“Bait? Bait for what?”
“Not what, darlin’, but who.”
“Fine, then! Who!”
“A guy named Scott Campbell. You know Scotty?”
“Scott Campbell? Seriously? Why?”
“You don’t know, do you? You don’t know what Scott Campbell is. Well, let me tell you something about Mr. Campbell. That frumpy fortysomething loser is a vampire.”
“What? Come on! At least make up something remotely believable!”
Jack turned to the vampire with the muttonchops. “Bill, I don’t think she believes that Scott Campbell is a vampire. What do you think about that?”
“That’s messed up, boss,” Bill answered.
“That’s right. The girl asks for a reason, and I give it right to her. And she doesn’t believe me! My goodness, what are we going to do about this younger generation? I blame the Internet.”
“It’s bad enough that you kidnapped me! Please don’t insult my intelligence,” Dawn said.
“Guys, I’m gettin’ nowhere with this fine little lady. You don’t believe in vampires, do you, darlin’?”
“Of course not. Nor do I believe in Bigfoot, UFOs, or the Tooth Fairy.”
“Well, I can’t help you with those. I can with vampires, though. Because, you see, I am one. Vampire, that is. But since you don’t believe a word I’m saying, I guess I’m just gonna have to give you a demonstration. Hold on to your ass, darlin’, ’cause it’s about to get blown away.”
Almost in unison, the three vampires revealed their inner selves to Dawn. Their faces contorted, and fangs suddenly appeared in their gaping mouths. Their eyes blackened, revealing the hideous depths of utter depravity that loomed deep within. This was another thing that Dawn could not process. It was almost as horrifying as the previous spectacle of people bursting into flame. Again, she screamed in terror.
“See what I mean, darlin’?” Jack snarled. “Now do you believe?”
She could not answer, for she could not speak. The terror on her face was answer enough. Jack, Shelia, and Bill reverted to their human appearances, but Dawn’s primal fear remained. “Yeah, you believe now. Then you’ll believe me when I say that we—well, I—want Scott Campbell, and because of you, I am going to get him.”
Dawn regained enough composure to be able to ask, “Why—why do you want him?”
“Because he’s my meal ticket. Oh, there’s something about a prophecy, the chosen one, and all that, and a lot of vampires give that mumbo jumbo credence. And they believe little Scotty Campbell is that chosen one. Whether he is or not, I have no idea. Don’t really care. But other vampires believe he is, and that’s good enough for me.”
“So, this is all about getting Scott, because he’s some sort of…chosen one?”
“No, actually, this is all about me. Me getting what I want. Me getting what I deserve. And Scott is the key.”
“This is insane.”
“Ain’t it, though? Your Scott Campbell, some kind of vampire messiah. I mean, whoda thunk it, right?”
“You’re not going to use me for a trap. I hope Scott doesn’t come.”
“Well, if he doesn’t, you’re kinda fucked. But he’s coming, darlin’. He’s coming.”
CHAPTER 33
Scott parked in the almost empty parking lot of the old Amalgamated Cast Parts Plant, got out of his car, and walked toward the building. The hard rain drove into the asphalt around him, and the halogen lot lights cast an unnatural illumination on the wet surface. He did not notice anyone else around, the only other car in the lot being a long black Lincoln Continental. He walked toward the main door of the abandoned business, his senses on alert. He reached for the handle, pulled the door open, and stepped inside. “Hello? Dawn? Anyone?” Scott called, his voice echoing in the spacious lobby.
“Well, hello, Scott,” Jack’s voice came from the shadows. “We’re so glad you could make it. So is Dawn. Not that she’s especially happy to see you, but I think she’d rather not die horribly.”
“Where is she?”
Jack stepped out of the shadows, followed by Bill and Sheila. “First things first. Why don’t you take off that jacket? My, that’s a nice one, looks kinda like mine. You’ve got taste now. I’d like to think that was my doing. You can just toss it on that couch, over by the window.”
Scott took off his leather jacket and tossed it on the brown Naugahyde sofa. Jack motioned to Sheila, who moved to greet Scott.
“So, you’re Scott Campbell, huh?” she asked. “I don’t see what the fuss is all about. Anyway, put your arms out to the sides.”
Sheila then began patting Scott down, searching for possible weapons. It seemed much more than a cursory frisk to Scott, since he felt that Sheila’s search technique was a little too intimate, especially when it came to his crotch. “Hey! Watch it!”
“Well, honey, you sure got something down there, and I need to be thorough.”
“Jack, what’s with the TSA treatment?”
“Funny you should mention that,” Jack said. “Sheila here was—still is—an employee of the Transportation Security Administration. So she’s skilled, ain’t that right, darlin’?”
“He’s clean,” Sheila declared.
“Good. Then let us escort Mr. Campbell back to see his little girlfriend, shall we?”
The three vampires walked Scott down a long, dark hallway that led from the lobby past various empty offices and down onto the factory floor. Old crates and stacked pallets gave way to open floor—and Dawn, still attached to the old wooden chair with flex ties, her back toward the hallway.
“Dawn!” Scott shouted as he ran to her.
“Scott!” she cried as Scott dropped to his knees next to the chair, embracing the frightened young woman.
“I’m so sorry, Dawn. I’ll get you out of here. I promise; I’ll get you out.”
“Scott, what’s going on? First, these guys kidnap me and then I’m here, and these other guys burst into flames, and then they tell me about vampires, and this Jack guy tells me it’s all about you. I don’t understand this—”
“No, no, no!” Jack said. “I hate to interrupt your happy little reunion, but it’s not all about Scott! It’s all about me! Get it right.”
“Okay, Jack, you’ve got me. Now let her go,” Scott demanded.
“Let her go? Oh, I don’t know. You two look so happy together. You happy that your boyfriend is here to rescue you, darlin’?”
“He’s not my boyfriend. We’re just friends,” Dawn said.
“Ow! Friend-zoned! Geez, that’s gotta hurt! Dang, Scott, what is wrong with you? You got that vampire charm, and you haven’t popped that cherry yet? I mean, that is a fine piece of ass right here!”
Scott almost jumped right into Jack’s face. “Her name is Dawn. Now let. Her. Go.”
“Oh yeah? What if I decide I don’t wanna let her go?”
“Let her go, or else!”
“Or else what? I’m on a tight schedule, so make it snappy.”
“Oh, I’ll think of something! Just you wait!”
“Yeah. I know you will.”
Jack stepped back, his eyes shifting slightly. What Scott should have recognized as a subtle signal to another vampire went unnoticed. Dawn was paying more attention to Scott, so neither she nor Scott noticed Sheila reaching for the Taser that she carried concealed in a belt rig. Sheila pulled out the Taser and launched the barbed projectiles into Scott’s back. He felt the impact and turned in the direction of its source. Dawn screamed. All this was too late: Scott writhed in pain and then dropped to the floor.
What do ya know. Here’s something else that will stop a vampire: twenty thousand volts of electricity, Scott reflected as he slipped out of consciousness while Sheila kept pressure on the trigger.
“Do you know what time it is, Jeremiah?” Elizabeth said into the antique-style phone’s handset.
“Elizabeth, we are creatures of the night. Why are you even in bed at such an early hour?”
/> “Goddamn it, it’s three in the fucking morning!”
“I need your help.”
“What is it?”
“Scott. He has turned himself over to Jack.”
“Oh shit! Jack? Okay, talk to me. Where is he?”
“At an abandoned factory in North Portland. They took a friend of his. He thought he had to turn himself over to them so they would let her go.”
“Her? Oh, you don’t mean that asshole Jack took a human woman, did he? Aw, Christ! Okay, I’m coming to pick you up. Are you at Ministry?”
“Yes. But we must be careful. Jack told Scott not to call anyone for help. Our presence may endanger him.”
“Well, truth be known, it may endanger us as well. Jack has one of our obelisks.”
“Oh no. You don’t mean—”
“Yeah. A ward. And he’ll likely have it set to keep us out.”
“Damn.”
“Still, I’m coming. If it provides me a chance to kill Jack and some of his bastard children, I’m definitely interested.”
Elizabeth hung up. Jeremiah went outside and stood on the steps of the rectory in the driving rain, waiting.
Scott woke to the sound of thumping.
He opened his eyes to the sight of Dawn standing forward in the wooden chair, lifting it with all her might and slamming it back down, wooden legs crashing against the concrete floor.
“God, Dawn,” Scott said. “What are you doing? I already have a raging headache.”
“I’m trying to break this chair!” she whispered before crashing it against the floor once more. “Maybe I can get the arms and legs loose this way.”
“Why are you whispering? With all that noise, it’s kinda pointless.”
“Well, I’m sorry! Since your rescue attempt was going so well, I just thought maybe I’d help.”
The sarcasm was unexpected from her. Scott actually kind of liked the change of attitude and thought that there was more to the young lady than he’d previously bargained. He looked around and noticed they were no longer on the factory floor but were instead in a different, somewhat smaller room. And even worse, they were now in a large cage. A shiny silver-colored cage that surrounded them almost completely except for the concrete floor.
A silver cage, Scott wondered. Where have I heard of a silver cage before?
The door of the room opened. Dawn immediately ceased her activity. Scott slowly stood up. In walked Jack, followed by what looked to be a priest, a tall, trim, brown-haired man wearing a black clerical shirt with collar. Scott reached for the bars and attempted to grab them, only for his hands to be burned. He pulled away in pain, his hands still sizzling.
“Silver, Scott,” Jack said. “Didn’t I teach you anything? This silver cage is a gift from one of my newer kids. Guys, meet Father Aidan Donegan.”
“The Father Donegan of Ministry?” Scott asked. “Why? How could you switch sides like this? What made you betray the very things you used to believe?”
“Leukemia,” Donegan replied. “I was dying. Jack here, he gave me life.”
“And what about eternal life, Father? Didn’t that figure in?”
Donegan shook his head. “My faith is weak. I didn’t want to gamble on heaven. Jack offered me an alternative. Now I can live and never experience death! Jack gave me so much more than the church or God ever gave me.”
“So your thirty pieces of silver was to become a monster? And to return the favor, you gave Jack this cage? That’s some trade-off.”
“I don’t get you, Campbell. You have been given a great gift, powers unimaginable, and you want to return to the way you were? I don’t get you. At all.”
“No, padre,” Jack said. “Scott refuses to acknowledge the gifts given to him by his dear, loving father. That’s me, by the way.”
“I had a father,” Scott growled. “He was a good, decent man. You are not my father!”
Jack leaned in toward Scott, his face darkening. “No, Scott. I am your father.” He then turned, giggling, to Donegan. “I’ve always wanted to say that!”
“So what now, Jack? How are you going to convince me to do your bidding? If you harm Dawn, you get nothing. Do you hear me?”
“When was the last time you had any of that bagged blood, Scott? Yesterday? Day before? You know, it does take a few days for the bloodlust to start kicking in. And when that happens, you can’t stop it. You will devour any human being in your path. So no, I am not going to harm Dawn. You are going to do that for me. Then we’ll see where your loyalties really lie.”
Jack and the turncoat priest then walked out of the room, leaving Dawn and Scott alone, the door shutting loudly and ominously behind them.
“S-so it’s…true?” Dawn stammered. “You…you’re…one of them?”
“It’s…complicated, Dawn.”
“Well, uncomplicate it for me. Are you or are you not a vampire?”
Scott sighed. “Well. Yeah. I am a vampire. Not like them, though. Look, I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this. Especially not…this, this. I can tell you how it was forced on me, how I never wanted any harm to come to anyone, especially not you. But all that just sounds like a bunch of excuses. I’m sorry, Dawn, for all of this.”
“You’re not going to suck my blood, are you?”
“That’s not my plan. But there’s this thing called the bloodlust. A vampire needs to feed. I’ve been living on donated, bagged blood. That’s how most vampires do it, to keep ourselves off the front page. But if we don’t keep that up, after a while, we sort of go crazy, and off the wagon we fall.”
“So…you are going to kill me.”
“No, Dawn, I’m not going to kill you. No one is going to kill you. We are going to find a way out of this cage, I swear.”
“Oh really? How?”
“I don’t know…I’m making this up as I go along. You don’t happen to have any good ideas, do you?”
Dawn paused briefly. “You could turn me.”
The thought horrified Scott. Dawn was now consenting to be made a monster herself. It repulsed him as much as the idea of drinking from her veins. It was not a fate he wished upon this promising young lady, or anyone else. “What? Seriously? That is not a good idea! Dawn, I couldn’t do that! Not to you!”
“If it will help us defeat Jack, then I’m willing to make that sacrifice. Deny Jack his prize. Turn me into…what you are.”
“Dawn, you do not want to be what I am.”
“Scott, desperate times call for desperate measures. And we’re pretty darn desperate here.”
“Really, Dawn? You have no idea what this whole vampire thing is all about. To deal with passions and desires you’ve never dealt with, to be something you were never meant to be. Okay, so, there are some cool things about it, like immortality and super strength and stuff like that, but it’s really not a good trade-off, believe me. Here’s a good example: I used to crave a really good hamburger. You know, made with ground chuck and melting cheddar cheese and bacon…oh yeah, bacon—”
“You’re making me hungry.”
“I was? Where was I? Oh yeah. Hamburger…anyway, you know what I’m talking about. Now, you no longer crave hamburger. It’s nothing to you. What you crave is human flesh. Human blood. Mmmm, human blood.”
“Now you’re creeping me out.”
“See what I mean? Trust me, you don’t want this. The fact is, undeath may be a worse fate than death itself. So, no, I cannot curse you the way I’ve been cursed. Believe me when I say that you’d be better off dead. So would I, probably, but here I am.”
Dawn started slamming her chair against the concrete floor again. “Enough of the defeatist attitude. We are getting out of here.”
Scott smiled at her gumption. “You just don’t quit, do you?” Before she could answer, a thought came to him. Then he mused, There’s no way it could work. No way. But it beats doing nothing. What the hell. Might as well try.
“Dawn, stop making all that racket. You know one of the perks of be
ing a vampire? The ability to break things real good…”
Elizabeth crouched catlike on the berm on the south side of the slough, across from the Amalgamated Cast Parts Plant, concealed by bushes and a row of poplars. As a vampire, she did not need much night vision equipment or binoculars; besides, the area was fairly well lit, even at 3:45 a.m. She was attired in a black BDU top and pants that were bloused into Danner Fort Lewis boots, an equipment-bearing vest, and a tactical thigh holster in preparation for what she knew lay ahead.
“Yeah,” she said, “it looks easy enough to get into. You’ve got those roll-up doors on the side there. The only guards they have there are those two morons in the old cop car. I don’t see any real activity. Somehow, I didn’t think I would, though.”
“We probably should have brought more men,” Jeremiah said.
“Naw, I’m good. Besides, one riot, one ranger, right? This would be a piece of cake if it weren’t for that goddamned obelisk.”
“Yes. Sadly, I was unable to find any other agents of Ministry to join us, but I am not sure they are needed.”
“You and I can handle this,” Elizabeth said as she stood up, stepping down from the berm and toward her BMW. Jeremiah followed her. “It was good to see Allan again, wasn’t it?”
“Allan? I suppose it was. Why does that come to mind?”
“I noticed you two talking before the trial. Seemed pretty heated. Probably it’s none of my business, although I’m curious about the nature of your relationship.”
“I do not mind telling. I was his sire.”
“No shit? That’s…weird. That would make you…never mind.”
“Make me what?”
“Never mind. Forget I mentioned it.”
She popped the trunk on her BMW. It was filled with weapons of every description. Elizabeth opened a metal case and removed a Colt Combat Elite .45 pistol. She press-checked it to ensure it was loaded, flicked the safety on, and then put it in the thigh holster. She also took a sword, the same falcata she had threatened Scott with a lifetime ago, and placed it in a kydex sheath on her left side.
Suburban Vampire: A Tale of the Human Condition—With Vampires Page 32
