The Damned (39 page)

I have been with you in the beginning
I shall be with you always
in the endless spiral dance
O soul,
love in me

“Love Antonio, I beseech Thee,” Father Juan murmured, as he fell on his knees before Skye. “Free him with Your love, my Lady.”

“Antonio de la Cruz,” the Goddess said through Skye. “You are my beloved son.”

Inside Antonio’s jail Esther and Jenn had finished their simple dinner of freeze-dried beef stew and were eating Oreos and drinking tea. It was their turn to sit with Antonio, who was guarded around the clock. Father Juan and Skye were performing a ritual, and Noah was walking the camp perimeter with Jamie and some of the Defenders.

No one knew how hard it was for Jenn to sit there. Or maybe they did, and it just didn’t matter. Antonio had to be guarded. Jenn was one of the people who had to guard him. It was the mission.

She stole a glance at her grandmother. Tough as nails, yes, but she had always been warm and loving with Jenn and Heather. Yet she had spoken of sacrifices and hard choices. What had her life in the underground really been like?

Gramma Esther had commandeered a battery-powered TV and they were channel surfing. There was nothing worth watching. At the moment they were both staring at an idiotic sitcom about a human family who lived in Las Vegas and worked in a vampire-run casino. It was called
Sun and Games.

“Does anyone actually watch this?” Jenn grumbled.

“I hear the ratings are sky-high,” Gramma Esther replied.

“Let me out,” Antonio whispered.

“Stop it,” Jenn said loudly, her stomach contracting. “We’re not listening to you.”

Gramma Esther changed the channel. “Commercials, infomercial,
another
sitcom,” she said, groaning. She switched again.

“Gramma,” Jenn said, stricken.

Her father’s face filled the screen.

“Change it,” Jenn pleaded, but Esther sat forward and turned up the sound.

“Let me out,”
Antonio insisted.

The camera pulled back to reveal Solomon standing beside Jenn’s father, who was seated. Solomon’s hair was red, like Jenn’s. Even though she hated the sight of him, Jenn couldn’t deny that he was rock-star hot. He was wearing a black suit and a white shirt with no tie, and a silver chain with a peace-sign pendant.

“We’re still looking for her,” Solomon was saying sadly. His hand was on Jenn’s dad’s shoulder. “We understand the confusion she must be feeling. There’s so much misinformation out there, so many false rumors. Jennifer Leitner, please, listen to your father.”

The camera zoomed in on her father. He seemed impatient, his arms folded across his chest, his right index finger tapping almost continuously against his left arm.

“Jenn,” her father began. “Solomon is right. We only want to help you, sweetheart. Certain facts have come to light. We understand now that you weren’t alone that terrible night. Someone forced you to do this awful thing.” His voice was stiff, flat.

“He’s been hypnotized,” Jenn said.

“Wait,” Esther said, moving toward the TV “Oh, my God.”

“It’s Morse code,” Antonio said. “He’s tapping in Morse code.”

Jenn leaped to her feet and looked at Antonio. But his attention was fixed on the TV.

“‘Don’t come,’” he said in unison with Gramma Esther. “‘It’s a trap. I love you. I love you. I love you.’”

Jenn’s knees gave way. Gramma Esther put her arms around her and held her. Jenn was afraid she was going to pass out.

Antonio.

“Daddy,” Jenn said, craning her neck over her grandmother’s shoulder to look at the TV. Her father sat stoically, no longer tapping, then made as if to wipe his eyes. “Oh, Gramma.”

“Thank you for listening,” Solomon said on the screen. “If anyone has any information on this poor young woman, please come forward. We now know that what happened was not your fault, Jenn. Your father’s waiting to be reunited with you. If you see this message, please, contact us. We’re waiting for you with open arms.”

Then the sitcom returned. The two women hugged each other tightly. Neither spoke.

My father
, Jenn thought, suddenly so dizzy she thought she might faint.
Daddy.
He had betrayed her, literally throwing her to the vampires. To Aurora, who had destroyed Antonio. She had torn her father out of her heart. Her hatred of him was white hot. But this . . . he was warning her, telling her he loved her. She didn’t know what to think, how to feel.

“He loves you. He needs your forgiveness,” Antonio said from his cage.

Jenn swallowed hard and looked up at him. His eyes were dark brown, not red. And his fangs had retracted.

“Stay away from him,” her grandmother ordered.

Kissing Gramma Esther’s cheek, Jenn walked to the cage. Antonio turned sideways and looked at the floor.

“He needs your forgiveness,” he said. Then he buried his face in his hands and sank to his knees.

Jenn couldn’t breathe. She looked at the bowed head, the slumped shoulders. Was the monster in the cage gone too? Had two miracles occurred?

“First he needs his own forgiveness,” Gramma Esther said, taking Jenn’s hand and holding it tightly, as if Jenn might trust too much and get too close.

“Antonio, is it really you?” Jenn said.

He let his hands drop, and she saw the anguish on his face, the raw need for release, as he threw back his head and stared up, as if at God Himself.

In the distance Holgar howled, long, and low, and plaintively.

“I don’t know, Jenn,” he said, as tears slid down his cheek. “Who am I?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

M
ARCH
3, 1941

T
ONIGHT
I
WILL LEAVE.

I
HAVE PRAYED ON MY KNEES IN THE CHAPEL FOR HOURS, LISTENING FOR THE WORD OF
G
OD.
F
ATHER
F
RANCISCO HAS ORDERED ME TO STAY HERE AT THE SEMINARY AT THE
U
NIVERSITY OF
S
ALAMANCA.
I
WANT TO GO TO THE BATTLEFIELD.
I
WANT TO FIGHT AS A SOLDIER AND CUT
H
ITLER’S ARMIES DOWN.
B
UT
F
ATHER
F
RANCISCO HAS REMINDED ME THAT
G
OD IS FIGHTING BATTLES FOR SOULS, AND
I’
M CLOSE TO TAKING MY HOLY ORDERS—JUST WEEKS AWAY.
H
E SAYS THAT ONCE
I
AM ANOINTED,
I
WILL BECOME A LION OF
G
OD, LIKE
S
T.
M
ICHAEL.
I
WILL FIGHT AGAINST
S
ATAN AND HIS DEMONS.

B
ACK IN MY VILLAGE
I
WAS SO IN LOVE WITH
L
ITA.
S
HE WAS BEAUTIFUL AND FUNNY; SHE WANTED ME TO MARRY HER, AND FOR US TO HAVE MANY CHILDREN.
I
T WAS WHAT SHE
WANTED, AND PART OF ME WANTED IT TOO.
B
UT
I
BELIEVED THAT
G
OD’S PLAN WAS FOR ME TO BECOME A PRIEST.

W
HEN THE BOMBS FELL, SHE DIED ALONG WITH MY ENTIRE FAMILY.
A
ND
I
WAS SAFE INSIDE
S
ALAMANCA, SINGING CHANTS WITH MY BROTHERS.
U
NTOUCHED.
U
NHARMED.

I
WAS SO ASHAMED.

R
EST IN PEACE, DEAR
L
ITA.

A
DOLF
H
ITLER IS CONQUERING THE WORLD, SENDING THE HELPLESS TO HIS DEATH CAMPS.
N
OT JUST
J
EWS BUT
G
YPSIES, THE DISABLED, THE INFIRM.
T
HIS CANNOT STAND.
T
HIS WILL NOT STAND.
G
OOD MEN ARE JOINING THE CRUSADE AGAINST EVIL AND TYRANNY.
A
ND
I
AM A GOOD MAN.

O
NCE AGAIN THE WORLD BEYOND THE WALLS OF MY CHURCH CALLS ME TO THE BATTLE.
T
HIS TIME
I
AM GOING.
A
ND
I
SWEAR ON MY SOUL THAT
I
SHALL NEVER LET ANOTHER PERSON
I
LOVE COME TO HARM.

—
FROM THE DIARY OF
A
NTONIO DE LA
C
RUZ,
FOUND ROTTING IN THE CATACOMBS

M
ONTANA
T
EAM
S
ALAMANCA
, E
STHER
,
AND THE
R
ESISTANCE

Flush with the apparent success of their ritual, Skye and Father Juan sat in chairs outside Antonio’s cell. His own chair, safely behind the bars, formed the base of their triangle. In the center, in a circle of cumin, cloves, and juniper berries, a crystal ball caught the lights of candles Skye had placed at the north, south, east, and west. A white candle burned to invoke pure contact with spirit. A black candle burned, to repel evil and lay open Antonio’s unconscious mind. There was turquoise, for humanity; gray, to neutralize evil. Father Juan had added a missal, his rosary beads, and a vial of holy water to the altar.

Antonio wore cuffs of silver, which Skye had exposed to the moonlight while praying for him. Around his head she had woven a diadem of silver ribbon. He was shirtless, and she had drawn a pentagram on his chest with the ashes of oak wood. He had pressed his body against the bars, eyes closed, while she touched the ash to his icy skin.

Skye’s left and Father’s Juan’s right arms stretched between the bars of the cell. They held each other’s hands, then took his hands in theirs, and Antonio caught Skye’s slight jerk. Because she was still afraid of him, he knew, and because his hands were cold. Because his blood didn’t circulate. Because he was a Cursed One.

Was it a curse that could be lifted?

Or is there a part of me that really doesn’t want them to help me?

That part of him that had reveled in the curse of vampirism?

As a boy Antonio had observed the lonely existence of Father Pablo, the Catholic priest in his little village—denied a spouse and family, sharing the joys and sorrows of his flock without taking part in them. When Antonio had asked Father Pablo about it, the priest had told him that God approved of such a sacrifice and sent other, much more wonderful gifts in compensation.

Antonio had not quite understood, and as he was only a boy, and a sinful one at that, he didn’t expect to. But he would become a priest like Father Pablo, and he would get those wonderful gifts. It would be like Christmas.

Years passed, and everyone in the village knew Antonio de la Cruz was destined for the priesthood. But when Rosalita Hernandez had arrived from Mexico to live a few houses down from his family’s, Antonio had been tempted to deny his calling to the priesthood and marry her.

Then he remembered Father Pablo’s words. He gazed around at all the proud faces of the villagers—one of their own would become a priest! He listened to his mother’s prayers of thanksgiving to Mother Mary for the wonderful gift of her son, Antonio.

He couldn’t betray their trust in him. So he’d stayed true to God and left for the seminary in Salamanca. Soon after, the bombs of the Spanish civil war had dropped on his village, killing Rosalita, Antonio’s widowed mother, and his entire family.

From the safety of his monastery Antonio had grieved, and his religious community had gathered around him, prayed with him. The girls who came to Mass swooned over him—so handsome, tragic, and unavailable! He had grown closer to God, comforter of all, and even though Antonio had still been very lonely, he had not felt alone.

But in the dark Antonio wondered:
Did God make the bombs fall to make sure I would stay true to Him?

“Yes, he did,” Sergio had informed him, on the night they had met in a forest in France, in 1941, the war. “He did that to you, Antonio. Because he is a god of suffering. I offer you another path.”

Then Sergio had converted Antonio, and he had lost God, or so he had believed. When the change had first come over him, he had lost his conscience and his humanity. He ran, free, overwhelmed by the passions he had denied his entire life. He found joy in lust, hatred, and cruelty. Sergio loved him for it, declaring him the finest, most heartless vampire he had ever run with.

“You’re
magnífico,”
Sergio would tell him, as they terrorized Madrid, and Antonio killed the priests on Sergio’s hit list. “An inspiration!”

What had brought Antonio’s humanity back to him, back in 1942? He remembered his pride at bringing a dead Hunter to Sergio’s court on the night of the ball to be held in his honor. Antonio had just dropped the young man to the floor when something happened to him. Then and there he had become horrified by what he was doing. It was like waking from a nightmare.

But how? Why?

Antonio had known as he turned his back on his sire that he had shamed and humiliated Sergio—and that he would be marked for Final Death.

After he had left Sergio’s court and found sanctuary once more at the university, the kindly priest in charge of the chapel had allowed him to live in the basement—or what they had referred to in those days as the basement. There had been a misunderstanding; because he was a vampire and not a mortal man, he had pushed open a heavy door sealed a century before and had gone down more flights of stairs than the current inhabitants had known about.

Assuming he had reached the basement, Antonio dwelled in the deepest depths of the catacombs—the rooms of the dead, where the bones of the faithful had been stacked for centuries rather than buried in the churchyards. Perhaps Salamanca had suffered a plague or the churchyard had reached capacity. Such were the reasons for the catacombs of other cities. Skulls lined his walls; leg bones and arm bones marked the route he would walk to hear Mass, go to confession, and to drink blood from his friend. He was in an agony to be the best Catholic he could. Whatever he had done to save his soul he had to keep on doing, or he would be doomed.