H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (62 page)

I had no idea where to find him though. He
had left with a fifth of my crew, including Rubidoux, one of my top
guys, after Tommy. I cringed at the loss of Tommy. That was going
to hurt more than anyone would ever know.

I was pretty sure I knew where to find that
guy on any given night. Rubidoux was a regular at Flatlands, so, I
guess that was the best place to start.

Before I went out and did something as
outrageous as trying to look for Atticai for advice, I should at
least speak with people in my own crew, some of whom might have an
idea what I was supposed to do as the Chosen One, things that maybe
Goshi had not told me because inside of Goshi had been Atticai, who
had had his own personal agenda.

Wyatt and Hector had been around awhile. I
wasn’t sure for how many years Cyrus had walked the earth, but I
figured, for now, it was time to have a closed-door meeting with
the three of them, my generals by default. I needed some generals
in my army. While I began to consider Yari as my primary advisor, I
needed other close confidants, Mani who would fight alongside me.
Wyatt, Hector, and Cyrus had proven to me that the most important
thing in battle, next to courage, was loyalty. They had proven
their loyalty to me and it was priceless. As Tommy and Lena had
both proven, loyalty was never guaranteed. It had to be earned in
both love and war. I was learning these things, the hard way. I had
screwed up love which messed me up, but only personally. If I
screwed up war, it would take down all Mani.

Time to round up my team. I knocked on
Wyatt’s door and asked him to get Hector and Cyrus together and
meet me in the library downstairs.

The home’s library was filled with books, of
course, but this one had a conference table right smack in the
middle of the room that looked like something out of “The
Apprentice” TV show.

Cyrus, Hector, and Wyatt came into the
library and shut the door behind them. They stood around
expectantly.

“Have a seat, guys,” I said.

The three Mani men all sat down around me at
the conference table. I looked the three of them over, and they
could seriously pass as brothers. Cyrus was built a lot like Tommy.
He was about six feet tall and built like a pit bull, but Hector
and Wyatt were about two inches taller and skinnier. Hector had a
Middle Eastern look to him with a hint of Spanish. He had full
eyebrows with a very distinct look that had royal overtones. I
would have thought that maybe he was Greek if I didn’t already know
he was from some obscure Third World country.

Wyatt looked like a typical good old boy
from the Midwest. He had a Southern presence to him, and was very
unassuming. I know that he and Hector had amazing fighting skills
that I had experienced first-hand, the fact being that they were
two of the three reasons I had been turned into a vampire.

I figured Cyrus was probably a great fighter
even though I had never seen him in action. He was previously one
of Krull’s boys, and all of Krull’s people are trained fighters. I
needed Cyrus very much, to help with strategies to fight Krull. He
would know their weaknesses.

What all three of these guys had in common
was, at one time or another, they looked at me as the enemy. That
was a very good thing because that showed how loyal they actually
were, that we now faced each other across the conference table as
common allies in the fights from other forces. Last night, all
three of them could easily have left with Atticai, but they chose
to stand by me. That said a lot. That proved more to me than they
could ever know. That they stood firm in their conviction.

Wyatt cleared his throat, waiting to find
out what this was about.

But, first, I needed to hear it from them. I
needed to know their stories. I assumed they knew mine, but I knew
nothing about any of them. I heard bits and pieces, but nothing to
form a strong opinion on character, experience, and intelligence.
Their actions had spoken louder than words, but it was time to get
to know them as men, not fighters.

“Wyatt,” I said, “Let’s start with you. Why
are you here?”

Wyatt looked at me and seemed a bit
uncomfortable. I knew I needed to reword the statement. These guys
needed to know I was here to learn about them, not question
them.

“Let me rephrase that, Wyatt. I know you
have walked the earth since the mid-1800s. Can you give me the
Reader’s Digest version on how and why you’re sitting here today? I
would feel if I understand you guys better. It would help me to
lead better.”

Wyatt smiled. “No problem, Josiah. You’re
right about me being alive since Abraham Lincoln days. My mom named
me after Wyatt Earp. I never knew my dad, and in my mind, I chose
Wyatt Earp as a father figure. I never met the man, but through the
years, I had come to terms that I might never know exactly who my
father was, but I have felt solace that it could have been Wyatt
Earp.”

“Did you know for sure?” I asked.

“My mom was vague about anything to do with
my real father. When I was growing up, I didn’t really care. I was
glad she named me after the baddest lawman of all time. It gave me
great comfort knowing that on some weird level, we were connected,
even if it was only by name.”

“How did that affect you growing up?” I
asked.

“It affected me greatly. I was a pretty big
gambler in the 1890s. Gambling was my vice and eventually, my
downfall.”

“How?” I asked.

“It was the night of December 21st, 1891,
when I first crossed paths with a Mani.”

“What happened?” This was exactly what I
wanted to know. I was all ears.

“I was gambling in a small town in North
Dakota. We were having an all-night, blaze-out session. A bald
fellow and I had equally cleaned up the table. We were both sitting
on at least five large. That would be about $100,000 today, if not
more. We were playing Texas Hold’em and I was dealt ‘Big
Slick.’”

“Big Slick?”

“Ace-king. It’s a great starting hand, but
if you miss the flop, the hand can get you in trouble. I raised it
about $500 pre-flop. Meaning, I bet before we saw any of the
community cards.”

“Community cards?’ I asked.

“Not a big poker player I take it?”

“No, not really. My gamble, or vice as you
put it, is with life.”

“Texas Hold-em goes like this. You’re dealt
two pocket cards at the beginning of the hand. You can bet or fold.
Then the players left in the hand are given community cards that
anyone can play with the two cards in their hand. There are bets
and folds and then a fourth card comes out. That is called the
turn. Again, there are bets and folds. The last card is the
river.”

“Bets and folds?” I asked.

“Yep,” Wyatt said.

“Then what?”

“Whoever is still left in the hand turns
over their cards.”

“Got it. Go back to your story.” I leaned
back in my chair and listened to Wyatt tell his little poker
tale.

“I learned that the bald man’s name was
Cecil Combs. He and I had almost all the money at the table in
front of us, and it was about to all go into the pot. When you
gamble as much as I had, there are moments where you just knew it’s
all going in. So, Cecil calls my bet and we see a flop. The dealer
lays down three cards on the table. It was an Ace, a King and a
seven of spades. It was a gorgeous flop for my hand. I had aces
over kings. That’s two pair and that’s as pretty as it comes. I
decided to bet ‘a grand’ thinking he’d fold, but he didn’t. He
smooth-called.”

“Smooth-called?” I asked.

“That means he just called my bet without
raising,” Wyatt answered.

I nodded my head.

“Next card was the turn and it was the two
of clubs, a weak card that didn’t help either one of us. So, I
decide to check, and try to get a read on this guy. Cecil pauses
and spends about five minutes staring at the four cards on the
table. Then he did something that surprised the hell out of me, he
pushed all his chips into the middle and said, ‘all in.’

“I feel like I’m watching Poker After Dark
with all these details,” I joked. I nodded for him to continue.

Wyatt was really into the story and I’d no
idea how much this guy loved and knew the game of poker. He
continued, “There were four hands that could beat me at that point:
pocket aces, pocket kings, pocket sevens and even pocket twos.
There were no signs of a straight or flush draw out there. I knew
the odds of him having pocket two’s was out the window. There is no
way he calls my flop bet. So, I’m thinking sevens are the likely
culprit. I sit there and go in the tank.”

“Go in the tank?” I asked.

“That means I took a long time to call. I
figure even if he has me beat with sevens I had a couple of outs.
So, I decide to call and get all my chips in the pot, too. He
turned over his hand and sure enough he had pocket sevens. He had
trip sevens or a ‘three of a kind.’ We still had one more card to
go, the river. I needed an ace or a king, and that would have given
me a higher full house.”

“The ace hit?” I asked.

“Sure did. The ace of spades landed right on
the river. It flew out in slow motion or at least that’s how I
remember it. The ace of spades is the most beautiful card in the
deck. I scooped up the pot, and said goodnight. I walked out of
there with ten large.”

“Wow, that’s a great poker story.” I
laughed, “But what does that have to do with anything?”

Wyatt looked at me and said, “What do you
think happened, Josiah?”

“The guy you beat was a Mani,” I
answered.

“Not only was he a Mani, but he had a couple
of his buddies holed up in a room down the street. I had no idea
what was in store for me. I jumped on my horse and made my way out
of town. It was four in the morning. I was twenty-four years old,
so, I could ride all night if I had to.”

“Didn’t happen, I take it?” I asked.

“Nope, Cecil had other plans for me. He and
his two buddies flew over me in their black raven forms and
attacked me from behind. At first, I had no clue what was happening
as you could well imagine. This was way before Hitchcock’s The
Birds. So I wasn’t exactly intimidated by three black ravens.”

“Yeah, just scavenger birds. Harmless.”

“Right. So, I had my money in a satchel, and
one of the ravens flew down and bit me on the right cheek. It
knocked me off my horse. I lay on the ground and watched as the
three birds in front of me transitioned into grown Mani men, one of
them being Cecil Combs. I had a few whiskey shots before I even got
on my horse, to keep me warm as I rode through the night, so I was
about to write off this vision before me as fatigue and
intoxication. But, these three men quickly launched me into some
serious reality. They attacked me over and over again and I tried
my best to fight them off. I’m not sure why they let me live; they
did, but not before I was bitten by all three of them. They took
the ten grand out of my satchel and left me without a clue as to
what had just happened to me.”

“Oh no!” I said, sympathetic to the attack,
since I had been attacked myself.

Wyatt continued, “Within a few hours, I
quickly realized the sun and me were no longer friends. I nearly
died out there in the desert and was fortunate enough to find a
dark barn in the next town.”

“Wow,” I said. “And you obviously got
through that.”

“It took a while, but eventually I began to
understand what I was, I was a freaking vampire. What happened to
me was a Greek tragedy and a horror film rolled up in one.”

“Not to mention a good old-fashioned Clint
Eastwood movie. How did you get through it?” I asked.

“Back in those days, it was a lot easier to
figure out who were Mani. There were a lot fewer weirdos then there
are today. You would see the signs that someone was dealing with
vampire problems a mile away. There was a lot more reaching out
back then. Where I was from, all Mani stuck together; it wasn’t
like the East Coast where they had already formed street
gangs.”

“Okay, now that I know how it began for you,
Wyatt,” I said, “how did you get here? How did you land in the
Inland Empire? That was almost 150 years ago.”

“The truth is, Josiah, in the beginning, I
lived a pretty reckless life. I was all about money and women. The
Great Depression changed me though; I saw some pretty awful things.
The vampire bounty industry was pretty brutal.”

“The vampire bounty industry?” I asked. “I
have never heard of that.”

“Since the beginning of the Mani race,
humans have known about us. It’s a catch 22 for them. If they let
it be known to us that they know who we are, they are risking their
lives. By our own creed, we are able to kill them without remorse.
So, about the turn of the century, a vampire bounty industry, was
formed. It made the Ku Klux Klan look mild. The Tandra who were in
the know would go on Mani-killing sprees that would last for weeks.
Sometimes they even got Mani to turn on each other.” Wyatt paused.
“I did some things I’m not proud of. In those days, there wasn’t
much of a choice. By the time World War II got here, I was
done.”

“Done how?”

“With the money I earned from the bounties,
I invested in the market once it started to improve. I made a lot
of money investing. And for about 50 years I just decided to live
in the biggest cities in the world. When I was in New Delhi, I met
Hector. He was a new Mani and needed guidance. We hooked up as
old-timer mentor and newbie Manis and we connected for, well,
forever, I think.”

Hector smiled and gave a slight nod.

“What year was that?” I asked Wyatt.

“1988. I remember because George Bush Sr.
had won the presidential election, and I saw the economic collapse
a mile away. In my case, half the world away.”

“That was about the time I started getting
the vision about you.”