Soulstone (9 page)

Santino guided us around the building, which seemed surprisingly empty. “The chapel at the main entrance is small. It connects around back to the rectory and lower-level crypts. We’ll want to enter on the other side.”

I reached out with all of my senses but came up with nothing. Other than the smell of bums sleeping in the alley ways and the crisp breeze blowing through the bare tree branches, there was little sound or smell to indicate anything or anyone else was around. On the ground, the snow had been trampled so many times it would be impossible to locate specific footprints, not that I knew how to track. To all apparent senses, there seemed no danger. That’s what I was afraid of. 

“I thought you said there would be heightened security?” I whispered.

“There should be,” Santino said gruffly. “This is very odd indeed.”

“It’s the things you can’t see that you should worry about. There are many buildings around. Soldiers could be hidden inside,” Nicholas said, his tone wary.

“He’s right.” Santino looked around in a small circle, then suddenly ducked and yanked Ariana down with him. “In the windows. Get down.”

I crouched down low and slowly backed myself into a shadow created by the corner of a building. “Do you think they saw us?”

Nicholas put a finger to his lips as he hunched down beside me.

Santino turned to Ariana. “What magic can you do for us, witch?”

Ariana crinkled her nose at the way he said the word, but didn’t respond with any anger in her voice. “What do you need, specifically?”

“Cover. We need to get to the back of the chapel undetected.”

 “Give me a minute and let me see what I can come up with.” She dug into her coat pocket and pulled out a small moleskin notebook wrapped with a thick elastic band.

I exchanged worried glances with both Nicholas and Santino as Ariana thumbed through the pages.

“Got it,” she said and dropped to the ground, sitting cross-legged in the snow. I really hoped her snow pants were waterproof. She set the small notebook open in front of her and began a low chant while holding her hands out, palms to the sky.

Minutes went by like this. Nothing seemed to be happening. I was never good at waiting. In fact, I hated it. I paced in front of Ariana, making sure to stay in the shadow of the building, letting out impatient sighs while she chanted away. Nicholas and Santino ignored me and focused, with hopeful expressions, all of their attention on Ariana. I paced so much that I had worn the snow into slush, and it no longer crunched under my feet. That’s when I heard the first deep rumble. Thunder.

My head shot up. The sky became electrified with violently beautiful bursts of light that arced through the clouds. The low rumbles intensified into cymbal clashing sounds that shook the windows of the surrounding buildings.

Ariana wasn’t shaken, though; she seemed almost in a trance of some kind. She continued to chant, holding her hands higher in the air, oblivious to what was happening.

The wind picked up, swirling all around us, and with it came a flurry of tiny white flakes.

I shivered as the temperature dropped, but I couldn’t help the smile that erupted across my face. It was a brilliant plan. She’d called forth a small blizzard to conceal us as we approached. I made a mental note to thank her for that later.

“Let’s move while we’ve got cover.” Nicholas urged Santino and me on toward the church.

“What about Ariana?” I yelled over the now roaring wind. She seemed locked in her trance. I bent down and pressed on her shoulder, but she didn’t respond. I shook her harder. “Ariana, we need to go now.”

Still, she refused to respond. I looked up to the others and shrugged. “I don’t know what to do. We can’t just leave her here, though. She’ll freeze to death.”

The snowfall thickened and an icy blast of wind barreled into us, almost knocking me over. I tightened the pulls on the hood of my coat and zipped it up to my nose, but still the cold wind assaulted me. My eyeballs felt as if they might freeze in their sockets. Nicholas was right; we needed to move, now, before we all froze.

Nicholas bent down, picked up Ariana’s small notebook, and tossed it at me. “Hold this.” He reached out and shook her as I had. Just as before, Ariana failed to respond. He cocked his hand back and struck her across the face. I winced at the sound of the smack landing against her probably raw and frozen cheek. That seemed to get results, though. Ariana screamed, and her eyes shot open. A flood of anger flushed her face. Her cheek turned a brilliant shade of red. She spoke a phrase I couldn’t quite understand, but it had a Latin edge to it. Then, suddenly, Nicholas was knocked back by an unseen force, onto his butt.

“Are we going to sit here and beat each other up, or are we going to head inside before we freeze to death?” Santino asked.

Nicholas stood and shook some of the caked on snow from his clothes. “I was trying to help. I’ll be sure to refrain from that in the future.”

“That hurt!” Ariana said angrily, then took and released a deep breath, and stood as well. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Let’s just get out of this cold,” Nicholas said sharply.

I tried to nod in agreement, but my joints were so cold my neck felt stuck. We needed to find warmth soon, or we risked becoming statues in the churchyard.

The wind raged around us, swirling the falling snow so much that it was hard, even with my supernatural vision, to see two feet ahead of me. I had no doubt we were well covered from any human onlooker. Ariana’s little spell was certainly working.

“Stay close,” Santino managed to say over the rumbling wind.

Through the blizzard I saw the outline of his tan coat and navy pants. Using that as my guide, I headed toward him. As long as I kept him in my sight, I wouldn’t lose him. I only hoped the other two were doing the same. I was afraid to chance losing sight of Santino in the moments it would take me to turn around and locate the others.

With my head tilted into the wind, I walked for what felt like miles, even though it was only the equivalent of crossing the street. The creak of the wrought iron bars told me we’d reached the gate. The church courtyard was small, and I counted twenty or so steps until I felt the hard brick exterior of the building. I kept it to my right, always following the tan coat of Santino in front of me as we made our way around the building.

When we reached a set of concrete steps, I nearly barreled into Santino.  

“We’re going to have to enter here.” He spoke loudly enough to carry over the wind. “How long will this storm last?” he asked Ariana.

She shrugged. “There’s no telling. I can invoke the magic of nature to begin the cycle, but it’s not a light switch; I can’t just shut it down at will. We may have an hour, we may have minutes. It’s all up to the goddess.”

“Longer is better at this point. It is providing excellent cover at the moment. If it lasts until we have finished, we may have a good chance to escape.”

“Either way, we’ll need some kind of distraction to get in, won’t we?” I asked. “I doubt we’ll just be able to wander inside.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Nicholas retorted. “Now, do you have anything helpful to add, or would you like to continue telling us things we already know?” He turned to Santino. “How many guards do you think they would have at this entrance?”

“Normally, only one. However, with the potential heightened security, they could have soldiers stationed throughout the halls.”

“We’ve dealt with their guards before.” Nicholas nodded at me.

We had done exactly that, only a couple of months prior, when we took out Quentin’s operation. And from what I remembered of them, they hadn’t been very well trained—just a bunch of fanatical guys with guns looking to shoot a vampire or two. The one in particular that I had let live hadn’t even been smart enough to avoid looking me in the eyes.

 “They are not always the best trained for the job,” Santino agreed. “But they are armed and dangerous. A close-range shot will put you on your ass long enough for them to either run for help or try and finish the job.”

“Finish the job” being to decapitate a vampire. Other than fire, it was the only way we could truly be killed. Our kind are very quick to heal.

“Well, if we stay out here, we’ll turn into statues in this blizzard. I’ll take my chances with a gun,” I said through chattering teeth. “Let’s distract them with a human.” I looked at Ariana. “She can cause a commotion and claim sanctuary or something like that. Get their attention. While they’re dealing with her, we attack.”

“Not a bad idea, Little Warrior. I could go for a warm snack,” Nicholas said.

Santino let out a sound like a growl.

“You can be all holier-than-thou about it if you want. If it’s a case of me or them, I’m with Nicholas,” I said. “And I need blood. The hotter, the better.”

Ariana cringed. Sometimes I forget what it must be like for a human to hear us talk about our eating habits. “What about their guns?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Just hope we can disarm them before they can use them.” 

She grasped hold of her charm necklace and said a silent prayer, and then let out a worried breath. “Here goes. I’m trusting you all.”

“Just like we trusted you,” I said warningly. She might be on our side right now, but I still hadn’t forgiven her coven for betraying us.

She scowled back at me, and then wrapped her scarf tightly around her mouth and nose so only her eyes were visible and pulled up the hood of her winter coat. Ariana took the steps one by one, slowly. Whether she was just being careful not to slip or she was too nervous, I couldn’t tell. As she moved up, so did we, staying a few steps behind her, ready to pounce as soon as the door opened.

When she reached the top, she began furiously pounding on it. “Help! Help!” she screamed. “Please! You have to help me!”

Her loud cries were very convincing.

I heard the click of a lock and the creak of old wood. The door opened a fraction of an inch.

“Please. They’re after me! I need sanctuary.”

The wind still raged around us, but through the thick swirl of snow I saw the dark uniform of an Acta Sanctorum soldier. He spoke to Ariana so low, I couldn’t pick up what he was saying.

She continued to play her part beautifully. She sobbed and hiccupped loudly, and then threw herself onto the door. “Please. Vampires. They’re out there. They’re going to kill me!”

The soldier finally opened up. He grabbed Ariana, shoved her inside, and stepped out, rifle in hand, to inspect.

That wasn’t exactly the reception we were hoping for. I couldn’t see far enough inside to tell if she was okay or not, nor could I tell how many more soldiers were inside waiting.

A gun discharged. The sound had come from the inside of the church. The soldier who had come out to inspect turned around before he got close enough to see us.

Anticipation had my heart pounding in my ears. I looked to Nicholas and mouthed the words, “What do we do?”

CHAPTER 11

In the space of a second, Santino leapt up the stairs, tackled the soldier, and snapped his neck. Nicholas jumped into action and I followed close behind. We burst through the semi-opened door to find Ariana standing against the wall, unharmed, but trembling violently while holding up one of the soldier’s rifles. A dead soldier, an older, heavyset man, lay at her feet with a hole in his chest. His blood pooled out onto the ground and slowly oozed its way to where Ariana was standing.

“He, he, he…” She couldn’t seem to find the words. Ariana inched backwards to get out of the path of the blood, but could go nowhere with her back against the wall.

Nicholas took the rifle from her and strapped it over his shoulder. “Good job.”

Ariana was in a state of shock. I guessed that she’d never had to kill a man before. That’s not an easy thing to get over. I’d struggled with it myself too in the beginning. At times, I still had issues with it, but vampires almost always have to kill their prey.

“We have to move. I’m sure others heard the shot,” Santino said.

I put my arm around Ariana. “C’mon. You have to hold it together right now. Can you do that?”

She trembled under my arm and squeaked out, “Okay.”

“Good. You’ll be fine. Stay close to me. I got your back.” I helped her balance as she stepped over the pool of blood.

Santino waved us forward. He took a narrow hallway ahead of us. Nicholas watched our backs, taking up a spot in the rear.

As we moved, I picked up the putrid scent of death. Dry and dusty, it caught in the back of my throat, leaving a rancid taste of decay in my mouth. “Eww, what is that?” I whispered.

“Hush,” Santino responded. “We’re close to the crypts and the repository.”

Another scent wafted toward me, accompanied by the thumping of heavy footsteps. “Incoming,” I said.

A stairwell to our right vibrated as the footsteps became louder. Three, maybe four men were headed our way by the sound of their loud, heavy, quick footfalls.

I pulled Ariana with me against the wall just to the side of the staircase, while Nicholas and Santino flanked the bottom step, ready to pounce.

As soon as the first soldier reached the last step, Santino grabbed him, yanked him aside, and snapped his neck.

The speed and precision with which he moved was both awe-inspiring and a reminder why he had developed such a fearsome reputation. 

The others were all too close to have time to stop, turn, and retreat. Nicholas grabbed the second. He bared his teeth and sank them straight into the helpless man’s neck. I let go of Ariana and lunged forward to grab the third, but there was one more I hadn’t accounted for, and he was armed. In my momentary hesitation, seeing the additional soldier, he’d had time to fire his weapon.

The loud
bang
went off, and I felt the white-hot sting of metal race through my shoulder.

I bit back a cry as tears welled up in my eyes. The soldier in my grasp tried to struggle free; he threw me off balance, and I wobbled off the bottom step.

Another shot fired. That one, however, missed its mark.