Dark Corner (33 page)

"I thought you said earlier that he wouldn't talk to you,"
Nia said.

"I think he is afraid," Franklin said. "But I know that man's
heart. He will rise to the occasion. First, you must convince
him."

"We'll do our best," David said. "We'll call him tonight."

"I doubt you will reach him," Franklin said. "I asked
Ruby to contact him, after she called you to come here. She
could not reach him. He has gone into hiding and his own
deputy cannot locate him."

"I hope he hasn't left town," Nia said.

"We'll keep trying until we get ahold of him," David said.

"There is a key to my home" Franklin indicated a set of
keys on the nightstand. "Retrieve the revolver, let yourselves
in and out as you wish. But I warn you, keep your grubby
hands off my Crown Royal." He laughed, and they joined in.
They laughed harder than his small joke deserved, and David
believed it was because they were so absurdly stressed out.
Anything to break the tension was welcome.

"I am exhausted, and must sleep," Franklin said. "When
you leave, please ask Ruby to return"

"Do you need us to do anything for you, Franklin?"
David said. "Anything at all?"

"Yes, in fact, I do"

"Name it," Nia said.

"I want you to pray for me"

David and Nia drove away from the hospital, Nia behind
the wheel again. David was tired of being a handicapped
passenger, but his only choice was to lean on Nia. Franklin
was right. He did need her.

"Thank you for helping me, with everything," he said.

"Like I said a few minutes ago, you couldn't stop me
from helping you, David. I'm in this until the end. This is my
hometown."

David leaned back against the seat. "Life is so crazy. A
little over a week ago, I come here, and the only thing I'm
thinking about is hanging out in my old man's crib and
learning about him. Now look: I'm a vampire slayer."

"You aren't lying," Nia said. "I don't want to believe that
any of it is real. I feel like we're in a nightmare, and if we
just hang on and stay alive, we'll wake up and everything
will be okay."

"I know," David said. He gazed out the window.

Twilight was upon them. A silver moon glowed in the sky,
like a giant coin.

The town, previously so ordinary, had acquired an aura of
mystery and menace. As they drove, David watched the houses
they passed, and he wondered what was happening within
them. Was there another person like Franklin in one of those
homes, bitten by a vampire, bedridden as the monstrous
transformation took place? How about the Labrador that he'd
spotted ambling across a yard-could it be a minion for the
vampire?

He felt an acute need to get inside his house and lock the
doors.

"Franklin covered a lot of ground, but there are still some
things we need to figure out," David said. "Let's talk about
them as soon as we get to my place, after we get Franklin's
gun"

"Okay."

They arrived at David's home. Nia parked in the driveway.

As was his habit when a vehicle parked nearby, King
came to the front window. The dog parted the curtains with
his snout. He seemed to be grinning. David was eager to
hang out with the silly mutt.

"Do you want to get the gun?" David said. "Don't know if
it makes sense for me to do it, seeing as I have these
crutches"

"Sure, I'll go"

"I'll wait over here."

They got out of the Pathfinder, David manuevering awkwardly on the crutches. He shut the door, leaned against it.

Nia came around the SUV and stood beside him. "It's
quiet out here"

"You're right," he said. "I don't hear a thing. No dogs
barking, no crickets. Nothing."

The deep silence had an ominous quality, like the silence
before a storm, he thought.

"It's like the silence before a storm," Nia said.

"Nia, you're reading my mind."

A cool wind drifted across them, like a final, gasping
breath.

"We're creeping ourselves out," she said. "Let's get this
over with. I'll be back in a minute."

"I'll be waiting right here."

He watched her stride through the yard and cross the
street.

It's funny, he thought. I meet the woman of my dreams, at
a time when I've fallen into a nightmare. Wasn't life bizarre?

Nia opened the front door of the Bennetts' residence and
slipped inside.

When Nia stepped into the Bennetts' dark, tomb-silent
home, a distinct feeling of unreality gripped her.

I'm inside the home of a couple that I hardly know, looking
for a gun that we'll use to defend ourselves against vampires.
She wanted to laugh. Or cry. It was crazy. She believed the
threat was real, but it was crazy nonetheless. Nothing ever
happened in sleepy, dull Mason's Corner. Now they were
battling the armies of darkness.

She giggled, involuntarily, and the sound was so strange
in the preternaturally quiet house that she quickly shut up.

She clicked on a lamp in the living room. Framed photographs of the Bennetts were everywhere. They were a
happy, golden pair; they had the kind of fabled, old-school
marriage that she'd love to have one day.

But first, she would have to survive.

She switched on the light in the study. As Franklin had instructed, she located the Smith & Wesson revolver in the
drawer. It glimmered like a dark jewel.

Although the gun surely only weighed a few pounds, for
Nia, it was like lifting a forty-pound dumbbell. The weapon
was heavy with its power to spit out death.

Carefully, she put the revolver and the box of ammunition
in her purse. As she returned to the door, she cut off the
lights. The darkness seemed to chase her to the doorway, and
she hurried to step outside and lock up behind her.

Across the street, David rested against the truck. He
waved at her.

She smiled tightly. God, she wanted so badly to hold him
and close her eyes and forget that any of this was happening.
Someone could wake her when it was all over.

Franklin's words came to her thoughts: You must partner
with David. He needs you.

How could she disobey the words of a man who might be,
quite literally, on his deathbed? Abandon David? Desert her
hometown?

She couldn't do it, not ever.

She began to stride across the walkway, to the street. She
glimpsed quick movement in the corner of her eye-a large
shape. Then she heard the low, threatening growl.

She stopped, her heart clutching.

A red Doberman trotted along the curb. There was another dog, a bullmastiff, posted on the opposite curb. The canine on her side of the street rested on its haunches and
watched her. The other hound faced David.

These were not the same animals that they had seen outside the cave. How many of these supernatural attack dogs
were out there?

Her own words, spoken in Franklin's hospital room, came
to her.

11
... a person can be turned, I guess you could call it, by
being bitten by one of those mutts that serves the vampires ... "

She reached her hand into the purse to get the revolver.
The Doberman grumbled, its eyes narrowing.

She slid her hand out of the purse. The dog quieted.

"What do you want?" she said, in a whisper. "What the
hell are you here for?"

Inside David's house, King barked furiously, pawing at
the window, the curtains swaying.

Like a rapidly moving shadow, a blot of blackness flashed
along the middle of the road. And stopped.

It was Kyle Coiraut. The vampire.

f David had harbored any remaining doubts about the existence of vampires, they were squashed when Kyle Coiraut
appeared in the street with the speed of a cold wind.

The vampire wore fewer garments than he had been
wearing when David had seen him earlier in the day. He was
clad in a long-sleeved black shirt, black pants, black boots.
The sunglasses, gloves, jacket, and hat were gone.

A drooling hound stood guard behind Kyle. David saw a
Doberman on the other side of the road, blocking Nia's path.

Kyle looked at Nia. Seeming to dismiss her, he faced
David.

David noticed that Kyle held a book. It was the Bible,
which David had lost when running out of the woods.

Shit, David thought. What does this guy want from me?

Behind David, King snapped relentlessly. David wished
the dog were at his side, though King might not be able to
protect him against the two monster hounds and the vampire. Standing on the crutches, with no weapon whatsoever,
he was defenseless and vulnerable.

A large black bird swooped out of the night sky and landed on the Pathfinder's roof. David thought nothing of the bird,
but Kyle glared at the creature, then turned to David.

"You must explain how you came to possess this," Kyle
said. He tapped the cover of the Bible.

"Why do you need to know?" David said.

The dogs growled. The Doberman moved to flank Kyle.

"Do not waste my time with needless debating!" Kyle
shouted. "Do you know the man who took my father away
from me? Are you his ancestor? Speak, human, or I will tear
the words out of your throat!"

David's hands were clammy on the handles of the crutches.
In the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the front door of the
house. There was no way he could make it inside before the
vampire or the dogs caught him.

Answering the creature's questions was an almost equally
dangerous course. The puzzle pieces were shifting into place.
Someone in David's family-he'd have to contemplate the
family tree to discover who-had been responsible for imprisoning Diallo, the head vampire, in the cave, just as the
drawings in the Bible depicted. Kyle blamed David's ancestor-and, by extension, him for doing so.

David could not tell him the truth, and telling a lie would
not help, either.

"You will reveal the truth" Kyle began to march forward,
and his dogs kept pace with him. "Or else, my hounds will
rend you to pieces."

David retreated. Hands shaky on the crutches. Praying
that he did not stumble.

King was in a frenzy of barking.

Atop the Pathfinder, the bird squawked, ruffled its dark
wings. It was not a crow, as David had first thought. It was a
raven. Ravens were bigger than crows.

Hadn't he seen one just like this a few days ago, when
he'd visited his father's cabin?

Kyle glared at the raven. "You will not stop me. Not anymore ""

David stopped in his clumsy retreat, confused.

The raven and the vampire were locked in a staring
match.

What is going on? David thought.

"You will not stop me!" Kyle said. He waved his hand.

The hounds launched forward.

Jesus, I can't get away from them. They'll pull me down before I get anywhere near the door.

He turned to flee. One of the crutches slipped out of his
grasp and clattered against the ground. Robbed of his balance, he fell and slammed against the grass.

Through his haze of pain, he saw a dark mass wheeling in
the sky. Birds?

The dogs, maybe only a dozen feet away from David,
squealed. Their ears flattened against their heads.

The winged creatures screeched.

No, not birds. Bats.

The bats swarmed to the ground in a black funnel, leathery wings battering the air.

David covered his head, but they did not attack him. The
bats attached themselves to the dogs, and enveloped Kyle,
too. The vampire shielded his head with his arms and shouted
curses.

Wailing, the dogs fled. Kyle zigzagged blindly across the
yard, trying to shake off the horde of bats, flailing his hands
in an attempt to knock them away. He finally broke away
from them and vanished down the street in a black blur.

As suddenly as it had arrived, the swarm spiraled into the
sky, and out of sight.

Breathing hard, David looked at the raven perched atop
his truck.

It watched him for several heartbeats. Then it flew away
into the night.