I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) (21 page)

“You don’t know him.” Big Mike was called Big
Mike, but
big
was an adjective that didn’t do the creature
justice. It was a vampire and Boone knew it from the club Xerxes,
where it worked the door. Xerxes, the last place that had seen
Boone and Gossitch and all the others together and well. They’d
been celebrating.

“I’m serious.” The man with the star-shaped
scar sat next to the silent Damian and spoke directly to Colson. “I
will leave if this man isn’t immediately loosed.”

Colson nodded to one of the two vampires
behind Boone and Pomeroy stepped around into Boone’s line of sight.
“What do you think, Booney, are you going to behave?”

“He’s not going to behave,” muttered Big
Duke. He sat there, his head bald, cowboy hat on his lap, as if
obliging some formality.

“You going to be good?”

Boone nodded, almost imperceptibly.

Pomeroy loosed the gag and Boone spat on the
floor. “
Fuck
!”

“See,” Big Duke looked off to the side of the
room. “See what I mean?” Boone looked daggers at the cowboy.
“Hey—stop saying that!”

“What’d he say?” Big Mike had its hands on
its knees. The vampire wore black leather pants, motorcycle boots
with leather straps and metal rings that ended below its knees. Big
Mike sported a bald fade, the hair on the side and back of its
heads shaved close.

“Now the chains,” said the older man with the
scar.

Halstead and Pomeroy undid Boone’s chains,
the links clanking to the cement floor.

“Strait-jacket too.”

Pomeroy and Halstead looked to Colson. “Do
it.”

As soon as Boone could get his arms down from
around his sides he wriggled the rest of the way out of the canvas
restraint, stepping out of it, scowling at the two vampires.

“Yes?” Halstead asked expectantly, tapping a
finger on the box that controlled the current to the collar Boone
wore.

Boone reached up involuntarily, touching at
the ring around his thick neck.

“Yeah,” pronounced Big Duke, “He’s going to
be good now.”

“Gentlemen, this is Boone.” Colson made the
introductions. “Boone, have a seat.” Boone did so grudgingly,
staring at Big Duke, the man refusing to make eye contact.

“Boone, I think you know some of those here
today.”

“I know the Duck of Death over there.”

“You know Big Duke and you would do well to
show him respect,” Colson warned. “You already know Damian. And I
am told you’re acquainted with Michael.”

Big Mike scoffed, thinking about his last
encounter with Boone at Xerxes, the night the man had insulted him
coming into the club.

“This gentleman—” Colson indicated the
scarred man “—likes to be called Kane.”

“The Wrath.” Damian nodded knowingly, his
arms crossed over his STAFF t-shirt.

“The what?” demanded Boone.

Damian, still nodding, said, “The Wrath of
God.”

“A nickname conferred upon me.” There was
neither denial nor approval in the scarred man’s voice.

“And this is Hephaestus.” The short man with
eye glasses waved. Boone knew Hephy, the armorer. Blind and
Gossitch had both made use of his services over the years.

“Where’s pimp daddy?” Boone looked around the
room. “Off composing his memoires?”

“The dark Lord will be joining us later
today.”

“Then what’s this little gathering about?”
Boone eyed Colson. “We having a circle jerk?”

Pomeroy
tee
-
heed
.

“You’re all here for one specific purpose.
Her name is Litivia. She is a vampire lord old and powerful.”

“Kreshnik’s moms,” muttered Big Mike.

“I killed that fuck,” Boone stated.

When Halstead noted, “That’s not exactly how
it went down,” Boone turned in his seat and looked at the
vampire.

“For the past hundred years she has operated
out of eastern Europe,” Colson continued, images appearing on the
screen behind him, physical and topographical maps. “When Nazi
Germany and Imperial Japan collapsed, she gathered up as many
scientists as she could—”

“The ones Uncle Sam didn’t get his hands on,”
Kane noted dryly.

“—as well as those of the former Soviet Union
after ’91. Her scientists have been busy at work on a host of
projects—”

“Like vampire’s that can go outside in the
daytime?” interrupted Boone.

“Day Walkers.” Big Mike said it quietly.

“Yes,” Colson confirmed, “like vampire’s that
can go outside in the daytime.”

“Enfermo was no day walker,” Boone snorted,
“was he Damian?”

The man in the STAFF t-shirt smiled.

“No he was not.” Boone answered his own
question and this time he laughed.

“Can we gag him again?” Big Mike asked the
group.

“That won’t shut him up.” Big Duke had a hand
up at his temple.

“He’s obnoxious,” Big Mike saying it like
Boone wasn’t sitting right there.

“‘
He
who
makes
a
beast
of
himself
gets
rid
of
the
pain
of
being
a
man
,’” quoted the Wrath.

“That the Bible?” Boone asked him.

“Samuel Johnson.”

Halstead raised the control box, reminding
Boone of it, quieting him.

“Lativia is ensconced here, in her castle.”
Images on the screen behind Colson. “I will not tell you it’s exact
location other than to say it’s located in Central Europe. It dates
back to the late Middle Ages but has had successive upgrades and
modifications in the time since, some of which are evident from
these satellite photos.

“She has amassed a private army of thuggee
and ninja, as well as a substantial force of combat troops from the
Balkans.”

“What kind of human being,” Kane asked
rhetorically, “willingly works for the undead?”

“My kind have no love for your kind, Kane.”
Colson paused to address the man known as the Wrath of God. “Humans
have hunted us since our beginnings. But I know we need one
another.”

“You need us. We can do just fine without
your kind.”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ bout!” shouted
Boone.

“Litivia is of a like mind, Kane. She seeks
nothing less than the annihilation of the human race. In the past,
her plans have been squelched and derailed by our own, but as some
of you may or may not know—” Colson looked around the room at the
assembled men “—civil war amongst our kind has thinned our ranks,
and these past years there has been no countervailing force to
oppose her. Hence her scientific explorations, and vampires that
show themselves in the daylight. She is in a position to begin
actively pursuing the end of humanity,” Colson locked eyes with the
Wrath of God “the end of
your
kind.”

“Let’s wax this bitch then,” Boone blurted
out.

“Precisely. We leave the day after
tomorrow.”

“
We
?” Kane raised an eyebrow.

“I will be accompanying you on this mission,
as will Halstead. There will be a stopover in western Europe. We’ll
be parachuting in. Once on the ground, our objective will be
simple. Secure and destroy the castle and all that is in it.
Hephaestus.”

The short man stepped forward, the barrel and
folding wire stock of a submachine gun in his hands.

“This is a Heckler & Koch
Universale
Maschinenpistole
, your primary weapon on
the ground.” The armorer’s voice was high pitched. “These aren’t
even on the market yet. Chambered for 9mm Parabellum, 30-round
detachable box magazine—” Hephaestus dropped the curved magazine
from its well as he spoke and reinserted it “—six hundred and fifty
rounds per minute on full auto. Blowback from a closed bolt,
reflex-style red dot sights, vertical foregrip…”

When Hephaestus finished running down the
specs of the submachine gun, Big Duke spoke up, “Six hundred and
fifty rounds a minute. That’s putting out a lot of lead. Must have
costs a small fortune in silver.”

“We have something better than silver.”
Colson noted approvingly at Boone. “His blood.”

“You painted the bullets,” Big Mike looked
like he didn’t think any of this was going to work, “with
his
blood?”

“I coated them the same way I would with
Tungsten in vibratory tumblers,” explained Hephaestus. “I can bore
you with the details later. What matters is they’re effectively
exploding bullets when it comes to flesh like your own.”

Big Mike shifted uncomfortably and Boone
said, “Yeah, my blood is like vampire AIDs or some shit.”

“Do we really have to bring him along?” Big
Mike eyed Boone distrustfully.

“You’re a bloodsucker
and
you’re
black. You’re gonna come in for twice my shit.”

“Gentlemen,” said Colson.

“I’ll need my swords,” Kane interjected.

“And my shotgun,” added Big Duke.

Damian asked, “Can I get an axe?”

“Gentlemen. Personal weapons will be provided
with the appropriate modifications, as will side arms and thermite
grenades.”

“Thermite?” Boone liked the sound of where
this was going.

“Vampires
burn
man.” Big Duke sounded
like he was reminding a slow kid of an elementary fact. Boone
raised his head to the ceiling and whistled, like a child caught
red handed with his arm in the candy jar. Whatever he was thinking
was lost to everyone except Big Duke, who said to him, “You just
don’t stop do you?”

“Look,” Boone addressed Colson, “I get
why
I’m here. And I think I understand why Big Dookey is
here—”

“Keep pushing me.”

“—and Damian too even. I mean,” Boone gave
the man in the STAFF t-shirt a thumbs up, “I seen you having at it
with that cleaver, man. You’re stone cold fuckin’ crazy, ain’t you?
And Big Mike,” the vampire sitting there with its elbows on its
knees, “well, I don’t particularly give a fuck
why
you’re in
on this, but you—” Boone turned and faced the man called Kane for
the first time, the man who had insisted he be unbound “—what I
don’t get is
you
. You don’t seem to love these
bloodsuckers,” Boone nodded towards Colson, Halstead and Pomeroy.
“So what are you doing here?”

Kane nodded his head once before answering
matter-of-factly. “I’ve come to make the sinners bleed.”

“
Hmmmm
.” Boone considered this.

“If you’re finished,” the image on the screen
behind Colson changed, “I will continue.”

They tried to kill Dickie on his seventh day
inside.

He was coming out of the shower with Jimmy
Scal—nothing on but their towels and Jimmy’s gold-framed
sunglasses, Dickie with his chain, his soap and shampoo bottle in
hand, Cheeks behind them still showering—when they made their move.
There were two of them, one fat and one thin, both covered in ink,
the fat guy with his beard in rubber bands, the skinny guy all
twitchy, his hand behind his back.

“Hey Dickie,” the skinny guy doing the
talking, “we got somethin’ we need to talk about. Now a good time?”
Sending Dickie a message, letting him know who sent him. Sending
Dickie a message but talking too much. “What? No? This not a good
time for you?” His hand came out from behind his back, a sharpened
toothbrush in his shaking junkie grip.

Dickie threw his shampoo bottle at the guy
but he ducked it, the fat one coming at Dickie with his arms raised
like a bear, knocking Jimmy Scal out of the way. Cheeks burst out
of the shower dripping water, colliding with the heavy man, the two
of them hitting the tiles. The skinny guy came right at Dickie,
thrusting with the shank, Dickie side stepping, watching his
footing on the tile. His assailant swiped at him, missing by a
mile. Dickie threw the bar of soap at the man’s feet and the guy
hopped up on one leg as it ricocheted off the tile, the man
glancing down involuntarily, looking up as Dickie’s fist caught him
square between the eyes.

Cheeks had the fat guy down and was sitting
on top of him, stabbing him viciously with another sharpened
toothbrush. Jimmy Scal older and slower to react, in on the act
now, sprawled out atop the fat man’s legs, holding them as they
kicked.

Dickie hit the skinny one a second and a
third time. He took the man by the back of his head and rammed it
into the wall repeatedly. When he was left with deadweight in his
arms and a red stain on the wall, Dickie let the man down.

Cheeks Carlucci had worked his hands inside
the fat man, scooping out gobs of yellow jelly-like matter and
flinging it from him, ignoring the man’s flailing hands as they hit
his torso. Jimmy Scal cursing the fat guy in Italian the whole
time.

“Cheeks!” Too late, a third man—white and
heavily tattooed like the first two—was on Carlucci from behind,
driving a blade into his back. Carlucci cursed, surprised and hurt,
springing off the dying man, striking the latest attacker. Dickie
got one forearm under the man’s neck and the other under his arm,
jacking the man up onto his tip toes, Carlucci shanking him with
his own blade. Carlucci stabbing furiously, blood all over him, his
own and others’, his face all red, working his arm like some kind
of machine, the man in Dickie’s hold screaming until the Scal got a
palm over his mouth and then not making much of any noise at
all.

Carlucci took a knee, winded. Dickie let the
body down and went to his soldier.

“Cheeks…”

“I’m good, Dickie,” Carlucci panting, out of
breath. He tried to reach around to feel the wounds in his back.
“
Madonn’
. I’m a be good. You and Jimmy, you gotta go—”

“Cheeks—”

The heavy guy with the rubber banded beard
was lying there, shaking like a fish on the bottom of a boat,
handfuls of himself all over the floor. Jimmy Scal found his tinted
glasses, putting them back on.