Vampire$

Part Three Chapter 30

 
It would have been so simple if the plane for Rome had left the next day.
But there were papers and official documents and things to hassle over and the only thing that saved them was the Vatican being a separate nation, capable of issuing its own passports. Even with that, it was going to be three days of waiting.
Three days waiting and thinking and mourning.
And more thinking.
Cat thought fast. The first day, while they were sitting around the suite playing with their room service food, he suddenly looked up, shyly, at Felix and said, "Thanks, Felix."
Which meant thanks for saving me? Thanks for coming up to help with Jack? Thanks for not letting me throw myself off the ledge? All of them?
Felix had looked at him and not really known. So he had just shrugged. Nothing more. Because he wasn't sure, thinking back, if he had managed to do anything right.
So weird.
Every time he thought about what he'd done - going up to that bloody terrace - he got the willies. The hair and the goose pimples went up on his arms and he... got scared!
But then, every time he thought of that little god's smug smile...
Then he got angry. And the desire to kick some ass was so strong!
But mostly, he was afraid. Deathly afraid.
Because they were still out there. Still wanting them. Still knowing who they were and still hunting them down. He knew this. He could feel this.
And so could the other two. He could see it in their eyes and in their posture and in the way they jumped whenever the elevator bell rang outside the suite's door.
Felix finally had them moved to the end of the hail after that first night. That helped some. But that didn't really solve it. They could still be found. Felix could still get to die. Or he could still get to kick ass.
You're a mess, he thought to himself.
And then there was the matter of Davette. And the showers.
Cat hadn't said a word all the way from the Adolphus to their hotel. When he had gotten to their suite he had gone straight to the little minibar there in the corner and tried to drink it dry and damn near succeeded. He was all but comatose within the hour and Davette had helped Felix pour him into one of the suite's two bedrooms.
And after Felix had stood over him a few dark moments, watching him fit and start and twitch in his horrors.
"Sorry about your family, buddy," Felix whispered at last.
Davette was waiting for him on the couch in the living room. She patted the seat beside her and said, "Tell me."
Only then did he realize she didn't actually know what had happened.
Good girl, he thought.
Then he thought, I could never have been that patient.
He sat down beside her on the couch, next to the fresh drink she had made for him, and told her.
It seemed to take such a long time, somehow. Because it was so sad and awful and because he didn't know how much to tell her about his madness and he didn't much want to think about it himself.
And because he was suddenly so goddamned tired. He never looked at her once as he spoke.
She moved closer to him as he told it. Not clinging. Just the warmth. He heard her weep toward the end. Felt it. He got up to get another drink for himself. Maybe he sat down a little closer when he returned.
When he had finished, it was so very quiet. Just the three of them left and just the two of them awake and alone and the night out there haunting. There was a large television in the room with its cabinet doors open and a remote control beside his hand and it was so very quiet - he reached down and flipped it on.
Some movie channel. Some silly comedy. Slapstick and pratfalls and nothing even remotely serious and ten minutes into it the main character did something inane like jamming his hand in a drawer or something...
And they laughed.
Not loud. Not hard. But enough.
He turned and looked at her for the first time and she was lovely and smiling back.
Then he hid again in the screen.
They laughed some more. Not because it was funny. Maybe because it wasn't funny. It was stupid and mindless and so... easy. So silly and safe. And they laughed. And they drew closer and closer and when the film finally ended Felix had his arm around her shoulder and he turned to her and realized he stank and needed a bath.
She was already getting up.
"I've got to have a shower," she told him, rather shyly. He grinned. "Me, too."
"Oh!" she replied. "Do you want to go first?"
"No. I can use the other."
"But Cat's asleep."
"Yeah. Well, I'll wait."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. Go ahead."
"Really?"
And he looked at her and they laughed again.
"Okay," she said. "I'll just be a minute."
"Take your time," he called after her.
And meant it. Because he was scared again.
He stayed scared the whole time he listened to the water running and his heart beating because he knew...
He knew...
He knew he wasn't going to be able to do this.
He didn't know why. Not yet. Not clearly yet. He only knew it was so. And unfair.
"Okay!" she called out cheerily. "Your turn!"
He sipped the rest of his drink dry in one sip and stood up and puffed on his smoke and put that out. Then he walked into the bedroom.
Utterly, impossibly beautiful. Toweling her hair in the dim bedroom, the light from the bathroom soft from behind her and across her bare shoulders wrapped up snug and clean in a huge white towel and he didn't blame her for this. From first sight it had been the two of them, rich and strong and needing each other. What she was doing was not wrong. Simply more painful.
He got past her somehow and into the bright bathroom lights. He even managed to close the door behind him without slamming it shut. He got his clothes off and into the huge sunken shower that smelled like her and drenched himself but none of it would go away.
Why can't I have her? Why do I feel like I can't?
Why do I feel like I can't yet?
What the hell more do I have to do?
Sure, they're still out there and, yeah, they're still biting people. But that's not my fault! Christ! I've fought and fought and everybody else is dead. They killed everybody else. Am I supposed to feel unworthy because they haven't gotten to me yet? What kinda samurai bullshit is going on here? Is it a disease or something? The Jack Crow Samurai Bullshit Syndrome?
It's not fair!
I don't want to kick any more ass. I'm scared, dammit! It's unfair to feel like I'm supposed to.
To feel like I must.
I don't want to have that goddamned torch passed on to me. That torch kills people. It kills everyone.
"I don't believe this shit!" he shouted out loud into the cascading water.
But it was true.
But maybe it was only true... now. Maybe it was just part of the grief and the like. Yeah! That was it! I'm just rundown and tired and my comrades are gone and I feel like I'm taking advantage of them now but...
But that will pass.
Right?
Right?
He waited over an hour to come out. To sneak out, on tiptoe, bathroom lights already out before he opened the door.
She was asleep. At least she was lying still on the shadowy bed and that was good enough for him. He sneaked past her into the living room and found an extra cover in a closet there and wrapped up in it on the couch and turned off the light - all without making a peep.
Tomorrow this will pass.
Right.
Sometime in the night the sound of someone sobbing woke him up. He rose up on the couch and started to go to her but it stopped. Was that Davette?
Was that me?
Is this ever going to end?
The next morning she was sweet and friendly and gracious as if nothing had happened and he knew damn well he had hurt her feelings but...
But he didn't want to think about that now.
Cat came to a little later and he was shaken and ashen gray once more but he was back.
They talked about nothing while they ordered and waited for breakfast and then it came and they sat down together and ate it and it was somewhere in the middle of that meal that Cat had looked up at Felix and thanked him.
And Felix shrugged.
A few minutes later Cat spoke again: "So. What's the next move?" he asked Felix.
And Davette had looked to him as well, as if it was the most natural thing in the world - for him to decide.
He almost punched Cat again.
He wanted to say, Don't start looking to me, now, goddammit! I ain't carrying anything on.
But he did not say this. He was calm. He played the game and gave them what they wanted. He told them they would stay here, in the suite, until tomorrow afternoon, when they would go to the bishop's office, as planned, and pick up the documents and tickets for the nonstop to Rome that left the next day.
Calm. Reasonable. Leader-sounding, if that's what they really, really, fucking wanted.
But, he added silently, don't think this changes anything. This doesn't change shit.
We are out of the vampire business.
So they stayed in the suite. All that day and all that night. Room service food and movie channels and alcohol. When it got late, Cat went to crash in his bedroom. A few minutes later Davette went to the other.
Felix took his drink and went to the window and looked out over north Dallas.
Odd to be able to do that. When he had been growing up, there was nothing this far north. No shopping malls, no freeways, no high-rise luxury hotels. But now he could almost see his house. He could almost see hers.
That started him remembering, for some reason. He had loved that time. The money, the lovely homes and people. The country club parties. The debutante balls. He had always wanted to be a part of that because he saw it as more than just upper-class frivolity. It was a celebration of men and women, generation after generation of them, who were raised to shape the world. Maybe they were a little smarter? Because their parents had been smart enough to build so much and they had kids as smart as them?
Or maybe not. Felix had known a lot of dumb rich kids.
But still, the expectation had been there. You were expected to accomplish something. Invent something or at least manufacture it and make payroll and support your employees and expand something. Expand everything.
But I didn't. I didn't do shit. And here I am, waving goodbye.
Shit.
Is that why Davette's story had sunk so deep into him? Because it was about people ripping up the best of his past? The best of his memories?
Should I try to go in to see her now?
He had another drink. And another. He was drunk after the third and, well, the couch was right there.
And he didn't want to think about it.
The bishop's office staff at St. Lucius got very quiet when Felix walked in the next afternoon. There was another bishop there, filling in, who escorted Felix into the inner office and gave him the documents and tickets.
Then he asked what to do about the bodies.
Of Carl. Of the bishop. Of two of his aides. Everyone else on the bishop's staff, it turned out, had run to the church during the attack, where they had been safe.
But what to do about the bodies?
Felix didn't know enough to tell them. And he damn sure wasn't going to go out to the Blazer and bring Cat in to explain.
"Call Rome," he said.
"But what about your friend?" the bishop asked him. "I understand that his remains have already - "
"Call Rome," Felix repeated, then left.
It was still only late afternoon when he drove them back to the hotel. And the sunshine was bright on the great glass building and maybe that's what made it seem so like a prison.
Felix stopped the Blazer in front of the hotel entrance. The entrance to the connecting Galleria was less than one hundred yards away, with its shops and its people and... He realized he had cabin fever. Had it bad.
"Anybody want anything?" Felix asked them, suddenly.
Cat and Davette exchanged a smile.
"Sure," he said.
"Let's look," she said.
And they all grinned and Felix let the hotel park the car and they went inside and through the lobby to the mall doors and by the time they got there they were almost trotting. The mall was full of people strolling up and down, children skipping and pointing, old couples sitting on benches with their sacks between their legs. The place was four stories high and four blocks long, with the stores stacked on either side of the Great Atrium, which ran the length of it all. Topping everything was a great curved multipaneled skylight.
Retail heaven.
They almost did some actual shopping. After a few moments Davette saw something in a window that she liked, a pair of brown shoes. She asked the men what they thought of them and Cat and Felix said they were pretty, why didn't she buy them and she said she would.
But they just stood there, instead, looking into the window. Alter a few moments, they moved along down the mall toward the smell of food. Most of the restaurants were gathered in the center of the Great Atrium, on three stories overlooking a skating rink. There were steak houses and little bistros and Tex-Mex joints and Chinese food and two or three little bars.
They compromised on a bar that served food, finding a table that overlooked the skating rink.
And they sat down and had a drink and another drink and something to eat and watched the skaters and made comments about them. But they never talked about anything serious. Never. And they didn't leave. And the sun slipped slowly away.
What are we trying to prove, Felix wondered, when he realized they were going to stay.
What are we trying to deny?
An hour and a half later, with the skylight black above them, they saw the vampire.
Or noticed him, rather, which was the part that got to Felix.
That and the goddamned unfairness of it all.
Because they had been looking at him for some time before they realized what it was, before Davette's breath suddenly caught in her throat and the men looked at her, looked to where she was staring, at that same guy standing down there at that other bar...
And saw him. Really saw him for what he was.
It was a long, polished, curved wooden bar that skirted along the edge of the rink. Weary shoppers could pause, hop up on a stool, and grab a quick one without breaking stride. And then they might sit there a little longer, watching the skaters. And maybe have just one more drink before trying to find Uncle Stan's birthday present. Maybe they would just stay until closing.
The vampire was at the far end of the bar to their left, standing there alone pretending to drink something clear on the rocks. A few feet to his right, sitting alone, was a young woman in her mid-twenties with long legs and auburn hair and a stack of shopping bags piled around her stool and no one to save her.
Because we're the only ones who know, Felix thought bitterly. And we can't do anything because it's dark and...
And what? What?
The deception is what got to him. Just walking up and ordering something and spotting his prey and getting away with it. He could have sat down next to anyone - but us. Anyone could have sat down next to him.
Hell, I could go sit down next to him now!
And do what? Nothing. Die, maybe.
But I could do it. And he wouldn't recognize me, either.
Felix didn't know why that notion so intrigued him.
But then the hunt started and no one thought. They just watched.
It happened so fast. It happened so smoothly. Suddenly he was just there, closer to her. And they were talking. And then she was laughing and then she couldn't take her eyes off him and Felix turned to see if Davette could watch this, knowing what she knew. But she stared just like the men.
And it Went on and on until Felix just couldn't stand it any longer.
"Get the car," he told them.
Cat looked at him. "What are you planning - "
"Just get the car. Bring it around to..." He looked around. "Bring it around to that entrance over there. What is that? The west side? And wait for me."
"Felix," Cat began again. "Tell us what you're - "
"It won't hurt to find out where he takes her," was all he would say.
They left. Felix stayed. And watched.
When the new couple, master and slave, stood up from the bar, Felix checked his watch. Nine minutes. Nine lousy minutes between life and death. It was like watching a slow-motion traffic accident.
Felix paid the tab and trailed along behind them. It carried all half dozen of her shopping bags in one easy grip. The girl was on its other arm, smiling and looking hypnotized up to its face as they made their way to the exit.
They walked out the glass doors and to the edge of the sidewalk and waited there, talking, as if for a taxi. Felix meandered on around to one side toward the Blazer, parked several yards away.
He got in and told Cat, sitting behind the wheel, to pull away and around a line of parked cars before they got noticed. Cat obeyed. By the time he had steered them back around to where they could again see the couple, the limousine was there.
It was a long black Cadillac and it pulled to a smooth stop at the curb in front of the couple. From the driver's door stepped a tall pale man wearing a chauffeur's uniform. He stepped to the door closest to the couple and opened.
Davette gasped when the tall, handsome, silver-haired man stepped out.
"My God!" she whispered. "It's him!"
"Who?" the men demanded.
"It's him!" she repeated and turned to Felix. "The man who sent Ross to kill Jack!"
Felix hadn't taken his eyes from the man. "Are you certain?" he asked her in a strange voice.
"I'm positive. It's him. He's the one. I saw him twice. I...
"What?" Cat asked.
She tilted her head, staring. "I don't know exactly. It's just that... Well, he looks so familiar. I mean, he looked familiar then. And he still does."
Felix was still watching the silver-haired vampire as he got out of the limo, was graciously introduced to his procured victim, even more graciously - with many bows and flourishes - ushered everyone into the rear of the black car.
"Follow them," Felix said.
"Felix!" said Cat excitedly, "if this is the guy, then he's the one who's been after us."
"Well, Felix? Say something!"
"Just follow them, Cat," the Gunman replied and his voice was too hard and too dry for further conversation.
They all went to far north Dallas, past the yuppie suburbs and into the sprawling countryside, with its sprawling golf course and estates, to a fortress.
It didn't look like a fortress, not to an untrained eye. It simply looked like a glamorous, incredibly expensive country home. It just happened to have a seven-foot-tall rock wall around it and a black iron automatic gate and a gatekeeper's booth. Hidden along the wall, where you could only see them if you looked for them, were electric wires, electric lights, and, Felix could only assume, penetration sensors.
A fortress.
The limo had already turned into the gate and Cat was slowing down as he passed the entrance when Felix barked at him: "Speed up! Speed up! Go past! Don't let them notice this car!"
"I just wanted to see the name on the - "
Felix roared at him. "Move, goddamn you, Cat! Move the fucking car!"
Cat blinked, obeyed, hit the gas. They sped quickly past the entrance.
"Now," said Felix a mile later, "take us to the hotel." And his voice was calmer but his tone - his tone was still sharp ice. Cat and Davette exchanged a look but didn't speak throughout the trip. Felix sat alone in the back seat. He stared out the side window. He didn't move. But the pulse on the side of his neck throbbed rhythmically with the lights from passing traffic.
By the time they got back to the suite, Cat couldn't stand it anymore.
"Felix, dammit! If you had just let me see who it was!"
Felix eyed him with a scary calm. "Really?"
"Yes! Really. Just let me slow down enough to read the mailbox. Just let me get the bastard's name!"
Felix looked at him a moment, then carried his drink to a table next to the picture window that overlooked the lights of the city. He put the drink down without sipping it. And spoke.
"The bastard's name is Simon Kennedy."
"Of course!" Davette cried. "'I know that name. I've heard that name."
But Cat couldn't take his eyes off the Gunman's back.
"But you, Felix. You... you know him. Don't you?"
Felix turned slowly toward them and his eyes were hard to look at and his grin was a death-mask's grin.
"For fifteen years," he hissed.