by P. N. Elrod
Then one of the breathing persons released a long, delicious moan of gratification. The timbre was female, and I thought I understood what was going on, having enjoyed the pleasure myself, both giving and receiving.
Hugging the shotgun close, I bulled invisibly through the wall. When I went solid, pure shock froze me for an instant.
One of the cigarette girls lay on the couch with Slaughter sprawling over her. He’d pawed the top half of her brief costume away, and buried his mouth deeply, greedily in the soft part of her throat. She moaned again, turning it into a sigh. Her face was toward me, eyelids squeezed shut, her arms wrapped tight around him. She was glowing, absolutely glowing from the pleasure of being murdered.
Across the room stood Gordy, hands to his sides like a soldier at silent attention. He should have been oblivious to the scene, but there was a terrible awareness in his expression. He’d been ordered to watch; he’d been ordered to do nothing. He looked at me, hope and fury in his white-rimmed eyes.
I couldn’t shoot Slaughter without risking the girl. Had to move fast, he was draining her dry. I had to hold him in place to keep him from vanishing. On Gordy’s desk lay a metal letter opener, thin bladed, fragile, not too sharp, but effective with enough force behind it.
Swiftly swapping the shotgun for the letter opener, I closed on Slaughter just as he began to rise to see the source of the noise. Blood smeared his lower face. The whites of his eyes were gone, suffused with blood from his feeding. They flashed scarlet in flat-footed surprise.
I drove hard with the blade, slamming it into his side as far as it would go, then broke off the handle.
Shrieking fury and pain, he staggered to his feet, clawing at it. I grabbed his arms above the wrists and tried to twist them behind him. The metal imbedded in his body kept him from vanishing, but he was still capable of a hellish fight. We danced around the room, wrecking furniture. I kept him busy, waiting for Gordy to snap out of his spell and grab the gun. I yelled his name hoping that might work. He was still rooted in place the next time I spun around.
Slaughter clawed at the letter opener, but the metal stub left sticking from his flesh was too short to grab. I punched a fist against the side of his skull. Any other man would have dropped, the bones caved in, not this guy. It slowed him, but he didn’t stop trying to break free.
I dragged him toward the desk, toward the shotgun.
Roaring, he threw himself in the same direction, trying to get me off balance. I was too used to dealing with ordinary humans, not anyone with strength equal to mine. He tore one arm free and managed a solid, gut-bruising punch that made me grunt, then went for the gun, falling bodily on it.
His other arm wrenched from my grasp. He had the gun. I tried to lock him up in a full nelson, but he shifted us in a clumsy waltz until he faced Gordy.
“Lay off or I scrag him!” Slaughter snarled, the barrels centered on my friend.
He’d follow through. Gordy’s eyes told me as much. I broke off the wrestling hold and slapped both hands around Slaughter’s skull. Then I twisted hard and sharp. I’d never done it before, wasn’t sure if I even got it right.
But I heard and felt the awful wet cracking of bone and cartilage giving way to brute force. Slaughter made a sick gagging noise and abruptly turned into dead weight. I let him fall. He dropped straight down like a brick, his only sound now a grunt as the air left his lungs. He lay on his belly, but his head was turned halfway around, blood red eyes staring at me.
I slumped relief, but for only an instant, hurriedly pulling the gun from under Slaughter’s body, then checked on Gordy.
He was still stuck in place, the hypnotic influence unbroken. I went over, not sure what to do, and settled for looking him square in the eye. “You can move again. It’s okay.” I didn’t think I’d gotten through but he rocked back a step, then shook into his normal posture, then seemed to swell.
“Jeeze,” He whispered staring past me. “Jeeze, that bastard. . .”
I’d never seen him truly angry. He always held it in behind a stone face. I anticipated an explosion. God knows he was entitled. I got out of the way and went to check on the girl. He glared down at Slaughter for what seemed a long moment, then straightened and turned toward me.
“She okay?” His voice was calm as always, but I heard his heart booming, almost filling the room.
I pressed a clean handkerchief against her neck wounds. They were larger than they had to be and still freely bleeding. Slaughter had missed tearing fatally wide anything major in his greed, but it was likely more a matter of luck than care. “She needs a doctor.”
“I know someone,” said Gordy. “This shit. Is he dead? All the way dead?”
With no heart or lungs working, there was no way for me to tell. I’d played possum a few times and gotten away with being taken for a corpse. Slaughter might be doing the same. Or he could be immobile from his injuries, unable to move, and—with the letter opener in him—unable to vanish and heal. I’d been in that position as well, and its dire helplessness was the worst. All you can do is scream within your mind until insanity brings a kind of ease, until death finally comes.
We don’t die fast. Maybe it’s the price we pay for the life we get after cheating death the first time.
“I don’t know,” I said. “There’re ways to make sure.”
Gordy reached behind and pulled out the Bowie knife in its scabbard. He’d tucked it under his belt before leaving Escott’s office. He placed it carefully on his desk and shot me a look. “Then we make sure.”
* * *
While I trussed Slaughter up in another room, Gordy saw to a doctor, who wanted to know the cause of the girl’s strange injury. Gordy told him a crazed customer went nuts and bit her, which was close enough to reality. He said the customer had been dealt with and would not be returning and the man wisely left it at that. Later, I’d have to have a private talk with the girl and make sure she only remembered what we wanted her to know; for now, Gordy and I had other things to do.
He knew how to dispose of inconvenient bodies. I’d been with him on only one such expedition, taking care of another vampire’s corpse. We would do the same again, with me along to make sure there was no sudden revival of the body. About an hour later, after a brief phone call to arrange a truck and a boat, we were on our way. Slaughter’s corpse was to be dumped so far out in the lake that even the fish would have trouble finding him.
Gordy and I rode in the back of the paneled truck, a blanket-wrapped bundle between us. His men would wrap a couple of hundred pounds of chains and weights to it. I wouldn’t be going out onto the lake. Vampires have a problem with bodies of free running water.
Dim light filtered in from the small windows set in the truck doors, not much for Gordy, but plenty for me. He looked a calmer now, almost satisfied.
“Just realized something,” he said.
“Oh, yeah?”
“You told Slaughter you’d twist his head off if he used another girl for food. I didn’t know you meant it.”
“Me neither.”
“We’ll take his head off the rest of the way. Just to be sure.”
My pragmatic reply surprised me. “Wait till you’re on the water. Easier to clean up.”
Gordy took awhile before replying. He must have been surprised, too. “I’ll see to it. I’m thinkin’. . .”
“Yeah?”
“That there should be some distance in between ’em. The body and the head. You know?”
I considered that for more time than was really needed and nodded. “Couldn’t hurt. You been reading up on the subject?”
“Maybe.”
“You had this ready to hand.” I had the shotgun, playing bodyguard. “Wood in the shells, all that.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“In case you ever got stupid,” he said without apology.
“Okay.” Well, he was honest. “I don’t blame you. Idiots like Slaughter give vampires a bad name.”
Gordy’s head wobbled. Laughter. Then he sobered. “There’s still another one out there. The one who made him, if he was telling the truth.”
“Yeah,” I said. I puffed air, and stared out the small windows in the doors. No moon. It was dark even for me. “So. . .what’re you doing the rest of the night?”
* * * * * * *
__________
THE DEVIL’S MARK
Author’s Note: This story went into an anthology I edited with Marty Greenberg for DAW, called TIME OF THE VAMPIRES. Try as I might I could not come up with a Jack Fleming story for it—but I had watched a bit of an old movie that dealt with a “Witch-Finder General” who swanned around England murdering innocent people in the 1600s. I began to wonder: “What if one of those wankers had wandered into the wrong village to ply his trade?” The opening line is totally stolen from a Monty Python film.
England, 1646
“She’s a witch! Burn her!”
“What if she’s not a witch?”
“Burn her anyway, it’s cold!”
“Mr. Bainbridge! If you please!”
Belatedly realizing that his enthusiasm and dark humor were out of place—for the moment—Bainbridge got firm control of himself and presented his audience with a chagrined smile and a respectful bow. “Your pardon, gentle sirs, but when one is doing the Good Work, one may easily be carried away by the nobility of the task.”
The audience—that is to say the men who made up the leadership of the town of Little Evesham-on-the-Wash made forgiving noises. Lucky for him, that. There was a proper way of going about these things, but Bainbridge had allowed his mind to be distracted by his pending reward, and he’d gotten ahead of himself. The time would come for the people to indulge themselves in a good bit of fire and riot, but one had to build them up to it first, get them used to the idea.
Their mayor—or whatever he was in this rustic hellhole—Mr. Percy, cleared his throat. “Indeed, Mr. Bainbridge, but my question still stands: What if the female you have accused is not a witch?
“Why then, she will suffer no harm, but,” his gaze swept over the lot of them in such a manner as to indicate he understood his responsibilities perfectly well, “I know that once you are made acquainted with the evidence, you will not hesitate to deliver her to soul-cleansing flames and thus rid your beleaguered village of the Devil’s vile influence.”
Little Evesham-on-the-Wash was no more beleaguered than any other place had been in the last few years since King Charles and Parliament had gotten down to serious fighting. But each little hamlet Bainbridge had swept through when he began the lucrative work of witch-finding always thought its troubles to be unique to itself. He had but to ask if some oaf suffered mysterious fits or if farms were plagued by sickly livestock to start it all; there was always something wrong somewhere that he could seize upon as evidence of devilish doings. It had been an excellent day for him when he began to emulate the glorious work of the great Witch-Finder General, Matthew Hopkins.
The men conferred briefly, their voices low, but Bainbridge knew what they’d be thinking and discussing. Upon his arrival in town that winter’s afternoon he’d made sure to get a few timid souls at the local tavern worked up about the dangers of witchcraft, and as darkness fell they’d carried their worries straight to their leaders.
Forced by the demand for action to hold a council meeting, those learned men in charge of a fearful flock would be afraid themselves. If they forbade Bainbridge’s witch-finding, might that be taken to mean they were in fellowship with the Devil as well? If, on the other hand, they hired him to dig out the evil, they’d be short some trifling pounds from the town treasury and no harm done except to the witches, and what were a few old men and women more or less to them?
They reluctantly consented, Bainbridge went to work, and promptly found a witch.
Mr. Percy looked worried, almost morose, at this turn, but some of the others had a gleam of expectation in their eyes. Certainly the news of witch trials taking place in nearby towns had aroused their curiosity. Now it seemed they’d have the chance to see one at first hand.
This was just the start, though. Something entertaining to whet the appetite for the blood-letting to come. Bainbridge had accurately summed up just how much he could pocket from this little village.
Soon would come the real work: the sorting of gossip as hidden jealousies surfaced, as old grievances were recalled, then the searching of houses, discovery, the triumph of good as the flames burned away the evil. Every town in England was bursting with such opportunities, and it was a dull man who could not turn them to his own profit. Bainbridge fully intended to give them their money’s worth.
“Very well,” said Percy with an air of resignation. “Have the accused brought before us.”
Two strong young men standing by the council chamber’s door obliged him. They returned almost immediately with their charge; the others, seated judge-like at the long table, leaned forward with interest.
“ ’Swounds!” one of them muttered.
The soft exclamation was justified. No aged crone for tonight’s event—the sweet-faced young girl that stood before them had the figure of a temptress, with or without the help of stays. For the present she was without, being clad only in a plain chemise of thin and revealing weave. Her cap was gone as well, exposing an abundant crown of dark hair that tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. The flesh of her bared arms and a fair length of leg was a pleasing white and unblemished.
“Why, it’s Gweneth Skye,” said another man.
Bainbridge knew her name. He knew all about her, or as much as he could pick up from the tavern gossips. The spinster Skye made her way in the world tending sheep like most of the others living here, but she lived alone in her humble croft. Alone, except for a few cats. How Bainbridge loved cats, especially when combined with a solitary female. Usually the women he picked out for accusation were old, but this one’s youth and beauty would work in his favor just as well, if not better. There was always a contingent of respectable harpies—goodwives, that is to say—in any town ready to think the worst of any well-favored, unmarried, and therefore threatening female. They’d nag their husbands into lighting the first fire. Once that milestone was reached, the real frolic would begin.
Gweneth rubbed her arms as though cold and glanced at the row of men gaping at her.
“See, but she’s a bold and shameless wench,” said Bainbridge, planting his favorite and most fruitful seed. “Given is to the chance she’d gladly seduce any one of you goodly souls to the service of her dark master, if she hasn’t been doing so already in the town.”
Oh, but that always gave them something to think about. Once he’d introduced the idea of her lustfully preying on their weak physical natures, the men would have her tied to the stake quick as spit before their wives could think to suspect them.
“It has yet to be proved that she is in league with the devil, sir,” Percy reminded him.
“Then I will delay no longer.” Bainbridge turned full upon the girl, thrusting his face at her. “What is your name?” he roared.
She regarded him with calm eyes, showing not the slightest hint of alarm. “Gweneth Skye,” she answered in a clear, church-cool voice. “What’s yours?”
Bainbridge blinked. She should have at least flinched at such a vocal assault. “I am,” he announced loudly so any villagers with ears pressed to the chamber door could hear without strain, “the Witch-Pricker Bainbridge.”
She favored him with a stony face. “Meaning you run about the countryside pricking witches when the fancy takes you? What do you do with all the brats that come of it?”
He rounded on the mayor and his men in time to see their sniggering reaction. That was bad. If he lost control of things at this early point, he never would see his fee of twenty shillings per head.
“Are you very good at pricking, Mr. Bainbridge?” she inquired innocently.
“Honest sirs,” he said keeping his gaze ste
adily on his restive audience to better regain his hold of them, “You have just heard for yourselves that this female not only has a lewd mind, lacks the natural womanly virtue of modesty, but she also holds absolutely no respect for authority.”
Gweneth Skye made an audible yawn.
“She’s ever been modest, sir,” said one of them, Cameron by name. “As you’ve taken away her clothes, it makes that virtue impossible.”
“Ah, but there is a good reason, sir. The most infallible way to prove anyone is in the service of the Devil is to find the mark of his filthy claw upon their body, so it was necessary to make the woman ready for just such a search. Since I have much experience at this, I will conduct my query here and now—with your permission, of course.”
“With our permission, eh? How do you feel about it, Gweneth?”
That was unexpected. Bainbridge hadn’t thought she’d have a friend here. Perhaps later, when the time was ripe for it, he could bring an accusation against this Cameron and remove his sympathetic influence. He was a handsome, well-set young bravo, though, and men like that always had friends. It would be a nimble trick, but just possible to play if Bainbridge worked things right. Once the panic had firm hold of them, the hunt took on a life and course of its own.
When that happened, he’d leave this place with full pockets and another tale of success to add to his growing reputation.
“I suppose so,” Gweneth replied with an indifferent shrug. “I’ve nothing to hide.”
More laughter. Percy cast a sour glance at the others to quell it, then nodded. “Very well, permission is granted.”
Bainbridge swung upon Gweneth and reached toward and her, but she was too quick for him. Her chemise was off her shoulders and in a crumpled ring at her feet fast as lightning, inspiring a collective gasp from the men and a snarl of baffled annoyance from Bainbridge.
