L'ESORCISTA

It was the rankest superstition to suppose a vampire could not tread on consecrated ground. Every scrap of earth had been consecrated to some faith at some time. Being unable to step on holy turf would mean living on the high seas, outside territorial waters. In her centuries, Genevieve had been in numberless graveyards, shrines, churches, cathedrals, mosques, and temples. Always, she felt a certain frisson, the thrill of harmless trespass. However, this was a different prospect. She and Kate stood on Viale Vaticano, outside a church that was also a city.

Swiss guards were stationed at the tall gates. It was the evening and the Vatican Museums were closed to the public. The tourists had gone away, but the area swarmed with priests and nuns. Though she knew it was silly, Genevieve was uncomfortable. She'd lived through enough history to know the Vatican as a temporal institution. They only admitted the infamy of the Spanish Inquisition to play down the memory of the even more atrocious Roman Inquisition. As many murderers, villains, and degenerates had occupied the throne of St Peter as had held any other high office.

But this was the Church.

She predated the Reformation. In her time, there'd been one Church. All else was dangerous heresy. Just after her turning, she'd been excommunicated, though it remained a moot point whether she even counted as a human being with a soul.

'Come on, Gene,' nagged Kate. She was a Protestant, of course. And claimed to be an agnostic on top of that.

Kate took her arm and they crossed the road.

As someone born in the faith and fallen away (a long way) from it, was she more or less likely than a heathen like Kate Reed to combust when she set foot on Vatican territory? When did the holiness start? There ought to be a line in the road. At some point, she must cross it.

She did not explode.

Somewhere, bells were ringing. She did not put that down to an angelic miracle.

The Swiss Guards angled their pikes threateningly. Kate explained that they had an appointment with a Father Merrin.

Genevieve noticed one of the guards was a vampire. Without Dracula, a lot of Carpathians were unemployed. Mercenary forces like the Swiss Guard and the French Legion d'etranger would get some unexpected recruits.

They were admitted into Momo's famous spiral ramp, which wound up from street level to the museum and library floors. A chittering of footsteps from above sounded and a small blonde woman came to greet them. She was not a nun, but a lay worker with modestly covered hair and downcast eyes. Something about her gave Genevieve the creeps. She said her name was Viridiana and offered to lead them to Father Merrin.

They were escorted through the corridors of the Belvedere Palace, deeper into the Vatican itself. They hurried across the Cortile Ottagonale, and off the tourist track, proceeding from marble floors to stone. Genevieve clung close to Kate. Long-faced priests and scarlet-robed cardinals drifted past like ghosts, all turning piercing eyes at the interloping female nosferatu.

Historically, the Church had been dead set against her kind. The communion of blood-drinking was thought a blasphemous parody of the rite of mass. It struck her that the real reason for the enmity was that the Church and the vampire were competitors. If Dr Pretorius was right and vampirism was resistant to rational explanation, then she was possessed of more demonstrably miraculous powers than the parish priest, who merely turned wine to blood. And an institution which traded in an immortality to come must be embarrassed by the prospect of easily-obtained immortality here on Earth.

Viridiana brought them into the basement that was a maze of locked bookcases. This was not the Vatican Library, but one of the Church's many private archives. Genevieve felt like asking if this was where they kept the pornography. A few lights shone in the murky distance, but darkness was the prevailing condition. The lay worker led them confidently into the labyrinth, flicking a switch every thirty paces. Weak bulbs strung overhead lit the book-lined corridor only up to the next switch and automatically shut off after five seconds. They had to hurry to keep up with the light.

They came to a clearing. Viridiana indicated a row.

'Father Merrin is along here,' she said, strangely reluctant to go further. 'He is waiting for you.'

Kate thanked the girl.

They walked between tall cases. Kate took over the switch-flicking. Books as old as she was caught Genevieve's eye, thick brassbound spines, pages the colour of tanned skin.

Kate had explained that Father Lankester Merrin was a priest and scholar, an anthropologist. He was an associate of the controversial Catholic evolutionist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and also  -  it was rumoured  -  one of the Church's last vampire hunters. Apparently, he'd performed rites of exorcism in Africa and banished some local predator to the outer darkness. He'd been there when Dracula died.

The priest was indeed in a pool of light at the intersection of several shelf-lined passageways. He sat at a desk, making notes. He was a thin, vigorous man.

'Miss Reed,' he greeted Kate, standing politely.

'Father Merrin, this is Genevieve Dieudonne.'

'I am pleased to meet you,' the priest said, extending a hand.

Genevieve hesitated.

'I don't think my touch will burn,' he said.

They shook hands.

'I am unsinged,' she said, showing him her palm.

He did not smile with his mouth, but his startling blue eyes were full of humour. Whatever her opinion of his Church, she had to concede this was a real priest.

'Thank you for agreeing to see us,' said Kate.

Merrin accepted the thanks without trivialising the favour asked of him. This archive wasn't open to scholars outside the Church, even by special appointment. It was a signifier of the priest's status within the Vatican that he was empowered to invite them here.

'What do you know about the Mother of Tears?' Kate asked.

Merrin nodded, as if he had been expecting the question. It was Genevieve who was shocked. When Brastov had mentioned the Three Mothers, she'd known he was trying to set a train of thought in motion, but all that had happened since had kept the train stubbornly derailed. Now she remembered her insight in Brastov's lair, that the spymaster had gone to a lot of trouble to drop a name.

'You are interested in the Mother of Rome?' asked Merrin. 'The eternal feminine of the eternal city. Mater Lachrymarum.'

'The name keeps coming up.'

Merrin smiled, icily. 'It would.'

Genevieve felt a slight draught. Pages lifted and settled. A building this large must have its own internal weather.

'She has many aspects,' said the priest. 'Some heretics call her the Black Virgin, mother of the Antichrist. Classical argument identifies her with Circe, Medea, or Medusa. She is the secret empress of Rome. Officially, the Church says she was a witch, like her two sisters, long dead and forgotten.'

'What do you believe?' Kate asked.

'Belief is infinitely complex. I have made no special study of Mater Lachrymarum. A few scholars in recent years have proposed such a venture but found no support. It's my feeling that the Vatican and the Mother of Tears are wary of each other, and choose not to go head to head. Our centres of power are on opposite banks of the Tiber. The few volumes that make mention of this creature are not currently available to me.'

Merrin indicated the darkness of one stack.

'What does the Mother of Tears look like?'

'Traditionally, she has four aspects. A child, a young woman, a mature woman, and a crone. Of these, the child is the most terrible, for she is an innocent and has the ruthlessness of innocence. She is also, under certain circumstances, the Devil. The young woman is a saint, the mature woman a harlot, and the crone a prophetess. The child is half-blind, but the crone sees all. The saint tells the truth, but the mature woman lies.'

Kate nodded, accepting what she was told.

Genevieve was catching up. This little girl, whom Kate had seen in Piazza di Trevi and again at the Palazzo Otranto, was some sort of inhuman creature, but not a vampire. There were other monsters in the world.

'She is stronger than a vampire elder, than all the vampire elders,' Merrin continued. 'She is eternal but not ageless. In her four aspects, she is a complete cycle, a full life. Vampires are apart from the world, its changes and turmoils, but the Mother of Tears embraces them, embodies them. You are cool, she is warm. Your hearts are stilled, hers beats with the life of the city.'

'What is her purpose?' Kate asked.

Merrin shrugged, expressively. 'To continue?'

A spiral-bound notebook fluttered, pages riffling. There was a definite wind. The holy breeze of the Vatican whipped against Genevieve's face, trailing invisible fingers through her hair. She felt an icy hand reaching into her chest.

In the dark beyond their circle of light, wings flapped. Kate looked alarmed. A sharp beak struck out, swooping over the tops of the bookcases, angling down toward the priest, at the point of a long, black-winged body.

Genevieve lashed out, but missed the bird.

The beak-point sliced into Merrin's forehead, just above his glasses. Genevieve lunged for the bird. It was the size of an eagle and the colour of a crow. Yellow eyes rimmed with red. She caught its beak and held it shut.

The wings beat, hammering her chest with blows that would have broken the bones of a warm woman. The ugly bird struggled free and rose above them, hovering. Kate lay over Merrin, protecting him.

Genevieve knew better than to wonder how the thing had got in here. It flapped twice and rose out of her grasp. Talons angled down, pointed with barbs of bone.

She prayed it would leave.

And it was gone.

The effect was like a blow to the heart. She could not help but think she was the victim of a magic trick, an ancient device to reaffirm faith through the sudden imposition and removal of violent adversity.

Kate helped Merrin up and looked at his forehead. She wet a hankie on her cat-like tongue and cleaned the gash, wiping away the trickle of blood.

Merrin didn't flinch.

Genevieve knew Kate must have the smell of his blood in her nostrils, and be fighting a primal urge to fasten her mouth over his wound and suck.

'You must be careful,' the priest said. 'Both of you.'

'What was that?' Genevieve asked.

'A warning, to the Church, to me. We are to stay out of this. It is between you, by which I mean vampires, and her, the Mother of Tears.'

'Was that another aspect of her?' Kate asked.

'Only a conjuring. A little display of power. She likes her puppets, her toys. This Crimson Executioner is probably a man who has fallen under her spell, and does her bidding.'

Kate nodded. 'I thought so. In the Piazza di Trevi, it was her. The little girl. She killed Kernassy and Malenka, using the Executioner as a weapon.'

And in Otranto, Genevieve thought, what there? The Crimson Executioner was at the other end of the strings, in Rome, cutting a swath. At Otranto, when Dracula was killed, there must have been another toy, another weapon.

Genevieve felt a surge of dread for Kate.

Had her friend realised the possibility? She must have, to have become so fixed on her course.

'Can they be freed?' Genevieve asked. 'Her puppets?'

Merrin shook his head. 'Only by death.'

Kate's face was a blank.

It didn't seem right to leave Father Merrin alone, but he insisted he'd be all right. The attack had been a demonstration not an assassination attempt, directed as much at Genevieve and Kate as him.

'Will Viridiana show us out?' Kate asked.

'Viridiana?' Merrin asked, puzzled.

'The lay worker? The young woman?'

Kate's words died as she spoke them. Genevieve tried to remember the bland, pretty face of the warm girl who had guided them here, but could not.

'Even here,' Merrin mused, smiling sadly. 'She is bold. I hope fervently you will be able to come to an accommodation with her, for no one has ever beaten her.'

They left him and retraced their path, not bothering with the lights. They needed to remind themselves they were vampires, that they were mistresses of the dark.

'If it's me, Gene,' Kate said, 'you're to kill me. Cut off my head and stuff it full of garlic. You're the only one I can trust to do it. Please, promise.'

Genevieve looked at her friend. 'I promise, chere Kate.'

'Thank you,' Kate said, and kissed her.