Blood on Silk (38 page)

“Jesus Christ,” Mihaela whispered.

Saloman.

Quite an alliance, Saloman thought on his way down. There might even be something for him to do.

Although his sudden movement had disturbed a nearby bat that screeched as he left the turret, only Zoltán picked up his presence at first, spinning to face him and forcing his way through the hunters and other vampires to get a better line of vision.

And Elizabeth, looking incongruously elegant and incredibly beautiful, her eyes huge in her pale, fragile face, stared at him as he landed. The sight of her, holding a modern sword in front of her just as if she knew what to do with it, struck at him, twisting through him like the piercing blow of a stake, but he would not, could not waver.

From all sides, Zoltán’s zombie slaves marched inward, cutting off his escape by any route save upward. Skeletons draped in rags, and corpses in various stages of decomposition, complete with consuming parasites. Although he was prepared for it and had known Zoltán would invoke the power, fresh rage filled him that she could countenance this obscenity on top of the rest.

But breaking through the zombies’ line, knocking one of them aside until it fell in a tangle of broken, twitching bones, strode another, faster figure—Dmitriu, armed to the teeth.

Ignoring the fresh pain, Saloman flexed his fingers. It would be easier in a battle.

But Dmitriu didn’t join his gathering, watchful foes. He came straight to him with no sign of threat or fear and stood in silence beside him.

“What are you doing here?” Saloman inquired, leaving most of his attention still on the zombies and on Zoltán and his cohorts.

“I’ve come to fight at your side. As I always have.”

He could hide the sudden warmth, the pleasure of having a friend to stand beside him—this friend. He could even hide his forgiveness. Foolishness, after all, was not betrayal. “If they don’t kill you, I might.”

“I know. But I bargain on any ally being better than none. We’re alone against too many.”

Saloman smiled and drew his sword with a long, satisfying scrape. “You’re never alone on All Hallows’ Eve.”

“His bitch is back,” Zoltán sneered.

“Are you planning to fight him or just insult him?” Konrad snapped.

“I plan on letting my zombies exhaust him first.”

“What will they do to him?” Elizabeth whispered, staring at the approaching horror with mingled revulsion, outrage, and pity. One tripped over a stone, fell, and rose with part of its arm missing. It just stomped on toward Saloman.

“Normally, they eat the flesh of the living,” Mihaela said dispassionately. “Or try to. In this case, since Saloman is not technically alive, I imagine they’ll just hold him. The thing about a zombie’s grip is, once it’s got a hold, it doesn’t let go. And if Zoltán bids them, they’ll carry Saloman’s limbs and organs so far apart, he really will be dead.”

“They give me the willies,” said the English hunter. “Thank God they’re not coming for us. . . .”

“Do we
know
that?” Elizabeth hissed.

“Oh yes. Zombies can follow only one command at a time, and they’re definitely after Saloman.”

“Ouch!” Konrad yelped without warning. “What the fu . . . ?”

He kicked one leg in the air, shaking it, and something fell off, a small figure that bounced back up and grinned. It was no more than a foot tall, but it had a lot of teeth.

“It bit me!” Konrad said in disbelief.

“Bloody hell,” said the Scottish hunter in awe. “Is that a goblin?”

Before anyone could answer, something rushed through the air at them, insubstantial but roaring fire from its huge mouth.

Someone screamed in Elizabeth’s ear. It might have been Elizabeth.

“Defend yourselves!” Konrad roared. “Kill anything you don’t immediately recognize as a friend!”

“What the fuck’s going on?” István demanded, swiping at some wispy spirit.

“Saloman! The one night of the year when all supernatural beings have access to this world, and he’s bloody using it! They’re on his side!”

Something, perhaps another goblin, flew at her face. From sheer instinct, she brought up her fist, and the thing fell like a stone. She could have sworn it groaned before a swarm of others enveloped them, and she had to wrench up her sword, jerk the stake from her sleeve, and use all her speed and all her newly learned skills to survive the vicious creatures who seemed determined to terrorize as well as kill.

It was a weird fight against impossible beings, many of whom just disappeared when hit or stabbed. How did you kill disembodied heads and wisps of smoke and air? Some only roared in her face; others burned or scratched or bit. While she fought them, she was aware of Saloman and Dmitriu pushing and hacking their way through the closing zombie army, drawing inexorably nearer. And even in the middle of that carnage she found herself admiring the way Saloman moved, sure and graceful and brutal.
I’m totally unhinged. . . .

With every minute, the creatures surrounding them seemed to grow in strength as well as size, while others appeared behind Saloman and Dmitriu. The whole cathedral site swarmed with zombies, vampires, goblins, winged demons, ghosts. . . . Surely these really were the ghosts of monks charging them now? Fighting monks with insubstantial swords growing more solid by the second . . .

“Quickly!” Mihaela raged. “We have to do it quickly, remember?”

It was too late for that. The element of surprise went to him.

With a howl, Zoltán leapt high into the air, hacking through a goblin as he rose with the sword he held in his left hand. In his right was the stake he meant to plunge into Saloman’s heart. “Charge!” he yelled, and the Scottish vampires all ran or leapt after him. Joining the push forward, the hunters surged with them. One of the Scottish vampires ran fastest, throwing himself at Saloman. In a blur, the attacking vampire flew backward through the air, landing on the ground with a clearly broken neck. He roared in pain, and then lay still. A stake protruded from his heart. As the vampire turned to dust, Zoltán lifted that stake too and ran at Saloman.

But Dmitriu parried him, and then Elizabeth was lost in her own battle, fighting her way through a cloud of creatures and bizarre, solidified ghosts wielding golf clubs, in order to get to Saloman. At some level, she appreciated that she could fight almost without thought, kicking, spinning, punching, stabbing, her movements instinctive and sure. She took blows, but they didn’t hold her back. In the novelty of this chaos and horror, her recent training became part of her.

For Saloman, there was no respite. Although he never doubted his ability to win, especially since Dmitriu had joined him, he had hoped for a few moments of peace, an interval, however short, when he could send the zombies back. But there was never an instant from the opening of the fight when either he or Dmitriu wasn’t beset by zombies or vampires or hunters—or any combination thereof. And now they all attacked at once.

He may have made a mistake. Perhaps he should have sent them back as soon as they were summoned, but that would have lacked the impact, the opportunity to show his enemies whom they were dealing with—and to create another legend.

Then, abruptly, another presence broke into his occupied senses—behind him.

Do it
, Maximilian said, with more anger than he’d said anything on their previous encounter.
Do it now.

Saloman smiled, then bowed out of the fray, allowing Maximilian to step smoothly in.

Having “killed” or disarmed the already long-dead golfers, Elizabeth tried to catch her breath while scouring the site for Saloman. To her surprise, he had stepped back from the fight. Another vampire fought side by side with Dmitriu, working to split up the hunters, while Saloman himself stood perfectly still, the wind just stirring the hem of his coat and blowing a lock of hair across his cheek as he threw his head back and began to speak.

His strange, incomprehensible words echoed around the walls of the cathedral, bouncing back on her ears, chilling her even as something like awe rose up to choke her. He sounded not just sepulchral but all-powerful, like she’d imagined God would sound when she was a child—like her father, only much louder. The sound reached through every nerve in her body, filling her.

Then she realized the zombies were no longer stomping over their fallen brethren. Their movements sped up to a blur. Running forward or backward, they all traveled outward from the fight like an explosion, blasting out of the cathedral. The fallen bones lifted into the air and rushed with them, whooshing through the night air and disappearing into the shuddering earth.

“We’ve lost the zombies,” Konrad shouted.

“I didn’t know he could do that,” Zoltán yelled in frustration. “I didn’t know
anyone
could do that!”

Saloman laughed. The sound chilled Elizabeth to the bone, filling her with anguish as well as fury. “Ignore everything else!” she cried. “Even Dmitriu! Throw everything at
him
!”

He didn’t hold back any longer, running into the fray with a speed no one expected after his recent physical inactivity. A Scottish vampire exploded in a cloud of dust. Saloman seized another as she fought through the cloud of spirits and goblins and sharp-toothed winged creatures to get at him.

István and Mihaela were fighting Dmitriu, trying in vain to disengage in order to fulfill the primary mission to kill Saloman. Protecting the Ancient, Dmitriu kept them occupied, but that still left Zoltán, four hunters, and Elizabeth to surround Saloman.

Another vampire disintegrated. Zoltán and Saloman circled each other in a blur of blows, kicks, and sways like
The Matrix
gone crazy. Konrad and the English hunter ran at Saloman’s back.

It’s almost over. . . .

The rushing emotion stopped dead as Konrad flew across the ground, felled by Saloman’s back heel. Zoltán leapt forward. The English hunter slammed downward with his raised stake and fell like a stone to another, unexpected sword.

Saloman whirled, knocking Zoltán over as he turned to face his rescuer—the tall vampire Elizabeth had first seen before the zombies disappeared.

“Maximilian,” Konrad croaked from the ground, picking himself up.