The Damned (38 page)

“And if she doesn’t?” Juan asked. “If she leaves you here to rot?”

Antonio raised his chin. His fangs extended over his lower lip. His eyes burned. “I won’t rot. I’m a vampire. I’m immortal.”

Father Juan heard the change in Antonio’s choice of words. Not “we,” but “I.” Was this progress?

“I know you’re tormented by what you did,” Father Juan said. “I know you want forgiveness. And deep in your heart you know that too.”

Antonio’s answering smile was cold. “There is no depth in my heart, you poor, deluded man. My heart is dead.”

Juan put his hand on Jenn’s shoulder. He could feel her shaking. “Your heart beats for this girl.”

“My fangs extend for her, but that’s all.”

Father Juan felt a horrible chill. Perhaps Antonio could not be reclaimed. Jamie would gladly stake him, if it came to that. If only he could rekindle Antonio’s depth of feeling for Jenn. Surely that would bring him back. Love was the most powerful force in the universe.

It was time to try a different way to express that force.

“Skye,” Juan said, without taking his eyes from Antonio. “It’s the full moon. After you’ve taken a nice, long nap and had something to eat, we’ll draw down the Moon together.”

“Oh, Father, really?” Skye cried. “I’ve never accepted the Goddess into my being.”

“High time, then,” Father Juan said. “I’ll act as your high priest, with your permission.”

Her tired, thin face took on light. “Thank you, Father.”

“Go and rest.” Juan made a show of sitting casually in Skye’s vacated chair. “I’ll stay with Antonio for a bit.”

“
Sí
, sit closer,” Antonio whispered, laughing, as if he had just made an excellent joke.

“Take Jenn with you,” Juan added.

“Be careful,” Skye said. “He’s been trying to mesmerize me.”

“He won’t be able to mesmerize me,” Juan replied.

“Closer, closer,” Antonio murmured, gesturing with his fingers. “Come, little bull, to the matador.”

“Antonio,” Jenn said.
“Please.”

“You have but to ask,
señorita,”
he replied. Turning, he focused his gaze on her. “Come to me,
Jenn.”

“Go, Jenn.
Now,”
Juan ordered her.

Numb from head to toe, Jenn went with Skye out the door. Noah was standing as sentry. Jenn tried to dig down and find the strength he claimed she had, but she had nothing.

“Things will get better,” Noah said to Jenn, and she tried to respond. But things were worse. She had seen Antonio through new eyes. He was a Cursed One, and nothing more. Whatever had made him special was gone.

“Jenn,” Noah said, and she wanted to bury her head against his chest and sob. But if she did, she was afraid she would never stop.

“Father Juan and I are going to perform a very special ritual,” Skye reminded her. “It might work.” Her eyes glinted. “It
will
work.”

“Thank you, Skye. Now go and rest,” Jenn said, ashamed that she hadn’t been more persistent about making Skye take care of herself. Antonio’s need had seemed greater. But everyone on the team had needs.

Skye kissed Jenn’s cheek and left. Jenn stood beside Noah. He smelled of soap and a bit of sweat. She felt his body heat. No matter how much she’d wanted to feel warm beside Antonio, she never had. He had no body heat, and his skin was cold to the touch. Maybe it had been a crazy thing to do, letting herself fall in love with him. But she hadn’t “let” herself. She simply hadn’t been able to stop herself.

“I don’t like it that he’s in there alone,” she said, meaning Father Juan but thinking of Antonio.

“Me neither,” Noah said. His voice was strained, and when she glanced up at him, there was a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were thinking of something else.

People were walking toward them in the lengthening shadows. Jenn squinted, making out the figures of her grandmother and Jamie, and she stiffened.

“Jamie’s here to relieve me for sentry duty,” Noah reminded her. “I’ll go sit with Father Juan for a while.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, grateful to him.

“Jenn.” Noah’s voice caught, and she looked up at him. His features softened, and he reached forward, looping an errant strand of dark auburn hair around her ear. As he lowered his hand, her heartbeat stuttered, and she felt a flush rush up her neck.

“What?” she asked, her voice cracking.

He quirked a half smile at her, then turned as her grandmother and Jamie approached.

“Father Juan in there?” Jamie said, his voice ice cold. His neck was still bandaged.

“Yes.”

“Eri needs to talk to him.”

“I’ll give him the message,” Jenn said.

Jamie gave his head a sharp shake. “
I
will.”

Fear shot through her, but she reminded herself that Noah would be in there too, and he would stop Jamie from doing anything crazy. She wasn’t sure what she thought Jamie might do. It had been easier to deal with him when he’d been off his game.

“You’re on guard duty, Jamie,” Gramma Esther reminded him. “You can’t desert your post. C’mon, Jenn. Let’s walk.”

“I will tell him,” Noah said to Jamie, nodding to Jenn as he unlocked the door and slipped inside, leaving Jamie standing at the door, fuming.

Before Jenn could say anything, Esther turned and walked briskly away. Jenn followed.

“You’re going to have to watch him,” Gramma Esther said.

“We’re not much of a team, are we,” Jenn murmured.

Her grandmother grunted. “Oh, child, the fights we used to have back in the day.” She shook her head. “It used to drive me crazy. I mean, we were fighting ‘the Man.’” She made air quotes. “Did we have to fight each other, too?”

“That’s what I keep thinking,” Jenn said. “The Cursed Ones are threatening to annihilate us. Can’t we all just do the right thing?”

“By whose definition?” Her grandmother took Jenn’s hand and laced her fingers through it. “We need to talk about what to do next. Greg contacted both of us. What did he tell you? Did he talk about Project Crusade?”

Jenn’s brows shot up. “Project
what?”

“Crusade. Greg’s people have been systematically contacting resistance cells. They’re creating a database of information to help the cause.”

“Like what?” Jenn asked. “What have they found out?”

“He hasn’t told me. Maybe there’s nothing to tell, yet.”

“Well, like what kind of database? For making a weapon? Dantalion was trying to create supersoldiers, and vampires that can walk in daylight. Did they finally retrieve some of that data?”

“Like I said, I don’t know, Jenn. But here’s one thing I’ve learned: One person
can
make a difference. But no individual is more important than another.”

Gramma Esther looked at her hard. “Our mission is not just to win the war. It’s to wipe vampires off the face of this earth. You as a hunter must agree with that.”

“Yes,” Jenn said.

“And that’s what Antonio was fighting for, when he was Antonio,” Gramma Esther added.

“He still is Antonio,” Jenn said, balling her fists. “I know it.”

Her grandmother stopped. The setting sun cast a halo around her gray hair. “I thought I understood the human heart. Before you and Heather were born, there were two people in this world I loved more than anything. Your grandfather and your father.”

Her gaze grew steely. “But Papa Che is gone, and after what your father did, well, let’s say that I’ll never let my heart overrule my head again.”

Jenn’s throat tightened. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“We need to win this war by whatever means are necessary. Our leaders will be faced with hard choices.”

She gazed at her granddaughter with determination. “And you, my dear, are one of the leaders.”

Holgar’s slurred, drugged howls hurt Skye’s heart as she waited for Father Juan to join her for their ritual. The moon was full, and Holgar was so loaded up on tranquilizers he wouldn’t be able to slip out of his cage—a pen, ironically, that had been used to contain livestock, same as Antonio’s. Skye had thrown a tarp over it so that no one would be able to see him during his transformation.

Skye had spent an hour alone arranging branches and stones to make an altar for the ritual of Drawing Down the Moon. Then she had created a sacred pentagram with salt, and scattered rose petals that Father Juan had brought from Spain. She was touched to see that he’d also brought her an athame—a ritual knife—as well as a robe, herbs, oils, and crystals that could be used for a variety of rituals. When she’d asked him if he’d had any trouble getting any of it through security at the airport, he had simply smiled and shaken his head.

Now, in her dark blue hooded silken robe, Skye couldn’t imagine a Catholic priest participating in this most sacred of witchly rites, in which the designated High Priestess of a coven’s ritual would become filled with the Goddess Herself. Growing up as a White Witch, Skye had witnessed the miracle dozens of times, as each adult woman of the coven assumed the role. She had dreamed of the day that she would stand in the center of the coven’s pentagram and greet each member by name, in the voice of their revered Sacred Mother. It was a rite of passage for female White Witches.

Such an honor had never befallen Skye before. It would happen only if everyone who participated in the rite pledged their loyalty to the Goddess. But Father Juan had dedicated his life to the Christian god.

In addition, Father Juan would be serving as Skye’s Long Arm of the Law—the male who would ensure the safety of the High Priestess as she invoked the forces of magick. It implied a relationship built on deep trust. She had not been trustworthy back in Salamanca. When she had applied to the academy, Father Juan had asked her straight out if she had any enemies who could prove a threat. The whole reason she’d gone to Salamanca was to learn how to protect herself from Estefan, but Skye had lied to Father Juan, and had continued to lie every time she’d heard Estefan’s voice in her head and hadn’t told anyone. Because of her untrustworthiness Eriko and Jamie had almost died, and Antonio had been captured by Aurora and made into what he was now.

“Blessed be,” Father Juan said, stepping from the shadows and into the moonlight. He, too, was wearing a dark blue robe. He carried a long tree branch nearly as tall as he was in his left hand.

“Merrily met,” she replied. “Please, come and join the circle.” He lifted his hood over his head. She could no longer see his face.

She cleared her throat.

“Father Juan, I have to ask you—can you set your Christian god aside to do this?”

“Sí,”
he replied firmly.

“And focus only on the Trinity of the Goddess?”

“Maiden, mother, crone,” he answered.

“And you will serve as my high priest and do all things that I ask of you, in service to the Lady.”

“I will.”

“Blessed be,” she said.

“Blessed be,” he intoned.

“And we will harm none.”

“An it harm none, do what thou wilt,” he assured her. “And I will make you safe.”

“All right then. We are here to bring the Goddess into our midst, so that She can heal Antonio de la Cruz.”

“So mote it be,” Father Juan said.

“We are here to offer Her love and protection to Antonio de la Cruz, so that his spirit will no longer be troubled.”

“So mote it be,” Father Juan said again. Then he stood beside her and extended the branch, moving in a circle and touching each of the points of her pentagram with its tip. “I am the Long Arm of the Law. No evil shall enter our circle. No imp, no succubus, no incubus, no demon. I stand the protector of the Lady Goddess and all who love her.”

A wind blew at the rose petals. Father Juan tapped them with the branch.

“All is calm,” he proclaimed. “All is bright.”

The wind died down.

Skye took deep breaths and felt the night all around her, the night that had grown so terrifying for humans. The moon had belonged to the Goddess, but the Cursed Ones had stolen it from Her. Witches were now afraid to worship under the stars, fearing Cursed Ones would slaughter them, and met in buildings instead.

Imagining moonbeams on her hair, she let go of her resentments, her fears, and her heartaches as best she could. The reigning principle of the Goddess was love, and, as was said, great love cast out great fear.

“I call out the name of three, three, three,” she murmured, using the words of her family’s tradition. She visualized the moonbeams traveling through her head and down her body, filling her heart with light. Moving down through her lower body, through her legs and then her toes, and into the chilly earth beneath her bare feet. Then down into the soil and the roots, and the soul of the world. “Queen of all light, of all night, of all right.”

“Blessed be,” Father Juan said.

They moved through the steps, invoking the Goddess. Skye kept waiting for a sign that she was doing the ritual properly, but she mustn’t hold any negative thought. She mustn’t hold any thought. She must purify herself, cleanse her heart, and make herself a vessel for the Goddess to inhabit. She must freely give up her own will and ego so that the Goddess could live through her.

“Don’t try, Skye,” Father Juan said soothingly. “Just let it happen.”

She could almost hear Holgar imitating Yoda:
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Nervous laughter threatened to bubble out of her.

And then the moonbeams became brighter, and she sensed the descent of the Goddess from Luna, the Moon, down the silvery paths of light to the field, and to the star of rose petals and salt, and to
her.

“Hecate, Selene, Diana,” a voice rolled out of her. “I am known but little known. Know me now.”

The Goddess was wrapped in incandescent light. Slowly She rose in the gauzy mists of the northern lights, colors rolling around Her like blankets of shimmering velvet. The heavens shone as She ascended back into Her sphere until, gazing downward at the sapphire planet—the poor, sweet Earth—tears of compassion streamed from Her eyes and became stars.

Love filled Her. Love was Her. And then the Goddess dissolved into Her vital essence, the one true particle that formed all creation: love. It billowed, and streamed, and filled, and danced. Love . . .
loved.