The Regulators - 02 (40 page)

“What do we need to plan?” Nick asked, having listened in on
us. “Regardless of whether you win or lose he’s promised to release everyone.”

“Do you actually believe that?” I asked.

“If you don’t believe him,” Dudley asked, “why did you
accept his deal?”

“I accepted his deal to keep everyone from being torn
apart,” I answered. “And no, I don’t believe him. I think he plans of killing
everyone after I’m dead. That way, when the extraction helicopters show up,
they will find nothing but a stadium filled with corpses. He will have sent a
message to Hardin that vampires shouldn’t be fucked with, and he will also have
saved face with the vampires following him.”

“Why doesn’t he just kill Hardin if he’s worried about
Hardin fucking with them in the future?” Nick asked.

“If he kills Hardin,” I answered. “Hardin will just be
replaced. He doesn’t want to deal with that, not when he can send Hardin a
message that he won’t ever forget.”

“That makes sense,” Dudley said. “If Hardin shows up to
extract everyone and finds hundreds of corpses and a dead Guardian waiting for
him, he’ll think twice about letting the next Guardian fight any vampires.
Hell, he didn’t want Jax here to fight any vampires to begin with.”

“He also won’t have any witnesses but Hardin and the crews
in the helicopter,” I added.

“So?” Nick asked.

“So a vampire doesn’t want the world to know about vampires.
If the world knew that vampires existed, can you imagine the witch hunts?
Vampires are strong, but they can’t fight an entire population. No, win or lose
nobody is going to make it out of the Sun Bowl alive.”

“Alright,” Dudley said. “There’s a bloodbath coming. What’s
the plan? And don’t you dare tell me that it involves you fighting a vampire.”

“I need a needle and thread,” I answered. “Also, have any of
you been to the Sun Bowl in the last few years? I’m not very familiar with it.”

“I’m familiar with the Sun Bowl,” Nick answered. “I actually
go to the games when I’m in town instead of getting drunk in the parking lot.”

“
Who was that shot
aimed at
?”

Everyone.

“Is the grass real or fake?” I asked Nick.

“It’s fake grass, why?”

“Just wondering,” I answered. “Wondering, wondering,
wondering. Did anyone find me that needle and thread?”

Georgie went off to go look for my needle and thread and the
rest of us retired into the little priest’s office. I actually wanted to be
alone, but the team wasn’t about to let that happen. They wanted to discuss
ideas. I sat alone in the corner of the room with Merrick and let them talk
amongst themselves while my mind went into overdrive.

The situation sucked. The fight sucked. The deck was stacked
against me. I knew that I could come up with a plan. That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that the plan wouldn’t be optimal. We simply didn’t have the
weapons. Hell, I wasn’t even allowed to bring anything to the fight but my
knife.

Then again, what weapons did I have that would prove even
the slightest bit effectual against the vampires? The wooden bullets had a very
limited effect against older vampires apparently. The cutting weapons did work,
but you really had to hack the hell out of them. I just didn’t have anything in
my arsenal that would make much of a difference when things went from bad to
worse.

I remember thinking that I needed a weapon that would cause
massive amounts of damage to the vampires very quickly. I was stuck on that
idea. It kept going over and over in my mind. It was annoying having the same
thoughts circling around and around.

“I hate running,” Nick said. “It makes me feel like
Kingsley.”

“Kingsley didn’t exactly run,” Dudley said. “He more or less
mentally checked out and joined the other side.”

“Well that’s even worse than running,” Javie added.

“I’m not leaving Jax,” Dudley said.

I don’t know why I tuned into their conversation when I did.
I really don’t, but the idea that had been bouncing around in my head suddenly
slammed into the topic of their conversation and the result was beautiful with
promise.

“
The topic of their
conversation, do you mean Kingsley
?”

Yes, it was something Kingsley used when we escaped El Paso
the first time. It’s something that I never forgot about and even though I
wasn’t very practiced in its use, I kept a fair amount in my backpack just in
case. I had forgotten it was even there, since it wasn’t something that I’d
normally use.

“I’ve got it,” I announced. “It’s not pretty, but it’s all
we have.”

I told everybody my plan. Dudley hated it. He didn’t like
the idea of me fighting the Master. The odds of me surviving weren’t that
great. I told him that it was necessary in order for my plan to work. The
alternative would be me running away. If I did that, too many people would die
and a few of those would be people we knew. He calmed down a bit, but he was
still pissed.

I can’t really say that I blamed him. The Master was faster
than me. The Master was stronger than I was. I had no idea what on earth I was
going to be able to do to him. The field wasn’t even real grass. At least if it
was real grass I would be able to heal a bit because most natural things have
that effect on me, but I didn’t even have that going for me.

An idea occurred to me.

The field had artificial grass, but I couldn’t help but
think that vampires probably don’t spend a lot of time watching football.
Therefore, he probably didn’t know what the field was made out of.

I had another idea.

I explained everything to my team as soon as Georgie came
back with my needle and thread. Dudley was a bit happier, but happiness is
relative. Nobody liked the idea of me fighting the Master.

I wasn’t getting much in the way of confidence from my team.
They were walking on eggshells around me as the night wore on. Actually
treating me as if I were a condemned man instead of someone that had a chance
of winning; it was hard to take. It’s not that I mind being the underdog,
that’s not it at all. I’ve been the underdog many times before, but I’ve always
known what everyone else didn’t; I knew I would win.

This time, things were different.

I didn’t actually believe that I could beat the vampire. I
had a bad, bad feeling about the entire fight. I would try and hold out as long
as possible in order to give everyone a chance, but in the end, well, things
weren’t looking too good.

I didn’t want to die, of course. I wanted to win. I wanted
to kill the vampire, but the odds of that happening were slim to none. Still, I
wasn’t going to give up. I knew that perfectly well. It wasn’t in my nature to
quit. I would fight until I could no longer fight.

It was going to hurt like hell.

I didn’t spend much time on those thoughts, however. I
didn’t allow myself. Instead, I thought of ways in which I could win. I thought
of strikes that would cause damage to the vampire. I spent hours going over and
over different scenarios.

Everyone in the office was quiet until Javie found an old
guitar and started strumming a tune. I caught what song it was almost
immediately. It was one of my favorites. I was sick of moping and thinking so I
went over and stood by him as he sat there plucking out the correct cords to
the music.

Before I knew it, he was even singing the song and I was
joining in with him. None of us can sing, by the way, but that didn’t stop
Georgie, Dudley and Nick from joining in as well. We weren’t quiet; we were
loud and we got louder and louder.

Nick, of course, was the one that started going overboard.
He was slamming a chair up and down in time with the guitar. After the chair,
he attacked a desk. Nick may have been the one making the ruckus, but it was
Dudley that brought out the bottle of Jack. He’s carried one around ever since
he discovered the Rat Pack.

Anyway, once the alcohol started being passed around, things
went from bad to worse. The place became a madhouse. The noise level was
deafening. Others started joining the party and before long, the craziness had
spilled out into the sanctuary.

It was a good night.

The music just kept coming. More alcohol was found and
passed around. Everyone was singing. The little priest was playing tug of war
with Merrick. People were clapping me on the back. They were sharing stories
with me. They were asking me why I was so damn rude. Dudley did his famous
drunken monkey dance. Everything was great. Nobody even once mentioned zombies
or vampires.

And then Father Monarez ruined everything.

“
What did he do
?”

He asked me if I wanted my last rites.

“
What did you tell him
?”

I didn’t tell him anything. I stormed off and went back into
the office. This time, I only allowed Merrick to come with me. The priest tried
to follow me, but Dudley headed him off and took care of things.

After that, the party was over.

I somehow managed to grab a bit of sleep in the office. I
remember staring out the window with my head upon the desk. It had started to
snow. That’s a pretty rare thing for El Paso. We’re normally lucky if it snows
once or twice a year. I sat there watching the flakes fall lazily from the sky
through the window. I remember thinking that it wasn’t a bad way to fall
asleep.

Once I woke up, the sun was rising in the sky and the team
was packing up their gear. I went over some last minute instructions with them
and pulled Dudley aside. I gave him my tomahawk. I wasn’t going to be needing
it, or rather, I wasn’t allowed to bring it.

He asked me about my wife. Something about a worst case
scenario and he wanted to know what he should tell her. I didn’t really answer
him. I just blew him off. I couldn’t allow myself to think along those lines.

I was going to see my wife again. I was going to see that
smile that I knew so well. I was going to hold her close to me. I would do
everything in my power to make it back to her.

I gave Merrick a big hug before she left. I ran my fingers
through her short fur and just hugged her for all I was worth. In response, she
gave a quick lick to my cheek. I walked her to the beat up station wagon the
boys were piling into and watched them drive away.

I spent the day in the office alone with my thoughts.
Someone brought me food once, but I didn’t have an appetite. I didn’t want my
last meal. I didn’t like feeling like a condemned man. I was getting angry.

By mid-afternoon, the anger had turned into a black rage,
and I could feel my upper lip begin to twitch involuntarily. I welcomed the
rage. It took away all the negative thoughts. I let it wash over me. I wanted
to shut down completely and become the machine that took on all those zombies
at the bridge.

Outside the windows of the office, it was still snowing
heavily. The sight of snow against the window did nothing to change my mood.
The beauty of it was lost on me. I merely sat and raged.

I went from rage to straight out murderous an hour before
sunset when Father Monarez knocked politely on the door and informed me that
the foot soldiers of the vampires had arrived and were preparing to escort
everyone to the Sun Bowl.

A half an hour before sunset there was another knock on the
office door. I didn’t answer it. I just sat there on the desk opening and
closing my black folding knife. One wrong word and I was going to tear the
intruder apart. The door opened slowly and I saw for the first time what the
vampires must consider a foot soldier.

He was a pale man with a broken spirit. I felt sorry for him
immediately. It was hard to look at him. It was hard not to see the wicked
wounds on his neck and wrists. I redirected my anger away from the innocent
victim that couldn’t even look me in the eyes and I focused it back towards the
vampire.

We drove to the Sun Bowl in a decent enough car. The foot
soldiers never said a word, not to me and not to each other, but I thought that
I could hear one of them crying softly in the silence of the vehicle.

When we arrived at the Sun Bowl, the sky was darkening and
the snow was still falling. I was actually a bit shocked that it was still
snowing. Like I mentioned before, it doesn’t snow much in El Paso. I would have
enjoyed watching the snow fall for a bit, but I wasn’t given the opportunity.
Once I exited the car, I was immediately led to a locker room.

Once in the locker room, one of the foot soldiers quietly
asked me to take off my vest and bite suit. I had a feeling that was coming so
I didn’t freak out. I just put my utility belt and clothes on a table while all
the foot soldiers meekly looked away.

I had planned ahead for the event and instead of being left
in nothing but my underwear; I had a black pair of shorts on underneath my pants.
I was also allowed to keep my fingerless gloves for some reason and, with the
exception of the large black folding knife in my left hand, I almost felt like
a professional fighter preparing for his shot at the title.

Except, I didn’t stretch or work up a sweat, I didn’t really
do anything except sit on a wooden bench and fume.

“
Why do you think they
wanted you in only your shorts
?”

Two reasons, I guess. First, the bite suit would offer some
protection. Second, I think the vampire wanted the crowd to see the damage.
Like I said earlier, it was going to hurt like hell. I had no delusions that I
was going to go quick. He was going to be as cruel as he could possibly be.

I avoided those thoughts as much as possible. They kept
creeping back into my head, of course, but each time they did I shoved them
away. I had a plan. It was a plan based on what I had learned from my other
vampire encounters. I just had to stay alive long enough to enact my plan.

An hour after sunset, I sensed a change in the foot
soldiers. They began to act a little nervous and started fidgeting around. I
knew from their actions that the vampires had arrived. It was only a matter of
time.