The Graves of Saints (25 page)

There were murmurs and nods of agreement and one by one, the mages and vampires and other supernatural creatures in the room paused by Octavian to say goodbye and receive any other instructions
he wanted to share. When Amber threw her arms around him and hugged him hard, whispering fresh condolences for the death of Nikki and what now seemed to be Charlotte’s death, Allison paused
to watch them. Despite her death-goddess appearance, the Reaper really was barely more than a girl. Octavian held onto her arms as he thanked her, obviously touched by her affection.

So strange
, she thought.
We are such sentimental monsters
.

In the years since she had first encountered the Shadows she had often thought of a line from one of her favorite movies,
Blade Runner
. The android fugitives in the film were described
as ‘more human than human’, and the words echoed in her mind in times such as these.

In moments, the room had emptied out until only Octavian, Metzger, and Allison remained.

‘What’s going on?’ Octavian said.

‘My question exactly,’ Allison added. ‘I could read it in your face. You’ve got something new on Cortez.’

Metzger did not smile, but his eyes lit up with purpose. ‘Not quite yet, but we will. Your friend Charlotte led us to one of Cortez’s people in that club in New York, a vampire named
Danny Rouge. He could give us nothing on Cortez that we didn’t already know, but we did manage to get another name out of him, a vampire out of New York named Holzman. We don’t know for
sure, but we don’t think Holzman is one of Cortez’s minions. This is a serious monster, an old-timer, not some punk off the street that Cortez bled and made one of his foot
soldiers.’

Octavian and Allison exchanged a glance.

‘I want to see him,’ Octavian said. ‘Now.’

‘We’re just about to question him,’ Metzger replied. ‘We were waiting for you.’

Octavian went to the door, opening it for Metzger to lead the way. Allison followed, wondering if her presence would really be necessary. When Hannibal had made her into a vampire, he had done
terrible things to her – things she had done her best to forget. The word ‘torture’ seemed insufficient to describe the experience. In the years since, she had done horrible
things when necessity required them, always with a cold knot of disgust in the pit of her stomach. But in both giving and receiving such treatment, she had learned all too well how to get the
answers that she needed, especially from a vampire.

Reluctantly, she followed Octavian and Metzger down the corridor, thinking of this Holzman and wondering how old he really was, and how intimately familiar he might be with pain.

Saint-Denis, France

The sky above Saint-Denis roiled with dark smoke that hung thick and low, blotting out the sun and choking those still foolish or unfortunate enough to have remained behind
during the evacuations. Father Laurent had a surgical mask covering his nose and mouth, a gift thrust into his hands by a passing paramedic four or five hours earlier. He rode in the passenger seat
of a military vehicle whose driver seemed determined to bump over every piece of debris in their path, painfully jostling his injured arm.

‘I don’t like leaving,’ he said. ‘It feels like surrender.’

‘It’s only temporary,’ came a voice from the back seat, the young Italian UN soldier who had been his touchstone all day. Ponticellio, that was his name. Father Laurent was
having trouble remembering. He blamed it on exhaustion, though he could not help but wonder if he had hit his head at some point and forgotten it.

Father Laurent craned around in his seat and glanced back the way they’d come. Even from this angle he could see the utter destruction of Saint-Denis. The little town had become a smoking
ruin. Flames still burned in certain areas, though the worst of the fires had gone out, leaving charred wreckage behind. And smoke . . . plenty of smoke.

With the sky so dark it was impossible to tell the time of day, but he thought it must only be late afternoon. Turning again in his seat, he tried to get a glimpse of the horizon, toward Paris.
In the distance he could see blue-white skies and sunlight.
Safety
, he thought.
Sanctuary. But for how long?
Hundreds of people were dead and all of Saint-Denis in ruin. If they
did not hold the demons here, the devastation would spread, and soon there would be thousands dead instead of hundreds.

‘Is it?’ he asked. ‘Only temporary, I mean? Because I don’t think it is temporary for Saint-Denis. All that remains of it is rubble. Half of the basilica still stands,
but it will crumble soon enough.’

It felt blasphemous to say such things, but it also felt true.

The engine roared as the driver took them off the street to avoid abandoned cars that blocked their way. They drove across a wide green park in the midst of the city, accompanied by the clanking
of a pair of tanks that had already blazed the trail and the growl of other vehicles participating in the final exodus. The military were abandoning the city. Another backward glance showed the
dark, insect things in the air, pursuing them. Gunfire ripped the sky, cutting through smoke and tearing apart the insectoid demons.

Father Laurent closed his eyes tightly and prayed for the young woman he had last seen on the stone stairs beneath the basilica, giving birth to demons. He prayed that for her own sake she had
been crushed by falling masonry so that her nightmare would be over. It made him feel nauseous and filthy to wish someone dead, even for their own sake, but he prayed for her death nevertheless.
Sadly, he believed she must still live. If these things – utukki, the sorcerers had called them – were being born from her womb, then he felt sure she still lived.

He wanted to weep for her, this woman who had been condemned to Hell on Earth. He had told the soldiers and the sorcerers about her but all they had done was promise him they would do what they
could. He was not even sure that Ponticello’s commanding officer had believed him, though the horror in the young Turkish sorceress’s eyes had told him that she believed.

So many hours had passed since then and nothing had changed. They had not stopped the demons from sowing chaos, only slowed them. Now they had another plan, and he hoped that it worked, for the
sake of France and even those beyond. There was no way to know how many of these utukki would be born. Was their number infinite? Surely not, but it seemed so.

Artillery fire thumped the air behind them. Father Laurent winced and held his injured arm against his chest. Closing his eyes, he said silent prayers for the dead and for those valiant men and
women who were standing against the forces of whatever fresh Hell was unleashing its monsters into the world.

Several minutes passed during which the priest kept his eyes closed. Even with the rough ride and the thunder of war and the fear of imminent attack, he might have drifted off for a bit, because
the next time he was jostled enough to open his eyes, they were on the outskirts of Saint-Denis, far from the park. Smoke still filled the sky but it was a thin gray veil that the sun managed to
burn through here and there.

‘All right, Father,’ Ponticello said, patting the headrest of his seat. ‘You wanted to talk to Major Rojas, now’s your chance.’

The young soldier opened the door for him and Father Laurent slid carefully out of the vehicle. The priest glanced around and saw the tanks and artillery lining up, facing back toward the center
of town, though only the fires and smoke could be seen from this distance. Several demons were flying in their direction until a barrage of gunfire and a shell from the leftmost tank destroyed
them.

A handful of smaller vehicles had been parked in a wide, rough circle behind the battle line and Major Rojas stood in the middle of that circle with the old Moroccan mystic and the Turkish
sorceress, as well as half a dozen other men and women, officers from the French army and the UN security forces. The old Moroccan –
Chakroun, that’s his name
– stood
facing toward town with his hands in the air, as if he were just as formidable as the tanks in holding back the demons.

The sorceress, Beril Demirci, knelt on the ground before him, facing the same direction. She had a dagger in one hand, the blade glinting silver in a stray ray of sunlight that managed to filter
through the smoke. In that pool of momentary light, Father Laurent saw her draw the blade across her palm. She tossed the blade aside as the Moroccan raised his voice, shouting at the sky. Beril
held her hand above a bowl, though what other ingredients it might have contained the priest could not see from this distance.

As Father Laurent followed Ponticello over to the circle of vehicles, he saw the sorceress pick up her discarded dagger. She used it to stir the contents of the bowl, adding more of her own
blood, and then she raised the bowl and poured its oddly viscous contents over the blade, coating first one side and then the other, and then pouring the balance of the mixture onto the hand that
clenched the dagger.

The Turkish girl paused only a moment, glancing back at Chakroun. Closer to them, now, Father Laurent saw that the Moroccan’s flesh had been painted with wild designs, symbols and runes
from some arcane faith. The priest ought to have been offended, but a man praying for deliverance in a world of magic could not afford to take offense at its practice.

The sorceress, Beril, raised the dagger over her head and plunged it into the earth as Chakroun screamed some final benediction. The blade sank deeply into the soil, a splash of light bursting
forth from the point of impact – light so crimson that for a moment Father Laurent thought it a splash of blood. The soldiers and commanders standing around spoke to one another but their
words were lost in the thunder of fresh artillery. Distracted, Father Laurent looked up and his breath caught in his throat.

There were not three utukki, now, but a dozen of the demons buzzing through the black smoke toward them, emerging from that cloud of fire and destruction. Thirteen of them, now – more
– and Father Laurent felt his heart sink. Had they sensed the efforts of these modern mystics? Did they fear whatever magic might be unfolding here and thus were focusing their attack?

All for naught
, he thought. The mystics had failed. That splash of blood-red light could do nothing to save them.

But a low thrum had begun to fill the air, growing in volume until it drowned out the Moroccan’s chanting. Father Laurent glanced over and looked on in amazement as that splash of red
light spread right and left and began to build upward, like a crimson-hued waterfall flowing in reverse, a fountain of churning light that built moment by moment.

Holding his breath, the priest watched as the barrier rose and spread, picking up speed until it seemed to zip itself closed. The last echoes of artillery fire still echoed in the air but the
shooting had stopped. When the first of the demons emerged fully from the smoke and collided with the barrier, Father Laurent could hear the utukki’s furious shriek. It faltered, tumbling
from the sky, and alighted for just a moment on the other side of the barrier from where the sorcerers and officers had gathered. It rose and shook itself like a dog, its chitinous shell clacking,
before it sprang into the air to attempt the attack again.

There were three of them, then five, then at least eight, all striking the barrier like bees darting against a windowpane, searching for an exit.

Father Laurent smiled. Whatever magic had been used to create this barrier, it was holding. He strode away from Ponticelli, the pain in his arm forgotten as he approached officers who were
congratulating each other. He saw Major Rojas talking with Beril and Chakroun and made his way over to them.

‘There you are, Father,’ Beril said sweetly. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I should ask you the same.’

She had her hand tucked against her chest, the palm wrapped in gauze and tape.

‘I’ll need stitches,’ she said, ‘but it was worth it, wouldn’t you say?’ she asked, smiling and proud of herself.

How could he reply to that when he did not know what toll such magic might take on her? The ritual she had performed had required her blood and such offerings were often associated with dark
magic and occult evil. And yet, no matter what danger she might have put her own soul in by indulging in such practices, she had done so for only the most noble and virtuous of reasons; surely God
could not punish her for that.

‘I think you’ve done an extraordinary job,’ Father Laurent said, nodding to Chakroun as well. That, at least, was the truth.

Major Rojas had turned away, focused on the seething red barrier that had trapped the demons in the ruin they had made of Saint-Denis. The smoke from the fires had been trapped as well, and as
Father Laurent watched it began to thicken, shrouding the streets and trees and buildings in a gray-black cloud. Major Rojas wore a half smile, as if she did not want to commit entirely to the
relief she must have been feeling. Father Laurent thought her a very intelligent woman. The barrier was holding for now, but there was no way of knowing what new pressures might be brought to bear
by the hellish forces now locked inside.

‘What now, Major?’ Father Laurent asked.

‘Now we use our time wisely,’ Major Rojas replied, turning to him. ‘Mr Chakroun and Miss Demirci will consult with other mages, including Octavian if we can track him down.
Caging these things is not going to be a real solution . . . not when we have to assume that more and more of them are being born in there. One way or another, we’ve got to put an end to
that.’

Father Laurent shivered and the pain in his shoulder throbbed deeply. He stared at Major Rojas but she did not avert her gaze.

‘You’re going to try to kill her. The young woman afflicted by the demon, this innocent who is enduring a hell we can’t even begin to imagine, being forced to give birth to
these things over and over.’

Major Rojas did not lower her gaze, but she did avert her eyes for just a moment, long enough for Father Laurent to know that she felt the grim weight of the choices that lay ahead.