Limbo's Child (82 page)

“Arrrgh!” Sky groaned, partly because the flesh of his naked back was now a four-foot red smear on the tree, and partly because he was looking down on a perfect cross-section of Graber’s Hippocampus.

“Still…” Schuyler quipped through the pain, “The haircut’s gotta save on the CAT scans, huh? Aach!”

Graber tightened down so hard on his throat that Schuyler could barely talk at all. It was hard to tell with a guy missing most of his head and his eyes, but it looked like he was eyeing Schuyler suspiciously, as if he were figuring out something.

After a moment Graber did something that scared Schuyler most of all. He spoke.

“CLEVER,” Graber said in a voice like a tomb door opening.

“DUDE! You can talk?! What else can you do? Don’t tell me! You’re potty-trained too, right?”

Graber didn’t respond at all but just tossed Schuyler aside like a rag doll. Schuyler collided with the large, stone outer wall of the estate and fell to the ground hard. When he got up, he could see that Graber was barreling back to the manor at full speed. Schuyler had managed to lead him all the way to the other side of the compound, but it was obvious Graber had figured out it was all a distraction.

“Crap!” Sky tried to yell through his crushed voice box, but it just came out as a squeak. If Graber got back they were done for. Mustering all his strength Sky got up and barely managed to overtake him. He slid his entire body under Graber’s tree trunk legs in an effort to trip him. It did the trick, but at a heavy price. Graber fell over, rolled away like a boulder and crashed against another tree, but one of Sky’s legs snapped like a twig from the collision.

“Unh…!” Schuyler tried to scream, but the collapsed voice box wasn’t cooperating. Lying in the dirt and fallen leaves, he saw Graber get up, unharmed. The brute stood up, brushed himself off and slowly walked to where Sky was lying broken on the ground.

Schuyler had to shake his head in admiration. “May I just say…” he managed to squeak out, “What an honor it has been to work with such pros.” Graber didn’t respond but kept striding towards him.

“You could’ve taken Forzgrim at any time couldn’t you?” Schuyler forced out in a squeaking voice. It may have been quiet, but Graber heard it. He froze just a few feet from Schuyler. That got him. Schuyler tried to laugh but it got caught in his throat. “Seriously, you guys are amazing. You were playing us the whole time weren’t you?” Graber cocked his half of a head at Schuyler, as if he were puzzling out how much Schuyler knew. “What else are you guys hiding I wonder?” Graber quickly closed the remaining distance and picked Sky up by his head, palming his skull like it was a melon. Sky groaned in pain. His toes were dangling just inches from the ground while his head was slowly being crushed in Graber’s vice-like grip. Graber looked intently at Sky with the empty space where his eyes should have been. He smiled and spoke in that horrifying guttural voice of his.

“I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU.”

Sky closed his eyes and prepared for the end as the vice-like hand tightened. He expected to hear the cracking of his skull followed quickly by the empty sound of oblivion, but instead he heard something else. He heard…
Boston?

Crashing out of the bush, eight-track blaring “More Than a Feeling” so loud it made his teeth rattle, came the red tail-lights of a very battered 1974 limited edition Spirit of America Chevy Impala.

Thankfully, Graber released his grip just before impact to try to catch the car, but it was too late. Two tons of American steel and four feet of chrome bumper struck Graber’s midsection and sent him flying backwards where he disappeared into the bush with a colossal crash. Sky dropped to the ground and rolled away just in time to avoid the rear tires. He sat up and patted down all his parts: smashed hand, bloody back, broken leg, crushed windpipe, yep, all there. He quickly looked around.

“YES!!” Tim had stepped out of the driver’s side of the car and jumped up in triumph, raising both fists into the air. “Han Solo DID NOT run away from the battle of Yavin!”

“When Han Solo is finished with his touchdown dance can he please come over here and help me into the Millennium Falcon?!” Sky said as loud as he could with his smashed pipes. “Graber will be back any second!”

“Oh! Sorry, dude.” Tim ran around the car and yanked Sky up off the ground, put his arm around his back and under his armpit and helped him to the passenger side. “Dude, your back is hamburger!”

“Thanks for the news flash!” Sky winced as Tim opened up the door and dropped him into the passenger seat, “Sorry about bleeding on the girlfriend.”

“Don’t call her my girlfriend!” Tim shot back as he jumped the hood and scrambled into the driver’s seat.

“If you get us the heck out of here alive, I swear I will never say anything bad about this car or Boston ever again!! Now DRIVE!!”

Tim was just popping it into gear when Graber burst out of the undergrowth. He had a large, broken branch stuck through his abdomen and out the other side. He snapped off the back half and pulled the rest of it out the front way slowly before tossing it aside. He looked really pissed. He was snorting like a bull and all at once he charged. Tim froze and screamed. Sky slid over on the bench seat and stomped on the gas with his good foot. Tim’s foot was still under it and he screamed again.

Miles was pounding on all fours through the manor at a frantic pace, the hum of golden locusts was right on his dog heels loud enough to drown out his own footsteps. He had never been very familiar with Rivenden before and his dog-monster mind was just yelping “Run!” over and over again, making it impossible to think about where he was going. He had already crashed through the parlor and the dining room.

In the parlor, the skeletons were all sitting around without clothes. When they saw Miles run through they all screamed and pulled on their robes as if he had charged into a women’s locker room. Who would have known that skeletons could scream, let alone had a sense of modesty? The dining room was holding a confab of some of the mummies drinking tea, or more likely, embalming fluid, from the smell of it. Miles crashed through the tea set, sending pieces of bone china flying everywhere. Irate protestations of his rude behavior erupted behind him, but they were swallowed by the hum of the locusts immediately following him.

From the dining room, he stumbled into the kitchen and skidded across the tile floor, scattering several more meat golems that were resting there. While sliding, he saw the door he hoped went to the basement. He scrambled back to his feet, but then he realized he couldn’t open the door without hands. He transformed back into his human form, fumbling for the doorknob, waiting for the paws to grow thumbs. He managed to open it just in time, lunge into the dark stairwell and slam it shut. He heard the yelps and cries of the poor meat golems and the relentless pelting of the locusts on the other side of the door as if it was being hammered by a heavy, horizontal rain.

“Nep?!” He screamed, struggling to hold the door shut while he searched for the lock and desperately tried to turn it.

“I’m down here!”

“Where’s dat bloody imp a’ yours?!”

“I can’t get him out!!”

Miles found the lock, turned it and stepped back for a moment. The door lurched forward but held. He stumbled down the narrow stairs in the darkness. The basement was little more than an old larder, small and narrow, and there at the other end wasn’t an icebox, but an upright coffin made of metal and bolted with heavy chains. There were several coffins in fact – some with small windows where the faces should be, some with only air holes. There were also stockades, manacles and chains around the walls, all designed for humans. It was a
vampire
larder! A place where Wallach and his court could keep their prey alive and fresh to feed on. It made Miles shudder, but there was no time to ruminate on Wallach’s eating habits. Miles left the buzzing, pulsating door that sounded as if it might buckle at any moment and went to the coffin Nephys was working on.

“FLAAAABAAAARNT!!”

The thing was in there all right, clattering away at the inside with its butcher knife. Miles could only guess that they couldn’t take the large knife away from him because it was actually part of the little monster somehow. Miles grabbed the large lock on the chains and began to pull but instantly he had to let go.

“Ach! Bloody Heck!” Miles looked at his hands; they were red and smoldering slightly.

“What’s wrong?” Nephys yelled back.

“Silver!?” yelled Miles, “What in the bloody heck did Wallach need to make the chains out of bloody silver for?!” He thought frantically. Wallach must have been locking up more than just people down here. He was locking up vampires! But why?! The rattling door behind him, threatening to break under the strain of the thousands of voracious insects behind it, told Miles that that little mystery would have to wait for another day. Miles gritted his teeth and grabbed the lock anyway.

“Aaaargh!” he screamed and pulled on the lock holding the thick chains in place. The pain was unbelievable, but finally it snapped. Miles dropped the broken pieces instantly and fell back, exhausted, to the floor.

“You did it!” Nephys went right to work pulling the many chains off the iron coffin while Miles sat and contemplated his blistered hands.

“FluBAAAAARNT!” Hiero shook the coffin from the inside violently.

It was only then that Miles realized that the chattering of the insects had stopped. Miles stood up and spun around, but it was too late, the red smoke was already pouring around the cracks in the door and was forming into the recognizable shape of the Father of All Vampires. Miles rushed him, but Hokharty was even faster and more agile than he had been in that alley where he had first met him a day ago. Hokharty backhanded Miles into the wall.

Nephys looked up just in time to see Miles crash unconscious to the floor. The Chamberlain stared down on him and was no less terrifying in these strange clothes than he had been in the Halls of Death – and now nothing separated him from the wrath of the Father of All Vampires.

“On your left! ON YOUR LEFT!!” Sky screamed.

Tim could barely hear Sky over the sound of screeching tires and “More Than A Feeling” that was blaring out of the eight-track. In the midst of the fight no one had thought to turn it off. Right now, Tim had more important things to worry about, like a giant corpse with the top of its head cut off.

“I got it! I GOT IT!” Tim screamed back.

“HIT HIM!! HIT HIM AGAIN!!” Sky’s panic forced its way even through his crushed voicebox.

“I can’t hit him with the front of the car!! You have to back into your target! Haven’t you ever seen a demolition derby?!”

“NO! And I haven’t been to a hog-calling contest either!!” Sky yelled back, the snark somehow still managing to rise above his panic.

“You can’t hit something that big with the front of the car! It will kill the engine fan and the radiator!!”

“This is no time to worry about your precious land yacht, Tim!! Geez can’t this thing turn any faster?!! The Titanic could turn tighter than this thing! On the right! He’s over there!!”

“I’m on it!! AND I’M NOT WORRIED ABOUT THE DANG CAR, SKY!! If we kill the radiator, the engine turns into a four hundred pound doorstop! And THEN what are we gonna hit Graber with?!!”

“OK, OK!! JUST BACK UP FASTER, WILL YA?!!!”

“I’M TRYING!!! It’s just really hard to back over someone!! OK? NOW SHUT UP!! What the? OH CRAP!!”

“WATCH THAT TREE!! OK, YA GOT HIM NOW!! HE’S RIGHT THERE! PUNCH IT!!”
           
“NAIL HIM!! NAIL THE DEAD EVER-LIVING SON OF A…AAAARGHHH!!”

“WHERE’D HE GO?!”

“I DUNNO! He just…disappeared. Stop the car!!”

“What?!”

“Stop the car!!”

Tim came to an abrupt stop. Grabe was gone. The final guitars of Boston’s most famous ballad faded away on the eight-track and were replaced by a silence interrupted only by the irregular rhythm of an engine on its last legs and Tim’s hyperventilating. Tim could tell he was close to a throwing a rod just by the sound it made. Dang new pistons! Why did he have to put those in last week?! Any moment now the car would be dead and their only defense against Graber gone. He gripped the steering wheel like a life preserver. Sky craned his neck to look around for any sign of the missing Graber.

“Did we hit him?” Tim whispered.

Sky just held a finger to his lips for silence as he struggled to listen for any telltale sign of the monstrous corpse. A long pause followed. Then suddenly, a gigantic, metal, crunching sound came from over their heads and the roof dented in more than a foot.

“He’s on the roof!! DRIVE!!”

A single, massive fist punched straight through the roof and Tim screamed and stomped on the gas while leaning as far out of the reach of the grasping hand as he could. He couldn’t see where the car was heading so he just closed his eyes and prayed.

Hokharty slowly stepped over the body of Miles. He fixed his eyes on Nephys and approached him like a cat stalking its prey. Hiero was furiously rocking the coffin back and forth, but the chains weren’t sliding off very quickly. Nephys wasn’t certain if Miles was dead or not, but he knew he was alone. The little imp would not be coming to his rescue and Miles was motionless on the floor. It was all up to him now. He called out to the Chamberlain in the old tongue and tried to speak it the way his grandmother taught him.