Of Masques and Martyrs (3 page)

Next to him, a goateed, bald musclehead raised his weapon in alarm.

“What the hell are you doing here this early in the morning?” Baldy asked.

“You want fucking quietly . . .” Erika growled.

It was all one motion, a split second of death. Her arms flashed forward, fingers digging into Baldy’s face, his eyes pulping under the pressure of her grip. Erika pulled him forward, and even as she twisted his head, shattering his spine at the neck, she used his weight for leverage and kicked out at a slender black man who’d only just begun to move. Her foot crushed his ribcage to powder and slammed him against the prison wall. When he fell to the ground, he left behind bits of hair and bone and blood at the spot where his head had struck.

That quiet enough for you?
she thought as she turned to Rolf.

Perfect
, Rolf replied, even as he gently lowered the twisted corpse of the orange-haired jarhead to the pavement. The other guard, an uncharacteristically chubby Asian, lay there already, face and nose ruptured, probably killed by bone shrapnel exploding into his brain.

Quiet.

Without exchanging a word, Erika and Rolf each knelt by one of their victims and drank of their cooling blood. No use passing up a free meal, Erika thought. But that thought she kept to herself. The thirst was a frequent topic of conversation among Peter Octavian’s coven—and their greatest curse, the ultimate obstacle standing between what they were and what they so desired to be.

They pushed through the gates together, tensed in preparation for the appearance of more guards. More human slaves to Hannibal’s slavering clan. A fine line separated these human collaborators from those who worked with Peter, who volunteered their aid and often their blood. Both breeds of human were clearly fascinated by the immortal shadows, but some thrived on fear and horror, others on hope and kindness.

Where are they all? I don’t like this at all,
Rolf thought.

Too late for that now,
Erika replied. “We’re in the lion’s den.”

Rolf reached behind his back to withdraw his own weapon, which had been hidden beneath his sweatshirt at the base of his spine. A gun, similar to Erika’s weapons, and loaded with silverpoint bullets, just as hers were.

Erika smiled at him.

“So now it’s okay?” she asked with sarcasm and withdrew her weapons from their armpit holsters.

Rolf nodded grimly, not the response she’d hoped for. But she should have known better. They were close now. It was time. The moment they’d been waiting a year for. The silver bullets would not kill Hannibal; but they had discussed it, and Rolf seemed to think it might at least steal Hannibal’s focus, trapping him in his corporeal form for a few vital seconds. If that failed, and they could at least get him out under the sun, they might be able to disturb his concentration enough to kill him.

But that might take a while. And there were sure to be dozens of other vampires with him. There was no way. . . .

No. Erika pushed the thought away. It was time to act. To hell with the consequences.

“Where do you think—” she began.

The cells
, Rolf replied.
He’d enjoy that.

 

Even without having to search offices, cafeterias, laundry, and other areas, their search took time. Despite the obvious size of the prison, Erika was astonished at the vastness of the cell blocks. Nearly half an hour after they’d entered the prison, their footsteps echoing through the cement and steel of cell block seven, they came upon their first sleeping vampire.

I don’t like it,
Erika thought, staring down at the still form of an androgynous undead killer, blood still on its lips.

I know,
Rolf replied.
No way would they all sleep tight in here with only four amateur tough guys at the gate. But . . . there’s no way he could have known we were coming. How could he know?

The vampire on the floor opened its eyes, mouth stretching into a grotesque smile.

“Shit!” Erika snapped.

“Hap-py Birthday!” the vampire cried and leaped to its feet to caper wildly from one side of the cell block to the other, not even trying to attack them.

“I love that cartoon!” it shouted in a voice that gave no greater definition to its possible gender. “Don’t you remember
Frosty the Snowman?”

Shut him up,
Rolf thought.

Erika was already moving, and she grunted in pain as her fingers elongated and sharpened into silver points. Slow poison for her, but she wouldn’t need them very long. And Hannibal’s coven would never break the rules and shift into anything silver.

“I like Rudolph, actually,” she whispered.

Blood spurted from the vampire’s mouth as she speared its heart with her silver-tipped fingers. She glanced around at the dark cells as the dead creature slid to the ground.

“I don’t get it,” she said softly. “He didn’t even fight back.”

Then, from the darkness at the end of the row of cells, a familiar, mocking voice drifted with insinuation.

“She, actually,” Hannibal said. “Never been quite right since her transformation. Putting her in your way was considered merciful.”

Rolf growled a mutilated sound that might have been his attempt at saying the name of their despised adversary.

“Hannibal,” Erika sneered.

“Kill the mute,” Hannibal commanded, scowling.

Vampires rose from the shadows in the cells and drifted as mist from the ceiling. It was a swarm, moving on Erika and Rolf too quickly for even the inhuman eye to follow.

“Fuck!” Erika roared as she dove on her belly on the concrete, nine-millimeter twin sidearms erupting in a shower of silver, even as Rolf began firing his own weapon.

She was thrilled to be greeted by shrieks of pain and horror. One nearby vamp girl actually burst into flame, and Erika smiled to herself.
Ignorant bitch
, she thought, but not too dismissively. Ignorance was a weapon they could use.

“We’re compromised,” she shouted back to Rolf. “Let’s get out of here!”

She’d already begun to withdraw, firing in front and behind her simultaneously, keeping the vampires off and backing up through the hole her silver barrage was opening. When Erika ran out of ammunition, she tossed one of the guns and shifted her left hand into a huge bear claw. Partial transformations required concentration. They were going to lose. They were going to die. The smart thing to do would be just to mist on out of there, retreat, and live to fight another day.

“Rolf!” she shouted. “Did you hear me—”

Erika was interrupted by a roar. She whipped her eyes left and saw, to her horror, that Rolf was charging ahead through an ocean of vampiric flesh, tearing undead warriors from his path with a ferocity that split skulls and ripped limbs from their sockets. At the end of the corridor, Hannibal stood unmoved by his enemy’s determination, laughing softly as his eyes burned in the darkness.

He wasn’t going to make it. There were too many of them, and already they were beginning to drag him down.

Claws raked her back and ass, and Erika screamed in pain. Without even really glancing back, she fired two silver bullets into the face of her attacker.

Rolf, no!
she shouted into his head.

He didn’t even flinch. Didn’t turn. It was a kind of insanity now, she sensed. Her only choice was to stand by him, or save herself.

It was Erika’s turn to roar, as she moved in after Rolf, firing her remaining nine-millimeter into the crowd.

A sharp pinprick of pain in her neck. Erika slapped a hand to the spot, almost expecting to crush a bee or wasp beneath her fingers. What she found there instead was a dart.

“What the . . .” she asked, and then the vampires swarmed over her, dragging her down.

As she fell beneath them, she saw a pair of darts fired into Rolf’s back. She turned to see the wielder of the dart gun. A white-haired vampire, his hair whiter even than Hannibal’s; he’d allowed himself to remain old despite his shapeshifting abilities. She recognized him.

“Yano?” she asked weakly.

“Sorry, Erika,” Sebastiano replied grimly. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Overwhelmed, with no hope of helping Rolf or herself, Erika realized her only hope was escape. She concentrated on turning her body to mist, a form the other vampires couldn’t hope to attack or even follow for very long.

Nothing happened.

Nothing.

Erika concentrated again on changing. Into anything. Still, nothing happened. She was frozen in her original human body, unable to shift into any other form. No way, then, to escape. No way, even, to . . . to
heal.

“Oh my God,” she said softly.

Somehow, Hannibal had found a way to
change
them. Erika didn’t know if it was science or magic, but it hardly mattered. He’d made them vulnerable. Killable.

 

Rolf wailed in fury and surged up against the dozen vampire bodies that held him down. Several more jumped on the pile to hold him down. He was an elder shadow, with strength considered prodigious even among his kind. He stared up into the burning eyes of his enemy, unable to shout his hatred for the bastard to the metal rafters of the prison, and now somehow unable to change, to shift.

He didn’t care. He’d killed with his bare hands for centuries, and he’d kill Hannibal the same way. If he could just . . . get . . . up.

“Pitiful sight, really,” Hannibal chuckled. “But don’t worry, you won’t have to suffer this indignity very long.”

Rolf could hear Erika screaming from behind him and hoped that she, at least, would be able to escape. He felt the grip of his gun wrested from his hand. Stared up as Hannibal aimed at his forehead. Impossible as it was, Rolf thought he could see the glint of silver inside the barrel.

No changing. No healing. However Hannibal had done it, Rolf knew that Peter and the others would be unsuspecting. Another major advantage the vampires would have over the shadow coven. They had to figure out how it was done. Someone had to warn them.

As Erika shouted in fury, Hannibal emptied the clip of silver bullets into Rolf’s face.

—ROBERT JOHNSON, “Come On in My Kitchen”

 

 

 

 

AT THE CENTER OF NEW ORLEANS’S FRENCH Quarter, Bourbon Street was all flash; garish face paint obscuring the true identity of the most fascinating city in America. At least, that was the way Nikki Wydra felt about the Big Easy. She’d only been there five days, but already she was in love with the place. New Orleans, to her, was like a seductively dangerous man, whose charisma would never allow casual observers to witness his true nature.

Boy, she’d known a lot of men like that.

Sang about them, too.

That was her job. Nikki had often been told that she sang the blues just a little too well for a twenty-two-year-old white girl from Philadelphia. Hell, there’d been times people had gotten pissed off at her just for singing: as if she didn’t have any right to sing the blues because of her age, or her sex, or her race. The idea appalled her. It was music, and it belonged to anyone who would listen. Music meant everything to her. Nobody was ever going to take that away.

Not even the vampires.

The world was getting a bit frightening, no question. Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta . . . it was just crazy to hang out after dark in those cities. But she’d heard good things about New Orleans. Dangerous, sure. But somehow, the Crescent City had avoided the atmosphere of terror that had begun to descend on many other major urban centers.

Nikki knew it was only a matter of time before that changed as well. The vampire presence seemed to spread week to week. She shivered as she wondered how long it would be before the entire human race stayed in after dark. But for now, New Orleans was home. She’d adopted it the moment she’d stepped out of the cab in front of A Creole House, the bed-and-breakfast she’d been in all week. And she was cocky enough to think that maybe the city had adopted her as well.

Cocky, yes, but not stupid. With its growing reputation as something of a haven from the vampires, New Orleans was already becoming the place to run to when you just couldn’t take it anymore. Like Atlanta at the turn of the millenium, New Orleans was growing so crowded with newcomers that rents were skyrocketing and jobs at a premium. It would have been foolish for her to move there without a source of income.

That in mind, Nikki had sent a tape of the two videos she’d done, and some other audio demos, to the manager of Old Antoine’s, and made sure she had a gig before buying a planet ticket. She’d worried, at first, about the club’s proximity to Bourbon Street, that it might be difficult to draw a crowd away from the bars and strip clubs there. But Bourbon Street turned out to be no competition. The tourist mecca was nothing more than flashing lights, bare-assed junkie runaways who gave stripping a bad name, karaoke, expensive drinks and their corresponding drunks, and mediocre music.

Not that she didn’t love the rest of the French Quarter. It was the most enticing place she had ever seen.

At a quarter past eight, that Wednesday night—the night it all changed for her—Nikki strolled down Rue St. Peter swinging her guitar case, and just took it all in. Laughing couples walked hand in hand, couples of every imaginable combination. On balconies above, vines twirled inside wrought iron until she had to wonder if they were all that held the metal to the buildings.

On the corner of Rue Decatur, in the recessed doorway of a stately home, two ancient black men sat together, unspeaking, faces so wrinkled their eyes were invisible in the folds. Half a block away, a brass band in rumpled uniforms played a rousing chorus of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” And, Nikki was certain, it wasn’t just because of the football team. On Bourbon Street, maybe, but here, just blocks away, it was another world. Another Quarter. Another New Orleans.