Dave Carver (Book 1): Thicker Than Blood

by Dudek, Andrew

  And that was it.

  I didn’t feel any different. There was no screaming voice in my head, no sudden release of hidden energy. If there was some supe hiding in my brain, the power of May’s sword would have ferreted him out into the open. I was clean.

  I let out a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I was okay! I wasn’t the traitor!

  May gave me an impatient look with a quirk of her brow: Satisfied?

  I was. I may not have known what the vamps were planning, but the fact that I wasn’t unwittingly a part of it was an enormous relief.

  “Thanks, May,” I said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Can we get back in the car now?” she asked. “It’s cold out here, and we do still have this prisoner to deal with.”

  Chapter 21

  The office was a battlefield. Chairs lay on their sides with their legs snapped off in jagged stumps. Desks were overturned, some of them far from where I’d last seen them. One had a wet, reddish smear across one corner. There were dents and cracks and full-fledged holes in the walls, where furniture had smashed them. The floor was covered with half an inch of vampire blood, like a scene from a black and white version of The Shining.

  Two dozen or more dead vampires lay tangled in the furniture or facedown in the cooling blood. Most were missing pieces, many of them heads. One had a wooden chair leg sticking from his back. All of the vampires were fairly far along in the decomposition process. Most were little more than skeletons. Made sense. An agent like Roberto wouldn’t entrust a mission like this to a bunch of newbies. These guys had been veterans.

  I wish I could say that I paused a moment when I saw this much blood and destruction. It would mean that I wasn’t completely desensitized to violence and death and horror. I wish I could say that. But I can’t. If anything, I was excited. This many dead vampires, and not a single Table fatality? What had been intended to break our backs had turned into a big ol’ “W” for the home team. I was betting this was the most complete victory since the Battle of Guyana.

  Closing the door behind me in case some neighbor decided to get nosy at the worst possible time, I waded through the blood in the bullpen. I scanned the vampire corpses for Roberto or Loretta, but I saw no sign of them or of their finely tailored clothes. I had to assumed they were still alive.

  It was a good thing that Earl had told me how to get to the basement. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have noticed the door along the back wall. It was painted the same drab gray as the rest of the wall and it blended in perfectly. My eyes passed by several times before they acknowledged that the door was there.

  I grimaced as I walked through the office (I wondered if there was a cleaner somewhere in the city that knew how to get oil-like vampire blood out of carpet) and opened the door. There was no light above the stone stairs and no switch for one.

  “Of course, it’s gonna be dark,” I muttered as I stepped gingerly onto the top step. “It’s always dark underground. Just once, couldn’t there be a nice sixty-watt? Would that be so damn hard?”

  No light switch at the bottom of the stairs, either. Grumbling the whole time, I stepped away from the stairs and into the basement proper. Almost immediately something small, hard, and pointed smacked me in the forehead. I yelped and raised my hands to defend myself against...a string that hung from the ceiling. Cautiously, I gave it a pull, and on overhead lamp sprang to life.

  For the most part, it looked like any basement, except for the stairs, which looked like they should have led to a medieval dungeon. The walls were unpainted and the floor was unadorned concrete. A huge metal filing cabinet stood in one corner and the back wall was occupied by an enormous work bench. Most of the floor was open and spacious, unused. But what attracted the eye the most was the section that was neither open nor spacious. One small corner, opposite the filing cabinet, was fenced off with floor-to-ceiling chain link fencing. A swinging gate stood open. Behind the fence there was a metal cot, made and unslept in. Upon closer inspection I realized there were strange symbols scratched into the metal, including the U-shaped piece that serve as the gate lock. Hieroglyphics, if I wasn’t mistaken.

  I pulled the gate open and leaned in a little closer.

  “”I wouldn’t do that.” May’s voice called from the stairs.

  I froze in place and looked over my shoulder. She was gazing at the fence the way a bomb disposal expert might examine a particularly nasty piece of ordinance. Accountant-Vamp was in front of her, still zip-tied and looking like a dog unhappy to be on a leash.

  I trusted May, and if she was looking at this fence that way, there was a reason. “What is it?”

  “I think it’s a pyramid trap.”

  “Ah,” I said, as if that explained everything.

  She saw through me, snorted, rolled her eyes, and said, “See those little symbols? They’re Egyptian.”

  “That much I put together, actually.”

  “The pharaohs used to have mystics put symbols like these on their tombs. If anyone crossed that” —she pointed at a block of sandstone blended into the cement of the floor— “they wouldn’t come out again.”

  I frowned. “What the hell is an ancient Egyptian anti-grave-robber spell doing in my basement?”

  “I have no idea,” May said. “Pyramid traps went out of fashion with...well, with the pyramids. They were designed to hold a low-level god, but they’re really hard to build. There are easier ways to hold people.”

  I shrugged. “Well I guess it’s good we’re not trying to hold a person.”

  May brought the vampire the rest of the way down the stairs. His eyes were troubled, which wasn’t surprising. He’d just been dragged through the scene of a battle that had gone disastrously for his side. That would harsh anyone’s mellow.

  While May wrestled with the vampire I examined the trap. It didn’t look like much, but I knew that meant nothing. With magic, appearances were nothing. The real question was, why had McCreary installed the thing without alerting the higher-ups in London? Something was happening here, and I didn’t know what it was.

  May put the vampire at the mouth of the trap, placed her boot at the small of his back, and gave him a good kick. He tumbled, head over ass, into the tiny cell. As he passed over the sandstone, the earth beneath our feet shifted. A terrible sound thundered below, and I pictured some ancient subterranean beast rolling over in its sleep. The gate swung shut on its own accord and the U-bolt slammed closed.

  Accountant-Vamp leapt to his feet and lunged at the gate. He hit it and flew backwards across the cell as if he’d been launched from a cannon. He fell to the floor and lay there in a ball.

  Now that it was active, I got a sense of what May had been talking about. The pyramid trap was powerful, in a timeless sort of way. Like the Grand Canyon or one of the oceans. I damn well knew that this thing was beyond my comprehension.

  The vampire apparently didn’t experience the same grandeur. He sprung to his feet with surprising agility and charged again. Once more he was thrown back. This time, he stayed on the floor and stared at the ceiling.

  “How’d that feel?” I said.

  “It hurt,” he replied. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Well, I don’t mind hearing it.”

  “That thing would hold an angry troll,” May said. “At least. So I’d stop with the charging rhino routine.”

  He grunted.

  “Come on, Dave,” May said. “Let’s let our guest get accustomed to his new home.”

  Before I followed May upstairs I looked at the vampire. “Now you’ll get to see what it’s like to be held captive by the enemy. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.”

  He stared in silence.

  “Nothing to say? That’s alright. Get some sleep—tomorrow’s gonna be a big day for you.”

  At a little after eight in the morning, May and I descended into the basement. We’d both changed clothes—me into a a clean black tee from my suitc
ase and she into a business casual blouse and slacks with a men’s suit vest. Across my waist, I wore my sword (which May had been holding onto while I was imprisoned by Roberto and Loretta) and my knife (which I’d found among the wreckage in the office—apparently some vampire had been using it during the battle—a skeletal hand still wrapped around the hilt). May wore a braided rope belt containing her own sword and her wand. I noticed that her hand seemed to hover more over the wand than it did the sword. In my left hand I held a big aluminum pipe that I’d also found the night before during the office-cleaning session. I slapped that metal against my right palm as we walked down the stairs.

  Bill and Earl had loaded the bodies into the van and taken them to a guy that Rob knew out in Staten Island. (I didn’t want to know what the man planned to do with dozens of vampire corpses.) Meanwhile, May and I had scrubbed the floor, gotten as much blood out as possible, and changed the office from a battlefield into...well, into an office. I doubted the carpets would ever look or smell the same again, but it was a passable job. Now we had a more important task.

  So there we were, heading into the normal-except-for-the-ancient-supernatural-prison basement to have a conversation with our prisoner.

  He rose from his cot like Dracula from an old movie, looking warily at us. “What do you want?”

  “Good, you’re up,” I said. “Listen, we need you to tell us what Roberto’s planning.”

  “I will do no such thing.”

  “Listen, you little—”

  May put her hand on my shoulder, silencing my angry snarl.

  “Good cop, remember,” she whispered into my ear, low enough the the vampire wouldn’t hear.

  I scowled and did my best to turn it into a friendly smile. Good cop. Right. I pointed at May and looked at the vampire. “Do you know who this is?”

  He stared for a moment and nodded.

  “Good. Now, we want to know who you are,” I said. “What’s your name?”

  He continued to stare at May for a moment before finally saying, “Craig.” He shrugged and looked sheepish, like he was embarrassed he didn’t have a sobriquet like Balthazar or Francisco or some other historical, vaguely exotic name like the ones his people tended to use.

  “Okay,” I said. “Craig. How long have you been working for the elders?”

  “I’m not,” he snapped, looking up. Then he hastened to add, “I’m a freelancer. Bobby recruited me.”

  May very casually, very deliberately put her hand on her sword.

  I looked at Craig. “Recruited you to do what?”

  “He showed up at my apartment last year, told me who he was, asked if I...well, if I wanted to be part of his plan to, you know, overthrow you people.”

  “Meaning the Round Table.”

  “Yeah. Of course I said yes. You don’t turn down the elders.”

  “What about the rest of the team?” I asked. “They’re recruits, too?”

  “I don’t know,” Craig said. “I’d never met any of them before last night, except for Bobby and El. I’ve always kind of been a loner.”

  “So you never spoke to an elder? Did you ever actually see Roberto talk to one?”

  “No.”

  I scratched my cheek. Interesting. I was starting to think this may have been an off the books operation. That, or Roberto didn’t trust Craig as much as I assumed he had. Time for a new tack.

  “Who am I?”

  “What are you talking about? You’re the new captain of the Round Table.”

  “I know that,” I growled, “but what did Roberto want with me.”

  “I don’t know—Bobby never said, and I never asked. I’m not sure what you’re thinking, but it’s not like me and Bobby were buddies.”

  I stared at Craig for a long moment, but he had nothing more to offer. I nodded and jerked my head at May. “You know who she is, right?”

  Craig narrowed his eyes and glared. “La Bruja.”

  “That’s right: The Witch. So you’ve heard a little bit about what she can do. You know what she’ll do if we find out you’re lying.” I leaned in so close that my nose almost touched the bars of the fence. “And I promise you, we will find out.”

  May’s hand closed on the handle of her wand and her muscles twitched. The cot behind the fence burst into an eerie green fire. Craig yelped and threw himself as far from the flames as he could, but when he touched the metal of the pyramid trap, he was thrown back towards the fire. He screamed as he touched the inferno...and just as abruptly as it started, it was extinguished. There was no trace it had ever been on fire.

  Craig looked at us. He swallowed nervously. “I get it.”

  I threw my pipe at the gate. You know, for good measure. The aluminum rattled against the fence and made another unearthly noise. The fence rattled in its frame. I put my hand on the hilt of my sword. “Alright, Craig. I guess we’re done for now. You’re doing great. Keep it up and the Witch won’t have to turn your guts into snakes.”

  Back upstairs, safely in the bullpen of the office, I asked May what she thought.

  “Not sure,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to believe he doesn’t know more than he’d saying.”

  “Sure is.”

  It can be hard to judge whether a vampire is lying. They don’t have to worry about tells like sweaty palms or an increased heart rate (or any heart rate, for that matter). I’d long ago adopted a policy: If a vampire’s lips were moving, he was lying. Still, something was unsettling that surety. Which, I had to admit, could just mean that he was a good liar.

  “Did you see his face?” I asked. “He was really afraid of you. Wouldn’t a loner freelancer roll over if he knew something, just to save his own ass?”

  May was frowning, staring at the shattered window which separated the bullpen from the round table room.

  “May?”

  She jerked and looked at me, blinking rapidly. “Sorry, I was just thinking about something else. Yeah, you’re probably right. He was telling the truth.” She looked shaken.

  “What’s the matter, May?”

  “Nothing. It’s just...” She sighed heavily. “I hate this war.”

  “So do I,” I said. “We all do.”

  “It’s different for me.” Tears welled in her gray eyes as she looked at me. “You said the vampire was scared of me? Well, he was right to be afraid. I’ve done terrible things these last six months. I’ve tortured vampires. More than one. More than two. I’ve lit eight vampires on fire. I smelled their flesh cook. I listened to their skin sizzle and heard their screams as they burned to death.”

  “They’re vampires,” I said. “I can’t get upset about that. Besides, it’s war. You did what you had—”

  “I’ve tortured people, too, Dave. Vamp groupies. God, Dave. Most weren’t even old enough to buy booze and I drove spikes through their hands.”

  I swallowed. “Still. You didn’t have a choice.”

  “Yes, I did,” she said quietly. “I didn’t have to save you from Guyana. This war never would have happened.”

  “And I’d be dead,” I said. “So would Bill. So if you want me to be sad that you did it—well, sorry, May, but I can’t. You saved my life. Can you honestly tell me that was the wrong choice?”

  She held my gaze for a long time. There were tears falling in earnest from her eyes. “I don’t know, Dave. I really don’t. And that scares me more than anything. Six months ago, it wouldn’t have been a question. I’d have said I’d do anything for you. But now...now I really don’t know if it was worth it.”

  Chapter 22

  After the attack on the office, Rob had escorted Madison to Queens Hospital. He hadn’t left since, standing guard and keeping an eye on her. I was glad he was there—although I doubted that a wounded receptionist would be high on the list of targets—partly because it gave me an excuse to get away from May.

  The van that we’d liberated from the vampires’ garage was busy ferrying dead vampires to their final resting place. Rob’s Mustang was g
one, too—Bill had taken it somewhere early that morning—and Earl had the keys to his Toyota. I needed a car of my own, I decided. This borrowing rides was not awe-inspiring in a leader, and public transportation obviously wouldn’t work. Imagine taking the D-train with a three-foot arming sword across my lap. I added “buy a car” to my mental list of problems, but it was all the way down, near the bottom.

  So I called a cab. I’d get a receipt and send it to London. The Table could afford it.

  As I rode in the back of a curry-scented car, I had time to think. Maybe too much time. May’s last words to me rattled around in my brain like nails in a tin can. She didn’t know if saving my life was worth it? I’d be lying if I said that didn’t sting, like, a lot, but what was worse was the fact that I couldn’t say she was wrong. Up till now, I’d only thought about the war in the ways that it had affected me. How I was hurt, the things I had to do. I hadn’t given much thought to what it was doing to the ones on the front lines. The people like May.

  So far the fighting in New York had been small ball. But out in the real battlefields—Latin America, the former Soviet states, and the mountains of Nepal, it was as real, bloody, and vicious as any war you could name. And May was in charge of the whole scene. Hell, with Guinevere’s help, my ex’s boots had probably touched the soil of every major battlefield in the war.

  No wonder the gentle, magical woman I loved was now known in the supernatural world as La Bruja. As a killer and a torturer. I could see it in those tears: She was starting to see herself in the same terms. And it bothered her. It bothered me. I couldn’t imagine how she felt. But I didn’t think it was strictly personal. If the war was affecting her this badly, it had to be doing similar, if less severe, things to every knight in the field. And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the body count.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe it would have been better for May, for the Round Table, for the human race, if she had left Bill and me in Guyana to be slowly drained to death.

  When Bill and I had been taken, it came with a side-order of a promotion for May. As captain of the Nomads, she’d spent three months marshaling support for a rescue mission deep in vampire territory. The Battle of Guyana had been the largest Round Table operation in decades. More than a hundred knights—including the entire contingent of Nomads as well as volunteers from dozens of field offices throughout the world—had stormed the underground tunnels where we were being held. It had been a roaring success, obviously, but it had also inspired the vamps to retaliate. The Third Vampire War was officially begun. The weight of that war was pressed down on May’s shoulders like an obese condor. She blamed herself.