Dust to Dust (29 page)

Rainier was engaged with the others, bringing most of them down quickly with his expertise in wielding the sharpened crosses. But Scott…

She was stunned to see that he had already engaged the vampire, which had made a run for Scott, like a bull, and Scott hadn't even tried to dodge him. He'd met him head on and caught him by the shoulders, slammed him against the police car, and then taken hold of his head between his hands.

And twisted.

The creature fell to the ground.

“He's not dead!” Melanie shrieked. “Stop him!”

The vampire had been playing possum, trying to gather his strength and his fury. As Melanie cried out, he reached for Scott's leg. But Scott was ready; he slammed the spiked end of a cross straight through the creature's head.

She heard a babbling sound and realized it was the remaining police officer.

“Get into the car! Now!” she shouted at him.

The officer, shaking, let her maneuver him into the car. As she did so, Scott reached for the man's gun, then turned and shot another of the creatures in the head.

Screaming and still babbling, the officer drove the car straight into the wall of the ruins.

Melanie was about to turn to run after him, but Rainier let out a hiss, and then she heard it.

Marching.

An army of bones was rising from the depths now. Some had only one arm, others were missing ribs. Mouths dropped open and snapped closed; hands carried old knives and swords.

Melanie began swinging one of her crosses, knocking the first rank to pieces, but Scott stepped quickly past her.

“They'll just put themselves back together,” he warned, then he used the flame thrower again, charring the bones to ash. When one slipped through, he used the snub-nosed revolver he had taken from the cop to explode its skull. Rainier became a whirl of motion, kicking and shooting, bringing them down in piles of dust, stamping on limbs that continued to move blindly across the ground.

Someone screamed from a block away; Melanie decided she was the least important in the current fight, and turned and ran in the direction of the scream. “I'm on it!” she shouted back over her shoulder.

The night seemed unnaturally dark. Even with the full moon rising in the sky, the ruins cast impenetrable shadows, and the surrounding trees blocked out the glow. She heard the hair-raising scream again, a cry of pure terror, but she saw nothing.

Finally she saw a dark form in front of her, low on the ground, curled up like a large ball. She slowed her pace, staring all around, looking for danger.

A breeze rose from nowhere, lifting her hair.

The next sound she heard wasn't a scream but a low moan, which quickly turned into the wrenching sound of a child's sobbing.

“It's all right,” Melanie said soothingly, moving
more quickly toward the huddled shadow. “It's all right. Who are you?
Sono gentile. Che…?
”

She reached the huddled child and hunkered down, lifting the child's face by the chin. And then she gasped, stunned. She was staring into the face of her little sister, the child she had been so tempted to rip into and drain so many years before.

“No,” she moaned, trembling.

And then her sister laughed and grew to a massive height, a giant shadow that covered the face of the moon. She backed away as it suddenly exploded into a massive rain of fetid decay, and charred flesh and bone, all of which began to swirl, like a nightmare eddy, all around her.

S
cott swung around, certain that he'd heard something behind him. When he turned, he saw that Rainier, too, was reconnoitering, anxious to be prepared for whatever form of the living—or the dead—might be coming after them next. But for the moment they were alone in a field of bone dust and scraps of rotting shrouds. The air was alive with the remnants of gunpowder and bone dust, and the smell of charring was strong. The fissure to the black gaping underworld was quiet, as if waiting for them to enter.

“I think we have to go in,” Rainier said regretfully.

“I agree. But…where's Melanie?” Scott asked.

“She ran after that last scream. We…have to prevent all the violence we can, but…”

“He's trying to split us up,” Scott said.

Together, they turned, racing as one in the direction Melanie had taken. As soon as they rounded the corner, they saw her.

She was caught in the center of a strange back whirlwind. Her eyes were dazed, and she was making no attempt to move.

Scott rushed forward but was thrown back by the violence of the storm. Rainier helped him scramble to his feet.

“Together!” Rainier roared over the wailing of the whirlwind. “The holy water!”

Scott made it to his feet and braced himself. They approached the maelstrom together, tossing holy water as they went. Scott started chanting Latin prayers he remembered from school as they made headway, a fraction of an inch at a time. When they got closer, both men yelled Melanie's name, but she showed no sign of having heard them. They penetrated the whirling black storm at last, and Scott's fingers touched Melanie's arm.

But they couldn't pull her free. All three of them became caught up in the black eddy, trapped where they stood. There was one weapon they hadn't used yet; none of them had wanted to use it—it was their last measure. But now Scott reached into his pocket, straining against the force of the dark whirlwind, to slip his fingers around the vial of Sister Maria Elizabeta's blood.

And he released it into the stream.

A terrifying shrieking rose around them, as if a thousand banshees were wailing all at once in fury.

You will die in the end. You will die in the mire of the earth, in the fires of hell. You will suffer eternal agony….

But despite the words that insinuated themselves into Scott's mind, the storm began to slow. Scott strained with all his might and dragged the others with him. They crashed down onto the ground a few feet
beyond the borders of the dying storm, and as they lay there the fetid muck hailed down over them.

“It worked,” Melanie said in awe. “Maria Elizabeta is still with us. But Bael…I saw…my sister, Scott.” The pain in her eyes was agonizing to see.

Scott pushed himself up, offered Melanie a hand.

Rainier was already back on his feet.

“It's time to go in,” he said quietly.

They could hear the sound of chaos in the city around them, but they would have to count on the Alliance and the police to take care of that. The creature in the catacombs had to be bested or not only the city but the world would be lost.

“Are you all right?” Scott asked Melanie.

She smiled as confidently as she could and glanced over at Rainier.

“Let's do it,” she said.

“Yeah,” Scott said hoarsely. “Looks like this is it.”

There was only a small opening for them to actually slip through—apparently one reason so many of the skeletons had been broken was from their efforts in escaping—and that was barely visible. They dug away at the rocks and dirt and brush that blocked the opening. When they had enough cleared away, Rainier shined a flashlight into the crevice. Old stone steps, built right into the earth, were visible in the flashlight's glow.

The darkness—and Bael—waited beyond.

With Rainier's light leading the way, Scott made it down to the bottom step.

It was like stepping into a nightmare.

The catacombs here were truly ancient, and they
held a scent of brimstone as well as mold and decay. The earth beneath his feet was hard packed, the walls stacked with narrow, tightly packed shelves holding the dead, and he was dismayed at the number remaining. He'd hoped they had already fought off most of this army. He looked warily, right and left, as he passed along the corridor. Melanie was directly behind him, with Rainier bringing up the rear.

They all stopped at the same time.

The head of a skeleton to Scott's left suddenly began to turn of its own accord, as if driven by the ghosts of muscles and tendons long gone. Scott was tense, waiting, and he knew that behind him, Melanie and Rainier waited, too, wondering if the thing would knit itself back together and come after them.

A terrible, rasping whisper began to hiss through the broken and toothless jaws. It became a laugh, a low, evil chuckle. Then it uttered dry words. “Bael is calling you,” it said. “Now, begins the end of days.”

Broken bits of finger bone began to form together, and the skeletal hand was suddenly whole and pointing toward the darkness beyond. “Go,” the voice commanded with military authority. Then the terrible laughing began again.

Enough.

Scott swung his bare fist into the bony head, splintering it into a hundred pieces.

Wind, coming from nowhere, suddenly began to rush around them. The skeleton whose skull Scott had just crashed clattered, but couldn't seem to pull what was left of itself together.

But the other skeletons didn't seem to be having the same problem. As if a switch had been turned on, they began to rebuild themselves in monstrous numbers.

And the wind that seemed to be giving them life was not coming from the hole in the earth that had allowed them entry.

It was coming from the darkness ahead.

Melanie stared at Scott, shouting above the clicking and clacking of the bones. “Go on! Stop Bael! We'll follow.”

Scott didn't want to leave her alone with Rainier to face the growing skeletal army, but she was right. Someone had to go after Bael
now.

And then there was a voice in his head. Lucien's voice, this time.

There are three of you: Capricorn, Taurus and Virgo. Virgo will be reason. Taurus will hold the line. Capricorn must go on ahead alone.

The skeletons were rising en masse. Scott demolished those he could on the way to find Bael, anxious to rid his companions of as many as possible while he made his way to the source of the evil power.

Ahead was only darkness that swallowed all light.

He had no choice but to move forward. The dead were awakening everywhere, but as Scott made his way deeper under the earth, it seemed that their purpose was changing. Heads lifted, arms pointed, and there was the eerie sound of malicious laughter. The clattering of bony jaws as they tried to work grew louder, as well, but the sound no longer seemed to be coming from the skeletons he passed, it was issuing from the far depths of the tunnel.

I am waiting, foolish man. I am waiting, and I am ready to end this interference now. Come now and it will be you and me alone, and you will finally see the face of Bael.

Through the darkness ahead, he saw light at last. It wasn't the natural light of the full moon outside, nor was it the artificial light of a flashlight. It was a flickering red glow.

The smell of brimstone on the air was so thick he could barely breathe.

He stopped, pausing to get his bearings as he realized that he was approaching a central room, just like the one in his dream. The tunnel widened slightly where he stood, and the unearthly glow that had guided him was located just ahead.

He moved forward slowly. There were burning sconces all around the room, and what looked like a massive sarcophagus in the center.

The tomb was cracked and ajar. There was ancient lettering etched into the top of it. And standing there, shrouded in a black hood and cloak, was a presence.

The laughter began again.

And then the thing's voice reached him loud and clear.

“Time to play this farce out to the end, foolish man. In your dreams, you saw the nun. I am certainly no nun, my friend. So…let's finish the game. All that has happened thus far has been a game, don't you know? It's been fun to jerk the strings of the puppets, fun to watch men rip and tear into one another, and bleed and die. And the vampires and other creatures of the night?
They are damned already, of course, but I enjoyed it as they followed me, worshipping me, believing I would give them eternal pleasure. As if I could be bothered. I eat flesh for breakfast, my friend, and finish out the day with souls for a nightcap.”

The scent in the air, the sound of the demon's voice, the weird red light and the scent of brimstone mixed with death, all worked on Scott's fear, on his natural instinct to survive.

But Scott stood his ground.

“Fuck you,” he said, praying that there was no tremor in his voice. “A game? Then it might interest you to know we're two steps ahead. All across the world, the forces of light have prevented the mayhem you thought you would cause. This is a game, all right, and you're nothing but a two-year-old crying on the playground.”

The roar that rose from the creature's mouth was like the rush of a blast furnace, hot air searing Scott and filling his nostrils with the scent of foul black earth. Scott fought to remain standing against the onslaught.

Then the earth began to tremble.

Suddenly the thing by the altar started to grow, it's evil laughter deepening as it grew in size. It rose higher and higher, and grew tentacles as it stretched, powerful cords of muscle and sinew and death that began winding around him, choking him, stealing his breath.

“Silly man, you will die so easily,” it said.

 

“Rainier!”

Melanie cried out. A skeleton was poised at his back, holding the skull of another in its hands, ready to smash
it down on his head. Behind it, an army massed in numbers too great to count.

Rainier spun around. He pulled out his vial of pure blood, and tossed it at the skeleton and the hordes standing behind it. The thing paused, and suddenly the skeletons were attacking each other, bones fighting the bones.

“The blood!” Rainier cried. “The blood has turned the tide. Any skeleton touched by it is fighting for us now. We can finish off the rest and get to Scott. Where's your vial? You need to use it.”

“I can't. We might need it when we get to Scott,” Melanie said.

He stared at her and nodded. His flashlight had fallen in the battle, and he quickly retrieved it. He played the beam down the length of the tunnel, and they started forward.

The earth suddenly exploded before them, sending bits of rock, mud and bone showering down on them.

 

The demon's tentacles were around him now, choking him slowly. Very slowly.

“I can't have you die too quickly. Mortals are so fragile, but I like to take my time. I will make talons for myself, rip your flesh inch by inch, watch you bleed until you are nearly dead, and then see the light go out of your eyes as you suffocate. That you thought that you could go against me…”

The demon's tentacles began to grow and change; they became like the talons of a huge bird, stubby and gnarled, razor sharp at the tips. And there were so many
of them. So many. Scott couldn't breathe. He'd been so foolish. He thought, his pride in his own strength too great….

But he'd never fully tested himself. He concentrated on building strength within his mind. He flexed his shoulders and caught hold of the closest talon, the one threatening his eyes. He twisted it with all his strength. He forced himself to think of the kindness and the knowledge of Sister Maria Elizabeta, and he thought that he heard her voice in his head.

You are Capricorn. The strength of the earth. A man, but also the earth, itself. You have the power. You have the strength.

The demon howled as Scott snapped the talon in two, to hang uselessly in the air. He ripped at another and another, tearing at the rubbery arms with the razors at the end. The more he fought, the more adrenaline seemed to rush through him, and the greater his fury grew. The thing began to loosen its hold on him bit by bit. It was losing strength.

The earth trembled again, accompanied by a deafening roar, and then Scott fell; he was free. But he knew from the scent of brimstone and death that he hadn't beaten his enemy, only staved him off temporarily. The darkness deepened, and from somewhere within it he heard a sudden scream.

Melanie.

“Melanie! Where are you?” he cried.

A sobbing sound followed. He inched his way through the dark, trying to discover the source of the sound.
Where was she?

He touched something that seemed like flesh and blood, but his eyes were tearing from the sulfur in the air, and in the darkness he could barely see. “Melanie?”