Less Than Human (35 page)

Raising a finger that held a drop of John's blood, Steven licked it clean. Something shifted behind his eyes. They became incredibly ancient, incredibly cruel. "I'll be damned, you're psychic, and you think you know what I am." He paused as though searching for a missing piece of information. "It's hard to read past the peyote, but I think you've told others."

"How could I tell anyone what you are? Who would believe? No one has ever even heard of anything like you." John resisted the urge to go for the .32 in his boot. "I don't know what you are."

"What am I?" Steven considered the question. "You're the first human to ask me that in a long while. By the time most people learn what I am, they're past caring." Steven took another sip of beer. "As I told Leon Wilson, vampire is as close as you can get to what I am, and even that's not quite right."

"You don't know what you are?"

"I guess you could call me a parasite—the ultimate parasite. I live other people's lives. Been doing it for quite a while now."

"Elliot said whatever was in Bobby Roberts has been around more than five hundred years. How many of you are there, how old are you?"

"You ask a lot of questions. There's only one of me, and as for how old I am, I don't really know." Steven reached out and touched the cue stick, his fingers tracing the snake. "Time has little meaning for me. I've lived more lives than I can count, but not all of them have been human, so things get a little murky when I think about time." He sat down on the barstool as if he and John were old buddies sharing a beer. "Sometimes, in the late hours of the night when I'm all alone, I dream about giant lizards that walk upright like men." Steven brightened suddenly. "Hey, John, you want to see a trick, a really good trick?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Come on, don't be a party pooper. You'll like this, it's an impression. See if you can guess what I am?" Steven's face began stretching out, the jaw lengthening, almost beyond human proportion, as his lips peeled back from bared teeth. Strings of saliva spilled from the corner of his mouth, ran down, splattered on the bar. He tensed and a savage, guttural snarl erupted from his throat as he sprang at John.

John scrambled back, almost fell off his stool as he felt hot breath against his neck, but the leap fell short and Steven Adler's face became human again.

Steven was laughing. "Good trick. Scared the shit out of you, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did. What the hell was that?"

"A wolf."

John wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You become other people… and animals… how can you do that?"

"I've gotta tell you, John, it feels strange to put this into words, but here goes. I find a host and I drive out their blood, and move on in. Then I absorb their memories. It's like renting a furnished apartment." He nudged John with an elbow. "And I don't even have to sign a six-month lease."

John saw the bodies they had found in the creek bed near the Navajo graveyard. "Don't you feel," he groped for the words, "guilt at the deaths you cause?"

"Is this a confessional? Are you a priest?" Steven picked up the cue stick, stroked it gently. "You eat steak. Do you feel guilt that a cow has to die?"

"No," John faltered, "it's just that I feel like I know a little about you, or at least the man you've taken over. I just want to—"

"Understand. There's nothing wrong with wanting to understand, I suppose. A little confession might be good for my soul." He smiled. "Supposing I have a soul." Steven raised his hand, fended off John's next question. "Before I say any more, I want something from you."

"What?"

"A game of pool."

"After all the people you've killed, that's all you want?"

"For the moment." Steven walked over to the pool tables, confident that John would follow. He began racking the balls. "I'm always in search of a good game. Any kind of game. I get bored."

"I don't want to play against you. Give me Timmy Cates and you'll never see me again. I swear it."

Steven rolled a ball down the table, watched its course. "You have no choice, John; you have to play against me."

"What if I don't?"

For an answer, Steven lazily ran the tip of the knife down John's arm before John could move back. The familiar burning sensation came and more blood appeared. Steven dipped his finger in the red line and began writing letters on the balls. He did it fifteen times, once for each ball in the rack before he let go of John. "L is for Louise, A is for Amy, M is for the mayor, B is for Boyce. I'm sure a smart guy like you is getting the picture."

"It spells lamb, you son of a bitch."

The vampire leaned close, and John used a lot of willpower not to back away. "As in washed in the blood of the lamb." Steven wasn't upset; his tone remained conversational, friendly. "Here's the deal, Johnny boy. You don't play my game, I'm going to break this rack of balls and whoever doesn't fall in, I'm going to kill—after I've had my way with them." Steven leaned over, blew on the balls to dry the blood on them. His back was turned to John. "Do you want to play now?"

John pulled the .32 out of his boot, aimed it at Steven's back.

"Don't forget I've already got Timmy," Steven said, without turning around. "So you might as well hand that over." He looked over his shoulder and grinned in John's face, showing too many long teeth. "Besides, it wouldn't be very sporting to shoot me in the back."

John fought the urge to squeeze the trigger, but uncertainty about Timmy made him hesitate.

Steven moved around the table and his eyes were shiny, slightly yellow in the light. He took the gun from John. "Look at it this way; you've got a chance to save a lot of lives. If you win, I take a hike and nobody dies. If you lose, then that graveyard on the mesa will get the blood of some new lambs. How many lambs depends on you."

"What do I have to do?"

"That's more like it. I've come up with a little something for the occasion. We'll just call it a game of nerves." Steven pulled the balls out of the rack and placed them flush against the back bumper of the table. The first one in line had a red L smeared across it. The vampire placed the cue ball at the far end.

Then he did the same thing at another table.

An inkling of what was about to happen hit John.

"I can see you've done this before." Steven began chalking his stick.

"Yeah, once or twice. We take turns shooting at the balls against the back bumper, you at your table, me at mine."

"You got it. We bank the balls into the corner pocket at the shooter's end of the table. We keep doing it until one of us misses. It's mostly a game of nerves. The first one to blink loses."

John plucked a cue stick from the wall.

"Oh, one other thing before we start." Steven drained the last of his beer. "If you miss any of the balls—even one—then the game is over and that person is mine. Unless"—he produced a knife from the waistband of his belt and stuck it in the wood of the pool table—"you want to buy that person's life back."

"What's the price?" John eyed the knife.

"Nothing much, just a finger."

"What happens if you miss?"

"The game's over. You walk away with Timmy, and everyone in Crowder Flats lives happily ever after."

"Not everyone. There's six dead. Why are you doing this, isn't there any Steven Adler left in you?"

"A little." Steven's eyes looked into some dark place only he could see. "And that's the reason I've stayed with him for so long. He helps to curb some of my… nastier impulses."

"Like what you did to Bobby Roberts, Martin Strickland, and his family. Billy Two Hats?"

"That's right. The need for new sensation consumes me from time to time, and that means people have to die." He shrugged apologetically. "It's a weakness I've been unable to overcome, but I try to be selective about who I take. I find the lonely, the people with broken lives, and I try to bring them peace. People such as yourself."

John felt the words and they hurt more than wounds in his stomach, because he knew they were the truth.

"Some of your friends are in here with me. Would you like to say hello to one of them?"

"Don't do this." John tried to look away. He couldn't.

Without an invitation, Steven Adler's face again shifted and somehow began subtly rearranging itself, becoming older, broader, and Martin Strickland's voice drifted across the room. "Long time no see, John."

There was no mistaking that raspy twang.

John had seen Martin's dead body not more than an hour ago. He felt cold sweat roll down his sides.

The man who had stolen Martin's voice and face looked John up and down, shook his head sadly at what he saw. "I hope you don't mind me saying this, old buddy, but you look worse than me. And I'm dead." He smiled like he always did, like it hurt him. The cold blue eyes held Martin's familiar twinkle. "You need to quit hanging around those smoky old pool halls. You'll end up like Sparky, asphyxiated."

"Martin, is that really—"

"Yeah, it's me, or what's left of me."

John's mind refused to accept what he saw. It had to be side effects from the peyote he had consumed earlier. "This is all some kind of parlor trick." John dug in his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills, separated one from the rest. His hand was shaking. "I got that ten spot I borrowed from you last year when I was through here."

"Nice try, John. It was a twenty spot, and you borrowed it five years ago. You always did have a bad memory when it comes to money."

"Not as bad as you when it comes to women." The response was automatic, an old joke between them.

John was torn between his fear and the sudden desire to hug his old friend.

The two men stared at each other from across unimaginable gulfs.

The blue eyes lost their twinkle, became serious. "Listen close, John, I want you to do me a small favor if you don't mind."

"Name it."

"I'd sure like a drink of whiskey."

John handed him a bottle.

Martin turned it up. "Damn, that's good." He stared at John, fidgeting with the bottle.

John waited.

Martin always took a while to say what was on his mind.

After a second, Martin obliged. "Don't let that shit kicker from Dallas take Doralee back there. I'd like her to be buried with me and Nicky."

"I'll do what I can."

"That's all I'm asking."

John looked at his old friend. "What's it like in there, Martin?"

"Peaceful, that's the only way I can describe it. Real peaceful."

They stood there, uncertain of what to say. "You want another drink?" John asked.

"Yeah, maybe one for the road." He took a drink and handed the bottle back, and then the blue eyes that held

Martin's soul began dimming, the voice fading, as though coming from a great distance. "Looks like I gotta go, John, Doralee and Nicky are waiting for me."

The blue eyes were almost opaque now.

John struggled with the words he had never said to a man, but he knew this would be his last chance to say them. "Martin… I love you. I'd give anything if—"

"I know that, John, and I love you, too. But do me a favor, though; don't go around telling everybody you love me. I got my reputation to think about." He laughed that raspy laugh of his. "Good-bye, old buddy, you take care of yourself. Say hello to the boys at the ranch, and kick this guy's ass. I know you can do it. You're the best." With those last words, Martin's face began coming apart, falling away a piece at a time, a jigsaw puzzle being dumped in slow motion.

He managed one last wink before he vanished completely. And Steven Adler's face reassembled in his place.

Steven's voice was cold, taunting. "You still think we're doing parlor tricks here?"

"You want to talk to anyone else? Leon Wilson, maybe. I'm sure he'd like to talk to you since you're the reason he's dead. You can tell him how sorry you are, too."

John desperately sought to change the subject; he didn't think he could bear talking to Leon. "Where's your partner, Earl Jacobs?"

"He's watching Timmy. Waiting for a phone call." Steven's eyes were steady as he glanced back at the pool table.

Something was odd about the gesture, and it suddenly hit John what was wrong. Steven Adler was lying.

Lying about Earl.

Why?

John took a stab in the dark, trying to provoke a reaction. "Earl's not with Timmy."

"And why would you think that?" Steven's face never changed expression.

"Because Elliot said you were alone when you stopped Bobby Roberts. Because… Earl doesn't know anything about this." And John understood. "He's not like you. He's not a killer, is he?"

Steven looked like he wasn't going to answer, then for some reason known only to him, he relented. "No, Earl is different, but he'll be like me someday. Exactly like me. The virus I put in his blood takes a while to kick in."

"Earl doesn't know what you really are, does he? Or what's going to happen to him?"

"No, and you try to tell him, I'll kill you, and then I'll kill the entire town."

"Why did you pick Earl to stay with you? I think I know the reason." John was beginning to put it all together, feeling his way by instinct. "Because he reminds you of Matt Thomas, the only real friend you ever had. That old man was like a father to you."

A mask shifted across Steven's face and his eyes went flat. "Bring your bony white ass on over here, John, I got a jar of pig's feet. Would you like one?"

John looked Steven squarely in the face and this time he didn't flinch. "You let Matt down; you let him die in that cave, because you slept too long and left him alone."

"Help me, John, it's cold in this old freezer." A scar rippled down the smooth white skin, and when Steven Adler smiled, only half of his face moved.

The hustler moved nearer the vampire. "So you found a replacement for your partner in Earl Jacobs, but there's one problem—Earl is too much like Matt Thomas. He's a decent man who wouldn't like what you do if he ever found out." It was John's turn to smile. "You're a lot more human than you want to admit."

The muscles in Steven's face clenched and unclenched. "That's right. You've got this all figured out, John. Can you figure out what's going to happen next?"