Vampires (26 page)

The motorhome and Blazer were parked side by side at the cul-de-sac at the end of Davette's beautifully sculptured street by three that afternoon. But without headlights, they couldn't see one from the other.

“Look at it comin' down!” whispered the deputy in amazement.

Felix, sitting beside him at the far end of the motorhome, nodded and put out his newly lit cigarette. It was too damn smoky in there already. But every time they tried to open the door to get some fresh air, the bloody thunderstorm about drowned them.

Felix shook his head disgustedly. Midsummer, three o'clock in the afternoon, and it was probably no more than fifty degrees out there. And the damned sky was green!

Ker-plap! went another bolt of lightning, and everyone in the motorhome-which was everyone they had-jumped another foot.

“I do wish they'd stop doing that!” muttered Cat airily.

Nobody laughed.

“Well, hell,” said Jack at last. “I guess there goes today.”

“Yeah,” agreed Carl, staring out at the storm. “Funny thing is: we could've blown the whole damn mansion up in this stuff and I don't think even the next-door neighbors would have heard it.” He looked at Davette and smiled. “As 'next-door' as this neighborhood gets, I mean,” be added.

Davette didn't smile. She just looked at the floor between her feet and continued hugging her elbows, her face drawn and tight.

She doesn't like being here, thought Felix.

And he wanted to go to her and do something or say something, but...

But he didn't. Too many people around and.., and what was he going to say, anyway? They were going to do this one way or another, no matter how she felt. She was the reason they were here, if anything.

“Dammit!” sputtered Jack Crow. “I would like to know if they're here, at least. Joplin! Turn that thing on.”

“It won't work,” replied Carl. “Why not? Are they busted?” “You're trying to read the house, right?” “Right.”

“It won't reach.”

“Because of the storm? It's only a couple of hundred feet.”

Carl shook his head. “It's not the storm. It's the location. I could read the house from here if I had a sensor in the house. But you gotta have a sensor on-site.”

“You mean already at the house.”

Carl nodded. “Or in it.”

“Now there's a happy thought,” offered Cat.

Jack looked at him. “You up to it?”

Cat shrugged. “I wish I had a shower cap,” he said and began stripping off his chain mail.

“What do you think you're doing?” Carl asked him.

“Don't worry. I'm not going in. An outside wall would be close enough, wouldn't it?”

Felix thought this was crazy. But he only said, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Well, I'm sure,” declared Joplin. “It's a shitty idea.” He looked square at Cat. “It's also even stupider than your usual.”

“Look, Carl,” urged Jack. “It's just a matter of him taking it up there and stashing it in the bushes or somewhere.”

“Yeah,” agreed Cat. “Just Catting it in and Catting it out.”

And he smiled.

And Carl Joplin all but erupted. “Bullshit!” he bellowed. “Bullshit! It's been dark for what? Two hours already.”

“Yeah, but-” Cat tried.

“'Yeah, but-' shit! You sit your butt back down or I'll dribble you from one end of this trailer to the other!”

And he stood over Cat, huffing and puffing, his arms out like a hungry linebacker, and it got very quiet until Cat spoke, in a small voice: “Okay, Carl,” he said, shrugging.

Carl nodded firmly. “Okay,” he confirmed, still heaving.

Then he noticed everyone watching him. He blinked, hesitated, then seemed to get more angry.

“We meeting at Felix's bar, that Antwar place?”

Jack nodded.

Carl turned to Felix. “You sure you got enough room?”

“I'm sure.”

“Fine!” barked Carl. He looked around at the others. “Fine,” he repeated. “I'll meet you there. I'm gonna get some more bullets for the Gunman and a suit for the kid.” He nodded toward Deputy Thompson.

He looked around at the others another moment, trying to think of something to say. Then he grabbed up the Blazer keys and stomped Out into the rain.

They could just hear the Blazer's engine start over the storm.

“I don't get it,” wondered Kirk out loud. “What was he so mad about?”

Annabelle smiled. So did Jack and Cat.

“He wasn't really mad, dear,” Annabelle assured him. “He was just worried about Cat.”

Kirk nodded slowly. "So that threat..

“Oh, that wasn't a threat,” Annabelle said quickly. “That was a hug.”

Kirk looked at her. Then the dawning showed in his eyes. He smiled.

“Oh, I get it. Carl's shy.”

Cat and Jack nodded at each other.

“Well,” muttered Cat,“ that's one way of putting it.” -

Felix didn't much care how they put it.

“Let's get going,” he said.

“Okay,” replied Jack. He looked at Davette. “Which way at the stop sign?”

She looked up vaguely, still clearly disturbed at where she was.

"Uh, why don't you turn right? No... Yes, right. And then. .

Felix shook his head. “Go straight. Then take the ne~... Never mind. I'll drive.”

And he climbed over into the driver's seat.

Jack studied him. “You know this area?”

Felix shrugged. “I grew up about three blocks from here.”

And Davette's head came up quickly. “You did?” she whispered.

He smiled at her and nodded.

“Where?” she asked.

“DeLoche Avenue.”

Davette's head tilted toward him. She smiled.

“How nice,” breathed Cat. “They're both aristocrats.”

“Cat,” snarled Felix, starting the engine.

But Cat held up both palms in the air. “I know. I know,” he said. And then he added. “But it's still sweet.”

Felix snarled as he made the motorhome move through the rain.

“We need to stop here,” announced Annabelle as they passed a shopping center a few miles later. “There. At the pharmacy.”

Jack frowned, looked at his watch. “What for?”

“That,” purred Annabelle sweetly, “is none of your business. Felix, pull up close so we don't get wet and... Jack?”

She held her palm out to him and pointed to it with a long fingernail. Jack shrugged and dugout some money and started piling bills onto her palm. When she had about three times what they needed, Annabelle said, “Stop. We'll be right back.”

Then she and Davette were out the door and tripping through the rain to the brightly lit automatic doors.

The men just sat there, not talking, just waiting for the women to spend the money. Jack watched the deputy find himself a comfortable spot on the motorhome's sofa. Even in civilian clothes, the kid still looked like he was wearing a uniform.

I ought to talk to him about paying him, Jack thought. But he doesn't seem worried about it. Just slipped right into us. We were lucky.

Felix sat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, looking anxious but unworried.

Even you're coming along, Gunman, thought Jack next. That is, as far as you're willing to come.

“Think they'll remember cigarettes?” Cat asked suddenly.

Kirk waved at the smoky air. “Hope not.” They remembered. Felix cranked up the motorhome

and they steamed through the rainy city to his bar. He was worried about the Antwar. He'd only had one chance to talk to them since he'd been with the Team, and he knew what happened to the staff of a cocktail lounge without someone standing over them. He had some pretty good people, but still...

Damn it was raining! And the thunder and the lightning-it took him thirty minutes to cross town, using his headlights the entire time.

It really does look like nighttime out there, he thought as be finally pulled onto his Street.

Cat was sitting behind him playing with Carl's detector.

“Hey, Felix! Maybe I'll quit, too, and write a book.”

“Smart move,” said Felix.

“It'll be all about a gay vampire.”

Felix frowned, Jack and Annabelle looked at one another and groaned.

“You want to hear the title?”

“Sure. What's the title?”

“'The Tooth Fairy,' ”replied Cat happily, just as Felix pulled the motorhome up to the Antwar's front door and...

And the detector in Cat's hands went wild.

Beep-Beep-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-

... and Felix yanked the wheel away from the curb tromped on the gas and the huge motorhome skidded, righted itself, then vaulted down the street, fishtailing at the first turn.

But Felix didn't let off. He knew what that meant! He knew! And he made that bloody jump!

“Felix!” Jack yelled to him a few blocks later. They aren't coming!"

Felix's foot hesitated over the throttle.

“You sure?”

''Sure! Slow this thing down."

Felix reluctantly obeyed, slowing it all the way down i finally pulling over to a stop at the curb and turning off key. Then he just sat there, in the silence and the rain, breathing hard, before he spoke.

“They found me,” he said quietly.

Then: “They know me, too. And they've found me.”

It's worse than that, Gunman, thought Jack Crow. know you. They've found you. And they're after you.

But he didn't say this. He didn't say anything. He like he knew what Felix was feeling. And he couldn't but have sympathy.

But you're in it now, Felix, he thought. In to stay.

Jack Crow did not know how Felix felt.

Felix did not know how he felt.

He felt.. . nothing, really. Empty and numb and...

I knew this would happen, he thought again and and again.

I knew it.

“Carl!” whispered Cat suddenly.

“Huh?” asked the Deputy.

"If they thought enough to have somebody waiting Felix's bar-on the off chance he'd be there..

“Then they're bound to have somebody at the house,” Jack finished for him. And he was already Felix out of the driver's seat.

“Get dressed,” he told them and started the engine once more. “We'll drop the ladies off.”

“Carl!” whispered Cat again, almost to himself. He turned and looked at Annabelle's pale face.

She looks like I feel, he thought.

Carl! He's all alone Out there...

The detectors said: no vampires.

But they had been there.

Felix, wearing full chain mail, with halogen cross blazin on his chest, and with Browning drawn and cocked, stepped carefully through the shattered door of Carl's workshop and gazed about at the destruction.

Good Lord! Maybe they are gods!

Equipment was strewn everywhere, upside down, lying on its side, crushed. Workbenches were shattered. Heavy wooden packing crates lay tossed about like so many child's blocks. Parts of the ceiling hung almost to the floor, with wiring wrapped around it like a spider's web.

That clear sticky goo the monsters used for blood was everywhere, on the floors, on the walls, dripping from the ceiling and from pieces of splintered crossbow bolts. The puddles ran in a vague pattern, like a funnel. The wide end was by the doorway, where the concentration was the least. But as Felix, with the others moving quietly behind him, moved forward across what was left of the room, the vampire blood grew thicker and thicker, with huge splotches there an there and there, where a crossbow bolt had split an overturn chair. By the time they reached the far end of the room b the time they reached that barricaded closet, the goo was so thick on the floor it was slippery to walk.

Carl Joplin had made them pay.

They found his body in the closet.

He was huddled, crumpled, beaten, slashed, in one small corner.

Too small, Felix thought, for that great body.

Jack's face in the halogen glare was unnerving. He was pale and drawn too tight and Cat, poor laughing Cat, looked a lot worse.

Surprised! realized Felix. They look so surprised!

I suppose, he thought next, that they thought Carl would always make it. Because they kept him in the rear. Because...

Because they loved him so much.

Damn.

Quiet in here, he thought next. No one talking. Everyone moving so slowly and carefully. Only the sounds of the storm whistling through, and even that had finally begun to abate.

There was a smear of that black bile the monsters spat when injured by his elbow on a broken countertop. Felix started to find something to wipe it off with, but stopped.

Let them come back. Let them come back and see this.

It was left to Felix and Father Adam and Kirk to take care of the body. Jack and Cat had left to stand outside by themselves in the rain. Adam brought the other two together and explained to them what had to be done to the body. That it must be staked and beheaded and that there really was an ancient Church ritual of interment that covered it all.

Felix was repulsed and sickened and.., what? Scared? Certainly wired. His chest thumped and his thoughts went everywhere but to what he was doing as they loaded the tortured corpse into a canvas body bag on band for just this purpose.

And the entire time some small sparking furious part of him was shouting up from his soul, Well, Felix! Is this enough? What does it take to set you off?

But mostly, he was numb.

He found himself watching young Father Adam, as they bound up and carried the body out into the rain. He knew the priest had been the one that kept the Top Secret Vatican records on Team Crow. And he wondered how he felt now.

One thing to read about it. Another to see it. Another to have them tearing at your own throat.

Cat and Jack stood still, side by side, the outlines of the great house they would now never live in rising starkly up behind them against the gray clouds and lightning. They looked.. . smaller than before.

They loaded Carl into the motorhome and Jack came' over and told them that he and Cat would take the Blazer and go to the hotel and tell Annabelle and Davette. And it was quiet again as they contemplated this grinding task.

“You want us to meet you there?” Felix asked him. Jack shook his head wearily. “We're going to the bishop's. We're all going to the bishop's.” Then he paused and took a deep breath and glanced, sideways, almost warily, toward the shattered workshop door. “See you there,” he' said at last and Felix thought his voice far too thin for so big a man.

Then Cat and Jack climbed into the Blazer and were. gone.

Damn, thought Felix, watching their taillights disappear. Damn.

Because he knew what they were thinking, he about their guilt and those horrible goddamned pictures cause he was having those same crushing visions.

Of poor Carl Joplin hearing his detector going off knowing it was too late to get away and then desperately trying to barricade the door and then packing his weapons into the closet and then barricading that up, too, and none of it, absolutely none of it, doing any good.

And then alone in that closet it would be impossible wouldn't it, not to hope? Not to think, not to dream, not pray that the others would be coming to save him?

And what did he think when he knew it was too late. Did he hate everyone? Did he forgive them?

Did he forgive me?

Would he now? If he bad the chance?

Damn.