The Devil's Mouth (Alex Rains, Vampire Hunter Book 1)

by Matt Kincade

  Jacob raised his head and panted. “Jesus Christ, what a rush.”

  The Don frowned. “You blaspheme.”

  “What?”

  “In my presence, you will not take the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ in vain.”

  “Ah. Yeah. Sorry about that.” Jacob let go of the girl’s body. It slumped to the floor. He pulled out his pack of Marlboros. Luisa still stood in the doorway. “Okay, Luisa. I’m finished.” Luisa started forward. “Don’t look so glum,” he said. “It could always be worse.” Jacob pulled out two cigarettes. He stuck the first to his lip and flicked the other towards Luisa.

  She stared at the cigarette for a long moment as it lay on the floor. Eventually she picked it up and tucked it away into a pocket of her uniform. With the ease of long practice, she took hold of the dead girl’s ankles and dragged her from the room.

  “So,” the Don said, “what to do about our vampire hunters?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Jacob. “Me and the boys tuned this Alex Rains up something fierce. He’s hurt bad, wherever he is. He’s a wounded animal—he’s gonna go to ground. I might have lost my best chance at finding them.”

  “I wouldn’t worry,” the Don replied. “Vampire hunters aren’t like a stag or a deer. With a deer, if you miss your shot, you never see the deer again. But a vampire hunter is more like a fly. A mosquito. He can’t help himself. You swat at him, but he keeps coming back. Again and again.”

  Jacob nodded slowly. “But it’d be nice if we didn’t have to wait for him to make a move. Come to think of it,” he snapped open his Zippo and lit the cigarette dangling from his mouth, “I think I know one person who could tell us where this Alex Rains might be.”

  The Don smiled a tight-lipped smile. “Bueno.”

  ***

  Jacob’s headlights cut through a moonless desert night so dark that the Milky Way stood out like white paint splattered across the sky. His truck rolled down a narrow side road halfway between Las Cruces and Alamagordo. Not a single other pair of headlights was visible in either direction. As he drove, he watched the dot on the map screen of his tablet computer grow ever closer. Two miles out, he pulled the truck over.

  The pain and the incessant rough tickle in his throat was gone, along with a dozen other minor aches. His tongue explored the needle-fine points of his new teeth.

  He reached behind the seat of the truck and retrieved a pair of military-grade night-vision goggles. He had them halfway on his head when he stopped. He laughed softly at himself and set them on the seat. When he turned off the headlights, he could see the highway stretching in front of him as if it were broad daylight. Still chuckling, he pulled back onto the road.

  Jacob approached with the headlights off, never touching the brake. He coasted the truck to a stop and engaged the emergency brake, at which point he delicately opened the door and left it open. He pulled his shotgun from behind the seat. Fifty yards distant, parked in the desert, sat the RV. Completely blacked out, inert, and silent. Anybody driving by, or walking by for that matter, would never see it. But to Jacob, it was as obvious as a pyramid in the desert. With effortless silence, he crept closer.

  Inside, behind blackout curtains, Mack pored over three computer monitors worth of data. Census records, newspaper archives, county property records. On the table in front of him, a half dozen books lay open, piled on top of one another. The wan glow of the computers was the only light in the RV. Hundreds of books lined the shelves, secured with bungee cords. Rack-mounted electronics blinked and hummed in the darkness. Heavy-duty fans whirred to keep the electronics cool. A tiny cabinet held a tiny chemistry lab. Kraftwerk’s “It’s More Fun to Compute” pounded out of speakers mounted high in the corners. A half-smoked joint rested in an ashtray, a narrow curlicue of smoke rising from the burnt tip. A layer of smoke hung at eye level throughout the RV.

  Mack’s eyes flicked from screen to screen as he scrolled through databases. He made unintelligible notes on a yellow legal pad. He suddenly froze. His eyes narrowed, widened, and narrowed again. He frantically dug through the stack of books on the table. The one he pulled out with was titled, The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Written by Himself, Containing a True and Full Account of the Discovery and Conquest of Mexico and New Spain.

  He flipped through the pages, absentmindedly picking up the joint and puffing it back to life, taking a hit, and setting it back down. He tapped keys as he exhaled a plume of smoke. His fingers stopped. His face broke into a grin. “I’ve got you,” he said. “I’ve got you now, you bastard.” He went on with his work, switching from document to document, taking notes on the pad.

  A tiny red light blinked in the corner. Mack froze. He ground out the joint in the ashtray. He closed all the windows on the screen and brought up his security program.

  The vampire crept silently through the dark, crouching low. It didn’t do him much good, however, with infrared cameras tracking his every move. He had parked a hundred yards down the road and crept all this way. He was good.

  Mack swiveled his chair around, flipped a few switches, and reached into the corner. He picked up a short-barreled AR-15 carbine, pulled the charging handle back, and eased a round into the chamber.

  Jacob crept closer. As he came within stone’s throw of the RV, he heard the dull base thud of an electronic drum track. The smell of marijuana smoke reached his nose. He pressed up against the siding of the RV and saw thick canvas curtains covering the windows. He edged toward the door. As he reached toward the handle, he took a deep breath.

  Inside, Mack hit the trigger.

  Jacob couldn’t have explained why he ducked. He didn’t even really know he was doing it. Maybe he was psychic. Maybe something deep inside him recognized the sound of a claymore firing mechanism. In any case, Jacob didn’t even know he was hitting the dirt, but there he was. He pressed his face against the cool, dry desert sand while the sky ripped itself apart above him. The antipersonnel charges embedded into the RV’s siding shredded everything in a fifty-foot radius. Bits of cholla cactus and mesquite blasted into the air and rained down again.

  Jacob’s eardrums ruptured. A high-pitched whine filled the air. But even as the charges detonated, he was rolling back out from under the RV. He grabbed the door handle and pulled. The reinforced door didn’t budge. Jacob emptied his shotgun into the side of the camper. Woven Kevlar fibers showed through the holes in the siding.

  The RV’s engine roared to life. Headlights lit up the darkness. The RV peeled out, throwing a dust cloud high into the night sky. Jacob tried to chase after it but misjudged. He realized too late that the RV was fishtailing in a tight circle. The rear end of the camper slewed around and knocked him to the ground. He got up and shook his head. The RV’s taillights were quickly receding.

  Right toward his truck.

  “Oh, no, you bastard. Not the truck.” Jacob sprinted across the desert. “Not the truck!”

  Mack hit the black Dodge Ram going a good twenty-five miles an hour. The RV’s reinforced front end didn’t suffer in the least. The black truck crumpled like a child’s toy. It bounced off the RV and spun away across the road.

  Mack didn’t slow down. He downshifted, and the RV peeled out when its wheels touched pavement.

  With a laugh, Mack burned rubber into the night. “Asshole,” he muttered. He watched in his rearview camera as the crippled vehicle disappeared behind him. The driver ran back to the wrecked truck and retrieved something from the toolbox in the bed.

  Mack’s smile faded. He stepped down harder on the gas.

  Jacob held something long and skinny, with a trumpet flare at one end and a bulbous point at the other. He grasped the handle and raised the rocket-propelled grenade to his shoulder.

  “No way, man. There’s no way you could hit me at this dist—”

  For all the RV’s reinforcements, the RPG round was made to penetrate six inches of solid steel tank armor. It punched through the vehicle like a bullet through butter. The war
head detonated. The polycarbonate windshield cracked and bulged outward. The blast lifted the RV off the road and slammed it down again. It pitched, slewed, and then the front wheels caught, and it went over on its side. The RV slid sideways down the road in a shower of flames and sparks.

  Jacob held the smoking RPG, still on his shoulder, and watched as the burning hulk ground to a stop. He smiled faintly. “That was for my truck, asshole.”

  He dropped the smoking launcher and pulled out his cigarettes and his cellphone, then sat down on a rock next to the remains of his truck. He sighed. “Brilliant, Jacob. Fucking brilliant interrogation technique. Way to keep that temper in check.”

  He dialed a number and held the phone to his ear.

  “There was…a complication.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Carmen put on a final burst of speed for the last hundred yards, running hard, listening to the sound of her footfalls on the sandy ground. The cold morning air numbed her face, and her own breath was heavy in her ears. She wore black workout tights and a blue hoodie over a gray T-shirt, and her hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. Her sprained ankle was only a distant ache.

  The house came into view around a gentle hill and grew larger until she reached the back deck. She picked up the towel she’d left there earlier and wiped her face. She paused for a drink of water, then picked up the rapier which lay next to the towel and the water bottle. She ran through fencing drills, up and down the lawn.

  As she finished up a set of furious lunges across the grass, a voice said, “Not bad.” She turned and saw Alex standing in the doorway. He leaned on a wooden training sword like it was a cane. “You got good movement. Clean. But your form is a little sloppy. Keep the blade parallel to the ground. And keep that head up.”

  Carmen smirked. “What do you know about it? Anyway, you shouldn’t even be on your feet.”

  “I been layin’ around and watchin’ daytime television for two danged weeks. I’m sick of it. My ass is goin’ numb. And as far as fencing goes, I don’t guess I know all that much about it. Picked up a little bit here and there. Never really was my thing.” He winced a little and leaned harder on the wooden sword as he put weight on his right leg, but he made his way across the steps and down the stairs. “But you’re pretty good. Don’t get me wrong.”

  “Thanks,” she said with a slight grin.

  “What I didn’t like about fencing is there’s all these rules. Don’t get you ready for an actual fight. You got rules tellin’ you when you attack and when you defend, when you go forward and back, when you stop and when you start. And for Christ sakes, y’all just go back ‘n’ forth in a straight line. Ain’t like no fight I ever saw.”

  Carmen wiped her face with the towel then draped it over her neck. She unzipped her hoodie. “Well come on, who ever gets in a real sword fight these days?”

  Alex tipped his cowboy hat back with his thumb. “Vampires do. They got a real hard-on for sword fights with each other. And lots of ’em are old enough that they used ’em centuries ago. Other thing is, sword’s still the best way to kill a vamp.” He drew his thumb across his neck for emphasis. “Chop that head right off.”

  “Wait, so the vampires kill other vampires?”

  Alex leaned on the wooden sword. “Thing is, vamps are territorial as all hell. I mean, think about it. They gotta kill to live. Maybe one victim a week. That means bodies start to stack up pretty fast. If they ain’t careful, folks start to notice people goin’ missing and all. Vamp needs a pretty big territory to stay inconspicuous. So if some other vamp moves in on his digs, that’s twice as many bodies, twice the chance somebody’s gonna notice. They don’t like that one little bit. They got their traditions, been around since longer’n anybody can remember. If two vamps got a beef with each other, they’ll fight it out with swords.”

  “But we’ve seen three or four vampires already, and they haven’t all killed each other.”

  “But see, they’re all Don Carlos’s crew. They’re his offspring, and they all swore fealty to him. If some free agent blew into town, they’d cut him down quicker’n grass through a goose.”

  Carmen opened her mouth then closed it again. Then she said, “So do you get in many sword fights with vampires?”

  “Not if I can help it. Vamps are faster and stronger than me. And lots of ’em have been studying swordplay for hundreds of years, startin’ at a time when people fought to live, not to score points with some referee. But yeah, I’ve fought with some vampires.”

  She smiled. “And you’re still here, so I guess you won.”

  Alex pulled up his shirt. A gruesome hooked scar ran across his belly, forming an eight-inch crescent moon around his navel. “Sort of.”

  “Jesus.” Carmen blanched. “I saw the scar, but I thought you’d had an appendectomy.”

  Alex laughed. “Amateur appendectomy.” He hobbled down the back deck stairs to stand next to her on the lawn. “Been a while since I actually fought anybody, though.” He raised the training sword unsteadily into a guard position. “Have a go,” he said.

  Carmen shook her head. “But that’s wood, and this is a real sword.”

  “Well, you don’t really gotta stab me.” Alex twitched his wrist, and the blunt wooden point poked her in the stomach.

  “Hey!” she said. He poked again, and she beat the sword away with her blade.

  He grinned. “Atta girl!” He thrust, cut, thrust, and Carmen neatly blocked. She returned a thrust. Alex sidestepped, grabbed her sword hand, slipped past her blade, and stopped the wooden tip an inch from her throat.

  “Wait,” she said, “that’s—”

  “Against the rules? Ain’t no rules, darlin’. That’s what you still gotta learn.” He smiled lopsidedly. “Try again.”

  They clashed back and forth across the lawn. Carmen advanced and retreated, sweat pouring down her face. Alex limped along, barely seeming to make an effort, yet blocking her every attack and, at intervals, inserting a perfectly timed attack that breezed past her defenses, tapping her on the belly or the leg.

  Carmen leaned her hands on her knees, breathing hard. “You aren’t even trying!” she said, “How do you do that?”

  Alex shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. I just do. Most of the time it works out. I can show you a few things, if you…ah, goddamn!” Alex grimaced and clutched his leg. He tumbled onto the grass.

  “I told you you shouldn’t be moving around yet.” Carmen stuck her sword point down in the lawn and helped him off the ground. He gratefully leaned his weight on her.

  “Just a danged Charley horse,” he said, as she helped him up the stairs. “More from sittin’ around for two weeks than anything else.” He looked back. “Don’t you leave that sword out there. Ain’t no way to treat a good blade.”

  She got him back to the couch. He sat, leaning forward, and gritted his teeth as he massaged his spasming thigh.

  “Here, let me,” Carmen said. She set his leg up on a chair and sat next to him. She dug her thumb in at the base of the muscle, at the hip joint, and gently worked at the knot. Alex’s leg quivered. He exhaled in relief as the muscle let go. She continued to move her thumbs in tiny circles, seeking out tension, gently untying knots with her fingertips. She couldn’t help notice the lean, toned muscle under her fingers, covered by only a layer of denim. She breathed deeper as she moved her hands in long, slow circles, ever closer to… She shook her head and blinked, then moved her hand away. “Is that better?” she asked.

  Alex swallowed. “Yeah,” he answered. He looked anywhere but at her. An awkward silence followed.

  “I’ll go get that sword,” Carmen said at last.

  She returned, cleaning dirt and grass from the sword’s point with her shirttail. “Got any oil?” she said. Alex pointed to a kitchen drawer. Carmen pulled it open. She tilted her head. “Do you spend much time here?”

  “Well, I travel a lot, with work and all.”

  “It seems like more than that.” She pulled out a bottle of h
ousehold oil. “The place just doesn’t seem lived in. There’s the bare necessities, and that’s it. I mean, look at this junk drawer. There’s no junk in it. The first time I was here, I assumed it was some kind of temporary thing, a safe house or something. But it seems a little more permanent to you. Except there’s nothing here.”

  Alex grinned. “You’re pretty sharp.” He eased to his feet and leaned on the wooden sword. He cocked his head and looked at her for a long time then nodded once, as if coming to a decision. “Thing is, I ain’t showed you the Batcave yet.”

  “The what?” Carmen raised an eyebrow. “Batcave?”

  “C’mon. I’ll show you.” He stood, holding the wooden sword in one hand, and went out the back door. Carmen followed.

  He took the gravel path that started at the back porch and the lawn, to the freestanding two-car garage. Alex opened the side door, and they crossed the oil-stained concrete floor. He stopped at a tool bench and pulled on a section of perforated tool board. The wrenches and hammers on it jingled as the board swung away, revealing a worn keypad. Alex typed in a number and threw a switch.

  Somewhere a buzzer sounded. Machinery clanged, and an unseen engine whined to life. The whole garage lurched. Carmen felt an uneasy, dropping-away sensation in her stomach. She looked up to see the garage rafters rise up into the distance. The tool board, the shelves with paint cans, the lawn mower all stayed put as the whole interior of the garage descended into the earth.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Alex giggled. “Ain’t it cool?”

  The garage/elevator lurched to a stop again. Alex threw another switch. Instead of a bright, sunny New Mexico morning, the garage faced an immense man-made cavern. High above, giant lights chunked into life one after another, and the space kept getting bigger. Up above in the darkness, Carmen could barely make out steel rafters. On the concrete floor, rows of cars sat there gleaming. A ’56 Chevy, sky-blue and white. A ’55 Ford truck, gloss black. A vintage Harley-Davidson. An Indian cruiser. A cherry-red deuce coupe. Some kind of vintage military transport, and a handful of more nondescript cars.