I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2)

by Tony Monchinski

  The thing that had been Eddie Coyle descended slowly, unsteadily. The torso entered the weak mote of light from overhead first and it looked to Luke like the man was missing most of the fingers on one hand. When Luke got a look at the man’s face—the ears gone, one eye missing, the other with a sleepy look, drugged—he couldn’t believe it. The skin on the lower jaw didn’t match the rest of his face. It was covered with tufts of hair didn’t look like no beard Luke had ever seen, like someone had gone and stitched new skin to the man’s face, pasted some clumps of hair to it.

  The thing came staggering down the stairs, holding Marquis’ gun by the barrel, no idea how to use it.

  But there was no mistaking it. This was the punk had stepped to them on the street that day. This was him—

  Luke rushed up the steps and batted the thing with the pipe, knocking its head sideways. He hit it again and its head came off its shoulders, plunking down the stairs, its mouth still moving, rasping at him. The body was still standing there, one hand on the bannister, the other continuing to reach out, fingers splayed, Marquis’ gun hanging from the one finger by the trigger guard.

  Luke ran. Back down the hallway, past the apartments—the one door open an inch on its chain slamming shut. He tripped and fell down the last half of the first landing, losing his pipe but holding onto the ornate cup and then he was through the vestibule and out onto the street, running full-on down the block, the fuck if anyone saw him. Running back towards Moses, clutching the chalice.

  “Looks like he met Eddie,” one of the three women seated in the car up the block remarked to the other two.

  “Eddie? I thought he went by Bowie.”

  “Not with his mother he doesn’t.”

  25.

  3:14 P.M.

  Halstead and Pomeroy rolled Boone in on a hand truck, Boone seated and chained to a steel chair, bound and gagged. His arms were crossed over his chest in the strait-jacket, tied down at his sides. His mouth was full of the ball gag Pomeroy had intimated spent time in other orifices.

  “What’s with the Hannibal Lectar getup?” One of the four male figures seated in folding chairs asked. Colson, standing in front of them beside a projector screen, did not answer. A short, bespectacled man stood next to Colson.

  “It’s the best thing for him.” Boone tried to crane his head around to glare at Halstead but the vampire remained out of his sight. “Trust me.”

  The last few days of training had not been pleasant, for Boone or his teachers.

  “I demand this man be unbound.” The one who had spoken dwarfed the folding chair he sat in. Shoulder-length white hair with streaks of grey framed a hard face carved with lines. A star-burst scar circled one eye, the orbit milky. The man wore a utilitarian button-down workshirt over straight pants. Big hands and forearms gnarled with muscle and hair. “There’s no way I’m working like this.”

  “You don’t know him.” Big Mike was called Big Mike, but big was an adjective that didn’t do the creature justice. It was a vampire and Boone knew it from the club Xerxes, where it worked the door. Xerxes, the last place that had seen Boone and Gossitch and all the others together and well. They’d been celebrating.

  “I’m serious.” The man with the star-shaped scar sat next to the silent Damian and spoke directly to Colson. “I will leave if this man isn’t immediately loosed.”

  Colson nodded to one of the two vampires behind Boone and Pomeroy stepped around into Boone’s line of sight. “What do you think, Booney, are you going to behave?”

  “He’s not going to behave,” muttered Big Duke. He sat there, his head bald, cowboy hat on his lap, as if obliging some formality.

  “You going to be good?”

  Boone nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  Pomeroy loosed the gag and Boone spat on the floor. “Fuck!”

  “See,” Big Duke looked off to the side of the room. “See what I mean?” Boone looked daggers at the cowboy. “Hey—stop saying that!”

  “What’d he say?” Big Mike had its hands on its knees. The vampire wore black leather pants, motorcycle boots with leather straps and metal rings that ended below its knees. Big Mike sported a bald fade, the hair on the side and back of its heads shaved close.

  “Now the chains,” said the older man with the scar.

  Halstead and Pomeroy undid Boone’s chains, the links clanking to the cement floor.

  “Strait-jacket too.”

  Pomeroy and Halstead looked to Colson. “Do it.”

  As soon as Boone could get his arms down from around his sides he wriggled the rest of the way out of the canvas restraint, stepping out of it, scowling at the two vampires.

  “Yes?” Halstead asked expectantly, tapping a finger on the box that controlled the current to the collar Boone wore.

  Boone reached up involuntarily, touching at the ring around his thick neck.

  “Yeah,” pronounced Big Duke, “He’s going to be good now.”

  “Gentlemen, this is Boone.” Colson made the introductions. “Boone, have a seat.” Boone did so grudgingly, staring at Big Duke, the man refusing to make eye contact.

  “Boone, I think you know some of those here today.”

  “I know the Duck of Death over there.”

  “You know Big Duke and you would do well to show him respect,” Colson warned. “You already know Damian. And I am told you’re acquainted with Michael.”

  Big Mike scoffed, thinking about his last encounter with Boone at Xerxes, the night the man had insulted him coming into the club.

  “This gentleman—” Colson indicated the scarred man “—likes to be called Kane.”

  “The Wrath.” Damian nodded knowingly, his arms crossed over his STAFF t-shirt.

  “The what?” demanded Boone.

  Damian, still nodding, said, “The Wrath of God.”

  “A nickname conferred upon me.” There was neither denial nor approval in the scarred man’s voice.

  “And this is Hephaestus.” The short man with eye glasses waved. Boone knew Hephy, the armorer. Blind and Gossitch had both made use of his services over the years.

  “Where’s pimp daddy?” Boone looked around the room. “Off composing his memoires?”

  “The dark Lord will be joining us later today.”

  “Then what’s this little gathering about?” Boone eyed Colson. “We having a circle jerk?”

  Pomeroy tee-heed.

  “You’re all here for one specific purpose. Her name is Litivia. She is a vampire lord old and powerful.”

  “Kreshnik’s moms,” muttered Big Mike.

  “I killed that fuck,” Boone stated.

  When Halstead noted, “That’s not exactly how it went down,” Boone turned in his seat and looked at the vampire.

  “For the past hundred years she has operated out of eastern Europe,” Colson continued, images appearing on the screen behind him, physical and topographical maps. “When Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan collapsed, she gathered up as many scientists as she could—”

  “The ones Uncle Sam didn’t get his hands on,” Kane noted dryly.

  “—as well as those of the former Soviet Union after ’91. Her scientists have been busy at work on a host of projects—”

  “Like vampire’s that can go outside in the daytime?” interrupted Boone.

  “Day Walkers.” Big Mike said it quietly.

  “Yes,” Colson confirmed, “like vampire’s that can go outside in the daytime.”

  “Enfermo was no day walker,” Boone snorted, “was he Damian?”

  The man in the STAFF t-shirt smiled.

  “No he was not.” Boone answered his own question and this time he laughed.

  “Can we gag him again?” Big Mike asked the group.

  “That won’t shut him up.” Big Duke had a hand up at his temple.

  “He’s obnoxious,” Big Mike saying it like Boone wasn’t sitting right there.

  “‘He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man,’” quoted th
e Wrath.

  “That the Bible?” Boone asked him.

  “Samuel Johnson.”

  Halstead raised the control box, reminding Boone of it, quieting him.

  “Lativia is ensconced here, in her castle.” Images on the screen behind Colson. “I will not tell you it’s exact location other than to say it’s located in Central Europe. It dates back to the late Middle Ages but has had successive upgrades and modifications in the time since, some of which are evident from these satellite photos.

  “She has amassed a private army of thuggee and ninja, as well as a substantial force of combat troops from the Balkans.”

  “What kind of human being,” Kane asked rhetorically, “willingly works for the undead?”

  “My kind have no love for your kind, Kane.” Colson paused to address the man known as the Wrath of God. “Humans have hunted us since our beginnings. But I know we need one another.”

  “You need us. We can do just fine without your kind.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ bout!” shouted Boone.

  “Litivia is of a like mind, Kane. She seeks nothing less than the annihilation of the human race. In the past, her plans have been squelched and derailed by our own, but as some of you may or may not know—” Colson looked around the room at the assembled men “—civil war amongst our kind has thinned our ranks, and these past years there has been no countervailing force to oppose her. Hence her scientific explorations, and vampires that show themselves in the daylight. She is in a position to begin actively pursuing the end of humanity,” Colson locked eyes with the Wrath of God “the end of your kind.”

  “Let’s wax this bitch then,” Boone blurted out.

  “Precisely. We leave the day after tomorrow.”

  “We?” Kane raised an eyebrow.

  “I will be accompanying you on this mission, as will Halstead. There will be a stopover in western Europe. We’ll be parachuting in. Once on the ground, our objective will be simple. Secure and destroy the castle and all that is in it. Hephaestus.”

  The short man stepped forward, the barrel and folding wire stock of a submachine gun in his hands.

  “This is a Heckler & Koch Universale Maschinenpistole, your primary weapon on the ground.” The armorer’s voice was high pitched. “These aren’t even on the market yet. Chambered for 9mm Parabellum, 30-round detachable box magazine—” Hephaestus dropped the curved magazine from its well as he spoke and reinserted it “—six hundred and fifty rounds per minute on full auto. Blowback from a closed bolt, reflex-style red dot sights, vertical foregrip…”

  When Hephaestus finished running down the specs of the submachine gun, Big Duke spoke up, “Six hundred and fifty rounds a minute. That’s putting out a lot of lead. Must have costs a small fortune in silver.”

  “We have something better than silver.” Colson noted approvingly at Boone. “His blood.”

  “You painted the bullets,” Big Mike looked like he didn’t think any of this was going to work, “with his blood?”

  “I coated them the same way I would with Tungsten in vibratory tumblers,” explained Hephaestus. “I can bore you with the details later. What matters is they’re effectively exploding bullets when it comes to flesh like your own.”

  Big Mike shifted uncomfortably and Boone said, “Yeah, my blood is like vampire AIDs or some shit.”

  “Do we really have to bring him along?” Big Mike eyed Boone distrustfully.

  “You’re a bloodsucker and you’re black. You’re gonna come in for twice my shit.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Colson.

  “I’ll need my swords,” Kane interjected.

  “And my shotgun,” added Big Duke.

  Damian asked, “Can I get an axe?”

  “Gentlemen. Personal weapons will be provided with the appropriate modifications, as will side arms and thermite grenades.”

  “Thermite?” Boone liked the sound of where this was going.

  “Vampires burn man.” Big Duke sounded like he was reminding a slow kid of an elementary fact. Boone raised his head to the ceiling and whistled, like a child caught red handed with his arm in the candy jar. Whatever he was thinking was lost to everyone except Big Duke, who said to him, “You just don’t stop do you?”

  “Look,” Boone addressed Colson, “I get why I’m here. And I think I understand why Big Dookey is here—”

  “Keep pushing me.”

  “—and Damian too even. I mean,” Boone gave the man in the STAFF t-shirt a thumbs up, “I seen you having at it with that cleaver, man. You’re stone cold fuckin’ crazy, ain’t you? And Big Mike,” the vampire sitting there with its elbows on its knees, “well, I don’t particularly give a fuck why you’re in on this, but you—” Boone turned and faced the man called Kane for the first time, the man who had insisted he be unbound “—what I don’t get is you. You don’t seem to love these bloodsuckers,” Boone nodded towards Colson, Halstead and Pomeroy. “So what are you doing here?”

  Kane nodded his head once before answering matter-of-factly. “I’ve come to make the sinners bleed.”

  “Hmmmm.” Boone considered this.

  “If you’re finished,” the image on the screen behind Colson changed, “I will continue.”

  26.

  7:23 P.M.

  They tried to kill Dickie on his seventh day inside.

  He was coming out of the shower with Jimmy Scal—nothing on but their towels and Jimmy’s gold-framed sunglasses, Dickie with his chain, his soap and shampoo bottle in hand, Cheeks behind them still showering—when they made their move. There were two of them, one fat and one thin, both covered in ink, the fat guy with his beard in rubber bands, the skinny guy all twitchy, his hand behind his back.

  “Hey Dickie,” the skinny guy doing the talking, “we got somethin’ we need to talk about. Now a good time?” Sending Dickie a message, letting him know who sent him. Sending Dickie a message but talking too much. “What? No? This not a good time for you?” His hand came out from behind his back, a sharpened toothbrush in his shaking junkie grip.

  Dickie threw his shampoo bottle at the guy but he ducked it, the fat one coming at Dickie with his arms raised like a bear, knocking Jimmy Scal out of the way. Cheeks burst out of the shower dripping water, colliding with the heavy man, the two of them hitting the tiles. The skinny guy came right at Dickie, thrusting with the shank, Dickie side stepping, watching his footing on the tile. His assailant swiped at him, missing by a mile. Dickie threw the bar of soap at the man’s feet and the guy hopped up on one leg as it ricocheted off the tile, the man glancing down involuntarily, looking up as Dickie’s fist caught him square between the eyes.

  Cheeks had the fat guy down and was sitting on top of him, stabbing him viciously with another sharpened toothbrush. Jimmy Scal older and slower to react, in on the act now, sprawled out atop the fat man’s legs, holding them as they kicked.

  Dickie hit the skinny one a second and a third time. He took the man by the back of his head and rammed it into the wall repeatedly. When he was left with deadweight in his arms and a red stain on the wall, Dickie let the man down.

  Cheeks Carlucci had worked his hands inside the fat man, scooping out gobs of yellow jelly-like matter and flinging it from him, ignoring the man’s flailing hands as they hit his torso. Jimmy Scal cursing the fat guy in Italian the whole time.

  “Cheeks!” Too late, a third man—white and heavily tattooed like the first two—was on Carlucci from behind, driving a blade into his back. Carlucci cursed, surprised and hurt, springing off the dying man, striking the latest attacker. Dickie got one forearm under the man’s neck and the other under his arm, jacking the man up onto his tip toes, Carlucci shanking him with his own blade. Carlucci stabbing furiously, blood all over him, his own and others’, his face all red, working his arm like some kind of machine, the man in Dickie’s hold screaming until the Scal got a palm over his mouth and then not making much of any noise at all.

  Carlucci took a knee, winded. Dickie let the
body down and went to his soldier.

  “Cheeks…”

  “I’m good, Dickie,” Carlucci panting, out of breath. He tried to reach around to feel the wounds in his back. “Madonn’. I’m a be good. You and Jimmy, you gotta go—”

  “Cheeks—”

  The heavy guy with the rubber banded beard was lying there, shaking like a fish on the bottom of a boat, handfuls of himself all over the floor. Jimmy Scal found his tinted glasses, putting them back on.

  “You gotta get out a here, boss.”

  Dickie knowing what his man was saying was true. If Cheeks survived they’d send him to the infirmary. They found Dickie or Jimmy here, it was the hole.

  “You hang in there, Cheeks.”

  “I’ll be alright…”

  Dickie retrieved his towel, covering himself.

  The Scal found one of the toothbrushes on the floor. Squatting down, he buried it in the fat man’s throat. Dickie helped him to his feet, looking up to see Renfeld in the doorway. Renfeld lounging there fully dressed. Didn’t look like he’d come to take a shower. The man popped a roach in his mouth from his Styrofoam cup and chewed, the insect crunching audibly.

  Dickie looked at him. “What?”

  Renfeld giggled, scurrying off.

  “Go, Dickie.” Carlucci was on his side now, his knees drawn up to his chest, holding himself, blood running down his naked back. “Go Jimmy.”

  “Dickie, come on.”

  “Cheeks.” Dickie stopped to look back at his man on the tiles, Cheeks holding himself. “You hang in there.”

  27.

  8:40 P.M.

  Boone rode the elevator in silence, not exchanging any words with Pomeroy or the lift’s other-worldly operator until the Hobgoblin spoke to him.

  “I have a fourteen-inch cock,” the thing in its peaked cap volunteered, seated on its stool, one leg dangling. Pomeroy sputtered and laughed, clasping a hand over his mouth.

  Boone was like, “What?”