Deal with the Devil

by Kevin Lee Swaim

  “Not here,” Jordan said. “What about the club?”

  “We can’t go back,” Desmond said. “It’s not safe.”

  “I should have been there. If Alyssa hadn’t taken my shift … oh my God. Alyssa—”

  “Jimmy was supposed to get everyone out. She’s probably fine.”

  “What about Jimmy?”

  “I … didn’t go back inside. Just grabbed his truck and got him here.”

  “You mean Jimmy—”

  “Ain’t no use in worrying about it until we know for sure.”

  There were hands on my back. “What’s his name?”

  “Sam.”

  “Sam, I’m going to try and pull out the bullet. It’s going to hurt. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  “Hurry,” I gasped.

  “Hold him down, no matter how much he screams.”

  “I’ll hold him,” Desmond said. “Don’t you worry ’bout that.”

  His cold hands clamped onto the back of my neck and my lower spine, right above the crack of my butt. I didn’t even have time to speak before there was a stabbing pain in my lung. My body went rigid, and I fought against Desmond’s grip.

  It hurt so bad, I couldn’t even scream.

  “Jesus, Des. I said hold him down!”

  “I’m trying. Can’t you get a grip on it?”

  “It—it moved or something!”

  Bullets would do that, I knew. Striking soft tissue could cause the bullet to tumble or spin. I wanted to tell the woman that, tell her all I had learned about bullets and blood and death, but my vision swam, and everything began to fade away.

  The pain in my lung got worse and then the woman, Jordan, said, “I’ve got it.”

  It burned as she pulled it back through the entrance wound and then, mercifully, the burning was gone.

  “Look at that,” she said. “Would you look at that?”

  I wanted to tell her I would be glad to look at it, but I couldn’t raise my head. I couldn’t even speak. I took a deep breath and there was a wet sucking sound coming from my back, and then I was gagging on coppery blood.

  “Sam?” Desmond asked. “You feeling any better?”

  All I could do was shake my head.

  “Can’t you do anything for him?”

  “How long ago was he shot?”

  “Forty minutes, maybe. Not more than an hour, for sure.”

  “His lung has collapsed. If we don’t get him to a hospital, he will die. I’m surprised he made it this long.”

  “Can’t you do anything?”

  “I’m not a doctor, Desmond. That’s what he needs. A doctor. And he needs one now! Seriously. He might only have minutes left—”

  “Sam? I can give you the gift.”

  “You’re going to give him the gift? I thought you said you wouldn’t do that anymore.”

  “If we can find Garski—”

  “You told me you weren’t ever going to give anyone the gift. You even told Greta she couldn’t give anyone the gift.”

  “Now is not the time for this.”

  “Why is he so special, anyway? I thought he was a … a killer or something.”

  “He’s a hunter, and a killer, and probably a lot more. But he didn’t just kill my friends. Garski did, and he took Sam’s friend. She’s a religious woman. I could smell it on her. She doesn’t deserve whatever that crazy bastard has planned for her.”

  “But giving him the gift…”

  I raised my head and caught the woman’s eye. Jordan was the same beautiful woman I had seen guarding the door to Desmond’s club. Her frosted white hair wasn’t as fashionably styled as before, and her shorts and crop top were a far cry from the leather outfit she’d worn when I’d first seen her. Her face was full of worry, and she kept shaking her head.

  She saw me looking and frowned. “You need to rest.”

  “Don’t … let him,” I managed.

  Desmond stood next to her, and he looked even more concerned than Jordan. “Sam, if I don’t give you the gift, you’re gonna die. Ain’t nothing I can do to change that. You wanna get your friend back?”

  My brain was fuzzy, but I had been thinking about it since the tunnel. I was going to die. Faced with that choice, what could I do to save myself?

  “Need super glue,” I choked out.

  Jordan stared at me as if I had lost my mind. “Super glue?”

  “Glue the wound shut.”

  “But that’s not going to help,” Jordan said. “Your lung has collapsed, and I can’t fix that. You’re bleeding internally. It’s just a matter of time—”

  What am I willing to do? What lines will I cross? God help me, what unspeakable things will I do to save myself and to rescue Callie?

  “Get super glue,” I said. “And, I need blood.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jordan turned to Desmond and gave him a baffled look. “What’s he talking about? He’s not a vampire. How can blood help him?”

  Desmond grunted. “Ain’t got no idea. Sam, we can’t help you.”

  “Get me blood,” I said. “Don’t forget … the super glue.”

  Desmond shook his head. “I don’t understand, but you must know something I don’t. Jordan, you got any super glue?”

  Jordan raised an eyebrow. “I guess, yeah. Somewhere around here. I tried gluing a handle back on a cup a few weeks ago.”

  “Get it.”

  Jordan turned and began rummaging through the fancy oak cabinets behind her. Now that I had a clear line of sight, I realized I was in her kitchen.

  And if I don’t pull this off, I’m going to die in her kitchen.

  Desmond leaned close to my face. “I don’t know what you think this will do—”

  “Trust me,” I gurgled.

  “Found it,” Jordan shouted. She turned and handed me the super glue. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “You,” I said.

  “Me?”

  “Glue the wound shut.”

  “I—”

  “Do it,” Desmond ordered.

  Jordan sighed. “Hold still.”

  She opened the tube, and I felt her working on my back, then I felt the skin being pinched together. Then the super glue set, and the burning that had left when she had removed the bullet came back as it did.

  I would have screamed if I’d had the chance, but it was too late. The edges of my vision went blurry. “Hurry. Not … much time…”

  Desmond pressed his face near mine. “You said you needed blood. Will mine work?”

  I raised a trembling hand and pointed it at Jordan. “Need … hers.”

  Jordan drew back. “Mine?”

  “You got a kit here?” Desmond asked.

  “In my bag.”

  “You give blood lately?”

  “Not for several months. We’ve had plenty of willing donors.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “I … guess not.”

  “Get the kit.”

  Jordan left and quickly returned with a black nylon bag. She removed a small squeeze ball and a large rubber tube, which she placed next to my head, and a plastic bag that she promptly tore open. A few seconds later, she had a blue rubber band stretched tightly around her arm, right above the elbow, and a needle inserted into her arm. She handed the yard-long attached plastic tubing to Desmond.

  Desmond asked me, “You sure about this?”

  I didn’t even have the energy to nod. “Put … in … my mouth.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.” He rolled me to my side and put the tube in my mouth. “What do I do now?”

  “Roll the thumb stop,” Jordan said.

  “Here goes nothing,” Desmond said, rolling the thumb stop.

  Crimson blood flowed through the coiled tubing, spinning and spiraling until it hit the back of my mouth. It was thick and salty and tasted like sucking on a penny as I gulped it
down.

  The vampire essence in my soul had changed me—changed my body—in ways I still didn’t fully understand, but this was something I did understand. I had tasted blood once before, in Monticello, and it had given me the energy to keep going, to power through my exhaustion.

  What happened this time wasn’t anything like that.

  Every molecule in my body blazed to life under my skin. It burned, and the blood in my veins sang, and the fogginess in my head evaporated.

  An itching erupted inside the wound on my back, maddening in a way I had never felt before, and I took a ragged breath, filling my lungs with more air than I’d thought possible, and then I yanked the tube of blood from my throat and coughed up a giant wad of clotted blood from my lung.

  Desmond jerked back. “What the hell?”

  I glanced up at him. He was staring at me in shock. Jordan held the tube against her arm, the blue ball in her hand and fear on her face.

  I stuck the tube back in my mouth and drank greedily from it. More and more of Jordan’s delicious blood flooded down the back of my throat and filled my stomach with a fire that nothing on earth could quench.

  “Sam,” Desmond said. “That’s enough.”

  I didn’t listen to him. I just kept drinking from the tube, guzzling the blood like it was nectar from the gods.

  “Sam!” Desmond shouted.

  Jordan was swaying on her feet, and I realized I had drunk at least a pint. Perhaps more. It was more than I needed, and it was more than she should have donated, and I didn’t care.

  I wanted more.

  More blood. God, give me more. Give me more of it!

  “Sam!” Desmond shouted again, clawing at the tube of blood, and for a moment I saw myself grabbing his neck and squeezing so hard that his throat collapsed, the bones in his neck splitting apart between the vertebrae, and his head separating from his body.

  In that moment that seemed to last a lifetime, I knew I could make it happen. The blood rushing down my throat gave me the power. I could kill Desmond as easily as I could a small bird.

  And when Desmond was truly dead, I would have my way with Jordan. I would tear her clothes from her body. She looked fit and supple, not that I was picky, and I could hold her down while I used her body to pleasure myself.

  She would fight, of course, but it wouldn’t matter. She would be mine.

  The oily black presence in me almost snorted with derision. It didn’t matter what she wanted. The power filled me with a confidence I had long been lacking. No, Jordan was just there for my amusement. Her creamy black skin would look even darker against the paleness of mine. Perhaps I would smear her own blood across her body, licking it away as I went.

  It had been so long since I had lain with a woman. Not since the day that Silas had slaughtered Stacie.

  My dearest Stacie.

  The thought of my wife snapped me back to my senses, and I knew with certainty, just as I knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west, that I was much closer to becoming a vampire myself.

  Perhaps decades closer.

  “Oh, shit,” I mumbled, and then collapsed on Jordan’s elegant hardwood floor.

  * * *

  I trembled on Jordan’s floor as images of my life flashed in my brain, like a movie of my life playing in fast-forward, looping again and again, with no end in sight.

  Desmond spoke my name, but it came from far away, echoing weirdly in my head. The tube was pulled from my mouth, and I was hoisted up into a sitting position.

  I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want to go on if this is what I’ll become.

  That thought looped in my head as well, joining the highlights of my life, until my brain began to burn.

  A sharp slap against my face forced my eyes open. Desmond was looking at me with concern. “Sam? What the hell, man? Are you crazy? Pull yourself together.”

  Crazy? That’s absurd. I’m completely sane. It’s the world that’s gone crazy.

  Jordan leaned over Desmond’s shoulder. “I’ve never seen a reaction like this to blood. Not in a human. What the hell is he?”

  Before Desmond could speak, I said, “I’m fine. Just … give me a minute.”

  “You have a collapsed lung,” Jordan said.

  I took a deep breath and marveled that I could take a deep breath. “Not anymore.”

  Jordan turned to Desmond. “This isn’t normal. He’s not normal.”

  I hauled myself to my feet. “What I am is pissed off.” I pointed at the needle in her arm. “You can remove that. I won’t need any more.”

  “What happened to you?” Desmond asked.

  While Jordan removed the needle and taped gauze across her arm, I explained to Desmond about the change and how it eventually led to a human turning into a vampire without receiving the gift.

  “Why ain’t I ever heard ’bout this?”

  “Most humans don’t ever kill a vampire. Most who do don’t survive long enough to kill another.”

  “You’re gonna turn into a vampire someday?”

  I nodded.

  “Damn, man. Sorry to hear that.”

  Jordan had sat quietly listening to us. “Is being a vampire that bad?”

  “Ain’t you ever wondered why I never gave anyone else the gift?”

  “I guess I never thought about it.”

  Desmond collapsed into a chair at the table. “How many years you been with the club? Two? Three?”

  “Four,” Jordan said.

  “We sell an illusion,” Desmond said softly. “We sell money and sex and power, but it’s all make-believe. Didn’t Greta ever tell you what it was like?”

  “She wouldn’t talk about it.”

  Desmond nodded at me. “Sam knows, now. First, you die. I guess dying ain’t easy for anybody, but you feel your … life leaving you, and even through you know you’re coming back, you still got to die first. Then, when you come back, ain’t nothing like it was before. You don’t think the same. Ain’t that right?”

  “If what I felt is what it’s like to be a vampire,” I said, “then I don’t want any part of it.”

  “Sounds like you ain’t gonna have much choice.”

  The cold pit in my stomach had returned. “I’m putting it out of my mind.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got bigger problems right now.”

  “The Sister.”

  I nodded. “We’re going to find Callie, and if Garski hurt her, there’s nothing on this earth that will save him from me. You understand?”

  Desmond gave me an appraising look. “I do, my man. I certainly do.”

  “Let’s go. I need to speak to a priest.”

  * * *

  I stared at the remains of my short-sleeved denim shirt on Jordan’s kitchen floor. “That’s a problem.”

  “Jordan,” Desmond said. “You got a shirt Sam can wear?”

  Jordan bit her lip. “I may have something…”

  She left and returned with a black long-sleeved cotton shirt and handed it to me. As I reached for it, Jordan mumbled, “It was Greta’s. She wore it when we were watching television together … when it got cold in the … in the winter…”

  Desmond put his hands on Jordan’s shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  She finally released her grip on the shirt, and I took it and put it on. “Thanks.”

  “Can you do something for me?” Jordan asked softly.

  “What?”

  “Make Garski pay.”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  We left Jordan’s apartment, and Desmond handed me my cell phone. According to the GPS, we were only a few miles from Saint Mary of the Angels. “You sure you want to come along?” I asked.

  Desmond gave me a sidelong glance. “When Garski killed Asa and Greta, he took everything from me.”

  I stepped into the elevator in the hallway of Jordan’s apartment building and punched the down but
ton. “You still have your club. You still have Jordan. You might have more people. Your guy, Jimmy, might have gotten everyone out.”

  We stood in front of the elevator until the doors finally opened. As we got in, Desmond pressed the lobby button and said, “Maybe so, but it just wouldn’t be the same. My family is gone. Everything I worked for is gone. The club is just a building.”

  We rode in silence until we reached the lobby. As the doors opened, I said, “You won’t be able to enter the church.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what do you plan on doing?”

  “Garski is a lunatic. You get into trouble, you just run, and when he comes after you, I’ll take care of that son of a bitch.”

  I smiled unpleasantly. “Sounds good to me.”

  When we stepped out of the apartment lobby, we were greeted by a blast of hot air. “Jesus,” I said as the hot air burned in my newly healed lung.

  Desmond had left my Chevy in a four-story parking garage down the street, and soon I was heading north through the nearly deserted streets. “Where is everybody?”

  Desmond shrugged. “They’re probably trying to stay out of the heat.”

  I harrumphed and gunned the Chevy through an intersection as the light turned red. “I don’t get why Garski took Callie. Killing vampires is one thing, but why take her?”

  “Is this what you normally do?” Desmond asked. “You and the Sister drive around trying to figure this kind of stuff out?”

  I ignored him. “Garski may be a psychopath, but what could he want with Callie? Is it because she’s a religious woman? Or is it because she’s of the blood?”

  “The what?”

  I sighed. “A long time ago, some families banded together and did … I don’t know what, exactly, but it involved magic. It gives them strength against vampires. It’s been passed along for hundreds of generations.”

  “And the Sister?”

  “She’s one of them.”

  Desmond shook his head. “I’d say that sounds crazy, but I’m a vampire. Crazy don’t begin to explain this world.”

  “She’s also scarred,” I said. “The patterns are some kind of script. Angelic. Demonic, maybe. I don’t know for sure—”

  “Whoa. That don’t sound… good.”

  “It’s probably not,” I said. “Don’t forget all those men and the death magic.”