Simon seated his lance as well. “Why would you say I am not?” Malachi was pawing the ground, eager to be under way, and he smiled. “Did you not call for the Black Knight of Charmot?”
Kivar’s smile turned darker. “So I did.” Without further warning, he urged his mount into a gallop, startling the animal—an amateur’s mistake. Malachi charged back almost before Simon’s own spurs touched his flanks, by far the superior beast. They came together at the center of the drawbridge, Kivar’s lance shattering on Simon’s breastplate as he leaned in to take the full force of the blow, trusting his vampire strength to hold him in the saddle. His own lance point found a ridge in Kivar’s armor just below the shoulder and levered him neatly off his horse. He quickly brought Malachi around, his lance still whole, as Kivar climbed back to his feet, clumsy and apparently stunned.
“Well done, my son,” he said, drawing his sword. “I didn’t realize how little this barbarian knew his own craft.” His horse was trapped behind him against the gates, and it screamed, pawing at the drawbridge, desperate to escape. “But then the body only remembers so much.”
Simon bore down on him again with the lance, the rules of engagement be damned, catching him solidly in the throat with the point before he was close enough for Kivar to reach Malachi with his sword. He jumped down from the horse’s back to shove the lance’s blade all the way through the ancient vampire’s throat, nearly beheading him with this single hit. Kivar struck at him with Kivar’s heavy broadsword, but Simon barely felt it, the blade glancing off the thick chain mail armor, his vampire body impervious to the bruises and scrapes of a mortal man.
“I will kill you,” he said, ripping the helmet from Kivar’s head, watching his face contort with rage, unable to speak with Simon’s lance through his throat. “I will scourge your filth from this world for all time.” He drew Sir Gabriel’s sword and struck the vampire lord’s borrowed head from his shoulders, his blade passing smoothly through the Frenchman’s thick, dead neck. But just as he was raising the sword to cut out the dead heart, the head began to laugh, Kivar’s high-pitched, lunatic giggle ringing out all around him. The headless corpse reached up and grasped Simon’s sword, severing three of its own fingers as it did so but snapping the blade like a twig.
“Fool!” the head cried out, the eyes coming alive again with demon fire. “My precious, beautiful fool!” Simon grasped it by the ears, crouched over the headless trunk, and a rush of cold wind, stinking of the grave, swept up and over him, knocking him backward, the head still clutched between his hands.
“Kivar!” he shouted, struggling to rise, both horses now screaming and stamping in fright. The foul head he held went soft in his grasp, rotting away in a moment, and the body dissolved into a gray-black, slimy fluid that oozed from its armor into the cracks of the drawbridge. “Kivar!” Kevin opened the gates again, rushing out as the horses rushed in, but Simon barely saw him. Flinging the filth he held away, he grabbed the broken fragment of his sword and sprinted for the castle, tearing off his helmet as he went.
Isabel gazed at the carving of Saint Joseph, absently clearing the cobwebs from his face. “I am surprised that you’re here, Isabel,” Orlando said from behind her. “Why aren’t you watching Simon fight?”
“I didn’t want to distract him,” she answered. “I used to do it on purpose, back when Brautus was the Black Knight. I would stand on the battlements and watch, and if things were going badly, I would scream, or I’d cry out ‘God-a-mercy, sir knight, you are killed!’ if Brautus made a hit. Sometimes I would pretend to faint; that always seemed to work.” She hugged herself, the underground passage even colder than usual, and imagined the battle above them now, her heart’s love fighting a demon he knew he couldn’t kill. “May God forgive me.”
“I would think he has already.” Orlando smiled as he patted her arm. “Brautus never actually killed any of these poor knights, did he?”
“No,” she admitted. “But some of them were very, very embarrassed.”
A door slammed above them as if it had been caught by the wind in a storm, and suddenly a terrible stench filled the passage, as if someone had opened a tomb. “Kivar,” Orlando cried as they turned toward the stairs. “Run, Isabel—”
“Run where?” A freezing wind swept past her, the stench so strong, she thought she would be sick. She turned back toward the door to the catacombs as the stone carving on its face began to tremble and the shape of the monk began to crack, screaming as a skeletal hand broke through the stone, dried ribbons of sinew still hanging from the bone.
“The cross,” Orlando called out over the sound of breaking stone and rushing wind. “Where is the cross?”
She fumbled in her pocket, her eyes locked to the stone as it crumbled away. The desiccated corpse of the monk stepped down from the door where it had been entombed, the skeleton still draped in the rotting tatters of the cleric’s robe, his flesh dissolving further into dust with every step. Only the eyes looked alive, the glowing green eyes of Kivar.
“Isabel,” he said, his voice echoing in the air around her rather than from his lipless grin. He held up one hand and saw the weapon of Saint Joseph he still held, a rough wooden stake, and he laughed, saying something more in a language she couldn’t understand before he flung it away.
“Stay back,” she ordered, trying to sound brave as she held up the cross.
“Not this time, little one.” He struck it from her hand so hard she felt her wrist give way with a snap, her flesh crawling at his touch as the talisman skittered away. “Now come.” He grabbed her broken wrist, and she cried out in pain. “Where is the map?”
“I don’t have it.” How could she have ever mistaken this monster for Simon? This was his true form, this ancient, rotting corpse.
“What a sweet little liar.” He yanked her closer, the smell making bile rise in her throat. “Shall I kiss you for it?” She screamed as he bent closer, but he didn’t do as he had threatened, snatching the map from her pocket with his other hand instead.
“Release her!” Orlando shouted, holding up a fistful of something from one of his pouches. He flung the powder at Kivar, shouting some sort of incantation, and the skeletal vampire burst into flames, the rotting robe consumed in an instant. But the flesh and bone would not burn; with another icy blast of wind, the fire went out.
“My turn,” Kivar said with a snarl, raising his free hand toward Orlando. The wizard rose up and sailed back into the wall as if he’d been flung by a giant, then slid to the floor, apparently lifeless.
“I won’t open it,” Isabel insisted as Kivar turned her toward the door a
gain, tearing at the bony hand that held her fast.
“Won’t you?” Kivar slammed her palm against the door, slicing a gash in her flesh with the sharp-edged, broken stone, and it swung open with a crash, the rusted hinges screaming. Holding the map out before him, he dragged her through her father’s study and into the pitch-black tunnel beyond.
Simon ran through the castle and down the stairs, armed with nothing but fury and a broken sword. “Kivar!” He found the stone door to the catacombs shattered and Orlando slumped against the wall. “Orlando!” He fell to his knees beside the wizard and shook him. “Orlando, where is Isabel?”
“Gone.” He looked up, blood running into his eyes from a scrape on his forehead. “Taken by Kivar.” He pointed at the broken door. “There was a dead saint buried in the stone… Joseph.” He was holding Simon’s sleeve, but his grip fell away. “We are lost.”
“No.” The vampire shook him again, refusing to be patient. “Tell me how to use it—the Chalice. If I find it, how do I use it to destroy him?”
“Kivar has the map,” the wizard pointed out. “He has the girl, the protector’s blood—”
“Just tell me!”