The Vampire Files, Volume Three

by P. N. Elrod

  6

  I yanked hard on Opal’s arm and we half dropped, half fell on the unforgiving concrete, then I rolled on top of her. It was pure instinct, my body wouldn’t stop a bullet now, and God knows there were plenty of them flying. They cracked and thundered all around us, and I pressed my face against Opal’s shoulder and prayed for it to be over. It took me back to the War, to the one time I saw any fighting, and I’d moaned a similar prayer then when I’d crouched in a ditch while a bunch of strangers in a machine-gun nest tried to kill me. The noise had gone on and on and on and there’d been an unending supply of it, and that’s what was the worst: the sound hammering into my ears as if to beat the brain from my skull. I got the insane thought that maybe if they actually shot me and saw the blood, they’d finally stop the damned noise.

  It was like that all over again, only without the ditch. We had no cover and didn’t dare try for any. I glanced up and saw the slow passage of the Packard as it swept regally by, though it must have been going a good clip. My terror turned it into a snail’s crawl.

  Calloway and the others were also caught up in the crawl as they ducked and tumbled or tried to run clear. The ones who had their guns out returned fire, but I couldn’t hear the smaller cracks of their pistols against the fire-spitting roar of a full automatic.

  It tore up chunks of pavement; it splintered the hotel doors; it scattered frightened men; it did everything but shut the hell up.

  And when I was ready to start yelling just to try drowning out the bedlam, it was suddenly gone.

  If there was silence, I couldn’t appreciate it. My ears felt stuffed, like I had a cold, and seemed to ring like a phone on the fritz. Down the street the Packard’s red taillights vanished around the corner. It could come back, no reason why it shouldn’t. Calloway’s men were no match for it, that was for damned sure.

  I checked on them. One was down on the walk and not moving, two rushed past trying to catch up with the car, firing as they ran. The others were out of sight. Calloway was just in front of me and starting to stand; he yelled at the pursuers to come back, sounding like he was behind a brick wall. I could hear him, but not too well.

  “Opal?” I knew I was talking too loud; it was all reaction.

  She didn’t answer right away. I looked down, trying to read her pinched face. Her glasses were half off. I straightened them for her with my free hand. Her eyes were squeezed tight shut and she was half-curled on her side. I told her it was over and tried to coax her up, but she wouldn’t move.

  “Hey, honey, you okay?”

  All she did was groan.

  Bloodsmell.

  Oh, damn. Oh, goddammit. Couldn’t tell where she’d been hit, her coat was dark.

  “Calloway!”

  He turned, looked down, and took it in, then started cussing.

  “Call an ambulance, you bastard!”

  “Screw it!” he yelled back, and stalked over to his fallen man. It didn’t take long to check him out; at twenty feet I could tell he was dead. One of the others had caught a slug in the leg, and was limping back, supported by a luckier friend.

  Opal whimpered.

  “Calloway!”

  He twitched as if from an electric shock and rounded on me. Had his gun in hand. Three quick steps and he brought it level with my eyes, inches away. The fast movement surprised me, but the real shock was his expression.

  I’d heard about blind rage, knew all about it from feeling it myself, but this was the first time I’d actually seen what it did to anyone. His face was distorted, teeth bared, eyes wide and blank, the cords and veins showed through his mottled red skin. Unrecognizable. I stared right up the barrel of his .45, the hole in that yawning muzzle blacker than hell. It was a meaningless tool. Nothing was more dangerous than the man himself. I tore my gaze from it to his sightless eyes and knew what birds know when they freeze just as the snake takes them.

  Before I could vanish, he pulled the trigger.

  My heart jumped into my throat, a cold ball made of iron and ice that made me choke. It slammed back down into my gut again. No time to brace for the pain.

  But . . . nothing.

  Used-up round in the chamber.

  He tried three more times before the idea penetrated that it wasn’t going to work, then I thought he’d throw the revolver at me. One of his men bellowed at him, and that seemed to help. He came out of it by degrees, but very fast. One moment trying to kill me, the next shouting back at his man and getting reorganized, and in between he visibly hauled in his fury hand over hand to shut it away for later. It had to be for later. A man doesn’t get crazy mad like that without having a lot of it stored up inside.

  Then Opal made another pain-filled sound and I got mad again myself.

  “Calloway, stop screwing around and take this kid to a hospital.”

  “I’ll take you both to hell!”

  “She’s no good to you dead!”

  Baker put in his two cents’ worth. “We gotta scram, Lieutenant. We can’t explain this.”

  Calloway said “shit” a few times under his breath while he was thinking. “Okay, we’ll scram, but not all of us. Get the Caddie and bring it over here. You and you are with us.” He pointed at the cops who’d tried chasing the Packard.

  Baker gestured at the dead and wounded. “What about—”

  “They stay.” He looked at the wounded man’s partner. “You’re both going to cover for us. Here’s the story: You heard something at the raid about this place, that the Paco gang might have holed up here, so the three of you got ambitious and came to check it. Before you could get inside, the shooting started. Blame it on Paco. You leave everything else out, understand? The rest of us weren’t here.”

  The men wearily nodded. One looked down at the dead cop on the sidewalk. “Lieutenant . . . ”

  “I know, but it’s done. You cover for us and you’re covering for him. You’re going to give him an ‘in the line of duty’ finish. Make him a hero and no one touches the rest of us, got that?”

  “Yeah.” They nodded again.

  “Now get in and fix it with the manager, make sure he knows what’s good for him. You two stick together and just follow normal procedure. Do the job right and I’ll see to it you get extra this week; botch it, and we’re all in the can. Go.”

  They hobbled off.

  He turned to me. “How bad is she?”

  “She’s bleeding. Goddammit, how bad does she have to be for you to do something?”

  He didn’t bother to answer, just came close and knelt. He pulled Opal’s coat open. The white blouse underneath was stained with bright, fresh red. He undid the buttons and peeled back the right half. There was a hole just under her collarbone, seeping more red at an alarming rate. The blood made steam in the cold air. He pulled out a folded handkerchief and pressed it against the wound, then rose and nodded at his two remaining men. “Get them in the car.”

  “Where we going?”

  “Sullivan’s.”

  Baker got the Caddie started and swerved it in against the curb. Calloway climbed in the front, and the other two helped me get Opal in the back. I told them to take the cuffs off to make things easier, but no one listened. Wedged between them, I held Opal on my lap. She wasn’t big, but completely limp, making her strangely heavy. I pulled her coat close around her, hoping to keep her warm, and kept up the pressure on the sodden handkerchief.

  “Hey, Opal, come on, sweetheart, wake up.”

  She made a protesting sound. God, she was pale.

  “Hospital, Calloway,” I said as Baker hit the gears and pulled into the street.

  Calloway looked at me over the seat. Didn’t say a word.

  “Hospital.” I was focused on him, but didn’t think there was enough light.

  He jerked his chin at the men. “Keep him quiet.”

  “She’s bleeding to death, you—”

  The cop on my right cracked me across the forehead with the side of his revolver. Not full force, but enough to h
urt, to get my attention. It made a white flash under my eyelids, and my head snapped back over the top of the seat. I blinked at the padded cloth of the ceiling for a few seconds before straightening.

  “Quiet,” the cop said, pointing with one finger like a parent to an especially backward child.

  I glared at him. “This girl is bleeding, dammit, it ain’t gonna stop just because—”

  His partner got me from the other side. More flashing lights. More pain. No vanishing for me, it wasn’t to that point yet, but would be the next time I opened my mouth. I weighed the pros and cons of vanishing. It would throw these two for damn sure. I could get in the front seat, take out Calloway, and get Baker to . . . no, bad idea. He was going over the limit just now. Any surprises at this speed could be fatal. I’d have to wait until we got to a stop signal.

  Checked Opal. Her lids cracked open.

  “Hey, sweetheart, come on and talk to me.” No hits from my friends for this. They only took offense if I tried speaking to them. “Opal?”

  She winced and shifted in my arms, then made a soft cry.

  “It’s all right, we’re getting help.” I looked at Calloway for some crumb of confirmation, but saw only the back of his head.

  “It hurts,” said Opal.

  “I know it does, honey. Just hold on for a little bit.”

  “My shoulder burns . . . it hurts.”

  “Calloway—”

  The guy on my right put his gun to my temple. “This one’s loaded again. You can shut up on your own, or I can do it for you.” The look on his face told me he wasn’t even remotely kidding.

  It wouldn’t do Opal any good if they shot me. I’d just disappear, and whatever happened next would be out of my control until I finally recovered. Best not to push them or pull any supernatural surprises until an opportunity occurred. If only they’d put the inside light on; I’d whammy them so fast they wouldn’t know what hit them.

  But Baker kept up the driving, sliding illegally through stop signals. Never a traffic cop around when you needed one, not that getting pulled over would change things. All Calloway and the others had to do was show their badges and move on. He had plenty of rank to get away with nearly anything. He must have been one hell of an asset for Kyler; now he was Sullivan’s man, and that made me wonder what Sullivan was like. I was getting a good idea from watching Calloway, though. Before, with

  Kyler, Calloway’s attitude was that of any worker for his boss, respectful, but impersonal. Now he was showing a lot of anger, but it was of the kind that meant underneath he was really afraid.

  The tension in the confined space was smothering. They were utterly silent, which wasn’t right; people always have to talk. On the other hand, one of their own had been killed right in front of them. Any of them could have caught that hit. That sort of thing was a tough deal to approach no matter what direction you took. No wonder they wanted me quiet.

  Not that I gave a tinker’s damn for what they were going through. Opal was my only concern. I tried to get her to talk again, but she’d only shake her head and mumble about hurting. All I could do was keep the pressure up on the wound. My right arm was curled around her to hold her close. Before too long I noticed a warm wetness there. Blood, of course. It had soaked down from her shoulder. The whole car reeked of it.

  Had to take a risk. I kept my voice low and even. “Calloway, she’s bleeding to death from this. It’s no flesh wound. It’s serious. She needs help.”

  He looked over the seat again, sending a silent signal to his men not to hit me. “We’re taking her to help, pretty boy.”

  “She needs a hospital. Get us to one. I’ll give your boss anything he wants on the Pacos, I help him put them right out of business, but this girl has to come first.”

  “Can’t do that, but she’ll get help, I promise. Now shut the hell up.” He turned away. The guy on my right wore a face that was just waiting for me to say one more thing so he could shoot.

  The signals thinned out, as did the traffic, and we were on a long dark stretch of road that was almost but not quite in the country. The city was growing in this direction, and stores and gas stations were making steady headway against empty fields. A lot of the businesses had gone bust because of the crash, though. The remaining ones were most certainly tied to the mobs and had another, hidden business on the side, like the dance studio. You could tell which ones, too, they just had that look.

  I recognized the route. We were going to Kyler’s roadhouse. Unlike Angela, perhaps Sullivan felt he had no need to keep his head down. Or maybe he knew about the seven hundred grand hidden in the basement. Opal’s diagram was still folded away in my little notebook, safe for the moment. They’d only checked for guns earlier.

  A few minutes more and Baker hauled the wheel around, turned into a discreet unpaved drive, then we pulled into a graveled parking lot. It served a big joint, two sprawling stories of brown brick with white trim, a wide porch going all the way around the front and sides. In the summer tables and chairs would be there for the patrons to enjoy their drinks and food while counting the stars. No one was out now. The place was closed tight, all the windows dark, the outer doors shut, the lot itself empty and bleak. Quite a change from last night, when everything was jumping like New Year’s Eve.

  We drove around to the back. Three cars were parked close by the delivery entry. A single cold blue light glowed over the metal door. It looked to be hard to get through. All the windows on this side were webbed over with metal lattices. If anyone wanted to break in, it would have to be elsewhere on the building.

  Baker braked and cut the motor. My hearing had fully recovered during the trip; I tried to listen and pick up Opal’s heartbeat, but the others made too much noise piling from the car. They ordered me to get out and I did so, trying my best not to bump Opal around too much. She whimpered and cried again, holding weakly to me with her free hand. I carried her up half a dozen wood steps to a loading platform, where Baker and Calloway were just going in the back door.

  A good-sized kitchen. I had a feeling of dèjá vu, but only for a moment. Trudence Coldfield’s place had been full of light, warmth, and company; this one was dim, chill, and crowded with seven or eight hard-looking men. A swell welcoming committee, if you didn’t mind all the iron they were packing under their armpits.

  The shadows here were big; a single light shone at the far end over one of the stoves, but it looked to be enough for me to work with—if I was careful. Calloway was edgy; Baker, alert and ready for trouble, was right behind me along with the other two cops. Crooks and cops, each group eyed the other warily.

  A slight-figured, greasy-haired man with pale, cold eyes behind tortoiseshell-framed glasses stepped forward. He wore a silk shirt, suspenders, and a neatly done up bow tie. He looked me and Opal over with mild interest, then turned to Calloway. “What happened?”

  I caught a whiff of sweaty fear from Calloway as he hesitated over answering.

  Opal didn’t have time for this.

  I pushed forward past all the men, past Calloway. “Are you Sean Sullivan?”

  He quirked his lip and lifted his chin. “I’m Maxwell, Mr. Sullivan’s secretary.”

  “Well this is his bookkeeper. She’s been shot and needs a doctor.”

  “You’re Fleming? Calloway told me about y—”

  “Later. You just get some wheels moving.”

  Cold eyes on Calloway now. Leisurely. “How did this happen?”

  He shifted once on his feet, visibly uncomfortable, then gave a succinct report of the basics. “I think it was Paco’s people.”

  “Hitting their own place?” Maxwell shook his head, amused. “Why would they do that?”

  I bulled closer, this time to make eye contact with him. “Talk about it later. You need to help this girl. Now. Nothing’s more important than that.”

  He rocked on his heels.

  A couple of his boys stepped toward me. I felt something cold and hard pressing on my temple. Calloway had h
is gun on me. “Shut up, pretty boy.”

  Maxwell wobbled again like I’d slapped him, then recovered his balance. He came out of it, raised one hand. “That will be enough, Lieutenant. He’s perfectly right. We really must see to the welfare of the young lady.”

  Calloway shot me a murderous look. “What did you do to—”

  “Later,” snapped Maxwell, suddenly all bustle and business. “Put her on that table. One of you find a pot, get some water heated. Find some towels.”

  The whole troop stood stunned for a moment by this change in him, but Maxwell told them to move again, and that did the trick. Finally. They scattered to obey his orders. I eased Opal onto a big, white-painted preparation table. She was very heavy now; she’d passed out.

  I focused on Baker, held up my cuffed wrist. “Key. Use it.”

  He started to reach for it, but Calloway put a hand out to stop him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Baker shook out of it, and couldn’t come up with a good answer. They both glared at me, Calloway all puzzled anger until Maxwell stepped in.

  “Yes, unlock those things,” he said.

  Baker looked first at Calloway, but got the nod from Maxwell. He unlocked the cuffs. Opal’s skin was marked red where the metal had bit, but that was the least of her worries. I tried to be gentle as I wrestled the coat off her; the wet, folded handkerchief dropped away to the floor, spattering blood as it landed.

  Her coat had soaked up a lot of it, but more was coming out. One of the men found towels; I grabbed one and pressed it against the hole. At least it wasn’t pulsing, otherwise she’d be dead by now.

  Maxwell told one of his men to go upstairs and get someone. Another man was busy at a sink, running hot tap water into a big pot, the rest, including Calloway, just stood about and stared hard at me. Probably wondering what I’d done to put the corncob up Maxwell’s ass. Let ’em wonder.

  “Get some light in here,” I said.

  Someone found the switch, brightening things instantly. The man with the water pot put it on a massive stove and turned the gas on. Blue and yellow flames licked high, hissing. It was the only sound besides their breathing until I caught a double set of footsteps coming our way. One heavy, the other shuffling.