At Sword's Point (20 page)

"Adolfo, contact Dr. LeBlanc. I want to speak with him."

* * * *

In the gray Audi, Anton von Liebenfalz was audibly willing Drummond's car to pull off at the next service plaza. Since swinging around Munich and heading out toward Stuttgart, the combination of a near-empty tank and a near-full bladder had added increasingly to his motoring discomfort.

"
Gruss Gott
!" von Liebenfalz exclaimed, when at last he saw Drummond put on his turn indicator and head towards the fast-approaching off ramp.

While Drummond drove directly to the petrol pumps, von Liebenfalz swung wide of the Esso station and pulled into the parking lot of an adjoining restaurant. As he climbed out of the Audi, he felt as if his bladder was about to burst. He made a dash for the restaurant's rest-rooms, emerging just in time to see Drummond heading into the shop to pay for his petrol. Starting the Audi, von Liebenfalz drove up to the far set of pumps and began filling his tank, keeping his back turned to the shop entrance.

The Audi's tank was only half-filled when Drummond came out, climbed into his car, and drove over to the separate building that housed the station's toilets.

Half a tank would have to do. Turning off the pump, von Liebenfalz dashed into the shop to pay his bill. A fat truck driver with vintage body odor was blocking the cash register. Oblivious to his lack of charms, the driver was doing his best to impress the homely woman behind the counter.

In a panic, von Liebenfalz watched as Drummond pulled up by the toilets, got out of his car, and headed inside.

The truck driver's heavy-handed compliments to the Esso station attendant continued unabated, and to von Liebenfalz growing horror, the woman seemed to be encouraging him.

Drummond left the toilets and sauntered back to his Range Rover, stretching and yawning before he climbed in and started his car. Watching Drummond drive away from the service plaza, von Liebenfalz broke out in a cold sweat. He felt like he was going to throw up.

The truck driver and the woman behind the counter exchanged a laugh, and the driver finally heaved his stinking bulk out of von Liebenfalz' way and wedged himself between an ice cream freezer and a rack of girlie magazines.

Muttering the number of his pump, von Liebenfalz threw a handful of deutsche marks on the counter and dashed back out to his car. As the Audi's engine roared to life, he raced off toward the autobahn in a squeal of rubber, in pursuit of Drummond.

* * * *

At da Vinci Airport in Rome, a Mitsubishi corporate jet sat on the edge of the tarmac runway, a dark blue Cadillac limousine parked next to it. Inside the jet, Father Tom Berringer finished changing into a well-cut pin-stripe suit as the cardinal's driver brought an elegant leather suitcase out of the car and handed it to the copilot, who stowed it in the tail of the plane. Stuffing his clerical garb into a black plastic bag, Father Berringer tossed it down to the driver, then settled back in one of the jet's thick leather seats and buckled up his seat belt.

They were airborne within minutes, headed toward Luxembourg. Once they had leveled off over the sea, the copilot came back to where Father Berringer was sitting and handed him a padded manila envelope. Opening it, Father Berringer removed a German passport made out in another name, a wallet containing several credit cards to match, and a plain white envelope stuffed with five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills.

Father Berringer put several hundred dollars in the wallet, tucked it and the passport inside his jacket, then slipped the envelope with the rest of the money in another inside pocket.

* * * *

It was early evening as Drummond unwittingly led von Liebenfalz through Luxembourg City and up the main highway toward that small country's northern border. He thought briefly about stopping for something to eat, but decided to push on to the castle, where he was certain that Father Freise would be able to find him some kind of a meal.

Following along in the gray Audi, von Liebenfalz reached down to a hamper on the floor of the passenger side of the car and lifted its wicker lid to rummage inside. After a moment he retrieved a crested silver case containing some caviar and cress sandwiches. Setting these on the dash of the car, he next produced a heavy leaded crystal tumbler and a small, still-cold bottle of sparkling wine from an insulated bag.

Steering with his knees, von Liebenfalz managed to open the bottle of wine, then deftly poured himself a good measure of the pale golden effervescence. He wedged the bottle between the two front seats, then settled down to an acceptable snack at sixty-five miles an hour, Drummond's taillights two red dots a quarter mile ahead of him.

Tom Berringer filled out the required forms at the Avis desk and waited patiently while the young man at the computer keyboard laboriously tapped in all of the pertinent information.

"Ah, here you are, sir," he said in French. "Baron Manfried von Holtzhauser, prepaid. I see you had requested a Mercedes." He smiled apologetically at Berringer "I'm afraid all I have left is a Ford Granada Scorpio, if that's all right?"

Berringer tried to mask his annoyance. "Certainly," he said in excellent French. That will be fine. Now, if you don't mind, I have to be in Clervaux in a few hours."

The young man tapped at the computer keys again.

"Your car is in parking bay forty-six, on the south side of the terminal." He handed Berringer the rental contract and a square plastic token. "The keys are in the car, and this token will open the automatic barrier and let you out."

"
Merci
," Berringer said.

It took two tries before Berringer found himself on the main road headed north. He had just turned onto the road to Clervaux when he came up fast on a gray Audi with Austrian number plates. Putting his foot down in the powerful Granada Scorpio, he swung around to pass. As he glanced into the car, he noticed the elderly driver carefully juggling a crystal tumbler and a bottle of wine around the steering wheel.

"Jeez," he said to himself, as he got around and tucked back into the righthand lane. "What Crackerjack box did that putz get his driver's license out of?"

Ahead Berringer saw the glow of brake lights as a large black Range Rover slowed down and turned off the road into the woods. Relieved that another slow driver was out of his way, Berringer raced on toward Clervaux.

* * * *

Von Liebenfalz eased the Audi to the side of the road, near where he had seen Drummond turn off into the woods. He had nearly missed the spot, thanks to the Granada that had passed him and then pulled in between his car and Drummond's.

"Typical,' von Liebenfalz muttered. "About the only option you can't get with a new car is courtesy."

It annoyed von Liebenfalz that he felt as stiff as a day-old corpse as he climbed out of the Audi. Age, or rather the subtle infirmities of age, annoyed him. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he didn't wish he was young again; he merely missed being supple.

Opening the trunk of the car, he took out a can of industrial yellow spray paint. In the dim light of the courtesy lamp, he squinted to read the directions: "Shake can until ball rattles, then point in safe direction and depress nozzle."

Depress is right
, von Liebenfalz thought as he began shaking the can.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of shaking, he heard the faint clatter of the ball somewhere inside the can. Crouching down next to the road, he sprayed a neat arrow on the pavement and next to it a small dot. To anyone looking at it, it would appear to be some indecipherable surveyor's mark, the type road workers spray on highways around the world.

To the man in chain mail, watching from the edge of the woods, it seemed damned strange.

Returning to his car, von Liebenfalz tossed the can back in the trunk. After carefully wiping his hands on a paper towel, he climbed back into the car and drove quietly on into Clervaux.

Drummond steered the black Range Rover slowly past the rusting hulk of the jeep in which Father Freise had been traveling in 1944 when a German ambush had led to his first encounter with the knights of the Order of the Sword. The twilight deepened as he drove farther along the forest track, and he turned on his headlights, keeping a sharp lookout. After several miles, he came to the wide, grassy meadow that surrounded Schloss Marbourg, the fortress of the Order of the Sword.

It looked unchanged since his first visit, the walls washed faintly golden with the fading sunset, reflecting into the still, dark moat that surrounded it. As before, the drawbridge was down—he wondered whether it even worked anymore—but the gate beyond was open. That was strange.

Pulling up next to the barbican arch that guarded the drawbridge, Drummond set the brake and got out of the car. He was not about to trust the drawbridge to take the car inside. Cautiously he walked over the drawbridge, wondering why no one challenged him.

The courtyard of the castle appeared to be deserted. Nor was there any sign of activity in any of the outbuildings lining the inside of the wall. The great hall door was standing open, though, and looking through the thick glass lozenges of a narrow window, Drummond thought he could see the faint silhouette of someone standing in front of a flickering fire laid against the hearth.

Reassured, he headed for the great hall entrance and was about to enter when a crossbow bolt whistled within inches of his head and slammed into the oak jamb of the iron-studded door.

Drummond dropped to his knees and rolled for cover behind a nearby rain barrel.

"Don't shoot!" he shouted. "It's me, Drummond."

"John? Is that you?" Father Freise's voice called out of the shadows. "Stand up so I can see you."

Drummond slowly stood up, half expecting to be shot.

"Frank?" he called. "What's going on? Where is everybody?"

Father Freise came out of the shadows, crossbow at the ready and loaded with another steel-tipped bolt.

"Step out into the light," he said, apparently still not sure that it was Drummond.

Drummond slowly emerged from behind the barrel, keeping his hands in sight.

"I think you can put the crossbow down now, Frank," he said. "It really is me."

Father Freise lowered the weapon with an audible sigh of relief.

"Thank God, it is you! Boy, am I glad to see you," he said as he trotted across the courtyard.

"Well, I never would have guessed it by the reception you just gave me," Drummond replied. "Where are de Beq and his men? What's going on?"

Shaking his head, Father Freise clapped Drummond in a bear hug.

"By God, you don't know how good it is to see you again! Come on inside, and I'll try to explain."

As the two men headed into the great hall, Father Freise paused for a second to pull the crossbow bolt from the heavy oak timber surrounding the door. "Can't afford to leave these lying around. Leastwise, not right now."

Inside, the two sat down on a bench in the inglenook of the fireplace, Father Freise keeping his back to the wall and the crossbow within easy reach.

"Okay," Drummond said. "Now, what the hell's going on?"

"Big problems, John," Freise began, nervously twisting his fingers together. "It started just after you left. It seems my coming here was both a blessing and a curse to the brethren of the Order of the Sword."

"What do you mean?" Drummond asked, searching the priest's face for some clue as to what in the world he was talking about.

"Well, after you had gone, I continued holding daily Mass for the knights and started hearing their confessions. Incidentally, Holy Communion doesn't harm them, the way the old legends say. I can't remember whether I told you before you left."

"No, you didn't."

"Well, it doesn't." Freise sighed. "Anyway, after you'd gone, several of them decided that, since they were back in God's grace, they were going on a sort of hunger strike."

He looked beyond Drummond, his eyes scanning the dark recesses of the room for signs of movement.

"A hunger strike?" Drummond murmured, wondering whether Freise really was hinting what Drummond thought he was. "What sort of hunger strike?"

Freise sighed. "Well, the sort where they refused to take any food—or blood. They simply went to their rooms one day, after receiving Communion, and they laid down to die." The priest's hand moved to the reassuring comfort of the crossbow stock.

"At first they just seemed to grow weaker, but after about a week, two of them became—well, violent. We gave them food and blood, but that only seemed to increase their fury, and one of them tried to attack me." Freise stopped and cocked his ear toward the courtyard door.

"Fortunately de Beq was there, and he and a couple of other knights pulled the man off me. That night they held a chapter meeting of the Order of the Sword, and it was decided to put the dying knights in cells in the dungeon." Leaning forward, Father Freise rested his elbows on his knees, his eyes meeting Drummond's. "John, you can't imagine the agony those men suffered. It was truly the agony of the damned."

Drummond looked at the priest in the flickering light of the fire and for the first time saw a tired old man.

"What about the others?" he asked, afraid of what the answer might be.

"They prayed for the souls of the dying, and prayed that they would have the strength to live until called to God." Freise leaned back in the inglenook and pulled the crossbow closer. "I think they would have had that strength, except for the horrors of death in the dungeon."

"I don't understand," Drummond said.

"Neither did I, at first. Do you know how a vampire dies when he starves himself, John?"

Drummond shook his head. "No."

"I'll tell you. They don't turn to dust and crumble up and blow away, like in the movies. It's much slower than that. They die in a screaming, cursing, agony of putrefaction and decay. They literally rot to death. The body melts into a vile-smelling pool of corruption. Eventually the heart stops pumping and they die. At least I think they die, but I'm not sure. It may be that they live on, in their brain, in their mind, until that too finally turns to slime." Freise held the crossbow before him like a giant crucifix, his hands white-knuckled on the stock.

"Did they all…" Drummond's voice was a hoarse whisper.

"No," Freise replied. "But the mortification of flesh in the dungeon was too much for one of the knights still living. Three days ago he confided in one of the other knights that he had seen how God punished their brothers, and that he would rather leave and live forever as a vampire than face the torment of dying that death."

Again Father Freise cocked his head toward the door, as if trying to catch a faint sound in the distance, then went on more softly.

"At confession that evening, the second knight told me about the torment facing his friend, and the decision the friend had made, and for the first time in my life, I violated one of my vows as a priest. I broke the seal of the confessional. I went to de Beq and told him what I had learned."

Father Freise stared into the fire, and Drummond found himself barely able to breathe.

"De Beq confronted the first knight and asked him if it were true he wanted to leave," Freise said. "The knight denied it, but he gave his friend the most hateful look I have ever seen. The next morning he was gone, and his friend was dead. His throat slit. His blood drained."

An eerie sound seemed to drift up from the floor of the great hall. Half moan, half groan, Drummond could barely hear it, but Freise froze at the whisper of it.

"One of them is dying," he murmured. "I must go to him."

"Where?" Drummond asked.

"In the dungeon. The last of those starving themselves." Freise looked at Drummond. "Will you cover me?" he asked, holding out the crossbow as he rose. "I promised them I wouldn't let them die alone."

Drummond took the crossbow, not knowing what to say, and followed Freise across the great hall and down the stairs to the dungeon level. Freise pulled a narrow purple stole from his pocket as they went and touched it to his lips before draping it around his neck. They stopped just outside the door that led to the dungeon corridor, and Freise fiddled with a box of matches as he lit a camp lantern set just outside. In the hissing yellow glow of the lantern, Drummond warily followed Father Freise into the blackness beyond.

The smell of rotting flesh—and something even worse—almost overpowered Drummond as he and Father Freise made their way along the dungeon corridor. Crouching to avoid hitting his head on the low, stone-vaulted ceiling, Drummond wondered what the cloying smell was that tried to hide itself in the stench of death. Then he recognized it. It was the smell of evil. Abruptly Father Freise stopped in front of one of the cell doors.

"Don't look in, John," the priest said, lifting the latch. "It's—too horrible."

The morbid curiosity of humanity overcame Drummond's desire to follow the priest's advice. "I'm a cop, Frank…"

A low, wet, keening sound came from inside the cell, and Father Freise lifted his lantern as he opened the door. The light fell across something lying on a low cot at the far side of the little room, and Drummond's words died in his throat as the full blast of the stench hit him full in the face.

What remained of the body looked like an overripe banana oozing an iridescent slime. The skin had blackened and split from the swelling within, thick mucous running out of the wounds and pooling on the floor beside the cot.

"Dear God…" Drummond whispered in a strangled voice.

Father Freise set down his lantern on a small table near the cot. "
In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti
," he began, bending down near the dying knight.

An arm shot out and grabbed the priest by the throat, great globs of liquefying flesh dropping from the bone and sinew that held Father Freise in a vicelike grip, pulling him close to the rotting skull-face of the vampire.

"
Sangre
…" it hissed through a lipless mouth, loose teeth falling from blackened gums.

The vampire tried to sit up, to drag Father Freise closer, and as it did, its rib cage broke through its own rotted flesh, exposing the suppurating lungs and still-beating heart to Drummond's horrified gaze.

"
Sangre de Christo
…" the vampire wheezed, its skeletal fingers digging into Freise's throat, blood trickling from the five wounds tearing into the priest's flesh.

Suddenly, Drummond came alive. In a flash, the crossbow was to his shoulder, the bolt loosed at the vampire's chest. Black blood sprayed the room as the oak shaft sundered the vampire's heart, its steel tip embedding itself in the vampire's spine. The vampire arched upward in agony, a bubbling, mewling sound escaping the skeletal mouth, then slowly sank back down into the mushlike remains of its body.

On his knees, Father Freise calmly pulled the hand of the vampire off his throat and continued to give it the last rites of the Church. When he had finished, he crossed himself and got unsteadily to his feet, pulling the stole from around his neck and touching it to his lips before carefully folding it up and returning it to his pocket. Looking down at the vampire, he reached over to the shaft of the crossbow bolt and grasped it, ready to pull it out.

"Don't," Drummond said in an even tone. "It might come back to life."

"I doubt that, John," Father Freise said. "Not without a heart."

"But what about the legends?" Drummond asked.

"Just that. Legends." Father Freise pulled the bolt out of the vampire's corpse. "As we've discovered, vampires do have reflections, they can go outside in the sun, and they aren't affected by garlic. They can't turn into bats and," he held the bolt up for Drummond to see it, "they can't live without a heart."

With a strangled scream, the vampire lurched upward again, throwing its skeletal arms around Father Freise, trying to drag him down onto its body. Drummond sprang into action, swinging the crossbow like a baseball bat with all of his might. The weapon impacted on the side of the vampire's head, and with a sickening, tearing sound, ripped the bloody skull from its shoulders.

The vampire's arms went limp around Father Freise's waist. Reaching down, the priest disengaged the still-twitching hands and let the headless skeleton fall back into the ruin of the cot. Stepping back, his foot brushed the vampire's skull. The jaw was still opening and closing, reminding Drummond of the last gasps of a fish out of water.

"That," Drummond said, kicking the head under the cot, "is why the legends say to cut off their heads."

Sagging against Drummond, Father Freise was about to say something when they heard a sound at the end of the passage outside the vampire's cell. Grabbing the crossbow from Drummond, Father Freise only just managed to draw it to full cock. As he signaled Drummond to remain silent, he fumbled on the floor for the bolt, which he placed on the groove of the stock.

"Move the lantern close to the door," he whispered.

Drummond picked up the lantern to do as he was told, and as he moved toward the door he heard the soft rasp of steel against stone.

"Who goes there?" he suddenly said.

"Henri de Beq," came the reply. "Where is the priest?"

"I'm here, Henri," Father Freise said, lowering his crossbow. "Did you find him?"

"No," de Beq said flatly. "The rogue is still on the loose."