Part 43 (1/2)

”Ay, Padre, no,” Antonio pleaded, gazing up from his knees. She saw Antonio's face, so loved, so cherished. She tried to touch him, but she was formless.

Fulfill what I have foreseen, Father Juan said. Spirit, soul, body. There are seconds now, Antonio. Heaven watches.

Then Jenn's world went black. She was back in her dying body.

The light pressure on her lips was Antonio's mouth. She tried to kiss him back. She wouldn't go now. She couldn't go. There was a world to save.

And a vampire to love.

Something warm and coppery dripped into her mouth.

This is my blood, Father Juan said. Shed for you.

She couldn't swallow. She was too close to death. But she felt Antonio's blood trickle down her throat and diffuse into her veins.

”It won't work this way,” she heard Antonio say. ”I have to drain her nearly to death.”

”She's already dying,” Skye replied. ”Don't stop.”

”Who's he talking to?” Jenn's mother was saying.

Mom, Jenn thought, I love you.

”I don't know,” Paul Leitner replied.

And my father, Jenn thought, and her heart began to harden. Rage filled her.

You have to let it go. This hatred you feel . . . it's how Antonio has felt about himself, all these decades. If you let it go, he will be able to do it too, Father Juan said. And then you will fulfill the runes I have cast.

I have the right to hate him, Jenn argued.

But you have the responsibility to love him. That is the new mission of the Hunter of Salamanca, Jenn. To repair the world.

Let the new Hunter do it, then.

If you do as I say, then he will, Father Juan replied.

”It will take twenty-four hours for her to change,” Antonio was saying. ”We don't have time . . .”

”Trust,” Jenn blurted out. In her heart she was sobbing and raging and hating her father and wis.h.i.+ng him dead, but as the blood of St. John of the Cross spread throughout her physical body, it nourished her spirit as well.

Forgive him, Father Juan told her.

She saw her father holding her mother, both staring at her body, rocking together in mindless sorrow. Her father was coated with vampire ash.

”I'm so sorry. I would die for you. I'm so sorry,” Paul Leitner said. ”If I could trade places . . .”

And deep in her heart, her very soul, she knew he was telling the truth.

I forgive you, she thought.

In her mind, she saw something horrible and black rise out of her like a cloud of smoke. Then a black shape grabbed at it, squeaking as if with glee, and bore it away. She was surrounded by light.

”My love, my love,” Antonio whispered desperately. ”Please.”

Jenn opened her eyes and looked into his deep brown eyes. She saw them widen. Felt his arms around her.

Then she saw Skye bending over behind Antonio, and Jenn looked into her crown of mirrors.

Noah could tell that Holgar was in trouble. Both he and Viorica were howling in fear and frustration even though they were in human form. The Allied soldiers had been mesmerized, and they were advancing on the two werewolves. More werewolves were bounding toward them, but whether friend or foe, Noah couldn't tell. He aimed his Uzi at the soldiers, cursing Dantalion's name with each round he fired. Then he stared up at the burning castle and saw figures standing on a balcony. Dantalion was mesmerizing the entire Allied forces.

He grabbed his radio out of his pocket and clicked it on. ”Crusader Kicker,” he called, using Jamie's code name. ”Blow it sky-high.”

”Copy that, Crusader Star. See you're busy. Blowing it now, then coming to you,” Jamie radioed back.

As Noah grimly mowed down more approaching soldiers, he took out a couple of the mesmerized Catholics and a witch, too. Then he braced himself for the explosions that he prayed would blow Dantalion, Lucifer, and all their vampire friends straight to h.e.l.l.

He didn't have long to wait.

A huge roar threw him to the ground. Noah rolled onto his side and kept firing. He was aware of flame and smoke and huge chunks of stone and wood falling his way, but he focused on the mission, which was to protect the two werewolves.

Menaced by a man in a clerical collar and a short-haired nun with an Uzi, Holgar and Viorica dodged the gunfire by crouching as low as they could and zigzagging around the castle pieces as they fell. Smoke rolled across Noah's field of vision, and he kept shooting, his only thought to protect the virus.

Then the soldiers, the Catholics, and the witches blinked and staggered as if waking from a dream. They fell into one another's arms in shock, some collapsing; they began to tend to their wounded as they pointed up at the castle. The mesmerism was broken. Dantalion had to be dead.

We did it, we did it, Noah thought, turning his submachine gun on furious vampires as they headed in the direction of the awakened Allied troops. Exultant, he kept doing what he was made to do: kill the enemy by any means possible. He felt a rush of joy as more vampires fell.

And then a terrible pain shot through him as something picked him up. It was a nightmare ruin, one of the hybrids, soaking wet, falling apart. But it had broken something vital-maybe his back-and Noah's eyes teared with the pain.

”Lovely, lovely,” the monster said. ”Killed the lovely.”

Noah heard something crack inside his body. Another bone broken. Sheer, blinding pain engulfed him.