“Hard to believe, given those of your kind I’ve killed.”
Lazarus stood, still gripping the Cardinal Archivist close. He ripped open his shirt, baring his chest. In one fell kick, he shattered the ancient chair he had been sitting on. Wood shrapnel exploded. He bent to pick up a piece more than a foot long, its end sharpened to a murderous point.
“Tell me, fairy, how do you kill a vampire?”
“A stake to the heart,” Berrytrill said. “The best way.”
“Exactly,” the vampire said. He handed the stake to Cesare Farina. “Kill me, Cardinal of these Secret Archives.”
“I will not,” the Cardinal Archivist muttered, gone as pale as the vampire.
Lazarus painfully squeezed the old man’s neck again.
“Do it. Or you die.”
The old man took the makeshift stake, his hand palsied. Charles could see the fear that threatened to overcome the Cardinal.
“Do it!” Lazarus roared.
In a jerky motion, Cesare Farina succumbed and brought the stake downward. The Cardinal’s aim was true. The stake penetrated deep into the vampire’s chest where his heart would be. Cesare Farina shakily let go of the stake. Lazarus snarled in pain but did not fall, his eyes dark like terrible midnight, maintaining his grip on his prisoner.
The creature did not die. Instead, Lazarus pulled the broken piece of chair free.
The flesh mended instantly as if nothing had happened.
“I am not dead, Heliwr of the Yn Saith,” Lazarus said, breathing hard but made whole. “Explain it.”
“I can’t,” Charles said, bewildered.
“There is only one thing that can kill me,” Lazarus said. “And the knowledge can be confirmed in the only true Word.”
“You did not know of this first Bible until recently,” Charles remarked, still unsure what had just happened. “Otherwise you would have tried to see it earlier. Why now? Who shared its existence with you? Who is aiding you?”
The eyes of the vampire narrowed briefly in indecision. “A witch,” Lazarus said finally. “She is extraordinarily powerful for her kind, not like those who populate many of the towns and cities of Annwn. She has lived almost as long as I have.”
Charles did not like that. Witches did not offer help without gaining something.
There was more to this than the knight knew.
“No,” Charles said. “You have come here for more than information.”
“I trust witches even less than you do,” Lazarus said. “Centuries of unexpectedly entering their company have taught me that.”
“Witches give and then collect. What have you promised?”
“Nothing yet. She too wishes my death.”
Charles had to admit that could be a possibility. A vampire as powerful as Lazarus would make a formidable enemy in a world that was not that large. Even though the breadth of Annwn was controlled by despot Philip Plantagenet at the behest of his father, King Henry II, the removal of the vampire would be a boon to any witch desiring to carve out her own niche without the meddling of one such as Lazarus.
“I see you are leery of me, Charles Ardall,” Lazarus said. “You have my word I have not come with sinister means or purpose. I do not plan to harm anyone in Rome this day or those after. Look before you. I could have easily killed these men if I so desired. Look at your earlier point about choice. If I intended to be an assassin, I would not have come to this underground library. My word is given.”
“Bulldingle. A false word, no doubt,” Berrytrill snorted.
“My word matters, at least to me, fairy,” the vampire growled.
Silence filled the room. The eyes of Lazarus met those of Charles. The Heliwr could sense no lie in them. The purpose that drove the vampire made him all too willing to give up to gain what he required.
“Let the archive interns go free now,” Charles said.
“I will do that, as a gesture of good will.”
The two young men suddenly came awake, their eyes blinking as if from a long sleep. Then terror at what had been done hit them. When the vampire nodded in their direction, the two students fled the room, the whoosh of sterile air through the closing door following after as the Swiss Guards grabbed them and escorted them away.
“Are you a learned man, Heliwr?” Lazarus asked.
“I’ve done my share of reading.”
“Then this will interest you. Lead the way, priest. Or that neck will be mine and I will turn you into the very thing you despise, to spend eternity in Hell alongside me.”
Grown paler, Cesare Farina turned and walked toward the back of the room. Charles and Berrytrill followed. Working their way around a labyrinth of shelves, the Cardinal brought them to the far side of the room where a desk older and heavier than any Charles had seen before sat pushed against a wall. Over it, a tapestry depicting Old St. Peter’s Basilica hung. Various folders and paperwork sat on the desk, the bureaucratic aspect of the Cardinal Archivist’s work for the Vatican.
“It is here,” Lazarus whispered. “The Word. I can feel it.”