The Darkening Dream (46 page)

Fifty-Six:

Water and Flame

Temple of Solomon, Thursday, November 20, 1913

“
D
AMN, WOULD YOU LOOK
at that thing?” Anne said as they entered the inner courtyard.

Sarah’s eyes followed her friend’s hand. A titanic bat, carrying a man, flew west across the space.

She shivered. The bat from Isabella’s dark delivery — only larger.

They watched the beast swoop over to the golden building, drop the man out of sight, then fly straight into the portico. A distant crashing sound echoed back to them.

“What the hell was that?” Sam said.

“Al-Nasir,” Sarah said.

“And his cargo was probably Pastor Parris,” Anne said.

“How come he’s flying in daylight?” Sam asked.

“Maybe sunlight doesn’t kill vampires here,” Alex said. “We’re not in Massachusetts anymore.” He smiled, his eyes covering Sarah like chalk on a blackboard.

He was wearing the least clothing she’d ever seen on a man, even at the beach.

“And Papa thought this place would even the odds,” she said.

Alex grabbed her arm. “The holy holy,” he said. “Your father yelled something about it, just before we left the basement.”

Sarah tried to concentrate, not easy to do since he was still touching her.

“The Holy of Holies?” she said.

“Yes, that’s it! He said to get the vampire there.”

Sarah pointed at the golden building where the monster had gone.

“He’s way ahead of you.
Beit HaMikdash,
the House of the Lord. Inside is the room with the tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. Only the High Priest is allowed there. God’s supposed to strike down anyone else.”

“If anyone needs smiting, it’s those two,” Anne said. “Let’s make sure they get what’s coming to them.”

They jogged toward the temple, Alex and Sam in the lead. Sarah might be an angel, but her feet still hurt.

After a while a stitch in the side forced her to stop.

Anne, also barefoot, was limping badly as she caught up and leaned against her arm.

“I… no… farther,” Sarah said.

Anne’s fingers tickled softly against Sarah’s skin. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flickering light.

Her pain gave way to a curious euphoria.

“Let’s catch up,” Anne said.

They ran arm in arm to the western end of the courtyard. A bronze basin with legs like giant bulls dominated the front of the sanctuary stairs.

“I think that’s the pastor running behind that metal thing,” Anne said.

“It’s called the Molten Sea,” Sarah said. “Are you sure that was him? He looked… really different.”

“So does everybody here,” Sam said. “Alex, why don’t we each take a girl and go around different sides — cut him off.”

Anne grabbed her brother’s hand and went left, Sarah and Alex went right.

Coming around the corner of the Molten Sea, they found the man in front of the steps. He stared at the twins, his back to Sarah and Alex. The plan, such as it was, had worked.

The man shuffled his feet. Not feet, Sarah realized, but cloven hooves, and what they’d taken for pants was actually fur. He looked like Pan, but his face belonged to Pastor Parris.

“Flee while you have the chance!” he yelled. “He’ll be back soon.”

Anne yelled back at him, “Release your spell on my sister, Pastor Parris, by everything that’s holy.”

Sam — never much the talker — hurled his spear at the pastor. The man dove to the side, but the wooden shaft caught him in the thigh. He screamed and went down.

Anne was on him in a second, kicking his gut with her bare feet.

“Release her, you bastard!”

The pastor scrabbled upright, then sprang into the air, leaping unnaturally high. He caught himself on the edge of the tank and pulled himself onto the lip, then yanked the spear out of his furry thigh and tossed it down, screaming.

“
Ex meus vita cruor, serpens
.” Sarah recognized the Latin.
From my life blood, snakes.

The bloody spear writhed and twisted on the stones, then broke apart into tiny red snakes.

“Back up!” Alex grabbed her arm. “I’m betting he conjured the poisonous variety.”

Sarah heard the pastor splashing about in the tank. Off to the side, Sam was wrestling with the top of a burning brazier. He managed to pull the heavy thing free and run it to the tank, then lob it up and over, into the water.

It splashed without much of an effect, but Sam ran to another brazier, grabbed it, then threw that one in as well.

Sarah heard a whoosh, and half the Molten Sea erupted into flame. She saw the pastor twisting in the inferno, screaming.

He dove under the water and emerged a few seconds later free of flames. Anne streaked around to the far side of the tank and climbed a ladder to intercept him.

“Anne, get away!” Sam yelled as he chucked another brazier into the water.

But Anne was already grappling with the pastor at the rim and screaming.

“Give me the doll!”

Sarah slid to the left to get back to the tank without nearing the nasty little serpents.

The pastor looked terrible, the skin on his upper body reddened and blistered — again. Anne jammed a thumb into one of his eyes and now it was he who screamed. The scuffle didn’t last long.

“Got it!” Anne called out. “Sarah?”

She threw a small object high into the air—

Sarah spread her wings, leapt, flapped wildly, and found herself aloft. In no time she swept across the space to intercept the doll then beat her wings and fluttered back to earth. She ran up the stairs to peer into the pool. The pastor was gone. The twins perched on the lip of the tank, staring into the water, Sam holding sword in hand.

“Where’d he go?” Sarah called down. “Never mind, we can free Emily.” She held the doll high. It was an ugly little thing made of rag and wax, and it smelled awful.

“He vanished,” Alex called back. “Just splashed himself with water, said something in Latin, and vanished.”

Behind her, Sarah heard a creaking. The air swirled. She smelled cinnamon and almonds.

My first killer, and yours
.

She tried to leap into the sky but found herself yanked back through the sanctuary doors. Cruel talons wrenched her wing. She screamed. Pain consumed her consciousness as hideous gray arms lifted her high.

Fifty-Seven:

Enemy at the Gates

Temple of Solomon, Thursday, November 20, 1913

F
ROM THE BOTTOM OF
the stairs, Alex saw the vampire emerge from the sanctuary before Sarah did. He had no time to warn her — the monster snatched her up before she even knew he was there and her scream cut Alex to the core.

The awful scene unfolded before him. Anne and Sam were caught on the far side of the tank. At the top of the stairs, the vampire lifted Sarah over his head and shook her. Her scream poisoned the air and one of her wings fluttered loose and broken.

Alex pulled his sling from his belt, grabbed a stone, and started up the stairs.

The vampire reached under Sarah’s thin garment and raked her belly. Her screams redoubled and blood soaked the white linen.

“No!”

The vampire’s laugh sounded like a bark. “How the verse is turned around! Three great insults you have offered, and three times you will repay in blood.”

Alex stopped on the second step to aim and fire. The shot streaked forward, trailing orange through the air. But inexperience sent it wide to explode against one of the big pillars. He had to get closer. He loaded another shot and resumed climbing. Above him, the vampire brought the winged talon to his face and extended a crimson tongue to lick Sarah’s blood.

The creature threw back his head and laugh-barked.

“Perhaps Allah, cursed be His name, still favors me, for He has placed into my hand the Horn the Dung God sought for centuries.” He shook Sarah for emphasis, and Alex winced at her soft whimper.

Halfway up the stairs, he launched his second stone. The vampire dodged, but not fast enough, for the rock caught his wing. There was a tiny burst of orange flame, and the stone ripped clear through the thin membrane.

The creature roared. Sarah flopped about in his talons like a toy in a toddler’s hands.

“So you wish further debt?”

At the three-quarter mark Alex paused for another shot, but the vampire was dancing around so much he might hit Sarah. He ran up the last few stairs to the top, where the vampire cavorted about the entrance to the sanctuary.

“Consider this the first of your payments.” He hurled Sarah into the air.

Alex watched in horror as she arced through the sky to crash like a limp doll on the stairs below. She lay still, a heap of feathers and bloody linen.

He willed himself through a forest of black and red thoughts. He couldn’t look at her, not now, but instead turned from Sarah’s lifeless form to the vampire. The fanged mouth opened and the beast crouched to leap.

Alex loosed his third shot. It struck the vampire square in the chest, bursting into flame. He bellowed and screamed, beat his wings against his burning torso, and shuffled back into the dark chamber.

Alex strode across the porch and from between the two gold columns released a fourth shot, which caught the vampire in the shoulder and spun him about in a swirl of fire. The creature retreated to the wooden doorposts at the far end. There, a dancer of shadow and flame.

Alex raised his sling and loaded his final pellet.

Tears furrowed his dusty face. “This stone,” he whispered, “has written on it the true name of God.” He released his grip.

The sling twanged like a divine note plucked on some cosmic harp. The stone burned forward to strike the vampire’s head as he cowered at the entrance to the room within a room. He was lifted off his feet and hurled into the smoky rear chamber.

The vampire vanished into the mist, taking with him all sound, all sensation. The next thing Alex knew he was transfixed by a beam of the purest light. Nothing moved, nothing sounded, nothing felt. There was only the light.

Fifty-Eight:

Seventy-two Virgins

Unknown Locale, Thursday, November 20, 1913

T
HE SWIRL OF INCENSE
and the sting of al-Nasir’s wounds gave way to the bubbling eddies of fountains and the smell of honeyed dates. Palms shaded tiled courtyards. Rich robes caressed his body and naked virgins pressed jeweled dishes into his hands.

In those last moments, denied his revenge, had he stumbled into
Jannah
and its byways of delight?

He sucked the jasmine air, bit into the sweetness of a fruit, and reached down to fondle the soft buttock of a youth.

But the silky skin burned hot against his hand, and the winsome flesh crumbled into dust. All around, trees and slaves dissolved into dervishes of sand. The sun hammered down to ignite liquid air. And it was not the tongues of young lovers but the fiery fingers of
ifrit
that grasped his limbs. His body seared and cooked. His skin blackened and crisped. Thumbs of flame ripped muscles and tendons from bone.