The Damned (10 page)

The world is going to hell, and it seems like we’re nearly there.
Of course, Jenn wasn’t sure she believed in hell, or in heaven. She wanted to, but belief didn’t come as easy for her as it did for Antonio, or even Jamie, for that matter.

She walked to the window and looked out at the moon, surprised to find Antonio standing a distance away, facing her window. He had told her that he had stood guard over her every night for the two years of their training; apparently he had continued to maintain his vigil. Misty moonbeams danced in his hair, and he didn’t look cursed. He looked like an angel.

Don’t die
, she silently begged him.

He spotted her. A red glow crept into his eyes, and he turned away, disappearing into the darkness.

Don’t be a vampire
, she added, and moved back into the light.

CHAPTER FIVE

Cursed Ones, that is what we are
Distanced from you by so far
Yet we hope and often pray
That this is not always the way
For we wish to walk with you
Hand in hand in morning dew
Together we will watch the sun
And all your fears will be undone

S
ALAMANCA
J
ENN AND
A
NTONIO

About an hour later Antonio watched as Jenn walked into the academy kitchen, where Brother Manuel was preparing two large pans full of savory mixed paella, a saffron rice dish loaded with seafood and chicken. In deference to Jenn, who was a squeamish American, the chubby cook had omitted the snails that often accompanied the dish.

Antonio stood quietly in the doorway uncertain if he should approach her. She had to prepare herself for the mission, and he didn’t want to throw her off her game. They both knew this might be the last time they saw each other.

Deep red wine caught the light as the cook picked up one of the decanters and poured two glasses, adding some water to Jenn’s. She had never become accustomed to all the wine everyone drank in Spain.

“Salud,”
Jenn said to Brother Manuel as he handed her the watered-down beverage. To your health.

“Y dinero y amor,”
Brother Manuel added.
“Y tiempo para disfrutarlos.”
And money and love, and time to enjoy them.

“What time is your flight?” Brother Manuel asked her. Then, as if he had to justify the question, “Should I pack something for the plane?” He arranged some cooked prawns over the mounded rice, stepping back to appraise his handiwork. “The food in Russia is terrible.”

“Oh, have you been?” Jenn asked him.

Brother Manuel shook his head. “No, and I never care to. They are godless.”

A fleeting smile crossed Jenn’s face, and Antonio savored it. She hadn’t smiled in weeks. Her face was gaunt, and there were shadows under her eyes. She was in no shape to go up against a vampire like Dantalion. The stories of Dantalion made Aurora and Sergio seem like kittens. Team Salamanca had failed against Aurora, and Antonio shuddered to think what would ever happen if Sergio attacked them. Dantalion would crush them with the force of a bomb dropping on their heads.

“We’re going to the airport around five in the morning,” she said. “So this could be our last supper.”

“Ay, Jenn, please don’t say that,” Antonio murmured, stepping into the kitchen.

“Hey,” she said. She swallowed hard. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I was just . . .” He gazed at her. He was so afraid for her.

“Jenn, if you wouldn’t mind. If you would come with me, please,” Antonio said.

He hesitated, then held out his hand. He didn’t know if she would be able to bring herself to touch him. But she drank down half her wine, as if to give herself false courage, then slid her hand into his grasp. She was warm as embers against his cold skin. Grateful, he closed his fingers around hers.

Antonio walked her through the
data
where the team took their meals together, bobbing his head at Holgar, who was finishing off a plate of uncooked venison. Holgar preferred raw meat, but he never ate it in front of the others. But Antonio, blessed—or was it cursed?—with a super-strong sense of smell, like Holgar’s, always knew when Holgar had dined. Antonio had never made mention of it. Holgar didn’t run around announcing when Antonio drank human blood, either.

It was past time for Antonio to feed, and Father Juan had spoken to him about it before Antonio had come in search of Jenn. The priest had told Antonio that two students had come forward, offering to be donors for the esteemed vampire who hunted vampires. Antonio was both grateful and mortified. He hated taking blood from anyone; he had tried to hide the fact that it was more nourishing to drink directly from the living than, say, out of refrigerated blood bags or even fancy wine glasses. He didn’t understand why that should be so.
Vale, vale;
if one tried to apply logic to vampirism, one would be sorely disappointed. How was it that he’d been alive for nearly ninety years, yet still looked nineteen, the age he had been when he’d been changed?

He wasn’t sure that even God had the answers.

That did not mean that Antonio would stop asking them of Him.

Antonio took Jenn to the chapel. They walked through the side door of the sanctuary into the smells of the incense and flowers, the scent of paraffin from the votive candles burning in front of the statues of the Blessed Mother and St. John of the Cross, patron saint of Salamanca. The resemblance between the figure and Father Juan was pronounced, and many remarked on it. Antonio had vowed that before he died the True Death, he would learn just who and what the priest really was.

Fonts on either side of the entrance were filled with holy water; Antonio dipped his fingertips and blessed himself. A non-Catholic, Jenn did not partake.

Bending his knee as they faced the altar and the crucifix, he crossed himself again before sliding into a pew. Antonio didn’t put down the prayer bench. He sat on the cushioned seat and took Jenn’s left hand in both of his as she sat down beside him. Once more he was worried that he was taking liberties he was no longer permitted, but he had to touch her as much as he could, before she left—unless, in her heart, she was already gone.

“Ay,”
he murmured.

Jenn was silent. He didn’t know how to speak to her anymore, to tell her the things he wanted her to know before she left on the new mission.

“I believe,” he began, searching for words. “Jenn, I believe in a God who wants the best for us.”

“Like my sister?” she asked bitterly. The anger in her voice made him want to weep for her and for the world. And even, in the recesses of his soul, to weep a few tears for his own betrayal those many years ago. Not because he thought he was pitiful, but because he still mourned what he could have become for God, whom he loved; what he could have been for the young girl whom he adored. And yet he never would have met Jenn had he not been turned.

His spirits lowered. This wasn’t the conversation he had wanted to have. But if it was the one she needed, he would do his best to keep his side of it.

“God did not turn your sister into a vampire,” he said. “But God brought her here, where she has a chance.” His voice cracked on the last word.

“A chance to what?” Jenn asked, pulling her hand away.

He was sorry that she had pulled away, deeply, as he searched for what to say. “God gives us grace.”

“Oh,
that’s
what it’s called when you get turned into a monst—a Curser,” she corrected herself.

Monster.
That was how she saw him now, if she had ever really seen him differently. So his love for her
was
hopeless.
Bueno
, then he could love her as he should have in the first place: as a man who had taken holy orders and was dedicated to God. The way he wanted her to love him ran contrary to those vows and could only bring them pain anyway. At least this made his choice easier.

“Jenn,” he whispered, her name the strongest prayer he knew. “Jenn Leitner.”

She was quiet for a long time. He gazed at the altar, at the flames. Then, at the scent of her teardrops, he realized she was silently crying.

“Antonio,” she whispered, and he shut his eyes tightly against the tide of his emotion. His name on her lips was the answer to his prayer. “Antonio.”

She leaned her head on his shoulder. He felt her slump. He was just about to put his arm around her, to kiss her hair, her temple, her cheek. To humble himself as a man. Yes, he was one of God’s men, but he
was
a man, not an angel.

No, I’m not
, he thought.
I’m not a man.

“If,” she began, choking down a sob and clearing her throat. “If she doesn’t get better, please, if you and Father Juan can’t . . .” Jenn lowered her head. “I want it to be Father Juan who decides, not you. And—and I want him to be the one.” She pressed a shaking hand over her eyes. “So I won’t hate you.”

“Heather will come to no harm while you’re gone. I swear it,” Antonio said, making the sign of the cross, then kissing his thumb, in the old Spanish way.

“Then I’ll never come back.”

“Don’t say that. Never say that.” He turned to her, cupping her chin and easing her to face him as he half turned in the pew. “I will pray without ceasing—I
am
praying. I’ve been making a novena for Heather, do you know what that is? I have been saying the Novena of Divine Mercy.”

Jenn swallowed and moved her shoulders in a gentle shrug. She didn’t believe in prayer. If only he could make her see.

“The miracles are already made,” he said. “They’re all around us. We have to adjust our vision, so that we can see them and accept them. Like when you fight vampires, Jenn. You can’t see them move, so you focus on where they’ll be next. It’s as we say in the Church: ‘Do not fear tomorrow. God is already there.’”

“Where was He when Aurora kidnapped her?” Jenn demanded. “And when she—when Aurora destroyed her?”

“God wants good to happen. He fights for it, through us. And through His priests. And through His crusaders.”

“What, do you have a special line in to Him? His private number?” Jenn was making fun, but he heard the fury in her voice. He understood it.

“When I was called to become a priest, it was so that I could serve Him better. I spend hours trying to learn how to
listen
to Him, not to speak to Him. He already knows my heart. I am trying to learn His.”

“Then I have really bad news for you, Antonio. He’s heartless.” Jenn slid out of the pew and headed for the door. “Tell Brother Manuel I’m sorry, but I’m not hungry. I’m going to bed.”

“I can’t let you go this way,” he insisted, following after her.

She whirled around. “That’s not up to you.” She pointed to the chapel. “Go. Do what you do best.”

“What I do best,
mi amor
, is love you,” he said.

A dozen expressions crossed her face, a panorama of all human emotion. But in the end a numbness that hurt worst of all. “You’re a vampire. You can’t love anybody.”

Then she turned and fled.

Defeated, he let her go. Antonio went back to the chapel, pulled down the prayer bench, and knelt, reaching for his rosary in the pocket of his jeans. He began to tell the beads in Latin, reaching up to loop his hair around his ear as it fell forward and obscured his view of the statue of the Blessed Virgin. His thumbnail grazed the ruby cross earring he wore in his left earlobe. His seven sins. The seven murders on his conscience. But there were many other deaths he had to account for. He had left his mother, brother, and sisters behind in their village. And Rosalita, who wanted to marry him. He had told her that he was already taken by God’s bride, the Church, and would be faithful to Her.

Lita had died in the bombing. Quickly, he was told. She had not suffered.

But he had. He’d
left
her there. He was inside a seminary, studying about the miracle of the wedding at Cana—when Christ had changed water into wine—when she had been killed. His father confessor had told him that hatred and despair were sins. That night, sobbing before the cross, Antonio had sworn before Christ that he would never, ever again fail to protect a woman he loved. For yes, he had loved Rosalita, and now he loved Jenn.

And now Jenn was leaving to face Dantalion without him.

“God, give me strength,” he begged. “Show me my path.”

He returned to his rosary, and his fears.

M
OSCOW
T
EAM
S
ALAMANCA
M
INUS
A
NTONIO

“Well, that was fun,” Jamie said, as they cleared customs in the grim and dingy Sheremetyevo-2 airport. Beneath strange brown decorative tubes that might have been some bureaucrat’s image of interior decoration, the team waited in one of two serpentine lines. As everybody shuffled along like zombies, the guards would scare the regular people but let rich Russians jump ahead when and as they pleased.

Look at her nibs, and the other girls too, wearing their disguises.
Jenn had on a black wig; Skye was wearing an olive-green beret; and Eriko sported a knitted cap, like Antonio’s, that did nothing for her beautiful Japanese complexion. All three of them wore winter wear—turtleneck sweaters and heavy jackets, jeans, boots, gloves. Skye had cast glamours that were designed to deflect interest from them. He wasn’t sure Skye had got the proper hang of it. Seemed like everyone had been staring at them as if they were pop stars.

Or hunters.

His girl didn’t look well these days. Her cheekbones could cut cement blocks. If she caught him looking, she’d tell him she was cold. Pile o’ shite, that was. All her aches and pains were getting worse. He’d planned to say something to Father Juan about it before they’d left, but the good father had said Mass for them, then gone back to rehabilitating Jenn’s demonic little sis. Couldn’t spare half a moment for the team he was sending away on another damned fool’s errand, which was being led by their little American squirrel. Death trap, meet a complete and utter failure as a leader.