The Disciple and Other Stories of the Paranormal (19 page)

We went on proudly, at least for a while.
Hiding the Stars of David helped, though we were still regarded
with the wrong sort of curiosity from most of the populace.
However, we met the occasional person who believed us and thanked
us for our efforts.

Not that our plan was to tell just anyone
what our purpose was. Those few we rescued who weren’t more afraid
of us than the ’Pire we’d saved them from were given a truthful
explanation.

We told any others who asked that we’d been
sent by their sovereign to try to stamp out a variety of plague.
This worked in many cases. But when you’re caught ripping the heads
off of supposedly upstanding citizens who just keep odd hours, then
you do have some explanations demanded, usually at the point of a
sword.

We were equipped to survive against most
vampire-based attacks. But we weren’t protected from human weapons.
And nothing can ever protect you from a mob.

Our first mob was terrifying.

We were caught clearing out a nest of
vampires. We couldn’t reason with the villagers who were trying to
defend their lord and his family. We had to set the vampires’ home
on fire – not to destroy them but to keep the villagers at bay.
They’d kept five horses and we stole them, with two carrying
double.

David and Hannah were riding together. In
the scramble to escape, his cloak came off and he tossed it over
the horse’s neck. We rode wildly, feeling more fear of this mob
than any vampire.

The villagers gave good chase, though we did
manage to outrun them. But not before David took an arrow in the
back.

We reached our hiding place and David fell
off the horse into Marcus’ arms. Hannah leaped off, trying not to
cry.

“
Can you remove the
arrow?” Liam asked Marcus quietly.

Marcus shook his head as he broke off what
he could, so Hannah could hold David without harming herself.

“
I’ll…miss you…my love,”
David gasped out.

“
I’ll see you in Heaven,
if nowhere else,” she whispered, kissing his forehead.

David reached his hand to her face. They
were like that for a moment, but only a moment. His hand fell to
the ground as his eyes glazed. He looked like Violet to me, only
stabbed from behind, not from the front. But the finality of death
was the same.

Our first casualty came within a year of
arriving. In a war, I suppose that’s a good statistic. In reality,
we lost a seventh of our fighting force, and one half of a married
couple.

We wrapped David in his cloak and buried him
as well as we could, putting a note rolled into an empty vial into
his clasped hands. We identified his burial spot with a stone
marker. Maybe in time his body would be unearthed, the vial found,
and somehow The Order, a thousand years from now, would know their
first fallen soldier had died bravely.

At least, we hoped it was bravely. Because
we felt more like marauders than heroes. In order to survive, we’d
learned to loot ’Pire remains for their money and supplies, just
like we’d taken the horses. But what we didn’t ask was what this
might be doing to our own souls.

Hannah tried to hide her sorrow, but she and
David had been together longer than I’d been in The Order. They’d
lost everyone to the vampires in our time, everyone but each
other.

But this loss was different – deeper,
lonelier, more final. We all felt it. Surprising as it was to
discover we still had some innocence to lose, but as David’s body
went into the ground, there was no mistaking the loss.

We finally knew, in our souls, we would die
here. Now the only questions were when and would we have completed
our mission before the last of us fell?

We found no vampires for another several
months. We found other mobs, though. News of us had spread, and it
wasn’t good news.

The bubonic plague was devastating the
population, the Hundred Years War was raging throughout the land,
and yet we were targeted as more evil than either of these two
horrific calamities. Liam said it was because we were tangible and
could be hurt and so gave the people something to react
against.

Perhaps.

“
Maybe Jonathan was right
– they’re distrustful because we’re women,” Hannah suggested, after
yet another group had run us off before we’d found if there was a
’Pire in their midst or not. “We dress and act like you men do.
Much as I hate to suggest it, maybe that’s tipping the mobs
off.”

“
Possible,” Liam said.
“But doubtful. While this era didn’t consider women to have any
authority, during these dark times even women could offer last
rites to the dying. They should be greeting us with at least a
semblance of joy, seeing as we’re all clergy and wearing holy
symbols.”

“
You’re sure them calling
us whores and abominations has nothing to do with our sex?” I could
admit it probably wasn’t the only reason, but the insults tossed
towards Adrienne, Hannah, and me were a little more venomous than
those shouted at the men.

“
I’m with Liam,” Marcus
said. “It’s too focused to have all these mobs after us simply
because we have female warriors in our group.”

“
Here.” Adrienne handed
something to me and Hannah.

“
What are they?” Hannah
asked.

“
Leather skullcaps.”
Adrienne looked embarrassed. “I was going to buy them, but the mob
ran us off before I could.”

I examined mine. “There’s a hole in the back
for our hair.”

“
I think it makes it more
comfortable,” Adrienne said.

“
Thank you. This should
help us hide a little, and they’ll be good for battle, too.” We had
no armor for our heads, and in a fight, even the smallest advantage
could turn the tables. The idea of hiding, at least in a small way,
didn’t seem as outrageous and insulting as it had only a short
while ago, either.

Hannah hugged Adrienne. “I’m glad you found
these. From a clean shop, too.”

“
I’m glad we didn’t have
to buy much gear in this time,” Liam said. “Most of what I’ve seen
is even worse than I’d expected.”

“
I’d glad we were
inoculated against the diseases,” Jonathan said. “The skullcaps are
wonderful, and the rest of us should find our own as soon as
possible. I’d also like to find somewhere we can rest and regroup,
if only for a short while.”

None of us argued with Jonathan’s desire.
But shelter from the world was hard to find, and not what we’d
traveled back in time for anyway.

We were forced farther north, towards the
Alps, to escape our newfound reputations as much as to avoid the
fighting and the oppressive death. There were times, when we went
through a town with more dead in the streets than were still
living, that I wondered if the vampires weren’t a better option
than the Black Death.

But bubonic plague didn’t play with its
victims, didn’t get joy from their pain. The plague we were here to
fight was much worse than the Black Death. Though it wasn’t
spreading as fast we knew it would last far longer.

The vampire plague would outlast the Hundred
Years War easily, and it would rage longer and further than the
Black Death, too. The vampire plague would prove the adage right –
slow and steady would win this race.

Unless we stopped it.

“
Maybe the ’Pires don’t
like the cold,” Marcus said. “We should go back south.”

“
Their influence is here,”
Jonathan said. “At least, if the standard reactions to our presence
are any clue.”

“
But unless we can find
vampires here, influence means nothing.” Hannah shook her head. “I
agree with Marcus – we should go back.”