The Vampire Club (20 page)

“
Um, how’s it going, Andy?” It was the professor standing over me, looking as shy as a schoolboy asking his first valentine out on a date.

“
Meaning?” I croaked, raising an arm and marveling at the fact there was absolutely no scar where Dial had dealt his death scratch.

I would have asked myself if this were a dream, except dreams end and you never asked such questions in a real dream. My body wanted to rest, my head wanted to sleep, but something—I could only call it the “blackness of soul”—burned away with a fire of its own.

“
Meaning,” said Professor L. “Are you going to get us out of here?”

“
I’m a vampire?”

I braced my arms at my side and momentarily caught a look at the Vampire Laumer. He was as white as when we first found him. As I proceeded to push myself up to my feet, I felt a restless stirring deep within me. Like something was caught, caged, and shut from the light forever.

Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed movement. Even my eye muscles felt tired and I lazily looked with disinterest. A VVVer slowly raised a pistol and took aim, and it looked like the professor was in his line of fire.

He squeezed the trigger, and I jumped forward.

And I moved too easily, too quickly. I felt out of control. Even though the professor and the VVV Brother never left my vision, even though I was still within the small clearing, I felt like I had fallen off a cliff. It was an incredible rush.

The man still had his arm up holding the gun. One eye was squinted, lining up his target, the professor was hunched over me, unblinking, mouth open, frozen, Dial was next to him, head turning just noticing the Brother. His mouth was contorted, about to shout, but it was frozen, everything frozen.

And I felt like I was falling to my death.

I moved freely among them, and yet they did not move. It was as if I was moving around in a wax museum exhibit.

The Brother’s finger was firmly wrapped around the trigger, he had pulled it, and the gun had fired. And the bullet was hovering in the air between us.

I moved over to it, my steps awkward and exaggerated. I definitely was not used to this real-time movement. I stuck my face just inches from it. It was moving, but just barely. I reached out with my thumb and forefinger and plucked it from the sky, like a shrimp mini-sandwich from a serving platter.

I moved toward the Brother while still holding the bullet. I figured that anything in my possession would be carried along as I went.

Reaching the hunter, I tore free his gun, and was very surprised to suddenly see all the fingers in his hands explode. Perhaps I tore it too quickly. The explosion happened in my time, and what was amazing was that he wasn’t even aware that it had happened yet.

Then I realized I didn’t know how to stop the speed! It had started most accidentally, my body responding to crisis. I wanted it to stop but it was already over.

And then I slowed. And then I felt as if I were up against good old resistance, reliable gravity.

The first thing I heard was Dial screaming. Then next thing was a screaming. A sort of screaming that plays on a man’s nerves.

I watched calmly as the VVV member clutched his right arm. Blood spurted from its messy stump.

In the kind of time that pain likes, the slow kind.

Chapter Forty-nine

I was a vampire. I was immortal.

A million thoughts crowded my mind, but it was too much to sort through. What would Janice think? What would my parents think? What did this mean for the future of the Vampire Studies program? Mostly, how long before I had to gnaw on somebody’s neck and suck the sweet, sweet life from them, and would I care whether it was a boy or a girl?

“
You—you’ve turned, Andy,” the professor said, a mixture of reverence and shock in his old, tired voice. In a way, his own ambition had been fulfilled, though he also sounded slightly jealous.

“
He saved your life, professor,” Dial said, with a touch of respect. Off in the woods, the Brother was whimpering, definitely going against his training.

“
And now for the rest of us,” Laumer said, seemingly revived a little.

“
Let me get used to this first,” I said.

“
Plenty of time for that later,” Laumer said.

“
The others will no doubt be armed with silver bullets,” Dial said, a calm sort of awe in his voice. And I realized Dial rarely, if ever, bequeathed his respect to others. “And I’m sorry.”

“
For what?” I asked, noticing with great shock that I had no air in my lungs and had to draw it in to speak. A vampire needed no oxygen, of course; only blood.

“
I did not hear him come.” He nodded over to where the VVV Brother had been before darting away screaming. “He was our—their—best assassin. He was as secretive as my once-closeted sexuality.”

“
Then his injuries could not be helped,” I said, not looking at him but instead at my outstretched hands. The skin was translucent, and the veins underneath glowed a deep purple. That would definitely have to be hidden once I took my place in human society.

Human society? Hell! I’m already getting used to being a blood-sucking outcast.

“
There are more,” Laumer said from his sitting position. He seemed more slow to recover than me.

Dial sniffed the air. “The nearest is no more than fifty yards away, I believe.”

“
Then I shall go to work,” I said. “I’m starting to understand this time-warp stuff. No wonder vampires are so hard to capture.”

Dial sniffed again. “That direction.” And he pointed to his left. “For starters.”

“
What about you?” I said to Laumer. “You expect me to do all the work now?”

“
Let me recover while your professor removes the remaining bullets. And watch out for the light.”

I glanced at the sun breaking through the trees, and it made my eyes hurt. I didn’t think I’d turn to smoke and ash if I stepped into full sunlight, but I suspected I’d get one hell of a sunburn. Luckily, the forest had a thick canopy, so I was spared the worst of its rays.

“
The ultimate metaphor,” the professor said, rubbing his chin. “You have forever forsaken the light and now must walk in darkness.”

“
To hell with walking,” I said. “I am booking it in real time now.”

“
You can go but you can never return,” the professor said.

“
Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Save it for the term paper. I’ve got some VVV ass to kick right now.”

“
He’s already sounding bloodthirsty,” said Laumer, with a touch of parental pride. I didn’t know what sort of relationship we had—was he my relative, my blood brother, that guy I did an embarrassing thing with that we’d never mention again, or was he just some dude who’d tricked me out of my soul to extend his own existence?

I mean, hey, I wouldn’t be the first human to ever get used, or maybe I was already thinking like a vampire—in terms of exploiting our resource pool, much the way a turkey farmer struts around the pen on Thanksgiving eve.

Five minutes as a vampire, and I was already suffering angst. I could hardly wait to set up an appointment with the school counselor, and then drain her neck and leave her bloody on the couch.

I mean, of course, I wouldn’t ever do anything like that. I was determined to be one of those
good
vampires, the kinds who steal blood from the hospital and own puppies and help little old ladies across the street. I would never harm a human.

Heh heh.

Corey Haim, eat your heart out.

Gunfire rattled, and I shifted into real time long enough to note the bullets were, indeed, silver.

“
Back in a flash,’ I said, as the professor knelt over Laumer, so engrossed in his scientific examination that he forgot to be scared.

I left the small clearing fully intending to jog, but instead I found myself moving faster than the wind. I’d been the kind of kid who was usually picked last for kickball, the one stuck out in right field away from the action, and the one who the gym coach always called “Missie.”

And here I was, strong, fast, healthy—well, I don’t know if “undead” counts as healthy, but one thing I knew, there was a gym coach I’d have to look up once all this was over.

Chapter Fifty

I stopped my absurdly accelerated jog when I saw the first group of hunters. I ducked behind a tree to plan my strategy.

And when each head turned and looked in my direction, I knew that these guys were good. Maybe too damned skilled and deadly for a new vampire. I flexed, letting Laumer’s corrupt old blood ooze through my veins.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I would feel in my new body. All I knew was I didn’t want to fall into the old silver slumber like Laumer had, with this VVV filth laughing over my coffin until the end of time.

What to do? I could grab a machine gun and shoot the bastards, offering plenty of blood to the still-weak Laumer.

I could steal all their guns, thus rendering them harmless. I could. I could. I could. The trouble being, of course, that these guys were just as harmful without guns as with them, but surely they’d realized that they’d been bested by a vampire and all further pursuit would end in writhing death.

They didn’t yet know I was a vampire, did they?

That one-armed assassin guy was still quite unconscious—and no doubt dying—from lack of blood. As far as they knew, they had plugged the one and only vampire with silver sleep, and now they just had to find him. Piece of cake.

So I had the element of surprise.

Once they saw they were dealing with another vampire, it should shift their determination down a notch or two, but they might be so macho that they’d rather fight to the death than realize it was their deaths and not mine that would end it.

I sprinted away from the first group, moving in my new superhuman speed, and soon came upon another group closing in on the small clearing.

The sky had turned from a deep purple to a brighter blue. Dawn was full on, and I wondered briefly just how exactly a real vampire would handle the sun.

I’d read all the supposed reactions to the sun’s rays, and most agree on what should happen—opinions, all opinions. I’d have the facts soon enough, but I was also racing the sun as much as I was racing an army of VVV vermin.

I took a step and immediately bolted into action. The trees sped by at an even more blurring rate. Sure, I was going fast, but I hadn’t hit real time. Faster. I dodged trees that I didn’t even comprehend. It was all a swirling fog. My body jerked and moved about as I sped by trees and bodies, moving seemingly on its own, jerking and twisting. This definitely wasn’t working.

I slowed down, somehow able to get that message to my possessed legs.

I saw the trees again, green and brown streaks.

Slowing even further, I realized there were gears in between mortal time and pedal-to-the-metal, balls-to-the-wall vampire speed. I slowed until I could sense the world around me.

And found myself looking into the awed faces of about half a dozen vampire hunters.

“
Get the bloodsucker!” one shouted, and I wondered how pale my face was.

When most of them jumped at me, I reacted spontaneously, moving in the direction where only one was leaping at me with growling lips. And found myself in real time again.

The odds suddenly switched to my favor.

Chapter Fifty-one

Using all my strength, which seemed a little upgraded from my chess-champ biceps of the day before, I pulled at each individual finger holding the nearest submachine gun.

If my sweat pores had functioned, I’m sure I would’ve been doing so by then, for it was hard labor moving objects in another time dimension. What advantage I held in speed seemed to be lost in the extra effort required. Boy, the professor was going to get a whole slew of blog posts out of this, assuming I saved his neck.

An hour in my time had easily passed before all fingers were free of their thunder sticks, a time during which one VVVer opened his mouth and another was stuck in mid-fart for at least fifteen minutes. How did the Vampire Laumer manage to make the guns back in our cellar days disappear? I’d have to ask him once we pumped his veins back up with blood.

What to do? Once I returned to the normal-time rate, their guns will simply drop and they would all have a handful of broken fingers. Would that be enough to stop these lovers of death? What I really needed to do was move these goons out of the forest and get our asses out of the woods.

A half dozen VVV hunters stood before me now. How many more were out there, frozen in time? Dial had said they had numerous back-ups at the ready. Were there perhaps twenty more I would have to demobilize?

Still in real time, I raced back over to the group. Dial was squatting and I was tempted to boot him in the rear for all the jealousy he’d caused me, but it wasn’t his fault. He looked kind of fish-faced at the moment, his mouth open and rounded as if he were saying something.