Vamp-Hire (34 page)

In seconds it was done. He tossed aside the
desiccated thing, which had curled around itself like a fried
shrimp. It broke when it hit against a wall. He felt powerful and
wanted to crush something else.

“Nick,” Dolph said. He turned and saw the
look of absolute shock on the man’s face. He pointed his gun at
Nick. “What are you?”

“You!” Cain said above him. They both looked
up. Nick saw the look of familiarity in Cain’s yellow eyes. He
could feel the other vamps pulling closer, afraid, still prepared
to strike on their master’s behalf. Nick put the chainsaw on the
floor and slid it across to Dolph. He didn’t need it anymore. Cain
stepped back, unsure of himself. He threw Randy, the boy’s arms and
legs pin wheeling as he arched overhead.

“Randy!”

Nick saw him hurtling overhead. He was going
too far out for Dolph to run and catch him. Even if he could, the
boy would probably have a broken neck from the impact. Nick felt
his feet leave the floor and he caught up to Randy, catching him by
the shirt collar with one hand. He alighted on the floor and
spotted Cain lifting the too-still form of Phoebe and
retreating.

Leonard had disappeared. Nick didn’t see the
old man or the vamp that had been stalking him beneath the
escalator. He knelt to check on Randy. The boy seemed shaken, but
okay.

“Pop-Pop!” he said, lunging in Dolph’s
direction. Nick held him back instinctively, then saw the old man
was holding his own against two vamps, lopping off pieces of them
each time they reached for him. Nick tucked Randy under one arm and
charged, except his feet weren’t touching the floor. Nick didn’t
have time to question how he was flying or levitating or whatever
it was he was doing.

He grabbed the vamp to Dolph’s right under
the armpit and hurtled it upward. Nick had an unbelievable amount
of strength coursing through him and the creature smacked
face-first into the marble wall of a store on the second tier.
Dolph deftly stepped aside from a swipe from a single-fingered
talon and thrust the chainsaw into its chest. The creature leapt
backward, the chain not scoring deep, and it turned and fled on all
fours before he could take another swing.

Nick could feel them around them. He put
Randy down, and he immediately latched onto his great-grandfather’s
leg. Dolph looked down at him and his eyes bugged as if he couldn’t
believe what he was seeing. He turned his eyes up at Nick and a
look exchanged between them. Dolph had never struck him as a man
given to overt sentimentality and everything that could have
possibly been said was in his eyes.

A single tear raced down the man’s cheek.

“Who…” he began.

“No time.” Nick’s voice felt too heavy, thick
in a way he’d never heard it. He put a hand on Dolph’s shoulder to
hustle him toward the door. He had to get the two of them out of
here. “They’re still close and they’re desperate.”

“But you—and Phoebe.”

“I’ll get her. I can’t protect you while I’m
doing it. And you have to protect him.”

A vamp jumped on Nick’s back, tearing at him.
He could feel the wounds healing slower than before and shoved
Dolph away, spinning left and right, trying to grab a part of the
creature.

Dolph calmly stepped forward, aiming. Nick
turned his back to him and held as still as possible while the
creature tore at him until the gun thundered in his ears. The vamp
fell off Nick and he turned to see it in the final seconds of its
death throes. It quickly reverted to a human form and he knew he
should feed from it. He couldn’t stomach the idea. Something in him
hungered and knew the vamp’s blood—any living creature’s
blood—would mend his wounds faster. Still, Nick restrained himself.
Whatever was happening to him had not yet surpassed his humanity
and he couldn’t willingly feed off something that was still part
human. He’d already done it, but that had been a matter of
self-defense.

They stayed tight to each other as they crept
toward the door. Nick remained in a low crouch, letting his senses
feel out the room ahead. They weren’t approaching, almost as if
they were hanging back for something.

Or perhaps standing guard.

“He’s getting away,” Nick said. He turned and
grabbed Dolph, propelling them through the air toward the entry
doors. Nick pushed through and set the two of them down. It wasn’t
safe out here and infinitely more dangerous inside. Nick knew he
could draw the vamps to him as they would continue to protect their
master.

He spotted a head in the distance on the
other side of Big Beaver. There was a cautious clench in his gut
and he felt Dolph tense as well. The old man had one arm underneath
Randy, holding the chainsaw by the handle at the top with the
other. It looked oddly domestic. Dolph didn’t seem to have noticed
that the boy had soiled himself.

“Who is that?” he asked, though Nick wasn’t
entirely sure he was looking for an answer.

“I don’t know,” Nick said. He hadn’t
considered the possibility of more vamps waiting outside. The ones
they’d encountered had seemed ravenous and afraid. Slightly more so
than the ones in here, and they had seemed untethered from Cain’s
control, as if operating of their own accord, though that sounded a
lot more intentional than Nick believed it had been. These
creatures that had once been vamps like him had been transformed
into something else with fear and hunger as twin engines driving
their maddened brains.

A head popped up from behind rubble and Nick
saw it was Pearlanne. Clip and a couple of others followed closely
behind. He and Dolph both breathed mutual sighs of relief.

“Mama! Mama! Mama!” Randy was shouting,
reaching back in the direction they’d come.

“I know, honey,” Dolph said. His voice was
infinitely softer than anyone else he’d spoken to. “We’re going to
go get her.” He affixed Nick with his hardest stare yet and words
couldn’t have told him better what the man was thinking. Get her or
die trying. The only reason he wasn’t in there was because he had
to keep his great-grandson safe.

Nick nodded and was about to step back inside
when Pearlanne waved to him from the street.

“Wait!” she shouted. “Wait, I’m coming with
you!”

“No!” Nick shouted back. “You stay with
them.” He pointed at Dolph and Randy. “Keep them safe!”

She unslung some sort of rifle strapped to
her back. Nick thought it was an M-16, actually, he assumed about
everything not a handgun was an M-16. The four of them jogged in a
line through the wrecked cars in the parking lot and up the
stairs.

“I can help.” The other three were out of
breath; Pearlanne wasn’t. “What happened to your face?” she asked,
her expression changing.

“Nothing.” Nick’s voice still didn’t sound
right. He turned back, not wanting her to see whatever Dolph had a
few moments before. “I have to go back inside.”

“Okay, let’s go.” She gave Clip and the
others an intricate hand signal and they nodded, their eyes on
Dolph and Randy. “You and I can take the rest and they can keep
these two safe.”

“No.” Nick shook his head. “It’s too
dangerous. I can’t protect you in there.”

She smiled. “I don’t need your protection.
You either go or I will and you can follow me.”

Nick wanted to argue, he wanted to express to
her how dangerous it was. He could feel some of his edge slipping.
He probably could have convinced her, if there were time. He still
felt powerful, but his newfound strength was definitely waning and
he had no clue how long it would last. He stepped back inside.

Cain hadn’t gone far. Nick could sense he and
Phoebe were close. The problem was making it to them alive. He
still didn’t have a plan.

He needed to fly or glide to get to the third
tier, and found he didn’t know how, willing in vain for his body to
move. When nothing happened for several beats, Nick jogged to the
escalator, Pearlanne right behind him.

They went up unchallenged. After seeing
nothing on the second tier they rounded the escalator and ascended
to the third. They were halfway up when a vamp launched itself at
them and all he could do was duck out of the way. Nick felt a
second of panic, certain the mass of the creature would be enough
to knock Pearlanne over, sending the two of them tumbling down the
metal stairs and critically injuring her.

He felt the flash of the rifle as she lit
into its body, the thundering shots altering the vamp’s course just
enough that it flew overhead and off to the side, falling the
fifteen feet or so onto the glass rail at the edge of the second
floor. The rail shattered where it hit, shards ripping into the
creature’s body. It immediately leapt up, blood fountaining out of
several long wounds and it tumbled blindly over the edge to the
bottom floor.

It landed with a pop. Nick and Pearlanne
didn’t bother waiting to see if it got back up. It probably was
alive still and was now way less of a threat than what was waiting
for them on the third floor. They climbed the rest of the stairs,
looking in all directions.

The graffiti on the floors and walls was
lightest up here, as if only the bravest taggers had dared to come
this far up. They rose from a crouch and Nick noticed a long
squiggly arrow on a clean lane of floor leading toward stores in
the back.

They looked at each other. It seemed as right
as any other direction. Nick had had a general sense they were up
here, and no more than that. Pearlanne kept on a swivel, making
sure they weren’t caught by surprise.

“Wait,” he said, putting a hand in front of
her. “They’re hiding.” He concentrated, letting his senses fill up
and reach out. The stale urine smell burned in his nose until other
scents began to rise above it. He closed his eyes.

There was a nest of rats in the store space
next to them. He could feel their collective body heat, hear their
breathing. Nick could smell the scent of old perfume beneath dust
and rot, could taste old salt, burnt wood, sweat.

Phoebe’s sweat. He’d lived with her long
enough to know the scent.

“That way,” Nick said. He pointed straight
ahead to the broken out glass doors of what had been a video game
store.

A screech arose from inside as the two of
them proceeded. They knew they were coming.

“Alright, I’m going in,” Nick said. He
channeled his inner-Dolph and fixed her with his hardest stare.
“You stay here.”

“Right,” she said. For a moment her face was
blank then she blinked. “No.”

“I mean it, Pearlanne. Don’t come in.” He
grabbed her firmly by the shoulder and she winced. He stopped
himself from apologizing. If this was the worst she got hurt he was
doing her a favor.

“No. You go, I go. Even if you don’t go, I’m
going.”

“Pearlanne, that’s not how this works.”

“I get it. You think you have more buy-in
than anybody else. Well, that little boy’s grandfather is out there
keeping him safe. If he could be here he’d already be cracking
heads regardless of who was with him.”

“Dammit, Pearlanne, I said—”

“Quit trying to play hero and let’s go!”

She traded a half empty magazine for a full
one, slapping it in and pulling a latch at the top. Pearlanne
yanked what looked like a bottle of paint rigged up like a grenade
and lobbed it inside. “Cover your eyes,” she said.

Nick turned his head and closed his eyes and
everything went white. He didn’t immediately notice he couldn’t
hear and he looked again after she tugged on his sleeve then
followed her inside.

A vamp charged right at them. Pearlanne’s
body shook, brief flashes of light illuminating the near dark. Nick
watched the creature’s head break apart in a lit slow motion and it
fell to the ground. Nick took a moment to look at the painfully
thin body before another one was leaping at him. Pearlanne turned
to fire, but it was too close. He felt the sharp talons slash
beneath his ear and caught it by the wrist before it could slash
his throat. He spun, crushing its wrist as he flung it off. The
pain in his face was sharp and he felt his body react before he
could stop it.

Nick fell on the vamp and sank his teeth in.
The vamp gave a strangled roar that was cut off in seconds. This
one petrified just as the other one had, and before he could drink
as much as he needed. Nick rose, half shamed and unsatisfied. He
wiped his chin, glad Pearlanne wasn’t looking at him. She sprayed
across the chests of four advancing vamps that seemed more damaged
by the rounds than Nick guessed they should have been. She snatched
out the clip and instead of them rushing, two fell to the
floor.

Nick stepped around her, engaging the other
two. One took a halfhearted swing that he ducked easily and
counterpunched. Its flesh crumpled like papier-mâché under his fist
and the second vamp squawked, trying to backpedal. He caught it
easily, the creature’s arms tearing off at the sockets when he
grabbed them.

All the vamps around them were desiccated,
like they’d been dead for years.

“Clean up in aisle three.” Nick turned and
smiled at Pearlanne. Bravado certainly wasn’t him, but he was
definitely heady now, the cumulative effects of repeated blood
drinking intoxicating him. She smiled back.

He couldn’t sense any other vamps. The only
question now was where were Cain and Leonard? The old man had been
on a mission to reach Cain to put his hands on him like he had done
those two vamps and Nick hoped he had succeeded. Even with his
surprise attack, Nick wasn’t holding out hope.

“Where is Cain?” he asked under his
breath.

“What?” Pearlanne said. As if on cue the mist
that had been swirling around their ankles began to take shape. It
quickly formed the shape of a man behind her and before Nick could
call out it had seized her, the monster solidifying and lifting her
off the floor.