They Thirst (77 page)

"NO!" Vulkan shouted into the night. "I WONT . . . I WONT LET IT HAPPEN . . . !" A chunk of masonry struck him between the shoulder blades, driving him to his knees.

The tremors went on for another moment, then stopped abruptly. The castle seemed to be balanced at an angle, and blocks of stone kept falling from above, crashing down into the courtyard or off the mountain's side. Between the peals of thunder Silvera heard the high shrieking of the vampire hordes down in the city, except now that shrieking was pained and terrified, lost and confused. And then another sound, one that came to him only faintly but with an impact that wrenched at him.

The sound of bells.

Church bells. Ringing in Beverly Hills, in Hollywood, in Los Angeles and East L.A., in Santa Monica and Culver City and Inglewood. Stirred by the tremor, they were singing to Father Silvera, and their song sounded like victory. He knew that Mary's Voice was singing loudest of all, and tears suddenly filled his eyes.

"You've lost!" he shouted to Prince Vulkan. "It's the earthquake! The Big One that's going to sink this city beneath the sea! You've lost it all!"

Vulkan whirled, his face mad with rage. "LIAR!" he shrieked. "Nothing can . . . nothing can stop . . . nothing can. . ."

And the earth reared up, a chain of mountains rising abruptly across lower Hollywood, black peaks pushing up through avenues and boulevards three hundred feet high, then dropping again into gaping holes that sucked the city down like a whirlpools of brick and concrete. Buildings tumbled like huge chessmen across a shattering board. The castle pitched and shivered and started to fall to pieces. Vulkan, his eyes wide circles of terror, screamed in a boy's cracking voice, "Headmaster, help meeeeee! Help meeeeeee . . . !" His cry was lost in the din of thunder and falling stone.

Silvera fell to his knees on the sagging balcony. Between the thunder and the bells, he could hear the voice of God, and he understood the message. Whatever power that had protected these vampires was gone; the pendulum of power had swung back now, and it was time for the evil to die. The city was going to fall, yes, but it would fall by the will of God and for His purposes. Not for the vampires but
upon
them, a vampiric Sodom and Gomorrah.

Vulkan stood at the shattered edge of the balcony, wailing in a language that Silvera couldn't understand. He lifted his hands in supplication and was struck down again by a chunk of stone. The L.A. basin dipped and heaved. Mountains split the earth, rising to tremendous heights—their crumbling sides stubbled with palm trees, broken sections of freeways, houses and buildings— and. then sank rapidly down below sea level. Hideous screams, like those of the tormented in Dante's
Inferno,
echoed through the shifting hills, a hundred thousand screams rippling, mingling, intertwining. And above them the great clamor of the thunder and the bells.

The vampire king whirled to face Father Silvera, his face contorted with hatred. "I haven't lost!" he shrieked. "Not yet! I can still win!" The balcony pitched beneath his feet, and he struggled for balance. And suddenly he began to change, his body lengthening and darkening like a shadow. His face became vulpine, the fangs jutting from a mouth that was a blood-red slash in a dark, green-eyed horror. He lifted his arms to the sky, and Father Silvera saw them split the sleeves of his velvet coat. They became black, leathery wings that flailed at the air, reaching for height. The thing hissed at Silvera in triumph, turned, and threw itself from the balcony. Its wings moved powerfully, muscles rippling along the shoulders, and hovered for an instant in mid-air. Then with a last defiant glance backward, Prince Vulkan began to move away from the crumbling castle, the wings beating a hard, steady rhythm.

And Silvera knew what must be done. The only choice, and what God had put him in this position to do.

He leaped across the balcony and threw himself into space, his hands grasping for Prince Vulkan's ankles. Behind him, the balcony gave and dropped away. He got hold of Vulkan's right leg just below the knee, but his hands had no strength, and instantly he started to slip. Vulkan shrieked, more an animal's cry than anything else, and tried to kick the priest loose, but Silvera threw his arms around the ankle and held on with his last reserves of strength. A black-clawed hand raked across his skull once, then again, but now they were falling together in a slow spiral, and Vulkan stopped his attack to concentrate on gaining altitude.

For a moment they swept across the tops of dead pines, then Silvera was aware of cold air on his face, and they were climbing over the shattered city. Streets and buildings were being swallowed by the earth less than a hundred feet below them. Vulkan started to turn north. Silvera gritted his teeth and reached up, grasping the thing's waist. He fought to crawl up over the king vampire's body, straining to reach and pin down those powerful wings. A claw flashed out, taking away most of Silvera's cheek to the bone. He screamed in agony, but now he had both arms around Vulkan's waist, and he was trying to force his numbed hands up onto the shoulders. Vulkan twisted around to fight, almost flinging the priest off, and they plummeted more than forty feet before the wings started beating again.

Silvera was aware of a loud roaring below them now. When he looked to the west, he could see a two-hundred-foot wall of Pacific Ocean, white foam churning atop a gleaming black and green sea that looked as solid as fine Venetian marble, a monstrous tidal wave sweeping across the city, carrying with it yachts, cars, billboards, theater marquees, chunks of boardwalk, roofs, coffins, shattered sections of freeway, airplanes, palm trees, and entire buildings that reared up from the depths like the prows of gigantic, sinking ships. And now Father Silvera remembered what his mentor Father Raphael had told him about the holy water in Puerto Grande, where fresh well water had been as precious as life itself. "Use water from the cradle of life, Ramon, The salt heals and cleanses . .

Below him Los Angeles was being flooded. It was
a
cauldron of holy water blessed by God Himself, and tonight all the evil would be cleansed, every bit of it.

Silvera blinked the blood out of his eyes and hauled himself upward, grasping for the king vampire's wings. He caught and trapped one shoulder, throwing his other arm around Vulcan's neck.

They fell, spiraling in a long arc over West L.A. Prince Vulkan fought wildly, getting one winged arm free and struggling for altitude. Silvera hung onto his neck, wrenching downward to throw Vulkan out of control. But now they were rising again, very rapidly.

And then something huge loomed into their path—a wall of glass and steel that seemed to fill up the horizon. It was an office building, now starting to tremble and pitch forward as the tidal wave swept it from its foundations. Vulkan threw himself to the left, trying to veer over and away. Silvera saw that they were barely going to skim the roof as the building crashed down before them. Clasping his legs around the thing's waist, he let go of Vulkan's neck and grasped for his shoulders, pinning the leathery wings back in an effort that almost ripped his own arms from their sockets. He felt electric with power, filled with renewed strength. They tumbled forward, caught in a whirlwind, and Silvera shouted in Prince Vulkan's batlike ear, "You've lost, you've lost, you've . . . !"

They crashed through a plate-glass window. The building fell upon them like a massive tombstone, shattering as the sea roared up into it and through its hundred cubicles. The pieces were swept under, boiled to the surface, swept under and over again, and finally vanished beneath the Uttered foam.

The council chamber pitched at an angle, paintings falling from the walls to the floor, stones grinding and loosening, rafters crashing around Palatazin and Tommy. A great jagged crack split the floor and started to widen between them and the bolted door.

From the massive fireplace one of the scorched, burning figures slowly rose from the other and, roaring with hatred and bloodlust, came shambling across the room with its hands outthrust. Tommy could see the black eye-sockets in Kobra's face, the flesh dangling from yellow bone, the lips and cheeks burned away to expose those hideous, snapping fangs. From the smoking rags of his jacket, he wrenched the scorched Mauser and screamed "WHERE ARE YOU!" The barrel swung toward Palatazin; Kobra's finger twitched on the trigger.

And in the next instant the antique weapon, its magazine heated to an explosive level, blew up in Kobra's face, red-hot bullets glowing like tracers. Kobra's headless body was flung backward to the floor where it lay writhing, the stub of a hand still gripping the mangled lump of iron.

Palatazin gripped Tommy's arm and threw him across the widening chasm in the floor. Then he jumped, scrambling for a grip on the other side as the entire room heaved, great chunks of stone cracking loose from the walls and rolling like deadly pinwheels. The door was jammed shut, and Palatazin had to throw his shoulder against it to break it open. The corridor was filled with screams, falling rafters, and dust. Vampires came out of the darkness, bumping into Palatazin and Tommy, then racing away in a panicked frenzy. The corridor bucked, rippling beneath their feet. "This way!" Tommy shouted to him. They ran toward the corridor's far end where a pack of vampires fought to get down the stairway. Behind them the floor split and collapsed, sending a half-dozen of the Undead plunging through. Palatazin almost tripped over the female vampire in black who now crawled on the stairs, screaming "Master! Master help me!" A cloud of dust came welling up the stairway, almost blinding him. Vampires were fighting all around him in their frenzy to get out of the castle, some stumbling and falling over the struggling, gnashing bodies of others. Palatazin reached back and grasped Tommy's arm, and together they fought their way through. In the lower corridor vampires ran back and forth, calling for their Master and wailing for help. Stones and rafters fell from above, crashing to the floor and often crushing one or more vampires underneath. The corridor was filled with dust, struggling shapes, screams, and moans. Three huge blocks fell with a tangle of rafters, blocking the corridor ahead of Palatazin and Tommy. They found the door leading downward, stepped through it, and bolted it. And now they knew they had to hurry because the castle was pitching and swaying "above them, sending chunks of stone hurtling into the basements. They passed through the rooms where coffins lay with their beds of dirt and descended the stone stairs in almost total darkness, into the lower basement where the dogs bayed and fought to escape, running back and forth like the vampires above, lost without a guiding hand.

They retraced their way through the wine racks, twice coming to solid walls and having to go back and start over. "This way!" Tommy said, pulling at him. "There's blood on the floor!" Palatazin looked down and saw smeared droplets of blood that might have been either his or Benefield's, but Benefield himself was gone. The shattered half of the man's staff lay a couple of feet away. They found the door, almost hidden in the darkness, and started up the long stairway to the outside.

The night was filled with screams. Fissures veined the courtyard, splitting even wider as the man and the boy ran for the iron-barred gate. Beyond Palatazin the black Lincoln Continental pitched into a crevice, metal crumpling like tinfoil as the earth ground it under. Vampires were running across the courtyard, their dazed eyes recognizing Tommy and Palatazin as humans, but their primary need now was for escape and safety. Some of them were walking, holding out their arms, and screaming for their Master. Palatazin saw several plunge through fissures and disappear.

He hauled up the gate and locked the chain in place, then they went through, running along the cobblestone, driveway. From the forest a sand-whitened figure ran toward them, arms waving like a scarecrow's. "Hey! Don't leave old Ratty up here, man! This fuckin' mountain
's
coming apart!"

Palatazin heard a hideous grinding and cracking sound, and when he looked back over his shoulder, he saw the castle's uppermost towers sway, then crumple in an explosion of stone. The earth under his feet heaved, throwing him off balance. Half of the castle buckled and slowly began to give way, sliding over the cliff's edge like a huge melting candle. Cracks split the ground at his feet, and now he knew the enormity of this earthquake would destroy Los Angeles. There was no way they could escape on foot. Going back into the tunnels, which had been his first idea, would be suicide. He remembered the stalled vehicle further down the road. If it had enough gas, if it hadn't already gone over the side! But now they had no choice, for the mountain was shaking itself to pieces beneath them.

They started down, Ratty's face stark white with terror beneath the grime. Tommy fell, almost sliding into a fissure that hissed open at his feet; Palatazin pulled him away and now half-carried, half-dragged him. From behind there was a growing thunderous rumble that made Ratty whirl around and shout "Jesus!"

Palatazin looked. The rest of the castle was going over, stones churning and boiling, rafters exploding into the air. It had vanished in less than three seconds, nothing left of it but a section of wall and the front gate. Above the noise of the castle's destruction, Palatazin could hear a hideous chorus of screams and shrieks—the dreadful, agonized song of the damned. Looking out over the black plain of L.A., he saw with frightening clarity the ripple of green phosphorescence atop a wave that must have been at least 300 feet high, rolling across the city from the west. He heard himself cry out, more of a moan than anything else, as he watched that wave sweep onward across avenue and boulevard and freeway. The towers of buildings jutted up like new reefs before they were either covered over or broken off.