Cade opened the locker where Griff had secured the metal case from Kosovo. He flipped it open, wincing slightly.
In the gloom of the Reliquary, the object glowed softly with a gentle white light.
This was not an object from the Other Side. The Vukodlak had grabbed it from the U.S. Embassy, where it had resided since being saved from an Eastern Orthodox monastery bombed during the Kosovo conflict.
It was a human hand, perfectly preserved, encased in a metal gauntlet. The gauntlet dated from at least the fourteenth century. The hand was much older.
It was the hand of John the Baptist. Supposedly. The hand that had been touched by an angel and then touched the head of Christ. The relic was believed to have the magical ability to heal, even to return the dead to life.
Supposedly.
All Cade knew for sure was that it hurt him, more than the cross on his neck. It had power.
He just hoped it had enough.
He slammed the case shut and ran back into the tunnel that led to the White House.
ZACH FELT THE WALLS SHAKING. He rounded the corner, and saw the last
Unmenschsoldat
pounding at the door of the Oval Office.
He stopped.
The door began to crack, to tear free of its frame.
The thing kept pounding.
Zach aimed the gun and fired.
Stupid. Without a convenient open wound, the bullets didn’t have any more effect than on the other creatures.
He emptied the whole clip, and nothing happened.
Zach screamed in frustration. He flung the empty gun at the creature’s head.
It bounced off, again with no effect.
Actually, there was some effect.
The creature’s head spun 180 degrees and stared at Zach.
It stopped pounding on the door. Its body swiveled to face the same way as its head.
It began walking toward Zach.
Oh, good, Zach thought. I’ve managed to piss it off.
CORPORAL GARCIA DIDN’T KNOW why he was trying to get inside the locked door. It seemed pretty urgent, but it wasn’t up to him. It was the body, moving on its own. And the body hated whatever was on the other side of that door. It was like there was a high-pitched dog whistle in there, and the body under him would do anything to shut it off.
There was a slight feeling at the back of his head. Garcia turned, the first thing he’d done for himself in this nightmare.
He saw a young guy in a suit. The kind of wiener he never liked in high school, actually. Student-government, college-bound, stuck-up, rich prick.
He didn’t decide to move. The body spun around and started for the little jerk. Garcia could feel it now, the high-pitched whistle. It was coming from the guy in the suit.
It was annoying as hell. And he understood, suddenly, the impulse to snuff it out completely.
INSIDE THE OVAL OFFICE, the sudden silence was more unnerving than the steady pounding, or the splintering of the door.
President Curtis stood. Agent Terrill moved between him and the door, but the president edged the young man out of the way. He wanted to see for himself.
Griff didn’t know what it meant. He’d heard gunshots, but there was no way bullets had brought the creature down.
Wyman was a great deal more optimistic.
“It’s gone,” he said, a grin breaking out on his face. “We can get out of here.”
“Not a good idea,” Griff said.
Wyman turned to the president, a petulant look on his face. “Sam, we have to go now. We have to get out. This could be our only chance.”
The president looked at Griff.
“Agent Griffin. Is there any way to tell what’s happened?”
Wyman rushed toward the president, blocked at the last moment by Terrill. “Damn it, listen to me,” he pleaded. “Don’t waste any more time. Open the door.”
The president looked at him, then back at Griff.
“Don’t do it,” Griff said. “We have to stay here, sit tight until—”
Wyman lunged past Griff and yanked at the lock. Steel bolts slid back.
Griff wasted a precious second on pure shock.
Wyman had opened the door.
ZACH STOOD THERE, trying to figure out something to do. Maybe if the thing chased him, it wouldn’t go into the Oval Office. Maybe he could sacrifice himself to save the president.
There had to be a better plan than that.
But he couldn’t think of one, and the
Unmenschsoldat
kept walking right toward him.
He heard a thudding noise. The door to the Oval Office popped open. The creature’s blows had mangled a steel bolt, so it stuck in the frame, but there was a good foot or so of clearance.
Wyman came struggling out.
Zach almost couldn’t believe his eyes. Wyman was squirming hard, pressing his body as flat as possible to get out of the jammed door. He was so frantic he didn’t even see the creature.
But it saw him. It rotated its head again, locked onto the furious movement of the vice president.
It hesitated. Zach knew it could get inside the Oval Office now. The door would fly open with one good blow from that thing.
He didn’t relish the thought of dying to save Wyman, but he supposed it had to be done.
He picked up a piece of broken wood from the floor, ran at the creature and swung with all his might.
CADE ENTERED the West Wing hallway in time to see the whole thing, frozen in perspective. First Zach, with his makeshift weapon. Then the
Unmenschsoldat
, already turning back to the Oval Office. Then Wyman, stuck in the door, wriggling, his eyes wide with fear.
Cade didn’t have time to open the case. He dropped it, grabbed Zach by the collar and yanked him out of harm’s way.
Then he leaped on the creature himself.
GRIFF GOT HOLD OF Wyman’s jacket and began hauling him into the room. Wyman kicked and braced himself against the toppled furniture on the barricade. It would have been funny, pure slapstick comedy, if only Wyman hadn’t effectively just killed them all. Griff pulled harder.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Terrill move to help him.
“Stay with the president,” he ordered, and the kid stood fast. Finally, Griff thought, someone who does what he’s told.
Suddenly, Wyman stopped pulling and began pushing back. He was stuck. And he was trying to get back inside the office.
Griff took a look through the space in the door. He saw Cade grappling with the creature. And both of them stumbling and smashing their way down the hallway, right toward the door.
He pulled Wyman free just in time.
CADE AND THE MONSTER smashed through the door, the remaining bolt snapping cleanly.
They shattered the furniture in Griff’s makeshift barricade, wood breaking like toothpicks, and hit the floor of the office, right in the middle of the presidential seal woven in the rug.
Agent Terrill shoved the president out of the way. To Cade, he looked as if he was frozen there, stuck in time. The creature’s fist cocked back to throw another punch at Cade, and its elbow connected with the young man’s head. Terrill’s neck snapped with a hollow pop. His arms and legs went rag doll as he fell to the floor.
Another pointless death. For a moment, Cade saw nothing but rage, even as he dodged the creature’s fist.
He bared his teeth and raised both hands above his head, jumping, bringing his arms down as he fell, using every bit of his strength, everything he and gravity could muster, and slammed his fists into the creature’s skull.
It paused, shrugged, then kept coming at him.
Cade could see the first light of dawn. He had only minutes left.
One chance.
“Zach,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Throw me the case.”
ZACH HAD JUST GOTTEN UP from the floor where Cade tossed him. He could see clearly down the corridor into the Oval Office.
He heard Cade’s command and saw the case sitting in the hallway, just a few feet away.
He ran forward, picked it up and hurled it through the door.
It pinwheeled through the air toward Cade’s outstretched hand. Griff knew: Cade wasn’t going to make it.
In the moment that the vampire turned and called for Zach, in that second Cade had his back turned, he had left himself open.
That was all the creature needed. It was already reaching for Cade, prepared to rip his head off with one inhumanly strong hand.
Griff knew the president’s life rested with Cade.
It wasn’t a very hard decision to make, when you came right down to it.
He put every last ounce of his strength into his legs and pushed his way between Cade and the creature.
CADE SNATCHED THE CASE out of the air. He turned in time to see the creature put its hand through Griff’s chest.
Griff’s face was lined with pain, his eyes full of shock.
The creature flicked its wrist, like it was removing something distasteful from its fingers, and Griff went flying across the room.
For the first time in decades, Cade hesitated. He spent the moment Griff bought him in grief.
The creature turned toward the president.
CORPORAL GARCIA WAS SACK. He didn’t know where he’d gone, but he was tired of this. Tired of this strange nightmare, tired of the pain. He was standing above a man—a man who looked familiar, someone he’d seen on TV—and his hands were moving again, prepared to grab that man and do something awful to him.
He was tired of doing these things, but it wasn’t really him. He couldn’t stop it, because he wasn’t the one in control.
Everything was blurred. Everything hurt even more. The high-pitched noise was screaming now, and it seemed to be coming right from that man. He wanted very badly for this to end, and the only way to do that was to stop that noise.
Then he recognized the man. It was the president. What was the president doing in his dream?
He stopped. It took some conscious effort, like waking up from a deep sleep, but he stopped the body from moving, too.
Garcia just stood there, not knowing what to do next.
This was wrong. He didn’t know what was happening, but he knew this was just
wrong
.
THE CREATURE PAUSED. Cade hissed a small prayer. He had time.
He moved between the monster and the president, knocking Curtis back into the wall. As he prepared to unlatch the case, he noticed something.
He looked into the creature’s eyes. Saw pain, and confusion, and the dawning awareness of something—
someone
—desperately searching for answers.
Cade saw something human in there.
He opened the case.
The glow from the Baptist’s hand bathed the creature in its light.
The effect was instantaneous. The spark in the eyes of Cpl. Ryan Garcia went out as his unnatural resurrection abruptly ended. The limbs went slack next, dropping and falling off. The body hit the floor.
Dead again. Returned to what they should have been, what they should have stayed: the empty parts of men long gone from this life.
The Oval Office was suddenly as quiet as a grave.
SIXTY-NINE
C
adre heard the faintest rasping of breath. He shut the case and went to Griff.
The older man lay like a bit of wastepaper that had missed the basket. Blood pumped from the wound in his midsection, but slowly.
He didn’t have much time left.
Cade leaned down, though he didn’t have to get closer to hear him.
“The president?” Griff whispered.
“Safe,” Cade said. “You did well.”
Pink foam poured from Griff’s nose and mouth. “It’s bad.”
“I don’t know how you’re breathing now.”
Griff coughed, as close as he could get to a laugh. “Thanks.” More pink foam.
Cade held the case before Griff’s clouding eyes. “This could save you.”
Griff looked pained, and it wasn’t the agony from dying. It was disappointment. Shook his head, as much as he was able. “Not right,” he said. “You know. It’s time.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Griff convulsed once, began trembling. It took long seconds for him to speak again. “Cade ... Good ... Bye.”
Cade put the case down. He took Griff’s hand in both of his, shook it formally.
“Tired,” Griff said. Then his jaw went slack as the life went out of him.
ZACH ENTERED THE ROOM, saw the creature’s remains on the floor spread over the presidential seal. He saw Cade, kneeling over Griff.
“Did we win?” he asked.
Cade reached down and closed Griff’s eyes.
“We didn’t lose,” he said. “That’s enough.”
Zach looked down at Griff and realized what had happened. His breath caught in his throat.
From behind the desk, the president lifted himself off the floor. He shook his head, as if to clear it.
Cade went to him and helped him stand. The president looked over at Zach, then at Griff’s body.
“I’m sorry,” the president told Cade. “He was a good man.”
Cade nodded.
The intercom beeped, a surprisingly mundane noise. Curtis answered. “This is the president.”
On the other end, a new Secret Service agent babbled with relief. Communications lines were back up. Reinforcements were here, along with the army.
Curtis cut him off, his voice smooth and easy with command. “Keep the airspace around the White House clear. Establish a perimeter on the street. And bring in medical attention. We have wounded.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President. Are you all right?”