“Walker,” said Reginald, switching away from the familiar use of his first name. “Just do it.”
Walker looked at the screen for a long time. Charles’s gaze went back and forth between the man next to him and the computer screen. Finally he took Walker by the shoulder and turned him away from the camera, then pulled him back a few steps, out of range. Reginald watched all he could see of them (the tops of their heads) while Charles hissed something to Walker and Walker hissed back. Then Walker returned to the computer. In the background, Charles was whispering into a phone. Maybe — hopefully — to Paul Isis. Although why Charles would have anything to do with Paul was beyond Reginald.
“You really think you can stop this, Reggie?”
“Reginald,” Reginald corrected. “And the answer is that I’d like to try.”
“Lafontaine isn’t going to want to talk to you even if Paul can somehow connect you. This is strike three. Two meetings, two betrayals. I watched helmetcam video of the first one, where Timken tried to fuck them and they fucked him right back. I don’t know who fucked who the second time, but it ended up with our guy dead and a lot of their people dead. He’s not going to trust you any further than he can throw you.” Then, because he was Walker, he said, “And just look at you, Reggie. Nobody’s throwing you anywhere.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Fine,” said Walker. He pulled a phone from his pocket, then clicked around. “You ready?”
Reginald realized Walker wasn’t going to make the call. He was going to give them Paul’s mobile number. He probably didn’t want to get in the middle. With Claude breathing down his neck, he didn’t want to be arranging anything Claude might not approve of. If Reginald got ahold of Isis’s number, though, then Walker couldn’t be held responsible for what Reginald decided to do with it.
Nikki had a scrap of paper and a pen. “Go.”
Walker read the number. Nikki copied it down, then read it back to confirm. Reginald let her do it, knowing she’d want to do it as an act of assistance. But Reginald, with his databank mind, didn’t need her note, and he didn’t need anyone to repeat anything. Now that he’d seen the completed vampire codex, he really only needed one thing, and that thing was approaching faster than he wanted it to.
“One more thing,” said Walker, just as they were about to hang up.
“What?”
“Before Timken took over, your buddy was Deacon, right?”
Reginald took a deep breath. “My maker was. Yes.”
“And you were his Vice Deacon.”
“Yes.”
“And he’s dead now.”
Reginald stuffed down irritation. This was Walker at his classic best. He probably wasn’t even trying to be an asshole. He just couldn’t help it.
“Yes.”
“But if he’d died all those years ago, when you were Vice, then you would be in charge now. Instead of Claude.”
“That’s a hell of a leap,” said Reginald. In reality the answer was “not a chance,” because Reginald would have been overthrown just as Maurice had been, and it would have been far easier. Charles might or might not have seized power for himself afterward, and Timken may or may not have swooped in to save/doom the day. But most of all, even if Reginald had found himself in the Deacon’s (or president’s) seat, he would have abdicated immediately. He wasn’t a leader, and didn’t remotely want to be.
Except, he realized, that’s exactly what he was doing right now: leading. But so much had changed.
“You think you’re better than Claude, though. Right?”
It was Nikki who answered. Reginald wanted to dodge the question, but she took it like a tackle.
“He is,” she said.
“Well, for what it’s worth,” said Walker, looking quiet and thoughtful, “thank God that didn’t happen, because you really would have fucked it up.”
The laptop lid snapped shut and Charles’s computer, in New York, went to sleep.
“When we’re done trying to save the world,” said Brian from the back seat, “I’d like to pull that guy’s asshole over his head.”
HERO
REGINALD STEPPED OUT OF THE car when the sun was fully set. Nikki stepped out with him. They’d driven for two hours, into New York’s upstate, over a hundred miles from where Timken had been killed. Nikki reached out and took Reginald’s hand, then held it to her cheek.
“This is the part where I tell you not to go,” she said.
“This is the part where I say, like a cliche, that I have to go.”
“And then this,” she said, “is where I try again.”
Reginald looked through the still-open door. Brian had emerged from the car’s other side and was standing with an enormous forearm on the hood, but Claire was still sitting inside, fiddling with something.
“I suppose it won’t work if I tell you that you have to stay to protect Claire,” said Reginald, “seeing as she’s nearing retirement age.”
Nikki shook her head. “No.” She let Reginald’s arm hang, his hand still clasped in hers. “But I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Sure. Do you remember the story you told me about the night you were turned? Maurice suggested that you be the first person in history to actually believe what he was seeing, instead of playing through the tired old ‘vampires don’t exist and I’m not a vampire OMG’ trope.” She actually said all three letters: Oh-em-gee.
“I remember.”
“Well, I’d love to be the first companion in history to see that there really is no other way.”
Reginald smiled.
“There isn’t, is there?”
Instead of giving her the answer she already knew, he asked another. “Is that what you are? A ‘companion’?”
“I think that’s how Raymond Burr referred to his gay lover: ‘Companion.'"
“I am a lot like Raymond Burr,” said Reginald, imagining himself with a beard.
“In this scenario,” said Nikki, “I’m Raymond Burr.”
“Hot,” said Reginald.
Reginald looked off into the distance. The expanse he had to walk was, by design, entirely treeless. Lafontaine had wanted nothing to do with Reginald when Paul had arranged their phone call on Nikki’s pleading request. It had taken a lot of threats (from Lafontaine) and begging (from Reginald) before Lafontaine would even consider it. It was only when Reginald hinted at the idea of the codex and its revelation that Lafontaine began to listen. He waffled for a long time, saying that he’d looked up the fat vampire after being betrayed by him twice (“Not by me,” Reginald clarified) and that he wanted to believe him, but that he wouldn’t be a fool three times. Reginald told him that he just wanted to be heard. It had to be in person, because the human mastermind needed to use whatever eyeless eyes he had to look Reginald in the face and see the truth: that they were more alike than different. By “they,” Reginald had meant vampires and humans, but he realized quickly that Lafontaine was thinking of himself and Reginald — the fat human and the fat vampire. And as strange and stupid of a bond as that was, Lafontaine had seemed to understand.
So they’d agreed to meet for the third time — just the two of them, on decidedly unequal ground.
In the middle of an old baseball field in the middle of a maintained park, with open lines of sight in all directions.
And Reginald would come alone.
Unarmed, and wearing no armor of any kind.
And the humans would come in force, armed to the teeth.
And Reginald would find himself in a hundred gunsights at once. And be bound in silver on arrival.
And Lafontaine would be covered in the disease agent.
And while the meeting would need to happen at night, the humans would make sure the field lights (“not UV,” Lafontaine said in the spirit of granting a great concession) had power, and were on… and they’d turn half of the lights around, to watch the surrounding area, with visibility for miles.
And the men with the guns would be w
earing night vision goggles, prepared to annihilate anything that moved.
“It’s okay,” Reginald told Nikki, now holding both of her hands in his. “I have a secret plan to overwhelm them.”
Nikki laughed. They had, of course, run through scenario after scenario during the drive, trying to find holes in Lafontaine’s plan. There were none. Even if they were on good terms with the Vampire Council or CPC — which they definitely were not — they wouldn’t be able to summon their help. The new human weapons were superior to anything the vampires had and they’d be able to see them coming a mile away. The best an armed force would be able to manage would be a full-out assault, from all directions at once. But as things stood, they were just three vampires and a mostly-human woman, so leaving three behind wasn’t decreasing their impossible odds any, and Nikki knew it.
“What if he kills you?”
Reginald had considered it. The answer was that he didn’t care. But the answer he gave to Nikki was the best lie he could manage: “I’m sure he won’t.”
“Sure with all of your big vampire brain?” Her voice hitched. She tried to hide it, but he could hear it plain as day. And he could feel her pain from the inside, as much as he tried to shut it out and give her her privacy. It was unbearable to feel, and unbearably indulgent given that he was the emotion’s subject.
“Totally sure,” he lied again.
“How are you going to get him to end it?”
“I’m gonna make him an offer he don’t refuse.”
Nikki looked at him askance. “Was that supposed to be Brando from The Godfather?”
“Actually I was going for DeNiro. When he was a new immigrant. Immigrants speak that way.” But he realized he should have done Brando. He had late-Brando’s body shape.
“I see.”
“I’ll be fine, Nikki.”
But now Nikki’s hitch had become a stifled sob. She choked it back, but a tear traced its way down the crease beside her nose, and seeing it broke something inside him.
“You’re strong enough for this,” he told her.
“No,” she said. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
Another tear fell. She pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him. “Shh. This is the part where you’re the strong one, and you go off into the sunset while your woman cries behind you.” Then she smiled. “It’s okay. Bittersweet is still sweet, in its own way.” And with that, Reginald realized that he hadn’t fooled her even one tiny little bit with his lies. And still, she was letting him go. Because the world was ending again, and this time it looked like it was ending for good.
“Third time’s a charm,” said Reginald, trying to force a smile. It wouldn’t come. His own words clanged back in his mind. Although he’d meant that his third meeting with Lafontaine might yet succeed, his last thought had been about the end of them all. The first time the end of the world had approached, it had looked like the vampires were goners. The second time, it had been humans who neared extinction. And this time, barring a miracle, it would be both. Because even for armageddon, the third time was a charm.
Claire got out of the car and hugged Reginald. It was hard not to feel that her hug was too high. She was supposed to be at his waist, ten years old and wearing a coat with a giant anorak hood. How much she’d changed. How much they’d all changed, while not changing at all.
“Does the codex tell you whether this will work?” Claire asked him.
“No,” he said. “What about you?”
Claire shook her head. “I’ve been seeing a fog in the distance of my mind for weeks, but it’s all fog now. I kept expecting that as we went forward, the fog would clear. But now everything is covered — though whether it’s gone or just hidden, I can’t say. I can tell you about the past and I can tell you about the present. But the future?” She shrugged.
Nikki looked from one to the other. “Two fortune tellers. Zero fortune.”
“It’s a decision,” said Claire. “The future is undetermined because it’s all come down to the crucial decision. Free will and all. Ironically, that’s the thing that saved you the first time.”
Nikki gave Reginald a pained smile, her eyes wet. “Second time’s a charm,” she said.
“Maybe.”
“And maybe the decision at hand is your decision to walk off. Into the humans’ hands. Alone.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice, and another tear fell.
He shook his head because he didn’t know if that was the decision or not. But she waved it off, not wanting to hear.
Reginald felt his resolve beginning to wane. So he looked toward the horizon — funnily enough in the direction of the sunset, where the hero would go at the end of a western. He hugged Claire and said goodbye without saying goodbye, then took Brian by the hand and then pulled him into a hug and called him brother. He held Nikki tight, and kissed her deeply.
Then he walked away, feeling more alone than he ever had — in either of his two lives.
BASEBALL
REGINALD WASN’T STRONG OR FAST by vampire standards even after forty years, but after enough time bloodsucking, he’d gotten reasonably fast by human standards. He jogged the twenty miles to the park (the closest he was willing to drive, for the protection of the others) in under two hours, his belly flapping and jarring the entire time. The park itself wasn’t hard to find. He only had to follow the lights — and the escort vehicle that pulled up beside him when he was five miles out and trained a light on him, aiming several automatic weapons and yelling at him not to flinch.
Soon a wash of bright light appeared on the horizon. He ran into its middle through a gauntlet of guns, like an Olympic torch-bearer running into the opening ceremonies. On the pitcher’s mound of the baseball field was a metal chair. The bullhorn voice of the vehicle’s driver commanded Reginald to sit in it, so he did. Five humans who weren’t Walter Lafontaine came out of the darkness. Three aimed weapons while the other two (fully armored, as if Reginald were Hannibal Lecter) used padlocks brushed in liquid silver to bind him with what appeared to be solid silver chain. Even as Reginald felt the chain drag him down, weighing tons on his shoulders, he wondered at the chain itself. Nobody made solid silver chain. Had the humans melted silver jewelry and silver flatware to make it themselves? How many ancestral stashes had they had to raid to make it? What kind of facility had the process required? He continued to imagine vast underground human cities, complete with high-end biological labs, manufacturing plants, tech research facilities, and now an industrial smelter. The vampires had vastly, vastly underestimated their foes, as vampires always did. It was ironic that one of the things that defined the vampire population as predators was their tendency to turn a blind eye to the true threat of their prey.
Once Reginald was bound, the five humans retreated, still aiming their guns. More men appeared around the baseball field’s edges, aiming weapons like spectators with a vested interest in the game’s outcome. Reginald found himself painted in laser sights. He wanted to laugh, but doing so felt incredibly dangerous. The humans had been burned twice — and had done some burning themselves — so no trust was going to be granted until it was duly earned. All in all, Reginald didn’t particularly care if they killed him. In many ways, death would be a relief… but he had to at least convey his message before he left the planet. He owed it to the others. He owed it to every human and vampire still alive, because without that message, none of them would be alive for long.
More lights came on facing the field. More lights came on facing away from the field. More troops swarmed. Reginald realized a strangely harmonious thought as he watched them: when they were armored, humans and vampires looked the same. Both species dressed in black armor, protected their necks, wore helmets… and, today, both wielded guns. Both had hate and suspicion in their eyes, even when their eyes weren’t visible. He was watching human rebels, but they could be vampire members of the CPC. Or Timken’s pre-war Sedition Army troops. Or pre-war human AVT. Or Claude’s murder
ous, black ops V-Crews.
Killers, in the end, were killers.
And then, strangely, Reginald realized something else. Something he hadn’t seen before. Not only did they look alike; they felt alike as well. Sitting on the chair in the middle of the brightly lit baseball field, alone and waiting to see if Lafontaine would show or if they’d kill him out of hand, Reginald realized that he could feel the humans. They felt like a haze of nerves, of distrust and fear and anger and focused, desperate hope. He’d always been gifted at glamouring humans, but he’d never been able to feel them before. Yet right here and now, all of that emotion and thought surrounded him like a cold fog. Maybe other vampires couldn’t evolve, and maybe the angels had been right. But Reginald had never stopped evolving, never stopped discovering new talents. It should be worth something. But somehow, it never had been.
A shadow emerged from the dugout. It walked ten feet toward Reginald, still not even to home plate on the baseball field. The figure was larger than the others, wearing armor that made its chest look big. But its chest was already large. The big belly of the human — so like Reginald’s big belly — was a silhouette against the blinding lights.
“I wanted to believe you, Reginald,” said the shadow.
It took a few more steps, now nearing home plate.
“But you just can’t be trusted, can you? I don’t like the idea of killing you all. I really don’t, honest. But you vampires are like killer bees. You give us no choice; we can’t live with you off to the side — live and let live — because every time we try to give you the benefit of the doubt, you do something to break whatever trust there almost was, and to take away the doubt.”
Reginald tried to straighten his back under the chain. He looked at the fat black silhouette and said, “You’re right. I’m coming at you right now. Look out; I’m dangerous.”
Lafontaine’s silhouette turned and yelled something into the dugout. A new silhouette emerged, holding a second silhouette. More men with weapons appeared, now pointing at Reginald and at the new figures. More lights began to scan the distance.
Fat Vampire 6: Survival of the Fattest Page 15
