The Summoning

by Bentley Little

  This was big.

  He'd known it in the back of his mind when he'd co related the figures on the computer, but it had been cox firmed when he'd met the Oriental girl and he grandmother, This was big, not in a pulp-novel Melvi Purvis G-man way, but in a manner that was far more profound.

  He was not just catching criminals.

  He was fighting the forces of evil.

  He had not talked with Engles when he'd told Robert he would--he'd spent that time severing des with the stale police and kicking those dipshit lazy-assed bastards off that case--but he had called his supervisor and left a bri message on his answering machine, providing just enough description to keep him out of trouble with protocol. He' then immediately called Washington and, after some necessary phone bullying that led him quickly up the chain of command, had made a full report to James F. Watley, head of the Bureau's Western Division. It was foolhardy, perhaps--he knew how crazy all this sounded. But he'd written his speech out beforehand, and he was an old hand at making the implausible plausible, and he believed he had successfully demystified the more fantastic aspects of this situation until it fit foursquare into the Bureau mold.

  Nevertheless, he was surprised that Wadey did not nail him on several points, and he wondered if perhaps another department or team within the Bureau was working on a connected project. Or if a think tank somewhere had already postulated the existence of vampires.

  Or if the director was simply writing him off as a loon. Whatever the reason, Watley's low key and reasonable reaction to his unreasonable hypothesis caused him to change his plans. He had intended to ask for backup, but had decided against it then and there. It was a dangerous decision, and an obvious violation of regulations, but he trusted the old Chinese woman. She'd come in on target so far, and there was no reason to believe she would steer them wrong as they approached the stretch.

  He didn't want to share the glory with some Johnnycome-lately. This was his baby and his alone.

  Fuck Wadey. Fuck Engles. Fuck everyone. When this was over, he would report directly to the Bureau chief. He would be able to write his own ticket. He sat down on the bed, watched a few moments of a comedy showcase on HBO, then switched to NBC, ABC, CBS, and, finally, an independent station. There was an old movie on. A monster movie.

  What did they used to call that in the sixties? Serendipity. sue awoke and, for a moment, did not remember where she was. The contours of the the furniture the room were wrong, tings unfamiliar, and the bed was facing in the wrong direction. Then she saw her grandmother next to her, getting up, leaning against the backboard of the bed, and events of the previous evening returned in a rush.

  Her grandmother glanced calmly over at her. " dreamed last night of the black church."

  Sue nodded, feeling cold, remembering the dark and returning images of her own sleep-bound travels. "I did,

  DID "

  "It is there that we will find the cup hugirngsi. That is there it lives." the words were spoken with certainty, and Sue sat up, Taking off the blanket wrapped around her. She had ex pacted to feel different, to feel .. . something. She had knoned that when the time came, her Di Lo Ling Gum told kick in, that she would sense things, know things, though this morning felt the same as every other. Even the termittent impressions she had received the night before seemed to have deserted her. If she really did have

  Lo Ling Gum, what good was it?

  Was her grandmother feeling anything?

  "So what do we do now?" Sue asked. "Just walk into church and confront the cup hugrngsi?""

  "Yes."

  Sue blinked, unprepared for that answer. "We don't have to go through some sort of ritual? We don't have to go there at a certain time?"

  "No." Her grandmother smiled. "You have seen too many movies."

  Sue got out of bed, picked up her robe from where she had placed it on a chair, and put it on. "if it is living in the church," she said,

  "how come it has not killed the pastor? It does not need him anymore.

  Why is it keeping him alive?"

  "I do not know," her grandmother said, and her voice was troubled. "I do not understand why. That worries me."

  Sue sat back down on the bed next to her grandmother. She looked into the old woman's eyes and saw not fear there, not determination, not any of the things she had expected to see. She saw sadness. She saw regret.

  "Are we going to die?" she asked.

  "I do not know," her grandmother admitted.

  This time, Sue knew, she was not lying.

  The town was crawling with reporters, state policemen, and gawkers of all shapes and sizes. The massacre had not gone unnoticed, and the miracle of satellite technology had made sure that the news had been transmitted to everyone in Arizona who could conceivably fuck up to day's plans.

  The police station was the hub of all this madness, with cameramen lying in wait outside the front door, and a slow but steady trickle of townspeople led in to be inter viewed by Steve, Ted, Ben, and Stu.

  Robert stood next to the front counter, scanning the room, a major tension headache thumping just below the skin of his right temple. He had been making the rounds of the room, eavesdropping on the interviews, trying to keep track of everything that was going on, but he had given that up and had now decided to let his men perform their jobs without him looking over their shoulders. He had too many other things to think about right now. He had to think about the cup hugirngsi.

  He had to find a way for the seven of them to go over to Wheeler's church, armed with spears and amirror and wearing jade, and kill the vampire in the midst of this media circus. r Jesus, he thought, this was like a damn Saturday Night Live sketch.

  He and Rich had been wrong. They weren't in a horror movie. They were in a comedy. A farce.

  He massaged his throbbing head. Rossiter was in his office and had been on the phone for the past haft hour, talking to the FBI in Phoenix and Washington, trying to get authorization to shut down the state police investigation. Joe Cash was in the conference room on another phone, talking to his own people, trying to counteract the damage. Rich was leaning against one of the desks talking to Woods, who looked as though he hadn't slept all night. The coroner's face was wan, pale, tired. Rich didn't look much better.

  Robert ran a hand through his hair, trying to quell the feelings of doubt that were rising within him. How effective were they going to be if they were all exhausted, exasperated, and not thinking clearly?

  Right now, he wouldn't trust any of them to go after a high school wee hie bop per who'd bought beer with a fake ID, let alone confront a vampire who had just killed upward of thirty people. Maybe the vampire would be slow and fat and sated after his feast

  Yeah, he thought. Right. An maybe he would just walk in and give himself up, too. ?... Robert looked over at Sue. She was standing beside her grandmother, who was seated in Stu's chair. Out of every ii one in the station, they were the only two who appeared calm and unruffled, and he hoped it was because they had inside information and had concrete assurances the rest of them didn't.i

  He checked his watch, his headache flaring at the downward movement of his eyes It was after ten already, nearly ten-thirty. Where was Buford? He'd called the burger stand owner over an hour ago, told him to get his asS. over here immediately. Had Buford chickened out?

  As if on cue, Buford walked through the door. He did indeed look scared. His face was pale, his clothes disheveled, and he carried a double-barreled shotgun with him into the station. Several people, obviously still shaken by the events of the night before, took a step back at the sight of him, thinking, no doubt, that he was about to open fire, but he strode quickly past them on his way to the front desk.

  Robert motioned him over, then gave the high sign to Rich and Woods.

  The four of them walked through the crowded room to Stu's desk, where Sue and her grandmother waited. He looked at the grandmother, and though he knew she couldn't understand English, he spoke to her.

  "Okay," he
said. "We're all here. Let's go into my office and talk."

  "It sounds like there's a whole gang of them," Buford said after he had been briefed on last night's events. "An army."

  "That's what some of the survivors are saying."

  Sue looked at her grandmother, shook her head. "There is only one."

  Steve and Ben were in the room with them, had come in because Robert had asked them to. Maybe only seven of them could go into the church, but he wanted some backup just in case something happened to them.

  "I didn't know there really were vampires," Ben said. His voice was shaky. "I thought it was all made up for the movies."

  "Now you know," Robert said.

  "But why is the vampire afraid of jade?"

  "You don't have to know how a television works to turn it on," Sue said. "You don't have to know what a microchip is to use a computer, You don't have to know why the cup hugirngs/is afraid of jade. All you need to know is that it is."

  "So everything we think we know about vampires is wrong," Buford said.

  "They can't be stopped with crosses or holy water or garlic or silver bullets "

  "I think some of our legends have a basis in truth Robert said. "But it's like Sue explained at the meeting, they got distorted over the years." He cleared his' throat. "I think it's also a shape-shifter.

  That's something you all should be aware of. I know we're entering science fiction territory here " He trailed off, grinned. "What the hell am I talking about? We're discussing a damn vampire, and I'm thinking you won't believe that it can change its appearance?" He shook his head. "From what I've heard and been able to gather, the vampire appears as different things to different people. Jesus, obviously. Elvis, according to Emily Frye. La Verona." He paused, looked at Rich. "The Laughing Man. I think maybe it appears to people as their fears. You always hear that in the movies--"It knows what scares you'--but I think it's true here. I think it does know what scares you, and I think it plays on that weakness. We all better be prepared for that."

  They were silent.

  "I think it can't show up in amirror," Robert said, "because it a mirror. It's a reflection of our own fears."

  "No," Sue said. "It's not. And it can show up in a mirror, in the baht gwa. That is why we are bringing the baht gwa with us. The cup hugirngsi is afraid of its own reflection."

  "Maybe it jeds off our fears," Buford suggested. Woods snorted. "Get off this fear kick. You guys've all been watching too many Twilight Zones. It's not feeding off our fear. It's not draining our emotions.

  It doesn't give a damn whether we fear it or hate it or love it. It feeds off our blood and our semen and our urine and our saliva. The fluids of life. Period."

  Sue translated, and her grandmother nodded enthusiastically.

  "See?" Woods said.

  "Then why does it appear as different things to different people?"

  Robert asked.

  "Because," Rich said. It was the first time he'd spoken, and they all turned to look at him. "Because there obviously is a connection between the cup had g/rags/and who ever sees it. It does take its form from an image buried in the viewer's mind, but it doesn't appear as a manifestation of a person's fears. It appears as a figure that that person believes can be resurrected" He looked around the room, at each of them. "Think about it. Jesus? Dracula? La Verona? Elvis? I can see people being afraid of Dracula or La Verona. Even Jesus, although that's slretching it, But Elvis? Come on. What I think is happening is that the monster appears not as our fears but as figures who, in our minds, can be resurrected--or cannot be killed. I mean, that's really the only thing these figures have in common: the fact that they have survived death. I think these figures can be from cultural or even personal mythologies, but that's what ties them together. That's what ties together Dracula and the cp hugirngsi. I think that's why there's al way been such an interest in vampires, why the myths are found in all countries and throughout history. That's what attracts people to them-the idea of everlasting life."

  "That's great," Rossiter said. "But I don't give a shit if the vampire represents your repressed homosexual desire for your father or my need to crawl back into my mama's womb. As far as I'm concerned, vampires are creatures that have always been here and always existed. Like sharks. And instead of sitting around chatting about it, we ought to be out there tracking it down and killing it."

  "We will," Sue said. "But it's not going outside of the church in the daytime, and we can spend ten minutes talking about it to prepare everyone for what they're going to see, to let everyone know what we're up against.

  This isn't a movie. We can't just walk in there, find a coffin, drive a stake through its heart, and live happily ever after. There's more to it than that."

  Her grandmother said something in Cantonese. She spoke slowly, and Sue translated slowly, mirroring her." grandmother's deliberate speech.

  "My grandmother says that we don't know the extent of the cup hugirngsi's powers. We don't know if it can read minds or control thoughts. But there are a few things we do know: it is afraid of the daylight, it is afraid of jade and willow and mirrors and water. And it can be killed."

  "Water?" Robert said. : ' "The cup hugirngsi cannot cross running water," Sue said, but there was no conviction in her voice.

  "I hate to burst your grandma's bubble, but Cheri Stevens and Aaron Payne were killed in running water. In the river."

  "I know. But my grandmother says it cannot cross running water."

  A silence settled over them, and it was not a comfortable silence.

  "If she's wrong about that Buford said. He left the thought unfinished.

  "Wait a minute," Rich said. "Don't rivers in China flow in a different direction? Don't they flow north instead of

  " south or something.

  Sue's head snapped up. She nodded. "You're right," she said excitedly. "They do. They flow east." She spoke rapidly in Chinese to her grandmother, and the old woman's frown smoothed out, her wrinkled face returning to its normal placidity.

  "I dreamed last week of a river of blood that flowed uphill," Sue said.

  "We can use this," Buford said thoughtfully. "We can use this information to help us."

  "How?" Robert asked. "Drag the vampire to the river?

  "No. We make a fake river. Give ourselves some extra

  [ Yes, Wood said, catching on. We di ditches round the church. We channel water or get some hoses. We make our own fake river and p he vmpire between the strearfls."

  "That's just dumb," Robert said.

  Rich shook his head. "We don't have time to dig ditches."

  "We may not have to," Buford said. He looked at Robert. "I have access to hoses, the fire truck I say we hook those suckers up, point 'em east and let her rip. If worst comes to worst, at least it'll trap him in the church." "Until the water runs out," Rich said.

  "Or until we can think of something else." .

  Robert nodded slowly. "It just might work. Steve, Ben, you get to work on this."

  "Call the water department," Buford said. "Ask for Compton, and tell him to tap off the main valves so we can get some pressure on the hill.

  The church is on the slope, and pressure's sometimes a problem."

  "How long can we keep these streams running?" Robert asked. "How big a reserve do we have to draw from?"

  Btfford shrugged. "We'll have to ask Compton." He thought for a moment, figuring. "If I remember right, there's a hydrant across the street from the church. But the next closest one's about half a block down, by the old Big A. We're going to need all the hoses we can lay hands on. I'll call Chief Simmons and get him to opea the station.

  We'll run the water through the truck pumlz on the far hose, but with the hydrant by the church we'll just have to trust the water pressure."

  "Hopefully Compton'll be able to deliver," Robert said Buford nodded.

  "Hopefully." He pushed up the sleeve on his shirt, looked toward Steve and Ben. "You guys make the calls. I'm going over to the fi
re station. Tell Simmons to meet me there."

  Robert nodded toward Rossiter. ""You go with Buford," Robert told the FBI agent.

  Roiter shook his head, "I'm not taking orders from you. I'm in charge of this---'"

  "No, you're not." Robert faced the agent, and he was steeled with a new resolve. He was terrified, he didn't know if any of them would live through the day, but while the, did live, this was his town, and he was calling the shots. He suddenly realized that he had not thought of leaving Rio Verde lately, that he had not mentally planned his escape from town as he had so often in the past. If he made it through this, he decided, he would never again complain about being stuck in this place, in this job. He would thank his lucky sxs for his boring, safe, and predictable little life.

  There were far worse fates.

  Robert motioned toward Sue's grandmother. "She's in charge," he told Rossiter.

  "Go with Buford," Sue said. The FBI agent opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. She knew that he wanted to maintain control. But he was also awaxc that. even if he had an army of FBI agents with him right now, armed to the teeth, it would make no difference. The cup hug/rngs/could not be fought with conventional weapons, and he knew it.

  There was a knock on the office door. Rich, the nearest the door, opened it.

  Ted was in the doorway, standing next to a tall, thin, moderately attractive middle-aged woman who was holding a videotape. The woman was nervous and did not look up. Her attention was focused on the tape she was turning over and over in her hands.

  "She says she was staying at the Rocking DID--" Ted began.

  "My husband and Iwere camping last night, and I saw something flying above the desert." She stopped turning the tape in her hands, held it out. "I thought it was a phoenix. You know, the bird? So I got out my camcorder. It kind of hovered for a while and then flew toward the highway. I got all of it on tape. Our guides never came back, and we were going to go back to our room, but we thought we might get lost and not be able to make it back in the dark, so we decided just to stay there. We found out what happened when we went back to the dude ranch and saw all the police cars..." She took a deep breath. "I think you should see the tape