Vampire$

Part Two Chapter 18

 
By the time they were ready to go again, there were only ninety minutes left until sundown.
Not so good, thought Jack Crow. But he kept it to himself along with everything else and hurried them along.
The trouble was, they had had so much to do:
A portable generator for power to their spotlights.
Two extra spotlights to protect those that were smashed.
A new cable.
They had removed what was left of both elevator doors.
They had fixed the front door.
And of course they repaired the walking wounded. Cat's nose was broken. Jack had sutures on his cheek. Felix had a bandage on the edge of his forehead. And Carl Joplin had damn near lost all his teeth.
He hadn't lost a one yet. But he should have. Seems the first time he tried dragging the girl out, she had just torn the Blazer's rear bumper completely off. The second time he had used a police car, actually wrapping the cable around the engine block and getting a much faster start so that he was going almost twenty miles an hour when he ran out of slack.
But she had stopped the police car dead and Carl had gone right through the windshield and his face was cut in what looked like a hundred different places and his lips were split and all his front teeth were loose to the touch. Somehow he had managed to keep his lead foot on the throttle through the whole thing and, therefore, saved their lives.
Or at least kill her, which was what counted.
Cat still managed to bitch at him about being slow and Carl had angrily snarled back that he had changed cars and gotten moving again within thirty goddamn seconds and let's see Cat do it that fast and Cat had asked him if he knew how far a vampire could move in thirty seconds?
"How far?" he snorted.
"Nobody knows, Joplin," Cat shot back, "because there's so many oceans in the way!"
And it was meant to be funny but no one really laughed because they were all going to have to do it again two more times in an hour and a half and...
And nobody thought this was going to work.
Jack knew this, saw it in their faces, and didn't care, didn't give a shit because there was no other choice!
So, "Rock and roll," be barked and got his cast inside again, into the dusty glare of the spolights and the cool dryness Of the air conditioning, which had stayed working all along somehow. While the others got into their positions, Jack walked over and looked at the elevator car. Pig's blood and broken glass were all over the walls and ceiling. There was a large pool of it on the floor.
Jack had nothing to replace their bait. No more blood. No other aquarium. But he thought, from the memory of her feeding frenzy, that just that pool on the floor would be enough to entice.
Or maybe not, bethought calmly and lit a cigarette. What does it matter?
"We're all going to die anyway," he muttered and then caught himself. Did he say that? Hell, did he say that out loud?
And he turned and looked at the others, at Cat clambering back atop the elevator, at the priest with his crossbow and the deputy with his puny pike and at the gunman with his dark thoughts and dark skills and he thought...
He thought: Why are we doing this? Why? This is crazy!
And that scared him most of all because he had never, in all the fears and kills and slaughtered friends, had such thoughts. And he wondered if he was going soft and then another part of his head stepped forward and quietly whispered that anyone can be pushed too far and there is such a thing as too much and for just an instant the desire to quit was so strong he thought he would weep.
But he did not.
Neither did he work it out. Not at all. He just stood there for a few seconds to be sure the tears had stopped welling and then mechanically shoved himself ahead, going through the motions instead of dealing with it and feeling like a cheat whenever he met another's eyes because he knew they would never try again unless they thought he believed and... Did he?
"Rock and roll!" he muttered angrily one more time, because none of this shit really mattered, because it still had to be tried, because...
Because... well, because "Rock & Roll," dammit!
And he looked around and made sure everyone was in place and set to go and then he just damn well got on with it.
The screens monitoring the cells were clear of streaks or ghostly movement, which only meant they weren't moving around down there, so Jack reached forward and flipped a switch to send the elevator down a second time and give 'em something to move for..
There was some creaking and groaning from the battered elevator car but it started down. Without doors on it, all could see it move, see its ceiling pass the floor, see the cables and wires sprouting from the top, see it stop with a truly horrible sound of grinding twisting metal.
And stay stopped, within six inches of the floor.
Jack muttered something under his breath and tried the switch again. The car acted like it wanted to move, sort of shivering in place, but it basically wouldn't budge. Jack sighed and flipped the switch off.
"You want me to call Carl?" asked Father Adam.
Jack stood up from the screens. "I don't know. Hold a second."
"I think," offered Cat from his perch atop the elevator shaft, "that it's just stuck on something."
"Okay," replied Crow. "Everybody else hold tight."
He walked around the TV screens, still carrying his crossbow, and went over to have a look. With his free hand he picked up one of the spotlights and took it with him, the cord hissing dryly behind him as he walked.
Cat hopped down to the - floor as Crow got there and pointed down at a corner of the shaft.
"Looks like it's jamming up in there somehow."
Crow nodded, put his crossbow down, and lit a cigarette.
"It's never worked really great," offered the deputy from just behind him.
Crow turned to the voice and saw that everyone, even Felix, had crowded up behind him to see.
Are we undisciplined? wondered Crow to himself. Or just afraid to be alone?
But he said nothing, just puffed on his cigarette.
It was almost like, he thought idly, Somebody was trying them not to do this.
Well, fuck that!
"Here," he said to Cat, holding out the spotlight, "hold this."
Cat took the light, frowning. "What are you gonna do?"
"I'm gonna get this sonuvabitch unstuck," growled Crow and stepped up to the edge.
What Crow was planning to do was just step on the roof there, on that corner Cat had pointed to, and just sorta hop up and down until he felt something give and then go back to Carl's little remote control box and try again.
And he'd begun doing that. Stepping out onto the top of the car, bracing himself first on the edge of the doorway and then on the walls of the shaft itself. And the whole assembly groaned and creaked when he stepped on it and he could feel it giving just a little right away and he thought about jumping back out before it fell or something but then it seemed to be more or less stable so he stayed put. But he looked quickly around for something to grab in case the whole damn thing went and as he did his eyes crossed across the hole they'd cut in the roof for Cat to drop his gas balloons and he saw, there on the floor of the elevator car, a brand new hole, a hole that had been torn in the floor, a hole that hadn't been there five minutes ago, had it?
And then something obscured his view and he saw and recognized the face, that face...
"Oh, my God..."
And the face smiled and said, "Crow" in that voice.
Crow was throwing himself backward out of the shaft to safety when the top of the car blew out and the air was filled with shrapnel and everybody else hit the deck and Jack, still on the floor, grabbed his crossbow out of Cat's hands and yelled, "Get back! It's him!"
But it was too late. He had already begun to rise from the hole he had just made and it was really the effortless way he did this that froze them so. The way he simply raised himself with the grip of a single beautiful hand, almost levitating toward them, his power and eyes and smile and terrible beauty so alien but so familiar, so pale but so solid, so horrible but so magnetic.
He wore black leather boots that laced to just below the knee and black ballet tights and a black silk sash and a huge white billowy shirt and he was magnificent and beautiful and scary and ungodly strong and the instant, almost spasmodic, desire to harm him was strong and deep and true but so, somehow, was something just as strong and deep - the itch to do something that would make him smile.
But he was smiling already as he strode casually toward them.
Jack took a step back and raised his crossbow.
He/It smiled more broadly and the white teeth against that pale skin surrounded by the fall of curly jet-black hair and... The headband, Jack thought. He's wearing a white headband. That means something.
Doesn't it?
And he raised the crossbow higher.
"Crow," it said and its voice filled them. "You and your wooden stakes. When you are one of us, we'll have a big laugh together about them."
This was looking grim.
"Everybody back," ordered Crow. "Back away and out."
But before anyone could move, the voice came once more: "Too late. You've let me get too close."
And he/it took another casual step toward them.
"Get back!" ordered Crow again over his shoulder. "Move it!"
And they started to obey but the vampire took another step and Jack raised the crossbow all the way then, to firing position, and said, "Hold it there."
And the thing laughed and said, "Are you joking? Why? I'm not one of my women..."
"Stop!" said Jack Crow.
And the thing smiled more and showed the big teeth and said, "Stop me."
And Jack Crow said, into his radio headset, "Hit it, Joplin!" and fired his massive crossbow at point-blank range.
The vampire caught it. In midair.
And then it took the baseball-bat-sized arrow bolt in both hands and, with a flick of his wrists, like a breadstick, broke it.
And the cable went taught and the piece still connected was zipped out of sight through the door and the vampire laughed again.
"You fools!" it said. "Did you really think you could slay gods and face no penalty?"
And it took the other half of the bolt, the pointed end, and hurled it straight down at its feet and the point disappeared completely out of sight into the floor.
Felix's gun was in his hand. He raised it.
The vampire turned sharply to him at the motion.
"You point that toy at me and I will, quite literally, rip your spine from your body."
Felix damn near dropped the pistol to the floor. Just from that voice.
Crow wasn't finished.
"Lights!" he yelled and keyed his on and there was a brief pause but then every one of them did the same and the halogen crosses burst forth and crisscrossed the wicked form and the thing frowned and winced and took a step back and raised a hand to shield his eyes.
"He doesn't like it!" announced Crow excitedly.
But the vampire just snorted in derision and said, "Why no, Crow. I don't like it. But this won't kill me either."
And it took a step forward once more.
"Anything else?" it asked and the voice was dry and sarcastic. "Garlic, maybe? Rabbit's foot?" And it looked straight at Crow. "Well, Pope's little altar boy. Very well."
And he started toward Crow and they all saw, in the glare from their lights, the clear liquid seeping from beneath the headband and suddenly Crow understood and, better, so did Felix. The silver-cross wound. The wound that would not heal.
Felix raised his pistol.
"I told you not to do that!" snapped the monster.
"So you did," replied Felix and fired three times and got him maybe two times? At least once, for sure, for sure, and then Team Crow scattered as one for the exit, for that big broad double door with sunshine beyond it and Felix skidded he took off so fast - had no idea where the monster was, he had practically disappeared he had moved so fast and then Felix felt this rush of air past his cheek and thought, My God, could it be? Could anything move so fast? It couldn't already be in front of me.
The monster loomed in front of him, glaring pale in the bobbing halogen cross. It reached forward and snatched the pistol from Felix's hand and, hissing slow and deep and wet, raised the gun in front of Felix's face and... squeezed it... and crushed it.
Crushed it like it was made of soft chocolate.
And Felix, unarmed and helpless, thought of this hissing thing which could rush thirty feet when he could only make two steps - with a bullet in it. This thing that could crush an automatic revolver.
And he looked into the blood-red eyes and saw the fangs go back and knew he was going to die... when the double doors came open fifteen feet behind the vampire, and from head to heels, he burst immediately into scarlet pulsing flame.
The monster turned instinctively toward the pain, and ice-cold spittle splashed Felix as the monster's face spun away from him and for just an instant the two of them, the monster and the gunman, saw Carl Joplin large and fat standing holding the doors open, huffing and puffing and then the monster was looking at Felix again and screeching and Felix knew it would kill him as it raced past him into the shadows and he drew and fired his second Browning and the silver bullet made a neat hole in the dead center of the headband and Felix dropped to the floor to avoid those claw/hands that flashed but the monster was already gone in a howling streak of scarlet popping flame, across the floor, all fifty feet of it and slamming into the elevator shaft and down through the hole it had made and out of sight.
And the howling. And the flicker of red flame still hanging in the air and reflected in the elevator shaft.
Then quiet. Quiet. The flame dissipating. Quiet. Still.
Felix looked up from his squat on the floor and saw all the others. They hadn't managed to move five feet the entire time and now they just stood there and stared at him and he thought: it was me, all me, just killing me, just flashing fangs at me.
Then he thought no more but to run, with all the others, toward the light. And then crouched over hands on knees and panting on the front steps in the sunshine, Jack Crow ordered Carl Joplin to keep those doors open, to prop 'em open if he had to.
Felix and the others, Deputy Thompson and Cat and Father Adam - all of them - nodded when Crow said this. Yes, yes, keep those doors open. Keep that sunlight streaming in. Keep it back, back downstairs. Down in the cells underground and out of reach.
Felix caught his breath and saw the others looking at him. He looked away, dammit, from those slow lucky ones, and back into the jail.
And the others, all of Team Crow, followed his gaze and looked and thought and knew they were thoroughly beaten.
Whipped.
We could never take that guy.
That god?