Vampire a Go-Go

FORTY-SEVEN

High atop a rocky cliff, guarding the Vltava, the Vysehrad was much more a fortress than a palace. A zigzagging path climbed the cliff on the river side. A tram let off tourists on the other side. More respectable guidebooks than The Rogue’s Guide suggested a scenic walking tour that started at the tram stop, passed the highlights of the Vysehrad, including Dvoák’s tomb in the cemetery, and then took the zigzag path down the cliff to the river.

Allen, Amy, Penny, and the priests had elected to come up from the other direction; that was why Allen was puffing and wheezing and finally collapsed when they made it to the top. “Why is every place I need to go in this town uphill?”

Finnegan reached down, hooked Allen under one arm, and pulled him to his feet. “You’re out of shape, lad.”

“It’s been a rough couple of days.”

“The trams don’t run this time of night, and it’s likely that side of the Vysehrad will be more closely watched,” Father Paul said. “More stealthy to come up this way.”

“Unless they hear young Cabbot’s heart pounding,” Finnegan said.

Allen wondered if he’d go to hell for giving a priest the finger.

Two o’clock in the morning. This is exactly what Allen didn’t want, to be skulking around at night with a vampire on the loose. He supposed a trio of battle priests, a werewolf, and a pretend witch might provide some measure of protection, but Allen didn’t feel protected. He clutched the crowbar tight. It was part of his grave-robbing gear, but Allen was ready and willing to smash anything in the face that tried to kill him or suck his blood. The others carried a variety of pickaxes and shovels. Allen also wore a backpack loaded with a flashlight and sundry other gear. Most important, he carried the Kelley diary. He refused to let it out of his possession.

“Let’s keep it quiet from here on,” Father Paul said. “This way to the cemetery. It’s behind the Cathedral of St. Paul and Peter.”

The winding paths, pleasant and open by day, were poorly lit at night, jagged shadows making the castle grounds seem eerie and dangerous. Penny walked very close to Allen, Amy just as close on the other side. If they hadn’t all been holding pickaxes, shovels, and crowbars, Allen’s instinct would have been to take each of the girls by the hand. A kindergarten flashback.

“This is starting to seem like a bad idea,” Penny whispered.

“Starting to seem like a bad idea?” Allen said.

“At least you can turn into a werewolf,” Amy said to Penny.

“Lycanthrope,” Penny said. “And I haven’t seen you tossing around a lot of mighty witch magic. Why didn’t you turn Zabel into a rabbit or something?”

“You know that’s not how it works,” snapped Amy.

Father Paul looked back and shushed them.

The girls lapsed into embarrassed silence.

The path took them to the cathedral. They circled behind it and found an iron gate. Padlocked. Father Starkes clipped it off with a sturdy pair of bolt cutters, and they all filed into the boneyard, Finnegan closing the gate behind them. Ahead of them lay tombs, monuments, mausoleums, with narrow paths in between. Expensive and ornate stonework, crosses, and stars of David.

“Hallowed ground,” Father Paul said.

“What’s that?” Allen asked.

“The vampire can’t come here.” Father Paul patted Allen on the shoulder. “That’s why she needed a patsy.”

“Thanks.”

“A lot of dead folk in here,” Finnegan said. “This might take a while.”

“I think you’re right,” Father Paul said. “Let’s break into two teams. We can cover more ground.”

“Split up?” Penny didn’t like the idea.

Neither did Allen. “I’ve seen enough episodes of Scooby Doo to know that’s a bad idea.”

“Father Starkes will go with you and Penny,” Father Paul told Allen. “Amy will come with me and Finnegan. Don’t worry. We’re trained for this. But we can’t take all night. We have to divide up and find Roderick’s tomb.”

They split up, each team going a different direction. They raked monuments with flashlights, glimpsing names, trying to hurry. An hour later, Allen’s team ran back into Father Paul’s.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Allen said. “There’s got to be a way to narrow the search.”

Father Paul nodded. “I think you’re right. Finnegan, break out the laptop. I want an uplink.”

The big Irish priest slung off the backpack, pulled out a thin laptop computer, and booted it up. He set the computer on top of a tomb, the screen’s glow eerie in the cemetery. “We’ll have the satellite in a few seconds. Okay. Got it.”

“Let me try,” Allen said.

“Give it to him, Finnegan,” Father Paul said.

Allen’s fingers flew across the keyboard, cross-referencing historical databases, Google, Wikipedia. He blinked at the computer screen, read the information again to be sure. “Oh… shit.”

Father Paul read the screen over Allen’s shoulder. “What is it?”

“The cemetery was founded in 1869,” Allen said. “Two hundred and sixty plus years after Roderick died. There’s no way he could be buried here.”

“But the ghost said the Vysehrad cemetery,” Penny insisted. “Zabel was clear about it.”

Allen shook his head. “No. He said the Vysehrad-the castle. Remember? Zabel just assumed the cemetery.”

“We can’t search the whole castle, all the grounds,” Finnegan said. “It would take hours and hours.”

“More like days.” Father Paul sighed, shook a fresh cigarette from his pack.

“Wait,” Allen said. “Just nobody panic, okay? It’s just another research project, right?”

The priests looked at one another. Father Paul said, “What do you have in mind?”

“Let’s think it through. Hallowed ground, remember? If it were anywhere else in the Vysehrad, Cassandra could fetch it herself.”

Father Paul nodded. “Good point.”

“Right.” Allen’s hands went back to the keyboard. “So we concentrate on the cathedral and the cemetery.”

The priests and the girls watched Allen go at it, calling up databases, following links to other links, web pages to dead ends, backing up, starting again. He became one with the machine, a virtual explorer in an endless world of bits and bytes and information.

I am the Matrix. That made him chuckle.

“What is it?” Penny asked.

“Nothing.”

He arrived at the home page for a European architectural society, which took him to something about the castles of Europe. Click. The castles and palaces of Prague. Click. The Vysehrad. Click.

“This is all in Czech,” Allen said.

“Hold on, lad.” Finnegan took over the computer, his thick fingers entering information with surprising alacrity. “I’ve downloaded a translation program from the Vatican mainframe. It works fast. There you go.”

“Thanks.” Allen took over the computer again.

His eyes took in the words almost by osmosis. Vysehrad constructed in the tenth century. Stonework. Bulwarks. Battlements. Masons.

Freemasons.

Allen cleared his throat. “Listen to this. A Mason hall was constructed to house all the stoneworkers during the construction of the Vysehrad. The hall stood until 1701, when it was gutted by a fire and the stone blocks were looted for other construction projects. But the stone foundation was reused later, when the cathedral was built around 1869.”

“What do Freemasons have to do with it?” Father Starkes asked.

“You’ve been neglecting your history lessons, Starkes.” Father Paul looked at Amy. “Our lady friend can tell you.”

Amy nodded slowly. “The Society hasn’t been part of the Freemasons in hundreds of years. But way the hell back then… yeah.”

“Edward Kelley had some sort of association with the Society,” Allen said. “I’m not exactly sure. There was no time to read the journal completely. Some sort of alliance, I think.”

Father Paul dropped the cigarette, mashed it out with his shoe. “Finnegan, get on the laptop and send the bishop an email. He can read it when he wakes up in the morning. Tell him we apologize, but we’re going to have to bust into one of his cathedrals.”