The Graves of Saints (35 page)

‘You think they have enough bullets to even the odds? Did you see the size of Cortez’s coven?’ Allison asked.

Charlotte replied but over the chaotic noises around them, Allison didn’t hear the words.

‘What’s that?’ she shouted, racing toward the helicopter and its attackers. She glanced at Charlotte, saw the outline of the girl’s tattoos gleaming in the moonlight and
the grim set of her jaw.

‘I said, as long as Cortez dies before me, I don’t care about the odds.’

‘That’s a cheerful thought.’

Charlotte scowled. ‘It is to me.’

Lanquin, Guatemala

Allison and Charlotte raced toward the downed helicopter. One of the devil-bats crouched on the nose of the craft, shoving its snout through the shattered windshield, forcing
its head deeper despite the jagged glass in the frame that dug into its pelt. One wing was torn and bleeding. Gunshots came from inside the chopper and the devil-bat’s body jerked as bullets
struck it in the head, but it only slowed a moment before redoubling its efforts.

The second one crashed into the side of the downed helicopter, then scrabbled with its claws at the door. The windows had to be broken but the opening was not large enough for it to do more than
bite at it, trying to tear the metal. More gunshots punched into this one and it darted backward, then launched itself over the top of the wreckage to the other side, trying the same tactic
there.

The one on the helicopter’s nose screeched in triumph and screams rose as it dragged a soldier out through the broken windshield. It chewed him several times and then tossed its head back,
trying to slide the man down its gullet.

Allison said nothing. The horror of the scene demanded the respect of silence.

‘Fucker,’ Charlotte growled as she dropped to the ground, transforming into a huge Bengal tiger, which bounded forward.

Tiger-Charlotte leaped atop the wreckage and kept going, jaws wide as she rocketed at the devil-bat’s chest. Claws tore its flesh and she lunged for its throat. The devil-bat twisted,
gouging the tiger with one of its horns and knocking her away. It bit the soldier in half and quickly swallowed as it crawled after the tiger, awkward on its broken wing.

Amateur
, Allison thought.

Between one footfall and the next, she spread her arms and they became wings, growing and spreading wide as she took to the air, molecules reassembling and gathering others as she transformed
from a woman to a devil-bat half as large again as the wounded thing dragging itself after Charlotte.

The tiger staggered to its feet, shuddering as Charlotte repaired her injury. Allison wondered what the hell Octavian had been thinking by bringing her into this battle. To one who could
disassemble and reassemble herself from one shape to another, a wound was just another form and healing was no more difficult than shapeshifting. It should have been nearly instantaneous.

Charlotte turned, yellow tiger eyes flashing, ready to lunge at her attacker’s throat. She never had a chance to leap. Allison attacked the creature, using her own talons to rake its chest
and tear its wings. It screeched until she silenced it with a single dart at its throat, and then she turned toward Charlotte, just in time to see the tiger take to the air and transform again,
mimicking Allison’s own strategy.

The dead devil-bat twitched and bled at Allison’s feet as Charlotte flew at the other one, which had continued to attack the wrecked chopper. The two creatures collided, falling to the
ground in a shrieking mass of claws and wings and darting jaws, but at least the soldiers on the chopper were safe for a moment.

Allison alighted, molecules pouring into her human form again as she rushed over to the chopper, even as Sergeant Galleti kicked open the pilot’s door and dropped to the ground. The
Italian woman spotted her and a look of gratitude spread across her features.

‘Help me,’ Galleti said.

Allison reached her just in time to help a wounded soldier climb out of the wreckage, and others followed. There were six survivors, all Task Force Victor, and the last of them was Leon Metzger.
Screeches and chanting continued, but the nearest commotion ceased and Charlotte came walking around the front of the downed chopper, apparently having killed the other devil-bat.

But there were others, Allison knew. A single upward glanced showed her well over a dozen, and she suspected there would be even more.

‘Thanks for your help,’ Metzger said, as Charlotte walked over to join them.

Allison studied the man a moment and then nodded. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said. The past and its grudges seemed impossibly far away from them now.

Metzger had a gash on his face and his limp suggested he had torn something in his left leg, but he barely seemed to notice either. Galleti and the two others who had suffered only contusions
and lacerations climbed back into the wreckage and started bringing out whatever weapons they could find.

‘Where’s Octavian?’ he asked.

Allison frowned. She had barely had time to wonder what had become of Peter, but she knew that he must be all right. With all the sorcery at his disposal, she figured Octavian might well be the
hardest person in the world to kill.

‘I’m sure he’s—’

The ground rumbled and she nearly lost her footing. A loud hiss filled the air, a static that built to a buzz, and as she looked around for the source she saw the wall of crackling blue light
shimmer into being.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Metzger said, spinning around to watch as the walls went up all around them, perhaps a mile or so away in each direction.

They were practically at the epicenter of the sizzling magical barrier.

‘I guess he’s still alive,’ Charlotte said.

‘
Affanculo
!’ Galleti barked. ‘What is he doing, the idiot? He’s trapped us inside with them!’

‘Forget it,’ Allison said, turning to Metzger. ‘We’ve got one move here. If Cortez is pulling the strings, then we kill him. I’m guessing the Guatemalan troops we
saw with all the trucks and the lights and the tanks don’t have Medusa toxin, so you six are coming with me and Charlotte and we’re going after Cortez.’

Metzger had a heart of stone, ice in his veins, and a soul made of leather, but even he laughed at this.

‘You’re out of your mind! Take a look around you!’ he shouted, throwing out his arm like a ringmaster at Hell’s own circus.

Devil-bats circled above, having spotted them. Allison saw them and knew the others had as well. The serpents would be crawling from the trench now and at least one of them would doubtless find
them soon. And across the grassy, tree-spotted landscape, where the bright banks of lights had turned night into day, she could see the heads of the same two giants as they climbed from the gash in
the flesh of the world, slowly, as if not quite awake. One of them had huge antlers and from the side its face looked like an open wound. These, she felt sure, were the death gods of the Mayans,
the ones that Brother Simon had died to drive back to Xibalba . . . and one of whom he had subsequently become, at least halfway. A demi-god. An evil Hercules.

She had no doubt that Cortez wanted the same honor.

‘I’m not blind,’ she said, her voice carrying despite the chanting of Cortez’s coven several hundred yards away, beyond a stand of trees.

‘So you see that?’ Metzger said, pointing to the antlered god, whose head alone was taller than the trees.

Allison sneered at him. ‘Leon. Do your fucking job.’

Whatever panic had clutched at his heart, her words were like a slap in the face. He flinched, then blinked and looked around at his soldiers, who were watching him and whose lives were in his
hands. Whose blood, most likely, would be
on
his hands. She saw the understanding dawn in his eyes, the knowledge that even if Octavian lowered the wall they were unlikely to escape this
alive, which meant fulfilling their objective was the only possible goal.

‘Sergeant Galleti,’ he said, ‘have you retrieved all of the weapons and ammunition from the chopper?’

Allison looked at Galleti, who raised her chin, nostrils flaring as she did her best to contain her fear. She carried two pistols and had a pair of automatic weapons slung over her shoulders.
The others were all armed with multiple guns as well.

‘Yes, Commander!’ she snapped.

The others all stood at attention, save for the soldier who lay unconscious at their feet.

‘Then we’re moving out,’ Metzger said. ‘Fast as we can. The quicker we move, the better chance we have of reaching the vampires before the things from the breach can take
us all out. And everybody watch the sky.’

He turned to Allison, who nodded.

‘What about Creaghan?’ Galleti asked, looking down at the unconscious soldier, whose head wound was caked with blood. The side of his skull had a dent in it that made Allison wonder
how he was even still breathing.

‘I’ll carry him,’ Charlotte said.

‘What?’ Metzger said.

The soldiers all stared at her, some in relief but others in suspicion, no doubt worried that she’d try to drink the dying man’s blood.

‘He isn’t going to make it,’ Allison said, hating the hard edge in her voice. ‘One look and you can see that.’

‘I know that,’ Charlotte replied, then turned to meet Metzger’s gaze. ‘But you’re not going to let us leave him behind as long as he’s still breathing and we
need to go.’

The commander looked reluctant, but then a devil-bat flew low above them and two of his soldiers fired at it, driving it away for the moment, and he knew they had no choice.

‘Be careful with him,’ Metzger said.

Charlotte ignored him, crouching to heft Creaghan easily off the ground. To a Shadow, the man weighed little more than an infant.

‘Don’t waste bullets that have the toxin,’ she said. ‘Don’t fire at the things unless they’re right on top of us. We’re going to need every bit of ammo
you have.’

Then they were running across open ground toward the line of trees that were all that separated them from Cortez’s entire coven, the chanting growing louder as they ran. Allison felt a
strange calm coming over her. She thought back on all of the people she had loved and who had loved her . . . all of the loves that she had lost. And yet she did not feel alone. Octavian was here,
somewhere. And Kuromaku still lived, halfway across the world. They knew her as she was, not as she had been once upon a time. They had known her when Will Cody still lived and when he had loved
her.

If there was a chance she might die before the sun rose, then it helped to know there were those who truly
knew
her. Knowing them helped her to know herself. Even if she died alone, she
would not die lonely. That was something.

Charlotte ran at her side, the soldier, Creaghan, in her arms. The other TFV soldiers followed behind, with Galleti and the limping Metzger taking up the rear. As they ran, the tanks began
shelling the trench, firing at ancient Mayan death gods so huge that even a direct hit would likely seem little more than the annoyance of a gnat.

In a gap between shelling, with the echoes of warfare rolling across the grass, Allison thought she heard something else there as well. In her mind she saw the serpents crawling from the
trench.

‘Watch your back,’ she told Charlotte.

The girl did not reply, her grim gaze looking only forward, as if she could see Cortez through the trees and amongst so many other vampires.

Twice the soldiers fired skyward at a devil-bat that flew too low, but the things veered off without attacking, at least for now.

Then they had reached the trees, and Allison paused in the midst of that cover to let Metzger and the other survivors of his unit catch up. One by one, they straggled in amongst the trees,
staring at Charlotte for some reason. Allison waited on Metzger, watching him limp as she listened to the chants of the vampires, which were much louder now, and she knew the commander would have
to stay here, taking cover in the trees. If he couldn’t run, he couldn’t stay with them.

But when Metzger joined her, he did not even glance her way. Like the others, his attention was on Charlotte. Frowning, Allison turned toward her. For a moment she did not understand, and then
she saw the way that Creaghan lay in Charlotte’s arms, his limbs hanging lifeless, his head lolled to one side.

‘Put him down,’ Metzger said.

Charlotte winced. Despite the hard edge she’d acquired, his tone had hurt her. She set Creaghan down beneath a tree and took a step back.

Galleti was kinder than her commander. The Italian woman put a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder and whispered her gratitude. Charlotte nodded and then retreated to stand beside Allison as the
soldiers shared a moment of silence. When Metzger turned he had a defiant glint in his eyes that made Allison realize there would be no leaving the commander behind.

‘We’ll bury him when this is done,’ Metzger said, though it was clear he thought they’d all be dead before they could manage it. Dead and left to rot, just like
Creaghan.

Again, Allison heard a rustling noise out in the grass behind them. She went to the edge of the tree line, peering back the way they’d come, and then jumped back a bit when she saw the
serpent sliding by, perhaps thirty yards away. If it noticed them, or cared to kill or eat them, it gave no sign.

‘They’re far from the worst things trapped in here with us,’ a voice whispered beside her.

Allison spun, baring her fangs before she realized she knew that voice. Octavian stood beside her, his face streaked with some dark substance but otherwise none the worse for wear. She thought
it must be blood, perhaps from a devil-bat, but it seemed unimportant in that moment.

‘Where the hell were you?’ she asked.

His eyebrows went up. ‘The beach. Where do you—’

Charlotte practically tackled him, throwing her arms around him and holding him tightly. Allison watched in surprise, wondering for just a moment if the young vampire had feelings for him. Then
Charlotte backed away and punched Octavian in the arm, and Allison realized the girl did have an attachment to him, but it wasn’t a romantic one. At the age of nineteen, she’d been
dragged into a world of horrors, with no one to look after her, no figure of strength for her to turn to when life took an ugly turn. Somehow Octavian had become a kind of father figure to the
girl.