SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy (109 page)

No matter how many times Malachi shouted for them to go away, they refused.

Finally, Sereny and Jeremy joined the group that numbered over a hundred now. He was so happy to see her. “Sereny,” he begged. “Make them leave me alone.”

“Can’t do that, Malachi. We’re all here to stay.”

“You too?”

He looked at little Jeremy. The boy had grown in age, but not in body. His face was the same cherubic face of a child, but his eyes were dark and troubled and cold.

“Who else will come? How many of you are going to trail me?” Malachi wailed. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Your mother is coming. Ross and Mentor and their clans are coming. Everyone will be with you soon.” Sereny touched his arm as if to comfort him.

Malachi heaved a great sigh. He was a reluctant leader and wondered if there had ever been a Caesar or a general who had been forced to lead an army he hadn’t bargained for.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.

Sereny drew Jeremy close. “Find Jacques. Do as you did before we came to you. Track him, find him, and stop him. We’re here to help you.”

“But I can’t catch him. It’s as if he knows when I’m coming. He’s always gone before I can reach the place where he is.”

“Keep trying, Malachi. You’re the one who can stop all this.”

They stood in a field, hundreds of vampires coming at them from across a hill. It was an army, and it was growing. Others materialized out of thin air. In the distance lay cities and towns. Somewhere in the world another gathering was taking place, led by Jacques.

“I can’t do this.” Malachi felt wretched. He felt like digging a deep hole and drawing the dirt in over him. He thought of the North Pole and the ice. He thought of oblivion, starvation, and final peace.

“We need to arm ourselves,” Sereny said.

“By all means.” Malachi gave up. They were going to do what they wanted, no matter what he said. He was less a leader than an animated doll the rest of them traipsed behind.

“You’re not taking this serious,” Sereny said.

“You’re admonishing me? I thought I was the leader of a great army bent on destroying the Antichrist.”

“Oh Malachi. Please don’t make fun.” She hugged the boy to her side.

“Don’t talk to me, Sereny. Follow me if you wish, but just don’t say a word.”

Malachi turned and walked off from the growing band that had spread far and wide in the field. He felt the vampires at his back, pacing him. Just wait until his mother came. Wait until Mentor showed up. He’d tell them then what an idiotic thing this was. How ridiculous he thought them.

He was no prophet, man of God, or chess pawn. He was a grieving husband, his heart torn apart by Danielle’s death. He would rip out Jacques’ throat, but not to save the world. He’d send him to hell or to the great void because he was a killer and he’d taken from Malachi the person he had loved the most.

Forget God and God’s plan!

I blaspheme you, he raged in his mind. I won’t be used by you. If you’re there, do your own dirty work. If you did send Christ or Buddha or Mohammed, that’s your business, but you didn’t send me. I’m vampire. I’m dead and living again without a heart, without a soul. Do you hear me? I revile and despise you for this terrible world you’re supposed to have created. It’s a sick, sad place, with suffering and death and despair and I despise you for it!

Sereny came up to his side and said, “You don’t mean that.”

“Get out of my head!” Malachi pushed her away and hurried forward. He didn’t know where he was going or how to find a place to be alone now. He didn’t know where Jacques might be. He had heard in the news the miracle worker was in Germany so he would head there, but he expected the monster to be gone before he reached the place.

Maybe he should just quit. Go back to the ice. Go so far into the Arctic shelf even Mentor couldn’t find him. Even Vohra.

But he knew there was no place to hide, no place on earth to go to ground. He had a pack of believers at his back, the same as Jacques. When they finally met, their armies would necessarily clash. And none of it meant a thing to Malachi except his one object of hatred, Jacques himself.

Let the world fall into deception and disgrace, for all he cared. Let it blow away to ashes.

He was not out to save it.

His focus was to kill one single man.

Oh Danielle
,
he thought. Why have you left me so alone and confused? Why didn’t you stay with me? Why does it have to be this way? I made myself a beast to avenge you and now I’m a beast burdened with a mission I didn’t ask for. I wish I could die…

Chapter 33

Mentor sat on the sofa’s edge, turning the tarot cards on the coffee table. Bette sat at his side. It was late afternoon with the sun sliding low and filling the room with shadows that walked from the floor onto the walls like phantoms. Sandalwood incense rose in a smoky curl from an incense burner, filling the room with the musky scent of sandalwood.

“This war the cards have been predicting,” Mentor said, turning the cards carefully until he had them all laid out in rows of eight. “This war is the one between Malachi and Jacques. It’s taken me years to figure it out.”

Bette sipped at a cup of tea. “It was never the war with Charles Upton when he came to Dallas, then? They weren’t really talking about that war…skirmish, really.”

“No, I don’t think so. The cards kept predicting war even after that. I didn’t understand. I’d put the cards away and they’d reappear on the table for me to read them again. I thought maybe they had some kind of curse on them, but that wasn’t it, either. They really do tell the future. I just misinterpreted them until now.”

“You’re going to Malachi?”

Mentor sat back, staring at the deck of cards laid out so symmetrically. “I have to. He needs me.”

“Shall I go with you?”

He slipped his hand in hers. “No, you stay here, Bette. This has to do with the vampire nations.”

“You can’t lose, can you, Mentor?”

He closed his eyes wearily. “The cards don’t tell us the outcome. And I haven’t any idea what might happen. Not this time.”

Bette lowered the cup and saucer to her lap and sat holding onto Mentor’s hand. She didn’t like the cards. She could see the images moving like projections from data machines, but nothing created their motion beyond some kind of evil magic.

The shadows advanced, the coming darkness a thief stealing the day away. She breathed in the incense, letting it fill her. “Mentor?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not a Christian, you know that. My deity is Buddha. Buddha did not tell us about a war like this.”

“Nor did he tell you about us, about the vampire, did he?” He opened his eyes and looked at her.

She shook her head slowly. “No, nothing about the vampires. So you think this might be the battle they call Armageddon? And Jacques is the Antichrist?”

“I think no such thing.”

She raised her eyebrows in question. It was what she thought all the vampires were whispering about. Armageddon, Armageddon.

He said, “I don’t know what Jacques is, Bette. He’s not even vampire. But the truth is he’s been causing miracles. They’ve been verified. The world has gone wild with the possibility that a man can make flooding water withdraw, a nuclear reactor’s meltdown return to normal without one person harmed, and where he walked plague victims instantly recovered. I don’t think he’s from the devil, if that’s what you’re thinking. But he’s found some form of magic and he won’t use it for the good of mankind, not in the end, he won’t. The vampire nations have already split because of him. Half of our kind have decided to follow him.”

“Why have they done that?”

“We’ve always been a superstitious lot. Maybe they think he can take away our curse. Maybe they think we’re from the devil, too, and they’re supposed to go to war with God for making us the way we are.”

“What do you think, Mentor? What do you truly think?”

He hesitated. When he spoke he sounded angry. “I think the world is a place of chaos and the best we can do is try to keep it from flying apart. I’ve walked the earth hundreds of years and seen it go to the brink before. Wars and wars and rumors of wars. We’ve had relative peace for some years. Jacques has riled it up again. It isn’t just vampires following him now. People are so simple, so eager to believe. He saved their lives. Some of them have dropped out of their careers and left their homes. They’ve begun to follow after him, calling him a savior. He’s upsetting the balance. It seems to me the world is a place where balance is necessary for everything to run smoothly.”

“Don’t people need faith?”

“I suppose they do. But Jacques will use that faith to manipulate the people. The Crusades were bad. This could be worse.”

“I think I understand,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Then you should go.”

He leaned over and kissed her lips. He looked into her dark eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “Bette, I’ll be back.”

“Is that a promise or a threat?” She smiled as she snuggled into his arms.

“I promise.” He kissed her again and rose from the sofa. He bent to gather the cards. He wrapped them in tattered velvet. “Put these away for me. I don’t think they’ll pester us again once this is over.”

She set her tea cup on the table and took the velvet package. She handled them gingerly, as she didn’t like touching them.

Once Mentor was gone, having vanished from the room, Bette rose and took the cards to the metal box Mentor kept hidden beneath loose floor boards. She put the velvet package away, locked the box, and replaced the boards carefully. Maybe now they’d stay where they were put.

She went down the hall to her bedroom where she had set up a small shrine to Buddha. She lit candles and sank back onto her heels on the floor. For some minutes she stared at the flickering candlelight reflecting off the polished bronze of the statue. She fell into a meditative state and bowed her head. She prayed.

The Buddha said in his writings, “It is good to honor all Buddhas and their disciplines, to follow one’s practice and to live in harmony with other aspirants. This will give you great merit as you journey onwards.”

She saw Mentor as a sort of Buddha in this life. He was not perfect or without fault, but he had lived through so many lifetimes he had learned to weigh his decisions. He tried to choose the right paths, whether he knew it or not.

Faith, she thought, was a two-edged sword. It gave her solace, as it did millions of others, but many times throughout history it had caused wars and death. Here it was again in the guise of a murderous villain with the power to create miracles.

How was Mentor, though a great Buddha, going to defeat someone like that?

A tear leaked from beneath her closed lashes. She reached up and wiped it away. She was supposed to wipe desire from her life in order to live the life she aspired to live. But she could not free herself of love or the need to be loved. She would always desire Mentor, though it meant she might never reach Nirvana.

She hoped to see him again, whole and unharmed. She loved him as much as she had loved her first husband—and she had loved him with all of her heart. She was growing old now and frail. When she woke in the mornings, her bones ached and it was harder to rise from the bed. Her hair was shot through with silver and her eyes looked tired. She needed Mentor at her side as she aged so that loneliness didn’t come to deter her from the meditative life she’d chosen.

She needed him and she loved him so.

Chapter 34

In Berlin Malachi learned there had been a groundswell of religious fervor. The city was vibrating like a taut violin string. Groups met in churches, gymnasiums, basements, and the rallying cry was to repent their sins in order to go to heaven.

Jacques had come and gone, of course. Malachi learned he had stood on a hastily raised platform and performed a blanket healing by merely raising his hands over the gathered crowds. People stood from wheelchairs and threw down crutches. People ravished by disease claimed a new glow of health. The dying rose from their deathbeds.

Malachi shook his head in confusion. How could these things happen?

Before his own troops arrived to dog him, Malachi left for Poland. He wasn’t sure this time, but he thought that was the direction Jacques was heading. The enemy was being taken from country to country by his vampire soldiers. He had no need of conventional transportation. His appearances themselves seemed like miracles the way he instantly showed up hundreds, even thousands, of miles distant from his last sighting.

It was said the Nazis had dug miles and miles of underground warrens beneath Poland. They hadn’t ever been fully explored because they were so skillfully booby-trapped with mines people feared to go down to map them. This is where Malachi went when he entered the country. He didn’t sense Jacques was there, but he needed some peace and rest. He wanted to think things over. Underground appealed to him and he suspected that was because now he was a Predator. And dead. Truly dead. The ground that should have embraced him drew his spirit like an invisible hand tugging him downward.

He longed for darkness and no sun. He yearned for the earth and the smell of mankind’s damp, deep mother’s womb. He found an entrance to the tunnels in a small Polish village and entered them through a shaft with a locked iron grate. He broke the lock easily and dropped down, slowing his descent when he neared the tunnel floor. He knew the other vampires could find him and follow if they wanted, but he sent out a fierce command. Do not follow me. Leave me alone for now. Please.

He hadn’t gone a dozen steps along the darkened path before he came upon a man lying against the earthen wall. He would have appeared dead to anyone else, but Malachi smelled his life blood and knew it was warm. When he didn’t move on Malachi’s approach, Malachi hunched down and touched his shoulder. The man opened his eyes, startled, then blinked. “Get away from me,” he said in his native tongue.

Though it was dark as night in the tunnel, Malachi could see as clearly as if there was a flood light nearby. He saw the source of the stink that rose up from the man. One of his legs was broken, a bone protruding through the skin just below the knee. Maggots wriggled in the wound, cleaning it of dead flesh. It was the best thing that could have happened to the downed man. The maggots might even save his life as they only ate what was dead and didn’t harm living flesh.