Angel Souls and Devil Hearts (2 page)

And the politics continue.

Lazarus shut the book from which he had been reading aloud, Allison Vigeant’s
Jihad
, a first-hand account of the battle between Roman assassins and the vampires
who had gathered that year for the Venice Carnival. The selection he’d read was the afterword, by Dr. George Marcopoulos, a human who had become the shadows’ ambassador to the U.N.
Lazarus thought Vigeant had scored quite a coup by including the ambassador’s contribution. The Stranger, on the other hand, was less than impressed.

“No matter the uncertain tone of his words,” the Stranger said, tapping the arm of his chair, “it is clear Marcopoulos believes we will continue to be integrated, that left to
our own devices, we will blend into the world until one day we become as invisible as before. Also clear however, is that he fears this will not happen, that the future will be far less, hmm,
ordered.

“I would like to tell this man that his worst nightmares, his most unsettling fears
are
true. Though he whistles in the dark with his words of caution, he does not believe them. But
the time for invisibility has passed, for better or for worse. No matter our name, we have returned to the sunlight at last. We’ll never be able to hide in the shadows again. If chaos is our
get, then so be it.”

The Stranger had been speaking almost to himself, staring at nothing, but now he looked to where Lazarus stood in the door to the useless kitchen, awaiting a response.

“So now what?” Lazarus obliged. “Do we sit back and watch time go by?”

The Stranger stood and went to the window, where the hot Greek sun was finally beginning to sink back into the sea.

“Gallagher, Cody and Nueva,” the Stranger said and shook his head. “Even Hannibal in his twisted way. Despite the burden that this . . . integration has laid upon their
shoulders, they still find time to pursue Octavian’s quest, to search for an answer to his final question.
Find out what we are
, Octavian instructed them before he went through the
portal to Hell.”

“He was beginning to suspect,” Lazarus said as he joined the Stranger by the window.

“Oh, yes,” the other said, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. “He would never have made the final connection, though. Even with the assistance of every scientist in
the world, there is no way our brother and sister shadows will ever discover their heritage on their own.”

“You plan to tell them, then?”

“When they’re ready, Lazarus. When they’re ready.”

“And what do we do in the meantime, my friend, now that we have joined the world, now that our hunters hunt no longer?”

The smile disappeared from the Stranger’s lips. The burning light died in his eyes, and another, colder light grew there.

“You are mistaken, Lazarus,” the Stranger said. “The struggle of our people is far from over. And as quickly as the humans opened their arms to us, on the day our existence
puts them in danger they will strike a match to the pyre of our kind.

“And believe me, that day is coming.”

The Stranger turned and threw open the doors to the balcony. In the dying sunlight, he underwent a most fluid, graceful change, and took wing. Lazarus had been given instructions, but the
Stranger kept his destination a mystery even to his one true friend. The words floated, a ghostly whisper in the air, and Lazarus could not brush them away.

They will strike a match to the pyre of our kind

Lazarus knew that could mean only one thing.

Human and vampire would become hunters again.

Salzburg, Austria, European Union.
Monday, June 5, 2000, 3:27
P.M.
:

“It’s actually quite intimidating,” Allison said. “I mean, the way it just sits up there, observing the city. Ominous, really.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Will answered. “I’m certain when it was built it was quite reassuring. A fortress of that size and strength must have allowed people to sleep
much better at night.”

They walked through Mirabell Gardens, in the city of Salzburg, Austria, hand in hand. Allison Vigeant, a reporter who had once used the name Tracey Sacco, and her lover, Will Cody, who’d
been known by many names. She was a petite blond woman with hazel eyes, and he was a rugged-looking, bearded rogue. His brown hair had been cut short only days before, and he still felt slightly
naked. He was a shadow, and she decidedly human and determined to stay that way. They were lovers, and this rendezvous in one of Europe’s most romantic cities was their first real vacation in
nearly a year.

Five years earlier, Allison had been conducting a CNN undercover investigation into what at first appeared to be nothing more than a particularly vicious cult. But the Defiant Ones had turned
out to be much more than that. They were vampires.

Not the vampires of myth, to be sure, but the Defiant Ones, now simply called shadows, were the basis for that myth. Like humans, however, they were not all of one nature. Some were vicious and
cruel, others kind and helpful, and many, oh so many, in between. One and all they gathered each year, with humans who had volunteered to feed their red hunger, in New Orleans, Rio, a small village
in Germany, a rotating slate of a dozen or more cities around the world. Five years ago it had been Venice, and it was there that the vampires’ ancient enemy, the Roman church, had attacked
them in force. The lives of the Venetian people were forfeit, as was the city itself.

The vampires, or shadows as the world called them afterward, had been victorious, and Allison, with her cameraman Sandro Ricci, got it all on film. Yes, Allison had been present for the Venice
Jihad, and if it had not been for her chance meeting with Will Cody, things might have gone quite differently in the months that followed. But she had met him, and Cody had changed her thinking
completely regarding his kind, regarding shadows. And she was not alone. It had been her interview with Cody and Peter Octavian, coupled with footage of the vicious and darkly magical attacks by
the clergy, that solidified the world’s opinion of shadows.

They were victims, scapegoats, imperfect creatures, so much more than human, and yet so similar; deadly exaggerations of human nature, human interaction, all too easy for people to understand
when presented correctly. And Allison was sure to present them correctly. The Venice Jihad changed the world, for humans and shadows both. And it changed Allison’s world, bringing her
international fame.

And fortune, of course, let’s not forget that. Between her CNN salary and the royalties coming from her book,
Jihad
, she had plenty of disposable income these days.

After serving as anchorwoman for CNN for sixteen months, she returned to the field, reporting from six continents on legal, political and social issues affecting the shadows. The travel was a
huge perk, and Will met her whenever and wherever he could. She had always been gravely serious, but now she had matured enough to lighten up, to have a good time.

On the other hand, she was pretty certain that Will had regressed. Allison imagined that the Will Cody she saw now was the exuberant, childish and magnanimous Will of his heyday, more than a
century before, when he was known as “Buffalo Bill.” He rarely got tired, and when he did he still hardly ever slept. Which was fortunate, because Will had dedicated himself to three
jobs simultaneously. For Alexandra Nueva and Meaghan Gallagher, his blood-sister and her lover, he was searching for the vampire named Lazarus, and an answer to the mystery of their origin. For the
shadows he was an international media spokesman, and for himself, finally, there was the show!

As a master showman in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Will had acted in plays and written books. He had created the “Wild West Show,” a world-traveling exhibition
of riding, shooting and dramatization which, though exaggerated to near mythic proportions, still informed the world’s perception of the American West. He had been a pioneer in the
development of the motion picture, bankrolling and appearing in one of the first feature films.

Well, the Wild West Show was back—Allison had covered it for CNN—and now Will had made her book,
Jihad
, into a film, producing and directing it himself. They had spent a
month-and-a-half shooting it, and then another six weeks in London editing the monster, and now they were, for real, on vacation. Time to just enjoy each other.

Allison truly loved Will, a good and decent man by any estimation, although most of the world would not admit he even was a man. No matter, though, they were happy. She had become a sort of
financial advisor to him, because though he never had trouble making money, he had a terrible time hanging on to it. They talked about getting married someday, but there were no laws as yet to
govern such a union, and with Will’s involvement in the SJS, the Shadow Justice System . . . they’d decided to wait. And if that time never came, well, Allison was happy.

Now, hand in hand, they walked through the beautiful Mirabell Gardens, deep breaths drawing in the scent of the flowers and the unseasonably nippy air. They marveled at the design of the garden
and its colors, the architecture of the palace, Schloss Mirabell, home to the city’s mayor. They chuckled over the statuary, especially the gnomelike creatures carved from stone, and sat by
the fountain. They talked and laughed, kissed and held each other close.

And yet their eyes, like the eyes of every other visitor to Salzburg, were always drawn back to the Festung Hohen-salzburg, the huge fortress overlooking the city from its southern edge, across
the river.

“You’re right, darlin’,” Cody said finally, giving her a little squeeze. “The place is creepy. Still, it has a power and a . . . a majesty that is quite
attractive.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, giving in. “Tomorrow morning, first thing, we’ll go.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. God, what a baby!”

“Why, madam,” Cody said, lapsing into the cadence of the American West, “I do believe that was an insult.”

“Believe whatever you want, Buffalo—”

“Don’t say it!”

But she was off and running, with Cody in pursuit. As much as he was still trading off the nickname of his human life, with his books and the Wild West Show, that was for fun. In real life, he
hated the name, and she knew it.

“You’re in trouble now!” Will shouted after Allison as she headed for the gate and the road, Rainerstrasse, beyond.

Salzburg, Austria, European Union.
Monday, June 5, 2000, 7:26
P.M.
:

Humanity had been surprised to find out how few shadows there actually were. When CNN had initially broken the news of their existence, most had an unrealistic reaction, honed
from decades of first cold war, then terrorist paranoia—“
Thry're
among us, everywhere.” In truth, Cody guessed that the shadows numbered in the mid-five figures somewhere.
Not a lot of vampires to go around.

Still, most major cities had a few, and so it was not surprising that he and Allison ran into a shadow on the street outside their hotel that evening.

“Will Cody, right?” the shadow asked.

“That I am, sir. And you are?”

“John Courage, Mr. Cody, and pleased to meet you.”

“John Courage?” Allison smiled. “As in, ‘give me a pint of Courage’?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s right,” Courage said, returning the smile with his own, self-deprecating version, then turning his attention back to Cody. “But that particular
brew was named after
me
, not the other way around. And aren’t I modest?”

They laughed politely, good-naturedly.

“I live here in Salzburg, now,” Courage told them. “I’m a musician. Twice a week I play sax at the Urbanikeller, the jazz club.”

Even though he shouldn’t have been, Cody was surprised. They were really doing it, he thought. Shadows were actually merging with human society. Will smiled at the boy, who might well have
been hundreds of years older than he was.

“What time’s your show tonight?”

“Ten
P.M.
”

“We’ll be there,” Allison said, reading Cody’s intentions.

“I’m flattered, Ms. Vigeant,” John Courage said sincerely.

“You know me?” she asked.

“Shouldn’t I?” Courage replied, and raised an eyebrow. “Say, if you two are headed to dinner, I have a wonderful tip. Try the Peterskeller, off Kapitelplatz by St.
Peter’s Cemetery.”

“It’s that good?” Allison asked, knowing any meal was really for her rather than for Cody, and thinking how courteous it was for this shadow even to mention dining, since his
kind needed such sustenance not at all.

“It’s incredible!” Courage said. “I’m told the food is wonderful, but the atmosphere is . . . It’s the oldest restaurant in the country, about twelve
centuries old, and local legend says it’s where Mephistopheles met up with Faust.”

“Sounds great,” Allison said, and meant it.

“Say, John,” Cody began, “why don’t you come to dinner with us?”

Courage looked surprised and pleased by the offer.

“Really I’d love to, but I’ve got a lot to do before tonight’s set. Please do come by the club, though. It would be an honor, really.”