The Vampire Hunters (Book 2): Vampyrnomicon (25 page)

Rodriguez sighed. “Washington politics. The best leadership money can buy.”

Preston stood. As he passed by Rodriguez, he patted him on the shoulder. “Do the best you can. And let me know if you run into any blowback.”

Exiting the squad room, Preston prided himself on another successful manipulation. Personally, he could give a fuck how the investigation turned out. That pedophilic little prick got his bit off by one of his little whores, a fitting if somewhat twisted justice. If the investigation succeeded, Preston could share in the credit. If the investigation created a scandal and ruffled political feathers, then he would sacrifice Rodriguez for exceeding his authority. In either case, Preston had succeeded in sidelining Rodriguez while he dealt with the undead.

*     *     *

The two men
stood in the litter-strewn backyard of the row house, staring at the building’s rear façade. For the first time since he had been hunting the undead in Washington, Drake felt apprehensive. He had no idea what made him uneasy. It was a beautiful autumn day. An early afternoon sun bathed the wall in brilliant light, revealing every blemish. Pocks from where a fusillade of police bullets had gouged the wall. Charred bricks formed a fan pattern above the top floor windows, remnants of the fire started by Drake during their escape. Every window contained shattered panes of glass, with most of the boards used to block out the sun being blasted from the frames. A battered remnant of a normal life long past, with all its flaws and imperfections exposed to the light of day.

Which probably explained his unease. Usually Drake entered buildings like these in the dead of night when the dark obscured reality. He normally fought the undead in subways or underground garages, places permanently enshrouded in dark. The one time he had entered this nest, he had done so through a tunnel connected to a sewer. It seemed like he lived out his life in an alternate world to the rest of humanity, a world that lacked light or warmth. A world inhabited by the undead. He had lived in that world for so long it had become second nature to him. Going through a door in the middle of the day like a normal person offered him a new perspective and gave him a chance to compare the ordinary world with the one he lived in.

“Ready?” asked Smith.

“I guess so.”

Smith reached under his Savile Row suit jacket and withdrew a Sig Sauer P229 semi-automatic from his shoulder holster. He flipped off the safety.

Drake chuckled. “If we run into any vampires, that won’t help you.”

Smith thought about it for a second. Shrugging, he slid the semi-automatic back into his shoulder holster.

Drake pulled out one of his Glocks and handed it over. “If it makes you feel better, take this. The rounds are laced with holy water.”

“Thanks.” Smith pushed aside the front flap of his suit jacket and tucked the Glock between his pants and the small of his back. He patted Drake on the shoulder. “Come on.”

The two crossed the backyard and climbed the few steps to the rear door. Drake yanked away the strands of yellow barricade tape stapled to the jamb and tried the knob. Locked.

“You have any special tools for unlocking doors?”

“Yup.” Raising his foot, Smith slammed his heel against the door just above the knob. With a crack of splintering wood, the door flew open until it banged against the wall. It shuddered, closed slightly, then stopped. Smith grinned. “The low-tech methods are still the best.”

“Works for me.”

The two men switched on their flashlights. Drake led the way inside.

Despite the boards that had covered the kitchen windows having been mostly been blown out, darkness still shrouded most of the room. Enough light remained for the two men to see a squad of rats abandon their foraging and dash for the safety of the inner walls, and of the cockroaches swarming over the appliances and through the cabinets. The musty smell of accumulated mold mixed with the sickeningly sweet stench of decayed meat. Smith coughed several times and gagged, then pressed his left wrist under his nose to block the smell.

“Welcome to my world,” said Drake.

“You can have it.”

Drake led the way to the door leading to the basement and shined his light inside. He barely recognized it. The decayed bodies had been removed, the only evidence of their existence being the chalk outlines the police had drawn around each victim. The number of outlines and their grotesquely-twisted forms attested to the horrors that took place down there. The city had filled in the entrance tunnel leading to the sewer, the giant cement plug reminding Drake of a tombstone sitting atop a mass grave.

The two men stepped out of the kitchen into the foyer. Here enough light poured through the uncovered windows that flashlights were no longer necessary. In front of the kitchen door, a pile of vampire ash had been strewn about by the police and firemen, with several footprints ground into the hardwood floor.

“This is what’s left of the snuffy Alison used as shield to protect us from the gunfire.”

“She’s resourceful.”

Drake took Smith on a room-by-room tour of the row house, pointing out where he and Alison had slain each vampire. Seeing the chalk outlines where police had found blood-drained bodies brought home to both men the true revulsion of what went on in this nest and the viciousness of the enemy they faced. After checking out the room on the third floor where the main battle had taken place, they walked down the hall and stopped a few yards short of the master bedroom. Scorched wood and blistered paint surrounded the doorway and sprawled along the ceiling.

“This is the room the snuffies came out of. Alison and I never got a chance to check it out. I tossed two bottles of Heaven’s Fire in here, just in case.”

Carefully walking up to the door in case the fire had damaged the floorboards, the two men peered inside. Jim’s home-made napalm had gutted the room. The inner walls and most of the floorboards were burned away, exposing the supporting beams that were charred black by the flames. The remains of a bed and the scalded wire frame from a mattress dominated the floor. Few ashes remained, most of them having been washed away by the concentrated streams of water used to put out the fire.

Smith switched on his flashlight and shone it around the remains, carefully studying the room. “You did a good job of torching this room. If the master was in here, she wouldn’t have survived.”

“The key word is ‘if’. There’s no way to confirm it.”

“Yeah.” Smith shone the flashlight around the room one final time, trying to convince himself they had eliminated the master. Common sense prevailed. “So we go on the assumption that she’s still alive?”

“We have no other choice.”

“Damn.” Smith switched off the flashlight and turned to Drake. “What now?”

“We continue our nightly hunts. If we’re lucky, we’ll find the new nest and destroy it before it gets too big.”

*     *     *

Reese closed the
back cover of a Spanish-language edition of Dante’s
Inferno
. He shut his eyes, trying to alleviate the strain from seven hours of non-stop reading. It did not work. Even more frustrating, he was only halfway through his search.

After not finding any memoirs for Antonio Ferrar post-dated 21 September 1485, he decided to thumb through each of the inquisitor’s books, page by page, hoping to find a notation on the endplates or in the margins of a page that might provide a clue to what happened after his last diary entry. It sounded simple enough. After all, Ferrar’s personal library contained less than thirty books. But simplicity quickly turned to monotony when he began the arduous task of thumbing through each volume. Several hours and hundreds of brittle pages later, all Reese had come across were a few inscriptions in a couple of the books and personal notes from superiors who had given these books as gifts. Nothing useful. And there were another dozen books in the archives he still needed to look at. Not a promising prospect.

Reese placed the book he had just finished perusing back into its special basswood case, closed the lid, and returned it to its climate-controlled bookcase. He removed the next basswood case and brought it back to his work station, where he opened the lid and removed from its setting an oversized presentation Bible. It measured thirteen-by-seventeen inches in diameter, and bore a title inlaid in gold on the leather cover. According to an inscription on the inside cover, the Bible had been a gift from Pedro Arbues, the canon of Saragossa Cathedral, to “his most loyal and faithful servant in Christ.” Despite being more than five hundred years old, the Bible was in near pristine condition, obviously having been used infrequently. Reese confirmed that assessment when he opened the Bible to the pages set off by the red linen bookmark. The binder crackled when he opened it, not from age but from lack of use. The marked section was from Isaiah. Reese scanned the pages, his eyes eventually falling on a single passage surrounded by two hand-drawn brackets. “I form the light and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”

Not necessarily the Holy Grail, but it was the best lead he had all day. Hell, it was the only lead he had all day.

Wanting to re-read the inscription, Reese closed the Bible and opened just the front cover. As he leaned closer to examine the handwriting, he noticed an inch-long tear in the material where the front cover met the binder. The tear ran the length of the Bible and had been carefully resealed with glue, done so meticulously that a casual glance would not reveal the damage. Damage may not have been the appropriate word, for on closer examination Reese noticed that the tear seemed clean, looking more like someone had purposefully sliced the material. The glue had long since lost its adhesiveness, which allowed the cover to separate from the binder. Reese lifted the Bible so the lamplight shone directly on it, trying to see if there was anything between the cover and the binder. He saw the edges of what looked like several lose pages.

Reese laid the Bible back on the table, trying to contain his excitement. Not looking up or moving his head, he scanned the research room with his eyes. None of the other researchers sat at his table, and the three at the other tables all had their backs to him. The archivist with the auburn hair sat at her station in the main hall, out of their line of sight. Placing his right hand on the pages of the Bible to hold it in place, Reese slowly pushed down on the front cover. The glue gave way, slowly increasing the tear along the length. He placed his thumb under the front cover just as it separated. Lowering the cover onto the table, he got a look at the binder. Several sheets of five-by-seven inch paper were tucked into a hand-made pocket created between the cover’s hard interior support and its leather covering. Taking a last surreptitious look to make sure no one was watching, he slid out the pages and closed the cover.

Reese recognized the handwriting as belonging to Antonio Ferrar. He grew really excited when he noticed the date in the upper right corner of the first page. 27 September 1485. Six days after the final entry in his archived memoirs.

Reese practically trembled with anticipation as he read the text, mentally translating from the original Latin.

27 September 1485

I am committing this account to a separate journal out of fear. Fear that I am slowly losing my sanity. Or worse, fear that my sanity remains intact, and that the evil I confront actually exists.

I speak, of course, about Emilio Carius, the unholy one. Even writing his name fills me with dread, for it is as if I cited the infernal name of Lucifer himself. Any humanity that once shone in the darkness of his being—if, in fact, such humanity ever existed—has long since been extinguished. I have been charged by the Holy Father to save men’s souls. Alas, this one has no soul to save.

Let me return to the beginning to properly record the nightmarish events that have unfolded.

Four nights ago, Emilio Carius was brought to Aljaferia, along with five other men and a woman, charged with the murder of the beloved Canon of Saragossa Cathedral, Pedro Arbues. The others are insignificant. They already have admitted to their crimes, have been absolved of their sins, and received just punishment. May God have mercy on their souls.