The Damned
Authors: Nancy Holder,Debbie Viguie
Also by Nancy Holder
and Debbie Viguié
The Cursed Ones: A Crusade Novel
Wicked
Witch & Curse
Wicked 2
Legacy & Spellbound
Resurrection
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd,
1st Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8HB
A CBS COMPANY
Published in the USA in 2011 by Simon Pulse,
an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Division, New York.
Copyright © 2011 by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié,
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-85707-084-5
eBook ISBN: 978-0-85707-085-2
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Reading RG1 8EX
To Ann Liotta, one of the most
courageous people I know, who always stands up
for what she believes in
—D. V.
To Karen Hackett, a good and true friend
—N. H.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the writing of this book I have been reminded of all those men and women, both known and unknown, who have stood up and fought for the cause of freedom. To them I owe so much and would like to offer my gratitude for their courage and strength. To my wonderful coauthor, Nancy, I would like to give my profound thanks for all that she does and all that she brings to our books and our friendship. You are amazing. Thank you to her fantastic assistant, Erin Underwood, who has been a great help in spreading the word and getting people to join us on this Crusade. I’d also like to thank my own personal Crusaders, those who work tirelessly to help me, to promote me, and to keep me sane: Howard Morhaim, Katie Menick, Kate McKean, Annette Pollert, Scott Viguié, Barbara Reynolds, Rick Reynolds, Juliette Cutts, Calliope Collacott, and Marissa Smeyne.
—D. V.
I echo Debbie’s gratitude to those who put themselves in harm’s way, most especially, in the case of my family, the chaplains of the U.S. Navy. Deep, heartfelt thanks to Debbie, my wonderful coauthor and dearest friend. To my assistant and friend, Erin Underwood: You are brilliant and tireless, and I’m so grateful that you’re in my life.
Muchas gracias
to our agent, Howard Morhaim, and to Katie Menick and Kate McKean of Morhaim Literary. Thank you to Laura Navarre for help with the Russian and to Lawrence Schimel for the Spanish. All errors are mine. And thank you so much to Team S&S: our miraculous editor, Annette Pollert; Mara Anastas; Bethany Buck; Paul Crichton; Bernadette Cruz; Lucille Rettino; Karen Sherman; and Jessica Handelman, our designer. To Georgia McBride, Scott Viguié, Belle Holder, Juliette Cutts, and my three amigas—Pam Escobedo, Beth Hogan, and Amy Schricker—and to my family, my gratitude—especially to Belle, who puts up with so much.
—N. H.
BOOK ONE
APIS
This light guided me
More surely than the light of noonday
To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me—
A place where none appeared.
—St. John of the Cross,
sixteenth-century mystic of Salamanca
CHAPTER ONE
For the last two weeks I’ve led the Salamancan hunters. What a disaster. I can’t believe that Father Juan’s prayers and magick spells told him I was the one for the job. I’d laugh, if I wouldn’t cry first.
Sometimes I dream that I have awakened from this nightmare and there are no vampires, that I’m home and loved and safe with my sister and my parents and my grandparents. Then I wake up. The Cursed Ones are real. My grandfather is dead. My sister has been converted. She is one of them, and my father is responsible. He betrayed her. He betrayed me.
Even if the war ended tomorrow, nothing would be okay.
But, of course, the war isn’t ending tomorrow. Unless we lose. I’m starting to think that’s inevitable. Humanity is fighting an unwinnable battle, and sooner or later there won’t be other bands of hunters to take our place as we fall.
I can’t think that way, not if I’m the leader. But I do.
I enrolled at the Sacred Heart Academy Against the Cursed Ones a little more than two years ago to learn how to kill the vampires. I come from rebel stock—my grandparents were radical protesters in the 1960s, fighting for social justice and paying for their actions by remaining underground for the rest of their lives. Esther and Charles “Che” Leitner are legendary for their bravery and sacrifice.
In honor of them I dreamed of becoming the Hunter—the warrior who would be given the sacred elixir that would endow me with super strength and speed. That honor fell to another, Eriko Sakamoto. But then our master, Father Juan, broke with tradition and gave Eriko a backup team. There are five of us, known also as hunters. She was our leader, until New Orleans fell.
Eriko never wanted to lead; the Hunter has always fought alone, and that was what she had expected. She asked Father Juan to relieve her of command. He did, and gave me her role. But of all of us I have the fewest skills—I’m not supernatural, and I had no fighting experience before I came to Salamanca. I think of myself as “just Jenn,” and I feel like a fraud.
The Cursed Ones are coming down hard on us. None of our allies survived our attack on the vampires of New Orleans. During the battle courageous New Orleanians rose up and joined the fight, but they were massacred. On the news, on the Net, there was not a word about it. But people heard; they knew: It was useless to fight the Cursed Ones. The vampires would always win, and they would show no mercy to the losers. Better to obey them to survive.
As the hunters of Salamanca, we push and we fight and we make trouble. And so the terrified people are beginning to think of us, and not the vampires, as the problem. Spain, where we live, is one of the few nations that has not signed a treaty with the Cursed Ones. Spaniards have been proud of us, calling on us to save their cities and villages from the vampires that brutalize them. But people on the streets have begun to mock us. They call us
pulgas
—“fleas,” a nuisance, an irritant.
If the resistance fighters like us lose the trust of humanity, we lose everything. The hunters of Salamanca need a victory. Something that can make everyone feel like there’s hope. We need it for the people looking to us for salvation. We need it for ourselves, to remind us that we can fight and win together as a team. And I need it for myself, so I can be the leader that we so desperately need.
My fighting partner, Antonio de la Cruz, says that I need to have faith. I have no idea how he can say that after all that’s happened—to us, and to him. I wish I could have faith. But in this world faith—like hope—is in very short supply.
—from the diary of Jenn Leitner
,
discovered in the ashes
P
AMPLONA,
S
PAIN
T
EAM
S
ALAMANCA:
J
ENN AND
A
NTONIO,
S
KYE AND
H
OLGAR, AND
J
AMIE AND
E
RIKO
Where’s our contact?
Antonio wondered as he searched the shadows of the narrow brick alley, detecting shapes and movements only his crimson eyes could see. He spotted a few rats pillaging among the garbage cans, and a big black cat stalking them. The rats squeaked warnings to one another, but none of them ran away. They were used to cats, and humans, and vampires.