Out of Time (28 page)

Simon dismissed it, but there was something very troubling about it, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Perhaps King had taken it as tangible proof of his knowledge about them.

“It’s not important,” he said. “We’ll find some protection tomorrow. Go to St. Patrick’s and get supplies—holy water, crosses.”

He didn’t actually put much stock in the idea of religious icons affording them protection, but if there was even the slightest chance they might help, he’d get them.

“I don’t remember reading about any accounts of vampires that quite match your description,” Simon said, his need to categorize and analyze giving him a respite from the helplessness he felt. “The veins are somewhat similar to the Danag of the Philippines, but the eyes are all wrong.”

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Maybe having a soul mutated him somehow?”

“Perhaps. You don’t remember any particular odors?”

“No. Why?”

“Some species give off a slight metallic scent. Some attribute it to the blood they’d consumed. Ancient alchemists, believed that if you could find the proper ore, you could forge a weapon to kill them.”

“You don’t see a lot of forges on the lower east side.”

“No,” he said with a small grin. “But I’m sure there are factories not far away. It’s something to consider. Silver shouldn’t be that hard to find, although I doubt we could afford very much.”

“And we’re not even sure it would do any good.”

“No,” he said with a sigh.

Elizabeth stood and crossed the room toward him. She slipped her arms around his waist. “At least we know now. No more guessing. And, upside, we found the proof you’ve been looking for.”

He looked down at her. “It found us.”

He pulled her closer. His lifelong ambition had been achieved, and he would have given anything for it not to be so.

“Your grandfather was a brave man,” she said.

Simon smiled. He was, and in ways Simon had never known.

The stuff of nightmares was real. And, he thought as he looked down at Elizabeth, it wanted
her
.

Simon pulled her closer. He would not let that happen. Whatever the cost, whatever it took, he’d find a way to protect her. Find a way to bring them home.

“It will be all right,” he said, praying it was true and fearing it wasn’t. “I promise.”

“DOESN’T STEALING IT DE-holy it or something?” Elizabeth whispered, as they dipped another vial into the shallow holy water font. She wasn’t religious, but pilfering from a church couldn’t be good.

“Shhh,” Simon urged with a nervous look around.

Old St. Patrick’s was a heavily frequented church. They’d almost been caught twice by people passing by on their way to pray.

“Can I help you?” said a familiar voice with an unmistakable Irish lilt.

Oh boy. “Father,” Elizabeth said as she turned around.

“And what exactly would you be needin’ with the entire day’s holy water?”

“It’s a funny story really.”

“Oh, is it now?”

“Not exactly haha-funny, but…Tell him Simon,” she said with a nudge to his ribs.

Simon rolled his eyes and recapped the small vial. “I don’t expect you to understand or even believe me, but we need this to fight a vampire.”

Elizabeth dropped her vial. “Sorry,” she said and scrambled to pick it up. So much for subterfuge.

Father Cavanaugh sighed and nodded. “I see. Perhaps we should continue this in the back?” he said, and gestured to a door in the rear of the church.

Softly murmured prayers filled the silence. As she watched Father Cavanaugh and Simon whispered something to each other, she realized what it was. It was secrets. Everyone there always seemed to know something she didn’t. For all her conviction, for all her words about believing being enough, a part of her always questioned, always doubted. She wasn’t raised in any particular religion and for the first time she envied those who were. She looked up at the brilliant sunlight streaming through the stained glass. How comforting it would be right now to give herself over to an all-knowing something.

“Elizabeth?” Simon said, pulling her from her tangled thoughts.

“Coming.”

They followed Father Cavanaugh into a small back room. Cherrywood cabinets and a shining metal drum, like a water dispenser, lined the far wall. The father gestured to a beaten leather couch.

“You’ve some experience with vampires?” Simon said in a very businesslike way, as if he asked the question every day.

The father nodded.

“I thought as much.”

Father Cavanaugh pulled up a rickety wooden chair and sat down. “And it seems, so do you.”

Simon’s expression was deadly serious, emphasis on deadly. “What can you tell me?”

“A man of few words, I see. I respect that, but may I beg a little indulgence? I’m an old man and prone to ramble on a bit, I’m afraid,” he said with a wink at Elizabeth.

Normally, Elizabeth would have been charmed by the father’s easy-going, folksy tone, but she was angry. Angry that everyone, including people she’d trusted had known what King was, how dangerous he was and hadn’t said anything. What other secrets were they keeping?

Next to her, she could feel Simon tense, even as he leaned back against the cushions. “Of course.”

The father inclined his head and then turned his attention to Elizabeth. “What have ya seen, lass?”

“How’d you know it was me?”

“A demon is always drawn to the innocent.”

She laughed nervously. “I’m not exactly what you’d call innocent, but thank you.”

The priest leaned forward in his chair. “It’s a purity of the heart they seek. To sully the unsullied.”

Simon grunted and shifted in his seat.

“And if they have a soul?” Elizabeth asked.

The father rocked back in his chair. “I see.”

“Well, I bloody well don’t,” Simon ground out. “Soul or not. What difference does it make?”

“Every soul is worth saving.”

“Not this one,” Simon said. His voice was cold, edged with a crisp finality. Simon Cross, judge and jury. No appeals.

The father settled back in his chair and clasped his hands. “And why would that be?”

“He’s after my wife.”

Elizabeth felt a thrill at the words. Sure, it was a fib, but she felt like his wife, or what she imagined it would feel like.

The priest smiled genially. “Coveting your neighbor’s wife is a sin, but hardly reason enough to be kept from Heaven.”

“Murder, extortion. You can take your pick of sins. And honestly, I don’t care,” Simon said. “I didn’t come here to find a way to save a man I’d just as soon see dead.”

Despite knowing how he felt, to hear the cold conviction in his voice shocked her. “Simon.”

If Father Cavanaugh was insulted he didn’t show it. His placid face betrayed nothing. “Why did you come here? Aside from liberating some of my holy water?”

Elizabeth spoke up before Simon could. “That’s all we came for, but now that we’re here, maybe you can help us?”

Simon shifted impatiently in his seat and Elizabeth quickly continued before he said something insulting. “We know a little bit, but our practical experience is, well, different.”

“And what experience is that, child?”

“King. I guess you’ve probably heard about him.”

“I’m acquainted with Mr. Kashian. We’ve spoken on occasion.”

Simon snorted and Elizabeth stilled his tongue with a gentle hand on his forearm. There was something odd about the way the father looked when he mentioned King, but she put it out of her head.

“I had dinner with him last night. Not that I wanted to, but he… persuaded me. And then, I’m not really sure why, but he told me about what happened to him.”

“Did he now?” the father said, both surprised and troubled. “Isn’t that interesting.”

“That isn’t the word I’d use,” Simon said tartly.

The father smiled sympathetically. “No, I suppose not.”

He looked back to Elizabeth. “Forgive me, you were sayin’? He revealed himself to you? But he didn’t attack?”

“No,” Elizabeth said, “he didn’t.”

“It’s some pathetic game to him,” Simon said.

“Oh, no. This is no game,” the father assured them both. “Another creature wouldn’t have hesitated.”

Elizabeth shivered. That’s exactly what King had said to her. Simon clutched her hand in his and gave it a comforting squeeze, but she could feel the tension in his grip.

“It’s a terrible truth, I’m afraid,” Father Cavanaugh continued. “Used to be quite a problem here. Although, I fear Tammany Hall may be spawning something new.” He smiled ruefully. “Politics.”

Good grief. She knew the government was corrupt, but demons too? It was too much to think about, and she tried to push the implications out of her mind. One problem at a time.

“Used to be?” Elizabeth asked. “Is that because King… killed them?”

The Father clasped his hands in his lap. “It’s a wicked debt to owe, is it not? Better a lone wolf than a pack?”

“Unless that wolf is after your wife,” Simon said. “You’ll forgive me, Father. Under different circumstances I’d love to discuss the past, but it’s the present that concerns me. Soul or not, Kashian has made his intentions perfectly clear. I intend to protect my wife by whatever means necessary. If you have something that might help me, I’m in your debt. If not, we’ll try elsewhere.”

“Simon—”

“No, no. He’s quite right, my dear. And of course, I’ll do what I can to help you.”

Elizabeth let out a shaky breath. “Thank you.”

“You came for holy water and crosses, I imagine?”

“If you can spare them.”

The priest smiled kindly. “I think I can manage that, but I’m afraid they won’t help you. In the spirit yes, but not the flesh.”

Simon leaned back and narrowed his eyes. “So it is a myth.”

Elizabeth had been hoping Simon was wrong about that. He’d always doubted the claims of religious icons affecting vampires, but it sure would have been nice if he’d been wrong. “All the books I’ve read, all the research?”

“Propaganda,” Simon said. “Another way the church exerts its control. Another in a long series of misinformation campaigns to keep people depending on the church for things it can’t provide.”

“Or perhaps to give them faith,” Father Cavanaugh said. “Where’s the harm in helping quell people’s fear? To give them a feeling they have power over the Evil that surrounds us. Faith is the best protection.”

“That’s wonderful in the abstract, and I’m sure it comforts children before they go to bed at night,” Simon said and leaned forward. “I wish we were dealing with fanciful notions and things that only haunt people’s dreams, but this is real. This isn’t some amorphous darkness lurking around the next corner. This is a creature, flesh and blood, standing in front of me and threatening to take everything I hold dear. You’ll forgive me for being blunt, but I didn’t come here for God’s help. I came for something much more practical.”

“I find God very practical.”

Elizabeth rushed to diffuse the situation. “He didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

“Don’t apologize for me, Elizabeth. I meant what I said. We came here for weapons, nothing more.”

“I understand,” the priest said. “But not all weapons are forged in steel. The most powerful weapon against Evil is inside you. Your faith.”

Simon snorted, but Elizabeth tried to ignore him. “What if… I’m not very religious, Father. I don’t really know what I believe about God.”

“Ah, but you have faith.”

“I don’t know,” she said. She thought she did, but the last twenty-four hours had made her question lots of things. She’d believed they could face anything together, but there didn’t seem any way out of the mess they’d gotten themselves into.

Father Cavanaugh looked from Simon back to Elizabeth. “You two love each other?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

“And you believe in that. You believe in your love for each other?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“That’s God,” he said. “He goes by many names, many faces, but God is simply that—love. I find God in this church, in the faces of my parishioners. One man may find it in nature, in the majesty of a tree or a river,” he said and then looked directly at Simon. “Or another man may find it in a woman’s smile. Wherever it’s to be found, it’s to be cherished. When you find it, you hold onto it and nothing, no force, no evil can take it from you. It’s yours forever. And that, my dear, is something very powerful.”

Elizabeth had never thought about faith in such simple terms. It had always been something vague and just beyond her reach. If love was the answer, she thought as she looked at Simon, she had that in abundance.

“That’s a poetic notion, Father,” Simon said. “But I fail to see how that will save our lives.”

“Not your lives perhaps, but your souls.”

“You’ll forgive me if my concerns are slightly more immediate,” Simon said.

Father Cavanaugh seemed troubled by Simon’s curt dismissal, but with patience born of years of practice, he nodded calmly.

“If we can’t use holy water or crosses,” Simon said. “What can we use? What can you tell us of his weaknesses?”

The Father sighed and his hands clenched before he spread his palms on his knees. “I’m afraid, I can be of very little help there.”

He obviously knew things he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, share.

“I see,” Simon said, clearly angry at the priest’s withholding, and rose from the couch. “Thank you for your time. Elizabeth?”

She smiled apologetically and stood. “Thank you, Father. You’ve been a great help.”

“It was my pleasure, child. You’re welcome here anytime.”

Simon barely waited for her to catch up as he started for the door. After the cool sanctuary of the church, the midday sun beat down on them with a vengeance.

“Sophistry,” Simon mumbled to himself and pushed out a frustrated breath. “I should have known that would be a waste of time.”

“I don’t think it was.”

He looked like he was about to give her a scathing rebuttal, but his expression softened as he gently touched her cheek.

“Perhaps not,” he said. “Regardless, we should find stakes. There’s likely a hardware store not too far. There must be other weapons we can find.” He loosened his tie and rolled his neck. “Damn heat.”