Part 41 (1/2)

”There are two major parts to the virus. They have to be mixed together. I made a batch, but it wasn't perfect. But I figured out the exact specifications for each part. Then we moved to Romania. Maybe they had two different people smuggle out the components and they haven't brought them together yet.”

”And you think they let Lucifer break into the lab?” Antonio had thought it was weird that Noah had been able to break in. Granted, he was Mossad, but if he, Antonio, had been creating the ultimate weapon, he would have made it nearly impossible to infiltrate his base of operations.

On Antonio's back, Greg groaned. ”No. Looked promising. Didn't . . . work,” he said. ”Noah Geller . . .”

”They convinced you of that,” Sherman said to them both. ”Because if you got captured, you couldn't reveal the truth. They took my research and made the virus somewhere else. I just know they did. Because I was right.”

”Come with us. You can help,” Antonio insisted.

”Help?” Sherman's eyes glowed crimson. He hissed at Antonio. ”I don't want to help. I want to die.”

There was a loud boom, and the castle shook around them. Pieces of wood and stone cascaded from above, and Antonio ducked back into Greg's cell to protect him.

He heard screaming. Through all the hours being locked inside his cell, he had never heard anything like it. Lucifer was escalating the battle.

The castle shook again. This time Antonio didn't wait for the aftershocks to subside. He charged out of the cell and ran for all he was worth.

”Jenn,” he said. ”My Jenn.”

The main door to the castle was too heavily protected, so Jenn and her group made it to a door on the second level. She positioned her submachine gun and lifted her hand to tell the others to get ready to fire, when a mortar hit the castle and the stairs beneath them gave way. The others screamed as they fell; Jenn flailed for the door latch and grabbed on with both hands, as her legs swung in midair hundreds of feet above the ground. She didn't look as the members of her team fell to their deaths.

Then she discovered there was a small portion of stairway left, somehow b.u.t.tressed by timbers. She found purchase with one foot, and then the other, but she held on tight to the latch.

”Jenn,” said a voice behind her. It was Solomon's soldier, the one who had saved her when her eardrums had exploded. He was gripping an edge of the castle wall with his fingertips.

His arm came around her and covered her hand on the door latch. She worried about their combined weight on the precarious perch.

”Jenn,” he said again, and his voice was flat and emotionless. This time Jenn hazarded a glance. He was staring at her with the eyes of a madman. They were practically spinning.

”Hey, what's going on?” she asked shrilly.

”Dantalion. He's all around you. Look,” he said, gesturing with his head to the ground, far below.

Jenn wasn't going to look, but he was so insistent that she obeyed. She gasped at what she saw: Allied soldiers mowing down fellow Allied troops with Uzis, attacking with huge knives-and a werewolf flinging itself at Holgar's ally, Viorica. Blood sprayed everywhere.

”Dantalion orders you to look,” said the soldier, grabbing Jenn's chin and jerking her head upward. On the balcony above her, Dantalion spread wide his arms. Beside him vampires in black robes decorated with red bats stretched their arms forward too, and a thick, black smoke streamed from their fingertips.

And what the soldier said next chilled her blood. ”Hail, Dantalion. I will kill your enemy.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

The final battle is coming. I don't know if I'll live through it.

Less than a year ago, I was just Jenn. Back home I'm not even old enough to drink, but now I'm leading the fight for humanity's last stand. I'd say it's too impossible to be real, but it's too impossible that there are vampires . . . or a G.o.d in the sky who has let this happen. And yet.

I'd be lying if I wrote that I'm not afraid to die. I'm terrified. I'm even more afraid that I'll die without seeing Antonio one last time. Father Juan says we're meant to be together, but I just don't see how. Is there a life after this one? Can we be together then?

Who can answer these questions for me? Where is Father Juan? Is he off praying for us, or has he abandoned us? And if I don't believe, isn't that the same thing?

This journal was supposed to be a new Hunter's Manual, for the Hunter who comes after me. But will I be the last of the hunters of Salamanca? If the vampires win, the fight must go on. If someone does succeed me, this is what I have to say to you: There are things worth fighting for. And dying for. If you find yourself in a battle like mine, kill as many of the enemy as you can. But if you don't live in a world like this, then use your life to heal and repair the world, so that h.e.l.l never comes to earth again.

I love you, Antonio de la Cruz. I will always love you.

-From the diary of Jenn Leitner,

retrieved from the ruins

CASTLE BRAN.

THE ALLIES AND THEIR ENEMIES.

As Antonio set Greg down in the courtyard, he saw Jenn fall. She was a dot on a black horizon that s.h.i.+mmered purple and red with enemy magicks and lightning bolts that stabbed the earth and set it on fire.

But he saw her fall, arms and legs flailing. He heard her scream. It tore his heart out of his chest.

It broke his soul into pieces.

She landed on an outstretched evergreen limb that broke her fall, and he shouted so loudly his voice echoed.

And then she fell again.

”Jenn!” he roared, breaking into a run. ”Jenn, land on your feet!” He willed her to live through it, praying as he ran.

Maybe she heard him. Maybe she didn't.

But she didn't land on her feet. She landed on her back, on the unyielding stone of the courtyard. And then she bounced.

”No!” he screamed. ”No!”

He could see her blood pooling and running over the stones, and one leg lay crookedly beneath her. He raced to her, dying a thousand times.