Vampire Blood (36 page)

Jeff could see them clearly, because Irene’s face, her whole body, glowed as if it were incandescent. It lit up the room and was reflected into thousands of silvery floating threads that mingled with the rising mist.

“Let her go, you bitch!” Jeff yelled at the vampire. “Let her go!”

Irene only laughed.

Jenny plummeted to the cement floor. She didn’t cry out, not even a whimper, when she landed.

Jeff ran to gather her into his arms, his eyes hard with caution staring at Irene as he did, his held-in rage darkening his face.

“Let them go, Irene,” Terry Michelson, his Annie poised supportively by his side, warned in a deadly voice from behind them.

Jeff looked back at him. He hadn’t seen the couple enter. They’d appeared from nowhere.

“It won’t hurt you, this once, to be merciful. You’ve killed her mother and father, her friends. Isn’t that enough for you?” Michelson moved forward, a candle materializing in his hand. The flickering luminance lit up his pale features in an eerie way. He looked like a ghost. “It’s time we leave this place anyway.” His cold eyes raked the cages. “You’ve fouled your own lair so badly again that it’ll only be a matter of time before they discover us. Again. Flush us out like rats.
Again.
”

“Let them go?” Irene spat disdainfully. “You must be kidding. They came here to kill us—all of us. Do you think they’d have pity for us? They were going to burn us alive.”

“Look around. We deserve none.” Michelson sighed, shaking his head.

To Jenny it seemed as if something had died in him. The will to keep living the way they were living. Jenny suddenly had his thoughts in her head: In all his centuries, he’d never seen such carnage as Irene and her friends created. He’d never felt guilt, until now. His eyes briefly went to Annie. Perhaps she’d truly changed him.

“You’re vile, malevolent, Irene, the worst of our kind, not fit to live. Us, too, for standing by and letting you. I don’t blame them for wanting to destroy us.”

It happened so swiftly, Jeff didn’t have time to move, much less to protect Jenny. She was ripped from his embrace again, tossed like a doll into the air and rammed against the high ceiling. She cried out once as her body hovered above them, a physical pawn being tugged first one way than another in Irene and Michelson’s struggle for power.

Jeff’s eyes followed her for a moment, and then he lunged at Irene. She swatted him away like an annoying insect without taking her eyes off of Michelson.

“If you hurt her,” Jeff hissed at Irene from the floor where he’d landed, “I’ll destroy you. Somehow. I swear it.” Then he scrambled toward something on the floor, and a wooden stake flew through the air.

Irene spun around, and lifting her hand faster than the eye could see, stopped the stake in midair, inches away from her face, yet it kept her busy just long enough for Michelson to make his move.

He had Irene by the throat in the millisecond it took Jenny to fall—landing neatly in Jeff’s outstretched arms.

Michelson and Irene grappled and flew apart, staring at each other like blood-hungry cats, circling.

“I’m
going
to kill them.”

“I can’t allow that, Irene.”

“You can’t stop it.”

“I can try.”

The other vampires had shown up and were hovering across the room from them in the dark, waiting.

Jenny, just coming to, and Jeff didn’t stay around to watch as the two vampires slammed each other around the room like super beings, egged on by the others. He dragged Jenny to a safe spot behind a coffin, closer to the stairs.

Irene was clearly the stronger from the very beginning, and when Annie came to her husband’s aid, Irene simply slashed her with her fangs across the neck, nearly decapitating her.

Then Irene vanished and reappeared with a lit candle in her hand. Viciously, before Michelson could prevent it, she reached down and touched its flame to the hem of Annie’s gown. The dress caught fire unbelievably fast, as if it’d been a fuel doused torch.

Through the flames burst the most excruciating howl of agony Jenny had ever heard.
Almost equaled by the one from Terry Michelson as he rushed towards Annie’s writhing, flame engulfed body. He couldn’t get near her.

The smell of roasting, rotten flesh diffused into the air and mingled with the rising vapor.

Jenny covered her eyes and her ears with her hands.

Michelson launched himself at Irene as Jeff, seeing perhaps his only chance, brought the small box from his coat pocket and took out the crucifix gun. He readied it, took careful aim, and fired at the nearest vampire. Candice.

The silver bullet must have found her heart. She fell shrieking and thrashing to the floor.

Jeff dropped the crucifix into his pocket and ran towards her with a stake and the hammer raised. He never needed it. Death took her in a puff of smoke. She was gone, just like that. As if she’d never been. A pile of ashes that melted into the concrete floor.

Jeff pulled the crucifix gun from his pocket again. He reloaded it, tamped in the black powder (the use Jenny had finally discovered from the book) and the other silver ball with shaking hands ... but not fast enough.

“Jeff, watch out!” Jenny cried.

His face jerked up.

The other male vampire was hurtling towards him, metamorphosing into a huge black wolf, its rapier like fangs barred, its lupine eyes brimming with hellish hateful rage.

Jeff screamed and tried evasive action.

Jenny was hurt, but ignoring the explosion of pain it caused her body, she scrambled towards Jeff to help him.

The vampire wolf hit him as he moved, glancing off to his left and instantly circling back around for another charge, knocking the last bullet out of his hands. It rolled away with an echoing
ping-ping-ping
into the murkiness somewhere.

“Damn,” Jeff swore and flung himself to the ground on his hands and knees, barely dodging his attacker long enough to search desperately for the lost bullet, in vain. He didn’t find it before the wolf was on him, tearing at him.

Yanking the gasoline can from the floor as she went, and with Irene still preoccupied with Michelson, Jenny hurled herself on the wolf. She pounded it over the head with the can, stunning it long enough for Jeff to roll away.

The wolf wheeled on Jenny, knocked her to the ground with one huge paw and returned to Jeff.

It was practically on top of him when Jeff must have remembered the crucifix gun’s other use, because the wooden tapered loading rod was still jammed in the barrel.
Clutching it in his one hand as he tried to fend off the wolf, he brought it up under the animal’s belly. He yanked back on the trigger at the same time, lifting and trying to lock the spring in the sear’s notch by feel only.

He maneuvered the crucifix around to point towards the monster’s chest. As the vampire’s teeth clamped onto his neck and his claws dug into the sides of his body, Jeff squeezed the trigger, expelling the loading rod into where the creature’s heart must have been.

With a piercing howl, the creature fell away, groveling on the floor ... and then he, too, dissolved slowly into a puddle of whitish ash.

Jenny crawled to Jeff’s side. “You’re hurt,” she wept, seeing the blood.

“No, just scratches. I’ll be okay.” He was still staring at the spot where the vampire had been.

Irene and Terry Michelson were still locked in their final death struggle.
It wouldn’t be long.

Jeff must have realized they had precious little time left to do what they had to do, because he was on his knees. With Jenny’s help, he made it to his feet before she could protest. He was surprised to find he could stand and actually walk after what had happened, but didn’t waste any time thinking about it.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Jeff captured her hand and practically carried her out of the room and down the hallway, “and do what we came to do.”

She could barely walk, much less run.

“Because if Irene wins back there, we’re dead, and so are a lot of others.” The horrible sounds behind them surged into one chilling scream. “Let’s pray we have the time to do it,” he said. He retrieved the flashlight from his pocket, nearly dropping it in his haste.

* * * *

They hobbled into a tiny room at the end of the corridor.

“It’s the furnace room,” Jeff whispered. “I noticed it earlier when I was here looking for you. Michelson had a brand new furnace and air conditioning unit put in. Not that you need it here in Florida much.” He smirked in the flashlight’s faint beam. “Maybe they like it cooler than we do.”

“What are we doing here?”

“We can blow this whole place to kingdom come with this furnace, the gasoline we’ve spilled, the kerosene there, a match and a matchbook but we’ll have only minutes to get out ourselves. Just until the matchbook burns and the fire spreads.”

“Do it,”
Jenny breathed, giving him permission. She didn’t have to think twice about it.

“Here, then, hold the flashlight for me.”

She took it and directed it where he wanted her to as he scrambled over and turned the gas on full force and switched the furnace on. Jenny could feel the instant vibration.

He moved away from her and started ripping the gas pipes loose from the wall and she heard the hiss of the escaping gas. Smelled it.

As he worked, he explained, “See these cans?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re ten gallon cans of kerosene, half-full. They’re left over from before when they used it to help keep the fire in the old coal furnace going, or to start it, or fill the old kerosene lamps they had here when the place first opened. Used it to help get tar stains out of the plush carpets upstairs, as well.”

“Hurry!”
Jenny’s eyes kept rushing towards the open door.

“Back towards the door.
Now!”
he ordered a moment later.

She did as she was told.

A splashing sound and the cloying heavy scent of kerosene filled the air as he spilled it across the floor.

He lit a cigarette, puffing furiously until only about half was left. She could see his anxious face silhouetted in the hazy circle of light as he fished in one of his pockets and brought out a book of matches. Bending the cover over backwards, he propped it on the floor in the middle of the kerosene spill. Then he jabbed what was left of the cigarette into the matches, lit side up.

Taking the flashlight from her, he yelped, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

He pushed her out of the room ahead of him. They staggered up the stairs, breathing heavily, up into and through the lobby and out into the rainy afternoon, like bats fleeing from the light.

They’d just cleared the front doors, bursting out into the wet parking lot, when Jeff
tackled her to the ground, protecting her body with his own.

The world behind them exploded.

A few seconds slower, and they’d have been barbecued.

Shaken, but relieved that they’d escaped alive, Jenny cried in Jeff’s arms, crouched on the ground, as the theater burnt. Soon it would be nothing but ashes, as well.

Hopefully, with the rain, the fire wouldn’t travel over to Joey’s Place.

“Shhh, shhh, now, sweetheart,” he comforted her lovingly, as the firelight flickered across her tearstained face. “It’s over. We’re safe. They’re all gone.
Dead. Forever.
No one’s going to get out of there.” He squinted his eyes back at the flames. “It’s a good thing the movie didn’t start until later. At least there weren’t any people to worry about frying.”

Jenny watched the fire. She could feel the intense heat reddening her face. It made the night warm.

She thought of her dad and her mom, the Albers. Sheriff Samuels.

Sorry, I couldn’t save any of you, but no one else will ever die by their hands again.

Then she thought of Michelson and silently thanked him, even if he had been one of them. In the end, his sacrifice, his courage had saved them, she was sure of it. If he hadn’t helped, she and Jeff would be dead now.

She looked at Jeff and smiled, almost her old self. “You really blew up the place. Isn’t there
anything
you can’t do?” She smiled weakly at him.

He smiled back through the grime. “Not much. Do you want me to take you to a doctor, Jenny?” he asked gently.

“No, I don’t think I need one. Mostly I’m bruised and tired.”She brushed the now dirty gauze patch on her face with the tips of her fingers. “Maybe, later, for this, but it can wait. I just want to go home. I want to see Joey. Laurie’s probably worried to death by now.”

She had to make arrangements for her mother’s burial and tell Joey, which filled her with fresh sorrow.

In the light from the crackling flames, she saw the blood on Jeff’s clothes, on his neck. “Do
you
need a doctor?”

“No,” he said, so firmly that she didn’t even try to change his mind. “I’ll take care of it myself. It’s not that deep. I need a bath, a bed and you, alone, in my arms. It’s better if we don’t stick around anyway. Too many questions.” He waved at the pyre behind them. “Let the police and the authorities take care of this mess. Let them think it was an accident or arson. It doesn’t matter.”

“Then let’s go home, Jeff.”

He helped her to her feet, and they limped to the nearest phone to call Laurie. She’d come and get them.

Off in the distance, a fire engine’s siren cut the night like a banshee’s wail of torment.

Jenny hoped they’d get a flat tire.

She wanted that damn place to burn until there wasn’t a stick left not charred.

* * * *

Once they were at the farmhouse, Laurie insisted on taking Joey back to the hospital, where he belonged, now that everything was over. Jenny agreed.

Telling Joey about their mother was hard, but he accepted it easier once he learned that the theater and the vampires were obliterated, and the vampires would never kill again. Joey was so relieved, he cried.

Jeff doctored his own wounds, deep gashes where he’d been clawed and bit, with Jenny’s help. He cleaned and bandaged the slash on her face, the other multiple scratches and cuts she had over her body and he predicted that she’d have to be seen soon by a doctor. “That gash on your face needs stitches and besides all those bruises and smaller cuts and scrapes, you might have a few cracked ribs, too.” Their survival had been a bona fide miracle any way they looked at it.