Keeper of the Dawn

Chapter 14

Father Lars Gunderson appeared to be quite calm, a notable achievement, seeing as they had filled him in on the circumstances. The only thing that had upset him at the beginning was his impression that he would be staging a sham wedding.

But then Mark had assured him that he wouldn’t be faking the wedding, which was going to be 100 percent real.

Real.

The thought made Mark tremble.

He knew beyond a doubt that he’d been waiting for Alessande all his life. That seeing someone as he saw her, needing someone as he needed her, being happy just to share a room—not to mention a bed—with her, was what he had waited all these years to know, to have. He loved her, plain and simple, and he wanted to marry her, to have children with her, to see what traits they might carry, what talents they might or might not have.

At the beginning, he realized, she had meant to stage a sham wedding, something to precipitate what they had seen in their visions. But the minute he had spoken, they’d both known it was real, that whatever the future held, they would face it together.

And now it was happening.

The Hildegard family—including Brigitte—would be in attendance. Death in the Bowery was well represented, too. Greg Swayze, Katrina Manville, Tilda Lyons, Milly Caulfield and Taylor Haywood had all been invited. As had Antony Brandt, Hugh Drummond and Jerry Oglethorpe, of the House of Illusion, not to mention Bryce Edwards and every Other on the police force.

Whatever danger showed, they should be covered.

It was a shame that their wedding had to be so rushed because a woman’s life was at stake. But whatever happened, the marriage would be real.

The ceremony was planned for dusk. They would make their vows just as the sun began to fall in the western sky. Since a number of human beings would be among the guests, they’d decided jokingly that they weren’t going to say anything about the hundreds of years they both hoped to live. But whether they lived ten or another ten hundred, it didn’t matter.

Mark knew that he would love her forever.

The church began to fill up. The line of parked cars extended down the hill from the building to the street. Women arrived wearing spring colors that glowed in the gentle light of the waning sun.

Alessande would be here soon, along with the Gryffald cousins. Declan had provided the women with a white stretch limo for the day.

In one of the choral rooms, with Brodie standing by as best man, Mark took a long look in the mirror. The third tux he’d been shown had been the one he’d seen himself wearing in the vision. It was old-fashioned in style, charcoal-gray, worn with a white shirt and red vest.

“This is crazy,” Brodie told him for the several-thousandth time. “You do realize you haven’t even known each other a full two weeks.”

“We have a long, long time ahead of us,” Mark told him.

“We could have tried a different strategy. I mean, for all we know the cult won’t even show up to this wedding. We’ll end up no closer to the truth, and the two of you will still have rushed into a wedding.”

But Mark shook his head. “I believe in certain truths. That the greatest ‘religion’ we can follow is that of being as decent as we can to our fellow man, standing up for those who need our help and doing the right thing when we can. As Others, we spent years segregating ourselves, and even now, no matter how well we live our lives, some will still disapprove, will refuse to accept a union between vampire and Elven, even though Alessande herself is already of mixed blood. But that’s their loss. The point is, I know I love Alessande. I know that she loves me. And this wedding is what’s supposed to happen for the two of us. As far as I’m concerned, our visions were just a warning that we have to be careful today—and you can’t be much more careful than we’re being here.”

Brodie sighed. “I hope you’re right about that. About all of it.” He walked over to the door and opened it to look into the sanctuary. “It’s filled up—wow. So much for no one coming on such short notice.”

“Are the Hildegards here? Is Brigitte between Alan and Charlaine?”

“They’re flanking her like a pair of gorgons,” Brodie assured him. He shook his head. “We know that Brigitte was part of it. And we have the rest of the movie people here, as well. If any of them are in on it, too, we could be facing real trouble.”

“And we’re prepared,” Mark assured him. He walked over to the door and looked out himself. He felt reassured by what he saw. Declan’s massive leprechaun valet, Barney, was standing at the rear of the church. All those who could make it from his station house were there, including three werewolves, two shapeshifters, another Elven and four vampires. The cops—human and Other—were all armed.

As he stood there, Father Lars came to the door. “It’s time,” he told Mark. “You need to take your places.”

“The women are here?” Brodie asked, adjusting his collar.

“They are,” Father Lars told him.

“I need to find Sailor,” Brodie said, then looked at Mark and straightened his vest. “Good luck, buddy.”

He left, and Mark followed Father Lars to take their places before the massive altar.

The organist began to play the theme from Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. Declan and Rhiannon walked down the aisle together, since their significant others were best man and maid of honor. Barrie and Mick followed them and then next came Brodie and Sailor, who took their positions up front. Finally Hugh Drummond, the Keeper of the Laurel Canyon werewolves, appeared with Alessande on his arm.

She took Mark’s breath away.

She looked like an angel, her hair a shimmering gold so pale it glowed like a crown beneath her veil. Her gown highlighted her figure and fell in classic folds. She moved with such grace that she almost appeared to be floating.

Everyone stood as she walked down the aisle. Mark had a feeling that if evil was there in the room with them, it was as smitten with the bride as everyone else appeared to be.

“Who giveth this woman?” Father Lars said, beginning the ceremony.

Hugh responded, then lifted Alessande’s veil and kissed her on the cheek. And, at last, she was standing next to Mark. For a moment, as their eyes touched, all danger and dark shadows were gone. This is real, he thought. This moment is the most real of my entire life.

As the ceremony continued, Mark wasn’t even sure that he heard the words. But as Father Lars spoke, he felt that he was in a bubble of crystalline beauty. When they were pronounced husband and wife, he kissed the bride, humbled and trembling. He realized he had been kissing his bride just a little too long when he heard Father Lars clear his throat.

Everything had gone off without a hitch. And he was a married man.

They looked at one another and took a minute just to smile. But he knew that Alessande’s smile was as careful as his.

This wasn’t over yet.

They walked down the aisle, pausing to shake a hand here and there, or receive hugs and kisses on the cheek. When they stepped out of the church, their guests pouring out behind them, not only were they pelted with rice but Jerry, a magician from way back who owned the House of Illusion, had arranged for a flight of doves to soar into the heavens in their wake.

A second white stretch limo waited to take them to the House of the Rising Sun, where the reception was to take place. But as they greeted friends and the photographer ran around, trying to gather them all up for pictures, Mark felt a sense that something had changed.

He looked toward the western sky.

The sun hadn’t quite fallen beneath the horizon yet. It was a low-lying fireball, sending streaks of orange and gold against the mountains and hills behind the church.

And as he watched, the church seemed to grow dark against that splendid explosion of color.

He realized that shadows were creeping around the church. Something dark had arisen, and it was coming toward them with slow menace.

* * *

“Alessande!”

She’d been lost in such euphoria that she’d nearly forgotten the danger of the dream—that they’d seen this day and it had been filled with darkness and blood.

But as Mark called her name in warning, she immediately remembered.

The danger promised by her dream had never been destined to arrive in the church. The church was consecrated.

As she turned, she realized that the wind had picked up with a sudden ferocity, as if a dust storm had risen from the graveyard. It burst over them with such force that she immediately heard screaming and shouting as people ran about madly trying to reach their cars and escape the whirlwind.

White and stricken, Charlaine Hildegard went rushing by. Alessande caught her arm. “Charlaine, where’s Brigitte?”

Charlaine looked like a woman in shock. She stared blankly at Alessande.

“Charlaine! Where is she?”

The woman blinked in fear. “The wind... The wind carried her away. I have to go. I have to go. Don’t you see? He’s back. Sebastian is back! Oh, my God, when he finds me... And Alan. I’ve lost Alan.”

“Charlaine, get into the church!” Alessande said.

But it was no good; the woman was in a panic and raced away toward the parked cars.

A hand gripped hers. “Alessande, get into the church!” It was Mark, and she drank in his handsome face, his burning golden eyes, and felt his love, his concern—and his determination. “Go, please. You’ll be safe in there.”

“I have to fight, too.”

“Not now, because it’s you they’re after. Please!”

He drew her to him, kissed her lips passionately but briefly. “Please, go. For me.”

She winced and knew that he was right; this was one time when she would be a distraction and a danger rather than an asset.

But she couldn’t reach the church.

So many people were running toward her that she was nearly trampled. She lost sight of Mark in the inky darkness surrounding them, swirling as if a twister had suddenly sprung to life. Despite her strength, she felt herself being carried by the wall of people running toward the parking lot.

Finally she fought free and forced her way through the crowd toward the steps. She could hear Mark shouting to everyone to get into the church, but no one was listening.

At last she reached the door. But when she tried to open it, she realized that it had been bolted shut.

Someone had slid the massive bolt that locked the front door.

She pressed herself against the building and tried to make her way around to the side door, but she knew in her heart that every entrance had been bolted just as the front door had been.

So be it.

She was forced away from the building by the crowd, and once again she was nearly trampled. People were screaming and shouting in raw panic.

“Zombies!” someone cried.

Zombies? It wasn’t that they didn’t exist—but they weren’t the same as werewolves, Elven, vampires, shifters, gnomes and the rest of the Other races. They were reanimated; they had no minds. They were the dead brought back by magicians and illusionists, or those poisoned into a kind of limbo by voodoo priests and priestesses. They had no real life. They lumbered through the world with only one goal: to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the living.

They had to be stopped, and the vicious puppeteer pulling their strings had to be stopped, as well.

Someone fell in front of her; she bent down, helping the woman to rise. It was one of the hostesses from the Snake Pit.

“Help me!” she screamed.

Alessande took her by the arm and led her through the crowd, guiding the woman into her car.

She was suddenly buffeted against another vehicle. The door was open, and someone was rummaging inside. “Hugh!” she cried, recognizing the werewolf Keeper.

“Here!” He tossed something to her. She caught it quickly, without thinking, and realized it was a sword.

“Cut the heads off,” he told her. “Nothing—no creature out there—can live without a head.”

Before she knew it, he’d turned and was racing into the darkness. Half the cars were headed downhill but, judging by the crashing sounds she heard, they were plowing into each other rather than actually escaping.

Alone, she tossed away the remnants of her veil and fought against the wind to reach the rear of the church. As she came around the corner of the building, she paused, amazed by the sight before her, just visible in the darkness and swirling dust.

It was as if she had stumbled onto the set of a horror movie. Whoever was pulling these strings had raised every person who had committed suicide since the church had been built—and whatever other dead creatures had stumbled into the graveyard. She saw Declan standing on a tombstone, wielding a gun. As she watched, he tossed the gun aside and morphed from a man into a tiger, and ripped out the throat of the nearest walking corpse, then kept ripping until the head was torn from the body.

Brodie was walking into the fray, using his Elven strength to rip them to pieces. She saw that Mick and Barrie were fighting back-to-back. Rhiannon had become a wolf and, like Declan, was tearing the undead apart with her teeth. Hugh walked past her, swinging a sword identical to the one he’d given her.

“Alessande! Oh, my God, Alessande!”

She felt trembling fingers on her arm and turned to see the costume designer, Katrina Manville, huddling behind her, her eyes wide-open with terror. “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it,” she repeated through chattering teeth. “It can’t be real.”

A corpse lunged at Katrina, who screamed in terror.

Alessande shot out a fist, knocking the thing down but not rendering it harmless. “Come on—I’ll get you to a car,” she told Katrina, then dragged her to the relative safety of the recessed side door.

“Can they get into the church? Are they zombies? Oh, God, this can’t be real.” Katrina practically sobbed.

“We can’t get into the church—the doors are locked,” Alessande said.

But Katrina ignored her and clawed at the door. To Alessande’s astonishment, it opened.

“Get inside—quickly,” Alessande commanded.

The terrified woman was still clinging to her, so she stepped in as well, trying to gently escape Katrina’s hold. But even as she freed herself, she saw a length of fabric—a crimson cowl—flying at her. She lifted her arms to ward it off just as Katrina swung around and slammed her in the ribs with all her might.

The robe fell over Alessande’s head, and she inhaled a sickly sweet scent as it draped itself over her face like something living.

Transymil.

She held her breath and fell to the floor, pretending that the drug had worked but staging her fall so that the cowl didn’t completely cover her face, giving her a few sweet breaths of clean air.

Then she waited.

* * *

They’d brought guns loaded with silver bullets. Mark had never figured that they were going to need swords.

He cursed his lack of foresight but was glad to see that Hugh Drummond had been smart and carried an entire arsenal—swords included—in his car.

Mark was forced to transform, becoming a wolf and tearing into the lumbering dead intent on killing everything living. One after another, they came after him, but he didn’t fight alone. Barney had settled in the old oak tree to rip off the zombies’ heads as they passed beneath him. He saw his fellow policemen—including Lieutenant Edwards—fighting all-out against the monsters. As he watched, Edwards became a different sort of wolf, bigger, fiercer, able to stand on his hind legs and use his huge forepaws like hands, dealing death to the dead.

As Mark ripped another throat from one of the zombies he thought, We will win this. There are enough of us, and we are stronger, smarter and better equipped to tear things to shreds.

Then it struck him: they were meant to win.

But they were meant to fight a long battle.

And suddenly he knew why.

“Brodie!” he called.

Brodie looked his way.

“The church!” Mark roared, and ran for the building.

* * *

Alessande lay on the altar, pretending to be drugged but in actuality able to open her eyes just a slit and see what was going on.

She wasn’t sure how—maybe the blood sacrifices of their human victims had given them the power?—but somehow the evil beings were now able to function inside a consecrated church.

The front door was now open and someone was standing there, just at the entry. He wore a golden mask, a cape and a cowl and cradled a dead man in his arms. Brigitte’s evil priest, she realized, but who was he carrying?

Could that be the real corpse of Sebastian Hildegard? Was that what Brigitte had meant when she’d said they couldn’t destroy Sebastian? That they’d had the wrong body all along?

Three women were circling the altar and chanting.

The first was Katrina Manville.

Human.

Next came another human: Tilda Lyons, associate producer for Death in the Bowery.

The third was the shapeshifter Brigitte Hildegard.

Suddenly Tilda stopped chanting and said, “We’ve got to do it now—now, before someone gets in!”

“Finish the chant!” the priest in the doorway roared. “It won’t work if you don’t finish the chant.”

Alessande was just able to see that Father Lars lay facedown in the long red carpeted aisle between the pews. She prayed that he was alive. She strained to get a better look at the figure at the end of the aisle.

The women stopped moving—and speaking. Alessande knew that at any moment a knife would plunge toward her, but still she tried to figure out who was wearing the mask and cloak.

“Now, Brigitte, now!” the priest commanded.

Brigitte turned. Alessande opened her eyes and stared up at her. Brigitte looked as pale as a ghost, holding a lethal-looking dagger tightly in her white-knuckled hands.

“Now!” the priest shouted again.

“I can’t!” Brigitte cried.

The priest let out a terrible scream of fury. “You will pay for your insubordination!”

“No!” Brigitte cried, crumpling to her knees.

In a fury, the priest started moving. As he left the doorway and entered the church, fire kindled in the air and licked at his robes. Entering the consecrated ground of the church, Alessande realized, could prove fatal to him. He moved quickly, as if to stay ahead of the flames, skirting the prone body of Father Lars as he rushed to the front of the church.

He laid the corpse at the foot of the altar, then wrenched the dagger from Brigitte’s lax hands.

The moment of truth was at hand.

As he raised the dagger, Alessande jerked up, knocking his arm aside and wrenching the mask away.

She gasped in shock. “Regina!”

“Damn it! Why can’t you just shut up and die?” Regina Johnson screamed at her. She still held the dagger, and Alessande was frozen in complete surprise.

The dagger started its downward thrust....

Just as the door to the church swung open.

And there he was, filling the doorway, gun in hand.

Mark.

Alessande teleported.

Regina Johnson—not a victim but a killer—slashed fruitlessly with her dagger.

But it fell from her hands as Mark’s bullet ripped straight through her heart.

For a moment there was silence.

Alessande reappeared at Mark’s side. He felt her there, turned and took her into his arms.

* * *

It really was a mess.

Thankfully, there were lots of Other cops on hand, and Barrie and Mick were the first among the media.

As soon as they had assured themselves that Father Lars had suffered only a minor head injury and had him on the way to the hospital—Hugh Drummond driving—they began the cleanup.

And the cover-up.

A sudden storm had started things. And then the guests had imagined they were seeing zombies when a freak localized earthquake had forced the dead from their graves.

Mark would have to be debriefed. After all, he had fired a fatal shot, but they all knew he wouldn’t have a problem claiming it a righteous kill, given that Regina had been about to skewer Alessande.

Katrina and Tilda had been arrested for conspiracy to commit murder, and no amount of babbling about the Cult of Tyr and zombies would change their fate.

Brigitte, a virtual puddle of tears, tried to explain things in her desperate attempt not to be handed into police custody. She reminded them over and over again that she hadn’t been able to kill Alessande when it had come down to it. Whatever happened, Alessande thought, that one point did hit home with her.

Brigitte told them how she’d discovered that Sebastian Hildegard had never really been buried in his tomb. He’d murdered another elderly cancer patient with an overdose of painkillers and had him buried in his place. Then Sebastian had ordered his servants to bury him secretly in the unconsecrated graveyard in the back of the church. Brigitte had known that, but when she’d met Regina Johnson and had begun to conspire with her, she hadn’t realized what evil her family tales would incite.

Or so she claimed.

While the cleanup and the cover-up were still going on, Alan and Charlaine returned. They joined Alessande, Mark and the others at the altar, looking down at the corpse that still lay sprawled there.

“Do you think he really could have been brought back?” Mark asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think we should take any chances,” Charlaine said.

“Well, Hugh lent me something before he headed out.” Mark reached down to the floor for Hugh’s sword, and slashed off the dry and decaying head with an easy swing.

“Cremation, too,” Alan said.

Lieutenant Edwards, who walked up in time to hear Alan’s words, assured them, “I’ll take care of that.”

Charlaine set a hand on Alessande’s arm. “What now? What about Brigitte?”

“They won’t take her to prison—Lieutenant Edwards knows she’ll just escape. Her fate will be left up to Barrie and a council of shapeshifters and shapeshifter Keepers,” Alessande told her.

“May we take her home for tonight?” Alan asked. “I swear, we’ll make sure she doesn’t escape.”

Mark looked at Alessande. She shrugged. “She did refuse to kill me. I think we can release her to her family for the time being.”

It was nearly midnight when they were finally able to return to the House of the Rising Sun.

“Well, the reception was a bust,” Alessande said, her hand in Mark’s as she surveyed the stacks of food the caterers had left for them.

But Mark only smiled. “That’s okay. We have the rest of our lives.”