Angel Souls and Devil Hearts (45 page)

He changed again, into something not quite a man and not quite an eagle, and he did his best to break her fall. Erika was right behind him, and as he fell with his dead lover in his arms, Rolf
bore her down as well. The others moved out of the way of the falling corpse and the two shadows trying to slow its descent, toward the edges of the cavern, and by the time they started up after
Hannibal again, only his single form remained outlined against the sunny sky. He held something in his hand, but in the glare, none of them could see what it was.

“When muscle will not suffice,” Hannibal called down to them, and wings grew from his back, his body hunched over, becoming an ugly crimson color, and he took flight, a rough,
snarling scream completing the thought as he sped away: “. . . technology shall triumph!”

Carlos and Annelise led the charge up through the hole in the ceiling, Jared right behind them, but too late, as the entire cavern, and ice caves and tunnels a quarter mile in every direction,
were vaporized in a flash of thermite.

Salzburg, Austria, European Union.
Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 10:23
A.M.
:

Liam Mulkerrin had no idea what he had called from the depths of Hell. He had opened the portal in a moment of panic when he’d thought a particularly harsh blow from
Charlemagne was going to penetrate his force shield. He had reached out blindly with his magic and flipped a mental switch that had, due to the frequency of its use, replaced a long, spoken spell
that had once been required for the creation of such portals. His mind had sought something vicious enough to destroy Charlemagne and his troops, and it seemed as though the creatures on the other
side of the portal had reached out to him as well.

Yet he had no idea what they were. Not that it mattered now, as Charlemagne’s warriors, so much more advanced than the vampires Mulkerrin had faced before, were forced to break away their
attack to defend themselves against the new arrivals. Black and blood-red, the creatures were paper-thin but incredibly strong, and their insubstantial wings kept them aloft as they attacked,
outnumbering Charlemagne’s forces three to one.

But not for long. For all their viciousness, their talons and needle teeth, the death promised in their eyes, these pure vampires—for that was what Mulkerrin somehow sensed they
were—were no match for Charlemagne’s warriors, whose weapons were made, not of steel as they had first appeared to be, but of silver. The material was poison to all magical things, in
greater and lesser degrees, but the more evil a thing, the more powerful a weapon silver became. These pure vampires were truly evil, and one good wound from a silver blade caused them to explode
in a burst of pustulent black fluid, the stench of which penetrated even Mulkerrin’s magical protection.

Still, he reveled in the power that had been given him by the Lord, to force these creatures to do his bidding . . .

Yes, Liam, you have done well for me, the voice of God boomed in his head, and tears sprang from Mulkerrin’s eyes as he thanked his creator for the mission, the chance to serve.

Ah, but why do you tarry so with these creatures? the voice asked. Surely I gave you more than enough power to choose from a thousand ways to wipe them out?

“Yes, Lord,” Mulkerrin said aloud, kneeling, hovering, eyes closed, protected, amid the aerial portion of the bloody battle. “But you see I am only human, and it is taking me
some time to become acquainted with all that you have given me. It has been somewhat difficult to concentrate on understanding my new abilities since my return to this plane.”

Did I choose wrong in freeing you from your Hellish prison? the voice asked.

“Oh, no Lord! Please, your will shall be done! I only needed a little time to grow accustomed to my—your power! Now,” he cried, “I shall destroy them all.”

“Oh, I think not, old enemy,” a voice from Mulkerrin’s past said, and he opened his eyes. Before him, Peter Octavian hovered, battling the air currents with enormous feathered
wings, his body otherwise unchanged, and smiling a terrible, mocking smile

The voice of his Lord was silent now, but Mulkerrin did not mind He would get on with God’s work in a moment, but first . . .

“Finally,” he said to Octavian, his eyes widening with glee, “you will die.”

John Courage, the Stranger, fought side by side with Meaghan Gallagher, Will Cody and this newcomer from the SJS, Stefan. Courage no longer bothered to hide many of his
long-developed abilities. Like Charlemagne, one hundred yards away, Courage’s hands had become talons of real silver, and a powerful swipe was enough to cause one of the true vampires to
explode. The creatures’ numbers were dwindling fast, and only moments before, Mulkerrin had allowed the portal to close. Somehow, his concentration had again been broken.

Nearly two millenia had passed since the Stranger had last battled these true vampires, and then he’d destroyed the last of them on Earth. That conflict had not been nearly as simple, but
Courage was not complaining. Instead, he was worried. There was something not quite right about Octavian, something familiar, though they’d never met, and the Stranger became more and more
curious as minutes ticked by. Courage had tried to contact him mentally, as he ought to have been able to do with any earth-spawned vampire, but all he got was static, white noise, with the essence
of something evil behind it. It was possible that this was caused by Octavian’s long imprisonment in Hell, but not likely.

Perhaps his time there had more of an effect on him than any of us suspected
, Courage thought. There was the fact that Octavian knew him as the Stranger, merely because Lazarus had told
the former detective of his existence. Too coincidental, and certainly not detective work. And finally, there was the current question.

Courage had to wonder why he and the others were being swarmed by the gnashing jaws and flapping wings of the true vampires, while Octavian had not had to fight off a single one of the creatures
as of yet.

We are nearly victorious
. Charlemagne’s thoughts came into his head.

Over these creatures, yes, but the sorcerer yet lives. Try not to destroy all of the vampires yet. Give it a moment
, Courage sent back to him.
Let’s see if Cody can get the job
done.

And then Charles was gone from his mind, and he opened his thoughts to Cody and Gallagher, simultaneously. He felt Meaghan’s surprise, as she had not yet experienced contact with him, but
he also sensed her respect for him. In Hell, she had told him, she had been shown deference by demon-lords simply because she mentioned his name.

Only a few more feet
, he sent to them,
and we will be directly behind Mulkerrin. He thinks himself invulnerable from attack but as soon as Octavian engages him, Meaghan and I will
destroy these “vampires” and give Cody a clear shot at the sorcerer’s back.

What if I screw it up
? Cody’s question came into Courage’s mind.

As did Meaghan Gallagher’s response:
Don’t
.

Courage watched as Octavian confronted Mulkerrin, and he wished that he could see the look on the sorcerer’s face. As it was, the smile on Peter Octavian’s lips told quite a story,
and forced John Courage to dispel his concerns regarding Octavian’s strangeness. This was a shadow thoroughly enjoying the impending defeat of an enemy who had cost him a thousand years of
torture. Courage was relieved.

Cody, now
! he thought as he moved in sync with Gallagher, lashing out at the leathery skin of the vampires that surrounded them. Cody transformed himself into a hawk shrieking as the
silver dagger was absorbed into his body. The old cowboy had a while to go before he could comfortably forge wings from his flesh while retaining his otherwise human form. It was a learned skill,
and he hadn’t had the time, the years.

Lord
, Charlemagne’s voice came into Courage’s head,
the few true vampires that still live are fleeing. Shall we give chase?

God, no
! Courage thought, hoping Mulkerrin didn’t notice that his creatures had lost the battle.
No, Charles, we’ll track them later, if this gambit works
.

And then their hand was played, as Cody shifted back to human form twenty feet directly above Mulkerrin and dropped, dagger in hand, through the sorcerer’s shield.

Liam Mulkerrin could not believe it, nor could he understand. Peter Octavian, who had thwarted his plans for vampiric genocide and for a new Catholic Church under his own
leadership, who had been responsible for his imprisonment in Hell and had been imprisoned at his side, subject to the same tortures . . . Octavian was laughing at him. The vampire taunted him, and
try as he might, Mulkerrin was powerless to stop him.

When the other vampires had attacked, he had needed to learn his new abilities, and their numbers were such that, unless they angered him, he would not concentrate on those few whose assault was
direct, but on the masses. With Octavian, it was different. Mulkerrin’s pure hatred of the shadow made it impossible for him to see beyond their conflict. And yet, it seemed he could not harm
the creature. He had attempted spells that simply did not work; he had tried to reach out, using his sorcerous influence, and strike at Octavian, to no avail. Mulkerrin knew something had happened
to Will Cody that made him immune to magical influence, but this thing with Octavian was something completely different, something more.

With Cody, the spells worked; Mulkerrin’s influence was there, but did not affect him. With Octavian, the spells failed. His sorcery was functional in all other ways, his protective shield
intact, but each time he attempted to use it against Octavian, it was as though he were striking out with the ghost of an amputated limb.

“What’s wrong, Liam?” Octavian asked with a smirk. “From omnipotent to impotent in just seconds—it’s an awful feeling, isn’t it?”

“I have the power of God in me!” Mulkerrin nearly shrieked in panic, as Octavian moved closer. He realized then that he truly feared Octavian, and then he pushed the truth away,
pretended it had never existed. With God on his side, he had no need for fear, he was protected.

“God?” Octavian laughed. “Would God help a butcher like you, a madman whose only love is the creation of pain and suffering?”

“My only love is God!” Mulkerrin said without hesitation. “Once I reveled in the pain of others, inflicted in the name of God. A millenia of suffering at your side in Hell has
shown me that my pleasure in the suffering of others was vain, that such suffering is for God’s pleasure only. It is through pain and death that this world will be purified for him.

“And you will not stop me!”

Mulkerrin tried again to lash out at Octavian, but he felt nothing inside, at the source of his control over the magic. The vampire moved closer still, and Mulkerrin winced.

“Would God,” Octavian asked softly, slowly, “give you the power to call up creatures of the darkness? Would He use such creatures for his own ends?”

“Since the days of his son Jesus Christ and the human Joseph the Carpenter, God’s Church has controlled the creatures of darkness, as you put it,” Mulkerrin said proudly,
drawing himself up. “It is only right that they be put to use cleansing the world they would have liked to destroy. All creatures are God’s creatures.”

At that Octavian smiled

“Not all creatures,” he said, and something told Mulkerrin to look away, away from the vampire, his old enemy, whose broad wings held him aloft in the air currents around them.
Octavian’s comment seemed to refer to these new things, the pure vampires that Mulkerrin had called up from . . . well, not Hell, but elsewhere. Mulkerrin looked down, where the creatures
ought to have been savaging Charlemagne and his troops.

And were not. Instead, the creatures, the pure vampires he had brought to Earth had either been killed or fled into the alleys of Salzburg. But rather than taking flight to press an attack on
Mulkerrin, Charlemagne’s troops were poised, prepared for battle, and doing absolutely nothing. But why?

Mulkerrin glanced quickly back at Octavian, whose smile said nothing, and everything. A setup of some kind, but from . . . Mulkerrin moved, as fast as his mind could pull the strings of his
sorcerous influence on the world around him, back away from Peter Octavian. And he watched as Will Cody fell past him, scrabbling at air with a silver dagger, only a few feet away and well within
his “protective” shield. A lot of good it would have done; he had not even felt Cody’s violation of his shield.

“Son of a bitch!” Cody yelled as he dropped, and as Mulkerrin watched, the vampire buckled in the air, his face a rictus of pain, as ragged wings sprouted from his back, his legs
shrinking, drawing up into a painful combination of human flesh and feathered talon. But his upper body remained human, his right hand filled with silver, and he moved toward Mulkerrin with agony
carved into his features. Unlike Octavian, there was nothing graceful or beautiful about this difficult transformation for Cody, nothing angelic.