Vampires (27 page)

The bishop's residence was a heavy tudor mansion connected by wide sculptured gardens to the church of St. Lucius, the largest-and wealthiest-Catholic church in Dallas. It had balconies and a turret and several stained-glass windows sending multicolored hues into the rain.

Felix thought without the electric lights it could have been built two or three hundred years ago.

“Cat doesn't like this guy,” offered Kirk as they pulled into the wide circular driveway. “Says he's too good for sinners.”

Father Adam frowned. “I think you'll find he has a different attitude now.”

Kirk smiled thinly. “Cat told us about that, too. After you pulled rank on him.”

The priest shook his bead. “After he's had a chance to think about it.” He looked at Kirk. “There is a reason why people become priests, Kirk.”

The deputy shrugged good-naturedly, his hair seeming even more red in the half-light from the bishop's front door.

“I'll go in ahead,” said Father Adam as Felix pulled to a stop.

Felix nodded, lit a cigarette, and watched the priest skip through the puddles to the front door.

“Felix?” Kirk whispered from beside him.

Felix looked at him. “Yeah?”

“Do we really have to chop his head off?”

“Looks like.”

Kirk shook his head and stared out the window. He shivered.

“Who's going to do it?”

Felix frowned. “Crow, I guess. If he's up to it.” “What if he isn't? He didn't look so good to me.” Felix shrugged. “Then somebody else, I suppose.” “You?”

Felix stared at him. “Why me?”

Now Kirk shrugged. “You're second in command.” Felix stared at him a second longer, then turned away. Jesus Christ! Is that what they think? Hell! I'm the guy that's leaving!

Or was, be reminded himself, dimly, before they found me, too.

Shit! All the more reason to go.

So why do you feel so guilty?

I don't. I don't. I do not. I... I don't know what I feel...

And he stubbed his cigarette out too forcibly into the dashboard ashtray.

Lights hit them from behind as the Blazer pulled into the driveway alongside the motorhome. Felix exchanged a look with Kirk, then climbed outside to greet them.

Cat still looked terrible, ashen and pale. But Jack Crow looked.. . pretty damned good. His broad shoulders were straight and his bearing seemed to have... But no. Those eyes. Too deep. Sunken and dark and unseeing.

“Oh, Felix!” cried Annabelle as she came around the side of the Blazer, eyes pouring tears.

And then she did an odd thing. She threw her arms around him and pressed her head into his chest and sobbed.

Felix stared blankly at her. Then he did what she wanted:

he put his arms around her and comforted her.

Not just what she wanted, he thought suddenly.

What she expected.

As he stood there holding the sobbing Annabelle, he saw Davette, tears also in her eyes. They exchanged wan smiles.

Who do these people think I am?

“Mr. Crow!” called out from the front door.

It was the bishop, with Adam and what looked like his entire staff trailing behind him from the house. The cleric came to a breathless stop before Jack.

“Mr. Crow!” the bishop repeated. “We are so grieved at your loss. We. . .” And then he stumbled, fishing for words. At last, he held his arms out, palms up. “I'm so very sorry, Mr. Crow. I didn't understand.”

Felix watched Jack eye the cleric suspiciously for a moment. But what can you say, Jack? This guy clearly means it. Look at him.

Jack nodded abruptly, said, “Thank you, bishop. I appreciate it. We.. .” and he turned and made a gesture to include the others.

The bishop was way ahead of him.

“Father Adam has told me everything. Come inside. Please. Let us help you.”

They did. And the bishop was, Felix decided later, quite wonderful. He was everywhere at once, it seemed, tending to them. And where he wasn't, his staff was, several young priests or priests-to-be-Felix was never sure which. They got them inside and dry and sitting down and got them something to drink and something to munch on while dinner was being prepared and were not offended when no one had an appetite and it was more the bishop's manner than anything else. That haughty, aristocratic, God's-house-is-too-good-for-the-likes-of-you attitude had been replaced by a focus of warmth and keen piercing insight.

Felix had never met the man before. But this guy was a priest.

But it was his help with Carl's body that meant the most to the Team. He listened quietly and patiently as the macabre necessities of a vampire killer's funeral were explained to him. He did this without evincing shock or repulsion or anything else they didn't need right then. After he listened he left briefly to change to his full bishop's robes and ordered his people to do the same and something that had always before been just one more dreadful chore would become, in the light of the many golden candles and the soothing symbols of the bishop's office, something else.

As soon as they found Jack.

Felix was in one of the many rest rooms trying to tidy himself up for the ritual to come. He'd managed to dry his hair and smooth out his work shirt some. Well, maybe the windbreaker would cover some of the wrinkles the way it covered the Browning. He had thought about taking it off, this being a funeral and all. But it really was a warrior's funeral, wasn't it?

There was a light tap on the door, followed by Davette's voice.

“Felix?”

He opened the door. She had made herself up, too. Her honey-blond hair was soft and clean and neatly combed and beautiful.

“Hello,” was all he could think to say.

“Hello,” she smiled back, her eyes downcast shyly. “Have you seen Jack?”

“Hub? No.”

“We can't find him and. . . Well, they're ready to start.”

Felix nodded at her and then stepped- out of the rest room into the hall. Annabelle and Kirk and some of the bishop's people were there, looking concerned.

“Where's Cat?”

“He's in the chapel already,” whispered Annabelle worriedly.

“What about Adam?”

“They're all in there, Felix,” Davette said. “It's just Jack.”

“Okay,” he said, thinking. He started walking down the hallway but paused when he realized they were all following him. He turned and looked back, at their eager hopeful faces and...

And he wanted to scream at them: What do you want from me?

But instead he said, “We'll meet you in the chapel.”

And then he just stood there waiting until they reluctantly dispersed.

When they were gone he thought a second, decided he knew where Crow would be. He continued down the hallway, walking on some thick paisley-looking rug that felt rich and expensive, with paintings on either side of him hung on the richly paneled walls that were probably more so. The hallway took him to the center of the house, a massive twenty-foot-ceiling, sixty-foot-long place called, for some reason, the Common Room.

- Felix hadn't expected to find Jack there, but it was on his way. He paused for a moment, admiring this room that looked like the lobby of the world's most exclusive hotel. Nice work, if you can get it.

But he knew where Jack was and it wasn't in these magnificent rooms. Wasn't in the house.

Felix went through the formal dining room, through the grand oak-paneled entry hall, and opened the front door.

The night was still cool for summer, but the storm was over and the stars were coming out. Felix stepped through the door and closed it behind him and stood there a moment letting his eyes adjust to the dark. Ten feet away, a figure sat on the edge of the wide front porch, his great back a dim softness in the shadows.

“Jack?” he called softly, almost whispering.

“Here,” was the tired reply.

Felix hesitated, then walked down the broad steps and sat down. The rain-drenched steps began immediately to soak through his pants and he stood right back up again.

He looked down at Jack, sitting forward-hunched forward-with his elbows on his knees.

“Kinda wet, isn't it?”

The dim figure shrugged, a slight motion in the dark.

Get up, you sonuvabitch! Felix wanted to scream, sudden anger and disgust welling from within him. He was furious with Jack cowering out here and he wanted to grab him and shake him and some part of him knew he was being unfair.

But dammit! Jack was supposed to be the leader of this deal and there were people in there waiting on him. Counting on him.

He tried to calm himself before he spoke, but he knew his tone came out hard. “Time to go, man. Time to do it.”

At first Crow didn't move. Then he stood up slowly and put his hands on his hips and stared out into the night.

“Got a cigarette?” he whispered harshly.

Felix nodded. “Sure.” He fished out a smoke and handed it over and thumbed his lighter.

Jesus, Jack! he thought when the flame illuminated the man's face.

For Crow looked tight and drawn and weak and.., and beaten.

But he didn't say anything. And Crow didn't say anything. He just puffed two or three times on the smoke, still staring into the night. Then Felix felt him take a long deep breath and let it out. Then he tossed the cigarette away into sparks, pulled up his belt, and beaded for the door.

“Come on,” he said gruffly.

So off they went to do the deed and as they walked, Jack leading, Felix trailing behind, a transformation took place. At first Jack looked pitiful and sorry, with his wrinkled shirttail out and his baggy pants wet on the seat from the damp step. The walk wasn't much better, fflore like a reluctant lope. But steadily, the pace quickened and those great shoulders thrust up and those powerful hands reached back and thumbe4 the shirttail in and that big head went up high on his neck and...

And Felix felt himself smiling in amazement. Thirty seconds before he had been disgusted and now he thought: Look at this guy! Look at him, coming through.

By the time the reached the hallway outside the chapel Jack was strutting like a drillmaster. He stopped, abruptly, outside the chapel door and took another deep breath and turned and looked at Felix.

Felix looked back into those same sunken eyes and he saw the pain was still there and the weariness was still there and decided that was probably more impressive then any of it.

Jack nodded questioningly at Felix.

Felix nodded back.

And they went in and did it.

They had Carl's body wrapped up in some heavy white fabric and laid out on a table up in front by the altar. The bishop was there, surrounded by his robed attendants and that smoking goblet-thing they used and dozens of candles. The women sat in a pew in the back row. The men, Kirk and Cat and a robed Adam, stood by the table.

The whole thing was, Felix had to admit, beautiful. You really needed Catholics for the big stuff.

Jack walked up to the table and Felix took the empty spot beside him. Felix bad thought Carl's body looked awkward lying there. And that's when he noticed the saw.

The saw was not a saw at all, but a sharp stone fashioned to slip inside a grooved harness that supported the head and neck of the body. “Cutting” consisted of rapping the blunt end of the stone sharply with a heavy wooden mallet which lay there at Jack's right hand. Beside the mallet was the stake, an intricately carved piece of wood about half the size of a baseball bat and proportionately thinner. In the light from the candles Felix could just read, on the side facing him: “Carl Joplin.” He could see further lettering on the other side of the rounded wood but couldn't read it.

First were the prayers, not too different from the mass Felix had become used to, but longer somehow.

Or maybe I'm just ready to get it over with, he thought.

And then he thought, Could I do this if I had to?

Can I stand here now while Jack does it?

Then the time was there and Jack Crow reached out and fitted the cutting stone in place and then he grabbed up the mallet and held it high and muttered something Felix couldn't hear and then the mallet came down and there was an awful “snick” noise and the fabric around the throat separated cleanly and then heavy fluid began to stain the edges.

Jack didn't pause to tamp the flow with the towel there

at his other hand. Instead he grasped the stake, placed it over the heart of one of his dearest comrades, and drove it mightily home with one solid rap.

There were more prayers but Felix didn't hear them. He didn't hear anything but the pounding of his own heart and wondered if that was fear or hatred of the beasts that made this necessary.

After a while, Felix realized he was the only one still standing there except for the bishop's men ready to take away the body. He nodded self-consciously and stepped back to give them room. But just before he did he craned his neck around to see the writing on the other side of the stake.

It read: “Not one damned regret.”

“Rome,” said Felix and the entire table went silent.

“Rome,” he repeated. “We've got to get to Rome.”

And they looked at him like he was some rude interloper but he really didn't give a shit. He appreciated the meal and the bishop's hospitality and he knew damn well everyone had needed this restful few hours in this great house.

But dammit! It was time to face the facts. The vampires were still out there.

Still looking for them.

Still monsters.

Felix turned to Adam. “Can the Church get us there? Right away?”

Adam blinked, stared at him, looked to Crow, who was sitting across from him.

Crow sighed and looked down at his empty plate. He looked tired.

“Okay, Felix,” he said softly, “let's talk.”

He pushed his heavy chair back from the bishop's grand table and stood up. He looked at the others around the table.

“Let's all talk,” he said with a wan smile and motioned them to follow.

Felix hesitated, suspicious, then stood up with the rest of them-including the bishop-and followed Crow into the Common Room. The bishop took his customary chair, a great embroidered something that looked like a throne. Jack sat in a big leather piece beside him. Felix remained standing next to the great hearth. The rest of them took seats around the huge pile of Team equipment piled up in the center of the room. They had brought it with them along with Carl's remains. Crossbows and crossbow bolts and pikes and spare pistols and several cases of silver bullets. The stack was a mess because that's the way they had loaded it into the motorhome and that's the way they had brought it into the house because there hadn't really been enough room in the motor-home to store it the way they had-far from Carl's body.

But somehow that had seemed important at the time.

When they were all settled and cigarettes were lit and attendants had found the necessary ashtrays...

“All right, Felix,” began Jack Crow, “let's hear it.”

Felix paused a moment, trying to read Jack's eyes. Was there a challenge in there somewhere? Anything?

Whatever.

And he got down to it:

They were being hunted. They didn't know who was hunting them or where they were. All they had was a clue that somebody had taken over Davette's house and even if that was correct... If that was correct, they still didn't have enough people to take the target.

“I would have no idea whatsoever how to blow that wail the way Carl planned. Does anybody else know explosives that well?”

There was a pause before they all shook their heads.

Felix nodded, satisfied.

“And it would be suicide to go down into those shadows away from the sunshine. Remember the 'god' in the Cleburne Jail?”

He didn't wait for an answer.

“This Team has had it. No place to run, not enough firepower to fight, no place to hide-but one. Rome. We have got to get to Rome. And I mean: now.”

It was quiet after that. Uncomfortable and quiet and all eyes were on Jack Crow but it was the bishop who spoke

next.

“If you will forgive me,” he began with a kindly nod toward Jack, “I think this young man is right.” He moved quickly to soothe his own words. “I don't mean to intrude, Mr. Crow, I assure you. But I have tended people all my life and many of them were sokliers and... And you-all of you-must take rest.”

- And all eyes went back to Jack and then there was more silence, long heavy silence, before he suddenly nodded.

“Okay,” he said quietly. -

Too quietly for Felix. “What?” he asked leaning forward.

Jack looked up at him and his eyes were dead. “I said 'okay.' Rome.”

Felix nodded. Nothing more.

“Fine,” said the bishop, sounding relieved. "In the morning Father Adam and I will call..

“What about tonight?” interrupted Felix. “And while I'm at it, don't you think we oughta get a move on? It's full dark and they know we know the bishop, don't they?”

The bishop smiled and rose up from his chair.

“I shouldn't worry, young man. I should think being within these walls would cause them great pain.”

It did. It hurt.

Even here, from the far edges of the grounds, the wretched torment from that ghastly stained-glass glow blew racking agonies through the Young Master's temples.

And the beasts... The beasts did not form at his gesture, did not close about him at his shining will. No. They circled and keened and stepped their dead souls' weight from foot to foot with only the sweet smell of their decay and his own blissful memory of it to recommend them.

But they would obey him.

They would obey the Young Master on this, his premier solo task from the Great Master himself. They would obey.

Despite the pain.

Despite the searing misery of the Monster's temple.

Because they were hungry.

Hours and hours they are risen this day and the thirst was rich and clasping their brute selves and they would obey.

They would obey if he must fling their rotting forms through those agonized windows.

“Beasts!” he shrilled to them, filling his own mind with the volume of his determination.

“Children!” he sang out mote and his thoughts penetrated them and they turned to him.

And he strode forward, ignoring the greater agony of this nearness, forward step after step, until he halted and raised a long beautiful pale hand and one shiny black nail and pointed at the shadows on the windows and spoke out loud and in his will:

"Food!

"Food!!

“Fooood!”

The collective hissing rose and broke happily upon his Young Master's ears.

“Foooood...”

Felix was feeling pretty good just before it all caved in.

He had gotten what he wanted from Crow. Given Jack's listlessness, that hadn't been so hard, and he had felt some pangs about ramrodding everything past the mourning leader, but Felix figured none of that made a bit of difference if he could keep someone alive long enough to bitch about it later.

He had them up and off their butts and getting ready to move. The bishop and Adam had called Rome, had gotten transportation, had arranged all the passport difficulties. Getting back into America was going to be interesting, but that's what voter-registration cards were for.

Frankly, Felix looked forward to seeing 'em try to keep Annabelle out.

All in all it was looking good. Better, even, than he had expected. For a change had come over the Team once it had dawned on them that it was over. A sense of grudging relief had come about, slowly at first, but after less than an hour, even Jack had given into it: Because, dammit, it was a relief to get down off your guard and know that rest was coming.

That vise-tight concentration, that desperate focus, was loosening up.

There were even some jokes as the men gathered together and organized their stack of weaponry and at one point Crow had looked around at the smiles on the faces and then turned to Felix and said, “Okay, Gunman. Okay.”

He hadn't said any more than that. But everyone had known what he meant.

You're quite a dude, Jack, Felix thought admiringly.

But he had been too hep to say anything out loud.

Looking good, thought Felix. And he glanced over to where She sat, talking quietly with Annabelle and the bishop. Just that was enough for Felix.

She would live.

Yeah. Looking good.

And that's what they were doing, all fiddling and talking about the Common Room, with its wall of stained glass and beautiful furnishings and smiles, when Felix asked Cat about something that had intrigued him:

Carl's wooden stake.

“We've all got one,” Cat told him. “We had this Belgian kid working with us a couple of years ago. Raised a carpenter. He carved them for everyone.”

“Everyone? You've got one, too?” Cat eyed him carefully. “I do.” Kirk, loading silver bullets beside him, grimaced.

Cat noticed and grinned. “You guys want one?” “I think I'll pass,” replied the deputy. Felix was studying Cat. “Do they all say the same thing?”

“No. We all have something different. Mine's even shaped different, it's flat, like a paddle.”

“What does it say?”

“My name.”

“is that all.”

“No. It says something else on the other side.”

“What?”

“I don't think you're ready for it.”

“Try me.”

Cat's grin widened. “Okay. It's the answer to the question: 'How do you like your stake?'”

“Huh?” said Kirk.

“What does it say?” Felix wanted to know.

Cat's eyes were devilish. “Medium Rare.”

They had begun to laugh when the first of the stained-glass windows just blew into the room whizzing glass like shrapnel into the furniture and the far walls and then that smell-that smell of decay-and Felix thought, Oh, my God, my God! They're here!

And he got to his feet and spun toward the sound and dragged out the Browning and for just an instant all was calm and eerie and.

...and impossible, because they had just been sitting here, just sitting here laughing and talking and ready to go, to get out of this, out of all of it.

And they all were there, frozen with surprise and dawning fear, their mouths open and their eyes wide, frozen and unbelieving and so tired. And then the beast who had burst within them as if thrown through the window shook its shaggy head and reared up from its place on all fours in front of the window and those blood-red eyes shone on them and the black mouth opened those glistening fangs and it hissed....

Felix raised the gun to fire as the second window exploded and the glass flew again and there were screams and then another explosion and then another and the whole wail of stained glass collapsed into the- room and the smell was there and the brutes were clambering through with their dead rotting skin through the broken glass and shattered window frames and the hissing, the hisssssing filled the house of God and their air and Felix felt spears of pain on the side of his neck and then the blood running down and he knew the glass, the fractured, flying glass, had got him and he fired at something through the crashes of debris just as the next screams began.

It was. . . who? One of the bishop's men... Bryan? Was that his name? One of the monsters had crashed through on top of him and now was on all fours above him, like some slavering undead bear, and Bryan- screamed and cried and tried to pull himself out from under and the brute held him there, fast, with one rotting hand on his chest and Bryan screamed again and again and scrambled desperately backward, flailing his hands and feet but he could get no traction on that beautiful thick carpet and the beast above him...

Did nothing.

None of them were moving! They seemed stunned and stunted and almost paralyzed and two or three of them were holding their heads with rancid hands. Hurting. Hurting.

But there were so many! So many of them!

“It's this place,” cried the bishop. And he rose up and strode forward, the robes of his office swaying out around him, and he grasped the great cross about his neck and held it aloft.

“This place!” he shouted triumphantly. “They cannot bear the House of the Lord!”

“Get them back!” roared Jack Crow.

Felix turned to see what Jack was saying and saw them, saw the women, saw her! The women were here-she was here, My God My God!

“Get them back!” roared Crow again. “Cat! Adam! Move 'em back!”

“Where! Outside?”

“No!” shouted Felix. "Put them. . . put them in the entry hall and close it..

“Yes!” echoed Crow. “And lock the doors and. . . Cat! Get the Blazer! Move it!”

And that's when Bryan lunged backward and the black nails at his throat tore the skin and the red blood welled out and the dead bear awoke and his gray lips spread wide and the fangs started down.

Felix and Kirk fired simultaneously and the monster flipped backward from the impact, howling and screeching those awful sounds and the others, the others! So many of them! They woke up too! They lunged toward them- And the bishop. The bishop roared back at them!

“Back! Back, you children of Satan! Back and be purged!”

And he walked toward them, holding the cross in front of him like a goddamned pistol or something and they shouted at him to stop, to come back with them, to fall back, but- The one that got him was so huge. It had long black hair and grimy coveralls and it came from the bishop's side-he never saw it-and those huge dead arms fell like trees on the cleric and embraced him and squeezed him and...

And Felix couldn't get a shot! The bishop was blocking the shot!

The bishop didn't scream. He snarled with fury and twisted around in that death grip.

“In the name of Christ!” he roared into those dead, red eyes, into those greasy, slick fangs, and he shoved the cross into that peeling face...

And it burned it! It burned it! Steam spewed out and the stench of the burning flesh swam through the air and...

And from where came that impossibly bright light arcing from where the cross smote the flesh?

The ghoul howled with pain and thrashed its burly head and tried to duck back from that acetylene cross.

But it would not let go of the bishop.

Instead, it squeezed. Spasmodically, monstrously, it clamped tighter its beast arms and the bishop wailed as his insides were vised together but he never let go of the cross, never stopped jamming it into the burning face, never stopped cleansing him.

Even as he died.

“No!” shouted Kirk, aghast, leaping forward. “Let him go, you filthy...”

“Kirk!” cried Felix. “No! It's too late to-”

But the deputy didn't listen. He took one more quick stride. Then two. And he was within a yard of the death grip when the ghoul, still in agony from the dead bishop's cross, had finally had enough. It jerked backward and threw the bishop's limp form away, his arms as thick as branches flying outward from his body and his right forearm bashed full on into the deputy's forehead..

And crushed his skull...

And snapped his neck...

And Kirk turned and looked with astonishment at Felix and then the gunman saw/felt the light go out behind the eyes.