April 2000–Zalmoxis Cave, Romania
She was free, for now. The first step . . .With dagger in hand, Gina Lazarescu faced the cave opening where the sounds of scuffing feet seemed to mark the presence of another. A Collector? One of Jerusalem’s Undead?
Bleeding, she stood still and waited.
Haunt of Jackals opens where I presume Field of Blood left off: in a cave where Regina Lazarescu (“Queen of the Resurrected”) has slain an ancient vampire and torn herself free from thorny bonds; where she is weak, losing blood, and still hunted; where a fight plays out as it has for thousands of years between Good and Evil, between the Alive and the Undead, between Those Who Hunt and Those Who Resist.
The book’s story unfolds as Gina rejoins Cal Nichols, an immortal who has been walking the earth since he was brought out of the grave at Jesus’ crucifixion (read Matthew 27:52-53 for the account). Cal was once one of the Nistarim, a select group of men and women who carry the world’s burdens on their shoulders. If one of them slips before another can replace him, it will bring about Final Vengeance, the revenge of the evil Collectors, demonic spirits who once rebelled against God. Although Cal’s place among the Nistarim was lost when he fell into sin with the beautiful Nikki Lazarescu, he continues to fight the Collectors by finding and training those who are destined to join the Nistarim eventually — and by thwarting the plans of the Akeldama Cluster, a particularly nasty group of Collectors who are not just demonic, but undead. Raised from their own graves when the blood of Judas Iscariot fell upon them, the Akeldama Collectors are physical, immortal, and relentless in their pursuit of Final Vengeance.
Haunt of Jackals follows Cal and Gina, his unwitting daughter, as they seek to protect a child whose destiny lies with the Nistarim. At the same time, Cal is determined to find and destroy a particularly terrifying vampire, Natira, before he can carry out plans of his own. The book also spends a good amount of time in the heads and plans of the Undead, using the point of view of vampires, werewolves, and various possessed creatures.
Haunt‘s plot is complex, taking us across the world from Romania to Oregon to the wasteland of Kerioth in Israel. It delves into the past, present, and future of Gina Lazarescu, exploring her heart as she attempts to overcome an abusive childhood and reconnect with her father, identify her own role in the fight against the Undead, heal the wounds of losing a child to death and a husband to divorce, and figure out whether or not she’s willing to put her faith in “the Nazarene” — Jesus, whose blood she wears in her jewelry as protection against the Akeldama Cluster and as the door to salvation if she ever decides to drink it. It delves into Cal’s life and past as well, with plenty of action scenes and drama. It takes us into the homes and hearts of the Undead and shows us horrifying things (some of them graphic and stomach-turning).
In all of this, “the Nazarene” is often mentioned, yet I found him strangely absent. And here is ultimately why I disliked Haunt of Jackals. In monster lore, superstition dictates that power lies in artifacts, and Wilson hasn’t particularly changed that. Gina kills an ancient vampire by using the knife that Peter wielded in Gethsemane. The Collectors can be dispatched by a metal tent peg driven through the temples of their host body. To banish a Collector to the abyss, a drop of Christ’s blood will suffice — and all Gina needs to do to be saved is literally drink the same blood.
If Haunt of Jackals was an allegory, I could see value in all of this — but it’s not. It’s an adventure set in the real world, albeit with lots of speculative dimensions, and in this adventure, all you really need to defeat evil is the right artifacts, self-discipline, and good combat training. Cal declares at one point that “We battle not against flesh and blood,” yet his methods of battling are decidedly physical. Vampires are killed with blades, blood, and tent pegs, but never once is a demon vanquished by the power of Jesus’ name or by the power of faith in His blood.
It is here, not in the violence, sexual innuendo, and anti-established-church attitudes, that I felt Haunt of Jackals failed as a distinctively Christian voice in a subgenre saturated by occult ideas and superstitions. The book upholds Christian morality and lauds the Nazarene as the Savior and head of Those Who Resist, yet the power and presence of Christ as the Bible reveals them to us seem replaced by the power and presence of Christ as the source of ritual, artifact, and victory in combat.
Leave a Reply