Allen flipped another page carefully with the plastic stirs. “According to this, Edward Kelley was the only one to attend Roderick’s funeral. Not even a priest.”
“How awful,” Penny said.
“Oh, no.” Allen looked at the page, flipped back, read again.
“What is it?” Amy asked.
“Kelley put the philosopher’s stone in the grave with Roderick,” Allen said. “He said it seemed fitting. And he wanted to keep it hidden from Rudolph. A final act of defiance.”
“Wow,” Amy said. “And it’s still there?”
“I don’t know.” Allen flipped another page, kept reading.
“Then we’re good, right?” Penny said. “I mean, that solves the problem, doesn’t it? The stone is buried. Nobody evil gets it. All is right with the world.”
“It’s not that simple,” Amy said. “There’s the Kelley diary, for one thing.”
“Destroy it,” Penny said. “Burn it.”
“It’s too late for that. We all know about it. The right spells would make us talk, even good old-fashioned rubber hoses and bamboo under the fingernails.” Amy turned to Allen. “We’ve got to call the Society.”
Penny frowned. “How the hell would that help?”
“If they have the stone for safekeeping, then Allen’s out of danger. Making him talk won’t matter.”
“Then let’s call in the Vatican,” Penny said. “They can protect it better than your people.”
“You’re still forgetting I don’t trust either of those organizations,” Allen said. “We’ve come this far. I say we get the stone ourselves.”
“Dammit,” Amy said. “That’s exactly what Cassandra wants you to do.”
“Except I won’t be fetching it for her,” Allen said. “Ladies, I’m getting to the bottom of this. Are you with me or not?”
“You’re Indiana Jones all of a sudden?” Penny said. “I’m not sure I like this side of you.” A pause. “Or maybe I do.”
“We don’t even know what cemetery this astrologer guy is buried in,” Amy pointed out.
Allen shook his head. “I know. I can’t find anywhere in the manuscript where Kelley mentions the cemetery by name, and-” Allen sat up, eyes going unfocused, a strange expression on his face. “Cemetery.”
Penny reached for him, stopped short. “What is it?”
“In my dreams,” Allen said. “I’ve been seeing images of a cemetery.”
Amy asked, “Would you recognize it if you saw it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s make that our priority,” Penny said. “We’ll put his name into Google and find out where he’s buried. There’s an internet café upstairs.”
“And after we find out, then what?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” A mischievous smile spread over Penny’s face. “We go grave robbing.”
Ninety minutes later they had nothing. None of the popular historical websites or Wikipedia mentioned Roderick by name, although accounts of alchemists and astrologers and other occult figures at court were plentiful. Amy brought up pictures of various graveyards around Prague, but Allen could not say for sure that any one of them matched his dream images.
“And the diary doesn’t say either,” Allen said. “Kelley says Roderick was entombed, and that he put the stone in with him. And he calls Rudolph a madman. But nothing about the name of the cemetery.”
Penny turned away from the computer screen, rubbed her eyes. “This is useless.”
“If I had all the time in the world, I could find it,” Allen said. “But if I have to dig up a grave, I’d like to be in and out of the cemetery before nightfall.”
“Why before nightfall?” Penny asked.
Amy put her fingers up to her mouth and mimed a set of fangs.
Penny blanched. “Oh, yeah.” Amy’s recent revelation still troubled her.
The three of them sat there. A minute passed.
“There might be somebody who can help,” Amy said.
Penny crossed her arms. “If you say somebody from your precious Society, I’ll scream.”
“No. Somebody freelance. The Society puts him on specialized errands from time to time.”
“This person is safe?” Allen asked.
“He can keep his mouth shut, if that’s what you mean.”
“Call him.”
Amy and Allen stood in the doorway of the two-story brick building in the old Jewish Quarter. The Quarter-Josefov-had an almost claustrophobic feel, the old buildings crowding the narrow, cobblestone street, souvenir kiosks hogging much of the sidewalk. To Allen, the Quarter felt old, with so much more history then the Letna area and the younger Holešovice suburb.
Amy raised her hand to knock but cast a sideways glance at Allen. “You sure about this?”
“There’s no time for anything else.”
It was already late afternoon. It had taken hours to track down Amy’s contact, and Allen felt more and more nervous every minute they inched toward nightfall. Allen worried with growing apprehension that there were still bits of Cassandra’s vampiric hypnotism lingering in his subconscious, and he couldn’t be sure how he would react if he saw her again.
Amy knocked. They waited.
Somewhere nearby Penny had installed herself at a café or coffeehouse. She didn’t tell them where in case Allen and Amy were interrogated, but she was close at hand in case she needed to effect some kind of rescue or, at the very least, call in the cavalry. Penny had raised holy hell about being left out, but she could see the wisdom of the maneuver.
Amy was about to knock again, when the door opened.
“Abraham Zabel?” Amy asked.
The man looked from Amy to Allen and back again. “You’re the one who called earlier?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “I’m Abraham Zabel. Please come in.”
Allen thought Zabel did not look anything like he imagined a wizard should look. Maybe he was thinking too much of Gandalf. Zabel looked like Allen’s dentist. Allen hated his dentist.
Zabel led them into a small sitting room. The furnishings were old-not Commie surplus, but not quite antiques either. Threadbare chairs, a table that needed polishing, tall shelves filled with books, a small Persian rug, also threadbare.
Zabel didn’t sit, didn’t offer chairs to Amy or Allen. “So what can I do for you?”
“We need to speak with a dead man,” Amy told him.
Zabel nodded. “Uh-huh. Who’s paying for this?”
“I’m with the Society. I know you’ve done jobs for us before, and I was hoping our credit was good. It’s sort of a rush job.”
Zabel frowned, eyes darting around the room. “What do you know about my work for the Society?”
“No details,” Amy said. “I heard your name, knew you were in Prague. I’m not even sure you have a spell for what we need, but we had to try something.”
He seemed to relax, scratched his chin. “I have a spell. How long?”
“What?”
“The person you want to speak with,” Zabel said. “How long’s he been dead?”
“A little over four hundred years,” Allen said.
Zabel laughed. “Who do you want, Rudolph the Second himself?”
“Edward Kelley.”
Zabel stopped laughing. “Who sent you here? Somebody’s playing a joke on you. Or on me.”
“Please,” Amy said. “We think the philosopher’s stone is-”
“The philosopher’s stone?” Now Zabel laughed again. “Now I know you’re jerking me. Save it for the tourists, okay? We’ve all heard the legends. I don’t have time for jokes.”
“This isn’t a joke,” Amy said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Zabel said. “You expect me to pluck a four-hundred-year-old ghost from the cosmos and bring him here so you can play twenty questions. Spells like that are complex. I’d need a lock of his hair or some clothing, something to help focus the spell. Otherwise it’s pointless.”
“What about this?” Allen held out the manuscript. “It’s Edward Kelley’s diary.”
This caught Zabel by surprise. He looked at the manuscript. “His what?”
“I found it in Strahov Monastery,” Allen said. “It’s handwritten.”
Zabel reached for the manuscript, and took it carefully. “This has to be some kind of hoax.”
Allen shook his head. “It was kept in the library’s special collection. It was among the items relocated from the castle.”
“The philosopher’s stone.” A hint of reverence crept into Zabel’s voice. He ran his hand over the cracked leather. “Lead into gold. It’s nonsense.”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with gold,” Amy said. “The stone represents a kind of power. Something never seen before.”
They stood in a small circle, nobody speaking. Zabel had a faraway look in his eyes. He bit his thumbnail in thought while he held the manuscript in his other hand.
“I think,” Zabel said, “that you’ve piqued my curiosity. Wait here.”
Zabel left and returned two minutes later with a black leather bag, the Kelley diary tucked under one arm. He motioned for Amy and Allen to follow him.
Amy asked, “Where are we going?”
“To the roof,” Zabel said.
They followed him up to the second floor, down a hall and into a small bedroom, up a tight spiral staircase to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Zabel slid back an iron bolt, threw the hatch open. Daylight flooded in.
They climbed out onto the roof. There was a clean breeze, a good view of the castle beyond the river. Zabel pulled over a small table, placed the diary in the center. He opened his black bag and began to fish around for items. He came out with a squat, black candle, lit it from a book of matches, and set it next to the diary. Allen squirmed at the sight of the open flame near the old manuscript but said nothing.
Zabel measured various powders into a mortar and pestle, crushed some dried leaves and other ingredients into the mix. He mumbled words that danced just at the edge of Allen’s comprehension.
“Can I help with something?” Amy asked.
“Just stay out of the way.” Businesslike. No time for chitchat.
When he’d crushed and mixed the powder to his satisfaction, he took a handful, flung it at the candle flame with a few harsh syllables.
A purple gout of flame erupted from the candle, engulfed the entire rooftop. Allen and Amy flinched, but the flame was cool, didn’t burn. The purple light continued to shimmer around them, turned the world beyond the rooftop into a hazy blur, like they were looking at Prague through the bottom of a bottle of grape soda.
“Damn,” Amy whispered.
Allen agreed. Damn.
“This is a particularly potent casting,” Zabel said. “Usually I do this for people who’ve lost a loved one, six months dead or a year. I thought I’d better crank up the power for what we need. I hope I haven’t overdone it. I wouldn’t want this to turn into a cattle call.”
“What’s that?” Amy asked.
“Sometimes the summoning catches other spirits. Not all ghosts are at the same level of self-awareness. A powerful spell like this… moths to a flame. Even when it’s not meant for them, they often come anyway.”
“That doesn’t sound very useful,” Allen said. “Do we have to wait very long or-shit!”
Allen jumped back, bumped into Amy. A glowing apparition hovered in front of him. A young girl, a ragged slice across her throat. Her eyes were hollow, her mouth open, a vague moan.
“That’s just Bethany,” Zabel said. “She haunts the building next door, so she didn’t have far to come. Murdered, I think, but I don’t know the whole story.”
“Great.” Allen tried to sound sarcastic, but it came out slightly frightened. “How many more of these things?”
Zabel grinned. “Wait and see.”
As wizards go, Zabel is a better technician than he is a scholar. You can see he has little interest in reading my diary. To him it’s more useful as a component for his spell. But he knows about the philosopher’s stone-the legends, anyway. The notion that the stone holds some secret power appeals to his natural wizardly greed for power.
I suppose it’s possible that-
Did you feel that? No? Okay, sorry. Got distracted. As I was saying-
There it is again!
Don’t tell me you didn’t feel that.
I feel it tugging me so hard that I dig in my heels. Not actually my heels, of course. That’s just the outside manifestation of my resistance. If you were able to see me being dragged along the halls of Prague Castle, you’d see my heels digging in, my hands grabbing at doorknobs and window ledges, like a doomed astronaut trying to keep from being blown out an airlock. That’s what it looks like, but it’s with my mind that I resist.
I don’t fight it too long. Too strong. Some mighty hand that has reached for me, grabbed me.
I go with the flow and start to fly, sailing over the castle walls and toward the river. I haven’t been this far in decades. I stop wondering what’s happening to me, such is the awe of seeing this part of Prague again for the first time in so very long. I’m over the river now, a tour barge below me, young couples sipping wine. I am equal parts blue sky and wind.
The far bank comes into view, crowded Josefov beyond that. I have not seen the Jewish Quarter in three hundred years. I glance to the right and to the left. A half-dozen glowing streaks in the sky, ghosts like me. We converge on the same place.
A pulsing purple beacon on a Josefov rooftop. I feel like a kite being reeled in, right toward the rooftop. People standing there I recognize. I already know them, yet I’ve never met them before. Time works so strange here.
I land on the rooftop. Zabel is there, sending away other ghosts, lost souls. Confused. I don’t want this. I try to blend in, hide toward the back of the crowd. Zabel spots me over the shoulder of another ghost, and I look away.
Come here.
I shake my head no.
Yes.
I resist, but it’s no use. I float toward him. He has me now. The other ghosts fade, dissolve, dismissed. They evaporate to whatever perpetual doom they call home. It’s only me and Amy and Allen and Zabel holding my leash.
You are Edward Kelley?
I say nothing. My ghost teeth bite my ghost tongue. The pain is real.
ARE YOU EDWARD KELLEY?
Yes.
Zabel pauses to say something to Allen and Amy, but I can’t hear it. It’s as if a translucent, purple curtain hangs between us. Zabel turns back to me.
Tell me about the philosopher’s stone.
I say nothing.
Tell me.
No.
Now Zabel gets tough. I feel something, like he’s reaching inside me, strong-arming. It feels like cold iron fingers in my chest, getting a hold of my soul, squeezing it like a physical thing. I scream, and nobody hears it. I cry. Nobody sees the tears.
I see the look on Zabel’s face. Annoyed. Like he couldn’t open a tough jar of peanut butter.
And then there is pain. I talk, spill everything I’ve ever known or will know about the stone. I’m not sure how long it takes. I talk until I stop, and then Zabel asks another question and I talk again. It becomes a kind of confession, but Zabel becomes impatient whenever I get too personal. He cares not one tiny shit about my tortured soul. Just the facts, man.
And I’m weeping. Telling it all over again. It has been so long, so many years. To talk to somebody and have them talk back. But he’s finished before I am. I want to tell him so much more, so much I’ve seen over the years and centuries. Zabel’s indifference is like a punch in the face.
Where is Roderick the astrologer buried?
I tell him. Why not? I’d tell him anything. Just please keep talking to me.
The Vysehrad. Prague’s other castle.
“Where’s he going?” Allen asked.
“I sent him away,” Zabel said. “It was almost as difficult as summoning him in the first place.”
“Did you find out? What did he say?”
“The Vysehrad,” Zabel said. “That’s where Roderick is buried. There’s a cemetery there. I imagine that’s where he is.”
“What’s the Vysehrad?” Allen asked.
“South,” Amy said. “It’s a fort.”
“Tell us the rest,” Allen said. “What else did he say?”
“Come with me.” Zabel headed for the hatch in the roof.
Allen hesitated. “Where are you going?”
“This is important,” Zabel said. “Hurry.” He disappeared down the hatch.
“Come on,” Amy said.
They followed Zabel down the spiral stairs and then down to the first floor. Zabel glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were still following. He led them through a cramped kitchen. Another door. More stairs. Down.
In the basement. Allen glanced around. A cupboard. A chair. Shelves with bottles and jars of who-knew-what. A small table with a dirty tablecloth. It was a small room, dimly lit. “What are we doing here?”
“Please,” Zabel said. “Stand over by that wall.” He pointed to the only wall bare of shelves or other furnishings.
Amy and Allen stood against the wall.
“Hold out your hands,” Zabel said.
Amy and Allen looked at each other.
An impatient sigh from Zabel. “Come on, come on.”
Amy and Allen each held out their right hand. Zabel placed a smooth chunk of quartz into each upturned palm, muttered a smattering of unintelligible words.
Allen felt himself go rock-solid stiff.
He tried to turn his head, blink his eyes. No go. He was a statue. He couldn’t even glance sideways to see if the same thing had happened to Amy, although he assumed it had. He couldn’t even feel himself breathing.
“You’re both okay,” Zabel said. “But I need to keep you on ice while I check this out. It’s still hard to believe. The philosopher’s stone. But if it is true… well, that’s the wizard’s jackpot, isn’t it?”
Allen thought, Eat shit, cocksucker as loud as he could on the off chance wizards could read minds.
“I might have more questions for you,” Zabel said. “So I’m keeping you until I can confirm or deny this fairy tale. I’ll need to go up to my office, gather some things, look up a few spells. Then I suppose I’m off to the cemetery. Now, don’t go anywhere, you two.”
He went back upstairs.
Allen tried to move any part of his body-finger, toe, tongue, eyebrow. He might as well have been carved from marble. How many minutes slipped by? Thirty? Forty? An hour? It was amazingly difficult to measure the passage of time when one was forced to remain utterly motionless. No windows. No sounds. This could drive him mad in no time flat. He could not stop trying to look at Amy.
Allen heard something, almost like a faint scratching. He would have whipped his head around to look if he hadn’t been frozen. The door creaked open. Footfalls came down the steps, a strange clicking. Oh, hell. What was coming for them? Maybe Zabel had decided he didn’t need them after all and had come to tie up loose ends.
Allen tried one more time to move any part of his body. Stone still.
The wolf’s head came into view. There was still an instinctual moment of fear before relief flooded him. Penny. Thank God. He tried to will the wolf to action. Come on, knock the quartz out of my hand. You can do it. Come on, figure it out.
The wolf looked back and forth between Allen and Amy, pacing anxiously. Penny emitted a questioned sound halfway between a whine and a growl, then sat in front of Allen, head cocked.
Get the quartz. Come on. Fetch.
Penny pawed at the air, edged forward, and put her paw on Allen’s leg. The wolf snorted. When Allen didn’t reply, she got up on her hind legs, put her paws on his chest. Her full enormous wolf weight knocked him back into the wall. His whole body shifted, and the quartz slipped out of his hand, rattled on the stone floor.
Feeling flooded back into Allen’s body.
“Oh… shit.”
Hot needles scorched his knees and the elbow of the arm he’d used to hold up the stone. He collapsed to the floor, moaned, rubbed the circulation back into his elbow. Who knew standing still could be so grueling?
Wolf Penny licked his ear.
“Turn back into a girl before you do that, okay?” Allen moaned again, rolled over and looked up at the wolf. “Did he see you come in?”
Penny shook her head.
Allen looked at Amy. She still stared straight ahead at nothing, mouth slightly open, hand outstretched, the chunk of quartz still in the center of her palm. “The rock in her hand,” Allen said. “Get rid of it.”
Penny bumped the bottom of Amy’s hand with her head, and the quartz went flying.
“Motherfucker.” Amy fell back against the wall, slid into a sitting position, rubbed her elbow, and stretched out her legs. “I need to start doing yoga or something.”
Allen looked at the wolf. “You going to change back?”
Penny shook her head.
“She doesn’t have any clothes,” Amy said.
“Oh yeah.”
Amy stood, stomped her feet trying to get the feeling back. “We’ve got to get out of here. Maybe we can sneak back up the front stairs without Zabel hearing. Run out the front door.”
“No,” Allen said. “He still has the Kelley diary.”
“So what?”
“I’m not leaving without it.”
“When did you get all action hero all of a sudden?”
“There’s information in it,” Allen said. “We’ve come too far just to let it go.”
“Let’s look around.” Amy headed for a cupboard against the far wall. “Maybe there’s something we can use for a weapon.”
She opened the cupboard, her hand going to her mouth to stifle a scream. She jumped back. Penny growled.
Allen’s eyes went big and round, his mouth falling open.
“Damn, that light’s bright,” said one of the severed heads in the cupboard.
Six heads. Three on the top shelf, another three on the bottom.
“It talked,” Amy said.
The wolf whined, hid behind Allen’s legs.
“What day is it?” asked one of the top-shelf heads, who had a thick black moustache and eyebrows. “Can you take me outside? I haven’t seen the sun in so long.”
“Stop complaining,” said the head next to him. “I’ve been in here longer than any of you.”
“You’ll have to excuse us, miss,” said a bald, bottom-shelf head. “It gets a little tedious in here. Hard to pass the time.”
“We could start the choir again,” suggested the moustache head.
“All you know are fucking Journey songs,” said baldy.
“Jesus,” Allen said. “Close the cupboard.”
“No!” all the heads said together.
“Let’s just leave,” Amy said.
“Wait!” said the freshest-looking head. “I know you, don’t I? London, about two weeks ago.”
Amy squinted at the head. “Pascal?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Amy.”
Allen said, “You know him?”
“He’s a Society official,” she told him. “What happened to you, Pascal?”
“It’s a long story,” Pascal said. “You’ve got to get me out of here.”
“Us too,” said one of the other heads.
“Shut up,” Pascal snapped. “I’m talking to somebody.”
“We can’t leave yet,” Allen told the head. “Zabel has something of ours, and we need to get it back.”
“Where’s Zabel now?” Pascal asked.
“He said he was going to his office,” Amy said. “Maybe he’s still there.”
“Don’t go to his office,” Pascal said. “He’s got it rigged with subliminal messages. You’ll be helpless.”
Allen looked at the wolf. “How did you get in here, anyway? The front door?”
Penny shook her head.
“Did you find an open window?”
The wolf nodded.
“Can you get on the roof?”
The wolf nodded.
Allen scratched his chin, thought for a moment. “Okay, people, here’s the plan.”
Amy raised an eyebrow, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You’re making plans now?”
“Just huddle up and listen,” Allen said. “Amy, I want you on the street. At least one of us needs to get away clean. Head, you’re with me. I need inside information. Now pay attention. Here’s how it’s going to go down.”
They eased up the stairs from the basement. When they reached the ground floor, they split up. The wolf padded back to the kitchen to the open window she’d come through in the first place. Amy slipped out the front door, closed it behind her as gently as possible.
“Okay, head, it’s just me and you now,” Allen whispered. “Where’s Zabel’s office?”
“Will you stop calling me head? My name’s Pascal.”
“Why does your voice sound weird?”
“I have a stone in my mouth,” Pascal said.
“Why don’t you spit it out?”
“Because I’ll die,” Pascal said. “The office is upstairs.”
Allen started up the stairs with the head under his arm. He stopped every few steps to listen. Had Zabel already gone? If so, maybe he’d left the diary behind. Allen could do with a bit of good luck. They reached the second floor. Allen paused again but didn’t hear anything.
“Turn right,” Pascal whispered. “The office is all the way at the end of the hall.”
“You said there was a window that faced the street?”
“Yes, and a small balcony beyond, or maybe it was just a large flowerbox. I didn’t get a good look.”
“Okay,” Allen said. “Come on.”
He tiptoed down the hall to the office, pressed his ear against the door but heard nothing. He knelt, looked through the keyhole. He couldn’t see much. No movement.
“I don’t think he’s in there,” Allen said.
“Let me have a look,” Pascal said.
Allen held the head up to the keyhole.
“I think you’re right,” Pascal said. “His desk is right across from the door, and I don’t see him.”
Allen tucked the head back under his arm, tried the doorknob. Unlocked. He pushed it open slowly, stuck his head inside. Nobody there.
The Kelley diary sat in plain sight in the center of the desk.
“Sweet,” Allen said. “Let’s grab it and get the hell out of here.”
“Not so fast,” came a voice from behind Allen.
Damn. Allen’s heart sank. He turned very slowly. Zabel stood there, an automatic pistol trained on Allen.
“Damn your eyes,” Pascal said. “That’s my gun.”
“I saw no reason to throw it out,” Zabel said. “Looks like it came in handy. Pull the trigger on this end, and the bullet comes out the other end, right? Pretty simple.”
“You are a giant douche,” Pascal said. “Just look at me. This isn’t over.”
“I think I might take you up on the roof after this, Pascal. See what the crows make of you.” Zabel waved the gun at Allen. “Stand back. We’re going to have a little talk. For starters, I’d like to know how you got out of the basement.”
Allen sighed. “I’m sorry, Pascal.”
“Sorry for what?” asked the head.
“This.”
Allen tossed the head into the air. It went nearly as high as the ceiling, then arced toward Zabel, who titled his head back to see Pascal’s face screaming down at him.
Allen leaped on Zabel, a hand going to his gun wrist. They twisted, went to the ground. The head came down and bounced off Zabel’s skull. Zabel winced, let go of the gun.
Allen grabbed it and stood, pointed it at Zabel. “Hold it.”
Zabel didn’t hold it. He stood slowly, rubbing the top of his head. “That hurt.”
“I’ll be taking that diary now,” Allen said. “Nobody has to get shot here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Allen lifted the pistol. “You don’t think I’ll do it?”
Zabel stomped his foot, pretended to jump at Allen. “Boo!”
Allen yelped, thrust the gun at Zabel, and tried to pull the trigger.
But he couldn’t.
He looked at the gun, incredulous, pointed it at Zabel again. No matter how hard he tried to pull the trigger, Allen couldn’t make his finger obey.
Zabel laughed. “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? I have protections all over my house to keep people like you from doing me any harm.”
“I told you!” Pascal was on the floor, facing a corner. “Damn it, what’s happening? Turn me around.”
“Lars, come here,” called Zabel.
“Oh, shit,” said the head.
Allen was still trying to pull the trigger. He couldn’t believe it.
“For Christ’s sake,” Zabel said. “Give me that gun before you hurt yourself. You can’t harm me, but you’ll shoot your own foot off if you keep-”
The window exploded behind him, the wolf leaping onto the desk amid a glittering rain of glass. Penny wore a torn strip of tablecloth around her eyes to protect herself from the subliminal spells.
Zabel screamed.
Allen, who’d known it was going to happen, screamed anyway.
“I can’t see,” yelled the head. “What’s happening?”
The wolf zeroed in on Zabel, snapping its jaws, growling. Zabel tried to retreat, but Penny’s powerful jaws clamped down on his upper arm. He screamed again, hit the wolf on the side of the head with his free hand. “Lars!”
Allen tossed the gun aside, leaped forward, and grabbed the Kelley diary off the desk. As he turned, he bounced off the chest of a gigantic wooden monster. He sat down hard on the floor, then looked up at the thing made of patchwork bits of wood, like some kind of murderous arts and crafts project gone horribly wrong.
The monster reached out.
I’m going to die, Allen thought.
The monster grabbed the wolf by the scruff of the neck, flung it against the far wall. The wolf crashed with a pained yelp, knocked pictures off the wall.
Allen crawled past the golem’s legs, the diary tucked under one arm. “Everybody out!”
“How am I supposed to do that?” shouted the head. “I have no legs.”
Allen scooped him up by the hair and dashed from the room. He took the stairs three at a time, hit the ground floor hard, and sprinted for the front door. He opened it, ran through, didn’t bother closing it behind him. He hit the middle of the street, searching for Amy.
He glanced back at Zabel’s second-floor window. Had Penny made it out? The plan had been to scatter after Allen got his hands on the diary, but if Penny needed help then-
Fire exploded from the second-floor window, shook the street, chunks of brick and mortar pelting Allen and the sidewalk and street. Tourists screamed and scattered.
Another blast of fire, and the wolf flew through the window, fell limply, changing in midair, fur melting back to flesh. By the time Penny hit the street she was human again, naked and smoking.
“No!”
Allen rushed to her, knelt, set Pascal’s head aside and scooped her into his arms. She was unconscious but alive, hair and eyebrows singed, covered with scrapes and bruises. “It’s okay, Penny. I’m here. You’re fine. You’re okay.”
Amy appeared at his shoulder. “Oh, my God.”
“I thought you were getting a taxi,” Allen said.
“I did.” She gestured at the smoking window. “He took off when the world exploded.”
The head faced Zabel’s house. “Ha. Burn, baby, burn. Take that you son of a-ack!” The head choked, coughed, and spit out the bloodstone.
“Oh sh-” Pascal’s eyes rolled up, and he was gone.
Allen cradled Penny to his chest. “She should never have come for us. She should have called for help instead.”
“She did,” came a voice from behind them.
Allen whipped his head around, saw Father Paul standing there with another big priest.
“We’ve got a van around the corner,” Father Paul said. “Bring her and hurry. In about two minutes this place will be a logjam of police and firemen.”
Ten seconds after Allen left with the priests, a wooden monster emerged from the smoking doorway of Zabel’s home. The golem carried Zabel like a hurt child.
Once they cleared the doorway, Zabel coughed and wiped his sweaty, ash-smudged eyes on a sleeve. “Let me down, Lars. I can walk now.”
The golem set him on the ground. Zabel leaned over, put his hands on his knees, gulped clean air. He stood straight and looked back at his home, flames in the windows and doorway. In the distance, the sirens grew louder.
So many of his tools and materials, valuable items he’d collected over a lifetime. All up in smoke. Damn them.
He replayed recent events in his mind. It had happened so fast.
The wolf had burst in and attacked him, would have likely savaged him to death if Lars hadn’t pulled it off of him. Then Zabel had unleashed his most deadly spell, but the wolf had darted behind his desk, and the sturdy piece of furniture had absorbed the brunt of the firestorm. A second spell had blasted the beast back out the window, but not before half his office had been aflame. The smoke had overwhelmed him. He would surely have suffocated if Lars hadn’t carried him out.
He motioned the golem to follow him, and they ducked down an alley. Lars was not exactly inconspicuous, but Zabel had some quality ingredients stashed in his car. He could put together a few spells, form a plan to make them pay.
One thing was for sure. Sooner or later they’d show up at the Vysehrad cemetery.
A particularly large raven perched atop a rusty weathervane across the street from Zabel’s burning home. Everything it heard was heard by its master, Jackson Fay. Everything the raven saw, Fay saw. Everything it tasted, Fay tasted. This included a caterpillar and two especially sour black beetles.
Fay didn’t enjoy that.
The raven watched as Zabel emerged from the smoking doorway, then led his wooden behemoth down a back alley. He wondered why Zabel had used wood. Maybe that was all that had been handy. Cheap material. Economical.
When Pascal had not returned from Prague, Fay had strongly suspected he would need to pay Zabel a visit. Probably the man knew something of the stone as well. Whatever Zabel knew, Fay would know soon enough.
Fay watched as Zabel instructed the golem to lie down in the back of an older model Mercedes. He threw a blanket over the golem, then climbed into the driver’s seat, started the car, and began to drive.
Fay commanded the raven to follow.
Zabel would be a good test of Fay’s strength. Zabel was a decent enough wizard, but Fay felt confident he had the edge in talent and experience.
He’d make damn well sure he had the element of surprise.
Margaret floated through the gray void. She regretted the spell that had put her in this predicament. Her motivations were good-to warn her fellow Society members they might be in harm’s way. Fay was a dangerous rogue.
Only one last task kept her tethered to the real world. She had to find Amy. But really, what did she care anymore? The balance of magic. Evil wizards.
Such worries were for the living.
The walls were mint green and chipped. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A twenty-year-old refrigerator rattled its swan song in the corner. Allen looked at the furniture, the chairs, the table; wooden and plain, scratched. A countertop next to the fridge held what appeared to be the first ever coffeemaker to roll off the assembly line.
Commie surplus. That made him chuckle. He put his head down on the table, tried not to see Penny’s limp body, tried not to hear the explosion again, glass and bits of brick raining down.
Father Paul had taken him across town, to the basement of a small Catholic church. The rooms below were surprisingly plain and bureaucratic, like the offices for the Department of Motor Vehicles in his hometown. Bland and depressing.
Allen heard somebody come in the room, and he picked his head up.
“She’s doing fine,” Father Paul said.
Allen sighed relief, sank in his chair. He was suddenly exhausted.
“She can absorb a lot of abuse in wolf form,” said the priest. “You saw Zabel cast the spell?”
Allen shook his head. “Just the aftermath. I told you. I was down on the street.”
“I know.” Father Paul lit a cigarette. “Just double checking some things. Quite a story.”
Allen looked around the room. “What is this place?”
Father Paul blew out a long stream of cigarette smoke before answering. “It was built by a secret order of albino monks.”
“What?”
The priest laughed. “I’m just fucking with you. KGB. It was the KGB who built it, back during the iron curtain days. The church was a trap to spy on Catholic dissidents. There was a group of priests back then opposing Soviet rule. Anyway, the bishop arranged for us to use the place for a while.”
“Am I under arrest?”
Father Paul shook his head. “We’re priests, Allen. Not cops. We can’t arrest anyone. I mean, we can kill you, but not arrest you. But don’t worry, we won’t kill you either. We really were trying to rescue you when we busted into the Society safe house.”
“That’s what Penny said too.”
“Do you want some coffee?” asked Father Paul. “I’m going to have some.”
“How about a Coke?”
The priest got up and looked in the fridge. “No Coke. Pepsi.”
“Okay.”
Father Paul poured himself a cup of coffee in a paper cup, brought Allen a can of Pepsi, and sat down again. He puffed the cigarette, waited.
“At first I just wanted to go home,” Allen said. “But now…” He shrugged. “I’m not sure how to explain it.”
“Try.”
Allen thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t want to go home not knowing how all this turned out.”
Father Paul smiled. “We should make a Jesuit out of you.”
Allen smiled too. “No, thanks.”
“Your other friend. What’s up with her?”
“Amy?”
“One of that Society lot,” Father Paul said. “She doesn’t much care for my type.” Father Paul tapped his white collar with his pinkie finger. “You think we can get her to work with us?”
“I couldn’t say,” Allen admitted. “Do you need her?”
“The Society and the Vatican are on the same page for this one. Nobody wants to see the philosopher’s stone fall into the wrong hands. Nobody’s exactly sure what the damn thing can do.” A pause for a cigarette puff. “You’ve told me what you read in the Kelley diary, the caverns beneath St. Vitus and the strange machine the astrologer built. Why do you think the vampire wants the stone?”
Allen felt his eye twitch and looked away. He felt uncomfortable discussing Cassandra. “I don’t know.”
“She never mentioned anything while you were… together?”
“No.”
Father Paul nodded slowly. “Okay.” Puff. “You want to see her?”
Allen’s eyes widened. See her? Of course not! And yet…
“Penny, I mean,” the priest said. “She’s up and around now, I think. I know you were worried about her.”
Allen sighed and nodded. “Sure.”
Father Paul pushed away from the table. “Follow me.”
The priests had stashed Amy in a small office. A desk, a chair, a small bathroom. They’d politely given her a bottle of water when she’d asked for a drink. They hadn’t treated her like the enemy, but it was clear they meant for her to stay put until they were ready to deal with her.
Where was Allen? Was Penny okay? All she could do was pace the tiny, bland room.
Eventually her bladder forced her into the small bathroom. She peed, washed her hands at the sink. She lingered, massaging the warm soap into her palms, rubbed the knuckles. She looked at herself and was surprised she didn’t appear more haggard. She felt like she could sleep for days. The cracked mirror above the sink fogged over, the room becoming suddenly chill. Her arms and legs breaking out in gooseflesh. Her breath came out as fog too. The bathroom was suddenly freezing.
Writing appeared in the fog on the mirror: Are you Amy?
Amy’s eyes grew big. Oh, shit. She held her breath, not knowing what to do.
More writing: Hello? Are you there?
“I’m Amy,” she said in a small voice. “I’m here.”
The apparition came into focus slowly, right in front of Amy-an old woman with hollow eyes, skin tight across her face, making her look nearly skeletal. Her features were pinched and jagged. “Amy?”
“Who are you?”
“It’s me, Amy. Margaret.”
Amy gasped. “What happened?”
“What year is it?” the ghost asked. “So long. So many years wandering, looking for you. I got lost in there. You can’t imagine what it’s like.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter,” Margaret’s ghost said. “I’ve found you. I can rest. Fulfill my purpose and rest at long last.”
Amy hugged herself, shivering now. “I d-don’t understand.”
“The Society is smashed,” the ghost told her. “Fay has betrayed us. Beware of him. The Council is broken. He murdered me, Amy. I hung on to warn as many as I could. I have to go now. So long since I’ve felt the sun on my skin. I must fade now into the gray. It’s pulling me. Like some kind of cosmic undertow.” She began to fade.
“W-wait,” Amy called after her. “What d-do I do now? I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m going now.” The ghost’s voice was a faint echo. “It’s taking me. Beware of Fay. Beware.”
The ghost vanished totally. Amy shivered, waited another few seconds but nothing else happened. She stumbled out of the bathroom and into the warmth, sat at the little desk, blowing on her hands.
She began to cry, not even completely sure who she was crying for.
Father Paul led Allen down a short hall to another door. Finnegan leaned against the wall waiting for them.
“I brought her some clothes,” Finnegan said. “She’s putting them on now.”
Father Paul knocked. “You decent?”
“It’s okay,” Penny called from within.
They opened the door and entered. Penny wore a pair of blue gym shorts and a tourist T-shirt with the Czech flag on the front. Allen noticed Penny’s legs, pale but smooth and well-toned. He noticed things like that now.
Penny bent over, tying a pair of white deck shoes. She stood and grunted.
“Are you okay?” Allen asked.
“My ribs are bruised,” she said, “but it could have been a lot worse. I’ll make it.”
Penny handed a large, red bra back to Finnegan. “I appreciate that you think I can fill this thing, but I think I’ll skip it.”
The sheepish grin made the big priest look like some humble, friendly farmer. “Sorry, lass. I don’t have a lot of experience buying such things.”
“I think we’re all glad to hear that,” Father Paul said.
“You scared the hell out of me,” Allen said gently. “Glad you’re not dead.”
A smile flickered across Penny’s face. “Me too.”
The door opened and Amy entered with a tall black priest behind her. Amy saw Penny and flashed her a big smile. “You’re okay!”
“A few bumps,” Penny said. “I’ve had worse.”
“Thanks for bringing her, Father Starkes.” Father Paul turned to Amy. “The Society and the Vatican have often been adversaries, young lady. But I think this time we need to work together. Perhaps if I could convince-”
“I’ll help you,” Amy said.
Father Paul blinked. “At the very least, I thought you’d need to check with your Council.”
Amy sighed. “No. I don’t need to check with them anymore.”
Father Paul rubbed his hands together. “Okay, then. Let’s go dig up a dead guy.”
High atop a rocky cliff, guarding the Vltava, the Vysehrad was much more a fortress than a palace. A zigzagging path climbed the cliff on the river side. A tram let off tourists on the other side. More respectable guidebooks than The Rogue’s Guide suggested a scenic walking tour that started at the tram stop, passed the highlights of the Vysehrad, including Dvoák’s tomb in the cemetery, and then took the zigzag path down the cliff to the river.
Allen, Amy, Penny, and the priests had elected to come up from the other direction; that was why Allen was puffing and wheezing and finally collapsed when they made it to the top. “Why is every place I need to go in this town uphill?”
Finnegan reached down, hooked Allen under one arm, and pulled him to his feet. “You’re out of shape, lad.”
“It’s been a rough couple of days.”
“The trams don’t run this time of night, and it’s likely that side of the Vysehrad will be more closely watched,” Father Paul said. “More stealthy to come up this way.”
“Unless they hear young Cabbot’s heart pounding,” Finnegan said.
Allen wondered if he’d go to hell for giving a priest the finger.
Two o’clock in the morning. This is exactly what Allen didn’t want, to be skulking around at night with a vampire on the loose. He supposed a trio of battle priests, a werewolf, and a pretend witch might provide some measure of protection, but Allen didn’t feel protected. He clutched the crowbar tight. It was part of his grave-robbing gear, but Allen was ready and willing to smash anything in the face that tried to kill him or suck his blood. The others carried a variety of pickaxes and shovels. Allen also wore a backpack loaded with a flashlight and sundry other gear. Most important, he carried the Kelley diary. He refused to let it out of his possession.
“Let’s keep it quiet from here on,” Father Paul said. “This way to the cemetery. It’s behind the Cathedral of St. Paul and Peter.”
The winding paths, pleasant and open by day, were poorly lit at night, jagged shadows making the castle grounds seem eerie and dangerous. Penny walked very close to Allen, Amy just as close on the other side. If they hadn’t all been holding pickaxes, shovels, and crowbars, Allen’s instinct would have been to take each of the girls by the hand. A kindergarten flashback.
“This is starting to seem like a bad idea,” Penny whispered.
“Starting to seem like a bad idea?” Allen said.
“At least you can turn into a werewolf,” Amy said to Penny.
“Lycanthrope,” Penny said. “And I haven’t seen you tossing around a lot of mighty witch magic. Why didn’t you turn Zabel into a rabbit or something?”
“You know that’s not how it works,” snapped Amy.
Father Paul looked back and shushed them.
The girls lapsed into embarrassed silence.
The path took them to the cathedral. They circled behind it and found an iron gate. Padlocked. Father Starkes clipped it off with a sturdy pair of bolt cutters, and they all filed into the boneyard, Finnegan closing the gate behind them. Ahead of them lay tombs, monuments, mausoleums, with narrow paths in between. Expensive and ornate stonework, crosses, and stars of David.
“Hallowed ground,” Father Paul said.
“What’s that?” Allen asked.
“The vampire can’t come here.” Father Paul patted Allen on the shoulder. “That’s why she needed a patsy.”
“Thanks.”
“A lot of dead folk in here,” Finnegan said. “This might take a while.”
“I think you’re right,” Father Paul said. “Let’s break into two teams. We can cover more ground.”
“Split up?” Penny didn’t like the idea.
Neither did Allen. “I’ve seen enough episodes of Scooby Doo to know that’s a bad idea.”
“Father Starkes will go with you and Penny,” Father Paul told Allen. “Amy will come with me and Finnegan. Don’t worry. We’re trained for this. But we can’t take all night. We have to divide up and find Roderick’s tomb.”
They split up, each team going a different direction. They raked monuments with flashlights, glimpsing names, trying to hurry. An hour later, Allen’s team ran back into Father Paul’s.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Allen said. “There’s got to be a way to narrow the search.”
Father Paul nodded. “I think you’re right. Finnegan, break out the laptop. I want an uplink.”
The big Irish priest slung off the backpack, pulled out a thin laptop computer, and booted it up. He set the computer on top of a tomb, the screen’s glow eerie in the cemetery. “We’ll have the satellite in a few seconds. Okay. Got it.”
“Let me try,” Allen said.
“Give it to him, Finnegan,” Father Paul said.
Allen’s fingers flew across the keyboard, cross-referencing historical databases, Google, Wikipedia. He blinked at the computer screen, read the information again to be sure. “Oh… shit.”
Father Paul read the screen over Allen’s shoulder. “What is it?”
“The cemetery was founded in 1869,” Allen said. “Two hundred and sixty plus years after Roderick died. There’s no way he could be buried here.”
“But the ghost said the Vysehrad cemetery,” Penny insisted. “Zabel was clear about it.”
Allen shook his head. “No. He said the Vysehrad-the castle. Remember? Zabel just assumed the cemetery.”
“We can’t search the whole castle, all the grounds,” Finnegan said. “It would take hours and hours.”
“More like days.” Father Paul sighed, shook a fresh cigarette from his pack.
“Wait,” Allen said. “Just nobody panic, okay? It’s just another research project, right?”
The priests looked at one another. Father Paul said, “What do you have in mind?”
“Let’s think it through. Hallowed ground, remember? If it were anywhere else in the Vysehrad, Cassandra could fetch it herself.”
Father Paul nodded. “Good point.”
“Right.” Allen’s hands went back to the keyboard. “So we concentrate on the cathedral and the cemetery.”
The priests and the girls watched Allen go at it, calling up databases, following links to other links, web pages to dead ends, backing up, starting again. He became one with the machine, a virtual explorer in an endless world of bits and bytes and information.
I am the Matrix. That made him chuckle.
“What is it?” Penny asked.
“Nothing.”
He arrived at the home page for a European architectural society, which took him to something about the castles of Europe. Click. The castles and palaces of Prague. Click. The Vysehrad. Click.
“This is all in Czech,” Allen said.
“Hold on, lad.” Finnegan took over the computer, his thick fingers entering information with surprising alacrity. “I’ve downloaded a translation program from the Vatican mainframe. It works fast. There you go.”
“Thanks.” Allen took over the computer again.
His eyes took in the words almost by osmosis. Vysehrad constructed in the tenth century. Stonework. Bulwarks. Battlements. Masons.
Freemasons.
Allen cleared his throat. “Listen to this. A Mason hall was constructed to house all the stoneworkers during the construction of the Vysehrad. The hall stood until 1701, when it was gutted by a fire and the stone blocks were looted for other construction projects. But the stone foundation was reused later, when the cathedral was built around 1869.”
“What do Freemasons have to do with it?” Father Starkes asked.
“You’ve been neglecting your history lessons, Starkes.” Father Paul looked at Amy. “Our lady friend can tell you.”
Amy nodded slowly. “The Society hasn’t been part of the Freemasons in hundreds of years. But way the hell back then… yeah.”
“Edward Kelley had some sort of association with the Society,” Allen said. “I’m not exactly sure. There was no time to read the journal completely. Some sort of alliance, I think.”
Father Paul dropped the cigarette, mashed it out with his shoe. “Finnegan, get on the laptop and send the bishop an email. He can read it when he wakes up in the morning. Tell him we apologize, but we’re going to have to bust into one of his cathedrals.”
Zabel watched them from the V of two trees about fifty yards away. The glow of the computer screen lit the small group. What were they doing? Obviously, finding Roderick’s grave hadn’t been so easy. Zabel had perhaps been strangely lucky. Better to let the priests and the college kids do the hard work, then Zabel could move in afterward and take the stone.
Six of them against one of him. He was regretting leaving Lars in the car. This might get tricky. Best to watch and wait for the right opportunity.
They were moving now.
He watched as the priests and the kids clustered around the door to the cathedral. Were they going in? The big priest approached the front door with a crowbar. A loud crack and the rattle of a falling chain. They were breaking in!
A large raven landed on a tree branch near Zabel. It flapped wings, squawked.
Shut up, you stupid bird.
He turned his attention back to the cathedral. They were going inside, but they left the tall black guy out front. A lookout. This gave Zabel an idea. He reached into his bag of tricks, took out a jar of goo, rubbed some on the palm of his hands. He bent down, grabbed a handful of loose dirt in each hand, and spread the dirt in a circular motion while chanting arcane words.
A mist seeped out of the ground around him, swirled around his feet. A thick fog. It began to spread.
The raven squawked again, and Zabel frowned at it. Many considered the raven to be a bad omen. A good thing Zabel wasn’t superstitious.
“Find the light, Finnegan,” Father Paul said.
“Right.”
The Irish priest went fumbling into the dark, and sixty seconds later the lights, small electric bulbs made to resemble candlelight; came on. Charming. Every historical inch of Prague had been done over for the tourists.
Not nearly as grand and impressive as St. Vitus Cathedral, the Cathedral of St. Paul and Peter was nonetheless large and ornate, with rows of pews, hanging chandeliers, an altar with much gold, and other shiny stuff.
“Spread out,” Father Paul told everyone.
Allen asked, “What are we looking for?”
“Let’s hope we know it when we see it.”
Allen strolled the aisle between a row of pews and a stone wall, glancing at the floor and ceiling. A narrow wooden door led to a small anteroom. Another door beyond that, stairs leading down. He descended into a small basement, where he had to feel along the wall for an old push-button light switch, which brought a naked high-watt bulb blazing to life overhead. Barrels and crates. Storage.
Think. Don’t just wander around aimlessly. Who were these people?
Masons. Stoneworkers.
Allen got on his hands and knees and ran his hands over the smooth, wide stones, trying get a fingernail in the crack where the stones met. Allen new nothing of stonework, but this seemed to be solid stuff. He frowned at his dirty hands. The floor was covered in thick dust. Nobody had been down here in a good long time.
He continued to crawl along, knees scraping a trail in the dust. He crawled between barrels and crates, smearing dust on his sweaty face. Back and legs aching, he gave up at last. He stood, looked back at the dust trail. He looked down at his clothes. What a mess.
Allen stood there with his hands on his hips. Think, moron. But his mind went blank. He simply gazed at the floor, the mental equivalent of a test pattern droning in his head.
He noticed something.
The trail his knees had left in the dust was interrupted by a clean line that ran across it. No dust at all. He bent down for a closer look. A perfectly straight line. No dust. Right down the center of the line was another crack where two of the big floor stones met. Was it his imagination, or was this crack very slightly wider than the others?
He put his face right down next to the crack and held his breath. A slight waft of cool air touched his cheek. That’s what kept the dust from gathering along the crack. He crawled again, followed the crack. It went under a crate.
Allen stood, put a shoulder against the wooden crate and pushed. It didn’t budge at first, so Allen got lower, gained leverage, pushed again. It edged out of the way. Allen heaved again, his face going red, until he’d moved the crate completely off the crack.
He slumped against the wall, sucked air for a few seconds before bending over to examine the stone beneath the crate.
Something was carved into the far end of the stone, almost up against the wall. It was about as big around as a drink coaster and worn almost smooth. Allen shifted around so he wouldn’t block the light. He examined it again.
The Freemason symbol with the pentagram in the middle. Exactly like Amy’s tattoo.
He jammed his crowbar into the crack, tried to pry up the stone. It barely budged. He grunted, his face almost going purple this time. No. He backed off. He would rupture himself.
He ran back upstairs. He spotted the big Irish priest, Finnegan, searching the altar with Penny. “Where is everyone?”
“Searching,” Finnegan said. “You find something?”
“Maybe,” Allen said. “But I need some muscle.”
They followed him down to the basement. He showed them the Freemason symbol, explaining how he’d discovered it.
“Okay, lad, get on the other side,” Finnegan said. “Put your weight into that pry bar when I give the word.”
“Right.” Allen jammed the crowbar into the crack, and stood ready.
Finnegan positioned his crowbar on the other side. “Now.”
They both grunted, sweat breaking out on their foreheads. Penny stood back.
The stone block was thicker than Allen had guessed, but they finally lifted it high enough to shove it aside, stone grinding on stone, a whoosh of air sending puffs of dust between their legs.
They slid the stone aside, revealing a three-foot hole down into deep darkness and a narrow set of stairs that could accommodate one person at a time. Finnegan shone the flashlight down but couldn’t see much.
Allen got on his belly, shoved his own flashlight into the opening. “A chamber. And a tunnel, I think.” He put his foot on the top step. “Let’s go.”
“Hold on,” Finnegan said. “Best we fetch the others first. It wouldn’t be polite to go off and get killed, letting the others wonder what happened.”
Allen felt something tug at him, some force urging him down the stairs and into the tunnel, but he resisted. “Okay.”
While Finnegan was gone, the compulsion to go ahead, not to wait for the others, nearly overwhelmed him. Part of him recognized this as Cassandra’s doing. He had to face it. There was still some intermittent hold on him, something that only kicked in at certain key moments. It was Cassandra’s will that he go down those steps. Don’t wait. He had a mission to complete for her, and every second he delayed increased his discomfort, a deep sense of uneasiness at a task uncompleted.
“Are you okay?” Penny touched his arm with soft, cool fingers.
Allen closed his eyes tight, opened them again, and looked at her. He realized he was standing rigidly, with a white-knuckle grip on the crowbar. He took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m a little nervous is all.”
Penny smiled crookedly. “Vampires and philosopher’s stones? I can’t imagine why anyone would be nervous.”
Finnegan returned with Amy and Father Paul. They all leaned over, gazed down into the dark black hole.
Father Paul said, “Okay. Everyone wait here. I’ll have a look.”
“No way,” Allen said. “I found it. I’m going too.”
“If he’s going, I’m going,” Penny said.
“If she’s going, I’m going,” Amy said.
Father Paul grimaced. “Fine. Don’t touch anything. Be careful.”
Amy smirked. “Did you really just say to be careful?”
Father Paul ignored her, flipped on his flashlight, and descended the stairs. “Let’s go.”
The stairs delved deeper than expected, heading straight down at first before turning into a tight curve and spiraling. Allen noticed that the passage had been carved from raw stone. It grew colder as they went.
The stairs terminated in a round, twenty-by-twenty-foot chamber, the walls carved smooth. Their flashlight beams played over the walls before coming to rest on the circular door in front of them, carved pillars on either side. A larger version of the Freemason symbol with the pentagram in the middle had been carved neatly and deeply into the center of the door.
A foot below the symbol was a phrase in another language.
“It looks familiar,” Allen said. “Not Czech.”
“It’s Latin,” Father Paul said. “‘Here dwell our dead, for nowhere else can they find rest.’”
“I think it’s a Mortality Motel,” Amy said. “Sort of a slang term the Society uses for these burial places.”
Father Paul shot her a questioning glance.
“I’ve heard talk about them,” Amy explained. “Often a Society member would get branded a heretic, all that witchcraft, you know. They couldn’t be buried in regular church cemeteries.”
“There’s an iron lever here.” Finnegan gestured to the left of the door.
Father Paul said, “Pull it.”
Finnegan grabbed the lever and pulled with both hands. It made a rusty, scraping noise as he pulled it down. There was the distant, muffled sound of grinding machinery, and the circular door rolled aside. There was a whoosh, and all of their ears popped, a gust of stale air escaping from the door crack.
“It’s been sealed a long time,” Amy said.
Penny stepped closer to Allen. “I’d rather it stayed sealed.”
They entered, all of them clustered together. Father Paul stepped on a stone, which shifted. More muffled sounds echoed throughout the cavern.
“Uh-oh.”
Allen said, “‘Uh-oh’? What do you mean, ‘uh-oh’?”
On high shelves lining both sides of the hall, tiny flames sprang to life. The group flinched at the sudden pops of flame.
“What is it?” There was a bit of panic in Penny’s voice.
“It’s okay,” Father Paul said. “I think I just hit the light switch.”
Amy said, “Oil lamps. A spark spell to light them. Very simple to set up a remote-control trigger.”
Penny raised an eyebrow. “You know, I’ve yet to see you do one bit of magic.”
Amy gave her the middle finger.
The flickering lamps provided ample light, and they took a good look at the long hall. A vaulted ceiling arched twenty feet over their heads. The hall was fifty feet wide and twice again as long. Unadorned tombs cut from plain stone lined the walls. Clay urns sat on low pillars throughout the chamber. A dozen empty suits of armor stood along each wall, holding up swords in eternal salute, lamplight playing across dull metal breastplates.
Finnegan lifted the nearest urn carefully from its pillar, removed the lid, and peeked inside. “Looks like it’s full of dust.”
“Ashes, I would imagine,” Father Paul said. “I think you have somebody’s remains there.”
“Bloody hell.” Finnegan promptly returned the urn to its pillar.
“There.” Allen pointed to the large tomb all the way at the other end of the hall. Some instinct drew him on.
They followed Allen to the tomb. Again it was plain, except for a single word carved into the center of the lid: Roderick. Allen felt his heart beat faster.
Finnegan stepped forward. “One more time, lad.”
They jammed their crowbars into the slight crack of the tomb’s lid. The great slab of stone was unbelievably heavy. Allen felt the muscles strain along his arms and back. The Irishman’s face turned the color of a ripe tomato. Once the lid started moving, it went fast, tumbling over the other side, crashing to the stone floor with a racket to wake the dead.
No, I hope not, Allen thought. Let’s not wake the dead.
They crowded around the open tomb.
Within lay the mortal remains of Roderick, astrologer at the court of Rudolph II. Bones. The remnants of a dark robe. Roderick laughed at them with hollow skull eyes. In his thin, skeletal hands, he clutched a lead box the size of carry-on luggage. The heavy box had crushed his chest, nestled in his rib cage like it was a bird’s nest.
“Well,” Father Paul said in a voice barely above a whisper. “There it is.”
They all stood frozen a moment, the weight of history demanding a little respect.
“Let’s get the show on the road then.” Finnegan reached for the box.
“No!” Allen had not meant to shout. The idea of somebody else taking the stone suddenly panicked him. “I’ve come a long way for this. Let me.”
Finnegan looked to Father Paul, who nodded.
Allen reached inside and grabbed the box by the handle on either end. Heavy. He tried to lift it. Really fucking heavy.
Finnegan said, “Lad, maybe I should-”
“No, no,” Allen said. “I got it.”
With a final heave, Allen was barely able to lift it out. Roderick’s skeletal fingers slid from the box. The skull’s mouth opened.
And screamed.
The shriek was painful. They clapped their hands over their ears-all except Allen, who refused to let go of the box. The scream seemed as much in his mind as in his ears. After an eternal five seconds, the scream stopped.
And something else moved.
The suits of armor along the walls began to take lumbering steps toward them, their swords lifted high.
“Oh, shit,” Penny said.
Finnegan and Father Paul drew pistols. “I think Roderick sounded the burglar alarm.”
The suits of armor creaked and clanked, seemed to be working out the kinks, moving faster to cut off the group’s escape route back to the surface.
“Run!” shouted Father Paul.
Allen was already moving, Amy and Penny right behind him. He heard the pistol shots at his back, the metallic tunks of slugs piercing armor. He didn’t look back. He had the stone. He would take it to his mistress.
Allen and the girls made it past the ghost knights right before they closed the circle. He hit the stairs and went up, grunting as he carried the box, sweat oozing from every pore. Gunshots echoed behind him.
He kept going. Up and up.
Father Paul watched Allen and the girls make it past the knights, but the suits of armor closed in, cutting him off. He and Finnegan had been surrounded.
They fired until their magazines clicked empty, the shots punching useless holes in the armor plating.
“No good, Boss,” Finnegan said. “Got any magic wands?”
Father Paul grabbed an urn off a nearby pillar, launched it at the nearest knight with a two-handed throw. It struck the helmet, exploded in a cloud of ash, the helmet clattering away, shards of clay flying. The knight dropped its sword, began to twirl in a lost circle without its head to guide it.
Finnegan dove for the sword, grabbed it, popped to his feet and swung the blade, lopped off the metal arm of a knight that had been coming up behind Father Paul, who knelt and scooped up another sword.
They parried clumsy blows from the ghost knights. The clattering suits of armor were slow and awkward, but sheer numbers threatened to swamp the priests.
“Cut your way to the door,” Father Paul shouted over the clanging weapons.
They hacked at limbs, sent helmets flying.
They were almost to the door when a knight thrust a long blade into Finnegan’s chest. The big Irishman yelled, kicked away the empty suit of armor, pulled the sword out of himself, and let it fall to the floor. Blood gushed. He stumbled after Father Paul through the door to the other side. He collapsed, rolled onto his back.
“Oh, no.” Father Paul knelt next to Finnegan.
“The door.” Blood gurgled from Finnegan’s mouth.
Ghost knights still lumbered after them.
Father Paul grabbed the lever, shoved it back into place. The door began to roll shut just as one of the ghost knights attempted to step through. The heavy stone door tried to close, jammed the suit of armor, slowly crushing it like an old car at a junkyard. It stayed jammed like that, a few of the ghost knight’s gauntleted fingers still twitching, helmet crushed flat.
Father Paul returned to Finnegan. “We’ll get you to a doctor. Hang on.”
Finnegan laughed, his teeth stained red. “Don’t kid me, okay? Get out of here.”
“Shut up, you stupid Irish lump. Just stay still. I’ll find a phone, and then we’ll call in some help. It won’t take too long to-”
Father Paul realized he wasn’t talking to anyone anymore. Finnegan’s eyes stared at nothing, lifeless and empty.
It had been a long time since Father Paul had performed last rites; he stumbled though them half blind, tears blurring his vision.
Allen’s shoulders and forearms burned with effort. The metal handles of the lead box dug harshly into his fingers, ground against the bones.
The girls were screeching something high-pitched and panicked behind him. He tuned it out. He had to deliver the stone or die trying. The compulsion throbbing within him was almost painful now.
Panting, he made it to the top of the stairs. He staggered through the cathedral to the front door, pausing only once to breathe deeply and lean against a pew.
“Wait!” Penny called after him. “We have to go back for Father Paul.”
Allen didn’t wait; he jogged to the front door and kicked it open.
And froze in his tracks.
A thick fog had rolled in, gray and damp. It completely shrouded the cathedral. Allen couldn’t see three feet in front of him. Amy and Penny halted behind Allen, gaping at the fog.
“Where did this come from?” Penny asked.
Amy shook her head. “I don’t think it’s natural.”
“I have to go.” Allen began to walk into the fog.
Penny and Amy both grabbed him.
“What?” He shrugged them off. “Let me go.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Amy tightened her grip on Allen.
A steady gust of wind, nearly arctic, blew their hair back from their faces. They shrunk from it, startled.
The fog began to swirl. It split apart, a passage through the gray opening up before them. A tunnel in the mist.
There she stood at the end, an eerie blue glow around her.
“Cassandra,” breathed Allen. He stumbled toward her.
Penny grabbed for him but missed. “What are you doing, idiot?”
“We’ve got to help him,” Amy said. “She’s controlling him.”
Amy ran toward Allen, but Cassandra moved like a blur, was in front of the girl in a split second, catching her across the jaw with a sharp backhand. Amy yelped and crumpled to the ground.
Allen fell at Cassandra’s feet, pushed the box toward her, panting, almost unconscious from the exertion. “I b-brought it. Please. Just like you asked.”
Cassandra reached down, brushed her fingers against Allen’s check. Her touch felt like ice. “My wonderful brave boy.”
“Hands off, bitch.” Penny stood twenty feet away. She kicked off her deck shoes. “He’s mine.”
Cassandra’s slow smile didn’t touch her eyes. “Go away, little girl. Before you get hurt.”
“It’s go time.” Penny flexed her hands. Her face twitched. The transformation was abrupt and shocking, fur sprouting and spreading, mouth deforming, long savage teeth growing. Arms and shoulders stretching the fabric of the T-shirt but not ripping it. Razor claws at the ends of her long fingers.
Allen looked up from his place at the vampire’s feet, eyes wide. He’d seen the wolf, but he hadn’t seen her like this. She’d changed into some stage between human and wolf. It was still Penny’s face, but vicious, snarling, covered in fur. Penny preferred the term lycanthrope, but there was no doubt in Allen’s mind.
This was a werewolf.
Cassandra’s smile showed genuine amusement this time. “One of the old lupine clan. I’d heard there were still some of your kind about. This might prove sporting after all.”
Cassandra darted at Penny with lightning speed, hands outstretched, but the werewolf ducked under her reach raked claws across the vampire’s belly. Cassandra hissed pain, retaliated with a swift backhand, a glancing blow to Penny’s head. She growled, backed away. They squared off, circling around each other.
Penny leaped, claws out. Cassandra put a foot against her chest and fell back, kicked, used Penny’s own weight to send her sailing into the fog. Cassandra stood, fists up. Everything went dead quiet. A sad little part of Allen’s brain told him to get the hell up and run, but he only lay there. Watching and waiting.
Penny flew snarling out of the fog, striking at Cassandra’s face, three long rents in the flesh of the vampire’s cheek. No blood. Allen watched in amazement as the wounds closed over, the skin smooth once more.
The werewolf attacked again.
Cassandra stepped forward, caught Penny in midleap, held her by the throat, lifted her off the ground. The werewolf snarled and kicked. Cassandra balled up her fist and punched Penny with alarming might square in the forehead. Penny made the sound of a wounded animal, head flopped, dazed. Cassandra lifted the werewolf with both hands, hurled her flailing into the fog.
Allen heard her land with a crunch and a yelp.
The silence stretched. Penny didn’t return.
Cassandra smiled down at Allen. “That little distraction has been taken care of. Come. Bring the stone.”
Allen tried to lift the box. He had nothing left and collapsed to the ground. “I can’t.”
“Never mind, my darling.” Cassandra lifted the box like it was a basket of laundry, tucked it under one arm. With her other hand she lifted Allen to his feet. “Let us be going.”
Allen hesitated. “You have the stone. Can’t I stay? I… I’m so tired.”
Her eyes caught his. “Allen.”
The bite mark on his inner thigh flared hot. Desire for her radiated from it, soaked into every part of his body.
“Come along, Allen.”
A dreamy grin split Allen’s face. “Yes, of course. I obey, mistress.”
She took him by the hand, and they disappeared into the fog.
Amy felt a throbbing in her head, dirt and grit on her face. How long had she been lying there on the ground? Only a few minutes maybe. She started to push herself up, felt hands lifting her. She turned, fist ready to strike.
“It’s just me,” Father Paul said. “Easy does it.”
He helped her up. She immediately looked around, peering into the fog. “Oh, God. Where are they?”
“I just got here,” the priest said.
She told him about Cassandra. “I don’t know what happened after that.”
“The vampire took him,” came a voice from the fog.
Penny limped through the mist. She looked pale, hair matted. She held her side. “I landed kind of far away.”
Father Paul rushed to her side, helped hold her up. “What happened?”
“She has Allen. And the philosopher’s stone.”
“Damn.”
Another figure emerged from the fog, startling them. It was Father Starkes.
“Where have you been?” Father Paul didn’t try to hide his irritation. “I told you to guard the door.”
“Sorry,” Starkes said. “I thought I heard something out there and went to take a look.”
Father Paul rubbed his eyes. “Forget it.” He looked up. “The fog is clearing.”
“Where’s Finnegan?” Amy asked.
“He didn’t make it.”
Amy gasped. Penny hung her head.
“We need to regroup,” Father Paul said. “And then we get Allen back. And the stone too.”
They limped away, bruised but determined.
None of them saw the watchful raven following them.
Allen awoke in a cavern lit by torches. There was a waterwheel, and a contraption with lenses hanging over a raised dais. A memory triggered something he’d read in the Kelley diary.
This was it. The machine for the philosopher’s stone.
The trip from the Vysehrad to the woods behind Prague Castle had been a blur. He only knew he had to follow Cassandra; his whole purpose in life was to serve her. He didn’t know what she wanted with the stone. It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, Allen would do his best to make it happen, to earn her love, her kisses, her touch.
They’d entered the caverns beneath the castle through a hidden entrance in the woods. Cassandra told him it had taken her about five years to find it, but that had been a century ago. She couldn’t use the entrance beneath St. Vitus any more than she could enter the Cathedral of St. Paul and Peter. Hallowed ground.
His stomach rumbled. How long since he’d eaten?
Allen had fallen asleep poring over Kelley’s diary, had tried to make sure he knew how to operate the machine, the proper order to pull the levers that positioned the lenses. He was pretty sure he’d installed the lead box properly. He’d barely overcome a perverse desire to open the box and look at the stone.
What would this do to his beloved Cassandra? He couldn’t guess, but he was determined to do it right and please her. They needed only to wait for daylight in the aboveground world. The power of the stone in conjunction with sunlight-that was the trick according to the diary. Allen didn’t need to understand. He just had to make sure he followed directions.
His stomach growled again. He couldn’t remember ever being this hungry.
A little brown spider scurried between his shoes. He snatched it up, shoved it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed.
Wait. That’s not right.
Allen strongly suspected he needed to be rescued.
It was just after dawn, and they’d barely had any rest-just a quick meal and cups of coffee. They were back in the KGB basement of the small Catholic church. Nuns had come in to wrap Penny’s bruised ribs and bandage a deep scratch on her forehead.
They stood around a conference table filled with automatic weapons and various explosive devices.
“Soon they’ll be able to use the machine,” Father Paul said, checking the magazine on a.45 Colt. “God knows what will happen. Father Starkes and I have to go. It’s our job. I won’t think less of you two if you decide to sit this one out.”
Amy and Penny exchanged glances.
“No offense, Father,” Amy said, “but fuck you.”
Penny’s tone was somewhat more respectful. “Father Paul, I have to tell you, I’ve invested quite a lot of time into Allen. I’d hate to see him killed now. I think I’d better come along.”
A wan smile unfolded across Father Paul’s face. “Okay then. Let’s gear up.” He gestured at the arsenal spread across the table. “I don’t know if we’ll be up against animated suits of armor again. Frankly, I have no clue what we’re in for. But Father Starkes and I are going to carry twelve-gauge shotguns. Maybe that can knock apart some armor plating. Select what you want.”
Amy put her hand on an enormous pistol, lifted it. Heavy.
“That’s a.50-caliber Desert Eagle,” Father Paul said. “Might be a little too much gun for you.”
Amy frowned. “Why?”
“The kick will knock you back into the last century.” Father Paul handed her a small.32 revolver. “Maybe this.”
She took the revolver but kept casting longing glances at the Desert Eagle.
In a quiet moment, Amy found herself standing shoulder to shoulder with Penny, going over the equipment, while Father Paul and Starkes were off doing something else. Amy cleared her throat and said, “I think I need to apologize to you. I think it’s my fault about Allen.”
Penny shot her a sideways glance. “What are you talking about?”
“Remember the morning in the art museum? God, that seems, like, a hundred years ago.” Amy told Penny about Allen and Cassandra. “I suspected Allen might not be in full control of himself. I should have said something.”
Penny lapsed into sickly silence.
“I’m sorry,” Amy said.
“It’s okay,” Penny said. “I’m glad you told me.”
They went about their business in silence. Starkes and Father Paul thumbed double-aught shells into their pump-action twelve-gauges. They hung bandoliers of additional shells over their shoulders. Shoulder holsters with.45 automatics. The priests pried open a crate, revealing a stash of hand grenades. They passed the grenades around, along with extra ammunition. Kevlar vests. Utility belts with flashlights and miniature, compact tools. Combat boots. Black fatigues with the Vatican Battle Jesuit patch on the sleeves.
“This stuff is weighing me down.” Penny stripped off the Kevlar, kicked off the combat boots. “And I have to be able to transform quickly.” She put the deck shoes back on, picked out a small black T-shirt with the Battle Jesuit crest over the pocket.
“I like the boots and the pants and the belt, but I want a T-shirt too,” Amy said. “That stuff you wear is too hot.”
“Fine,” Father Paul said. “I’m not sure Kevlar is likely to stop what we might encounter anyway.”
He grabbed a pair of pickaxes, handed one to Starkes. “Let’s roll.”
The morning sun was well into the sky when the four black-clad strangers armed with pistols and shotguns walked through the courtyards of Prague Castle toward St. Vitus Cathedral. Tourists scattered before them.
“We seem to be causing a scene,” Penny said.
Father Paul didn’t break stride. “No time to be subtle.”
Two security guards in blue shirts with silver badges stopped in front of them, holding up their hands and yelling at them in Czech.
Father Paul flashed his Jesuit ID. “Vatican business, gentlemen. Stand aside.”
The guards looked at each other. They stood aside.
“You can do that?” Penny asked.
“Apparently.”
They entered the cathedral, more tourists scurrying out of their way. They headed for the entrance to the burial vault. A tour group stood aside to let them around the velvet rope and down the stairs to the chambers beneath St. Vitus.
“Allen told me it was all the way at the end,” Father Paul said. “At least that’s what he read in the diary.”
They marched past the tombs, and the chamber ended in a black wall of whitewashed brick. Father Paul lifted a pickax. “Man, I hope this is the right place.”
He swung the pickax and it bit deeply into brick and mortar. Starkes took his place next to him. They destroyed the wall in three minutes flat, opening a passage to the tunnel beyond, tall and wide enough for two people to pass through.
And that’s when the zombies spilled out.
“I think it’s time.”
Allen looked up from the Kelley diary, beaming his adoration at Cassandra. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
The vampire climbed the steps of the dais, unfastened her dress, and let it fall. She stood naked, smooth and white, the power of her sexuality radiating, seeming to fill the cavern. The bite mark on Allen’s thigh flared again. His longing for her made him ache.
Cassandra lay on the table, folded her hands over her breasts. “Begin.”
“Yes, mistress.”
Allen rushed up the steps of the dais, the Kelley diary in his hands. He began to pull levers, always double-checking the diary as he went. The cavern echoed with the sound of reluctant machinery forced to move after being dormant for hundreds of years. The sound of rushing water filled their ears. At first the waterwheel didn’t budge, but finally it groaned and creaked as it began to turn, slowly at first, but then more rapidly.
More levers. Allen’s heart pounded so hard that it threatened to leap from his chest. The gizmo above the dais lowered, the lenses spinning into place to the racket of machinery and rushing water. Allen pushed another lever to activate the sunlight shafts and reflectors. The sunlight hit the lenses.
Then the sunlight hit Cassandra.
She screamed, writhing, on the table. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from her body.
Vampire + sunlight = bad idea.
“The stone!” she screamed. “Activate the stone.”
Allen flew down the dais steps, stumbled and went down. He picked himself up, ran behind the protective lead wall, and pulled the final lever.
The cavern exploded with light. The sound of a thousand howling souls assaulted Allen’s brain. He dove to the floor, eyes shut tight, hands over his ears. The floor shook, the cavern rumbled.
It felt like the end of the world.
He forced himself to stand. It had been long enough. He pushed the lever back into place, and the white light dimmed. He ran back to the dais, shut off the waterwheel. He pushed more levers, the lenses lifting back out of the way.
He backed down the steps, watched the woman on the table, his mouth hanging open, eyes wide. He waited.
At last, she sat up, swung her legs around slowly to stand on the floor. She looked at her own hand. It shook. She blinked away tears in her eyes. “Alive. Oh, my God. After a thousand years, walking the earth as undead.” She laughed and cried at the same time.
“Allen, I’m alive again.”
“They’re dead!” Father Paul yelled.
He pumped a shell into the chamber and blasted a load of buckshot into the zombies that crowded the room. They kept coming, dozens of them, crawling over one another to reach the priests and the girls.
The zombies were half skeletal, leather chunks of flesh dropping off as they attacked. Mouths half full of yellow-brown teeth chewing at nothing.
Starkes and Father Paul kept pumping buckshot into the crowd, limbs and bits of flesh and teeth flying. Undead corpses piled up at their feet. A half dozen zombies surged past the priests to attack the girls.
Penny screamed.
A skeletal hand grabbed Amy by the shoulder. She gasped and jumped back. The zombie’s arm came loose, hanging from her shoulder, where it still held on.
“I think the warranty has expired on these things.” Amy pried the fingers from her shoulder. She used the zombie arm as a club, swung hard, knocking its undead head across the room. It bounced off a tomb, rolled around on the floor.
Penny kicked the leg of the zombie closest to her. The leg snapped and the zombie fell into a pile of bones and dried flesh. “She’s right. These things are… well, kind of pathetic.”
Amy reached into a zombie’s mouth, pried out a tooth. “Souvenir.”
Father Paul stopped firing the shotgun. The zombies crowded around him, pawed feebly at his chest. “Okay, this is just silly. These things have been decaying for centuries. They might as well be made out of tissue paper. Push them out of the way and let’s get going.”
They shoved the zombies aside, pushing them into piles of bones, kicking legs out from under them. They entered the hole Father Paul and Starkes had knocked into the wall, trudged through the dark passage beyond until they heard the sound of rushing water ahead.
Cassandra descended the dais steps to stand in front of Allen. She was as beautiful as ever, but there was something different about her too. A flush of pink in her cheeks. She touched Allen’s face with warm fingers.
She was alive. She was a woman.
“You can’t know what it was like, Allen.” Her smile was warm, genuine. “Walking around, half cold to life, only half feeling everything that was happening to me.” She ran both her hands over Allen’s chest. “I can feel you. I mean really feel you, one human being to another.” A pained expression struck her face. She looked away. “All the things I’ve done. A vampire can’t feel remorse, Allen. God, I’ve done such terrible things. But I’m going to live now. It’ll be different. Never again will I-”
A line of warm, red blood trickled from her left nostril. She wiped it away, surprised. “It must be some side effect. But look. It’s warm. My blood is warm and human. Allen, this is the best thing that’s ever-”
Another trickle of blood from the other nostril. Cassandra wiped it away, smearing red across her lips.
“Are you okay?” Allen asked.
“I don’t know.” She blinked, and blood ran from the corners of her eyes. She wiped it away, looked at the blood on her hands. “Something’s wrong.”
Do you remember when I used the machine to bring the emperor’s cousin back to life? I suppose now is a good time to show you everything that happened.
Pay attention.