Red Twilight: A Dawning Of Power

Chapter 16: Pure Souls

Calling out, "Old man!" Pistol snags Jacob's arm and mightily yanks him from the path of a falling wall. Jacob falls to the ground and rolls along it, propelled by Pistol's strength.

Pistol comes tumbling after shortly as the quaking earth shakes him from his feet. Pebbles and tiles crack and fall from the roof. Only half on his feet, Pistol dives again, throwing himself over Jacob's back while sheltering the old cleric from the shrapnel.

Jacob covers his head with his arms, holding his nonexistent hat as he lies on his stomach. He briefly looks up in bewilderment. Pistol chuckles as he often likes to do when uncomfortable. "It's like a ride, ain't it?" Jacob shakes his head disapprovingly once confident the event has ended.

Pistol shrugs and helps his company to his feet. Jacob walks with Pistol, resting on the younger man's arm for support, seeming to lack the strength to keep up pace.

"Your name is Pistol, right?" he queries.

Playing the role of the good son, Pistol nods and in his high, fake, kiddy voice, answers, "Yes. No. Sometimes. What is the right answer?"

Jacob looks up with a look of seriousness. "A yes will work."

The unlikely partners carry on slowly, Jacob apparently unable to catch his breath after the last scare. He slaps Pistol on the back several times after another minute. Pistol looks to him and sees he is white in the face, lips squeezed tight as if to hold back vomit.

Pistol looks frightened. "What is wrong, old man?"

Jacob swiftly pulls himself away from Pistol and throws himself at the wall face-first. He gags furiously until finally spitting up a cancerous-looking piece of rotten flesh. Pistol approaches him and reaches out to touch the old man. Jacob thrusts his arm back, barking at Pistol, "Keep away form me!" Pistol leaps back in shock then turns his back on Jacob disappointedly.

Nearly in tears, Jacob slides down the wall onto his knees, panting and wheezing from pain and exhaustion. Jacob composes himself. "I … I'm sorry, Pistol." The ghost hunter is sitting at the wall behind him, knees up resting his arms over them. "I don't know what came over me." Jacob's voice has returned to its calming self. "It was a bestial rage."

Pistol lowers his head, listening. "Can I help you, Father?"

Jacob rolls over to sit. "No one can help me anymore." He exhales heavily. "Not you, not Snake, not even me."

Pistol raises one eye in concern. "What is ailing you?"

Weakly, Jacob's head falls to one side. "I'm becoming the maggot undead," he coughs, the whispers, "just like Larry."

Pistol leans in. "How? You don't have a scratch on you, and … and, uh, you need to have been bitten to transform."

Jacob shakes his head. "Nope, not true. Lots of things can turn one into the maggot undead, not just bites."

"But my father told me—" Pistol stops himself mid-sentence, slapping his own mouth shut. Jacob snaps to attention, captivated by Pistol's sudden wealth of information.

"What did your father tell you, Pistol?" Jacob inquires.

Pistol spits up a rant before he can cover his mouth. "That no man can fall into darkness without falling whole-hearted. A drop of blood, the kiss of a demon, or the whisper of a hag can show one the way, but the damned cannot be damned without damning themselves first."

"Hmm." Jacob sits back, satisfied. "Your father is damn smart," Jacob sighs, "but

I'm not confident that the ancient wisdom applies anymore."

"Ancient wisdom?" Pistol asks.

"I'm a parish, son. My old eyes have been privileged to see a lot of things that most others aren't. Such as holy books two thousand years old, ancient tools claimed to have been wielded by prophesized heroes. I even once held the Spear of Longinus," Jacob boasts. He pronounces it LON-gin-us.

A look of confusion overtakes Pistol as he goes to correct Jacob. "Isn't that the Lon-GINE-us Spear?"

"No, sir. Longinus was a man, not a place. He was the Roman that dragged Christ up the hills of Golgotha."

Pistol leans in. "The who?"

Jacob's head rolls side to side as he struggles to hold it up. "'The where?' would be the right question. Golgotha is the so-called Skull Mountain. The place of death overlooking the meadow of blood in Rome—the place of crucifixions." A thin, gray fog has risen as Jacob wipes his eyes.

Pistol drops his head back against the wall. Jacob can feel the presence of Crow. He is watching them, not in the flesh, but instead by some other means. Then like lighting it hits Jacob. Crow plans to harm Pistol in a way that medicine cannot heal; he is going to attack him from the ethereal world, just like he did to Jacob. Jacob was not capable of fighting Crow to protect himself, but maybe he can save Pistol nonetheless.

But how? Crow is so strong, and has proven his dominance with his game of catch here. Why the hell not? Jacob thinks. Insubordinate to the last. Jacob throws himself over Pistol and starts reciting the Rights of the Dying from his book of prayers. Jacob grabs his holy symbol from around his neck and sets it to Pistol's forehead, chanting briskly.

***

The fog clears from Pistol's eyes. He finds himself lying on the ground in a dank backstreet alley. He is soaking wet and stinks of brandy. He can hear a girl shouting and panting in fear and pain, obviously struggling somewhere, against something. Pistol thinks hard for a moment; he knows where he is, and he bets he knows whose voice he is hearing, too.

Pistol follows the alley around to the back of the gentleman's club named Pink. Placed on top of a discarded pile of books and movies is Trash, pinned down by a greasy-looking street hoodlum who is giggling evilly as he cuts the shirt off her body.

Pistol whistles to the hoodlum. "Hey!" He drops his whip off his belt. "The lady, I don't think she likes you," he says in a fake a Spanish accent.

The hoodlum stands. "And who the hell are you?"

Pistol smiles. "I am Guy Fawkes."

Pistol has always had a fascination with history and its obscure heroes and villains. Guy Fawkes is both. As with many men that become legends, most of the facts behind Fawkes' life have been offered as a sacrifice to the myth. The facts are, Guy Fawkes lived in the late 1500s. He was honored as a war hero by Her Majesty and died as a traitor in1607, two years after failing to destroy the Houses of Parliament on November 5th, 1605, as the story is told.

The hoodlum turns to Pistol as his voice dramatically changes to that of Roman heritage and his eyes fade to a wicked red filled with hate and l.u.s.t. Pistol stumbles in primeval fear. The man grows into the form of a grand inquisitor. Pistol has never come face-to-face with this man, but as if an inherited memory, he needs no introduction. "I've come for you son, Belmond." Pistol kicks over a trashcan as he less-than-gracefully falls back. "Your father, his father, and his father's father spent their lives waiting to meet me. Have you remembered to prepare for my arrival, as well?" The devil Nithies, Pistol thinks. He found me, and so soon.

Nithies glides over to Pistol. "You still have my whip; do you remember how to wield it?"

Oh man did I make a wrong turn; I cant fight that, a Patriarch undead. I really blew it, Pistol thinks. The demon senses his distress. "You aren't ready, are you, Belmond? You have been running thinking I would never come looking."

Trash stands up, eyes glowing red, just like Nithies's. She walks to him as if possessed by the monster. Pistol backs into the wall as the buildings around him seemingly stand and move to prevent his escape. "I want to play," she says in a snakelike voice. She runs her hands up her h.i.p.s then leans in teasingly. "Love me, Pistol."

Pistol makes a valiant attack, lunging at the vampire and slashing with Soul Eater. Nithies pivots in too close to attack and lifts Pistol by one arm, interrupting his action. Pistol reaches for his knife, but Nithies takes his other arm. Trash throws herself at the man's feet, hugging his legs.

Nithies whispers into Pistol's ear, "For three thousand years man battled monsters, but after all the bloodshed ended what no one spoke of was that the monsters were the ones that had won." Nithies snaps out his fangs and sinks them deep into Pistol's c.h.e.s.t. Trash bites his leg. Pistol yells as the vampiric pair start devouring him.

***

Jacob hastens his spell as Pistol starts convulsing. I was right, Crow is killing him. Jacob holds his holy symbol to Pistol's head and starts shouting the sacrament prayer. The symbol turns white-hot, burning into Jacob's hand. The priest howls in agony, forcing himself to carry on. Dark energy floods out of Jacob's body, dimming the room. In a polar response, the holy symbol starts shoving Jacob away. With an exertion of stone will, Jacob grabs the holy symbol with both hands and lays his weight onto it to hold himself still. The holy fire creeps up his arms, and Jacob starts one final prayer as he chants the ordainments.…

***

The loss of blood quickly takes a toll on Pistol. He starts to fall as his eyes drop with a conceding weight. His vision fades until all he can do his hear the devils s.u.c.k.i.n.g and chewing of his life away. A single echoing drop of water rings in Pistol's ear, and now life finds its way into his veins. A cross burns itself into Pistol's forehead. He flings his arms out, howling with mystic power. A flaming white cross explodes in a grand flash from within Pistol's body, levitating him into the air and blasting away his enemies. The two vampires vaporize within the divine light.

Such graces, such power. The symbols of the Belmond family, the hex, the whip, and the holy fire "Grand Cross," their immortal vengeance—no Belmond dies without his enemy. Pistol knows all the tales of the Belmonds. He has read every scrap of paper his father ever slid in front of him. He understood the truth of the war against the night from the start but has refused to take responsibility for his part in it all. He has seen half a dozen monsters before this, but they have all run away—except one, the one that scarred him, the one that attacked Trash last year.

Pistol thought he could outrun his fate, hide from destiny. He has moved from city to city, changed his name, and even tried to discard Soul Eater, but nothing seems to work. There are only two things left to try: giving up or giving in.

Pistol's eyes open. He is back in the hall with Jacob. The cleric is flush white and lying against the wall, apparently wavering on death's door. "Pistol," he beckons, "I need something from you now. I spared your life. Now.…"