“Sorry,” Starkes said. “I thought I heard something out there and went to take a look.”
Father Paul rubbed his eyes. “Forget it.” He looked up. “The fog is clearing.”
“Where’s Finnegan?” Amy asked.
“He didn’t make it.”
Amy gasped. Penny hung her head.
“We need to regroup,” Father Paul said. “And then we get Allen back. And the stone too.”
They limped away, bruised but determined.
None of them saw the watchful raven following them.
FIFTY
Allen awoke in a cavern lit by torches. There was a waterwheel, and a contraption with lenses hanging over a raised dais. A memory triggered something he’d read in the Kelley diary.
This was it. The machine for the philosopher’s stone.
The trip from the Vysehrad to the woods behind Prague Castle had been a blur. He only knew he had to follow Cassandra; his whole purpose in life was to serve her. He didn’t know what she wanted with the stone. It didn’t matter. Whatever it was, Allen would do his best to make it happen, to earn her love, her kisses, her touch.
They’d entered the caverns beneath the castle through a hidden entrance in the woods. Cassandra told him it had taken her about five years to find it, but that had been a century ago. She couldn’t use the entrance beneath St. Vitus any more than she could enter the Cathedral of St. Paul and Peter. Hallowed ground.
His stomach rumbled. How long since he’d eaten?
Allen had fallen asleep poring over Kelley’s diary, had tried to make sure he knew how to operate the machine, the proper order to pull the levers that positioned the lenses. He was pretty sure he’d installed the lead box properly. He’d barely overcome a perverse desire to open the box and look at the stone.
What would this do to his beloved Cassandra? He couldn’t guess, but he was determined to do it right and please her. They needed only to wait for daylight in the aboveground world. The power of the stone in conjunction with sunlight-that was the trick according to the diary. Allen didn’t need to understand. He just had to make sure he followed directions.
His stomach growled again. He couldn’t remember ever being this hungry.
A little brown spider scurried between his shoes. He snatched it up, shoved it in his mouth, chewed, swallowed.
Wait. That’s not right.
Allen strongly suspected he needed to be rescued.
It was just after dawn, and they’d barely had any rest-just a quick meal and cups of coffee. They were back in the KGB basement of the small Catholic church. Nuns had come in to wrap Penny’s bruised ribs and bandage a deep scratch on her forehead.
They stood around a conference table filled with automatic weapons and various explosive devices.
“Soon they’ll be able to use the machine,” Father Paul said, checking the magazine on a.45 Colt. “God knows what will happen. Father Starkes and I have to go. It’s our job. I won’t think less of you two if you decide to sit this one out.”
Amy and Penny exchanged glances.
“No offense, Father,” Amy said, “but fuck you.”
Penny’s tone was somewhat more respectful. “Father Paul, I have to tell you, I’ve invested quite a lot of time into Allen. I’d hate to see him killed now. I think I’d better come along.”
A wan smile unfolded across Father Paul’s face. “Okay then. Let’s gear up.” He gestured at the arsenal spread across the table. “I don’t know if we’ll be up against animated suits of armor again. Frankly, I have no clue what we’re in for. But Father Starkes and I are going to carry twelve-gauge shotguns. Maybe that can knock apart some armor plating. Select what you want.”
Amy put her hand on an enormous pistol, lifted it. Heavy.
“That’s a.50-caliber Desert Eagle,” Father Paul said. “Might be a little too much gun for you.”
Amy frowned. “Why?”
“The kick will knock you back into the last century.” Father Paul handed her a small.32 revolver. “Maybe this.”
She took the revolver but kept casting longing glances at the Desert Eagle.
In a quiet moment, Amy found herself standing shoulder to shoulder with Penny, going over the equipment, while Father Paul and Starkes were off doing something else. Amy cleared her throat and said, “I think I need to apologize to you. I think it’s my fault about Allen.”
Penny shot her a sideways glance. “What are you talking about?”
“Remember the morning in the art museum? God, that seems, like, a hundred years ago.” Amy told Penny about Allen and Cassandra. “I suspected Allen might not be in full control of himself. I should have said something.”
Penny lapsed into sickly silence.
“I’m sorry,” Amy said.
“It’s okay,” Penny said. “I’m glad you told me.”
They went about their business in silence. Starkes and Father Paul thumbed double-aught shells into their pump-action twelve-gauges. They hung bandoliers of additional shells over their shoulders. Shoulder holsters with.45 automatics. The priests pried open a crate, revealing a stash of hand grenades. They passed the grenades around, along with extra ammunition. Kevlar vests. Utility belts with flashlights and miniature, compact tools. Combat boots. Black fatigues with the Vatican Battle Jesuit patch on the sleeves.
“This stuff is weighing me down.” Penny stripped off the Kevlar, kicked off the combat boots. “And I have to be able to transform quickly.” She put the deck shoes back on, picked out a small black T-shirt with the Battle Jesuit crest over the pocket.
“I like the boots and the pants and the belt, but I want a T-shirt too,” Amy said. “That stuff you wear is too hot.”
“Fine,” Father Paul said. “I’m not sure Kevlar is likely to stop what we might encounter anyway.”
He grabbed a pair of pickaxes, handed one to Starkes. “Let’s roll.”
The morning sun was well into the sky when the four black-clad strangers armed with pistols and shotguns walked through the courtyards of Prague Castle toward St. Vitus Cathedral. Tourists scattered before them.
“We seem to be causing a scene,” Penny said.
Father Paul didn’t break stride. “No time to be subtle.”
Two security guards in blue shirts with silver badges stopped in front of them, holding up their hands and yelling at them in Czech.
Father Paul flashed his Jesuit ID. “Vatican business, gentlemen. Stand aside.”
The guards looked at each other. They stood aside.
“You can do that?” Penny asked.
“Apparently.”
They entered the cathedral, more tourists scurrying out of their way. They headed for the entrance to the burial vault. A tour group stood aside to let them around the velvet rope and down the stairs to the chambers beneath St. Vitus.
“Allen told me it was all the way at the end,” Father Paul said. “At least that’s what he read in the diary.”
They marched past the tombs, and the chamber ended in a black wall of whitewashed brick. Father Paul lifted a pickax. “Man, I hope this is the right place.”
He swung the pickax and it bit deeply into brick and mortar. Starkes took his place next to him. They destroyed the wall in three minutes flat, opening a passage to the tunnel beyond, tall and wide enough for two people to pass through.
And that’s when the zombies spilled out.
FIFTY-ONE
“I think it’s time.”
Allen looked up from the Kelley diary, beaming his adoration at Cassandra. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
The vampire climbed the steps of the dais, unfastened her dress, and let it fall. She stood naked, smooth and white, the power of her sexuality radiating, seeming to fill the cavern. The bite mark on Allen’s thigh flared again. His longing for her made him ache.
Cassandra lay on the table, folded her hands over her breasts. “Begin.”
“Yes, mistress.”
Allen rushed up the steps of the dais, the Kelley diary in his hands. He began to pull levers, always double-checking the diary as he went. The cavern echoed with the sound of reluctant machinery forced to move after being dormant for hundreds of years. The sound of rushing water filled their ears. At first the waterwheel didn’t budge, but finally it groaned and creaked as it began to turn, slowly at first, but then more rapidly.
More levers. Allen’s heart pounded so hard that it threatened to leap from his chest. The gizmo above the dais lowered, the lenses spinning into place to the racket of machinery and rushing water. Allen pushed another lever to activate the sunlight shafts and reflectors. The sunlight hit the lenses.
Then the sunlight hit Cassandra.
She screamed, writhing, on the table. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from her body.
Vampire + sunlight = bad idea.
“The stone!” she screamed. “Activate the stone.”
Allen flew down the dais steps, stumbled and went down. He picked himself up, ran behind the protective lead wall, and pulled the final lever.
The cavern exploded with light. The sound of a thousand howling souls assaulted Allen’s brain. He dove to the floor, eyes shut tight, hands over his ears. The floor shook, the cavern rumbled.
It felt like the end of the world.
He forced himself to stand. It had been long enough. He pushed the lever back into place, and the white light dimmed. He ran back to the dais, shut off the waterwheel. He pushed more levers, the lenses lifting back out of the way.