One Foot in the Grave - The Halflife Trilogy Book I

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  “Be careful,” Suki said, pulling the vehicle over to the side of the road. She opened the doors and the wolf leapt to the ground before we had reached a complete stop.

  “Get in position, but wait fur us, lass,” the general called as she bounded away in the darkness.

  “I don’t like this,” Suki muttered as the bus started back onto the road. “We’re cutting this a bit close to sunrise.”

  “Mayhap. . .” the redcap’s hands gripped the back of the driver’s seat, “but I’d rather tackle these beasties noo than try to restrain our Lupé fur another eighteen hours.”

  An unearthly sound suddenly shattered the silence: Luath had found his prey.

  “Ah,” I said, “de children of de night! Hear how dey are singing?”

  The general snapped out an oath. “Sa much fur the element o’ surprise!”

  Suki said nothing, pressing her lips together and pressing her foot to the floor. We roared down the road until she reached over and flipped a pair of toggle switches: the engine noise dropped to near imperceptibility. Before I could ask about the muffler system, we were swinging off the road and into the parking lot of a small motel on the outskirts of Louisburg.

  The general handed me a machete and then pressed a crossbow into my hands. “Here ye go, laddie; look sharp and don’t let the big ‘un get away!” He was out the door before Suki had the bus at a full stop. I followed, trying to tuck the machete under my arm while juggling the crossbow and a handful of wooden quarrels. Our driver was right behind me while the engine was still dieseling the last of the carburetor fumes.

  Luath was nowhere to be seen, but his foot-wide paw prints were clearly evident where they crossed the dust and gravel parking lot and led right up to the door of one of the units. The door of that particular room was slightly ajar, dim light spilling a wedge out across the weedy doorstep.

  “No point in sneaking up noo,” the general said, brandishing a wicked-looking halberd. And with that, he charged the partially opened door. Suki and I were hard-pressed to keep up: the redcap was a couple of strides from the door and a good ten feet ahead of us when we heard Lupé call out: “No, General! Don’t come in! It’s a trap!”

  It was too late, of course. Even if he’d had time to break off his charge I doubt that he’d have chosen to do so. The door slammed open as he burst across the threshold and then the entryway lit up as if a roomful of paparazzi had chosen that very same instant to take flash pictures. The strobe of light was followed by a clap of thunder and smoke hazed the doorway as we came up more cautiously to peer inside.

  It looked like any other motel room and, except for the swirl of dissipating smoke, it was cleaner than most. The opposite wall was covered with mirrored tile to create an illusion of depth. When you walked through the door, the first thing you would see (assuming you weren’t a vampire) was yourself. The next thing you’d see was scripture—if you walked into this particular room, that is. A message was painted on the mirror in red brush strokes large enough to read from the doorway. It said:

  And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

  —Daniel 12:2

  “They were already gone when I got here,” Lupé said. She was sitting on the foot of the bed with the cover pulled loose and wrapped about her nakedness.

  “When I heard Luath bay I figured the jig was up and came charging in. I only beat you by a minute, at best, and didn’t notice the sign until I had reverted and the general came rushing through the door.”

  Suki sniffed delicately. “They used blood.”

  Lupé nodded. “They knew that blood would get the general’s attention even if the positioning of the message didn’t.”

  “So what happened?” I wanted to know.

  “Scripture,” Smirl announced from the doorway. “You want to banish a redcap? You read a passage from the Bible to them.” He looked at the painted mirror and shook his head in admiration. “Diabolical: tricking a redcap into reading the passage himself!”

  I looked around. “So where did he go?”

  “Ask Taj,” Lupé snapped. “We’ve got to get out of here right now!”

  “Clues?” Smirl asked, looking around the room.

  “None. They were expecting us. But I checked, anyway.” She began shifting back to wolf form.

  “We’d best do as the lady says,” Smirl said, backing toward the door. Suki was already outside. “Company will be showing up any minute and we don’t want to be here when they arrive.” He went with the wolf right behind him. I was the last one out and, as I closed the door behind me, something on the ground caught my eye. I grabbed it and ran for the bus.

  Suki already had the bus in motion as I jumped on board and back on the road out of town before I could find a seat. The black limo was nowhere in sight.

  “Where?” Suki yelled as she steered a return course toward the highway.

  Mooncloud was studying the road map. “If we head back down Highway 69,” she said, “we won’t hit another town until Pleasanton.”

  “Time?”

  “At least a half hour,” I said. “Stay on State 68, past the highway; go another six miles or so and look for an unpaved road going south.”

  “Where will that take us?”

  Mooncloud looked up from the map. “Somerset?”

  “Not so much a town as a wide place in the road,” I said. “But it will give us a place to park and talk about what we do next.”

  Suki nodded decisively. “I am going to have to trade off, soon.”

  Mooncloud picked up the cellular phone and punched in a number. “Dennis? Taj. Where are you?” She listened for a moment. “We’re still pulling up our socks, here. Chris has recommended we stop over in a little place called Somerset. West on 68 then south on—damn, the map doesn’t even name the road! Can you find it on your map? Good. After I get the kids tucked in, maybe we can find a restaurant and continue our search for the perfect cup of coffee and slice of pie.”

  As she hung up, Lupé emerged from the back, buttoning her shirt. “Brief me,” Mooncloud demanded, shifting her leg to balance the end of the cast on the seat opposite her.

  Lupé did and, true to its etymological roots, it was brief. “Nothing to show for it,” she summarized, “and we’ve already had a casualty.”

  “Two casualties,” I said, holding up Luath’s collar with the electronic tracer still attached.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “On the ground, just outside the motel room.”

  “This is bad,” Lupé said, folding up in her seat to rest her chin on her knees. “Now we have no easy way of tracking them.”

  “Worse than bad,” Mooncloud said. “Bad enough that they’d be clever enough to set a trap for a redcap. But to neutralize a cu sith. . . .”

  I hadn’t planned on going to sleep so soon, but the sunrise had a more potent effect on me than I had expected. While it still seemed unlikely to dissolve my flesh and render my skeleton into a vague, chalky outline in ash, I was beset by irritated, itchy skin and a pounding headache. These were relieved as soon as I settled down into the dark, coffinlike compartment in one of the bus’s fold-down seats and pulled the lid down to block out the offending solar radiation.

  There hadn’t been time to sort through all the questions in my mind, much less ask them before hopping into the box. I made a mental list as sleep encroached, planning to corner Mooncloud as soon as the sun went back down. She’d nearly convinced me that vampires could exist in the same physical reality as moonwalks, quantum physics and William F. Buckley. But dark elves and Faerie dogs and gangsters that belonged in a Dick Tracy comic strip?

  There was comfort in the thought that maybe I hadn’t emerged unscathed from the accident that killed my wife and daughter—that maybe I was still lying in a hospital bed, unconscious and plugged into a variety of tubes and wires and such. That this past year was nothing more than a trauma-induce
d, brain-damaged delirium.

  That’s right, Pam, last season was nothing more than a silly old dream; Bobby Ewing is back at Northfork and would you hand me the soap, please?

  Sure.

  Unfortunately the plots on Dallas were more likely than the events of my life these past few months. . . .

  The last thing I thought about before drifting into a black, dreamless sleep was the scripture left behind on the motel room mirror.

  Surprisingly, I knew the Old Testament passage from my childhood. I had learned it in Sunday School and remembered it long afterward for the verse that followed: And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever.

  It had once been a comforting thought, a scripture for the times when a young mind turned to thoughts of its own mortality and the endless darkness threatened by the grave. What comfort now for one who, by all religious and secular lore, was considered damned for all eternity?

  And they that be wise shall shine. . . .

  The darkness embracing my dreamless sleep was blacker than the absence of light, deeper than the confines of my encompassed bed.

  Now the shadows cut to the bone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I peered at the image that flickered in the RV’s tiny bathroom mirror and tried to shave. The lather reflected better than the bleary topography of my face. “I suppose the fact that I still have to do this every few days is a good sign,” I muttered.

  “Maybe.” Garou sat with feet propped across a seat, where she could watch me and still keep an eye on the coffee pot. “But then a corpse’s hair and fingernails continue to grow for a while, even after it’s been planted six feet under.”

  “Actually, that’s a myth,” Mooncloud called from down the aisle. “It’s based on old reports of exhumations. Back then they didn’t realize that decomposition causes tissues to shrink as they dehydrate, receding from the hair follicles and the base of the nails. It only gave the appearance of growth after interment.”

  “So I am still alive,” I qualified.

  “The jury’s still out on that,” Garou returned.

  “And thanks for your support.”

  “What is it with you?” she growled. “You’ve got the best of both worlds, right now: near immortality, near invulnerability—and you can still walk around in broad daylight!”

  Well, not exactly, but that wasn’t the point. “Hey,” I said, pointing my razor at her, “you think being undead is so goddamned wonderful, why don’t you ask the Doman to bring you over?”

  “She is a were,” Suki said placidly. “It is not permitted.”

  “So what’s with the attitude? Incisor envy?”

  “I wouldn’t take it if it was offered,” Lupé snarled back.

  “Smirl called Chicago, today,” Mooncloud said, turning us back to the business at hand. “They’re going to send an airplane to help with an aerial search. In the meantime, he’s looking for a nearby airport where he can rent a plane and pilot for the next day or so.”

  “So what do we do in the meantime?” I asked.

  Garou shrugged. “Without Luath the only thing we can do is drive through every town and down every back road, ask questions and keep our eyes and ears open.”

  I frowned into the mirror. “What are they looking for?” My reflection seemed a little slow in frowning back. “I mean, they came down here to find me, discovered that I’d relocated to Seattle, tried to nail me up there—then, all of a sudden, they’re back here, still snooping around like they’ve lost my trail.”

  “The obvious answer,” Garou said, “is that they’re not looking for you. They’re looking for someone or something else.”

  “Someone or something connected to you, most likely,” Mooncloud added.

  “But what? Or who?”

  “The same thing we’re ultimately looking for, I guess.” Mooncloud sounded thoughtful. “What infected you in the first place.”

  “Shhh!”

  We looked at Lupé, who had her head cocked to one side. “Did you hear that?”

  I listened. Heard the growl of the RV’s motor, the purr of tires over gravel. Nothing more.

  “Hear what?” Mooncloud asked.

  “Hush!” Lupé turned toward the front of the bus. “Suki, pull over and stop the engine.”

  A moment later all was silent save for drone of crickets in the fields that surrounded us.

  “Listen!” Lupé held up her hand. “There! Did you hear that?”

  I looked at Mooncloud. She shrugged.

  “It’s Luath!” Lupé looked at us. “Can’t you hear him? He’s still out there!”

  I looked up the aisle at Suki. Her shoulders copied Mooncloud’s, and she shook her head, as well.

  Mooncloud said, “Are you sure?”

  Lupé looked at the rest of us. “You don’t hear him? I know he’s a bit faint—but—” Disappointment crossed her face. “You think I’m imagining it?”

  “No.” Mooncloud considered. “You hear beyond the human range of audibility in wolf form—maybe you can in human form, as well.”

  I looked at Lupé. “So where is he?”

  She cocked her head again. “I’m not sure. . . .”

  Mooncloud and I began opening windows along the sides of the bus.

  “Shhh! There! He’s sounding . . . that way, I think. . . .” She pointed toward the southeast.

  “This should be fun,” I murmured as Suki started up the bus and tried to turn around. “Do we stop every five minutes and listen for Luath to bark?”

  “No.” Lupé began to unbutton her shirt. “Give me one of the walkie-talkies. I’ll track him and report our positions back to you.”

  “You can’t carry a walkie-talkie while you’re in wolf form.”

  “Find something to tie it around my neck.”

  I held up Luath’s collar with the transponder still attached. “How about this?”

  “Perfect!” Mooncloud took it out of my hands. “We can use this to track you the same way we tracked the cu sith.” She studied its length, obviously adjusted for a neck that was five times the size of Lupé’s. “Hand me one of the combat knives from the weapons locker, will you, dear?”

  Five minutes later we were passing the southern end of Somerset, hunting for a side road that would take us back toward the east.

  Mooncloud and I were hunched over the monitor, crouched behind the driver’s seat. “I think this is going to work,” she said.

  “Yeah?” I frowned at the phosphorescent blip as it moved across the screen’s glowing grid lines. “Well, we’ve lost the general, Smirl and company are off chasing down an airplane, and we still don’t know what happened to Luath. If we find what we’re looking for, what makes you think we’ll come out any better than last night?”

  She gave me a sharp look. “You got any better suggestions?”

  I didn’t. Something had destroyed my life and my family. Something that was still out there somewhere. If our quarry wasn’t responsible, it was a safe bet that they could lead us to it.

  “Getting closer! Closing the gap!” Suki called.

  “Cut the lights,” Mooncloud ordered. “Go to silent running.”

  It was reminiscent of an old submarine movie: switches were flipped and the engine noise was muted to a murmur. The lights were extinguished and Suki had to depend on her night vision and a faint glimmer of starlight to steer by.

  “Getting a return,” Mooncloud said.

  “What?” Suki was distracted. “There’s a campfire out across the field—east. Maybe two to three miles.”

  “The signal on Lupé’s collar is coming back toward us.” Mooncloud considered. “Slow down and be ready to stop.”

  “I see her.” The RV stopped and Suki opened the front door.

  A moment later Lupé was standing on the steps in human form and breathing hard. My night vision was compensating for the darkness and I tried not to stare.

>   “Satanists,” she said.

  “Satanists?” So much for not staring.

  She nodded, still trying to catch her breath. “Out in the field, there. Some sort of ceremony. Torches. Truck. Two, three cars. One of them’s the limo we’re tracking.”

  I looked at Mooncloud. “Satanists?”

  “Did you ID anyone?” Mooncloud asked.

  Lupé shook her head. “Robes with hoods. Everybody covered. Except the altar.”

  “The altar?” I asked.

  “Satanic ceremonies usually require a nude woman to act as the altar,” Suki explained.

  “Oh.” Hell of a recruitment angle.

  “Did you see Luath?”

  Lupé shook her head. “I could hear him. He sounded strange: faraway and—and—I don’t know how to describe it. It was like he had fallen into a hole or something and was running about and barking under the ground. . . .”

  “This complicates things,” Mooncloud said. “How many of the others?”

  “Only saw one perimeter guard. Maybe eight, counting everybody.”

  “Bad enough risking our own necks,” Mooncloud groused, “without having to worry about innocent bystanders.”

  “Innocent bystanders?”

  “Chris,” Mooncloud put a hand on my shoulder, “most people who call themselves Satanists are just sad, maladjusted folk who like to dress up in robes and act out silly rituals.”

  “Sounds like most mainstream religions to me,” Suki said.

  Mooncloud silenced her with a look. “We’re not talking Wicca, here, or Deists or Pagan religions that worship the Lord and Lady. And if these people were true Satanists, we couldn’t get this close without Lupé or I knowing it.”

  “So why would they pretend to be devil worshipers?”

  She looked past me, staring at the pinpoint of firelight across the field. “Why do most of us pretend to be what we only seem to be?” She sighed. “While there is the occasional closet sadist who uses Satanism as an excuse to torment and kill animals, most of them are just social outcasts, looking for other misfits who will accept them. Some think it’s a private club for kinky sex and others are acting out their dissatisfaction with the religion of their formative years. . . .”