F Paul Wilson - Novel 10

by Midnight Mass (v2. 1)

  "Who's he talking to?" she said.

  Considine shrugged. "Maybe Franco, maybe your friend. She should have arrived by now."

  The scars made Joe's face all but unreadable, especially on this small, grainy screen, but something about his body language set off warning alarms throughout her brain.

  "Do you have other cameras up there?"

  Leland grabbed his mouse. "One other that catches the atrium." Windows opened and closed on his computer screen, menus dropped down and rolled up. "Here we go."

  The scene that flickered to life on the screen froze Lacey's heart. Carole ... held prisoner by a Vichy.

  "Barrett!" Considine said over her shoulder. "Fucking Barrett. How'd you miss him?"

  "Who's he?"

  "Chief rat."

  Lacey pulled her pistol from her belt. "I'm going up there."

  "Not alone, you're not," Considine said.

  "Stay here," she said. "We need that tape."

  "These guys can handle that. Going alone is what got your friend in trouble." He was already heading for the door. "Let's move."

  Lacey followed him out into the hall. They were almost to the elevators when one of them chimed. The UP light glowed over the second set of doors. Considine went into a crouch and motioned her toward the near wall. Pistol fully extended, he hurried forward and flattened himself against the wall immediately to the right of the doors.

  When they slid open and a scraggly-haired head peeked out, Considine shot him in the face from six inches away. Lacey heard someone inside the car shout "Fuck!" as the shot man went down in a spray of red, landing in the doorway. The doors tried to close but the body blocked them.

  Considine knelt and, without turning his head, motioned Lacey down to the floor. Seconds later another Vichy burst from the car with a hoarse cry, spraying the hall with an assault pistol. As the bullets screamed over her head, Lacey returned fire along with Considine. She didn't know who hit him but suddenly he went into spin, falling one way while his weapon sailed in another. He ended up huddled against the wall, clutching his shoulder.

  Considine peeked into the elevator car, then stepped over to the fallen Vichy, picking up his assault pistol on the way. He turned him over with his foot and—to Lacey's shock—shot him in his good shoulder, then once again in the stomach.

  "Not exactly a kill shot," Lacey said as the Vichy screamed and writhed in agony.

  Considine's face was a grim mask as he returned to the elevator and pulled the first body clear of the door.

  "Not intended," he said.

  "We don't want to leave any live ones."

  He motioned her into the car. "That one we do. Between the messed-up shoulders and the gut shot, he's out of the fight."

  The doors closed and he pressed the lobby button.

  Lacey stared at him. "You've got something personal going on here?"

  Considine's eyes remained fixed straight ahead on the doors. His voice was dead flat. "Back in January two of this guy's buddies held me and made me watch while he raped my wife. Said if I didn't cooperate they'd pass her around the cowboys like that until they were tired of her, then she'd be turned and sent to kill me."

  Lacey swallowed. The terror, the humiliation this man had had to live with .. . she couldn't think of anything else to say except, "I'm sorry."

  "And now he's sorry. It should take him hours to die. If I'm real lucky, maybe a couple of days, every minute of it in excruciating agony."

  "My kind of guy," she said. He glanced at her. "That is, if I liked guys."

  JOE . . .

  Joe winced as he saw the point of the stiletto indent the flesh of Carole's throat.

  "Don't hurt her,"

  "Then stop dragging this out," Barrett said. "We make the switch and we all walk away free and clear." He smiled. "Until I come and hunt you down."

  Joe felt his strength beginning to slip. He glanced toward the observation windows. He couldn't see the glass or anything beyond, only a featureless blaze of white. The sun was nearing the point where it would suck off his energy and reduce him to a crawling weakling like Franco and his get.

  What could he do? If there was a way out of this, he couldn't see it. He could barely think.

  So close to success—ending Franco and all his get, no matter where in the world they were. Ending himself.

  Maybe that was the answer: shove Franco into the sun, and while his screams caused a distraction, make a leap toward Carole and Barrett.

  Did he dare?

  As if Barrett were reading his mind, he moved into the patch of sunlight, pulling Carole with him. Joe could barely look at them.

  "No funny stuff," Barrett said.

  Joe slumped. Now what?

  "I sense indecision," Barrett said. "Let me offer some incentive." He held up the stiletto, twisting it back and forth to catch the light. "Always wanted one of these, but they've been illegal for decades. Found it in the house I'm occupying. Snap it open and you feel like a juvenile delinquent from a bad fifties movie. But it's a good street-fighting knife. Know why? This slim little blade doesn't get caught up in clothing. Watch."

  With that he stabbed it into Carole's flank right below her ribs. Joe cried out as he saw her stiffen in pain and try to pull away. But Barrett had her by the neck.

  "Don't worry," he said. "The cut's only an inch or so deep. Nothing that'll do serious damage. But it can cause a lot of pain." He angled the blade. "Especially when I drag the point along a rib."

  Carole gasped as all the color drained from her face. Her knees buckled but Barrett held her up.

  "All right!" Joe shouted. "All right! Just stop it! Please!"

  Carole was shaking her head. "No!" He could barely hear her voice. "You can't!"

  Barrett jabbed her again and this time she screamed. The sound was like shards of glass being driven through his brain. He wanted to cry.

  "Carole, he's got us. We've lost this round."

  "Just as you'll lose every round," Barrett said.

  "I can't let this happen, Joseph," she gasped.

  What was she saying? Thank God she couldn't get her hands into her pockets.

  "It'll be all right, Carole."

  "Forgive me, Joseph, forgive me, Lord. I love you both."

  She turned her head, lifted her left shoulder, and bit something there that looked like a knotted thread.

  What's she doing?

  "Yeah, I know," Barrett said. "You love everyone. That's why you haven't a prayer of winning."

  Joe saw a string clenched in Carole's teeth, saw her close her eyes and jerk her head back.

  "No!"

  The explosion hit him like a falling slab of concrete, knocking Franco into him and sending them both flying. He lost his grip on Franco and slammed into the marble wall behind them, then tumbled to the floor. For a moment he lay there dazed, not sure of where he was, and then it came back to him.

  "Carole!"

  He struggled to his feet and looked around. Red . . . everything, including Joe, was splattered with red. The blast had shattered the observation windows and now a small gale rushed through the atrium.

  Where was Carole? He staggered around, searching, but could find no recognizable trace of her. There had to be something left, something more than the bits of flesh clinging to the walls. Something glinted in a corner: a single bloody handcuff.

  Gone . .. she was gone ... as if she'd never been.

  Movement caught his eye. The get-guards had been tossed around by the blast but were recovering now. They were crawling back toward the stairwell, dragging Franco with them, and licking the blood from

  the floor as they moved.

  With a cry of rage in a voice he didn't recognize, Joe lurched toward them. His strength was leaking away like water down a drain. Had to do this while he still was able.

  He grabbed Franco's ankle, ripped him free of the guards holding him, and dragged him toward the light. No hesitations, last words, no taunts, just finish the job he'd come her
e to do. He pulled Franco to his feet at the edge of the sunlit patch and shoved him forward with everything he had.

  Franco must have been an old one because he burst into flame as soon as the light touched his skin. His scream was musical, at least to Joe. He spun as his skin charred to black and his eyes bubbled in his head, tried to lunge back to the shadows but his legs wouldn't support him. He collapsed in a flaming heap. Joe fell back against the nearest wall and slid to the floor, arms open wide to embrace his oncoming death.

  LACEY . . .

  Lacey and Considine had reached the eightieth floor and were headed for the final elevator bank when the building shook. Lacey saw glass and debris rain past the windows.

  A sick certainty about what had just happened nearly drove Lacey to her knees.

  "Oh, no! Carole!"

  "Your friend?" Considine said. "What—?"

  She waved off his questions as she leaned against a wall and sobbed. Oh, Carole. Did you have to? Did you really have to?

  "Look," Considine said, "I know we decided to stay off the stairwell, but if there's been an explosion up on the deck, these elevators won't be trustworthy. We're going to have to take the stairs. You have a cross?"

  Lacey pulled one out of her pocket and handed it to him. "Here. But I've got a feeling we're not going to need it."

  He led her to the stairwell where they were backed up by a blast of smoke when they opened it. The air cleared quickly, however, propelled by the wind blowing through the doorway. The lights were still on, and they hurried up the steps.

  "What's that stink?" Considine said.

  "Dead vampires. Lots of them."

  "Why should they be dead?"

  Lacey gave him a quick explanation of get-death.

  "No offense," he said, "but I'll believe that when I see it. Sounds too much like wishful thinking."

  "That's how most people will react. Which is why we wanted to catch it on tape.

  On the eighty-fifth-floor landing they came upon the piled rotting corpses of Franco's get.

  "Believe me now?"

  "Jesus Christ. It's true." He looked at her with wide eyes. "That means..."

  "Yeah, that we're not beaten, that the living have still got a shot. But we have to get those tapes to people who can use them."

  She led the way over the stinking cadavers, stepping around them when she could, and on them when she couldn't. The door to the Observation Deck had been blown off its hinges and the wind flowing through it carried most of the stink away.

  Lacey hesitated at the door, afraid to go any further, but forced herself through. The carnage—the blood, the shattered marble, the stove-in elevator doors—stopped her in her tracks.

  "Jesus God," Considine said behind her. "What happened here?"

  Lacey said nothing, but she knew ... she could see the scene play out in her brain . .. Carole ran out of options and took Barrett with her.

  In the sunlight she saw a pile of charred, smoking, semi-molten flesh. That would be Franco. But Joe .. . where was Joe?

  "Uncle Joe?" she called. "Uncle—?"

  And then she saw him, curled in the fetal position in a corner, face to the wall. He wasn't moving.

  "Uncle Joe?" She hurried to him and turned him over. His eyes were closed and his scarred face was twisted into a mask of pain. "Uncle Joe, are you all right?"

  He opened his eyes and sobbed, "I was supposed to die, not her! But I'm still here and she's not!"

  Lacey didn't understand and didn't try to. He was weak as a newborn. She cradled him in her arms and they cried together. He had no tears but she had enough for both of them. They fell on his face, wetting his cheeks.

  Behind them Lacey heard a clatter from the stairwell and recognized Leland's voice. "What the hell happened here?"

  "I'm still trying to figure that out," Considine said. "Did you get it on tape?"

  "The cameras here went dead but I switched to one of the deck cameras in time to catch Franco's meltdown. Also caught his guards dying like poisoned rats on the stairs. What happened to them?"

  "Tell you later. Can you believe it? They did it! They liberated the building!"

  "I'd say they damn near liberated the whole city."

  "Hear that, Unk?" Lacey whispered. "We did it, you and me and Carole. And we can prove it."

  Suddenly Considine was hovering over them.

  "I just sent Leland downstairs. He's going to dupe the tape while Fowler finds a car for you two. We're going to put you on the road with a copy, then we're each going to get our families together and head west with our own copies. One of us has to get through."

  "I don't think I can get downstairs," Joe said.

  "You'll get down," Considine said. "I'm going to check the elevator. If it doesn't work, well, after what you just did, I'll carry you down on my back if need be."

  As Considine moved away, Joe squeezed Lacey's arm.

  "We can't leave Carole."

  "Carole left us, Unk. And she didn't leave anything behind."

  "Let me die," he whispered. "I want an end to this."

  "I know you do, but—"

  "I was Franco's get. I was supposed to die with him."

  So that was the reason behind the "If anything happens to me" mantra ... He was planning to go out with Franco.

  "I guess since you're not truly undead, you're not truly his get."

  "But I am. I have to die."

  "No way, Unk. You're going to see this through till the end. This is just a step, but we're on our way. We're going to push these slime bags back into the sea. And you and me, we're going to be there to see it."

  "Carole was our conscience, Lacey. She made us whole and kept us on track. What will happen to us without her?"

  "I'll tell you what'll happen. You and I will become the Terrible Two. We'll make those fuckers wish on the hell they come from that Sister Carole Hanarty was still alive to rein us in. They think they've seen trouble today? They haven't seen a goddamn thing."

  She thought she saw him smile as he closed his eyes and slipped deep into daysleep.

  "Hey!" Considine called from the other side of the atrium. "The elevator's still working."

  "Give us half a minute," Lacey said.

  She held her uncle tighter and rocked him like a baby.