The Devil's Gunman

by Philip S Bolger

  “You’re dead, Soren!” a voice rasped from the living room. “We’ve got friends on the way!”

  “They’re too late to save you,” I shouted back.

  I heard a snarl and a burst of gunfire. Rounds peppered the hallway, knocking a photo of Collette at Disney World to the ground. There was a pause, then he fired again, shooting blindly toward where he thought I might run out.

  To her credit, Collette didn’t scream. I saw her in my peripheral vision, taking cover and holding her head down, looking more annoyed than scared.

  The vampire fired a few more times, then I heard a muffled curse and the sound of a magazine hitting the floor, so I took my chance. I turned the corner to look into the living room. The second hipster-merc vamp had dropped his rifle to its sling and drawn one of those wicked knives, like the one the vamp at the safe house had. The supernatural obsession with melee weapons strikes again!

  He twirled it a few times, snarling at me across Collette’s living room. He leapt up, jumping over the couch with a frightening speed. I panicked.

  I fired, emptying my magazine in him, chanting as loudly as I could, willing every bullet to hit his face. I was rewarded with a spray of bone and ash as my final round was just enough to sever his head, but I knew that was as much luck as anything else.

  “We need to go, now!” I said, motioning for Collette to come with me.

  “This is why I don’t date criminals!” she shouted back. I looked at the cooling ashes of the first vamp. He had a pretty nice rifle—a C7, likely liberated from a Canadian arsenal. I picked it up and checked the mag. These guys, despite their tactical gear, didn’t seem too prepared. It was like they’d just stopped by Jimbo’s Discount Merc Warehouse and assumed their purchases would compensate for training, planning, and general competence.

  But now I had a rifle. If I could get to my Jeep, I’d have a grenade launcher.

  The golden rule of weapons in a fight is “I must have the deadliest.” With my new North of the Border Pal, I’d just upped my rank on the food chain. I holstered the VP9 and looked at the second vamp’s remains. He had some kind of AR knock-off but only one magazine for it. What a moron! Still, I should take C7 mags, I thought. I motioned to Collette.

  “You ever used one of these?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll make this simple.”

  I rushed over to the first vamp and took a magazine out of his cheap, tactical vest. I locked it in and racked a round in the chamber.

  “You’ve got thirty rounds,” I told Collette. “Flip that switch,” I pointed at the safety, “to the setting that says, uh…”

  “Suck?!”

  “It normally says semi, but this guy was either gay or really into vamp culture, or maybe both. This isn’t the right time to make personal judgments. We’ll never know. Just make sure it stays on that and shoot at anyone who attacks us.”

  We rushed out of the house—me checking corners, Collette nervously hefting the rifle in her jammies. The gunfire had awakened her neighbors, several of whom had come outside to see what the fuss was about, what kind of disturbance was shaking their sleepy suburb. I knew cops would follow, and I didn’t intend to be around to answer their awkward questions about bullet-ridden rooms and piles of strange ashes.

  A few of the neighbors saw us get into the Jeep, which meant I’d have to lose it or swap the plates when I had time. The vamps hadn’t gotten my vehicle. They were getting sloppy, or they were running low on manpower. Still, you took your advantages where you could get them. I hit the push start and plugged the address for Josiah’s store into the GPS. I peeled out of the street, bypassing some guy in a bathrobe with his phone to his ear, and headed for the highway.

  The drive started quietly, just me, Collette, and a tolerable radio station.

  It didn’t last.

  We were halfway down I35W, coasting in the slow lane, when they struck. Traffic was light at that time of night on a weekday, little more than a trickle of night shift commuters and interstate truckers. I noticed two pairs of headlights making no effort to pass us. The vehicles sped up, and one pulled around us. I had trouble seeing who was driving them, but I was able to identify the vehicles.

  The headlights belonged to two SUVs. They looked like late-models, but didn’t seem to be carrying any heavy weapons. Vamps were confident, or maybe they weren’t dedicated to the pursuit. As they accelerated, I tried to identify the drivers from their reflections, but above the lights, there was nothing. It was as if the vehicles were driving themselves. I turned around and confirmed the pale figures had no reflections.

  “I’m guessing those aren’t your friends,” Collette said.

  “That’s a good guess,” I said, “as I don’t have many. Get that rifle ready.”

  “How do I aim?” she asked.

  “Use the red dot. Fire all thirty rounds, then swap that rifle for the other one. Fire all thirty rounds again.”

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “We’ll burn that bridge when we cross it,” I said, gunning the gas to get put some distance between us and our pursuers as Collette adjusted. I saw the speedometer pass 80 and 90, then level off at 100mph. A few motorists honked as the SUVs behind us sped up to catch us. Collette lowered the passenger side window, and the howling wind of the highway drowned out the radio. I kept turning around to see what our pursuers were doing—not being able to rely on my mirrors was risky. If we had been in heavy traffic, I have no doubt I would’ve crashed.

  She leaned out the window, awkwardly, and fired. I saw one of the SUVs adjust in the rearview mirror. A pale man leaned out of the window and fired a burst from a submachine gun. The rounds cracked my rear windshield, and one travelled all the way through, destroying my radio, which crackled and sparked as it died. The GPS screen was cracked, and it wasn’t responding. It didn’t matter—I knew how to get to Josiah’s from the interstate.

  Collette kept pulling the trigger, exchanging inaccurate fire with the two trailing vehicles. I heard her scream something in Chinese as she emptied the mag, sending rounds toward the pursuit vehicles. They were both still on us, but one was now missing a headlight. The shooter in that vehicle had ceased firing, which made me nervous. It was possible Collette’s firing had hit him, or at least suppressed the shooter, but in the back of my mind, I was concerned it was something else entirely—a change of tactics. Proving my fears right. one of the SUVs sped up and attempted to ram me.

  I swerved right as hard as I could, eliciting a scream from Collette. It looked like she’d dropped the rifle out the window. I tried not to worry about the forensic evidence she’d left behind. She picked up the C7 from the center console and began firing again.

  “Keep shooting!” I yelled, helpfully. The pursuit vehicles readjusted—the one directly behind us slowed down, and the vehicle from the right lane merged in behind us. The vampire shooter fired off a few more rounds from a different weapon—something semi-auto. They mostly went wild, but I heard a few impact my rear.

  Collette returned fire, but it was mere seconds before the C7 clicked empty.

  “What else do you have?” she asked, dropping out of the howling wind, back into her seat.

  I didn’t want to tell her about the M79. Judge me if you want, but I didn’t want to give someone who had first touched a firearm an hour earlier a crack at a grenade launcher, even one with rounds fused for minimum safe distance.

  “There are more C7 mags,” I said. “We’re about fifteen minutes from our destination. Just prevent them from getting a clear shot.”

  I heard her reloading. She figured it out with minimal coaching. I swerved around the sparse, late night traffic, praying to God or Satan or whoever was listening that we wouldn’t run into any cops. Behind us, the SUVs closed in, the lone gunman firing an occasional shot, trying to keep Collette’s head down. The shooting eased up, and I watched the enemy gunman leap onto the roof of his SUV. I turned my attention back to the road and sw
erved to miss a minivan.

  Before I could take another look behind me or ask Collette for an update, I heard a THUNK on the roof. A pale face glared through the Jeep’s sunroof, grinning stupidly and smugly.

  “Uh, Nick?!” Collette exclaimed, looking up at the sunroof.

  “Shoot!” I yelled.

  Collette pulled the trigger. Her inaccurate hip fire perforated the roof. It wasn’t going to kill the vamp—those fuckers regenerated too quickly—but it might prevent him from caving in the windshield, reaching in, and throwing me out like a candy wrapper.

  I sped past a sign thanking me for not littering as Collette kept firing. Before long, I heard the irritatingly familiar sound of an empty chamber. I hadn’t heard anyone fall, so presumably, her aim was as terrible as I thought, or the vampire was regenerating too quickly. Sure enough, the Jeep’s sunroof caved in, and a pale guy in goth garb peered in, fangs flashing in the streetlights. He grabbed at me, his hands coming very close.

  I unbuckled my seatbelt. At this speed, a crash would certainly kill me, but I couldn’t be restrained. I kept a hand on the wheel, and twisted around, grabbing my VP9. In the passenger seat, Collette screamed, and I heard a wet smack as she hit the vamp with her rifle.

  “You’ll be—” he said, winding up some shitty vamp insult/threat. He didn’t finish, because I put the VP9 to his spine and dumped the magazine. The slide locked back, and in between moments of scanning the road, I got a look at my handiwork. I hadn’t quite killed him—his head was still attached to his neck, and I saw the muscles and sinews rapidly regenerating, though his hideous shrieking, cutting in and out as his vocal chords reformed, suggested he wasn’t feeling too good.

  I didn’t have enough time to reload.

  So, I grabbed my knife and tossed it to Collette.

  “Cut off his head!” I said.

  “FUCKING WHAT?!” Collette shouted back, eyes wide. Admittedly, it wasn’t the most normal request.

  “Just do it! Trust me!” I yelled, locking eyes with her briefly before turning back to the road and swerving to miss someone’s grandma out for a late-night drive.

  In my peripheral vision, I could see Collette cutting, and I heard the vamp screaming. There was a SNAP as she split through the final sinew, and the vamp’s body convulsed a few times before turning to ash. The head fell into the center console, and the frozen scream on the vampire’s face gave me a little satisfaction before it, too, turned to ash.

  “Keep shooting,” I said.

  I had to give her credit, Collette was doing the best she could. Her internal pragmatist had taken over. She leaned out the window and cranked off a magazine. I heard the squeal of tires, and in my rearview mirror, saw one of the tailing SUVs flip, rolling end over end. The other one sped up.

  “He’s trying to ram us!” Collette shouted as she slapped a fresh mag in the C7.

  I wished Amalfi was here. My knowledge of defensive driving boiled down to a few hours on the Beltway when I was visiting D.C. But, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you get chased by vamps with the driver you have, not the one you want.

  I floored it. The Jeep’s V8 churned. I could see the SUV’s grill in my rearview mirror. The lack of passenger images created the illusion of a phantom G-Wagon. They switched their high beams on, trying to blind me.

  “Blow out the back window,” I told Collette. “Shoot straight through. Aim for the engine block.”

  “Aim?!” Collette shouted back. She pulled the trigger a few times, and my rear window shattered, letting the cold air and rain in. The Vampire’s lights were shot out by the time Collette ran out of ammunition.

  “What now?” Collette asked, staring dejectedly at her empty carbine.

  “We do something desperate,” I said. The exit sign I passed said we had just passed Burnsville. Josiah’s place wasn’t far away, maybe ten minutes, but we weren’t going to last ten minutes. There was only one vampire left, the guy driving the Mercedes SUV. He was driving aggressively, and if we ran off the road, he’d be in better shape. Vampires can survive that kind of trauma a lot easier.

  He clipped our bumper, jolting Collette and me forward.

  I remembered I still had a few stakes left in my bag. I cursed my inevitable return to hand-to-hand combat.

  “Collette, take the wheel,” I said, reaching into the back seat and grabbing a flask of holy water. The Mercedes tried to ram us again, but Collette managed, through sheer luck, to swerve out of the way.

  I motioned for her to let me take the wheel again. I knew I had to force him off the road—he would win in a direct collision. But I had an idea.

  I floored the accelerator and swerved around a furniture van. The vampire followed. Up ahead, the interstate flattened out, and the median switched from hard concrete to soft grass.

  I jumped the median and headed into oncoming traffic, the Jeep bumping and bucking as I hit the grass. I flicked on my high beams and hit the edge of the road. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the vampire following.

  I dodged the sparse traffic, a chorus of angry honks reminding me that I was breaking the law. I prayed there were no state troopers on watch.

  I had dodged a few trucks when it happened. I heard the sickening crunch of a vehicle being destroyed. I saw in my mirrors that the Vamp had collided, head on, with a truck I’d passed. I jumped the median again and continued on to Josiah’s.

  I was breathing a sigh of relief when Collette screamed.

  “What the fuck is going on?” she asked, pointing out the window.

  I looked and saw a pale figure, the Mercedes driver, floating alongside the car. His stupid undercut was all mussed. His clothes were ripped and tattered from the crash, and part of the Mercedes was embedded in his waist, but his wounds were rapidly healing. He flashed his fangs at me, then he reached out and pulled the door off its hinges with little effort. Clearly, this vampire was made of sterner stuff than his comrades. I cursed and slammed on the brakes. The vampire glided effortlessly onward and adjusted easily. He hovered in mid-air, then flew toward me, his ragged coat billowing in the night wind.

  He landed on the hood of the Jeep with a thud and slammed his fist through the windshield, which shattered, showering the interior with splintered glass.

  He looked at me, and a funny thing happened. The world blurred. It felt a lot like the time I lost all that blood. All I could see were the vampire’s eyes. There was a soft quality to them, warm. I was a fool. I’d been fighting, but they only wanted to help.

  I hadn’t understood earlier. The whipping wind, the thrumming engine, Collette’s screams, they all blurred to nothing. There was peace here, maybe enlightenment.

  I was jarred out of it by Collette slapping me.

  “Nick, you fucking moron, he’s going to kill us!”

  I hadn’t noticed that, while I was lost in the vamp’s eyes, he’d grabbed my shirt lapel. He grinned and said something I couldn’t quite hear over the wind. I remembered the holy water in my right hand and splashed it on him. He started screaming and fell off the hood and under the Jeep, which bucked as the heavy tires crushed his head. In the distance, I heard police sirens.

  I thought for sure he’d be dead.

  But the partially dusted hand that gripped the tailgate through the shattered window told me I was wrong.

  Collette screamed again, and I cursed. The vampire threw himself through the back of the Jeep. He was missing his lower torso—no flesh or trailing entrails, just dust and burning fire. He snarled as he climbed forward. He was gliding, not touching the ground.

  I saw him reach for my M79.

  I split my attention between the road and the vampire in my back seat. I picked up the VP9. Collette was quicker.

  She picked up my knife and threw it at him. It didn’t do much, but it slowed him down. I took a stake and palmed it. As the floating torso glided over the back seat, I held it out and thrust. The vampire impaled himself on the stake, shrieking as he did. The blue fire crept up and consumed the
rest of him, leaving me with a Jeep filled with two vampires’ worth of ashes, a damaged wooden stake, and a very frightened medical professional.

  I couldn’t read most of the Jeep’s instruments—the speedometer was flaking out, though the digital display, miraculously, still worked. I slowed to within the speed limit, just in case some overeager trooper was racing toward the last reported gunshots.

  Mostly, I breathed. The police sirens I heard stopped at the wreckage of the second SUV. I pulled off at the first available exit. Collette looked up Josiah’s on her phone, and we took back roads the rest of the way.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Ten: Flames

  Josiah’s was burning. The wooden billboard was on fire, its paint peeling away, and the whole shop looked like it was fixing to fry, even though the night sky opened up, and rain poured down. The heavy concrete walls looked fine, but the lighter side of the shop, where it opened onto the outdoor range, was totally burnt. From the damage to the side of the shop and the shredded door, I assumed most of the ammunition inside had already exploded. If it hadn’t, this was going to be much more dangerous. In the parking lot, I saw someone kneeling, crying maybe, while the unmistakable figure of a Hellhound menaced him. It seems the other half of Trash was trying to avenge her pack mate. I’d reloaded the VP9 as soon as we’d hit the side roads, but I was low on ammunition. Collette had found a spare magazine that fit the C7, so she had 30 rounds to keep herself safe. I also still had about a flask of holy water I’d stashed away.

  I whipped the SUV into the lot and hopped out, popping the trunk as I went, ignoring Collette’s questions about what she should do. She had a gun, she’d be fine. First, I cut myself, just slightly, dribbling blood onto Amalfi’s summoning stone. The stone glowed, lightly, and I put it back in the SUV, next to where my spare tire should be. I pulled out the M79 and chambered a 40mm beehive round. The army fucked around with these big shotgun shells for a bit in the 1980s. It was enough to deal with most of what could come out of the shadows, and I didn’t have to worry about 30 meters of clearance to shoot it.