Kiss Of The Butterfly Part 31

'You useless f.a.ggots,' Lynx yelled. 'Quit playing with each other's p.e.c.k.e.rs and find them.'

Boots scrambled over stone and gravel.

'Fan out, cover the hillside,' Lynx directed. 'They're here somewhere. I want them alive or I'll roast your shriveled b.a.l.l.s like I did that Imam's in Bosnia!'

And then Natalija beckoned him. Steven tasted her once again on his tongue and struggled for air as his chest compressed and loins burned. The sensations overwhelmed him with the urge to run to her. Vesna shuddered, clutched her throat and fought the pain as the b.u.t.terflies scattered from her.

'Breathe deeply,' Steven whispered, feeling his own pulse race wildly, one arm around the tree trunk to steady his resolve.

Vesna began shaking violently, and Steven and Bear grabbed her. Blood dripped from her lips where she had bitten them, and she breathed loudly.

'Hold on, just a little longer,' Steven urged, shaking his head to clear Natalija's tendrils from his mind. He fought, and for the first time, he felt himself winning. This victory, however small, brought hope.

Then Vesna screamed.

'They're in the churchyard, you idiots,' Lynx called. 'Bring them out.'

Running boots approached the gate and then stopped.

'What are you waiting for? You're acting like a bunch of eunuchs. Get in there.'

'Boss... it's full of those things.'

'You spineless d.i.c.k-head. They won't hurt you... leave them alone and they'll leave you alone. Now get in there and bring me those kids before I skin you alive.'

'But boss, they're ghosts and...'

A silenced gunshot thudded dully, a body hit the ground.

'Either you f.a.ggots get your puckered a.s.sholes in there and get them, or you'll end up like him!'

Boots moved hesitantly forwards and the gate creaked open. As it did, the b.u.t.terflies flew rapidly towards it and blocked the gateway.

From behind the tree Steven and Bear could see eight paramilitaries, with Lynx standing in back, his bloated baby-face glowering at them. The first paramilitary placed one foot gingerly into the churchyard and stopped.

'Go on, get in there,' Lynx pushed the man.

As the paramilitary set his other foot in the churchyard, the b.u.t.terflies darted forward and enveloped him entirely, swallowing him with their luminescence. He screamed shrilly and his arms wind-milled wildly as he tried to fight them off, but the b.u.t.terflies raised his body off the ground and his feet kicked helplessly. He discharged several rounds into the air, only to have his submachine gun slip from lifeless fingers as his desiccated corpse crumpled to the ground. The ghostly guardians remained, hovering at the entrance to the churchyard.

The paramilitaries fled as one, their boots pounding down the gravel lane.

Lynx cursed after his men, his words echoing down the lane after them. 'f.a.ggots! Cowards! May goats screw your mothers!' As the paramilitaries ran down the hill, the friends heard their screams of fright turn to shrieks of pain and then die out altogether.

Lynx turned and looked at the three behind the tree-trunk, his eyes scarlet and glowing. He raised his Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun and a red dot appeared on Bear's forehead. At once the b.u.t.terflies surged towards Lynx.

Lynx dropped his Heckler and cigar, and in a twinkling metamorphosed into a large dappled stallion. He bolted down the lane, hoofs scattering gravel as b.u.t.terflies from the churchyard and neighboring houses converged and chased the vampire-stallion down to the main road and out of the village, hooves clattering on the wet asphalt.

Bear and Steven stood and lifted Vesna to her feet, then half-carried her out of the churchyard and past the bodies of the two dead paramilitaries. Bear picked up Lynx's Heckler and snuffed out the still smoldering cigar with his boot, then they walked down the lane, pa.s.sing house after house with glowing guardian b.u.t.terflies.

'I wish these d.a.m.n dogs would stop howling,' Bear said.

At each house a guardian approached, only to stop as Steven recited the Order's Latin motto. b.u.t.terflies swarmed the three, enveloping them, crawling over flesh and clothes, dancing wildly about in a radiant whirlwind as they pa.s.sed the desiccated corpses of the remaining paramilitaries, none of whom had made it back to their trucks. Steven picked up a Heckler and ammunition clips from one of the corpses and proceeded on, stake in one hand, submachine gun in the other.

'How does this work?' he asked Bear.

Bear rolled his eyes. 'If you don't know how to use it, stick with the stake. It'll be safer... and probably more useful.'

Through the stillness of the dark village street, they slowly trudged toward the landing. All was dark, the villagers having decided that on this night they would let their ancestors guard them. Yet on the asphalt, trickles of rainwater glistened with reflections of the luminescent Lepidoptera, the glow twinkling softly in the watery sheen coating the street.

'They're so nice,' Vesna whispered to Steven, looking once again like a large glow-stick. 'They make me feel so good... all the bad goes away.'

'Yeah, just so they don't attack us,' Steven answered, then resumed repeating O quam misericors est Deus, Justus et Pius as more b.u.t.terflies approached.

As the three friends stepped onto the ferry, the cloud of b.u.t.terflies halted at the water's edge, refusing to go further. Some milled around near the sh.o.r.e, while others turned back and flitted aimlessly through town, as though seeking to ferret out any remaining evil. The Mercedes and trucks sat empty on the ferry.

'What's not right with this?' Steven asked himself. He looked around, saw nothing, and then realized it wasn't what he didn't see, but what he felt. Natalija. The sensations in his chest and loins had not abated since the churchyard, and dogs continued to yip nervously.

'She's here,' he whispered to Bear. 'I feel her.'

'What do you mean?' Bear asked, looking about.

'Can you feel her too?' Vesna asked.

'Yes. She's here. Everyone stay together.'

The ferry lay heavy in the water as wavelets slapped against its hull. They stood at its far edge, their backs to the river, drizzle gently caressing their faces and moistening the metal deck plates.

'Keep your eyes open,' Steven held his stake at the ready.

'It's midnight,' Bear glanced at his watch. 'When's the boat supposed to come?'

'Now.'

'Look,' Bear pointed as two b.u.t.terflies fluttered from the back of the truck closest to the landing, alighted on the ferry deck and in a twinkling changed into human form the dumpy librarian and Natalija.

Vesna screamed, clutched her throat and collapsed into a fetal position. The b.u.t.terflies on the sh.o.r.e surged towards the vampires, but stopped at the water's edge, as though obstructed by an invisible wall.

A chill ran down Steven's back as he hefted the stake firmly in his left hand, dropped the Heckler on the ferry's glistening deck plates and stood protectively in front of Bear and Vesna. Seeing Natalija this close overwhelmed him with a desire to taste her lips once more, to feel the heat at the back of her throat and touch her alabaster skin. He fought the urge to step towards her and willed himself to resist.

While Steven struggled to clear his thoughts and catch his breath, Bear raised Lynx's silenced Heckler and emptied the entire magazine at the librarian. As each bullet struck, she jerked spasmodically like a rag doll until the magazine was empty, then looked at Bear, scorn in her eyes, and laughed softly.

Steven felt his resolve weaken. Suddenly, he staggered forward a single step, propelled by desire. With the stake wavering in his hand, he clutched the Hawthorne cross at his throat and fought for his soul, barely able to breath.

'Stefan,' Vesna cried.

Bear grabbed Steven from behind.

'Get back,' Bear shouted at Natalija. 'I'll kill you, I will!' he grabbed the stake from Steven's hand, picked up Steven's Heckler from the deck and emptied it futilely at Natalija, with no greater effect than on the librarian. Behind Bear, Steven fought furiously to overcome Natalija's hold, using every ounce of strength he could muster merely to stay in one place.

The red of their eyes glowing on their glistening fangs, the two vampires advanced. Then Natalija halted, leaving the librarian to continue her advance alone. Natalija lowered her head for a moment, and when she looked up, her eyes no longer glowed and her fangs had receded. Her hold on Steven's heart eased, and he began to breathe more freely. Natalija stared past Steven, out into the fog.

Steven turned and looked, but saw only grey.

The librarian stopped, turned and looked at Natalija, a puzzled expression on her face.

Then from the fog on the Danube, a loud report rang out. The librarian jerked violently, as though hit with a sledge hammer in her chest, and crumpled to the deck. She began melting into a glowing puddle of jelly that sizzled on the deck plates until it evaporated in a stench that spoke of putrid organs and diseased pollutions of the soul.

Natalija gazed somewhere into the fog as her eyes began to glow redder than Steven ever recalled seeing them, and she bared her fangs like a cornered cat as the muted murmur of m.u.f.fled motors drifted across the water, drawing nearer.

As the three turned to follow Natalija's stare, invisible hands parted the mists and a long dark Zodiac boat appeared. In its bow, a tall dark figure with scarlet cat eyes held a long flintlock rifle.

'Marko,' Natalija gasped and froze.

'It's Slatina,' Steven cried with relief.

Steven could see a smaller figure with long dark hair flowing from a cap at the helm. Could it be Katarina?

'Get in,' Slatina commanded as the Zodiac pulled alongside the ferry. Bear pulled Vesna toward the boat and Slatina helped her in. Steven looked longingly at Natalija, hesitated, again fought off the urge to run to her and bolted across the ferry deck towards the black boat. As he jumped in the helmsman called 'Stefan.' It was Katarina.

He cringed at her voice, confused by his uncertain emotions for her and Vesna, his conscience burning with shame over the previous night's encounter with Natalija. Katarina rushed to Steven and wrapped her arms tightly around him, not saying a word as she buried her face against his neck.

Slatina rapidly reloaded the flintlock with well-rehea.r.s.ed motions, rammed the ball and wad home, raised the rifle and took aim at Natalija. She stood rooted to the deck plates, her chest rising and falling in quickening breaths, looked directly at Slatina, her eyes growing redder with each pa.s.sing second. Unwavering, Slatina held the flintlock's sights on her, his face the determined mask of a professional soldier, his eyes the color of the blood both he and Natalija had shed across the ages.

'Do it, Marko,' Natalija called in an archaic Dalmatian dialect. 'Do what you should have done centuries ago.'

Slatina's aim held steady on her chest.

'I'm waiting,' she said, voice trembling.

Slatina stood immobile, his crimson eyes glowing fiery off the gun metal. Part of Steven hoped Slatina would pull the trigger and kill her, while another part wanted to jump up and wrest the musket from the professor's hands. Only Katarina's arms around him and the smell of her hair in his nostrils kept him in place.

'Please, my dear Marko,' Natalija called plaintively. 'I pray of you, show me your love and the mercy you have withheld from me these centuries. Please, release me from this curse, this un-death.'

Slatina's breathing deepened and his hands began to tremble.

'Do it, Marko,' she sobbed. 'Torture me no longer.'

Slatina spoke in a still, soft voice that carried to her. 'Natalija, redemption is at hand. I have sought it for you these many centuries and it draws closer.'

'd.a.m.n you and your redemption! Prove your love and kill me.'

Slatina lowered the musket and climbed from the Zodiac, his footsteps echoing off the steel deck plates as he approached Natalija, a Hawthorne stake in hand. Seeing his approach, she closed her eyes in antic.i.p.ation of the lethal blow and dug her fangs into her lips until they bled. Steven recalled their kiss in her apartment and began to tremble with arousal. Katarina placed her lips against his ear and sighed soft strange words he could not understand, yet somehow comprehended they were ancient. As she did so, his trembling stopped.

Steven, Bear and Vesna watched in disbelief as Slatina reached Natalija and encircled her in his arms, pulling her tightly towards him. She hugged him and began to cry.

'You gave up on me,' she sobbed. 'Locked me in a casket for 260 years... you abandoned me to a living death.'

'I never gave up on you,' Slatina whispered tenderly, wiping her tears with his finger. 'I convinced the Emperor I could find a way to redeem vampires from their fallen state. I had no other choice, except kill you and lose you forever. After all these centuries I am close to finding the path to redemption. I am so close...'

'But you left me,' she cried, gasping air in great gulps. 'Just as you left me after our wedding night. In that coffin I lost my mind a thousand times each day. Time and again I felt you draw near, then leave, and each time I prayed you would end my torture.'

'My dearest Natalija,' he stroked her hair gently. 'Everything will be all right... I will make it all right... hush.' He pressed his finger against her lips.

And then Natalija reached up and kissed him for the first time in nearly three centuries.

'Natalija, my love,' Slatina gasped as he surrendered hoa.r.s.ely to his pa.s.sions.

Steven felt his blood boil jealously as his body convulsed in silent struggle.

'Stefan, peace, peace be with you', Katarina whispered in his ear, clutching him all the more fiercely. But Stefan didn't answer, consumed by his own fight.

Suddenly, Slatina pushed Natalija back, both breathing heavily, their faces smeared with blood from her cut lip that matched the color of their eyes.

'You love me?' Her question was also a statement.

Slatina nodded ever so slightly. 'Eternally.'

She placed her arms around his shoulders, her face against the left side of his neck, opened her mouth and sank her incisors deep into Slatina's jugular. He stiffened, then she withdrew her teeth, placed her lips against the open wounds and began to drink. As she drew his life from him, he closed his eyes with pleasure. She stayed that way for several seconds, drinking in Slatina, ecstasy written across her face, then withdrew. They stood and gazed into each other's eyes for a long, long moment with an understanding that surpa.s.sed perception.

Then without a word, Slatina in a lightening-quick movement almost imperceptible to the human eye drew back his arm and swiftly plunged his stake through her heart and out her back.

Natalija's eyes widened in surprise and pain and her body stiffened. Her flesh sizzled around the stake, and blood gushed from the wound. She looked him in the eyes, opened her mouth and gasped: 'You do love me,' then fell limp in his arms.

In a twinkling, Steven felt a thousand b.u.t.terflies course through his veins, rush from his chest, through his throat and into the night air as the taste of lavender, wild mushrooms and rosemary dissipated from his tongue. His knees buckled and his heart cried out as darkness enveloped him and he collapsed unconscious in the bottom of the boat, exhausted from the struggle, as Katarina knelt beside him, calling his name.

Vesna gasped audibly and sat up straighter, as though a weight had been removed from her shoulders. 'It's gone,' she whispered, tears of relief flowing from her eyes. Bear jumped up and shouted: 'For Tamara.'

In Ram the dogs fell silent and the guardian b.u.t.terflies, sensing there was little reason for them to be out, drifted slowly across the rain-slicked street, back to their gravestones to stand sentinel.

Slatina collapsed to the ferry's deck plates, Natalija's corpse in his arms. He held her limp flesh, the stake protruding from her back, and rocked her tenderly, pressing his face against hers as a sound came from within him, m.u.f.fled by Natalija's thick tresses. Then another... Then another... Each louder and louder. Then he tipped back his head and let anguish burst from his throat with a wild roar. It was the cry of past love denied, life taken and hopes crushed. It was the cry of knowing he had just annihilated three centuries of an irrational hope, love, longing and desire. It was the cry of Marko Slatina a man doomed to a solitary eternity.

Slatina's cry echoed south through the village and across the fields into the heart of Serbia, north out over the misty waters of the Danube to Wallachia, and upwards through the cloudy skies to the heavens, where he hoped that G.o.d listened and would one day answer his prayers.

And then there was stillness, broken only by the river lapping at the sides of the Zodiac.

Silently, Slatina picked up Natalija's corpse from the deck and carried her to the Zodiac, the stake protruding grotesquely from her body. He set her gently in the stern, causing the three friends and Katarina to cringe, as they huddled in horror in the bow. Slatina looked at them, then muttered: 'She deserves a Christian burial,' under his breath, as if trying to justify holding on to her that much longer, as though each moment spent with the lifeless clay might somehow make up for the centuries spent apart.

Then, without another word, he placed his hands on the helm and pushed the throttles forward, propelling them into the mists.

Fog lay thick upon the face of the waters, cloaking the river from curious eyes. It pressed ponderously on the Danube's murky surface, stretched clammy tendrils into the dense undergrowth on the darkened sh.o.r.es and billowed after the craft surging upstream, rus.h.i.+ng in to fill the void created by the boat's pa.s.sage. Its thick vapors quickly smothered the muted growl of motors that chased the craft, as dark pearls of condensation formed on exposed skin, drifted into nostrils and lungs, crept under coats and jackets and tugged at ears, whispering faint warnings of the evil that had encompa.s.sed the land.

Beneath the boat flowed murky shadows and vaporous hallows that had coursed down the Danube from the shattered sh.e.l.l of Vukovar, past the ma.s.sive ramparts of Petrovaradin; down the Drina from the vales of Srebrenica; down the gloomy narrows of the Bosna River's tributary valleys; across the Sava's fertile plains. They strained at the water's surface, seeking to rise and engulf them in their dark tide.

At the horizon where vapor caressed the river's surface, Slatina thought he saw the faces of phantom spirits stare searchingly: the ghosts of those felled by the armored blade, the souls the reaper had cut down with his scythe, like unripe wheat. He thought he recognized some of the faces... shades of those left behind... those who had sown and never reaped... specters whose abandoned corpses the winged scavengers had defiled in the blood-drenched mud. They were the seeds of the harvest of blood that Vlad Tsepe had sown half a millennium earlier in Srebrenica. Once planted and watered by blood, they had taken centuries to grow. And now the fields were once again white, and now was the grim hour of the harvest, the mower and the reaper in which many souls would be cut down, in which a two-edged sword would rend asunder joint and limb as a great and terrible work came forth among the children of men. Now was the new hour of reckoning, and Slatina was sure in the knowledge he could no longer bury it underground to wait another quarter millennium.

Slatina stared coldly ahead into the cloud, his still-smoldering eyes piercing the mist with a crimson glow, as he fought to forget what lay behind him in the stern. His hands tried to coax the throttles past their stops, hoping to outrace the memories that pursued. Yet, like Jonah of old, some things he simply could not outrun, no matter how swift his flight.