twisted.
“Let me see if I have this straight. You jackasses think I’m a vampire?”
He cringed away from me, but he also nodded.
“Does that mean you think the Red Knights are vampires?”
Another nod.
I will rip your throat out and drink your life.
“Well, that’s just fucking peachy, isn’t it?” I said with a sigh.
There was a sound and we both turned to see Ghost, weak and trembling, standing in the doorway to the entrance hall. He started to come into the room, but I stopped him with a click of my tongue. Ghost sat down and studied Krystos with savage dog eyes.
A strange expression came over Krystos’s face. He looked at me, confused. “Are you… Stregoni benefici?”
I tried to sort out the translation. “Beneficial witch?”
He gave his head a violent shake. “ Vampir,” he insisted. “Church vampir. Vampir for God.”
“Do I look like a fucking vampire, Einstein?” I snapped. Then I sat back on my heels and blew out my cheeks. “And… I can’t believe I just asked that question.”
Krystos continued to stare at me, but now there was a splinter of doubt in his eyes.
“Okay,” I said, “here’s the game plan. You are going to sit here and not move while I go check the rest of the house. My dog is going to watch you. You do anything to my dog, you even look at him crooked, and you’re going to find that I’m a lot scarier than a vampire. Are we communicating here?”
Krystos cringed back and tried to melt into the wall. “No…!” he gasped. “No hurt. Never hurt white dog… fetch dog… fetch! ”
I was getting more confused by the minute. “You want to play fetch with my dog? Really, you want to make a joke now? ’Cause I have to tell you, pal, it’s not a great time to jerk my chain.”
“No,” he insisted, “ fetch dog. Fetch!”
He searched my face for understanding and obviously found none because I had none to give. He turned his face toward the wall and began muttering prayers.
“You’re less than useless,” I told him as I got to my feet. “Stay there and shut up. Don’t even think about trying to escape. You wouldn’t get far and I’ll kill you for trying.”
He shook his head. Tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto his shirt. A small part of me wanted to feel sorry for him, hurt and scared as he was, but the rest of me told that part to shut the fuck up.
The house was quiet. I checked the rest of the bodies. They were all dead.
I collected the weapons from the fearless vampire hunters. A couple of guns, some knives, and the hammers and stakes. I looked at those for a moment, still amazed that they were any part of my version of the real world. The stakes were eighteen inches long and lacquered to a high gloss. They hadn’t been whittled, either; each one had been turned on a lathe by someone who understood woodworking. There was a long prayer carved into each one. The writing was tiny and I had to squint to read it, turning the stake in a circle to read the Latin that rolled around and around. Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio; contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium. Imperet illi Deus; supplices deprecamur: tuque, Princeps militiae Caelestis, Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo, divina virtute in infernum detrude. Amen.
My Latin is only passable, but I could make out some of it: “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in the battle…” As far as I could make out it was a prayer against evil. It seemed to fit the agenda for Krystos and his crew, but it explained nothing.
“Joe, old son,” I said aloud to myself, “you need to go the hell back to Baltimore. You need to take in an Orioles game, get drunk. Maybe get laid. Either way, you need to get your ass out of this freak show of a country.”
How do you process something like this? I mean… these guys were actual vampire hunters. Or, to rephrase that, these total whack jobs were taking their shared delusion to an impressive level.
I found a second leather valise in the dining room. It was crammed with more stakes, pouches of garlic powder, jars of pure garlic oil, and bottles of water marked with a black cross. I opened the lid and sniffed. Far as I could tell it was only water. I looked at the cross again and then back to the babbling guy on the floor.
Holy water? I wondered. Well, why not? What the hell else would it be on a day like this? These jokers had the whole official vampire hunter kit.
Okay, I thought, lots of fruitcakes in the world. People’s beliefs are their own, yada yada.
But why did they think I was a vampire?
Because they think you’re a Red Knight, muttered my inner Cop. I thought about the knight. The eyes, the incredible speed and strength. The fangs.
I will rip your throat out and drink your life.
I’ll buy a lot of weird shit. I mean, my job kind of depends on a belief in weird, but I’ll only walk out onto that ledge as far as science will stretch. I’ll do mad scientists and radical gene therapy. Been there, done that.
But… vampires?
“No fucking way,” I said aloud. The echo of my words came back to sting me.
I didn’t even know where to go with that speculation. I’m hunting rogue nukes in Iran. These guys are European vampire hunters. There’s no couch for both of those things to sit side-by-side on.
“Shut up and check the house,” I told myself.
The kitchen was empty, and I saw only two cars parked outside. No guards with them, but then I hadn’t expected any. I’d check those later. There was no basement. When I came back into the living room I saw the guy with the leg wound slumped over and for a moment I thought he was dead, but I found a pulse in his throat. He’d simply passed out. Whether from blood loss, shock, or fear I couldn’t tell and didn’t much care.
At the foot of the stairs I stopped and cocked my head to listen. I was pretty sure that there was no one else here, but “pretty sure” is a damn poor excuse for certain knowledge. So I left Ghost in the hall, pulled the gun, and ran the stairs.
I found Taraneh and Arastoo Mouradipour in the bedroom.
Or, rather, I found what was left of them.
Interlude Five
Krak des Chevaliers
Headquarters of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller Syria
May 30, 1192 C.E.
“Come in,” said the priest without turning. “You must be cold.”
Sir Guy removed his cloak and drew near to the massive fire that blazed in the stone hearth. The priest’s private study was deep within the bowels of the Krak des Chevaliers, and it was always winter down here.
“Draw near to my fire, my son.”
Nicodemus always said it that way-“my fire”-and it always mildly unnerved Sir Guy, as if the priest ascribed some special meaning to those words that no one but he appreciated.
Nicodemus picked a poker and began jabbing at the burning logs, repositioning them. Each thrust of the metal rod sent up showers of glowing sparks and dropped the ghosts of ashes onto the stones. “Tell me, my friend, what news do you bring from the agreement?”
“I met with Ibrahim as you directed, Father,” said Sir Guy, holding his hands out to the blaze to thaw his fingers. “He is ill, but still strong enough to work. We are nearly finished coding the books. I have four monks working now on the Book of Shadows, but Ibrahim does not seem to trust anyone else with what he is calling the Saladin Codex.”
“He is very secretive,” said Nicodemus, though his tone suggested admiration for that quality.
“However I fear for him,” said Sir Guy. “His health fails and I believe that it is the work itself that assails him. It seems to be draining the life from him with every page.”
“And what sickness do you suppose he has contracted from doing God’s work?” asked the priest with asperity.
Sir Guy chose his words carefully. “Ibrahim and all of his Tariqa are very religious.”
Nicodemus paused to cut him a quick look, then continued to poke at the fire. “Can that not be said of all of us, my son? Did not the two of you conceive this as an expression of your faith and concern for the future of our
