by J. F. Lewis
I wasn’t proud of it, but it all boiled down to the bliss of ignorance. If I knew for sure what was going on with Rachel, or with Roger, then I might have to take action and the truth was that I just didn’t want to do that. Why would I? Let’s say your spouse is good to you, treats you right, and you have a long happy life together. Do you really want to find out fifty years down the road that she hated your guts the whole time or that for thirty of those years she’d been banging the milkman every Monday and Wednesday? If it were me, I wouldn’t. Does that make me a bad person?
A little voice in my head told me that I was a bad person regardless. Everything else was just a bonus.
26
ERIC:
AGORANAUT
Bald Mountain wasn’t much of a mountain compared to the Rockies or the Smokies, but it was big enough to count. Oak, dogwood, and pine trees made up most of the surrounding forest. The bulk of the land had been designated a state park in the late thirties or early forties. For two dollars, anyone could get a day pass to visit the park from about seven a.m. until sunset. They also had overnight passes for campers and areas set aside for RV parking. I hadn’t been out to Bald Mountain since Marilyn and I had been dating. The picnic area was different and there was a conservation center, but the park itself looked surprisingly familiar.
Rachel looked beautiful in the light that poured between the trees and in through the windshield. If I squinted just right, I could pretend she was Marilyn. It took me back to my last picnic. Roger, Marilyn, and I had gone to the park in my Mustang, top down, the wind blowing through our hair. Marilyn drove that day and I’d let Roger ride up front. The ice chest sat next to me on the bench seat. Back then, the grilling stations in the picnic area had been new. All we had to supply was the food, the charcoal, and the fire.
The fire. I’d caught Marilyn looking at me in the rearview mirror. I’d forgotten it on purpose, that look…a sad look with I-don’t-know-how-to-tell-you eyes. I buried it again.
Rachel looked over at me, the way you look at an angry dog who’s cornered you. Her hand touched my leg tentatively. “Is there something wrong?”
“Why?”
“You just…um, the link, it goes both ways a little and, I don’t know, you felt lost.”
I turned my head. Outside the window, the leaves were rich and green. “Only for the last forty-three years,” I whispered.
It had never occurred to me before, but I’d now been undead longer than I’d been alive. My vampiric existence had eclipsed my human life, and it seemed like each year beyond that balance eroded me more. Forty-three years of undeath. It seemed longer. My watch was still broken. “What month is it?” I asked.
“It’s August, Eric,” Rachel told me.
The leather outfit she’d brought me would have looked more natural on a rock star like Marilyn Manson. It did cover my whole body, though, and it was real leather, so it could probably take a beating. The mask had zippers where I thought it ought to have holes, but it wasn’t noticeable with the helmet on. Over the suit’s gloves, I wore a pair of work gloves secured with duct tape. I had the legs of the jumpsuit tucked into a pair of steel-toed work boots, secured like the gloves. Between the tinted goggles and the tinted visor, the sun didn’t hurt my eyes that much, but my vision was restricted to whatever was directly in front of me.
“What day?” I asked.
“Monday,” she answered.
“Monday the what?”
“Monday the ninth,” she answered, looking over at me. “Why so interested?”
I watched the trees go by, noting each hiking trail we passed. Rachel was doing a good job playing chauffeur. After I’d hung up with Magbidion, I’d had Carl drive a loaner out to me. It was a rusted-out hunk of junk with no air conditioner, but that just showed Carl’s intelligence.
It was always a crapshoot when it came to me and loaners. He knew that I would pay for damages, but we both felt better about it if he loaned me cheap cars…just in case. No sense in throwing money away. The heat didn’t bother me, but Rachel was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and her deodorant wasn’t keeping pace with demand.
“Roger will have something big planned for tomorrow. Something drastic…probably his big finale.”
She looked confused. “How do you figure that?”
“It’s my birthday,” I told her.
“That’s great! How old will you be?”
My sense of Greta grew stronger as we passed a turn and then started to grow fainter. “Turn around and go back,” I ordered. “She’s down that road.” Rachel made a three-point turn and headed down the road I had indicated.
“This way?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, we’re getting close.”
“How old are you going to be?” she asked again.
“I don’t remember,” I said distractedly. I was turning forty again. I turn forty every year, but it never sticks.
Greta was screaming in a metal box. Rage reached up into my chest. I could see the box clearly. Men—werewolves in human form—were taking turns rolling the box over and shaking it back and forth. Greta’s cries were louder than my thoughts. Something inside me roared, but made no sound.
“Sweet Jesus!” Rachel swore. I guessed she’d felt that one along our link.
“Stop the car,” I commanded.
Brakes squealed as Rachel slammed her foot to the floor and the car turned sideways, sliding as it went. We came to a halt at the edge of a drainage ditch that directed the camping area’s runoff under the road as it ran downhill. The car had rotated one hundred and eighty degrees from where we had started, facing back down the way we’d come. I stepped out of the car and looked back at Rachel. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, go home.”
I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I ran down the slope into the drainage ditch and started scrambling up the rise in front of me. Greta was on the other side of the hill.
My mental picture of the campground grew clearer and clearer the closer I got. As I topped the hill, I saw the first werewolf, a lookout. He looked human, but even through the visor of my helmet, I could smell him. He’d been a wolf recently. We both froze, momentarily stunned. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, an inexperienced fighter, so it was no surprise that I recovered first. I put my fist through his chest and it came out on the other side holding his heart. Young or old, these werewolves were my enemies and anyone who wanted to live had better change sides quickly.
His body rolled halfway down the hill and stopped when it hit the base of a pine tree. His pack would smell the blood soon. I broke into a run and hit the campsite as soon as I cleared the tree line. A group of tents was arranged in a circle around one large tent. Garlic cloves hung on ropes over the entrances and each tent had a cross painted on all four sides. It was definitely not a vampire-friendly zone.
On the far side of the camping area, RVs with out-of-state tags were parked in double rows. Not a good sign. I’d already seen the kind of help William was rounding up and I didn’t want to get in a fight with more fun-loving representatives of the Lycan Diocese.
Two men—werewolves—saw me walk into the camp. I staggered like I’d been injured and they rushed toward me. Before they reached me, the taller one slowed down, his eyes widening. “Chuck, no! It’s a—” I grabbed Chuck by the shoulder blades, hooking my fingers into his collarbone for leverage, and tore him open at the chest, his sternum popping, ribs gaping apart. His buddy staggered away from me.
It was probably the sunlight that confused him. Even though I was expected, vampires are creatures of the night. The werewolves were used to hunting us inside houses, sewers, crypts, or apartments during the day. Was it possible that I was more frightening in the light? I wiped my visor with the back of Chuck’s shirt and charged his pal.
“Vampire!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. We ran at each other full tilt. He transformed as he ran, shedding teeth. He swiped at me with his claws and the blow caught me just right, turning my lea
ping dodge into an out-of-control tumble through the air. I cannonballed into one of the tents, crumpling it, tent poles snapping. The fabric wrapped around me completely, blocking my vision of all but bright blue tent flap. I’d landed within a few feet of the metal box; I could feel Greta inside.
I struggled out from under the tent as the werewolf landed next to me. Reaching out, I grabbed him by the muzzle and threw him hard and high into the bough of a nearby oak.
The box. I spun quickly, searching, and saw it. They had welded the box shut, and it looked like a professional job. I also found the folks who had been rolling it around. Six men and two women were gathered around the metal container, taking turns rocking it from side to side. A handful of children stopped playing and ran for the big tent. The adults started to change and more werewolves began pouring out of the other tents and the RVs. I counted at least forty. There was no way I could outfight them all, not in the daytime. I grabbed a little boy and a little girl by the scruffs of their necks and I felt like scum when I did it.
They both screamed for their mommy and one of the female werewolves turned human again. “Please, no!” It was a standoff. The males started circling, but kept their distance as I walked toward the box. The females who were still in werewolf mode backed slowly away from me, but the one in human form stayed put. I heard the tent flaps flutter behind me and I spun around.
“Don’t make me hurt them!” I shouted.
I hoped they would buy it, because I already knew I wouldn’t do anything to the kids. The little boy might have been as old as eight, and the little girl was only four or five. I couldn’t have killed either of them.
A tall man stepped out of the tent. He was six foot five and had dusty blond hair. I couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but he looked like a real mountain man. A foot-long wooden cross hung from his belt, the base sharpened to a point. A smaller metal cross hung from his neck over a flannel shirt.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” he spat.
“You called,” I said acidly. “I came.”
William didn’t look fake when he transformed. No weird latex-looking skin, no fur turned all the wrong way, and when he moved, it was smooth, not the jerky stop-motion effect I’d seen so often. That alone would have earned him the Alpha title in my book. Pure white fur covered him from head to toe, and he stared at me angrily from behind ice-blue eyes. “How dare you threaten children?” The voice rang more in my head than in my ears and it was angry.
“Fuck you, pal,” I shouted back. “You see, believe it or not, I haven’t done a damn thing to you. Your son got lured into an alleyway by a vampire stripper and, as weird as it sounds, she used a magic gun to kill him. I wound up playing the scapegoat. I think her boss wants me to kill you, but I’m still working on why.
“As for the stripper who killed your son, not to mention your packmates out at Orchard Lake—she’s dead now. I had my girlfriend track her down and kill her. If you want, you can have her ashes. All I want is my daughter back and for you guys to back off.”
“Liar!” William’s huge clawed hands shook with rage as he bared his fangs at me. “My son was pure. He would never consort with some vampire whore.”
“Have you ever gotten a blow job from a woman who doesn’t have to breathe? Trust me, he’d consort.”
“No more of your lies, vampire. I know what you want and we will never surrender our land to one of your kind. No matter how many dead you lay on our doorstep, we will not give in.”
“Land? What do you think this is, the Louisiana fucking Purchase? Let’s try it this way. I don’t want to kill you. I didn’t even bring any silver with me. Hell, I didn’t even bring the magic gun with me.” Which, by the way, I was already regretting. “I just want to be left alone. If you can’t do that, then we have a problem and if we have a problem, I’m going to have to put you and your little wolf pack down.”
“Those two children you hold in your hands are sinless, vampire. If you kill them, we shall not be sad, but shall rejoice. They will fly to their Heavenly Father and join him forever in paradise. We, unlike you, are living, breathing creatures of God. We worship in many ways, but we all worship, and he will send us more soldiers to fill our ranks and more pups to fill our hearts.” He looked meaningfully at his pack when he spoke, trying, I thought, more to convince them than to persuade me.
I saw grim commitment in the eyes of the gathering pack, some of them wearing crosses, some clutching crucifixes, even a few wielding Stars of David. They didn’t like it, but most of them would do whatever he told them.
“Kill it,” he shouted.
I mouthed an obscenity as he struck. I wouldn’t have had time to break the children’s necks even if I’d been willing to do it. He was faster than anything I’d ever seen, faster than me, faster than Talbot. His huge white paws smacked my helmet with lightning speed and it shattered. The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” played through my mind. Now I had definitely beaten El Segundo.
27
ERIC:
POWERHOUSE
I’d been on fire before and it usually made me feel like an idiot. Often, when I ignited, it was a result of forgetting what time it was or watching an impending sunrise just a little too long. This time it made me angry. Claws tore at my clothes, and as each strip of fabric fell away, new pain erupted. But hey, at least I was warm.
Part of me wondered if it wasn’t better this way, to die on Bald Mountain, in the sun on a breezy day in August. The other part of me told the suicidal part to shut the fuck up and fight.
It only took a few seconds for the flames to completely engulf me. I wondered if I looked anything like the Human Torch or if it was more like one of those movie stuntmen. Several werewolves were laughing and the mama werewolf was fussing over her children. I was just as glad as she was that they were safe. Then I heard a single word that changed everything.
“Daddy!” It was Greta. She could feel me burning, even through her own pain. People say that monsters only come out at night. Mine came out right then. Rage doesn’t even begin to cover it. Steel bands snapped inside my chest and chains pulled free of their wall mounts.
Suddenly, I could see. The flames were out and everyone looked a little shorter. Tendrils of smoke rose off dark black skin that I didn’t recognize as mine. It didn’t look charred. It was smooth and sizzled softly in the sun. I tried to move, but couldn’t. My whole body had gone numb and useless, as if I’d been staked through the heart, but then it started moving of its own accord. I could see and hear, but something else was in the driver’s seat.
The thing I had become held up its arm and high-pitched squealing filled the air, joined by the sound of a few thousand wings. Clouds of bats and birds swarmed overhead, blocking out the sun. My opponents looked on in silence as the sky turned black. My new skin stopped sizzling. William looked up at me and crossed himself. Several of the others presented their holy symbols and began to pray in Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, and English. The super vamp I had become roared and started toward them.
No! Wait! I started yelling inside my head. Get Greta, jackass!
There was no response from Ericzilla. It was more like watching the demo for a first-person shooter video game than actually being me. Two werewolves jumped at me in slow motion. Uber vamp speed was unbelievable. I darted forward, plucking both werewolves from the air and tearing them into quarters, not just killing them, but mangling them with a purpose. If this was what happened when I blacked out, then I wished I would black out again, because I really didn’t want to see this.
Blood jetted in lazy streams from the werewolves’ remains as I struggled with all my might to regain control. If I could even just turn my head toward Greta…Instead, I was forced into the skies as the uber Eric darted down at another unlucky werewolf, pulling it up into the air and tearing off its head with talon-tipped fingers.
There was no doubt that I could destroy the entire pack this way, but if I did that and then suddenly found myself back at
the wheel, standing over the bodies, the living curtain of wings would probably disperse, and Greta and I would both be fried. My death would have been fast, and right now I almost welcomed it, but hers would be prolonged and torturous. I couldn’t abide that.
Stop screwing with the werewolves and get Greta out of the box, you dumb fucker! I yelled at Ericzilla. She’s going to die in there if you blow this! If you can even pick up a single thought, you cave-brained bastard, then open the damn box!
Another werewolf entered the shredding zone and went from living thing to flesh-chunk confetti with bright red liquid streamers. Either I had slowed or the pack was speeding up. They were doing their best to fight against me, and so was I. Then, the two little kids wolfed out and my uber vamp body turned on them. I tried with every bit of mental strength to stay the death that awaited those children; They’re just kids, I shouted mentally. We are here to get Greta, shit-for-brains! So get Greta and get us the fuck out of here!
I pictured myself standing in front of the uber Eric, blocking the children and pointing at the box. My mental image head-butted the black-skinned beast and kicked it in the groin. When that didn’t work, I fought dirty. I showed him the night I’d first found Greta, lying bruised and bloody in her foster father’s bed. She’d been nine. The uber vamp howled. You remember that? I shouted. You want to be like that, like the human so evil I wouldn’t even bite him?
Greta is in that damn metal box right over there and she needs me! Comprendez? I had my mental image walk over to the box and rip it open. Greta was inside and I imagined myself ripping open a vein and spraying blood like my arm was a fire hose to heal her wounds.
Uber Eric paused and time returned to normal. Ten werewolves piled onto me, clawing and biting like mad to take my uber vamp body down. Had I gotten through? Did it, whatever was driving, understand? I began to suspect that it had, because it slowly turned, ignoring the wounds and the werewolves, looking for the box. Black blood flowed down one of my arms from a multitude of cuts and bites. I couldn’t feel it, but it looked painful.
