“Move,” the driver demanded from behind them.
Jillian, Philip, and the others stepped into the light and into a room so large Jillian let out an audible gasp.
“Welcome,” a voice called, “to our gathering place.”
The strength going out of her legs, Jillian scanned the vast cavern. It reminded her of an ancient theatre. Or a sinister cathedral.
The room was at least sixty yards wide and bowl-shaped, like some amphitheaters on which Jillian had long ago acted. The kind that had been scooped out of the earth so that the stage was actually a couple stories belowground.
But this theatre was entirely underground. How far she couldn’t begin to imagine. Twenty stories? Forty? Who knew how many fathoms they had descended during their plunge? And not only was the circular theatre wide, it was incredibly tall as well. She guessed it was a hundred feet or more from where they stood to the shadowy upper reaches of the ceiling.
Jillian slowly pivoted, surveying the vast theatre and noticing the many fires banked in the crevices of the walls. More illumination emanated from lamps that depended from the ceiling, and like the fires flickering over the walls, the lamps gave off a spectral orange glow that reminded her of Halloween night, of leering jack-o-lanterns.
Earlier, Jillian had been too stunned to reflect on the limo driver vampire’s appearance, or on the reality that there were indeed vampires in the world. Since she’d begun working with her father, she’d witnessed many bizarre occurrences, been to many weird places, and had glimpsed a good many oddities at which the average person would scoff.
But a vampire?
Not even in her strangest nightmares had she dreamed the creatures truly existed. But the driver’s face, his fangs, his preternatural strength and his alabaster skin … what else could he be but a vampire? And the corpses littering the large room they’d just vacated …
She turned back to make sure the driver was still in his human state—he was—and was returning her attention to the little bald man when she caught a fleeting glimpse of movement beyond the driver, up in the walls where the flames danced despite the lack of breeze in the theatre. What she saw, she at first refused to accept. Then, her feet describing a slow, awestruck revolution, she realized she really was seeing what she’d hoped was just a nasty optical illusion conjured by her imagination.
The walls teemed with vampires.
Leaning against vertical pipes, perched on concrete outcroppings, standing on metal ledges … Jillian had no clue how many of them there were, but her mental estimate put the number between eighty and a hundred. They looked human in most ways. Their shapes were certainly humanoid, if a bit slender. Their disparate poses and postures were human as well. The figures leaning against pipes reminded her of drug dealers propping themselves against light poles, biding their time until the next victim happened along. The vampires sitting atop the various ledges and outcroppings reminded her of college kids hanging out on someone’s porch. But despite the familiarity of these images, there were key differences that distinguished the vampires from college kids and drug dealers. One was the eerie stillness with which they stood or sat. They might as well have been statues for all that they moved.
Statues, however, did not possess ravenous gazes. Jillian’s pulse began to pound as she took in those avid black eyes and the insatiable hunger they projected. Unthinkingly, she took a step closer to the person to her right and brushed shoulders with Eddie Maza. She stood there that way for a couple seconds, a part of her comforted by the man’s composure and the fact that he was human. Then she turned and looked into his eyes and was hit with a bleak epiphany: These three men are not the good guys. No, they might not drink blood or transform into fanged monsters, but they spill blood all the same; they’re still killers.
Eddie Maza’s impassive stare reinforced this notion. His dark eyes glittered very much the way the vampires’ eyes did. Eddie’s might not glow orange when he committed murder, but they didn’t have to change color to contain the same depthless malice. Jillian edged away from Maza, her eyes never leaving his. Seeming to catch her train of thought, Eddie Maza started to smile.
“All of you,” the bald man muttered, gazing up at Jillian and Philip. “Follow me.”
Philip took her gently by the arm and got her moving. They followed the little bald man, who led them along a kind of curving catwalk toward the stage, where several figures sat on large, ornately carved wooden thrones. Nearing the stage, she counted four men and two women. For the most part, the six figures were young, dark-haired, and physically attractive. Unlike the driver and the bald man, these vampires were well proportioned and exuded virility. One of the women had straight black hair and darker skin than the rest. The other woman looked like something out of the 1800s. Her hair was intricately braided and adorned with little white flowers. The dress she wore only furthered the impression she had time traveled to the twenty-first century from some bygone era.
The male vampires ranged from lean to brawny, but in all four cases, they appeared to Jillian to be physically formidable. Frankie must’ve felt the same way because his swagger had grown more pronounced, his chest thrown out, his bushy beard jutting toward the seated vampires in defiant haughtiness.
One of the throned vampires rose and approached Frankie Canelli. “You would do well to lose your blustering demeanor when in the presence of superior creatures.” The vampire was larger than the rest and spoke with less of an Irish accent. He wore an open-throated black shirt and black denim jeans.
“You know my name,” Frankie said. “I don’t know yours. That doesn’t seem fair.”
Frankie’s eyes, Jillian noticed, were slitted, but she detected something strained and taut in his voice.
The big vampire smiled. “I’m happy to introduce myself,” he said. “Name’s Quincy Morris.” He indicated the seated vampires. “This here’s Arthur Holmwood.” A handsome vampire with his hair in a ponytail nodded. “Next is Johnny Seward.” A bespectacled vampire gave them a jaunty salute. “The one next to him is Jonathan—”
“Harker,” Jillian finished.
The big vampire looked delighted. “Well, it’s about time we meet a person with some sophistication! But I’d expect no less from the daughter of a secret agent.” The big vampire who called himself Quincy Morris lumbered over to the women and placed a hand on the old-fashioned-looking one’s shoulder. “Would you like to hazard a guess as to this one’s identity?”
“Mina Murray,” Jillian said.
Lou Carboni was scowling at her. “Just how in the hell you know something like that? You friends with these freaks?”
“I’d be careful with that sort of talk,” the bespectacled vampire said.
“I’ll be what I wanna be,” Lou responded.
Jillian expected the vampire to attack then, but the bespectacled figure only looked on calmly while the big vampire explained. “You’ve obviously not read Dracula,” he said to Lou Carboni. “I shouldn’t be surprised by that, but I have to admit it astounds me that in this day and age there are still folks who aren’t familiar with the story.”
Frankie Canelli glanced around at the multitudinous pale faces regarding them from the shadows. “What, all of these are named after characters in the book?”
Several of the seated vampires and a great many more in the walls chuckled at this. The chorus of varied voices unnerved Jillian to an even greater degree. To her it sounded like the drone of midsummer cicadas, a noise she’d always found disturbing. The one calling himself Arthur Holmwood said, “To be sure, Dracula is an ensemble piece, yet I scarcely believe there would be enough character names to go around for our entire assembly. Wouldn’t you agree, Ms. Alcott?”
Jillian said nothing.
“Lemme guess,” Lou Carboni said. “You only get a name if you’re like, what? Vampire royalty? Which is kinda like the mob. Only a select few get to be made men.”
Quincy Morris folded his arms over his broad chest. “Not bad, Mr. Carbo
ni. You’re smarter than I gave you credit for.”
Jillian noticed that Philip wasn’t even looking at the vampires. He was watching Frankie Canelli instead, a marveling grin on his face.
“Seems kinda silly to me,” Frankie said.
Morris’s smile slipped a fraction. “You should control your goons better, Mr. Carboni. This one’s obviously not attuned to the gravity of his situation yet.”
Frankie seemed about to respond, but he caught the way Philip was staring at him and turned. “You got something to say, Pretty Boy?”
“You’re scared of them,” Philip said, an amazed smile on his face.
Frankie shook his head, fidgeted with his belt. “I ain’t afraid of nobody.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
Frankie licked his lips, let out a nervous chuckle that sounded to Jillian almost like a bark. “You’re seein’ things.”
“You’re a coward,” Philip said. “You’re only tough when you know you’re stronger than the other person.”
Frankie eyed him for a long moment. Then he said, “You know, we got interrupted earlier. I was explaining to your dream girl here. Oh—” Frankie put his fingertips to his lips as though he’d let slip a secret. “—man, I’m sorry about that. She wasn’t supposed to know, was she?” Frankie turned to Jillian with a sneer. “Yeah, Red. I’d wager Pretty Boy here would give his right arm just for a kiss from you.”
Philip colored at this but didn’t respond.
“Like I was saying,” Frankie continued, “I never got the chance to tell you why they call me Frankie the Snip.”
“We don’t care,” Jillian said.
But Frankie was not to be put off this time. “Naw, I need to demonstrate for you, Red. You’re gonna love this, I promise. Girl like you, type that has a crush on someone as violent as Michael Lazarus, Bloodshot, whatever you wanna call the freak … you must really enjoy the sight of blood, right?”
Jillian stepped between Philip and Frankie. “Don’t touch him,” she said. But a moment later Eddie Maza had her arm twisted behind her. Before she could squirm free, Maza cinched an arm under her chin and squeezed. The man wasn’t big, but his strength was terrible. Her sight went hazy for a moment, and then Maza loosened his grip just enough so she could breathe. She could move one of her arms and both of her legs, but the way he clutched her there was no question about her being able to escape.
Philip made a move toward Eddie Maza, but before he reached Jillian and her captor, Frankie had seized Philip and slammed him face down on the stage. Immediately Philip was pinned beneath the much larger Frankie, and like Jillian, Philip’s arm was pinned behind his back.
Frankie pulled out a yellow-handled tool. Jillian felt her blood go cold. She had no idea what the implement was called, but she could guess its purpose well enough.
Cutting.
Frankie opened and shut the implement, the sharp edges making a faint scraping noise. “These beauties are called aviation snips. I got all kinds of these babies at home in my private collection, but these are my favorites. They’re small, compact, and man are they sharp.”
Some of the onstage vampires were watching the exhibition with interest, but the one who hadn’t spoken yet, the red-haired vampire that went by the name Jonathan Harker, said, “Mr. Canelli.”
“Now what I do,” Frankie said, “is I start with the fingers.” He wrestled with Philip’s twitching left hand. “Most go for the pinkie or the thumb first, but I find that unoriginal. Taking the pinkie isn’t enough of a statement, and I always compare what I do to a Broadway show; you gotta open big. You start with the pinkie, that’s too much like you’re holdin’ back. Makin’ the audience suffer as much as the one getting snipped. But I don’t believe in that. It ain’t the audience should suffer, it’s the smart aleck gettin’ worked over.”
The vampire going by John Seward favored Frankie with an analytical stare. Tenting his fingers, he asked, “Why not the thumb?”
Frankie made a pained face. “Choppin’ off the thumb’d be like starting off with the grand finale. You do that, you got nowhere to go.” He shook his head, grabbed hold of Philip’s middle finger. “Naw, what I like to do, I like to lead off right here with Tall Man, that way you open big but you still got somewhere to go at the end.”
“Mr. Canelli,” the red-haired vampire said, his voice louder this time.
“Plus,” Frankie said, moving the snips closer to Philip’s middle finger, “I see it as symbolic. The middle finger’s the one that signals disrespect. By removing it first, I take away the guy’s ability to disrespect me.” He grinned crookedly. “At least with that hand.”
Jillian turned away, and as she did she saw the vampire who called himself Jonathan Harker spring to his feet and shout, “Don’t you understand what you’re about to do? Now put those snips down right—”
But it was too late.
Philip screamed.
And the theatre became a place of horror.
Philip let out a bloodcurdling shriek. Jillian thrashed in Eddie Maza’s grip, both because she wanted to help Philip but also because the insanity exploding in the theatre made composure an impossibility. All around the theatre vampires transformed into blurs of action, leaping out of their alcoves and springing off their perches. As one converging mass they swarmed toward the stage until, in a whir of appendages and snarling lips, one of the throned vampires bounded forward and stood, feet apart, at the edge of the stage. It was the one named Harker. Somewhere in Jillian’s tortured mind she understood that Harker was the only one whose words the vampires would heed.
And they truly were vampires now, slavering, growling beasts that had scented blood and were immersed in their single-minded pursuit. The horde of vampires was, for the moment, held at bay, but to Jillian’s horror, the five other vampires holding places of honor onstage had already risen from their thrones and were slowly, methodically stalking toward Philip’s thrashing form. Frankie still sat atop Philip’s bucking back, and to Jillian it looked as if Frankie Canelli wanted nothing more than to undo the damage he’d inflicted on Philip’s hand. Absurdly, he was shushing Philip, as though they could both blend anonymously in with their surroundings. Even more absurdly, she realized that Frankie was actually trying to hide Philip’s bleeding hand between their bodies as though the vampires would be fooled into thinking there had never been a bloodletting.
The vampire horde was clustered at the foot of the stage, some of the vicious creatures at the rear of the pack clawing and snapping to get closer to Philip’s blood. But they needn’t have bothered. The five vampires that had quitted their thrones—Quincy, Arthur, John, Mina, and the woman whose name Jillian hadn’t heard uttered—were battening onto Philip and puncturing his major arteries. The vampires bunched around the stage and began to surge forward, but Harker threw his hands up, and commanded them to remain where they were. Despite their obvious bloodlust, the horde of vampires obeyed. Mina bit down on Philip’s thigh, going straight for the femoral artery. Philip let out a heartbreaking squeal of agony and fright, but soon he began to pale and his resistance grew sluggish. Of course, Jillian only caught glimpses of this dreadful process because her eyes had filled with hot, stinging tears, and for much of Philip’s death she found herself averting her eyes. She became aware of a panicked humming sound and only when Philip’s body finally ceased to spasm did she realize the sound was coming from her own throat.
The red-haired vampire called Harker persisted in holding the crowd at bay, uttering soothing words and promising them their time would come. Frankie Canelli, who had blundered away from Philip just as the vampires began their merciless repast, stood panting beside Lou Carboni, a shell-shocked look in his beady eyes.
“Gotta … gotta get outa here,” Frankie panted. “We gotta get outa here now, Louie.”
“Don’t worry,” Lou Carboni said under his breath. “We’re going.”
Without turning, the one named Harker said, “You’re not going anywhere.”<
br />
Lou blinked at him. “Come again?”
“There are four of you left,” Harker said, pivoting slowly in their direction. Eddie Maza still clutched Jillian’s arm, but he’d let off the pressure some, apparently deciding her resistance would diminish now that Philip was dead.
Lou laughed. “What’re you gonna do, kill all of us?”
Harker didn’t smile.
Frankie glanced from Harker to Lou and then back to Harker again. “Oh, now, hold on a second. This whole thing was to get Lazarus, right? I mean, that’s why the big guys in our outfit decided to work with you all.”
“That was indeed the agreement,” Harker said.
“So what’s your problem?” Lou asked, taking a couple steps forward. He jabbed an index finger toward the vampire limo driver, who’d been standing patiently aside with the little bald vampire while the others fed on Philip. “First this guy, he threatens to kill us if we don’t go down into the sewers with him. Then he pushes us all down that damned chute, for which by the way I’m gonna send you my chiropractor and dry cleaning bills. Then you tell us you’re gonna kill all of us? I don’t know how it is back in Dublin.” Lou grinned at Eddie and Frankie, glanced back at Harker. “But here in the Big Apple, that’s not how we do business. Here in NYC we got a thing called honor.”
Harker nodded toward Philip’s unmoving body. “Was it honorable when your friend here cut off this man’s finger?”
Frankie scratched the back of his curly head, shrugged. “I was making a point. You guys are the ones who killed him.”
Harker chuckled softly. “Quite.”
“So I figure we’ve done our part and then some,” Lou went on. “You got the girl, which means Lazarus will be coming soon.” He ruffled Jillian’s hair, proceeded past her toward the catwalk. Eddie released her and joined Frankie and Lou in moving that direction. “Now if you don’t mind,” Lou called over his shoulder. “My boys and I are gonna find our way out of this freak show.”
Bloodshot: Kingdom of Shadows (Kindle Worlds) Page 9
