The Damned (15 page)

While the adrenaline was still running through her body, she reached out and touched Noah’s leg, sending healing energy through it. Next she worked magicks on his arm. Now that he knew she was a White Witch, she could heal him without fear of discovery.

He groaned appreciatively. “Now, that I don’t mind so much.”

“What is this thing?” she asked, wincing as she stared at the decapitated head. The red eyes were smoking in the horrible, ruined face.

“It must be one of Dantalion’s experiments,” Noah said slowly as he wadded up his sling and crammed it into a pocket in his jacket. His voice caught. “If it’s Svika . . .”

Laboring from exertion and fear, Skye fixated on the body as parts of it slowly turned to ash. It happened so slowly that it began to unnerve her. After two or three minutes all that was left was the head, which was decaying at a much slower rate. The lifeless eyes stared up at her. Then, as monstrous bits on the face began to crumble, the fact that this head looked very human could not be denied.

Cold chills turned to nausea, and she forced herself to turn away. She had hurt something that had been a person.

“Is it?” she asked him hoarsely. She cleared her throat. “Was it?”

“I—I don’t know,” Noah murmured. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if Dantalion set him free to mock us.”

R
USSIA
D
ANTALION

Down among the dead men
, as the poem went. His mind racing, Dantalion surveyed his domain of operating rooms, caches of surgical equipment, cages, cells. The smell was hideous. The screaming, annoying.

Hunters he had not yet used were chained to the walls, and heads dipped forward, unconscious. Vampires in cages raged at him as he swept through the basement of his headquarters, the Imperial Hunting Palace of the last czar of Russia. He was seething with anger and forcing the ragged edges of fear at bay. His chief scientist, Vladimir Khrushchev, walked beside him, unaware of the storm inside his superior.

“Can we go out yet?” Khrushchev asked. His fangs were extended, and his eyes glowed scarlet. He looked a bit thinner than usual. He gestured to the six vampires in white coats—his team of scientists. “We need to hunt.”

“The last two hunters from the Middle East are still out there,” Dantalion said, trying to sound calm and in control.

“Only two?” Khrushchev asked pointedly.

Dantalion didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure there were only two. It was impossible that two men could inflict this much damage on their hybrids. But he wasn’t about to admit that.

“Perhaps it’s time to send out more
matroyshkas
?” Khrushchev ventured.

Matroyshkas
was their word for the hybrids they had created together, using captured hunters who’d dared to attack him; werewolves they had trapped from various packs they had identified; and vampires, some of whom had volunteered.

Dantalion and Khrushchev had dubbed the hybrids
matroyshkas
after the famous Russian folk-art nesting dolls that tourists liked to buy. Upon seizing control of the palace-cum-lab that he and Khrushchev now stood in, Dantalion had set out his souvenirs from his glory days with Rasputin in czarist Russia. One of these had been a set of
matroyshkas
of the czar, czarina, Alexei, and Rasputin. An in-joke of a sort, it had captured the attention of Khrushchev. Playing with the nesting dolls, Khrushchev had envisioned how to make the hybrids: putting the genes of one creature into the genes of another, then into the genes of a third—vampire, werewolf, and human, sometimes two vampires and a werewolf, or some other combination.

It was fascinating work. There were a lot of failures, some quite repulsive, but they were making splendid progress. Then, unfortunately, Solomon had heard about it and offered to pay for it in return for some hybrids of his own, and the information on how to make more. Dantalion had not wanted a partner, especially not the most powerful vampire known to the world.
Dantalion
wanted to be the most powerful vampire known to the world, and while he had some tricks up his sleeve to accomplish that, he didn’t want to share the secret to making hybrids with a rival. He didn’t even know how Solomon had found out about his plans. But Solomon had, and now Dantalion was stuck with him. On the plus side, Solomon had an unending supply of money, and Dantalion held back some of the crucial details of
matroyshka
creation, thereby retaining control.

But something was up. Something was wrong. He had sent out a dozen hybrids, and then a dozen more, and none of them had returned with their quarry—just two hunters. It didn’t add up. He suspected reinforcements had arrived, but how many? Was it time to move to plan B?

“Send out more,” he said to Khrushchev.

R
USSIA
T
EAM
S
ALAMANCA,
T
AAMIR, AND
N
OAH

Antonio realized he should have talked over his next order of business with Jenn first, while they’d been alone, but his mind had been on other things. That was bad. She was his leader, and he shouldn’t surprise her like this. And he should have brought it up before Skye and Noah went on watch together. He was out of sorts. He didn’t want Jenn to be here.

“There’s something we need to discuss,” he said.

“Now
what?” Jamie said, groaning.

Antonio sat beside Jenn on a log, his boot heels crunching in the snow. “Do you remember those men with the black Jerusalem crosses? The ones who sent us home in the jet from New Orleans?”

“The ones who grabbed the scientist, the one who was working on the virus?” Eriko asked.

“Sherman,” Jamie put in. “Yeah, those guys blasted in after we did all the heavy lifting.”

“What scientist? What virus?” Taamir asked.

“It was a kind of anemia,” Jamie said. “Sherman wanted to infect the Cursers with it, but they turned him first.”

“Excuse me, Jamie-
kun.
It was leukemia,” Eriko corrected.

“Well, it was germ warfare, at any rate,” Jamie said. “Like these Russian lads were doin’ before Dantalion took over.”

“Vale
, the same,” Antonio said. “Well, I saw three more of them today.”

The team stirred. Taamir watched them, baffled.

“Where?” Holgar asked.

“One of them was in the airport. I saw two more in a car, so I followed them. They’re camping about a dozen miles from here.”

Jamie swore.

Taamir leaned in. “Sorry, but who?
What?
A dozen miles?”

“That’s about nineteen kilometers,” Jamie informed him.

“You’re not amusing,” Taamir snapped.

Jenn took a deep breath. “Men wearing Jerusalem crosses were at my grandfather’s funeral, too. At least one of them worked for the government.”

“The Spanish government?” Taamir asked, clearly not following.

Jenn shook her head. “American.”

“She’s a Yank,” Jamie said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his cold-weather jacket.

“I think they might be part of a covert organization,” Antonio declared. “Beyond the official American government.”

“You
show up, and now they’re here?” Taamir said angrily. “And they were after
you
?” He glared at Jenn.

“I think they’re
good
covert,” Jenn said quickly. “One of them—I think it was one of them—said something to me at the funeral about filling my grandfather’s shoes. His name was Greg. He wasn’t hostile.”

I should have asked Gramma about him
, she thought. She wished she knew how to contact her. Jenn hadn’t been able to reply to her grandmother’s one text message:
Montana.
The phone her grandmother had used must have been a throwaway; Jenn’s
Thank you
had bounced. The message had come in after they had parted, when her grandmother had put Jenn on a plane so she could go rescue Heather. Then Gramma had picked up Jenn’s mom, and the two had escaped from San Francisco.

“Dantalion,” Eriko said. “They must be here for him too.”

“Yeah, but to kill him or kidnap him? Or maybe they want him to work on the virus. They’ve obviously got a thing for Curser scientists,” Jamie said.

Jenn shook her head. “Dantalion’s on the wrong side to help people wearing crosses.”

“What should we do about them?” Eriko asked.

Antonio looked at Jenn. She was the leader, and it needed to be her decision, but something told him that these men were very, very dangerous. Each time the two groups had crossed paths, the men had carried themselves like predators.

And that just might be a good thing.

“We should try to make contact,” Jenn said. “Reach out.”

“Lovely, we’ll invite them for tea,” Jamie snorted.

“No way,” Taamir said angrily. “We’re on a mission, and we don’t know these guys. They could even be working for Dantalion.”

“I don’t think so,” Holgar said.

“I agree with Jenn,” Eriko added, bobbing her head, looking uncomfortable as confrontation reared its head.

“Jenn’s the leader; it’s Jenn’s call,” Holgar said briskly.

“Dantalion wiped out your team,” Jenn reminded Taamir. “If these guys can help us, we should get together with them.” She flushed. “So to speak.”

“No. It’s a risk we shouldn’t take.” Taamir folded his arms across his chest. His cheeks were red. Antonio wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or because he didn’t like being reminded of his team’s failure.

“So, how do you want us to go about it,
Jenn
?” Holgar asked pointedly, turning away from Taamir. “Antonio could take you back there. We’ve got a van, and Antonio, you must have a car.”

“I do,” Antonio confirmed. “Listen, Father Juan’s been contacted by a number of masters. They want to put together more teams like ours. You’d be surprised at some of the places where Hunters have been fighting Cursed Ones.”

“So surprise us,” Jamie said.

Antonio wasn’t about to discuss it any further in front of a stranger. Besides, they were getting off the subject. “Back to the black-cross agents,” Antonio said.

“We go,” Jenn said. “Now.”

“Hey,” Taamir protested. “Noah and I have a say in this too. And I don’t think—”

There was a sudden rustling in the underbrush.

Antonio glanced up as Skye and Noah entered camp. Noah tossed something onto the ground, which rolled slightly before coming to a stop in front of them all. It was a human head, only slightly decayed, and bristling with teeth.

Eriko clicked on a flashlight, aimed the beam at the head. “What is that?” she asked.

“Something we killed ten minutes ago,” Skye said.

“Bloody hell,” Jamie spat, as Holgar picked it up to examine it.

“How come there’s a head?” Jenn asked, her voice filled with quiet horror.

“One of Dantalion’s experiments?” Antonio guessed. Holgar tossed it to him, but he let it drop in the snow, not wanting to touch it. There was something so unnatural about it that it unnerved even him. He forced himself to look down at the twisted features. A huge jawbone, lots of teeth but with the canines missing. Possibly those missing teeth had been vampire fangs. Human skin, mostly, although ash was creeping across the cheeks and forehead.

“Yes,” Skye said. “It attacked us. The body disintegrated, until only the head was left.”

“It’s decaying too,” Eriko noted as she bent over to take a closer look.

“Yes, but very slowly,” Skye repeated.

“What does this mean?” Taamir asked.

“It means we can’t afford to give Dantalion any more time to run his experiments,” Jenn said, face pale but voice resolute. “We have to move against him now. Tonight.”

A surge of pride swept through Antonio. Jenn was taking command. And suddenly Antonio smelled something. The odor was a bit off, but there was no mistaking it: the death scent of Cursed Ones. He lurched to his feet at the same time Holgar did. Holgar growled, and Taamir and Noah jerked their heads in Holgar’s direction.

“What?” Jamie asked sharply.

“We don’t have to move against him,” Antonio snarled. “He’s moving against us.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Salamanca Hunter’s Manual: Casualties

On occasion, a friend or a person who has offered you aid will be put in harm’s way. Your impulse will be to save him, but you must always choose the destruction of a Cursed One over saving the life of even the kindest and most self-sacrificing person. When a good person dies, he will surely join his Father in Heaven. But a Cursed One left unchecked is a grievous sin, one that falls upon you. Thus, you must always kill a vampire as soon as you encounter him, even if it costs the lives of innocents.

(translated from the Spanish)

R
USSIA
T
EAM
S
ALAMANCA,
T
AAMIR, AND
N
OAH

Holgar growled as everyone jumped up and fanned out in anticipation of an attack. Then, to his horror, the growl deepened in his throat, changing into a lusty, violence-loving werewolf howl.

“For helvede!”
he muttered—which meant “damn it” in Danish—prickling with alarm as Taamir and Noah stared at him. They separated from the Salamancan hunters in a flash, grabbing and aiming their submachine guns at him. Holgar’s heart raced. He hadn’t meant to growl. It had just burst out of him.

“What the hell?” Noah whispered. “What was
that?”

“What is he?” Taamir said under his breath.

“He’s okay,” Jenn whispered back as she scanned the darkness. “He just howls!”

“That was
not
human!” Noah retorted.

“I’m okay!” Holgar held up a hand and waved it, trying to show that he was very human. He glanced at Antonio, Skye, Eriko, and Jamie, who had positioned themselves on the defensive, their attention divided between whatever was approaching and their possibly former allies. He hastily added in Danish, “I’m a werewolf, but I’m
a good
werewolf.” But of course two guys from the Middle East wouldn’t understand Danish, and he was so freaked out he had forgotten how to say it in English. And although his Russian was also excellent, it, too, had abandoned him.