The Devil's Beat (The Devil's Mark) (32 page)

Max never got to discover what Tony wanted to resume because at that instant, there was a scream from the front gallery as a shadow flew past the door frame and smacked one of the heavily armed thugs to the ground. There was more screaming and shots. Tony and Max rushed to the door to see the remaining men in disarray. They were shouting at each other.

“What the hell was that?”

“I don't know. It just ripped poor Mark's head right off!”

“Holy mother of God! Look at that thing!”

Max leaned out the door to see what the hugely muscled muscle was pointing at with such fear.

It was the most disturbing thing Max had ever seen, which is saying a lot considering what he had seen lately. It looked at first like a pile of limbs and other body parts stuck in silly putty. Its central body was a mass of bulbous and lumpy flesh. The mound had what looked like a couple of legs flailing in the air and two arms asymmetrically sticking out from it as well. It was covered in blood and was holding the bloody head of one of Tony’s toughs in one of its hands. Max recognized him as one of his ex-bodyguards. That wasn't even the most disturbing part. What was worse was the fact that there were several animal heads attached to the body at various odd places and angles. Even worse, the head of the Mayor occupied a position of pride at the highest point on the central mass, which appeared to be a set of muscular buttocks. All the heads were horribly alive, and they were all examining the head of the ex-brute.

Paul fired his shotgun at the unholy thing. There was a splash of flesh and a hole appeared briefly in the central mound. What looked like a mass of scar tissue quickly covered it over. Without making a single squeak, chirp, howl, or yell, the thing dropped the head and charged. It scuttled like a spider on stiff white legs, and it was fast.

Tony cried, “Everyone! Back in the house!”

Nobody seemed to feel this was a bad idea. Everyone dove for the doorway. There was a momentary plug of over-muscled bodies, but everyone got in, and one of the men slammed the door moments before something impacted it from the outside. The door shuddered, and the man slammed his back against it and pushed for all he was worth.

Meanwhile, Tony turned on Max where he had backed away from the door. He screamed, “What in the name of Mother Mary is that thing!”

Max shook his head. “I don't know! It's been leaving headless bodies at my door for days now!”

There was motion from the bloody bodies to Max's right. He looked over to see a very confused Josh, splashed bright red and groaning, struggling to his feet. One of the men screamed and shot Josh again. Josh was blown backwards with a hole in his chest to match Vlad’s and dropped to the floor motionless again.

Tony turned fright-crazed eyes to Max. He yelled, “What the fuck!” He raised his gun and fired. Max ducked and dove to the floor unnecessarily since the bullet was aimed above his head. Suddenly, there was a large hairy mass, which jumped over Max and onto Tony. The thing let loose a fearful howl and started tearing into the unfortunate mob accountant. The remaining men were screaming even more.

“Shoot it!”

“No! You'll hit the boss!”

“Fuck that, move!”

Paul, the quicker thinking man of the group, whipped up a large gun and took aim at the beast that was savaging Tony right in front of Max. As fierce as she was, Max strongly doubted Alice was bullet proof, even in this form.

He screamed “No!” and tried to lurch forward to stop the Paul. Max was too late. Unfortunately for Paul, so was he. There was a blur of motion, a gout of blood, and the clatter of the gun on the floor as his arm was ripped from its socket and then used like a baseball bat on his head. The remaining men were obviously well trained, they screamed, but they didn't flee. They started unloading their guns into Paul’s assailant, a pissed off Vlad, as he gave a final smack to Paul’s still body on the floor.

Max winced with each impact on Vlad, but the smaller caliber bullets didn't seem to disturb the vampire much. He just took Paul's detached arm and started using it as a club. The arm broke on another thug’s head so Vlad tossed it aside and started using his own hands.

Of the two guardsmen who remained standing, Nunzio was the quicker one. He pointed his handgun at Max and screamed, “Call them off! Call them off or I will kill you!”

Max panicked at the sight of the open gun barrel pointed at him. He threw his arms in the air and scarcely noticed when a body, carried by a couple of translucent clouds, flew between himself and Nunzio’s gun. It smacked headfirst into the wall and dropped motionless to the floor.

Max started to tell everyone to stand down when Nunzio was slammed from the side by the howling, hairy, and royally pissed off Alice. Unfortunately for Max, Nunzio squeezed off a shot before he was taken down. The bullet slammed into Max's chest. He went down in a shower of blood and pain.

When he was able to think again, the rest of the house was quiet. The pain in his chest was incredible. The impact seemed to have knocked the air out of his lungs and he found himself gasping for breath.

While Max was trying to breathe, Josh sat up again, looked around. “Whoa dudes! What did I miss?”

Max's breath just wouldn't come back. He noticed that everything around him was getting dim and blurry, then he looked up into the face of the abominable snowman from the old Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer Christmas special. Only it was green. It bent over him snarling and carrying the fetid smell of a drying swamp in the heat of summer. It reached down and grabbed Max who could only think, “Oh shit,” before he was hit with blinding pain.

He came to, still in pain and utterly overwhelmed by the smell surrounding him. The bumble (as it was called by Yukon Cornelius) was holding Max and rumbling. He looked over at Vlad crouched in front of the creature with narrowed eyes. Vlad looked like he was ready to attack. Max tried to shake his head and say “No.” He got the word out, but it brought some blood with it.

From behind the fetid, hairy monster holding Max, Mike said, “Vlad, don't hurt her, she's trying to help.”

Vlad instantly relaxed and uncrouched, but apparently, the fun wasn't quite over.

Behind Vlad, the door to the house crashed inward upon the mangled bodies of several of the former toughs. The nightmare thing scuttled onto the sloping the door and into the house. Vlad whirled to confront it and went back into his crouch. Momentarily, the thing paused, and all the heads looked at Vlad. It seemed that the body had not quite hooked up the Mayor's head because it was just mouthing words.

It charged at Vlad. Max's body tried to release a jolt of adrenalin and Max tried to cry out a warning, but all that came out was a bloody cough.

Max's head flopped back, and saw nothing else as the cold, smelly blackness claimed him. I wonder what hell is like...

To his surprise, Max woke up in a hospital bed. The lights were dimmed, and there were white curtains drawn around him to give him some illusion of privacy. There were various beeping machines and IV bags surrounding Max. The first thing he noticed was that his chest still really hurt. The next was Alice, sitting in a chair next to his bed. She was leaning forward on her arms and either asleep or looking at the floor.

Max said in a raspy, painful voice, “Alice?”

It turned out that Alice was not asleep. She looked up, and her tired, worried face adopted a warm smile. She said, “Max! Welcome back.”

Max croaked, “What...”

Mike walked into the room with two white foam coffee cups. He said, “Maxy boy! Good to see you awake, bud!”

Mike handed one of the coffees to Alice and then both stood next to the bed looking at him, relief and fondness plain on both of their faces.

“You had us worried, bud. That old grim reaper almost had you.”

Max tried to speak, but Alice put her warm hand on his arm. “Shhh, Max. Save your strength. The bullet punctured your lung and shattered your scapula. You are going to have a long haul ahead of you, but you should be okay. You might have a little difficulty with your arm and your breath, but we can work on that with physical therapy.”

“...hurt...”

Alice looked at him. “I'm not surprised, hon, you took quite a beating. I'll see if we can't get you another shot of morphine.

“Dude, I got better shit than that,” said Josh, stepping through the curtain. “I mean, don't get me wrong. Morphine's a good start, but it won't get you to Gondwanaland by itself. It needs some help. Here let me find...” He started searching through his satchel.

Alice scowled at Josh. She said, “We aren't trying to get him high, Josh, just help with the pain.”

Josh shook his head. “That's The Man talking, dude. Ain't no use in wasting a perfectly good opportunity...”

“No, Josh,” said Alice with a cold glint in her eye.

Josh threw his hands up in surrender. “It's cool! It's cool! Don't go all green on me. I'm just sayin...”

“Stop saying it.”

“Yes,  ma'am.”

Alice looked compassionately at Max. “I'll go get the doc and see what we can do about that pain.” She left with a warning glare at Mike and Josh. She said, “Don't get him excited,” before the curtain closed behind her.

Mike watched her leave and then turned to Max. In a paraphrase of the old Hulk television show, he said, “Don't make her angry. You wouldn't like her when she's angry.”

Max looked at him and whispered, “What... happened?”

Mike said, “Everyone who counts is alive and well, present company excepted. It's a good thing Sheriff Wayne never came back, ‘cause it would have been very difficult to explain all the blood and nasty bits.”

Max thought about this for a moment. “Mayor?”

Mike frowned. “Well, in all the excitement, we, uh left the door open, and the mayor kind of escaped.”

Alice came bustling back in. As she fiddled with Max's IV, she said, “His poor wife. We have to tell her something, but I'm afraid that she would probably just keel over and die of a heart attack.”

The pain started receding for Max as the morphine made it directly into his bloodstream. “Tha's good stuff...” he murmured.

Alice smiled. “Yes, it is.” She looked at Josh and Mike. “Come on boys, let him sleep.”

Josh said, “Can Vlad come in and say howdy? I left him outside, but the dude wants to make sure we're treating Maxy right.”

“Why didn't he just come in with you?” asked Mike.

Josh scratched his scraggly beard. “Well, it's a matter of timing thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we didn't want to scare anybody.”

“He's not that scary looking,” said Mike. “As long as they don't know who he is, it should be alright.”

There was a rapid clicking sound outside Max's curtain-defined world, then Vlad was there, throwing open the curtain as if making a grand entrance onto a stage. He said, “It is not me of whom everyone would be scared.” He turned and gestured down to a point behind him. “It is my body.”

Max could only see the tops of arms and legs of the thing Vlad was talking about. It was the hellish creature from the house. He tensed up in fear, and one of the multiple monitors connected to him started beeping in annoyance.

Alice gasped. “What are you doing with that thing in here? What if somebody saw it! We have no idea what sort of diseases it might carry. Get it out of here!”

Vlad said, “Madam, I assure you, there are no diseases in this world that can infect me or my body here. I have not been sick in a thousand years.”

Max hazily thought that Vlad's marathon vomiting sessions didn't count since they were alcohol induced.

“I don't care. Get it out of here.”

“I assure you I will do as soon as I have talked to Max. My old body has a great need to be near me. It can create quite a lot of disturbance if it is not allowed to follow me. Sir Max has my parole, and I need to know what he wishes of me.”

As if it knew they were talking about it, the lumpiferous creature reared up at the end of Max's bed. Max could now see both the Mayor's head and an unfortunately full view of Vlad's old hairy buttocks upon which the head sat. For the first time, Max saw what it was what the thing was using as legs. There were two bone white (of course) rib bones holding it up on the end of the bed. The Mayor's head gave Max one of his great big enthusiastic smiles.

“Get it off the bed and be quick, please,” said Alice briskly.

Vlad bowed slightly to her, pulled the creature back down, and looked at Max with an arched eyebrow.

Max fought through the growing fatigue. He whispered. “Vlad, just do what Mike asks.”

Vlad's features remained impassive as he nodded. “Very well.”

This seemed to be the day for interruptions because there was another commotion and Vlad turned to face someone outside of Max's range of view. He heard a high pitched cultured southern voice say, “Big Al! There you are. What are you doing on that, that thing! That is truly disgustin’!”

Josh pulled the curtain back farther so that he could see what was happening, giving Max a view of it as well.

It was the Mayor's roly-poly little wife, Eunice. She was scowling fiercely at the beast, which had run up to her and was doing a clattery little happy dance around her. She motioned behind her. “Alowishus Ulysses! Retrieve your head at this instant.”

Big Al's body walked forward from behind Eunice, into Max's view. It reached down and grabbed his head with both hands. It awkwardly put a foot on the creature’s body and then pulled. The head's bed of butt cheek was stretched out with it revealing anatomical details best left hidden. The head pulled free of the buttocks with a disturbing schlupping sound and the cheeks slapped back together with a slap, leaving a raw red ring of flesh where it had been attached. The head-thing looked traumatized and skittered away.

Al's body tried to put his head back on, but Eunice said, “Don't be ridiculous, Al. It will just fall of till we figure out how to attach it back on.” Al's body slumped and then transferred its head to the crook of his arm. The head gave everyone an apologetic look.

At this point Eunice stepped up to Max's bed. Her cherubic face was twisted in an unpleasant way with her lips raised in a snarl and her left eye squinting and twitching. She said, “As for you Maximilian Faust, this is all your fault! Trust me, there will be an accounting, and Big Al will be Governor in spite of your efforts to undermine his credibility.” Eunice's eyes flashed completely black, then she turned without a word, and Big Al obediently turned and followed her out the door.