The Vampire's Revenge (15 page)

“So this is the estimable Jack McShane,” Ulrich said.

I just loved being mocked. “Pardon me if I don’t get up,” I said.

“You do seem to have quite a weight on your shoulders,” he remarked. Reedrek and Diana both laughed uproariously at his stupid joke. The toadies.

“Do let us help you with that, dear Jack,” Diana cooed. “In fact, we have a proposition for you.”

“I’m listening,” I said to buy myself time. I braced my palms against the surface of the wooden dock and pushed with everything I had, but I couldn’t even get onto my knees.
Hell.

“We want you to help us wreak havoc among the human population,” Reedrek said.

“What would be the point? Is it just for shits and grins, or is there more to it?”

“My, he is as colorful as you said, Diana,” Ulrich said. “Our plan is to create so much terror in the world of the living that they will eventually be happy to join the world of the undead.”

“You want people to
volunteer
to become vampires?”

“Of course.”

“So where do I fit in?”

Diana said, “We want you to come with us to the nuclear site. There are a variety of things we can do there. Ulrich, Reedrek, and I will intercept bomb-making material on its way from other sites. Your role is to divert the atomic waste from one of the containment canyons into the groundwater. The water table is so low because of the drought in the southeast that any nuclear material that makes it into the drinking water will be ultraconcentrated.”

I was so horrified I couldn’t even pretend to go along anymore. “Do you
know
what radiation poisoning looks like in humans?”

“Why of course, you silly man,” Diana said. “The three of us have been around for hundreds of years. We remember everything that happened during the birth of the atomic bomb just as you do.”

I shuddered. These bloodsuckers were just as evil as William had said. “So, just for the sake of argument, let’s say I do what you’re asking. What’s in it for me?”

“Why, power, of course,” Ulrich said. “There are two seats available on the Council of old lords. After our plan succeeds, I will have one of them.”

“And I will have the other,” Reedrek announced. He looked at me with a self-satisfied grin and made a preening gesture against his straggly hair.

While he was looking at me, I saw Ulrich and Diana exchange a look meant only for each other. That look spoke volumes, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what it meant. Reedrek would never get that other seat on the Council. They would kill him after they used him to achieve their dirty work, and Diana would take the other position. Even if Reedrek had seen the look that passed between them, he was so full of himself and sure of his own importance that he would never have been able to interpret it for what it was.

“So you’ll have seats on the Council. What’s that supposed to mean to me?”

“We’ll be in a position to make you our lieutenant,” Ulrich said. “We will have the wherewithal to show you great favoritism.”

“Perks,” Diana clarified.

“What kind of perks?”

“You can martial hundreds of vampires to do your bidding,” Reedrek said excitedly.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “To do what, for instance?”

“Whatever you want,” Ulrich said. “You can bid them lay waste to the land.”

“Why would I want to lay waste to the land?”

The three of them looked at one another and back at me, confounded. “Because it’s fun?” suggested Reedrek.

“I can have fun shooting rats at the dump,” I pointed out. “What else?”

“With the glamour we can wield, you’ll have access to the most beautiful women in the world,” Diana said, stroking her long blond hair suggestively.

I gave her my special look, the one that made the most of the cleft in my chin, my dimples, and my cheekbones, or so I’ve been told. In any case, it was the look that had gotten me laid by thousands of women. Her hand fluttered from her hair to her bosom. “Oh,” she murmured.

“What else you got?” I asked.

Sensing that he was now the one being mocked, Ulrich raised his foot and stomped on my lower leg so hard the bone should have broken. But the splintering sound I heard over my own roar of pain was the wood giving way underneath my leg.

“You insolent bastard,” Ulrich growled. “How dare you toy with us.”

“Don’t be a fool, boy,” Reedrek said.

“What is your answer?” Diana demanded.

“What happens if I refuse?” I asked, although I figured I already knew.

“The sun will be up in a few hours,” Ulrich said. “We’ll let you burn slowly.” In a move so quick I could barely see it, he reached into one of the openings in the metal net, removed the cell phone from my pocket, and tossed it into the river.

“Even if the regular workmen show up before daylight and you manage to call them to your aid, no human or group of humans will ever be able to free you in time. The three of us were barely able to hoist the net over you, and there’s no heavy equipment at hand that could remove it.”

“It looks like you’ve thought of everything,” I said bitterly.

“We try to be thorough,” Ulrich said. “Now, what is your answer?”

“Hmm. Let me think,” I said. “I remember reading an article about those nuclear canyons. If I understood it right, they heat the atomic waste at temperatures so high it turns to glass and that’s how it’s stored. So my choices are to try and mess with that process and get burned to a crispy crunch by heated up spent fuel rods or stay here and wait for the sun to burn me to a crackly crunch right here on the docks. Does that about sum up the situation?”

“We think that with time and care, any burns you sustain at the nuclear site will heal nicely,” Reedrek said cheerily.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Thanks for the opportunity, but I’ll pass.”

Ulrich sighed. “You make me sad. Very well, then, have it your way. Our friend Velki will have to do the honors in your stead.”

“Huh?” said Velki.

“Come along,” Ulrich said. “We must away.”

“Farewell, my child,” Reedrek said airily. “Soon you will be joining William in everlasting torment. May he rot in hell for all eternity.”

I shot my hand through an opening in the chain and grabbed Reedrek’s leg. I yanked it toward me, throwing him onto his back, and sank my fangs into his ankle as hard as I could. I heard his head bounce off the lumber as he fell. He screamed loud and long, and as Ulrich and Diana pulled him away from me I spat out a mouthful of sinew and bone. “God, gross!” I muttered, spitting out bits of my flesh and blood’s flesh and blood.

“Come, we have work to do,” Ulrich said, dragging Reedrek away by one arm. Reedrek cursed me, clutching his ankle with his free hand. Diana had to drag a reluctant Velki along with her. They boarded the boat and were quickly off down the river in the direction of Augusta.

I strained with all my strength against the chains, but I couldn’t budge them or move myself in the direction of the shed for shelter. The bag with the bomb components was gone. One of them must have taken it while I was struggling to get to my feet. There was nothing else I could see within reach that would help me out of the jam I was in. Where was that MacGyver guy when you needed him?

I forced myself to relax. I tamped down the panic, tried to rest and think. I found myself wondering first why Mole had decided to double-cross me. He had provided valuable information to Olivia at considerable risk to himself. The last thing he’d wanted was to remain at the beck and call of the old lords, and now he was in more potential trouble than before. And all for what?

Hell, what did it matter at this point? What did anything matter? I opened my mind to Werm, but his psychic porch light was out. I should have reminded him to be on the listen, but I hadn’t thought about it. William would have. William would have spent the previous night planning instead of screwing around. Typical for me, I’d followed my cock instead of my brain, and look where it had gotten me.

There was one thing I did right, though. I thought about Melaphia and Renee and how much better off they were now than they would have been had they stayed. I was glad I’d encouraged them to go. By the time they learned I was dead, they’d be starting their new life. In time, they would relegate me to the distant past. I would just be a creature that populated some half-remembered nightmare. Isn’t that where vampires belong anyway?

That thought made me sad for a minute, but I wanted more than anything for my daughters to lead normal, happy lives, and to my way of thinking forgetting me would be a step in the right direction.

The twins would be fine without me. Deylaud knew enough about William’s business matters to keep himself and Reyha in kibble for the rest of their lives, even if they lived until the end of time.

I didn’t even want to think about poor Werm. I hoped he would be clever enough to stay out of Connie’s reach. Maybe he could go and join the western clans and together they could defend themselves. For her part, maybe she would come back into some sense of reason. Eventually, she might learn to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad before it was too late.

As I resigned myself to my fate, I faced the most unbearable thought of all. I would never meet my child. Maybe that was for the best, though. At least my child would never know its father was a monster.

I couldn’t help wondering what William would do if he was in this situation.

“William!” I yelled. “Father, if you’re out there, give me a sign! What should I do now?”

A minute passed, then two. Just as I was about to give up hope, I heard the wood underneath my injured leg splinter again. Instead of struggling upward against the chains, I pushed my knee experimentally down on the surface of the dock. A whole chunk of wood gave way and fell into the water.

“Thank you, William!” I said. My sire had come through for me, even in death. Invoking his name would help me see that I lived to bite another day.

Although my leg hurt like a sonofabitch where Ulrich had stomped it, I managed to work a bigger and bigger hole in the dock. Eventually I made enough of an opening to go at it with both arms and both legs. The dock was several layers of timber thick, but thanks to the voodoo blood, I had the power to break it bit by bit.

I could feel the sun rising, but my spirits were rising, too. Even if I didn’t free myself in time to get home, I could probably get to that shed. If worse came to worst, I could just dive down into the river and burrow into the mud until the sun went down.

I kicked, pushed, and pulled until the last of the wood came free. I lowered myself through the opening in the dock and hung there with one hand. Freedom was within reach. I wasn’t going to slow-roast in the sun and I wasn’t going to make a spectacle of myself for the humans in the process. All I had to do was let go with my left hand and—

A lightning bolt of pain shot through my hand as I dangled above the river. What the hell? It felt like—

I peered up over the surface of the dock, and now I could see what had hurt so badly and stopped me on my way to freedom. My hand was pinned to the lumber with a sword.

“Hello there, lover boy,” Connie said. “Tick-tock. Your twenty-four hours is up.”

Eleven

William had tried to save me. There was no doubt in my mind about it, but he was also the one who told me the day would come when Connie tried to kill me. This was that day.

“Boy, is this rich,” Connie said.

“How’s that?” I tried to keep the agony out of my voice as I dangled over the river.

She kneeled down and looked across the dock at me. From where I was hanging, she looked like a golfer surveying the lie of a ball on a putting green. Then she started speaking: “It looks like your head is literally being served to me on a platter. How funny is that?”

“Yeah, funny,” I agreed. And it was. Looking back on it, me thinking I was going to make it out of this jam with my undeath intact was hilarious even to me. At this point, Connie could kill me any number of ways. It was all up to her now. I just hoped she would make it quick.

She relaxed from a kneeling position into a cross-legged sit. All the time she kept one hand on top of that vampire-killing sword that was stuck in my hand. She had all the time in the world and all the savagery of her birthright as the Slayer to enjoy the kill. I had a feeling that by the time she got through with me I would wish I was back with Ulrich and the others.

She drummed her fingertips on her lips, thinking. “I know I said I would kill you like you tried to kill me, but maybe I can think of something more . . . entertaining.”

Her face was only a few feet away from mine now. Once again, I searched her eyes for some sign of my old Connie, the woman I loved more than any other in my long existence. There was none of the warmth, the kindness, the love of justice. Connie Jones was gone, and this vicious killer was in her place.

“You’re the cat. I’m the mouse. I get it,” I said. “Do your thing.”

“Don’t rush me.” She took a deep breath. “I like the smell of your blood, vampire.” She pushed the sword further into my pinioned hand, causing my blood to flow faster. I could not move as she reached down with both hands to touch the flowing blood.

I yelped in pain as she brought her fingers to her lips and licked them clean. “Not bad,” she said. “Maybe I’ll drink your blood after all.”

Before I could brace myself, she’d lain on her belly on the dock and encircled my head in the crook of one elbow. She put the heel of her other hand under my chin and pressed my head back, exposing my throat. This was it, then. It was over. I always used to think that the best way to die would be in Connie Jones’s arms. And that was just what was going to happen. I relaxed and let myself be . . . happy.

“Good-bye, Jackie,” she said. “Any last words?”

I thought about that. At this point, was there any advantage in not telling her all of it? Wouldn’t there be some benefit to her knowing everything I had left to tell? Surely there was something to be said for knowing the truth just for truth’s sake. Besides, call it selfish but I didn’t want to die with her hating me if I could help it.