Vanquished. Part 21

The Devil. He stared at it for a long time. Disbelieving. Incredulous. Infuriated.

Terrified.

It can't be true. He's not real.

"This card represents someone in your life who holds power over you. And he will harm you unless you find a way to protect yourself," Katalin said in a strained voice.

"You're lying," Solomon said, rising from his chair. He leaned across the chair and lashed out at her with his fingertips. He missed her cheek by centimeters, and that infuriated him even more. He grabbed the table and threw it across the room. It shattered against the wall, m.u.f.fling her cry as she leaped to her feet and ran in the opposite direction. "Someone put you up to this. What is this, a joke?"

"Solomon, I'm not. I swear to you I'm not." In her fear she began to babble. "It's your card. You cut the deck yourself. Please, I would never lie to you."

He left Katalin's room without another word, went into his private office, and shut the door. Then he sank down into a chair.

"It was just a card," he said aloud. "He's just a myth."

The Devil. And who was the Devil but Lucifer, vampire king of shadows? The vampire said to have defeated Dracula. The vampire other vampires feared. Just a myth.

He wouldn't have been so shaken if he hadn't been pushing Katalin so hard for information. Crystal b.a.l.l.s, pendulums, rune stones-he'd had her run through them all. And each had given him a tiny piece of the ident.i.ty of his most dangerous opponent: One said that he was ageless; one proclaimed him "above the mountains." It went on and on until the last puzzle piece: that d.a.m.ned tarot card.

The Devil. Lucifer was the Devil incarnate.

Solomon shook. He hung his hands between his knees and lowered his head, fighting for composure. Maybe someone had put Katalin up to giving him that answer. To distract him. To scare him. But who could get to her? He kept her under lock and key.

"It's a lie," he whispered.

His phone rang, and he was so startled that he nearly fell out of the chair. He fished in the pocket of his jeans and held it up. He brightened. It was one of his spies, deeply embedded at the new headquarters of Project Crusade, in Budapest. A human, code-named David Book.

"Yes," Solomon said.

"I can't talk long," David whispered into the phone.

"Then get to the point," Solomon snapped. "Do you have something?"

"They have something." David took a deep breath. "It's a virus, Solomon. It's going to make vampires extinct."

Solomon laughed, but it was a hollow, frightened sound. After the tarot card, it was hard to believe what David was saying. But David was his most trusted spy, of all his spies. And he had a lot of them.

"There's no such thing," Solomon said. "Nothing on earth that can do that."

"There will be. It's the ultimate weapon, and there's no protection against it. None, Solomon."

Solomon silently cleared his throat. His hand trembled.

"Prove it. Send me a picture, anything."

The line went dead.

Solomon stared at it, disbelieving. Then he speed-dialed Jack Kilburn, the president of the United States, on their ultrasecret private line. No one else had the number, and Kilburn always answered, day or night. Kilburn might know something about this.

Sure enough, after one ring the connection was made.

"Jack," he said jovially, hiding his consternation, "listen. I just heard-"

"This is Alberto Sanchez, President Kilburn's chief of staff," an unfamiliar voice informed him. "President Kilburn is unavailable at this time."

Solomon was speechless. No one except the president had ever answered this phone.

"Do you know who I am?" Solomon asked in a friendly, conversational way. The leader of the Vampire Nation didn't lose his cool when talking to lackeys.

"Yes, Solomon, I do," said Sanchez, in a voice completely devoid of deference.

"What's happened to Kilburn? Has he been a.s.sa.s.sinated?" Solomon asked. His mind was racing. He didn't understand what was happening.

"The president is in a meeting. If you would care to leave a message-"

Solomon jerked as if he'd been slapped. Without another word he hung up. He began to shake, sick to his soul. This couldn't be happening. The president was severing their relationship. It had to be true, then. The humans had a weapon. And the president knew it. If only I had converted him, he would be stopping the use of that weapon right now. I should have done it. Then there would be vampires the black crosses would have to spare. Good vampires.

He jerked. Good vampires. There was a good vampire they had to spare-the one everybody wanted to get their hands on. Maybe even Lucifer.

Antonio de la Cruz. They had probably already provided him with the antidote. He probably had it with him.

And Solomon knew where Antonio was.

TRANSYLVANIA, ROMANIA.

HOLGAR AND JENN.

Jenn lingered at the door that led downstairs to Antonio's cell. It was the same door Noah had tried to pa.s.s through less than twenty-four hours before. She took a deep breath and reached for the latch.

"No," said a voice behind her.

It was her grandmother. She was dressed much like Jenn, in jeans, boots, and a heavy coat. For a second, Jenn thought Gramma Esther was coming with them to parley with the Transylvanian werewolf pack. But it was so chilly inside the monastery that everyone-except the monks-was bundled up.

"I want to say good-bye," Jenn said. "Just in case."

Gramma Esther shook her head. "You need to keep your head in the game. Good-byes can really mess you up. Trust me, I know. Charles and I had to say good-bye so many times, to so many people. After a while we stopped, because it was just too painful." A fleeting, somewhat bitter smile flashed over her mouth, then was gone.

"Don't let Noah hurt him," Jenn said. "Please, Gramma."

"I'm here, Jenn," her grandmother said. "I'll do what's right."

Jenn took a breath. She didn't know exactly what her grandmother meant.

"You need to walk through a different door," Gramma Esther said. "The front door. And you need to leave all this behind and concentrate on your mission."

"Ready, Jenn?" Holgar asked, coming up behind her. He was wearing a parka with a fur-lined hood. When in human form, werewolves felt the cold. He handed her an Uzi and her Salamancan jacket.

"Your parka's by the door," he told her. "Let's go."

Jenn gave her grandmother one last look, and Gramma Esther nodded.

Please, protect him, Jenn thought, slipping one arm into a sleeve.

And then she walked through a different door.

Jenn and Holgar took one of the monks' SUVs-not a snowmobile, because the weather had turned bitter. They also needed protection in case their meeting with the werewolf pack didn't go as hoped. The snow came down hard, and it was difficult for them to find the little warming hut that the monks had suggested might serve as a place to overnight.

Neither slept. Jenn tried to call the monastery to check on Antonio, but the snow impeded her cell reception. In the morning Holgar drove, and soon they had penetrated deep into a thick forest of frozen white trees, cutting the high beams of the truck. Then the howls began, and Jenn looked out the window. Flashes of light-colored shapes darted through the trees, and the howls grew louder, louder still. She glanced at Holgar.

"No, I'm not sure this is the right thing to do," he said, as if she'd asked the question aloud. "But it's nice to know you have faith in me. To come along for my ride." He quirked a grin at her. "I can tell what you're thinking. I can read your body language."

"It must be nice to be a werewolf," she said, smiling faintly back at him.

"The best."

The path they carved took them up a steep mountainside, but the tires held. As they angled upward, the light-colored shapes slowed, then gathered on the rise before Jenn and Holgar. Wolves, staring down at them with golden, glowing eyes. Their howls nearly shattered the windshield, and Jenn reflexively gripped the armrest.

"That's my cue," Holgar said, setting the emergency brake but leaving the motor running.

"Our cue," Jenn said, grabbing her Uzi.

"Nej, stay here," Holgar protested as he looped the strap of his submachine gun over his head.

"Not a chance."

Jenn's gloved hands were ready to fire off a barrage of ammunition; her snow boots crunched on the snow as she walked toward the wolves. Werewolves, facing her. Six crouched, showing their teeth. Behind them, sitting tall and proud, two more glared steadily at her and Holgar. One was pure black; the larger one was completely white. The alpha pair, she guessed.

Her heartbeat picked up, her body's natural reaction to danger. The first time she had seen a pack like this, the werewolves had been attacking the students and teachers at the Salamancan hunters' academy. One of them had killed Taamir, the only other survivor from Noah's combined Jewish and Muslim fighting band. And in the fracas Holgar had killed the werewolf he'd once been engaged to.

The second time she'd seen a pack, Antonio had saved his traveling companions from them. He had been good.

Or maybe he was just guarding his food supply, a little voice whispered in her head.

A gust of wind smeared ice crystals against her eyes. She raised a glove and wiped them away. Immediately the black wolf lifted its forepaw, as if in greeting.

Holgar said something that sounded Russian. The werewolves shifted very slightly, as if in response. Then the white wolf threw back its head and howled. All the wolves followed its example, including Holgar. Though he was still in human form, the most amazing sound burst from his mouth. It echoed off the mountains, firm and strong. It was beautiful, but it was so loud that Jenn wanted to cover her ears with her hands. Instead she let her head drop backward, and she howled too.

Holgar slid her a glance and grinned as the wolves stopped. Then he took Jenn's hand.

The white wolf whined, and then the black. The others carefully watched, like bodyguards.

"They want to talk to me alone," Holgar said, letting go of her hand.

"I should go. I'm the alpha," Jenn argued.

"They know you're my leader, but they also know you're not a werewolf," Holgar told her. "They're not used to mixing much with mundane humans. And besides, male werewolves are in charge. There's an alpha pair, but the female's the little woman."

"Do you think you can . . . ," she began, wanting to ask him if he would be able to morph into a wolf at will if the need arose. But she also didn't want the pack to know that so far he couldn't make it happen. So she let the question trail off.

"Wait in the truck. Behind the wheel. With your Uzi," he added meaningfully.

She wanted to argue. Instead she nodded and walked backward, not turning away from the pack. She watched them as cautiously as they watched her.

From the safety of the cab she tracked Holgar as he walked up to the row of wolves, then stepped through a s.p.a.ce between two of them. More golden eyes glowed from the stands of frozen trees. She bit her cheek and touched her Uzi on the pa.s.senger seat as the vehicle exhaust billowed around her like clouds. How big was the pack?

Holgar reached the alpha pair. The black and white wolves turned and headed up the rise, then disappeared among trees and boulders there. Holgar lifted his arm and waved it back and forth for Jenn's benefit. Though he couldn't see her, she waved back.

Four of the remaining six wolves raised their forepaws again. Then they slowly began to advance on Jenn's vehicle.

"Nice wolfies," she muttered.

As soon as the stately pair of alphas pa.s.sed into the ice forest, they transformed into a man and woman in fighting trim. They were clothed, which astonished Holgar. In his pack you had to dress and undress to keep from ruining your clothes.

The woman's long black hair cascaded down her shoulders, reminding Holgar of Aurora. The man's white hair cupped his jawline.

"We can speak in Russian," the man said. "Put down your weapon."

Reluctantly, Holgar obeyed. Unless he could transform, he was now completely defenseless against this fighting pair.

"I am Radu. This is Viorica," the man informed him coldly.

The woman slid Radu an irritated look, as if she didn't like him speaking for her. Then she said to Holgar, "What do you want?"

"You know who we are," Holgar stated boldly. "We're the hunters from Salamanca, and-"

"And you took down some of our cousins," Radu interrupted, narrowing his eyes, venom glowing in them. "That pack you fought on your way here runs with us."

"They ran with Lucifer," Viorica said meaningfully. "We were not close."

"Both our packs run with Lucifer," Radu snapped, not looking at her. Dismissing her. These two were nearly at war with each other.

Radu raised his chin in a challenge to Holgar. "As you are a lone wolf, I invite you to apply for pack entry. I'll select a young wolf to test you in battle."

"You know I'm on the other side," Holgar replied. "Against Lucifer."

"The losing side," Radu shot back.