The Devil's Beat (The Devil's Mark) (27 page)

“In my quest for vengeance, I destroyed them all, those who took my Anesha and those who let them. I destroyed them all and drank their blood and then bathed in it. When I was done with that, my need for bloody vengeance was not quenched. The woman Lilitu came to me, and I pleaded with her to give me more power. She made demands, and even though she smelled of rotted corpse, I lay with her, and when I rose, I was made powerful again.

“I joined the Kahn's horde, and we destroyed and burned everything in our path. When their fury was spent, mine was not. In my madness, I called forth Lilitu and demanded more vengeance. I told her that I would destroy the angel who made me fall in love, and thus spit in God's face for what he had done.

“She told me this was beyond her power, but not beyond the one she served. His name was Shaitan. He could give me what I asked, but there would be a price. I accepted, and Shaitan brought me the angel responsible for my love. He gave me the power to kill him and I did. I ate his heart.

“After that, my hunger for vengeance became hunger for blood, and I slaked my thirst often. I made destruction and terror for Shaitan and spat in God's face. Then, one day in Georgia, I killed a nigger girl and drank her hot blood. When I was done, I looked at her, and there I saw Anesha's face and everything within me died, leaving nothing but emptiness. I left plantation and wandered for years until I found this house. Something within called to me. It was full of passion and death, and I found it soothing. After time, all hunger left me, and I placed myself in casket that you found. Then flood came, and I was trapped. I could feel myself dissolving, becoming nothing but the hunger.”

***

Vlad paused and looked at Max. He said with a restored southern accent, “When I smelled your blood, sir, I tried again in vain to get out. It is only because of you that I am free from that torment. Even so, after you freed me, it is good that you knocked my head off and destroyed my body, because otherwise, I would surely have killed you.”

The silence that followed Vlad's story was profound. Vlad sat looking into his drink, sad and lost. Then Josh stirred and summed it up for everyone. “Whoa, dude. That is some totally heavy, heavy shit.”

Vlad downed another glass of Jack. Josh's face brightened, and he said, “And now this Anny chick has, like, been reincarnated and you have a chance to be with your one true love.”

Vlad looked at the world's oldest stoner with something like wonder in his eyes. He merely said, “Yes,” but never has one word carried so much emotion.

Josh frowned. “Dude, I hate to tell you this, but it'll never happen.”

Vlad's eyes narrowed dangerously at Josh. He said, “Are you going to try and stop me, sir?”

Josh put his hands out in front of himself to ward off Vlad's anger. He slopped Jack Daniels all over the floor as he did it. He didn't notice. “No, dude, don't get me wrong. I'm not gonna stop you, but it just won't work. See, yer an immortal vampire and all, and she is just a woman. She's going to get all old and shit, and you are just going to have to watch her die again. Trust me. It sucks large donkey dicks. Every time it happens to me, I swear off women, but then I get stupid, and it happens again. The summer of love, dude, that was the thing, ya know, love the one you're with and all? Well that din't work either. I started lovin' the one I was with, and then it stuck, and then she OD'd.”

Now it was Josh's turn to look sad and lost.

Everyone fell silent for a moment and then Mike clapped his hands together. “Right...okay, who wants pizza?”

The next morning, Max woke up and wished he hadn't. Jack Daniel's revenge was pounding through his stomach and head. Max peered through his misery and looked around at the empty bottles and the stack of pizza boxes. He stumbled to the bathroom to see if he could find water and ibuprofen. Unfortunately, what he found was an unbelievably nasty mess. The smell alone was like a solid wall. Nothing with a nose would voluntarily go into that bathroom. The memory of a drunken Vlad, trying to eat pizza and Cheetos seemed to be swimming around in his brain somewhere. Vlad's stomach had not welcomed the switch back to solid food, and he had run to the bathroom several times to vomit it all back up. Vlad, who had defied death for revenge, wouldn't let a little thing like his stomach stop him, so he had kept doing it on the theory that, eventually, it would stay down. The sheer amount of half digested pizza coating the bathroom was a testament to the indomitability of the human will and should have buoyed Max up, but instead, it triggered his own stomach. He added the remains of his own dinner to that shrine of perseverance and then downed a handful of pain killers with a glass of water. Max stumbled back out to the room. On the wall, someone had drawn the message, “The Man Sucks!” in foot-tall letters with something that looked like red lipstick. As punctuation, there was a knife sticking in the wall where the period should be, and there were a pair of pink woman’s panties hanging from the knife. Max had no idea how any of that got there. He surveyed the rest of the damage and, in the process, counted only two other bodies.

Max had a gong of fear go off in his head at the term “bodies.” The adrenalin rush nearly popped his head, but to his quick relief, both Josh and Mike were snoring loudly. Max's observation that Vlad wasn't there was followed by the thought, Oh shit! Vlad's not here!, which was then followed by Max yelling at Mike and Josh, “Shit! Vlad's not here!” In the absence of response that followed, Max looked at the clock to see how long Vlad might have been roaming around. To his relief, he found that it was only 7:30 in the morning.

He shook, yelled, and poked at Mike where he lay on the broken bed until Mike finally started coming around. Mike protested the treatment until the idea of a drunk vampire running around town sank into his pickled brains. He promptly got up, ran to the bathroom, and added his tribute to the porcelain god.

By this time, Josh had awoken as well. He was sitting on the bed, wrapped in the covers, blinking the sleep from his eyes while his head followed Max's pacing like a patron at a tennis match.

For his part, Max was frantic, but didn't know what to do. When Mike reappeared, Max whirled on him and demanded, “Mike, what are we going to do? We've set a bloody drunken vampire loose on Mississippi!”

Mike cringed from the volume of Max's shout. “Maybe he'll be fine. He gave you his word that he wouldn't eat anybody.”

“What if he was too drunk stop himself? How will we find him?”

Josh smiled. “Dude, we can just follow the screams.”

Max glared at Josh, preparing a scathing reply, but then he slumped as the image sank in. “OhGodOhGodOhGod! We can't let that happen. I can't have another death on my conscience. We have to call the Sheriff.”

Mike automatically said, “Police Chief.”

Max didn't respond, he just pulled out his phone. It wasn't till it was in his hands that he realized that he didn't know the number for the police department here. He looked blankly at his phone momentarily and then dialed 911.

When the call was answered, Max started talking. He got as far as “Hello, we have an emergency situation....” before he realized that he was talking to a recording.

The pleasant female voice on the other side was saying, “...nature of your emergency, date, time and best phone number to reach you at. There are three callers ahead of you. Your estimated hold time is 18 minutes. While you are waiting please enjoy the music.” The haunting strains of “Sarah's Song” started playing over the phone.

Max screamed. He tried to come up with some sort of curse adequate to carry his frustration, but the only things he could come up with involved Jesus or God. He almost threw his phone through the window, but he finally settled for just an inarticulate yell. Mike put his hands over his ears in pain, but Josh had picked up the motel propaganda notebook and was flipping nonchalantly through it.

Max paused to take a breath, and Josh slipped into the pause smoothly. “Dude, the number for the police is right here.”

The words penetrated Max's tantrum. “What is it?” He dialed the number Josh recited and was rewarded with a ring tone.

After one ring, a voice answered, “Chief Wayne speaking.”

Max said, “Chief, thank God. This is Max Faust. I have a problem here. I need to report a missing person who, uh, may be mentally unstable and dangerous. He is average height with long wavy black hair and a straight, thin nose...”

“Mr. Faust, it sounds like your man is right here in the lockup drying out. The deputy picked him up last night drunker than a skunk and smelling twice as bad. I shoulda known this low-life scum was associating with you.”

Relief surged through Max. He said, “Chief, I love you right now!”

The Chief paused a moment after that and then said with a growl, “Don't be getting no queer northerner ideas. I was just about ready to toss him out.”

“No! You can't do that!”

The Chief replied with a drill sergeant cadence, “Would you like to inform me of the reason I cannot let this man go?”

Max swallowed. He hadn't planned this far ahead. “He, uh, he's well...he's on medication! Yeah, and he hasn't taken it recently, and he can get violent without it. So, don't let him out till I get there with his medication. Okay? He can be quite... uh... moody.”

“Son, he ain't goin nowhere till he pays the fine anyway. I assume that you are familiar with the fine to which I am referring?”

Max swallowed, remembering his nights in the city lock up. “Uh yeah, I know. Look, I'll come there and pay the fine, just don't let him out till I get there... with his meds.”

“He'll be here, bright eyed and bushy tailed, Faust.” beep.

Max turned, grabbed his keys. “Come on guys! Wayne's got Vlad. We've got to go get him.”

Josh and Mike followed Max out the door, but Mike turned and headed for his room. He said, “Max, you go get him. I'm going to go get a shower and go back to bed.”

Josh shrugged when Max looked at him. “I'm coming along, bro. Never go see The Man alone.”

Max nodded his thanks, and the two of them headed out to the station, which was just outside of town—about six blocks away.

When Max pulled into the station lot next to the Chief's cruiser, he hopped out of the car and dashed to the station entrance. Once inside, there was no one visible. The door leading to the lockup was standing open.

“Oh hell,” said Max. Beneath his breath, he added, “Please God, let everything be alright.” He was headed towards the lockup door when Josh came in. At about the same time, there was a cry of rage from the lockup followed by the sounds of thudding bodies. Max cried, “Shit!” and ran towards the door. Fortunately for him, he wasn't quite there when the body of the Chief came flying through the door frame. His massive bulk splintered the door, then passed right by Max's head and only stopped when it smacked upside down against the far wall.

Max had several conflicting urges fighting for dominance: the first was to run to the chief and see if he could somehow help. The second was to run into the lockup and try to stop Vlad. The third was to turn tail and run for his life. All together, the three possible trajectories canceled out and he stood frozen, gaping at the mangled ruin of Chief Wayne. Wayne had hit the wall so hard that he was barely recognizable. To Max's eyes, it looked like the Chief was melting. Just as he was trying to deny this, the mound of police chief shifted and flowed and suddenly there was a huge wolf struggling to its feet. The wolf had silver fur and stood about four feet tall at the shoulder, but what caught Max's horrified attention was his blood red, glowing eyes. The wolf snarled with the sound of a freight train and ran at Max. In a panic, Max tried to run, but just ended up tripping over a chair. He sprawled to the ground, hunched his shoulders, and waited for the end. What came instead were renewed sounds of fighting down the hall. There were crashes, thuds, howls, and wordless cries of rage.

A pair of hands grabbed Max by the shoulders. He added his own involuntary cry of fear to the general cacophony, till he discovered that it was Josh helping him up.

When he was finally standing and could see Josh, the ancient man's face was alive with excitement and glee. He said to Max, “Dude! This is totally awesome! We got Dracula vs. The Werewolf right here! This is just the freakiest shit I have ever seen! It totally rocks! Come on! Let's go see who wins!”

Josh headed for the door to the lockup, but Max snaked out one long arm and stopped him. He said, “Josh, the winner is going to rip out your throat! Come on, we've got to get out of here.”

“Hey, don't worry about me. I've had my throat torn out before. It's not that bad. Over real quick... but maybe you ought a make like a 'lude man.”

“Josh, what if the werewolf doesn't just rip out your throat, but eats you? I doubt you would come back from that.”

Joshes eyes got even bigger, and he said excitedly, “That's awesome, dude! I've never tried being eaten! Do really think I could get him to eat me? That would be so sweet!” Josh turned and headed for the door and the horrendous sounds of the melee within. Max decided he could gape in astonishment later and sped out the station door. He hopped in the car, had it started and in gear before duty overcame intelligence. He put the car back in park and sat there in despair. He couldn't just run from this, but what the hell could he do? Sing to them? He hadn't been able to sing since that night the police came for him. Could he do it?

He was still wondering if he should go back in, when the decision was taken from his hands. The glass from the large front window exploded out onto the parking lot, sending glass shrapnel flying everywhere. The projectile was a large wolf. It flew about three feet, hit the ground, and then rolled to a stop on the asphalt ten feet further. Max sat paralyzed in his seat as he watched the shredded, bloody wolf jump up, turn tail and run away from the station on just three legs.

Max automatically jumped out of the car before his brain kicked in. He stopped. His singing plan seemed a bit silly at this point. While he stood there, he heard a short scream of pain abruptly silenced. Oh crap! Josh! thought Max. He ran to the door and then stopped again. He wanted to help his friend, but realistically, what was he going to do to help? Even without a plan, he was unable to stop himself. Max gingerly opened the door to the station and looked inside. There was nothing to see but a blood and debris trail where the wolf missile had passed. He stood and listened, but there was nothing to be heard over the pounding of his heart.