’s grip relaxed a bit, and Rolf
tried to look him in the eye.

But Hannibal wasn’t looking at Rolf He was looking over Commander Jimenez’s head. Rolf followed his line of sight and saw what had drawn his attention. Commander Elissa Thomas,
Rolf’s lover, stood atop a vehicle, behind many of her troops, with a CAMEL rocket tube on her shoulder, waiting for a clear shot.

Rolf had been winning; it was only a matter of time, and Hannibal had to know it. Rolf was faster, stronger; Hannibal was badly wounded, weakening. But that moment of distraction, seeing Elissa
above the terrible battle that raged around them, was an error. Hannibal used all the strength he had within his undead frame to heave Rolf up and away from him. Rolf slammed into a group of
soldiers, taking them down, and the vampire Jared as well.

He looked up, his face throbbing, and Hannibal was gone. And then Rolf saw that he had changed. Weakened by his torn belly, the vampire had not the strength to become mist, but he apparently had
enough concentration left to transform into a huge bat. In seconds, he was darting across the plaza toward Elissa’s perch. Rolf swore, and gunfire spat into the air, and a number of bullets
tore right through Hannibal’s black form. They slowed him down some, but didn’t stop him.

Rolf and Jared changed then, almost simultaneously, and they flew after Hannibal as a wounded eagle and a raven. Around them, several bats rose into the air, but whether they were
Hannibal’s followers or his own, Rolf could not tell. And neither could the soldiers, as they were all fired upon. Rolf was hit twice, but ignored the small pain, the momentary lack of
balance. Commander Thomas was a soldier, that was true, and as such she faced death constantly. But Rolf cared for her, and he would not be responsible for her death.

Elissa brought the CAMEL around to aim it at Hannibal, but the fiend was almost there. She didn’t have the two or three seconds it took for the computer to aim, and she didn’t wait.
The CAMEL’s missile blasted from its tube . . . and missed. The target, Hannibal, was too small and too fast, and the computer had not had enough time. Behind him, Rolf heard an explosion as
the dome of the Salzburg Cathedral exploded, the missile finding a target after all.

And then it was too late. Before the debris of the dome had begun to fall, before Elissa could even drop the tube and long before Rolf could come to her aid, Elissa was in Hannibal’s arms.
He spun her to face his pursuers, and she flailed behind her, striking him uselessly with her elbows and feet. But her head and upper body did not move, because Hannibal’s left arm was around
her neck, the crook of his elbow powerful enough to snap it at any time. His right hand was at her face, and the long talons rested on her right cheek.

Hannibal didn’t have to tell Rolf to stop. Changing back into human form, the mute vampire stood twenty feet from the car atop which Hannibal prepared to kill a woman he had so recently
made love to, caressed. Rolf didn’t know what to do. He felt his loyal shadow warriors step up, behind him, and knew that Jimenez and his soldiers were back there too, every weapon aimed at
Hannibal. It also occurred to him that Hannibal’s forces must be nearly destroyed for the battle to come to such a sudden halt.

“Ah,” Hannibal said, a guttural laugh showing he was still in pain. “This woman will be the death of you, mute.”

One long claw etched a red line across Elissa’s right cheek, and though she did not scream, Rolf could feel her pain, see her teeth clenched against the cry that lodged in her throat. She
stood rigid, but no longer struggled, resigned to whatever might come. Rolf was proud of her, and knew that he cared about her more than he ought to care about someone he’d known for so brief
a time. He considered the possibility that he might love her, and couldn’t deny it.

A new rage began to build in him, fueled by the futility he recognized in it. For the moment, Hannibal held all the cards. He could only watch as his enemy let the same hand that had scarred her
move down Elissa’s body to cup her breast through the cloth of her uniform.

“Yes,” Hannibal said softly, and only then did Rolf realize the silence that truly had fallen on the plaza. “I can understand your attraction, mute. I’ll enjoy this woman
quite a bit.”

Why didn’t they fire? Rolf wondered. Why did the soldiers do nothing? She was just another human to them, surely. So many others of their kind had died there that day. But he knew why they
did not, could not, fire. It was the way it had happened, the spectacle, the confrontation. And now, in the midst of a very impersonal, faceless battle, where death was a means to an end, a moment
had arrived that made things very personal, made death a thing to be feared, made them all feel as vulnerable and helpless as Elissa was.

He felt it too, and his rage burned higher, and darker.

When Hannibal’s jaws opened wide, and his fangs sank tenderly into Elissa’s neck, Rolf could not move. But as he looked away, wanting to see anything but the atrocity Hannibal was
committing, he saw that Elissa’s eyes were closed. He knew that she had wanted him to bite her the night before. She had not said it, but it had been clear just the same. Just as now, she
said nothing, but Rolf could see what this meant to her, this violation, rape of a sort. She was a proud soldier, the commander of the American division of the UN security force, and a single tear
ran down her cheek until it was stopped by the slash Hannibal had made there, disappearing in the bloody streaks that dripped to her chin.

Before he was aware of it, Rolf was in motion.

U.S. Interstate 81, New Hope, Virginia,
United States of America.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 3:01
A.M.
:

George Marcopoulos couldn’t sleep. How had everything gone so wrong, so fast? The question was unanswerable, but its truth was evident in his every thought, every
movement. Joe Boudreau had saved him from death at the hands of a man whom tragedy had just made the President of the United States of America. They had fled across the White House lawn, Joe not
advanced enough to fly George out, and his vampiric savior had been forced to injure seriously several Secret Service agents to make that escape possible.

George had been amazed, and relieved, to discover that Boudreau had a car parked nearby. A quick drive to his D.C. apartment, so that George could retrieve those few things that mattered, and
they were off, cross-country, driving for the temporary safety of Virginia highways. It wasn’t long before they were headed south on Route 81, toward Tennessee.

They had spoken little during all of this, for George had a lot on his mind. Valerie, for one. His wife and family in Boston would more than likely never see him again. He didn’t think he
had to worry that they’d believe whatever charges Bill Galin (George had a hard time thinking of him as “the President”) lodged against him. But Valerie was very sick, and their
humiliation by people who wouldn’t know better was a terrible thing to consider. George worried, but knew he was powerless.

He was, after all, the worldwide symbol of human cooperation with the shadows. And the whole world had just seen shadows murder the President as a declaration of war. Their ambassador, once a
mild-mannered medical examiner from Boston, had disappeared, and could only be considered to be in collusion with their efforts. George had considered trying to change his appearance somehow, but
hadn’t come up with a plan so far.

The world was at war, and it didn’t even know it yet.

In the meantime, there was Salzburg.

As they drove through Virginia, George watched with dread as events unfolded on the dash-screen cellular TV in Joe’s car. Armed guards had surrounded the United Nations building, and
Rafael Nieto was under 24/7 protection. In Washington, Bill Galin was sworn in as President, and immediately ordered all agencies to investigate the disappearances of Meaghan Gallagher, Alexandra
Nueva and George Marcopoulos! CNN reported that its own Allison Vigeant was under investigation, though her status in Salzburg was unknown.

And an international manhunt was declared for Hannibal, the chief marshal of the Shadow Justice System. Of course, that order, made jointly by Galin and Nieto, was essentially an indictment of
the SJS in its entirety, and a clear message that it was open season on all vampires.

“What do you think is going to happen?” Joe asked, finally breaking a long silence, and in his voice George heard a tremor of vulnerable, childlike fear. He knew the answer, knew it
was not what the young shadow wanted to hear, but its truth was inescapable.

“Armageddon,” he said.

Joe only nodded, and they were quiet again as the news anchor switched to a reporter flying above Salzburg in a helicopter. The aerial view was bizarre, to say the least. Where the ground rose
up on one side of the river, in the spot where the reporter insisted the Hohensalzburg Fortress was, and where he noted that half of the battle was going on, the picture was completely out of
focus, showing only a kaleidoscope of colors.

The reporter claimed that the helicopter had been prohibited from taking off until it appeared that all of the “so-called” demons capable of flight had been destroyed, but also noted
that it wouldn’t have done them any good previously, because until mere minutes earlier, none of the cameras within the main city had been able to get any picture at all. With that problem
solved, the reporter said, a ground team was working its way through Salzburg, broadcasting the carnage it found, the destruction left by the earthquake, the fires and other, less natural
disasters. The ground team was attempting to get closer to the fighting now taking place not at the fortress, which still proved impossible to film, but at a place called Residence Plaza. where
human and shadow forces were clashing. It was a clear, bright, sunny morning in Austria, and the helicopter offered a fairly good view of the battle.

It looked, to the world and to George Marcopoulos, as though the shadows were attempting to prevent the human troops from reaching the fortress. The reporter repeated several times that the
blacked-out area, at the fortress, was where the shadows were battling the sorcerer Liam Mulkerrin. But the audience couldn’t see that. All they saw was shadows and humans killing one
another. And after the President’s assassination, it was exactly what they expected to see.

Joe looked at George out of the corner of his eye, the same way he’d been watching the TV while driving.

“Meaghan knew this would happen eventually, but not so soon,” he said to George.

She never talked about it with me
, he thought, but didn’t open his mouth.

“Is Meaghan the one who made you a—”

“She gave me the gift, yes,” Joe said. “I asked her, begged her really. I told her I was dedicated to helping any way I could, and she said the best way I could help was by
hiding out. She knew Hannibal had his agents, and I suppose I was meant to be the first of her own.

“She never expected it to happen so soon,” he said again.

“Is there a plan?” George asked.

“Not really,” Joe admitted. “But there is a meeting place.”

George raised an eyebrow. “Are we headed there now?”

“Yeah,” he said and smiled a bit. “New Orleans.”

“That’s a long drive.”

“You sleep,” Joe said kindly. “I don’t need to, remember.”

George thought a bit, especially about Meaghan’s disappearance. He asked Joe about it, about why Meaghan disappeared.

“She contacted me, in my mind, you understand?” He looked at George, and when he saw that the old man did actually understand, he went on. “She and Alexandra and
Lazarus—”

“Lazarus?”

“Yeah.” Joe nodded. “They went after Peter Octavian.”

Now George was thoroughly confused.

“But Octavian’s in . . .,” George began, but he couldn’t get the word out.