The Darkening Dream (23 page)

Personally, Alex found the whole process unnatural. But two or three near-death experiences later, he parked near an empty lot not far from the white clapboard house on Webb Street. He should tell them what he knew about the vampire. He’d intended to, last Friday, and again this morning. At first he’d been distracted — hell, he was still distracted. But the longer he’d waited, the harder it became to say anything.

They distributed the gear. Anne snatched up a cross and held one out to Sarah.

“I just can’t.”

Alex imagined her throat being shredded by a gray-skinned vampire.

“You need some protection. It doesn’t mean you have to believe.”

“I brought this
mezuzah
.” Her hand touched a small silver cylinder nested in the frills of her collar. “It belonged to my mother’s father.”

Alex shrugged. “Probably has the same chance of working as the crosses. I’m not sure if we have to believe or just the vampire.”

He should tell them — after he situated his equipment. He settled his satchel onto his back, making sure his smaller stake was accessible, blunt end first, with a jar of holy water tucked behind it. He would carry the large stake. He holstered the pistol on his right hip and the machete on his left.

“Take these.” Sam offered both girls kerosene lamps. “We’ll need our hands free.”

He should tell them now, but he could almost feel Grandfather lurking in the shadows.

“Let’s go,” Sam said. He led them straight through the empty lot to the shoreline, then turned left on the beach. They only had to walk past one house to reach their destination. A good thing no one was about, given how strange they must look.

Sam strode right up the porch steps to the door from which they had seen the Moors carry the coffin. Alex stood just out of sight to his right. The girls hung back.

Out on the cove, fishing boats glided across steel blue waters.

Sam knocked.

No one answered. Sam tried the door — it was locked.

“Hold the screen open,” he said. Alex pulled it back. The porch stank like something had crawled underneath and died.

Sam jumped down to the sand. Facing the house, he got a running start, took the steps in a single leap, and slammed his shoulder into the flimsy wooden door. With a crash, it burst open and the brass mortis lock ripped out of the half-rotten wood.

Alex followed him into the breach.

The room must have once been a sun porch, but now the boarded windows let in only slivers of light. A couple of crates were stacked against the walls. Underneath the peeling plaster they could see chicken wire and old lath. The stink wasn’t just outside.

Sam raised his hand for silence.

They listened. Nothing except the girls opening the shades on their lanterns.

“The creature will be in the basement,” Alex said, “or in some interior room. During the day it’s unlikely to wake, even if we make a lot of noise. The Moors, on the other hand…”

He used his machete to pry open a crate, brought out a handful of what looked like gray ash. He let it run through his fingers and fall to the floor.

“Dirt,” he said. “Probably from his original grave. No rest for the wicked without it.”

Anne scrunched her face. Sam unbuckled the safety strap on his pistol, raised his stake, and proceeded into the next room.

The reek of rot and decay in the kitchen was so awful Alex had to breathe through his mouth to keep from retching. There were two wooden chairs at a tiny table, and on the table three bowls of God-knows-what, seething with maggots.

Something crunched under Sarah’s boot. She moved her foot and a million roaches ran for cover. The one she’d wounded sidled off into a corner, leaving behind a trail of ichor.

Anne gasped. The hand holding her lantern was shaking.

“This house,” she said, “lacks a woman’s touch.”

There was a letter on the kitchen table addressed to Mr. Alan H. Nasir. Alex’s heart raced — Ali ibn Hammud al-Nasir. He looked inside.

“It’s from an international shipping agent,” he said. “And Nasir’s a Moorish name.” He hoped they didn’t ask how he knew — they’d never trust him if he told them.

Sam found the door to the basement. If the upstairs smelled like a dead dog, what wafted out of the depths was like a sty filled with dead pigs.

“I guess we know where he sleeps,” Alex said.

He would have preferred to call the shots himself, but Sam reached the door first, and that was that.

“Anne, come down right behind me with the light held high. Alex, you and Sarah stay up here, then follow when we reach the bottom. Keep an eye out behind you.”

The stairs were old and steep and hard to see with the lantern swinging in Sarah’s hand. The cellar walls were well-maintained, the stones freshly painted with a heavy coat of pitch.

“The creature probably chose this place because of the basement,” Alex said. “That and the dual land and sea access.”

“Not for the lovely southern exposure?” Anne said.

Halfway down, Alex saw more cockroaches skitter across the stone floor. Cobwebs draped the corners, and a millipede snaked along the wall. Crates littered the chamber, which had only one door. It looked recently replaced braced with steel bands that were already rusted in the damp. It stood ajar.

Anne screamed.

Alex rushed down the rest of the stairs. His heavy tread snapped one of the lower risers, and he landed hard on his right ankle. Pain lanced up his leg.

Anne pointed between two crates. Sarah’s lantern illuminated a human skeleton — no flesh on the white bones, too small to be an adult’s. More roaches perched on the half-shattered rib cage.

“I don’t think he’s expecting company,” Anne whispered.

Alex limped toward the big wooden door. He could walk, but each step was painful.

“Or his guests don’t leave alive.”

Sam drew his pistol and edged behind.

Alex used his stake to pry the door all the way open—

To a different world.

Bright carpets covered every surface, forming a hodgepodge of clashing patterns in red, blue, saffron, white. Alex, who had a lifetime of experience with fine furnishings, recognized Berbers, Ottomans, Moroccans, Tabriz, Isfahans… The room reeked of mildew. Antique glass oil lamps of Arabic design hung from the ceiling by brass chains. Some crates were open, filled with piles of exotic silk brocades or treasures of gem-encrusted gold.

Alex picked up a rhyton, a ribbed cup of solid gold with a base shaped like a kneeling and winged lion, a lovely example of the goldsmith’s art. He slipped it into one of his jacket pockets. It should serve nicely if he needed proof for Grandfather.

The sarcophagus dominated the far wall. This was no pine box but a massive block of limestone. It looked old, carved in medieval Moorish or Islamic style, ornamented with tight patterns of flowers and leaves, every inch the final resting place of a Moorish Caliph turned vampire.

“Sam,” Alex said, “it’ll take two to get the lid off that sarcophagus while you or I stabs the vampire through the heart.”

Sam swallowed. “Assuming by sar-co-whatever you mean that giant stone coffin, I can do the killing if you three can open it.”

Alex nodded. The girls set down their lamps and positioned themselves by the foot end. Sam dragged over an unopened crate and climbed up. He held the long stake in both hands.

Alex gripped the lid.

“Don’t try to lift, just slide it toward the door. One… two… three.”

The cold stone ground into a slide — mostly on Alex’s end — and fell over, crashing to the floor and exposing a huge bare black torso. Not the vampire, one of his servants.

Sam slammed the spear down, hard — and was immediately drenched in gore that spurted from around the deeply sunk shaft.

The bald Negro opened his eyes: bright yellow with vertically slit irises, like a black cat’s. His ivory teeth were filed into sharp points. A rasping exhale escaped his lips, along with two gigantic centipedes. Alex tasted bile.

The man sat up. The stake wrenched free of Sam’s grasp, and he was forced down from his crate. Anne and Sarah screamed. The Moor gripped the rim of the coffin and struggled to rise. The wooden shaft, impaled in his chest, wobbled back and forth as he managed to swing a leg over the side. The girls fled to the corner.

Sam and Alex emptied several rounds into the Moor. Alex’s bullets tore into his torso just below the stake. Sam put two in his face, and at this range his forty-five caliber shells nearly shattered the great skull. A splash of red hit the carpeted wall. Small blood-covered forms writhed on the bright-colored wool.

The Moor fell to his knees. His ebony skin bubbled and rippled. A cascade of insects — maggots, cockroaches, millipedes, beetles, moths, and spiders — erupted from his face, chest, and belly. He deflated like a pierced bag of water, pouring forth a veritable river of many-legged life. Soon his baggy silk pants and curled slippers lay empty amidst a teeming mass of tiny creatures.

Behind him, Alex heard the squeal of the basement door and a thudding on the steps. He turned to see another figure descending into the dim antechamber.

“Sam, the door!” He leapt forward.

The two boys slammed the door on an angry face nearly identical to the one that had just dissolved. Sam threw the steel deadbolt.

“Now we’re trapped in here!” Anne yelled.

The oak door shook.

“At least that thing’s on the other side,” Sarah said.

The door shuddered again.

“Get yourselves ready,” Sam said. “Women in back.”

Alex faced the door, holding his semi-automatic ready, trying desperately to stop the shaking in his hands. To his right, Sam cracked the Schofield and thumbed in two fresh shells.

The door buckled and fractured, tilted back out of its frame and up into the room behind. The enormous blackamoor squatted underneath, arms as thick as telephone poles tossed the slab of wood off into the corner.

The black man faced them, drew two curved swords, and charged into the room.

Alex felt his wolf’s head medallion burn against his chest, and the Moor bowled past as if he wasn’t there, knocking him to the side and sending the semi-automatic flying. Sam fired one round into the dark belly before the Moor knocked the forty-five out of his hands. He then threw Sam against the tapestries and swung his scimitar. Sam dodged, and the blade embedded itself in the carpeted wall where he’d just been.

The Moor yanked his weapon free and danced into a crouch. He poked at Sam, his face split by a huge grin. Pallid worms crawled from the bullet wound in his gut.

Anne crossed the buggy carpet and grabbed the semi-automatic. Apparently she knew how to shoot, because she fired the pistol straight into the giant’s back. The arm not pointing the sword at Sam blurred into motion, and the big man batted the bullet aside with his second blade. The metallic sound rang in Alex’s ears.

The Moor wagged this weapon at Anne as if he were scolding her. Sarah threw her long spear at him, but this too he slapped away, severing the wood into two pieces.

Alex grabbed his pack, drew his machete, and advanced. Again, he felt heat on his breast, and again the huge man didn’t react. He reached into the pack, pulled out a jar of holy water, and hurled it at the Moor’s back. The glass shattered.

The Moor’s shoulders burst into green flame. He grimaced, then coughed a cloud of living flies in Sam’s face. The unnatural blaze burned like a kitchen grease fire. Dark flesh sizzled. The big thrall tried to smother his back on the wall carpets, but they too burst into flame.

Sam snatched up his Schofield. “Everyone run!” He fired all five remaining rounds in the direction of the burning Moor, rapidly pounding the hammer with his left palm.

Alex took his cue and shoved the girls forward. He heard Sam behind him as he followed them up the narrow stairs, through the kitchen, out the door, and onto the beach. It all happened so fast he had no idea how many, if any, bullets had hit the big man.

They ran across the sand, breathing hard. Anne was out front, fear pushing her to new athletic prowess. Sam passed and caught up with her. Alex’s ankle gave way. He cursed, then continued at a clumsy hop. Sarah heard him, darted back, and grabbed him around the shoulders. Together, they hobbled across the beach like a couple running the three-legged race.