Jack Templar and the Lord of the Vampires (19 page)

A lump formed in my throat as I realized I recognized the voice. Gregor. Whatever magic this was, it was far beyond my comprehension. At least I knew I had chosen correctly. The talisman had to be inside.

I confidently reached my hand into the dark hole inside the rooster and felt around. Nothing. Just empty space. I stretched myself up higher so I could reach farther back. I systematically patted every square-inch of the interior, certain I had missed something.

More cold dread filled me the longer I searched. I covered the entire interior and reached the point where I’d started. Frantic, I searched again, this time scraping the inside surface with my fingernails. My stomach ached and my head suddenly hurt. I thought I might be sick. I rocked back, staring in disbelief.

The rooster was empty.

I
t didn’t make any sense. The clues had all pointed to the rooster. Gregor’s own voice had come out of it when I’d opened it. I couldn’t believe this wasn’t the right place. The storm reminded me it was still there, thrashing against me like I was an insect it wanted to brush off. I held on tight and squeezed my eyes shut. I thought through everything Gregor had said to me. Replaying the story. Saying the riddle over in my head. He had admonished me to use my head, but I couldn’t think straight. I had to be missing something. I just had to be.

Then it hit me. One small thing in Gregor’s choice of words. Several times he’d warned me to use
the
head instead of use
my
head. I hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but it had stuck out enough for me to recall it. Maybe it was because his English was otherwise perfect. I probably wouldn’t have remembered it if I hadn’t been embarrassed each time he used it, implying I was a bit dense. But maybe it was the perfect secret clue. If he wanted to keep the secret safe from anyone who might capture and torture me for the location, embedding a clue that I didn’t even know was a clue now seemed brilliant.

I steadied myself and reached up for the rooster’s head. As I did, the Templar Ring glowed red on my finger, raindrops sizzling when they struck it. This had happened before when I tried to open locks, so I held my breath and pulled on the rooster’s head. It slid out easily, a cylinder attached to it. I went to open it but stopped myself.

I had no idea what was inside. If it was an old scroll with instructions on it, the rain would immediately ruin it and the climb would have been for nothing. I fought down the urge to see what was inside and instead put it into a bag attached to my harness. There would be time to inspect it later.

With the cylinder safely in my bag, unexpected tears sprang to my eyes. My sense of failure and despair had been so absolute that the relief of finding it washed over me. I’m certain I would have broken down and sobbed right there, but the storm had other plans for me. 

I felt the lightning before it struck. The air around me crackled with energy, and I felt the hairs rise on my arms. Every ounce of instinct told me I was in serious trouble. I didn’t think; I just reacted. That’s pretty clear because if I had taken a second to consider what I was about to do, I don’t think I would’ve had the nerve to do it.

I pushed back as hard as I could and jumped from the spire, twisting my body so I faced out. For a split second, I was suspended in the air, six hundred feet over Paris, the city lights dimly visible through the storm. Then a burst of light like a thousand camera flashes hit behind me, followed immediately by a sonic boom of thunder. The concussion wave blew me farther out into open space, pieces of metal shrapnel whizzing past my ears. 

The rope trailing behind me suddenly snapped tight and jerked me back toward the spire. The surface raced up to meet me and I slammed into it painfully. I used the hooks on my harness to grab onto the side and hugged it desperately. A wet, rock-hard surface never felt so comforting.

Once I caught my breath, I looked up to see Daniel climbing down toward me. Above him, I saw the spot where the rooster had been. I say had been because the lightning had scored a direct hit and exploded the top of the spire into a thousand pieces. Logic told me that it ought to have acted like a lightning rod and just allowed the current to course down the spire to the ground, but I knew in my gut that there was more than just a weather phenomenon raging around us. There was magic at work here that I could never understand. In fact, I had no desire to. I just wanted to get off the spire and off the roof as fast as possible.

Daniel reached me and shouted down, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I yelled back. “You?”

Daniel nodded, “The canopy I was under protected me. Did you get it?”

I grabbed the bag at my side reflexively, terrified that the cylinder might have flown out during my acrobatics. It was still there. “Yeah, I’ll tell you the story later, but I got it.”

I looked down below us and was surprised to see the roof of the cathedral was abandoned. It was littered with debris from the battle, but both sides appeared to have decimated the other. Chunks of rocks lay strewn about, mixed in with wrenched metal torn into terrible shapes.

Daniel and I climbed down quickly, taking care as the storm still raged around us. I’d read once that most climbing accidents happen on the way down a mountain because the climbers let their guard down. I tried to resist the temptation of feeling like we were in the clear. We were still standing on top of Notre Dame in the middle of a thunderstorm, possibly with Creach gargoyles waiting to ambush us.

“Looks like we’re alone,” I said hopefully once we reached the base of the spire, each of us standing on one of the platforms that used to hold an apostle statue.

“There,” Daniel called, pointing down the length of the cathedral. Barely visible in the rain, five figures spread out in a line across the roof. One on the spiked ridgeline and two on either side, somehow walking upright on the steep roof. I was relieved to see that five of the bronze apostles had survived the battle, but that relief was short-lived.

As the figures came closer, I saw they weren’t the statues after all. They were dressed the same as last time I’d seen them. Only now they had added capes over their clothes that blew way out behind them in the wind. They walked slowly toward us, not wary, just deliberate. Certainly, the Romani vampires knew how to make a great entrance.

“Friends of yours?” Daniel asked, seeing the look on my face.

“They’re the ones who took Eva,” I replied.

Daniel drew his sword and held it in front of him. “I don’t know about you, but suddenly I don’t feel much like running.”

“Where would we run anyway?” I asked.

Daniel let out a short bark of laughter that sounded more like a growl.

As the vampires got closer, the one directly in front of us threw back the hood of his cloak. Pahvi.

“The one in the middle is mine,” I said through gritted teeth.

Daniel shrugged. “Fine by me. I’ll take the other four.”

I put my hand on his forearm and held him back. I wanted to see what I could find out from Pahvi first. I hit the transmit button on my radio in case we were back in range with the others. I wanted to warn T-Rex, Will and Xavier about this new danger without tipping off Pahvi that they even existed. 

“I see you’re enjoying the sights of Paris,” Pahvi said, stopping ten feet in front of us. He didn’t shout, but somehow his voice pierced through the storm, cutting through the howling wind so I could hear him perfectly. There was great power behind the voice, completely different from the fake one he’d adopted when we met him at the catacombs. I reminded myself not to underestimate the Romani vampire. There was clearly more to him than I’d thought.

“Where’s Eva?” I demanded.

Pahvi looked to either side of him and motioned for his four companions to lower their hoods. The first was one of the Germans from the catacombs. He scowled at us, his eyes filled with hate. Red gouges in the side of his neck showed the recent bite that transformed him.

I felt a surge of panic. What if Eva was under one of the hoods, transformed into a mindless vampire and ready to fight against us? Pahvi grinned, clearly enjoying the game. The other three flipped over their hoods with a flourish. I recognized one girl from the party in the catacomb, and the other two were dark-haired Romani that I’d seen there as guides. I tried not to show any emotion, but my facial expression must have betrayed me because Pahvi laughed and shook his head.

“No, she is not here,” Pahvi said. “One like that must be turned carefully. She must be wooed. She must be seduced.” He said the last word suggestively and, even though I knew he was trying to get under my skin, I seethed. I felt like taking a run at him that second, but I knew I would just slide off the roof if I did. I took some comfort knowing that Eva was still alive.

“I want her back,” I said.

“We want her back,” Daniel corrected. He jumped over to an empty statue platform on the other corner so that we stood side by side. 

Pahvi looked Daniel over as if just noticing him there. He seemed amused. “The Black Watch just isn’t what it used to be, is it? Real, grown men once came to do battle with us, not schoolboys with their adolescent crushes.”

Daniel leaned toward Pahvi, raising his sword. All five vampires bared their teeth and hissed. Lightning lit up the sky around us as if the storm was reminding us all of its presence. I grabbed Daniel’s arm and tugged him back. “Not yet,” I whispered. I turned to Pahvi. “There’s a reason you’re here,” I said. “And a reason you haven’t attacked yet. What is it?”

Pahvi only slowly shifted his eyes from Daniel back to me. “There’s someone who wants to meet you. Against my better judgment, I’m going to take you to her.” He pointed to the bag at my side with the cylinder in it. “But first you need to give me what you found up there.”

I protectively put my hand over it. “See, that’s just not going to work,” I said.

Pahvi shrugged. “Have it your way. She said to bring you to her alive. She didn’t say anything about keeping you uninjured.” He waved the other vampires forward. “Take the tall one. Throw him off the roof. Feed on him if you want.” He pointed at me. “This one’s all mine.”

The four vampires crouched down low to the roof, teeth bared, hissing and licking their lips hungrily. They crawled toward us, but their eyes were only on Daniel. It was clear they intended to accept Pahvi’s invitation to feed.

“Is that weapon you found going to be any use?” Daniel muttered under his breath.

I shook my head. “I don’t even know what it is. Or how to use it.”

“Then this should be interesting,” he said. “Looks like we’ll have to do this the old fashioned way.” With that, he beckoned to the approaching vampires. “Come and get me, you worm-ridden, foul-smelling, blood-suckers.”

They surged forward in response. The German launched himself through the air, snarling, his arms and legs flailing about like he wasn’t quite sure how to control his vampiric body. He’d never have the chance to master it because a great sweep of Daniel’s sword tore the head from his body and sent it sailing through the air.

Then Pahvi attacked me. I used my climbing hooks to deflect the first blows and landed a solid punch to his face. I crawled back into the stone arch behind me for cover, but he anticipated the move and cuffed the back of my head with his fist, sending me sprawling on the small floor inside the spire’s base. I rolled back to my feet, facing him with the climbing hooks on my wrists and elbows outward.

A scream came from behind Pahvi as Daniel made short work of the other newly transformed vampire. I knew the two Romanis were going to be a different matter, but the odds shifting from two against five to two against three in the first seconds of the fight felt good.

Pahvi attacked. He was like a blur, moving with unnatural speed. I held up my arms in defense, but he battered away at them. His strength was amazing. I counter-punched and landed a solid left fist to his nose, followed by a vicious right hook, striking him square in the face with a climbing claw. I hit him just about as hard as I could exactly where I wanted to. I expected him to stagger back, maybe even show signs of an injury. But it didn’t even faze him. Worse, my left hand throbbed like I’d broken half the bones in it. Pahvi grinned because we both knew the same thing. I was in trouble.

He immediately swept my leg, dropping me to the spire’s floor again. I felt his hands groping for the bag with the cylinder, so I rolled away to protect it.

Pahvi grabbed my leg and dragged me back. I kicked hard and felt the climbing crampons on the toe of my boot sink into his thigh. He roared, more in anger than in pain, and his grip on my leg loosened for a second.

It was all I needed. I wrested my legs away from him and heaved myself over the spire’s low railing onto the steep roof. Lying on my back, I slid downward, rocketing away from him. My relief of getting away was short-lived. I gained speed way too quickly, and the end of the roof rushed up toward me. I rolled over and dug my crampons and climbing hooks into the slate shingles.

The metal screeched loudly against the wet stone. I slowed but there was no stopping my descent completely. I curled up just before I shot off the roof and slammed into the railing on top of the foot-high stone wall. I hit hard on the railing’s top edge, and my forward momentum rolled me over. At the last second, I hooked the edge with one of the climbing claws, nearly jerking my arm out of its socket. I hung there, dangling thirty feet off the ground below.

Quickly, I pulled myself up, knowing Pahvi wouldn’t be far behind. Sure enough, as I looked back up the roof, I saw him running toward me, somehow able to keep his balance on the pitched surface. Higher up, clinging to the side of the spire, I saw Daniel doing battle with the two Romani vampires. He was holding his own, but they were not going to be easy marks like the first two. They might be more than he could handle, but I didn’t have any way to help him. He would have to fight alone.