Of Saints and Shadows (1994) (45 page)

They had gone north a block, then doubled back to come down Calle de Ascensione and into the arcade by the Correr Museum. Tracey had a large black bag slung over her left shoulder, in which she carried blank tapes and the one they had made earlier at Hannibal’s house. As they rounded the corner she pointed to the knot of people in black moving into the crowd and the man who stood at the center of it all.

“Sandro,” Tracey hissed, “roll tape. I’ll bet money that guy is Mulkerrin.”

They were ringing the damn doorbell. Alexandra couldn’t believe it. Here they were, church assassins coming by Hannibal’s house to kill whatever inhuman beings were hiding there, and they were ringing the doorbell like a bunch of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It was just too weird.

But what the hell? Go with it, right? She slid the window up and stuck her head out, grimacing in the sunlight. She was still uncomfortable, though it was getting overcast. It looked like snow.

“Can I help you?” she asked from the upstairs bedroom where Meaghan was soon to live again.

All of the men, and the few women, looked completely stunned. She judged that there must be more than a dozen, and she knew the last thing they’d expected was for somebody to respond to their ringing. They’d been preparing to shatter the first-floor windows just as she got their attention.

For a full half minute nobody spoke.

“Can I help you?” she said again, cross. “I don’t have all day, people. What is it that you wanted?”

“Apologies, signorina,” one of them finally said. “Wrong house.”

Alex smiled and slid down the window, but stood back only a few feet and watched their confusion grow.

One of the men had pulled out a two-way radio and she could hear his voice clearly.

“Tracker,” the man barked. “We’re at the wrong house.”

Alex couldn’t hear the garbled radio reply, but then the man repeated himself.

“Wrong house!” he nearly yelled, then shook his head at the reply, motioning to the rest of them to draw back a respectable distance from Hannibal’s house and wait. It appeared they were going to be having company very soon, and if they did indeed have a
tracker
, then Alex would have to tight. Her charm and good looks wouldn’t be enough to keep them out of the house.

She turned and walked to the bed where Meaghan lay. Sitting on its edge, she touched the other woman’s cool cheek. Alexandra examined the wounds on the woman’s neck and the scratches on her arm, and wondered when she would come around. Peter had always had excellent taste in women, Alex thought, herself included, and the beautiful Miss Gallagher was no exception. Alex had never met a braver human.

As Alex pushed the hair away from Meaghan’s face, she heard glass shatter on the first floor and knew that their reinforcements, and their tracker, had arrived. Sighing, she bent to kiss the dead woman’s cool forehead.

Meaghan stirred.

Sister Veronica was leading the group of more than fifty that had converged on the theater, and she’d made it clear to those who had joined her that they would brook no interference by civilians. In fact, she’d made it clear that anyone who approached or questioned them during their attack, and anyone human found within the theater, was to be terminated immediately.

They might simply have set fire to the place, but like many buildings in Venice, the theater was made almost entirely of stone. After examining the entire structure and finding no reasonable access, they decided to burn the huge oak doors, and two men equipped with flamethrowers stepped forward at Sister Veronica’s instructions.

Before the men were able to come within twenty feet of the entrance, the double doors were thrown wide, and two men emerged from the shadows. Sister Veronica barely had time to recognize the death that gleamed dully in their hands, and then the shooting began.

Something was wrong, Alex knew.
Everything is wrong
, a voice inside her screamed.

Meaghan had come back to life, the life of the immortal, with a sleepy smile on her face, as if she had only just woken from her life’s most restful slumber. She looked up at Alex, then rested her hand on Alex’s thigh. She opened her mouth to speak . . .

And then she changed.

Alex heard the pounding on the steps as the Vatican men trooped through the house in search of them. She knew she had to go, to protect Meaghan in this vulnerable state, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

Meaghan’s body appeared to melt away, her eyes staying relatively the same, locked on Alex’s with a panic in them that was painful for the older woman to read. A bubbling began, as something happened beneath her skin, protrusions appearing all over and disappearing as quickly, the activity fast and furious.

Colors changed there, in Meaghan’s flesh. Hair and fur grew, were replaced by scales and claws and fangs, portions of her body disappeared in a splash of water or a puff of mist, and were replaced moments later by something equally alien. Tough leather hide and cat’s feet burst into flame and were snuffed out as quickly.

Only seconds after she’d woken, Meaghan had entered a state of flux, of constant metamorphosis, like nothing Alex had ever seen before. She didn’t know if the woman could survive it, but she knew with certainty that they had to get out of the house or destroy the intruders.

There, on the bedside table, innocent as a King James Bible, lay the book that had started it all. That, too, must be saved. She picked up the book just as the door was kicked open, the weak frame not enough to support the lock Hannibal had installed. Somewhere in this house were Hannibal’s secret quarters, though he’d refused to tell them where. No matter, she wanted to fight.

Just before she turned to face her would-be murderers, Alexandra Nueva took a final look at the woman she was charged with protecting.

Meaghan had stopped changing. On the bed sat an enormous wolf, whose eyes shone with a new intelligence and a look of hunger. The wolf leaped toward the home’s invaders.

“Excellent,” Alexandra said, and followed after her.

For the first time in decades, Rolf Sechs wished he had a voice. Beside him, Will Cody was whooping and shouting with every burst of lead from his gun, and Rolf wanted Will to know that he, too, was reveling in this slaughter. These humans had come to kill them, to massacre their brothers and sisters while they slept, as the Nazis did to Rolf’s family, his great-grandsons and daughters. This time, however, he was there. He would not leave his people unprotected again, and he found a joy in their defense greater than any he had ever known.

The clergy had not expected them to have guns, had only blades and fire, and magic themselves, and this group didn’t seem very well trained in that department. Several apprentices attempted to work spells off to one side, but Rolf strafed them with bullets, cutting them down before they could raise more than a single demon. And that single shadow creature ran amok without a magician to control it, killing several of the clergymen before scampering off along Calle de Verona.

By Rolf’s estimation, he and Cody killed at least half of their attackers, including the woman who had apparently been their commander. Several times, humans armed with flamethrowers attempted to reach them, only to be shot. Two of the three were able to drag themselves to safety, where one of their fellows could take their throwers.

“Rolf,” Cody said finally, when most of the surviving attackers were just out of range, behind buildings and around the corner. “When they come again, aim for the tank.”

As difficult as it was to aim such weapons as Will Cody had supplied them with, Rolf did just that. The explosion was a monstrous thump that he felt go right through his body, and he shielded his eyes from the glare of the flame, nervous for a moment about the fire and the sun. He banished that dangerous thought from his mind and looked up to see black and burning body parts tumbling from the sky.

That would keep them from attacking for a while, he thought. His people would rest comfortably, though he doubted they were still sleeping through the sounds of battle. He knew from listening to Peter’s conversations with Hannibal that there would be no attempt by the police to end the violence, and it would take the army hours to respond. By then it would be over. He and Cody would see to that.

No matter that the man standing next to him had been a rebel, despised by their whole coven. Today he had proven his true character to Rolf. He was a warrior, and that was the only language that Rolf could speak.

From where they stood in the center of St. Mark’s Square, Mulkerrin’s half of Unit I could hear clearly the sound of gunfire only blocks away. They had drawn their swords and attacked, and several civilians had gone down, bleeding onto the stones of the street. Still, there were too many people in the square even to notice what was happening. The gunfire changed all that. Immediately it did the job he had assigned the fifty-three men and women who surrounded him. The civilians were silent, listening, and when the gunfire did not let up, they scurried for cover. It took only minutes before the square was nearly empty, only a handful of civilians, mostly locals, wandering, wondering, and leaving their enemy exposed.

They were an even dozen, masked and costumed, in a rough circle at the perimeter of the square. At a signal from one, dressed in a long cloak and tricorner hat, all of black, with a white mask, they began to move slowly in, closing the circle. Several were dressed like the first, but others had more gaudily designed outfits. Harlequin costumes with ugly green monkey-face masks with hats, oversized cloaks, and painted faces of all colors and designs. One especially drew attention, a tall creature in all red, a red veil hanging over a white mask, a black tricorn hat topped with many-colored feathers.

“Stay where you are!” Mulkerrin ordered, not at the approaching creatures but at his own soldiers, who seemed about to bolt from the square. “
Octavian!”
he shouted, and the circle got no smaller.

The black-cloaked figure who had signaled their move took an additional step forward and spoke. “You can’t win, Liam,” Peter said loudly. “Too many of us have broken the bonds which your
church
placed on us those many years ago. And you certainly can’t go back to Rome, not with the pope’s death waiting to confront you. The whispers are already circulating about how so many clergymen could disappear at the same time.”

“Octavian, you are children of the devil himself. You must be destroyed in the name of God! And we will have returned what you stole.”

“You know far more of the devil than we,” Peter answered, “but so be it! Any of you who wish to leave may do so without fear of harm from us, but Mulkerrin dies.”

There was a terrible silence among the group, and many shifted their feet as though deciding whether they had the courage to leave, or to stay. Finally, one man made to move away from the group, and Mulkerrin lifted one hand toward him, muttering under his breath.

A huge shadow shape drifted up from the brick floor of the piazza, difficult to see in the daylight, though the sky was heavy with clouds. The mist-wraith darted from place to place, jumping in the air as if it were a kite in crosswinds, then dove upon the man as he stood and watched in terror.

As the man screamed snow began to fall, and the screaming was joined by a brief burst of gunfire from the direction of the theater, and then the noise of an explosion. Mulkerrin turned his attention back to Octavian as the shadow thing made slurping noises nobody wanted to hear.

“Guns, Octavian? I’m surprised at you.”

Peter took off his hat and mask, shook out his long hair, and smiled. “That was the general idea. It’s a new age. A lot has changed.”

Mulkerrin pointed at Peter and shouted a word no one understood. Apparently, however, the wraith did, because it got up from its feast and flew toward him in a flash of black mist. It looked as though Peter was simply going to allow it to hit him, but in the second before it reached him, Peter was gone, mist himself.

The white cloud that was Peter Octavian passed within the black, mixing with it, the two swirling together in a ghost war. Then they burst into flame, or rather, Peter did. The black mist became black smoke, and when Octavian’s feet touched ground, the shadow called up by Father Mulkerrin was gone.

Mulkerrin was speechless, but his thoughts raced ahead of him.

Abort!
he screamed in his head, not caring that the Montesis and Sister Mary must be doubled over in agony from his panic.
Abandon all other activities and join me immediately.

Those at the theater could not hear his mental call, but he felt it best to leave them. He did not yet know the extent of the danger, or what they faced. As he spun, looking for a way out of the square, the snow falling harder limiting his sight. Mulkerrin witnessed half of the hellspawn withdraw guns from their own robes. Automatic weapons.

“Once again,” Octavian said. “Do any of you wish to leave?”

“Get down!” Mulkerrin screamed to his soldiers, and all hell broke loose.

In the shadows of the Correr Museum, through the falling snow, Tracey Sacco and Sandro Ricci got it all on tape.