The Graves of Saints (19 page)

She paused and glanced at Tori, gentle love in her eyes.

‘Now, each of us will tell the goddess what she is most grateful for,’ Cat went on. ‘Who would like to begin?’

‘I’ll start,’ Heather said softly.

They all turned to her. Tori smiled encouragement at her. Heather could be shy at times like this. The woman used her dagger to prise out a seed from her apple core, and as it fell to the ground
at her feet, she began reciting her blessings.

‘First, that I am blessed with such friends,’ she said.

Behind her, the night unfurled.

White hands coalesced out of darkness, grabbed fistfuls of Heather’s hair and yanked her head back. Her eyes flashed with anger and alarm, but not quite fear – Heather didn’t
have time for fear. The vampire darted in and sank its teeth into the pale flesh of her neck, twisted to dig in like a dog worrying a bone, and tore out her throat. Blood fountained onto the
monster’s face and he cocked his head back to let the spray fill his mouth for a moment before he snapped her neck and tossed her aside like a broken doll.

Only now did the screaming begin. It had happened so quickly that there’d been no time for the terror to take hold. As her sisters and some of their guests began to shriek around her, Tori
could only stand, gape-mouthed, and stare at the vampire who stood proudly where Heather had been only heartbeats ago. A redheaded man, pale and freckled and long-boned, in life he must have looked
kindly enough. Tonight, he wore a woman’s blood like war paint, and he smiled when he saw Tori staring at him.

Smiled, and started toward her.

Tori took a step back, blinking as if waking from a trance.
No
, she thought.
No, no, no.

Cat saw him coming and stepped into his path. She held her arms out, palms up, and started praying. Tori couldn’t breathe; she felt sick. Cat had some magic, but she was no elemental. They
all knew some earthcraft, but none of them had Keomany’s power or skill or connection to the soul of the world.

‘Not another fucking step,’ Cat shouted at the vampire, all fierce bravado. To her credit, the wind began to spin around her as if a private little storm were brewing.

The vampire laughed.

And then the others appeared. A small puff of autumn mist became a towering Amazon of a woman who leaped upon a young witch from Maine. Her biker boyfriend tried to come to her rescue, grabbing
hold of the vampire Amazon, but the monster barely noticed his attack. A third vampire appeared, then a fourth and fifth. Amidst the screams, some of the earthwitches broke and ran for it,
including Vicky, who vanished into the moonlit orchard at a sprint with a white-haired vampire in pursuit.

Tori didn’t have time to mourn for Vicky. Heather’s killer had paused, watching Cat curiously, waiting for some further evidence of magic from her. When lightning did not sear down
from the sky to incinerate him, he started toward her again. But Tori wasn’t going to let Cat die for her . . . or die at all!

The house
, she thought. Their only chance was to get out of there, to get into the house. Keomany had put wards on the entire structure, not just the doors and windows. If they could
reach home, they would be safe.

Tori took a breath. Cat had always been more powerful, had a better rapport with Gaea. But growing up, she’d had more than a trace of magic herself, even before she’d become an
earthwitch. It had lain mostly dormant, but she had never believed that spark had been completely gone. It had settled deep into her heart, becoming her passion for the world and for life,
inspiring her love for Cat.

‘Cat, run!’ Tori called.

But Cat would not run. Tori knew that. The redheaded vampire slipped up to her almost like a dancer. Around the circle, its sacred blessing now soiled by the blood of innocents, their friends
wept and fought and screamed. Cat pushed her hands out and the wind blew the redhead backward half a dozen feet, knocking him off balance so that he fell to his knees.

The vampire rose so quickly it seemed he’d never gone down, anger flickering in his eyes.

‘Better be quick with you, I guess,’ he said, the words low but clear.

Tori reached out to Gaea. With all the prayers she had ever said to the goddess she had almost never asked for anything for herself. She had been grateful, she had offered her love, she had
woven small magics to help their crops grow and she had tried to lure the rain. Tonight her heart cried out to the goddess for help, and when she reached out with her soul, she felt herself touch
the soul of the earth in a way she never had before. The connection filled her like a newborn’s first breath, made her shudder and weep, and she fell to the ground.

Drove her fingers into the dirt.

Felt it
move.

The earth shook and then split, opening up beneath the redheaded vampire. He fell in, and though she was twenty feet away, when Tori dragged her fingers through the soil it closed over him.

In shock, she fell backward. The connection with Gaea broke. Cat came running toward her, glancing about in fear, screaming to the rest of them to run. She reached for Tori, took her hand and
hauled her up. Tori wanted to kiss her, but that was crazy. Their friends were dying. No times for kisses.

The house
, she thought again.
The wards.

Cat took her hand, and Tori counted vampires. Four. Maybe she and Cat could make it. A few others, too. Many of their friends were going to die and the thought broke parts of her, deep inside,
but maybe some of them could make it. Time had slowed, but really it had only been thirty or forty seconds since Heather had been murdered. Maybe they could live.

Then she saw the mist coming out of the scar in the ground where she’d buried the redhead, saw him begin to coalesce, and she knew she’d been foolish. They were going to die.

Tori stopped. Frantic, Cat tried to pull her onward.

‘Hush,’ Tori said, curling a hand behind her neck. ‘Kiss me.’

Cat looked startled for an instant, and then her face collapsed into the sorrow of understanding. When Tori stood on tiptoe to kiss her, Cat held her close and luxuriated in the kiss.

Furious, the redhead screamed and launched himself across the clearing toward him. The Amazon vampire started toward them as well, but the redhead shouted, warning her off.

‘The dykes are mine!’ he snarled.

The ground began to tremble again. Tori paused, her lips still brushing Cat’s. Neither of them was doing this, and she doubted any of the others had this kind of magic, except maybe
Jaleesa?

Cat screamed as the redhead grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her backward, twisting to hurl her to the ground, so much stronger than any human could be. Cat tried to scramble to her feet
and the vampire kicked her in the chest. The sound made Tori wince; surely something had broken just now.

She cried out her lover’s name as the vampire turned toward her.

‘You want to try that shit again, bitch?’ he sneered.

‘I . . .’ she started. ‘I don’t—’

A thick root shot from the ground and speared him through the heart. Impaled, he hung there with a ridiculous, stunned expression on his face, and he began to decay, rotting away before her
eyes.

‘Holy shit, Tori,’ Cat said, staggering to her feet, holding onto her ribs. ‘I can’t believe you just—’

Tori shook her head, still wide-eyed. ‘I didn’t.’

The ground rumbled, and Tori knew it wasn’t over.

‘
Here
!’ she yelled, racing toward the altar at the center of the clearing. ‘If you can, gather with us!’

Jaleesa was alive, but bleeding. She ran toward them, and Ella came from the other direction. Others appeared from the orchard, fighting the urge to flee, knowing that if they were alone in the
rows of apple trees the vampires would find them. It was counterintuitive to come back, but this was the trust they had in Tori and Cat, and the knowledge that they had no other chance.

Vampires leaped from their other victims, giving chase to those attempting to gather around the altar. An ugly, twisted leech laughed as he lunged, tackling Ella around the waist. Others
screamed her name, and one of the guys who’d come with his wife for the equinox ran toward them, brave and foolish.

A trio of roots burst from the ground and punched through the ugly vampire, transfixing him on the spot. Others shot from the earth all around them, stabbing through the other vampires. The
ground shook and the soil churned, and now Tori could see the dirt moving as thick roots snaked underneath the clearing . . . more and more of them. They thrust up from the ground, nowhere near the
vampires now, and as Ella and her would-be rescuer raced back to the altar, roots shot up behind them, quickly weaving a kind of cage around the ritual’s survivors.

The Amazonian vampire laughed. ‘You don’t think that’s going to keep us out?’

A root the size of a tree trunk shot through her, obliterating the core of her torso, and she practically exploded in a cloud of ash.

The one who’d tried to kill Ella growled and turned to mist, drifting off of the spears that had impaled him and reforming beside them.

‘One of those went through my heart,’ the ugly leech said. ‘But it’s all about faith . . . all about what we believed before Cortez turned us. He wants us to sleep during
the day, I can do that. But I know what this body can do, that it isn’t the heart but sheer force of fucking will that holds us together. You’re not going to kill me like the
others.’

Another root thrust from the ground, shooting through his back – through his spine and his heart – and he roared in pain.

Maybe it wouldn’t kill him, but it had certainly hurt. And the other two remaining vampires didn’t look quite so confident anymore.

Tori smiled at them, terrified and sick with grief, but faking confidence as best she could.

‘We can do this all night,’ she said.

‘What?’ Cat whispered. ‘What can we do? Are you doing this, ’cause I’m sure not!’

Tori shook her head, the spark of hope that had formed in her chest growing brighter.

‘Not me,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you see?’

‘See what?’

Tori took her hand and squeezed it, then nodded toward another part of the orchard, not so very far away, where a fence had been erected to shield a strange new growth from prying eyes.

‘It’s Keomany.’

Pollepel Island, New York

Charlotte stood on the prow of the twenty-five-foot military boat, one hand on the railing and the other clutching Sergeant Omondi’s binoculars.

‘This has to be a joke,’ she said.

Omondi, who had given every appearance of being devoid of humor, frowned at her with what she had come to think of as Facial Expression B. Thus far he seemed not to have a C.

‘What do you mean, a joke?’ Omondi asked, raising his voice to be heard over the thrum of the engine and the wind and the spray of water in their faces. ‘This is a perfect
place for Cortez to make a nest. A coven could go for months here without discovery.’

The boat skimmed the water, thumping over the churning river at high speed. Charlotte handed the night-vision binoculars back to Omondi – she had her own night vision, born of the changes
that death and Cortez had wrought on her cellular structure. And they were near enough the island now that the crumbling edifice began to come into looming focus ahead.

‘It’s just so fucking trite,’ she called back.

Omondi looked thoughtful but did not reply. The two of them stood together on the prow as they sped north on the Hudson River, even as half a dozen other boats did the same, spread out to left
and right and all of them converging on Pollopel Island. Against the indigo sky, the jagged ruin of a medieval castle seemed to stab at the night. Broken walls stood by themselves, slanted wreckage
all that remained where entire wings had been. The main body of the castle had a skeletal quality, the rear of it simply gone. The windows were like dark eyes that showed only empty sky beyond.
Ghosts, watching them slide along the river.

By now, the vampires would have heard them coming. They would lurk unseen in those windows, so Charlotte told herself that the shiver going through her was entirely logical. She felt as if she
were being watched because she
was
being watched.

Sergeant Omondi touched his collar. ‘Sharpshooters, watch the castle’s airspace!’ he called into his commlink.

They’d placed a single soldier on top of the small wheelhouse on each of the seven swift boats. The way the hulls were skipping off the water, Charlotte couldn’t imagine that anyone
would be able to manage a decent aim, but still the sharpshooters used night scopes to watch the sky above the crumbling ruin. If a bat took flight – or anything else for that matter –
their job was to hit it with a Medusa-laced bullet.

Charlotte left watching the skies to the men and women with rifles. Her eyes were on the castle itself, scanning for any sign that the rotting architecture was anything other than abandoned.
Nothing moved that did not seem stirred by the breeze. She wondered if the TFV soldiers sent along on this mission were nervous; surely they’d have preferred to attack during the day. But
then she remembered that this was what they did, day in and day out: hunt vampires. No –
kill
vampires, like her. After that, she stopped wondering if they were afraid.

‘I can’t believe this place is just sitting here,’ she said, mostly to hear her own voice. ‘It’s like a tornado picked up a chunk of some forgotten corner of Europe
and dropped it down in the middle of the river.’

Omondi had already briefed her on the island, and the ominous, deteriorating pile of stones that had once been something grand. A man named Francis Bannerman had bought up surplus weapons from
the US Army after the Civil War and the Spanish American War, rightly thinking there would be a market for these items later on. When the city of New York would no longer allow him to store his
arsenal there, he had bought the island and spent most of the first decade of the twentieth century building the castle. According to Omondi, all of the structures on the island had been built
without right angles, though it was tough to confirm that with only portions of the castle still standing after the fire that had gutted it fifty years ago.