Texas Hold 'Em

by PATRICK KAMPMAN

  “Do I look like I would go crawling around in the sewers?” He looked disgusted for a moment, then shrugged. “Actually, that was my first thought when I decided to build it, but it turns out we don’t have man- sized pipes under us that I could connect to. And we’re built on solid rock, so I would have had to blast to make an underground tunnel.

  “No, my dad left me the entire building. I’m only using about half of it for my place and the vacuum shop. I rent out two more retail spaces, which face the main street. The tunnel runs right behind them.”

  “What does the street-facing door to the escape tunnel look like?” I asked.

  “Like a plain metal door. Why?”

  “Bryan, did Marie give you her number?”

  “Dude, what do you think? She couldn’t give it to me fast enough.” He paused for effect, then added nonchalantly, “I might use it.”

  “You’ll use it to call her now, tell her where the tunnel lets out, and ask her to get us out of here. Fast!” I said.

  Bryan made a face to show us all how much it pained him to call a girl for help, before he brought out his phone and quickly dialed the number.

  “It won’t do any good, Chance. The door to the street is locked and it’s a metal security door like this one,” Jacob said.

  I thought back to the security bars around the window. “I don’t think that will be a problem, but just in case she doesn’t come or can’t get it open, I don’t suppose you still have the grenade?”

  “Good thinking, Chance, That’s exactly what we need in here: a fire. In case the one raging outside can’t find a way in,” said Lacey.

  “It’s not that type of grenade. It won’t blow that door open, and even if it could, it would kill us at the same time.” Jacob made no move to give me the grenade.

  “Fine. Do you at least have baling wire, or something that might help keep that trapdoor shut in case the vampires decide the fire is taking too long to kill us?” It probably wouldn’t make a difference, but I needed something to do while we waited.

  “Of course I do.” He fished in one of the cabinets and handed me a bundle of wire, along with a pair of snips.

  I gingerly climbed back up the ladder to the trapdoor. I put my hand against it. It was warm, but not hot. I hoped that was a good thing. The door was thick and, for all I knew, the other side of it could be on fire. The door itself had been locked, of course, but I used loops of wire running from the handle to the first rung of the metal ladder to further secure it. It might buy us a little extra time.

  There was a polite knock on the escape door as I was finishing up. I hollered down. “Jacob, could you let Marie in, please? I’ll be down in a sec.”

  “The door’s unlocked, Chance. She can let herself in.”

  “No, she can’t,” I said.

  “Oh, Christ, Chance. Please don’t tell me she’s another vampire,” Jacob said, opening the door.

  “I’m another vampire,” said Marie, standing on the threshold and smiling. “See, Chance didn’t have to tell you, but you still know. Win!”

  “My God, Chance. You can’t go around collecting these things! Hanging around one is bad enough, but two? I don’t know what to say.”

  “Come in?” suggested Marie, brows raised.

  “Relax, she’s…harmless,” I said, climbing back down the ladder. I had to stop halfway down because of the pain in my side.

  Marie smiled at Jacob and nodded rapidly. Her manic peppiness had the opposite of its intended effect. Jacob scooted back a couple of inches and backed into the wall, against the displayed firearms.

  He turned, placed his arms up against the wall, and started shaking his head. His face was very near an MP-5 submachine gun when he said, “Fine, come in! What’s one more? Maybe I can charge rent.” The mania in Jacob’s voice hinted that he might or might not grab the gun off the wall and start shooting.

  Marie still stood in the doorway, a little wary of Jacob’s obvious dislike of vampires, combined with his proximity to lots of weapons.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said. I was stuck on the ladder; my side was killing me. I couldn’t make it. If I tried going any farther, I was going to fall. Granted, it was only a couple of feet, but it would be embarrassing, and I wasn’t sure if I would ever get back up.

  “Hey, babe. Miss me?” Bryan said.

  Marie smiled at him and nodded, then sniffed while taking a tentative step forward into the room. When no one started shooting, she sidled up to Bryan.

  “You’ve been shot.” She turned toward me, sniffing the air again.

  Jacob whirled, causing everyone to jump. “Christ, Chance, you’re bleeding! It’s like chumming the waters! You’re a wounded animal. She’s going to eat you!”

  “No, I’m not. Unless he wants me to?” Marie’s expression showed hope.

  When I shook my head, she pouted and gave a shrug. “He’s right, though, Chance. You should have the witch fix it for you. We can smell you from a mile away. Well, maybe not a mile, but still, we can smell you. And if you insist on hanging around a necromancer, you should at least reap the benefits.”

  Marie’s glance went down to my calf. “Though, judging by how she fixed your leg, I don’t blame you for having second thoughts.”

  “What do you mean? It seems to work pretty good,” I said, looking down at it.

  “That’s what counts,” Lacey said, turning to examine something in the corner of the room.

  “Besides, it’s not my leg that’s bothering me, it’s my side. I already asked Lacey to fix it, but she said something about how using too much magic on me in a short period of time would be bad.”

  Lacey nodded in affirmation, moving to examine the guns hanging on the pegboard. Jacob surreptitiously scooted away from her, which of course prompted Lacey to scoot after him in pursuit.

  Marie took her eyes off me to watch Jacob and Lacey sidle toward the corner.

  “That’s true; too much of it can have…adverse effects.” She looked back at me, arching an eyebrow. When I shrugged, she continued. “But you certainly can’t go around bleeding like that. Not only will you attract the other vampires, you’ll pass out.”

  “I’m about there now.”

  At my words, Bryan came up and helped me down from the ladder. I kept my arm around him, fearing that if I let go I would fall right down.

  “Nothing I can do about it now, I guess. We’ve got to go. Hey, Lacey, can you stop messing with Jacob and grab that gun off the board for me? No, not that one, the other one.”

  Lacey pulled down a heavy black and steel gun from its pegs. It looked like an AK-47, but it had a massive barrel and a large drum magazine.

  My request for Lacey got Jacob moving. He stopped inching away from her, shot me an indignant look, pulled a large army-green duffel bag out of a drawer and, with a stoic effort, walked right up to the witch, holding the bag open. Lacey smiled at him and placed the Saiga-12 assault shotgun into the bag.

  While I was watching the scene between Lacey and Jacob, I hadn’t noticed that Marie had begun to close in on me. I started a little as I realized she was inches away. Marie extended her arm, her hand palm up, wrist almost touching my lips.

  With the index fingernail of her other hand, she slit her wrist.

  “Drink it. It will speed up the healing process. It’s not a panacea, but I’m old and it’s potent. It will make you clot quickly, and hopefully you won’t pass out on us while we get out of here.”

  A loud thump made me jump. I thought the vampires had burst open the trapdoor above, but it was Jacob. He had dropped the duffel bag and was now staring at Marie and me in horror.

  I expressed Jacob’s concerns for him. “No way! You’re not turning me into one of them. Er, you.”

  “I’m not. Sorry, you’re not my type. You seem to have a knack for getting into trouble, and I don’t need that following me around for all eternity. Plus, it would be bad form—you’ve already been claimed.”

  “Claimed? What
do you mean claimed? I’m not claimed. No one’s claimed me.” I was a bit off-kilter, watching the blood drain from the wrist in front of me.

  Marie covered the slit in her wrist with a thumb to slow the flow of blood. “Of course you are, and if you decide being a vampire is what you want, then you’ll have to ask your girlfriend. I’m sure she would happily comply. Now, please don’t waste any more of my blood. It’s going to stop flowing soon, and I’d rather not cut myself more than once. That’s so emo.”

  When I made no motion to do any such thing, she let out an exaggerated sigh. “It takes more than a little bit to turn someone, though I admit that you may experience a bit of strangeness for a few days. Just don’t have any more, from anyone, and you’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll be fine? You promise? No turning?”

  Marie nodded. Finally, I acquiesced. Ignoring the horrified look from Jacob and the curious one from Bryan, I inched forward and took a tentative taste. It tasted like blood. I stopped and asked, “How much?”

  “Not much. I’ll let you know.”

  “Okay.” I tried some more, then paused one last time to ask, “And this isn’t going to change me?”

  “No.”

  I started drinking the lukewarm liquid until she added, “At least, I’m about eighty percent certain it won’t.”

  I started to cough.

  “Stop being a baby.”

  I stared at her in disbelief.

  “What? I’m old, so my blood is potent, and it’s been a while since I turned anyone. I’m not like Christian out there breeding an undead horde, and I don’t make a habit of giving it out. I can’t know for sure how much it takes. It’s not like it’s an exact science. But I know you need more to heal yourself, so hurry up.” She watched me with an oddly maternal look for another minute, then gently took away her wrist.

  Marie then turned to Jacob and asked, “Why was your escape route barred from the outside? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”

  Lacey answered for him. “Chance’s ‘friend’ here had been planning on cooking him and his girlfriend down in this room the other night. He forgot to un-bar it.”

  Marie nodded, as if that made perfect sense. “Speaking of cooking, we might want to leave now. From the smell, that fire they set seems to be spreading.”

  Chapter 22

  “He should have called by now.” Jacob checked the display on his phone for the tenth time in as many minutes, in case by some miracle he’d missed it ringing. He had been holding onto the phone since we’d left the shop. Not only was Jacob not pleased to find the van missing with his nephew, he was furious that we were forced to take his work van; no one had the keys to Kevin’s Altima, and my Miata was not only back at the hotel, but had an insufficient number of seats.

  “Kevin is fine, Jacob. He’s a smart kid. Besides, Megan is with him.” I left out the fact that Megan was basically incapacitated, and that Kevin was the one watching over her. I knew it wouldn’t help calm him down, anyway.

  Jacob was at his wits’ end. His home and business were both burning to the ground, his nephew was missing, and he was forced to flee to his safe house with a vampire in tow. “Thank you, Chance, that’s what I want to hear. You left a vampire to keep an eye on my nephew to make sure vampires don’t get him. Have you ever heard the expression ‘the fox guarding the henhouse?’”

  Marie, on the other hand, was even more well-behaved than usual. She sat next to my brother at the kitchen table, watching him play a game on his phone.

  “Oh, relax—Megan hasn’t killed Chance yet, and she keeps an eye on him all the time,” said Lacey, staring into the fridge. “Actually, even more remarkable is the fact that Megan hasn’t killed Bryan yet. It’s a real testament to her restraint.”

  Bryan was too caught up in his video game to voice a comment, though Lacey’s observation had been accurate.

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “I’m sure Kevin heard the gunfire at your shop and took off. They’re probably at a diner somewhere having a cup of coffee and a slice of pie.”

  Jacob blew up. “So my nephew having a cup of coffee with a vampire is supposed to make me feel better?”

  Bryan looked up. “Calm down, dude, you’re messing up my concentration. Megan’s not gonna do anything to Kevin. She couldn’t, even if she wanted to. She fell out of the hotel room and pancaked on the cement.”

  “She’s dead?” Jacob asked. I couldn’t read the strange expression on his face.

  “Don’t worry; she’ll be fine,” I said, more for my benefit than his.

  “Trust me, Chance. I wasn’t worried about her,” Jacob said.

  “Wow, that’s mighty decent of you,” said Lacey, going through the vegetable drawers in desperation.

  “I won’t mourn the loss of a monster. Look: first you bring vampires into my house, then you leave my nephew with one who is wounded, and now you bring another one of them here!” Jacob pointed a shaking finger at Marie. “Chance, this is my safe house! It was designed as a place to go and hide from vampires, not with them! I haven’t had a single vampire anywhere near finding me for twenty years. Did you know that? Not one. And now, thanks to you, they’re crawling all over the place.”

  Marie looked up from Bryan’s phone and opened her mouth to say something, but Lacey cut her off before she could.

  “They’re like bedbugs, they really are: once you get them they’re impossible to get rid of, they hide during the day, and they suck your blood. I invited Megan over for drinks one night a few years ago and she never left. I finally had to start charging her rent.” Lacey closed the fridge. “That’s it; I’m ordering pizza.”

  Jacob continued his rant. “How do I know that’s not how Christian found me? How do I know one of them didn’t tell Christian where I was?”

  “One of who? Megan didn’t tell Christian where you were, Jacob. Trust me—she didn’t. She’s never even met Christian. Not to mention the fact that she came here to help me kill him.”

  “What about her? How sure are you about this one?” Jacob again pointed at Marie, this time getting up the courage to give her the once-over as she sat, hands in her lap, her eyes safely watching Bryan play his game.

  “Marie? Marie had no idea where you lived until she came with us to save your ass. You do remember she’s the one that kept us from baking in your safe room, right?”

  Jacob’s frown deepened as he continued to stare at her. “She looks familiar.”

  I knew what he meant, but our context was different. Since drinking Marie’s blood, I’d felt an affinity to her. Like I had known her my entire life, and was comfortable in her presence. Not only that, but I could feel her emotions, which so far had radiated an eerie sense of mellow calm. It was strange, and I hoped it would fade quickly.

  Marie glanced up from Bryan’s phone a second time. “Do I really? I don’t think we’ve ever actually met in person. But maybe we have. Some years are clearer than others. Anyway, it’s nice to finally meet you, Jacob. Face to face, that is. I’m Marie.” She smiled, got up, and extended her hand.

  Jacob recoiled, averting his eyes, leaving a smiling Marie holding her hand out to empty space. “Marie? You’re Marie? Holy shit! Chance, you brought the master vampire of Texas into my house!”

  Lacey snorted and said something unladylike in a skeptical tone. She immediately followed it with “No, I wasn’t talking to you. Why would I want ass on my pizza? Double pepperoni and fungus on the first one and… Wait! No! Don’t put me on hold! Argh.”

  “Master of Texas? What are you talking about, Jacob? She’s not the master vampire; that’s some idiot who calls himself Nocturne. Besides, Marie’s a bim—” I stopped myself before completing the word. She had done us a lot of favors. I didn’t need to insult her. I tried fast to think of an alternate ending I could throw at the end of “bim” and failed, so I left it hanging—like Marie’s hand, which she was still holding out to Jacob.

  “Oooh. Like, sorry, Chance, but actually, Jacob’s right. Technica
lly, I am the master vampire around here. Though I don’t like that title; it’s so authoritarian, you know? And with Christian back in town, I’m not sure how long it’s gonna last.”

  “What?” I said.

  Marie shrugged, choosing to misinterpret my question. “Well, the term ‘master’ has a lot of negative connotations. I prefer plain old Marie. Or, if you insist on something formal, My Lady. I think that one sounds the nicest, don’t you think? And it reminds me of better times.

  “Also, to be fair, Chance, you were the one that brought vampires both to Jacob’s house and then here. And you did leave his nephew with Megan. Who is wounded. So he’s right on all counts.” She nodded to punctuate her point, hand still dangling out there.

  “You are the head vampire?” I couldn’t believe it.

  “Yes. And I can forgive what you said about me—I’ve been called a lot worse things than a bimbo over the last several centuries—but what you said about Nocturne isn’t fair. He’s not an idiot. He’s actually a smart guy.”

  She sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid he embraced the whole goth culture a little too much. He tends to jump into things with both feet. Last time it was zoot suits. He went by Slick back then, if you can believe it. I mean, he’s an okay fellow once you get to know him.” She spoke like she actually cared about convincing us that Nocturne was indeed an okay fellow.

  Marie stared up at the ceiling and continued, as if writing herself a to-do note to act upon later. “I need to have a talk with him, maybe ask him to tone it down a teensy bit. At least lay off the outfits. I think he gets excited at being able to wear them again after all these years. Do you know he’s had them in storage since Phillip the Fifth was in power?”

  I cut in before she continued her soliloquy. “Wait, I thought your name was Marie. The head vamp is supposed to be someone named Mirari.”

  “Oh, well, my name is Mirari. But back when I came to America, everyone butchered it. Anyway, it’s easier to blend in with the crowd when you have a common name. And blending in can be tough enough when you’re diurnally challenged, so I started using Marie. Nowadays, of course, everyone has strange names. Most of them seem made up.” I didn’t miss her not-so-subtle glance in my direction.