Bad Moon Rising (36 page)

He picked up the clock and set the time, then very carefully pulled the button that primed the clock to ring at just the right moment.

“Boom!” he said softly as he backed away from the timer.

As he trudged up the bank toward his truck he tugged a notebook out of the back pocket of his jeans, humming as he walked. There was still a lot to do, but he was ahead of schedule, and that made him happy. He wanted the Man to see that he was still the most reliable of his army, still his right hand. Yeah, he thought as he opened the truck door and climbed in, he’d get all of it done in time, and maybe a little more besides.

He was grinning as he spun the wheel and headed back toward town.

(5)

There was an unreal moment of mingled darkness and trapped flashlight illumination, a sensation of floating that did not feel at all like falling. Then they hit the cellar floor so hard it sent agony shrieking upward through Crow’s whole body; the carpet padded their fall to a degree, but Crow landed badly, hitting first on the edge of his heels and then falling backward to slam the flat of his back on the concrete floor. Instantly the world exploded in white light and thunder as LaMastra accidentally jerked the trigger of his shotgun and blasted a hole in the carpet inches from Crow’s cheek. Small flecks of gunpowder sizzled into his skin.

The rug collapsed on top of them, and Crow groaned as the weight of the heavy material drove the hard scabbard of his sword case into his spine. Beside him, LaMastra snarled in confusion as he thrashed at the carpet, and with every movement he elbowed or kicked Crow.

“Vince, stop it for Christ’s sake!” Crow bellowed and emphasized it with his own elbow. It caught the detective somewhere soft and there was a whoosh of air and a grunt of pain.

They both stopped thrashing and let the moment settle around them.

“Are you hurt?” Crow asked.

“Everything hurts,” was LaMastra’s muffled reply.

“Let’s get this frigging carpet off us…”

But that fast the folds of the carpet were whipped away from Crow by unseen hands. While LaMastra still struggled to get free of the carpet, Crow scrambled around onto his hands and knees, his heart hammering in his chest, scrabbling for the fallen flashlight, but his desperate fingers sent it rolling away. The light pinwheeled around and then came to an abrupt stop as someone caught it with the toe of a polished shoe.

On all fours, Crow stared at the face of the man who stood over them. The blood turned to ice in his veins and the world seemed to spin sideways into unreality as he watched the man bend down and pick up the Maglite.

Jimmy Castle held the light in his bone-white fingers. He held the beam under his chin the way a prankish child might at a campfire.

“Boo!” he said, and his mouth stretched wide to show two rows of jagged white teeth.

(1)

It took a long time for Val to soothe Mike. Clinging to her he seemed to regress to an almost babylike state, his words reduced to an inarticulate wordless noise that was drenched with tears. She stroked his matted hair and kissed his dirty face and rocked him back and forth until his terrible sobs slowed to a whimper and then he felt silent. Jonatha and Newton came in and when they saw Mike they kept silent; Weinstock waved them over to the far side of the room. Jonatha sat in a chair and Newton leaned against the wall, both of them looking as confused and uncomfortable as Weinstock.

When Mike finally lifted his head, he sniffed, accepted the tissue Val gave him, then slowly looked around the room as if he’d never seen it. He wiped his nose and blotted his eyes. He offered no weak smile or embarrassed apologies for his tears. People in wartime don’t need to do it, and their fellow refugees don’t require it of them.

Because his eyes were now so red and puffy Jonatha and Newton didn’t immediately notice their unnatural look.

Val helped Mike to his feet and led him to the bathroom. “Why don’t you clean yourself up, honey? Take your time. You know Mr. Newton, he’s a friend. He knows what’s going on. Professor Corbiel is also a friend. She’s from the University of Pennsylvania.” She put her hand on his cheek. “She’s a folklorist. She knows about vampires.”

That made Mike’s eyes flicker and he turned to look at her and she saw his eyes. Jonatha gripped Newton’s knee and her fingernails dug deep.

Mike went in and closed the bathroom door.

Val and the others huddled around Weinstock and she told them what Mike had said.

“What’s with his eyes?” Newton asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Val admitted, “but something terrible must have happened.”

They heard the toilet flush and the door opened. Mike came into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. His face was composed, but the abiding hurt was there in the stiffness of his posture and the profound sadness of his face.

“Mike,” Val said, sitting down next to him, “you know what’s going on in town, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Some of it,” he said. “Maybe a lot of it, but not all of it.”

“What do you know?” Newton asked.

Mike sighed. “This is going to take time.”

Val wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “We have to know.”

“Before I tell you what I know I guess I should tell you
how
I know.” He took a breath, held it, let it out slowly. “You know that there are vampires in Pine Deep, don’t you?”

Val just squeezed his shoulder.

“My mother is one of them.”

“God…” Weinstock breathed.

He told them what happened at his house and didn’t dare look at the horror on their faces. “She saved my life,” he said, and sniffed back some tears.

“So…Vic Wingate’s involved in this,” Jonatha said. “If he knew about Mike’s mom—”

Mike snorted. “Vic isn’t just ‘involved’…he’s
his
right hand.”

“Who, Mike?” Val asked.

He gave her a quizzical look. “Why…Ubel Griswold, of course. Don’t you know?”

“How do you know that?”

“That’s the other thing…the other way I know about what’s going on. I know because the Bone Man told me.”

“The Bone…,” Val put her hand to her mouth. “Mike…tell us everything.”

He did. He started with the Massacre and how Griswold began hunting humans after his cattle were killed by the first blight. A blight, he said, that was different from the current one because it actually was just a freak of nature, a real plague. “This new one is something Griswold did,” he told them. “The first plague just gave him the idea.”

He told them about how the Bone Man, who knew a thing or two about the supernatural from his childhood in the deep South, was able to piece together what Griswold was doing, and what Griswold was. He told them how the Bone Man hunted Griswold that day, trying to catch and kill him before he turned into a monster as the moon rose. He told about the fight they had in Dark Hollow, and how the Bone Man killed him with his old blues guitar and buried him in the swamp a couple of miles from Griswold’s old house.

Val said, “Crow went down there with two police officers, the detectives from Philadelphia who were here during the manhunt.”

“Can you call him, tell him to come back?”

“I tried, there’s no cell phone reception. But they have guns and other stuff. Garlic to use against the vampires, and gasoline to burn the house down.”

Mike looked uncertain. “I hope that works.”

“Go on, kid,” Newton said, “tell us the rest.”

“After Griswold died he was just gone for a long time. There wasn’t any trace of him, even in the swamp, except maybe like a, I don’t know—a presence, if that makes sense. Then sixteen years ago he just woke up. Just like that. He was weak, confused, and he didn’t even understand exactly that he was dead. He was really scared, too, and he called out for the one person he knew would always be there for him.” He paused and his mouth twisted into an ugly shape. “Vic.” He took another steadying breath. “Vic started coming out to the swamp every day, and he started doing research about the supernatural. Griswold told him everything about what he was, about being born to a race of werewolves in Serbia.”

Jonatha glanced at Newton, who nodded.

“Griswold always believed, you see, that when he died he’d just come right back to life as a vampire right away, but that didn’t happen because somehow when the Bone Man killed him it weakened him really badly. The Bone Man thinks it was some magic in his guitar. I don’t know, that sounds kind of stupid.” He wiped his nose again. “Anyway, Griswold was scared, thinking he was just going to be a spirit without a body, trapped there in the swamp, but Vic found something in one of his books, a kind of ritual that sometimes allows a ghost to kind of possess a human body. Not like in the movies, not green pea soup and all. This was more like hijacking a car. Neither of them knew if it would work, or how long it would last. They tried it over and over again, but nothing happened. Vic
killed
people and Griswold tried to inhabit their bodies. Vic even let Griswold try and take over his own body, but it didn’t work, but then Vic came up with the idea of Griswold trying to use a blood connection to make the process work better. That’s when they decided to try and have Griswold possess the body of his only living blood connection in town.”

They all exchanged puzzled looks. “A blood relative?” Newton asked. “In Pine Deep?”

“Oh…Christ,” Val said, making the connection. Mike looked at her and nodded. She said, “You’re talking about…Terry!”

Mike kept nodding. “During the Massacre, when the mayor was just a kid, his sister was attacked and he tried to save her. She died and Mr. Wolfe was almost killed. He was
bitten
by the werewolf and was in a coma for weeks. He never turned into a werewolf himself—the Bone Man says that’s because Mr. Wolfe’s spirit is too full of light, or something like that, I don’t really understand that part—but the blood connection was established, and because of that link, Griswold was able to hijack Mr. Wolfe’s body and use it as his own. He…um…well, the way the Bone Man put it—Griswold went out for a night on the town. Drinking, partying, and, um, sex.”

“Good God!” Weinstock stared at Mike. “I feel sorry for whatever poor gal wound up in the sack with him!”

“Do you know who it was?” Val asked.

Mike turned to face her and his eyes burned like flame. When he spoke his voice was bitter and tight. “Take a look at me, Val. All of you take a good look and figure it out for yourselves.”

Her eyes became as big as saucers. “Oh. My. God! A long time ago, when Terry and I were dating, he told me that he got drunk and had an affair. We were…in love at the time, and it’s what broke us up. He tried to tell me that he didn’t remember any of it, that he just woke up in bed with a woman. It was someone I knew, someone I’d been friends with in school. He said that he had no memory at all of what happened, or how he got there. I thought that was a weak, bullshit excuse and I kicked him out.” She reached out and gave Mike a fierce hug. “Oh, Mike…oh you poor kid! I never noticed…none of us did.”

Mike gently pushed Val back. “Why would you? How could anyone know? I didn’t know, even though I delivered the mayor’s paper every day. The mayor doesn’t know, either. Only my mom and Vic know that I’m Mr. Wolfe’s son.”

“But…but…,” Newton stammered, “wait a goddamn minute here. If Griswold was using Mayor Wolfe’s body, doesn’t that mean that, in part at least, you’re…you’re…”

“Yes. That means that I’m also Ubel Griswold’s son.” He gave a bitter laugh. “You all look like you just ate a bug. Imagine how I feel. But, let me tell you the rest of it before I…well, let me just get it out, okay?” Val handed him another tissue, and Mike launched right into the story of how Vic Wingate engineered the death of Big John Sweeney and married Lois shortly after, and then settled in to watch the boy, to study him. “At first Vic hoped that I was going to be like Griswold—another
monster
. Maybe he even thought I was going to be Griswold reborn. After a while, though, either he or Griswold figured out that I wasn’t a chip off the old block. Vic was furious and he wanted to kill me, but Griswold didn’t. By now Griswold had figured out what I was.”

“A
dhampyr,”
Jonatha said, and Mike nodded.

“Griswold always expected to become a vampire one day, always assumed he’d get killed eventually as a werewolf, so he made sure he knew a lot about vampires. That’s why he’s so good at being one. He
knows
what he is, and he began to suspect what I was. He also knows the legend that if any evil hand kills a
dhampyr,
then its energy is scattered throughout the region. That means that everything in Pine Deep would have had the same powers as a
dhampyr
.” Newton opened his mouth, but Mike cut him off. “Before you ask, no I don’t have superpowers. I’m not any stronger than I was, I can’t fly or leap tall buildings. The Bone Man said that the
dhampyr
’s two main strengths are his ability to sense the presence of evil—and, yeah, I got that going overtime, but there’s so much of it I don’t know where to look—and the other thing is that anything I pick up—a stick, a stone, anything—becomes like a supercharged weapon against evil. I don’t need garlic or any of that. Supposedly.”

“Why ‘supposedly’?”

“Because my biological father carries a werewolf bloodline, not a vampire bloodline. His blood and Griswold’s spirit are in me, and my mother was a weak woman who was a slut for Griswold and Vic. A
dhampyr
is supposed to be pure, untouched by evil, unable to become evil…but look at my family tree, guys. What are the odds that I’m going to be so pure that I’m going to be a real threat to any of these things?”

“Are you guessing, or do you know?” Val asked.

He shook his head. “Even the Bone Man doesn’t know. He says that I’m different than he expected. That’s kind of funny, don’t you think?”

No one laughed.

“If you’re not supposed to be harmed by any evil,” Newton said, “why did he give you to Vic? Pardon me for saying this, but Crow told me that Vic knocks you around a lot.”

“Oh yeah, Vic loves to hit, but he never killed me. He wanted to, more than you can imagine, and I think he was trying to make life so bad for me that I’d kill myself. That would remove the threat without any danger to Griswold.” Mike paused. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, too. A lot of times.”

Val bent forward and kissed his forehead. “I’m glad you didn’t, sweetie.”

Jonatha said, “Mike, I don’t know you, but from what I’m hearing it sounds like you’ve certainly taken a side in all this. You may have the worst heritage anyone’s ever heard of, but you’re here with us. You’re not with Vic.”

He didn’t meet her eyes, but his cheeks colored. “I guess.”

“The
dhampyr
aren’t usually fighters,” she said, changing tack. “They’re more like witch-sniffers—beings that can sense evil and are dedicated to revealing it. Among the Gypsies the
dhampyr
usually goes from town to town and offers his services to detect and destroy vampires or other evil. Not in single combat or anything…it, um, involves some kind of ritual dance and the use of special charms, and so on.”

“Oh brother,” Weinstock said, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” Mike said, “I don’t see myself breaking into a dance number any time soon.”

“But there’s a downside to being a
dhampyr
,” Jonatha said gravely. “Did the Bone Man tell you that?”

Mike gazed at her for a long time before nodding. “Yeah, he told me that.”

“Told you what?” Weinstock asked.

Jonatha cleared her throat. “Well, in folklore, the
dhampyr
is the antithesis of a vampire. Where a vampire is evil, the
dhampyr
is not; where a vampire preys on humans, the
dhampyr
preys on supernatural creatures; and, where the vampire is immortal…the
dhampyr
is not. In fact, the
dhampyr
generally only lives into his early twenties.”

“What happens?” Val asked, leaning forward. “Is it a matter of a high mortality rate for someone so young fighting those kinds of odds? Because you’re going to have a hell of a lot of backup here if it comes to a fight.”

Jonatha shook her head. “No…it’s worse than that. Beginning with late puberty the
dhampyr
’s skeleton begins a process of degeneration. It…um…”

“What she’s trying to say,” Mike said, “is that my skeleton is going to turn to jelly by the time I’m in my mid-twenties. It’ll stop supporting my organs, and eventually I’m just going to collapse into a big mooshy mass and die.”

“Holy…God!” Newton said.