Lucien turned to Grant. "Tonight, I am your squire," he said. He looked back to his wife. "Jade… ?"
"They're secure," she told him.
"Come on—they're prepared for you."
"The sword is in the car," Grant said.
"I'm sure that someone has gotten it for you," Lucien said.
They walked out. The crowd parted for Grant. Someone came forward with armor. He stood still, letting the villagers heft the plates on him, buckling the leather straps and fasteners. He heard the clank of metal as Lucien and Drew were likewise attired.
Merc came forward with the sword.
As Grant stood there, he was startled to hear a whisper in his ear. Reggie's voice. "I'm with you all, fighting for goodness and life, I swear it!"
Startled, he swung around. Reggie was nowhere near him.
"Where is she?" he demanded, staring at Lucien.
"Gone."
"I heard her—she said that she is with us," Grant said.
"She's a sorceress," Lucien reminded him dryly. "For good, or bad, she is part of this battle, and in the end, we'll know the truth."
"In the end?" Drew said weakly.
Grant saw the horse that had been brought for him. He thought it was the same huge black that had drawn the hearse that afternoon.
He mounted with ease—thanks to a life in theater and film. He turned the horse, ready to start for the hills.
"Wait, wait!" Drew called out. Grant looked back. Drew was pale, and hobbling along as he tried to mount up, weighed down by the armor. "Ah, come on! I've been in improv… and comedy. I never worked for a horse farm, I wasn't a stuntman… and I don't know a damned thing about medieval armor!"
Amazingly, Grant realized that he could smile. He turned to Lucien. "Is he going to be all right?"
"I think so," Lucien said, watching Drew and nodding slowly. "It's what's inside the man that matters," he told Grant.
"It's time!" the old man shouted, his English fine.
It was then that they heard the first howling.
A sound that was unearthly, as if all the demons of hell had awakened.
"The devil dogs," Lucien said.
Every hair on Grant's body seemed to stand up. The sound was bone-chilling, horrible in its eeriness.
He spurred his horse.
Stephanie was up there, somewhere in the hills.
Chapter 18
"Kill me now," Stephanie said. She stared coolly at François, since it seemed she had control of her own eyes, and no more.
He smiled. "Kill you now? Are you mad, dear girl? Kill you… oh, I would not. You are not Valeria, you know. I control you completely."
"Why? Have I died already?"
He shook his head, smiling, amused, and lifted her hair from her shoulders. She couldn't pull away when he pressed his lips to her neck. She felt the slide of his tongue… his breath.
The rasp of his teeth against her flesh.
To her horror, she felt a faint stirring of…
Excitement.
He whispered against her flesh. "I've had just the most gentle of a lover's game with you… I enjoy my meals when they're awake, you see. Ah, poor child, but you're a great deal like Valeria was… once. I teased you in your dreams with the form of your lover cast over my own being, and yet… you knew, I think, that it was me."
Grant.
She closed her eyes. And she could see him. Grant, as he was in her dreams. Larger than life. And she saw him as he was. His smile. The darkness in his eyes, when they filled with passion. The way he walked to her, so aggressive in his confidence, beautiful in his nakedness, supple in movement. She was in love with him, had been, always would be…
"Rather," she murmured, ignoring his touch, "I think you tried to enter my dreams, but could not, because I will always see him," she said softly.
She felt a rip against her flesh.
"You are mine," he told her. "I haven't taken your petty mortal life as yet. But I've taken enough of your life's blood to see that you will obey me. Now… the devil dogs. You will raise them now."
"The devil dogs? I don't even know what they are."
He rose, irritated. He looked around the cave.
Someone entered—Doug. He looked at Stephanie, and smiled slowly. Perhaps something in his glance annoyed François, because he snapped out, "Has she come?"
"Not yet, my lord."
"My lord!" Stephanie echoed.
"It is what you will call me, too," he informed her.
In a sudden fury, he came to her, wrenching her to her feet. Her limbs felt like lead. She couldn't resist him, couldn't fight.
"The devil dogs! It's in your power. Raise them, now! All of them. I've heard the cries of the wolves, so the time is right. Now. Think of them… think of the corpses out there, rotting in the ground. Those that came before, you will make them come again!"
His grip on her arm was punishing. Yet…
She willed herself to ignore it.
"It's time—oh, I have waited, anticipated this day!" François said. "The horses, now!" he commanded Doug.
And Doug turned without question to obey, just as he had been ordered.François stared at her, let out a cry of rage, and walked to her, falling on his knees before her. "Do you know what I can do to you? Do you know I can begin to make you suffer? The devil dogs. I need them now!"
It was as he had dreamed.
And, he began to believe, as it had been before.
They had ridden a distance from the seaside when another group, some mounted, some on foot, came to join them.
And there, at their head, was the priest. The same man who had so recently read the rites for Maria Britto.
Grant urged his horse close, and he bowed his head while the man said prayers in Latin. He came forward; Grant knew he would offer him a cross, but he wore one already. The priest did bear a cross, but a huge one on a large chain. He set it around the horse's neck, and Grant readjusted the reins, thanking him.
Then, they were both sprinkled with holy water, and more prayers in Latin rose to the heavens.
The demon dogs howled again.
They rode.
The moon sat high and full above them; a strange, cold wind whipped at them.
Lucien rode closer to his side. "I believe that the devil dogs are the corpses of the dead who have died on the side of evil—murderers, rapists… destroyers."
Grant glanced at him quickly.
"You must sever their heads," Lucien said.
"I… knew that," Grant murmured.
They rode hard, the hordes on foot following behind them. They neared the site.
As they rode, the wind whipped higher, cold and strange, for there was a fog upon the ground, and the wind did not disperse it. They could hear screams and cries, and still, that unearthly howling sound.
The encampment was under attack, Grant realized.
Reaching the higher ground at last.
They saw the troops of François de Venue emerging through the fog, making a line before them. They were made up of others of the townsfolk. Grant could see Doug was at his right-hand side. There was the pretty nurse from the hospital…
Arturo. Men he had met at the dig.
They were, indeed, an army.
François led.
Stephanie was at his side.
Her dark hair billowing down her shoulders…
Her eyes, so deep and magnetic a blue they were almost violet, dazed. And yet…
There was a glow about them. A glow like… tears.
"Let her go!" Conan roared. "She isn't really a part of this."
"If you would have her, you'll have to die."
"She is no part of it! I will face you gladly—you don't need to hold her."
François rose in his shadow. "Before, Conan, I let you live. Tonight, by all the fires of hell, you will perish, and no power will ever bring you back!"
The dark, handsome face of François de Venue, the man he had once know as Giovanni, darkened into a scowl of fury. "Tonight is the night you die!"
"We shall meet in hell, then, François. Indeed, if need be, we will meet in hell!"
"Now!" François roared to Stephanie.
"Stephanie!" Grant called to her, his voice rising above the howl of the dogs.
The wind began to whip anew in an eerie, dark swirl of fog and night. The baying increased.
And then the demon dogs came rushing through the throngs of horsemen and foot soldiers that flanked François and his troops.
And Stephanie.
The first animal leapt upon him. His horse staggered. Grant looked at the thing in amazement. It was a dog, and not a dog, huge in size… but not a wolf. Its teeth were those of a great cat, a tiger in the night.
It was a corpse. Not dog, wolf, or great cat. It was a corpse, summoned from the grave with the unholy power of a sorceress…
Stephanie?
No!
Corpse or not, it was vicious and powerful. Its shoulder muscles were gigantic, and its massive paws held great, tearing, catlike claws. The sheer power and size of it was so great that it knocked over his horse, and unseated him.
The head! Sever the head!
With a massive blow, he did so.
But looking up, he saw that they were coming in waves.
Near his side, Lucien was slashing away at the creatures with a practiced fury. Lucien glanced at him.
"Call out to her—call out to Stephanie! She can order them back to hell."
"Stephanie didn't call these foul beasts from the dead!" Grant shouted back.
"Whether she did or didn't, she can send them back to hell!"
He paused, shouting as loudly as he could, "Stephanie! Stephanie, for the love of God, you can do it!
Send them back!"
Screams rose around Grant. But it seemed that they were pushing forward. He went to swipe at the head of a devil dog and then froze where he stood.
He never slashed into the neck. The thing, just suddenly, in mid-leap, turned into a pack of dust and bones and fell harmlessly to the earth.