Had the Brethren destroyed every one of them?
Through the buzzing of the many and the roaring in his head, Gabriel heard gunfire and a woman's scream. Into cold outrage poured hot fury. The swarm undulated around him, held by his will but undirected. He lifted a hand and parted them, sending half out of the room. Through their tiny eyes he saw men in black garments using the stocks of rifles to clear broken glass from the windowpanes before they climbed over them. All three wore night-vision goggles, and one of them crossed himself before he lifted his weapon and began a sweep of the room.
Brethren. Killing Gabriel's tresora had not been enough for them. Now they meant to murder the woman he loved.
"Sors de là," Gabriel whispered.
The many dispersed, reforming into a near-solid horizontal column as they poured out of the room.
"Fils de chienne," one of the intruders shouted, swatting at the stray wasps circling around his head. As the column drove him into the room, he turned and screamed.
The many swallowed the man and his fear, and brought him forward into Gabriel's hands. He bit deep into the man's neck, taking in the hot gush of blood and drinking deeply.
A man ran over the threshold and stopped, training his weapon on Gabriel. "Mais qui diable êtes-vous?"
"Ange de la mort," Gabriel told him, letting the unconscious intruder drop to the floor. Around them, piles of garbage began to rustle. "Have you confessed your sins to your God?"
"Maledicti." The man began firing at him.
Gabriel pulled the many from the floor up in front of him, their black, hard bodies forming a moving but solid shield. He thrust his hand against the writhing mass of beetles and roaches. "Baise-toi."
The wall grew taller, stretching to the ceiling. On the other side the man stopped firing and looked up just as the wall fell on him.
Gabriel left the second man clawing his way out from under the mound of hungry beetles and walked back to the library. The many, excited by the blood they had tasted and wanting more, massed behind him, an angry comet's thrashing tail. They showed him Dalente's cache and Gabriel's battle sword, still lying on the floor where Nicola had dropped them. Nicola had vanished—and then he heard the buzz of her motorcycle, heading into the forest behind the house.
Nicola.
A bullet struck Gabriel's arm but did not penetrate. Instead, it seemed to bounce off. A second whizzed past his face as he bent to pick up his sword. He did not have to check the slugs to know that the bullets were copper-clad.
"Allez à l'enfer" the third Brethren shouted hoarsely, shifting his rifle and aiming for Gabriel's head.
Go to hell. But he was already there.
"Tais-toi." With a sweep of his arm Gabriel threw the sword.
The blade deflected the shot meant for Gabriel's face and neatly decapitated the man. His body pitched forward as his head dropped and rolled out into the hall. The many descended in a blanket to drape the remains and to feast on them.
The many showed him one man carrying the other out of the house and to a waiting van. He could have sent them to batter the vehicle and devour the pair, but he could hear Benait's voice ringing in his memory.
Unlike you, I am no monster.
Now all you will know is darkness.
Then Nicola's voice, sharp and disapproving: Is that what Jesus would do?
He was no monster. He was lost, alone, and afraid. He no longer knew who he was or what he would do. Killing these men would not change that, or make him feel repaid for his suffering. It would only further horrify Nicola, who had shown him nothing but kindness and pleasure, who had risked her life twice now to save his.
Gabriel reined in the swarms and watched through them as the remaining Brethren escaped. As he did, the blood he had taken from the human hummed through him, healing the last of his wounds and investing him with new power.
He retrieved his sword and gripped the hilt in a hot fist as he searched the room. Moths fluttering around the flashlight Nicola had dropped, eagerly seeking the warmth promised by the light, came to him. He needed to find her at once and explain.
Take me to her.
Chapter 13
Gabriel followed the moths through the tangled, overgrown ruin of his tresora's gardens and into the woods where he had spent so many peaceful hours over the last century. More moths came out of the trees, joining the ones he had taken from the house and adding their individual ommatidial vision until he could clearly see all around him.
He found Nicola's motorcycle by the smell of the exhaust and the bright orange glow of the still-warm engine. She had propped it between two trees and covered it with leafy branches stripped from young trees. Yet there was no sign of her anywhere near the bike.
Through the many's oval, compound eyes, Gabriel followed a trail of the very faintest reddish orange, some small, residual trail on the forest floor that Nicola's passage had left in its wake. It wound in an erratic trail around the trees, through brush with broken branches and over fallen logs.
Gabriel tracked her for several minutes before the moths at last homed in on the dark shape of a woman. Nicola sat curled up against the black, gnarled trunk of a massive oak. She should have been dark red, the color moths saw human forms, but her color was lighter and thinner, as pink and delicate as a blush.
"Nicola." He stopped a few feet away from her, and breathed in. "Dear God. You are hurt."
"I didn't… I'm not…" The shapes of her hands moved from her face to the ground, and her color darkened from pink to rose. "I'm fine."
"I smell blood." Remembering the reddish orange trail, he went to her, ignoring her cringing and using the moths to see the shallow gash on her neck. "The men who broke in, they shot you."
"No. I got cut by a piece of plaster from a ricochet." She covered the wound with her hand. "Did you do that? That thing with the bugs? Make them come out of the ground and the walls and everything?"
"Yes, I did. It is my talent." He knelt before her. Shame for what he had done seemed a distant, untouchable thing, but he regretted terrifying her. "I was angry and I lost control of it. I am sorry that I frightened you."
"I thought you were pissed at me, that you…" She turned away and her voice thickened. "You need to find someone else to be your tresora, Gabriel. I'm not the right person. I can't do it anymore."
"I understand." The last remnant of his heart died in his chest, and he went down on his knees. "Will you be so kind as to perform one last service for me?"
"I'll take you wherever you want to go."
"I have only one destination in mind." He extended the sword to her. "It is very sharp. If you swing it in the same way you do your baseball bat, it should go through my neck in one pass."
She took in a quick breath. "Axe you asking me to cut off your head with this sword?"
"I am."
"Really." Her voice sharpened. "And how do you feel about me shoving it up your ass?"
"Vlad the Impaler may have thought otherwise, but that will not end my life," he told her. "I killed one of the humans who came into the house. Think of it as an even exchange."
"I'm not cutting off your fucking head, Gabriel." She stood up. "Stupid. This is so stupid, all of it; it's so pointless. Don't add to it."
"I agree." He would have to persuade her. "My life has been destroyed by murderers and thieves and liars. My own sister among them, feeding them information, betraying our kind. My friends are dead or indifferent to me. You wish to leave me, and you should. I have intruded on your life long enough. I have no wish to continue living in such a world."
"I'm not listening to this." She walked around him, heading back toward her motorcycle.
Gabriel followed and caught up with her, stopping her. "I don't have the strength to do it myself, or I would." He held out the sword again. "Please do this one last thing for me. I beg you."
"No."
He gestured toward the ruin of his house. "You may take the money and the diamonds—"
"No." She knocked the sword out of his hands. "I don't want your money, or your diamonds, or your sob story. Your life has sucked; okay, I get that. But you can't put this on me. I'm not cutting off your head. Go to Iraq. They love doing it over there. Just stand in the street and yell out that you're an American oil company executive. Or Jewish."
"I understand. I forget that you are human, that such things are abhorrent to you." He reached for the blade. "I will find another—"
"I don't think so." She threw his sword into the brush.
He felt his blood run cold. If she would not release him, then the torment would never end. "Have I not suffered enough? Is my humiliation not complete?"
"Run the part about your humiliation by me again."
She did not care for him, could not love him. He understood her reasons: The Brethren had reduced him to a blind, unfeeling ruin, and he had badly frightened her. He had pushed her too far. But he would not make her feel responsible. She would never carry the burden of guilt over him.
"You read the letter Dalente wrote," he said. "Angelica, my own sister, was the one who betrayed us. She put me and her husband and her own son into the hands of our enemies. She knew about this place, and sent them here to kill Dalente. How can I live with what she has done?"
"You didn't do it; she did. She has to answer for what she's done." She stepped closer to him and jabbed her finger into his chest. "Maybe you should quit whining and go find her. Stop her from hurting other people."
"I'm too tired." His shoulders sagged under the weight of his sorrow. "Tired unto death of this ugliness, this horror. It never ends. How much more pain and humiliation must I endure before I have earned my rest?" And how many lonely centuries more would he live without her?
This time her hand connected with his face, her palm shockingly hard as it struck his cheek.