Damoren (33 page)

“So we think the weapons aren’t required for this ceremony of theirs,” Matt continued. “But what if multiple people are? They’re not just being sacrificed, but physically needed to bring forth this demon mother of theirs?”

“
That’s possible,” Malcolm said carefully as trying to guess where Matt was going.

“
We don’t stand a chance attacking sixty-plus people, not if we’re all going to survive. Even if we get forty of them first we’re still dead. Then our weapons are lost as well and no one left to stop them. We need an army.”

“
We don’t have one.”

They rounded a bend and the village came into view through the trees.

“But we
do
.” Matt grinned. “What do you think the authorities would do if they were told a group of terrorists has a busload of people locked in a certain barn? There are already a thousand cops scouring Tuscany for them. No wreck has been found. They have to have figured out by now that something happened.”

Malcolm looked at him, then laughed.
“You want to call the cops?”

“
Yeah. Why not?”

“
What do you think will happen to them if they raid that castle? No silver, no iron, just bullets?”

“
But those culties aren’t immune to bullets. If we call it in like they’re some militant crazy bastards with automatic weapons the cops are going to come ready for a fight.”

“
What about the holy weapons?” Malcolm asked. “How, in that plan, do we save those?”

Matt thought about that.
“If the police get them we’ll at least know where they are and can begin recovery. Steal them, maybe say they were stolen from us. I’m sure Turgen can pull some strings. Otherwise we have ten GPS trackers in our gear. We can sneak out tonight and tag some of those cars in case any of them get away we can follow them. Maybe we can sabotage the other cars before the raid.”

“
Too many factors.” Malcolm shook his head. “If we lost those weapons then they’re gone. I can’t risk that.”

“
Look,” Matt said, his voice lowering as they neared a building. “Full lunar eclipses don’t happen often. If we can stop this ceremony tomorrow, it might buy us enough time to track these people down and end this.”

Malcolm sighed.
“These knights they’ve killed are just names to you. But to us they were our family. I don’t...expect you to understand this. But telling Master Turgen, or Master Schmidt, or Master Rangarajan that we let the people that murdered their...children...escape. It’d kill them.”

A lump of pity formed in Matt
’s chest. He’s always seen Malcolm as some balls-out, stone-cold demon hunter. He’d ridden Matt’s ass since the minute they first met. He’d considered punching Malcolm in the mouth more times than he could count. But now...now he understood. Malcolm was grieving. He licked his lips, finding the words. “And if the five of us die?”

Malcolm didn
’t answer.

They entered San Pettiro again, passing the first building.
A black-clad priest stood on the sidewalk ahead behind a microbus loading cardboard boxes onto a wooden wagon.

Finally Malcolm spoke, his voice low.
“We’ll talk to the others. Figure out the best plan.”

Matt hid a smile.
A small victory.

“
Excuse me,” said a man’s kind voice.

Matt looked up to see the young priest looking straight at him.
His face was red and dotted with sweat.

“
Could one of you help me with this last box?” the priest asked, smiling. He gestured to a red, flat, plastic case loaded with brown books.

Matt looked at Malcolm.

The knight seemed unsure, his eyes narrow.
He nodded reluctantly. “Of course, Father.”

Malcolm took a step closer.
The priest reached toward one end of the crate and drew a revolver. The antique looked like some relic from the First World War, its blued finish worn to dusty silver.

He cocked the hammer.
“Hands where I can see them.”

A door squeaked behind them.
Matt glanced back, hoping a surprise witness might cause a distraction. A pair of gray-haired men stepped out from one of the shops. One held a pistol, the other a double-barrel shotgun.
Shit.

“
Hands where I can see them, Mister Romero,” the priest said again.

Empty hand out, other still gripping the handle of Hounacier
’s brown case, Malcolm stepped back beside Matt.

“
You too, Mister Hollis,” the priest said, training the revolver on him.

Matt lifted his left hand.
His right inched toward the slit in Dämoren’s bag.

A shotgun pressed into his back.
“Slowly,” a burly voice growled.

For a brief moment Matt considered spinning, catching the man
’s gun and disarming him. The silver-ringed barrel of the priest’s pistol changed his mind. Matt raised his hands. “Mal?” he said, not moving his lips.

“Put the case down,” the other man said, prodding Malcolm in the back with his little semi-auto.

“
Okay,” Malcolm said, his voice calm. “All right.” Slow and deliberate, he bent down, lowering Hounacier’s case to the stone-paved sidewalk.

Suddenly Malcolm cocked a leg and kicked back, slamming his foot into his captor
’s knee. The man howled as the joint popped. He fell, his pistol firing into the air with a deafening crack.

Malcolm swung the long case back, knocking the shotgun out of Matt
’s back. “Matt, now!”

Matt thrust his hand into his bag, his fingers finding Dämoren
’s ivory grip.

Malcolm swung the case again.
Shotgun Man dodged the attack and slammed the gun’s steel butt-plate into Malcolm’s face, sending him sprawling.

Spinning, Matt cocked Dämoren
’s hammer and aimed her inside the awkward satchel at Malcolm’s attacker.

He fired.
Thick smoke billowed as the leather exploded outward. The bullet missed, shattering one of the microbus’s windows.

Shotgun Man stumbled back, bringing the double-barrels up.
Matt shoved Dämoren’s barrel out through the now shredded hole in his satchel and cocked the hammer again.

A cold smooth muzzle pressed hard into the side of Matt
’s head, just below his ear.

“
Drop it.”

Matt froze.
He looked out the corner of his eye, down the long barrel to the priest at the other end.

The man
’s face was hard. Angry. “Drop it. Now!”

Shotgun Man stood a few feet away now, his weapon aimed straight at him.
There was no way Matt could take them both.

Defeated, he closed his eyes and withdrew his hand from the bag.

Chapter Nineteen

Matt laid face down on dirty carpet the color of wet cardboard, his wrists handcuffed behind him. The microbus jolted, smacking his face into the floor. Broken glass bounced across the carpeting. Air whistled through the bullet hole in the window above. Cold shears slid up his thigh, snipping through his jeans. The pant leg fell open, exposing him to his captors, and then the shears started up the other ankle.

From the corner of his eye, Matt glanced over to Malcolm beside him.
He was naked, save the steel cuffs around his wrists. Bright tattoos of various patterns and shapes covered his upper arms and back. Some were elaborate, other simple, almost primitive. A crude, red stick man with a head like a push broom adorned one shoulder. A knot work face leered out between his shoulder blades. Dark blood caked his cheek.

Malcolm looked back, his swollen and purple eye just a slit.
In that moment Matt could see Malcolm’s rage, the hatred, the remorse. Matt couldn’t tell if the death-look was meant for their captors or him.

Matt
’s pants split fully open. Hands pulled his shirt out from beneath his cuffed wrists.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

The vehicle turned sharply and started up
a steep grade. Matt’s shirt fell apart. He was naked.

“
Your friends can’t save you,” said a voice behind him. He couldn’t tell whose. There were at least three people in the back of the microbus with them. They’d left the guy whose knee Malcolm had broken on the street in the care of some woman. Was the entire village in on it?

“
We got them half an hour before you,” the voice continued.

A dreadful weight settled in Matt
’s gut as he heard the names.

“
Luc, Allan, Luiza.”

They weren
’t bluffing.

“
You and your murdering order are done. Now you’ll pay for your crimes.”

“
Fuck you,” Malcolm growled.

A hard
thwack
sounded and Malcolm grunted in pain.

The vehicle slowed and turned into a stop.
The back door groaned open and a breeze flowed in across Matt’s bare back. Firm hands grabbed his arm, forcing him up and out the rear of the microbus. He stepped barefoot onto sun-warmed stone. Malcolm came out beside him. Three men and a woman, all with guns, surrounded them. They stood at the edge of a wide, walled courtyard paved in gray blocks. A massive three-story building wrapped two sides of the yard, its roof tiled with orange terracotta. A pair of workers maneuvered across a scaffolding frame along one of the building’s faces.

One of the gunmen removed a padlock from a barred door, like a jail cell, its crisscrossing flat bars riveted at their intersections.
It screeched open. Someone behind him twisted Matt’s arm up, driving him forward through the door and into a small brick room. Three nude prisoners stood inside, facing the rear wall, their hands cuffed behind them. At least they didn’t appear hurt.

Malcolm bumped into Matt
’s shoulder as his captors shoved him inside. The door clanged shut behind them. Metal rattled and the lock clicked. The room was small, no more than six by fifteen feet with a vaulted ceiling. No windows. No other exit but the single locked door.

Luiza spun around first.
She looked at Matt, her chocolate eyes tinged with worried relief.

“
Mal?” Allan exclaimed.

“
I’m all right,” Malcolm said, stepping forward. “Any of you hurt?”

“
No,” Luc said. “They took us by surprise.”

“
It’s my fault.” Allan’s eyes downcast. “This priest approached the car. Asked if we were tourists...needed directions...then he had a pistol and some friends.”

“
I think we met him,” Matt said through a bitter smile.

Malcolm shook his head.
“This is my fault. I wasn’t thinking. I should have left Matt in the car. Taken one of you instead.”

Matt
’s face grew hot.
This again?
“Me? What the hell did I do?”

“
No,” Malcolm said, shaking his head again. “You didn’t do anything. When you’re near me my scarab doesn’t work. It senses you and as long as you’re nearby I can’t feel other possessed. It left me blind. If I’d left you in the car I might have sensed that priest or one of his pals before they attacked us. Maybe before we even left the village.”

Matt
’s anger cooled. “I see.”

“
So you think they’re possessed?” Luc asked.

“
Maybe not all of them,” Malcolm answered. “But they got us in the middle of the street, broad daylight, guns out, two shots fired, and no one stopped it. No worry someone might call the police? I’ll bet this entire town is either cultists or familiars.”

Allan frowned.
“That’s a real big assumption.”

“
Why not?” Matt asked. “Villagers spread stories that Marco Barugnani worshiped the devil, then why not preemptively align the entire community to their side? The Valducans killed Marco, but how many of his followers survived? They’ve had four hundred years to build up in this town. Work their way into the customs. Then, once they’re ready to make their move, Anya’s friends all fall off the grid, move from Florence to here. Whoever isn’t a card-carrying member of their little religion finds themselves bitten and enslaved to a demon.”

“
And giving the demons a local body to jump back into when needed,” Luiza said, finishing Matt’s thought.

Matt nodded.
“Exactly.” He stole a glance at her dark nipples. He looked away, feeling a tinge of guilt.

“
All right, I’ll buy that.” Allan eyed the iron-barred door, his voice lowering. “So any idea how we’re going to get out of this?”

Matt twisted at the cuffs behind his back.
In a life of carrying guns, fencing stolen merchandise, and killing demons, ending up in police custody had always loomed as a possibility. Since he was thirteen Clay had drilled him on blindly picking a handcuff lock. His peak time had been thirty-seven seconds. Though in that case Matt had a pick, which he didn’t have now, and the cuffs weren’t double locked, which this time they were.

“
They took my leather bracelet,” Luc mumbled. “I had a key hidden in the braid.”

“
Mine too,” Malcolm said. “Nick made ‘em.”

Luiza grinned half-heartedly.
“My jeans. I always stitched one in the inside near the top.”

“
That’s a lot of keys,” Allan said. “I just kept one in my back pocket.”

“
Your jeans aren’t as tight as mine,” she said. “Police aren’t as likely to search your back pockets as thoroughly, either.”

Matt chuckled.
It wasn’t real amusement. Dämoren gone, stripped naked with no means of escape, he just needed the release.

Luiza
’s brow arched. “So what about you?”

“
Paperclip,” Matt said. “Stuck to the inside of my belt with black electric tape. Clay used to say that getting caught with a handcuff key was enough probable cause to earn a police ass-beating. Said no one looks at the inside of your belt and paperclips don’t leave much of an imprint.”

Malcolm gave an impressed nod.
He looked around, his left eye was swollen shut now. “So unless one of you got a hairpin I don’t know about, they’ve successfully stripped us of all our keys. Any other suggestions?”

Matt cocked his head, eyeing the door
through the corner of his eye. A long-legged man with a pump shotgun stood outside the gate.

The man caught Matt
’s gaze and stared back at him, his expression cold. Challenging.

No use hiding it.
Matt turned and faced the door.

The man straightened, a little smile at the corners of his mouth.

Matt popped his hips forward, bouncing his dick a little. He puckered, giving the man a little kiss.

The guard snorted uncomfortably and looked away.

Matt checked the door. The iron hinge pins were bent on either side.
No sliding those out.
He stepped closer, trying to see more of the courtyard. Three workers moved lumber from a large stack into the back of a flat-bed truck. Nearby an older man, with hair the color and texture of steel wool, shoveled construction debris into a wheelbarrow. Metal pinged above as the two scaffolding workers broke down the pipe framework. A huge disk of polished copper adorned the wall above them, its face depicting the image of a winged serpent.

“
You boys didn’t have to clean up on our account,” Matt said.

The guard twisted his hand around the shotgun
’s wooden grip. “Step back from the door.”

Matt scanned the castle
’s windows. Too dark to see anything, save wine-colored curtains.

The guard raised the gun.
“I have orders to shoot you if I so much as think you’re trying to escape. Back up.”

“
Orders from who?” Matt asked, meeting the man’s gaze.

“
Agostino.”

Thank you.
Smiling, he stepped away from the door.

#

Hours passed.

Shadow crept across the courtyard until finally sunlight faded from the sky.
Matt sat, leaning awkwardly against the rough brick wall, allowing enough room for his cuffed hands at the base of his back. His stomach rumbled angrily. His last meal had been a hurried sandwich on the ride to Empoli. Had he known it was going to be his last meal for the day, he’d have had one of the fruit bars probably still in the car. Maybe even killed a couple of those water bottles Luc had brought along for compasses.

Allan rested beside him quietly humming some tune that
, at best, Matt could figure was a random sampling of ten-year old pop songs. Luiza sat a few feet away, her knees up before her. Matt tried to keep eye contact whenever he looked at her, though their current situation left little room for modesty. Malcolm and Luc whispered between themselves in the corner. He had no clue what they were talking about. After three hours of huddled conversations everyone else had all come to the same conclusion: the cultists had all the cards. The next move was theirs.

Their long-legged guard had changed an hour before.
The new one, a guy with hair slicked back so tight it looked like a helmet designed for speed, was even less talkative than his predecessor. Any attempts to approach or communicate quickly resulted in staring down the barrel of a loaded twelve-gauge.

Lights flicked on around the courtyard.
A gray and black werewolf strode out the castle’s double-doors alongside a featureless, black rakshasa. A balding ghoul followed them. Earlier he’d seen a lamia slither out from a black sedan and into the house, her tail striped in bands of purple and black. The humans working the grounds, still cleaning the last of the construction, all stopped and bowed their heads respectfully as the monsters passed. It was like a scene from Hell.

A pair of figures approached the cell door.
The first was a man, thin with a head of thick gray hair. The second—

“
You fucking bitch!” Malcolm spat.

Anya smiled.
“Eloquent as always, Doctor.”

“
How?” Luiza asked. “We took you in. You lived with us. They
trusted
you.”

“
Should a rancher feel guilt for his herd? No. They got what they deserved.”

Luiza
’s lip quivered, rage boiling in her eyes. “Deserved? You killed them!”

Anya
’s brows rose impassively.

“
So you’re here to gloat?” Malcolm asked, forcing himself to his feet.

A grin crept along her lips.
“I wanted to thank you for bringing your weapons. The Great Mother will appreciate your sacrifice.”

Malcolm sprung across the little room, ramming into the iron door.
He pressed his face through the bars. “Fuck you!”

The guard raised his gun.
“Back!”

Malcolm didn
’t move.

“
Back!” the guard repeated, his voice rising. “I’ll shoot.”

“
He’s quite serious, Doctor Romero,” the gray-haired man said.

“
Mal,” Allan pleaded.

Malcolm backed away from the door, his jaw clenched.

“Hello, Matt,” Anya said. She fingered a gold pendant at her neck. “I wanted to thank you for the necklace you gave me.”

Matt
’s eyes narrowed, seeing the shard of sword blade trimmed with twisted gold.

“
Do you like it, Luiza?” Anya asked.

Luiza glanced at the necklace, but didn
’t respond.