He paused. "Well, yes," he admitted hesitantly.
"Then who cares?"
That stunned him for a moment, then the thing came back strong. "I care!" he roared making the walls vibrate and a rain of dust sprinkled down from the rafters. "To see the sun! The glorious sun just once more..."
"Crap," I retorted rudely, wiggling a finger in my ear to stop the ringing. "You're super-strong, can turn into smoke, fly as a bat, run as a wolf, hypnotize people, shrink to an inch in height, or grow to ten feet tall, you're immune to diseases, get all the babes you want and since you rob your victims, you're filthy rich!"
"Yes, these are true," the thing grudgingly acknowledged. "But in return, my kind are hunted everywhere we go. Forced to live lives of quiet desperation. No family, no friends. And we must kill to live! What is your clever answer to that, sir? The blood of innocent people will smoke on your hands for eternity!"
Smoke? Hmm, nice visual. I got to my feet and shifted my car keys to a front pocket. "I don't plan to murder innocents."
"And whom shall you slaughter?" he asked in smug contempt, crossing his powerful arms. Wow. He had a 10,000 dollar Rolex Presidential watch on his wrist. Keen.
"Criminals," I said, reclaiming my chair. "Some street muggers, if I encounter any, but mostly organized crime figures. People protected by laws bought under the table. Murdering bastards that no honest cop can touch. I'll fill my belly with their blood. Fat rich blood. I'll drain loan sharks, rapists, drug smugglers, hell, I may move to the Middle East and declare my own jihad on terrorists!"
His eyes went level with mine. "You're serious," he said after a moment.
Stoically, I gave a grim nod. "Damn straight. And if some cop should accidentally get on my trail, why should they stop me? I'm not slaying little children or blind widows or anything like that. I'm zapping crooks, cleaning house for them. Doing the world a favor."
Thoughtfully, he began chewing on a taloned finger. "Perhaps," he muttered hesitantly.
Dramatically, I ripped open my shirt, exposing the neck. "Drink away, old pal. Been exercising and taking vitamins for the past month. No booze, no drugs, no fatty meats, lots of fiber. I'm ripe and ready for the taking. Anxious to become immortal this very night."
"As you request," the vampire acknowledged graciously. "By the Dark One, it will be pleasant to have company after all these decades alone."
Alone, like he knew what that really meant. Now I wasn't thrilled by having another guy place his lips on my throat, but the fangs only stung for a moment. And even as I began to feel woozy, I started to feel fine again. In a minute, he stepped away, a line of red drool flowing down his jaw.
"And that's it?" I asked, tenderly fingering my neck.
He gave a crimson smile, but a friendly one. "Yes. In three days, you shall awaken as one of us. A vampyre!"
"Great," I replied reaching into my pocket. Ah, there it was. "And the term is vampire these days."
He snorted in disdain. "What care I for the chatter of the food?"
I scowled, but said nothing.
"By the way, how did you find me?" he asked curiously, dabbing at his lips with an embroidered handkerchief of fine Irish linen. "I am rather good at hiding."
I shrugged. "Relatively simple. The dogs told me. They knew exactly where you were hidden."
All amusement instantly departed as his cat eyes went perfectly round. "The dogs told you?" he asked confused. "What dogs?"
"The pet dogs of your victims," I snarled, aiming the .32 automatic pistol inside my pocket. "After all they're the ones who asked Bureau 13 to have me find you."
"The Bureau!" the vampyre snarled in rage and rushed forward, talons raised for a kill.
Instantly, I triggered my weapon and he jerked backwards from the sledgehammer impact of the tiny wood bullets as if they were mahogany bazooka shells.Hmm, not a bad idea. Maybe next time.
Carefully, I tracked the body as it toppled over, making sure every precious mahogany round hit him in the heart. The last two splintering slugs burst through the desiccated corpse and only a handful of ancient dust sprinkled to the cold stone floor.
The undead was dead. That paid a lot of debts. Satisfied, I used my free hand to beat out the flames on my coat jacket from the discharge of the miniature pistol and started for the stairs. As a duly authorized federal agent for the ultra-covert Supernatural Police, it was my job to patrol the streets of Tacoma, Washington and protect the local citizens from hostile supernaturals: ghostly crack dealers, demon bank robbers, alien weapon smugglers, robot Nazis, atomic bedbugs, whatever. There was a lot of strange stuff out there, and most of it wanted to eat us.
Unfortunately, I was the only SP in my hometown and the job was becoming impossible to handle since I could only work a couple of days a month. So I went to downtown Los Angeles and found a nice California vampire.
When I was recruited by the Bureau long ago, I learned that there are rules about how curses operated. Lots of 'em actually, but the top one was: a big curse cancels out a smaller. Which was exactly what I had counted on here.
As a vampire, I could use my new supernatural abilities to patrol Tacoma and stop crime every night. Every single night, all year long! That sounded mighty good. I really loved my work protecting America and it had just been so damn frustrating waiting for the three days of the full moon to become a measly werewolf.
-THE END-
"Okay, nowthisis my first short story ever sold," Nick said, pausing to take a sip of radio coffee. Bleh. "I was on a panel talking about Humor and Violence, and somebody in the audience stated that the source of all Humor was violence. I cut that off by firmly stating that the source of most Humor was conflict, not violence. One of the other panel members was the editor of a SF magazine and said he'd like to see a story about that. I told him I had one already written..." Nick snorted. "Which was a bald-faced lie. But could I send it to him, say, next week? He agreed, I rushed home to write the story..."
There came the sound of a working typewriter.
"And when I turned it in, he bought it!" Nick chuckled, lifting the mug to salute the memory. "My first short story sale! What the hell, maybe this was how O. Henry got started, eh?"
THE INCREDIBLY CIVIL WAR
The beautiful, green planet, Altuna, is located on the far side of our galaxy in a lonely little cul-de-sac, and is the home of the most peaceful, non-violent race in the entire macro-cosmic universe; gentle, humanoid beings who had never built a weapon of any kind, participated in violent sports or even had words for murder, arson or jay walking.
However, this did not mean that the native inhabitants never engaged in fighting, battles...or war.
The First World War, their most horrible escalation of savage conflict, began innocently enough when the Premier of the Northern continent, while trying to entertain her guest, the Czar of the Western continent, publicly made a small joke about the outrageously huge moustache worn by the King of the Southern continent.
Unfortunately, the joke came at a time in the King's life when his wife was divorcing him again and had sighted his infamous facial growth as the third party. Feeling despondent, the King was delighted to have somebody to strike back at and, under the advice of his staunch ally - the Czar of the Western continent - he gleefully activated his most ruthless sleeper agent in the capitol city of the Northern continent, with orders to 'do his worst'.
As a glorious golden dawn broke over the enemy city, the startled population awoke to find every wall poster of their beloved Premier defaced by a hastily scribbled set of devil horns and a snaggle-toothed grin.
The Premier was incensed by the heinous crime, and under the advice of her staunch ally - the Czar of the Western continent, she unleashed her best secret agent to even the score. During the night, the master spy penetrated the defenses of the Southern continent, broke into the palace of the King, sneaked into the man's private office, dialed long distance information for the correct time in the Arctic Circle and departed. Deliber
ately, and with malice and forethought, he left the royal phone off the royal hook. When the staggering telephone bill for $20.17 was received at the end of the month, the King had no problem getting his furious Parliament to officially declare the two countries in a state of war.
Less than a year later, their avenging armies clashed in moral combat at the primordial jungles of the Equator, the brave soldiers boldly taunting each other with rude noises and by making nasty monster faces. Soon though, the battle degenerated into hand-to-hand combat and thumb wrestling became rampant.
The cruel fighting waged for weeks, and beginning to fear defeat, the Premier, under the advice of her staunch ally - the Czar of the Western continent, got tough and unleashed a crack squad of stand-up comics, who traveled the South performing devastatingly funny impersonations of the King and his moustache.
Demoralized by the unrelenting act of terrorism, the King, under the advice of his staunch ally - the Czar of the Western continent, retaliated by broadcasting to the North a daily television sitcom about a Premier who scratched her head with a dinner fork and needed detailed instructions to operate a light switch.
Luckily, before it was too late, the North and South somehow learned the truth of the matter, joined forces and launched a joint armada of their navies against their common foe - the evil Czar of the Western continent.
But, when both the ships finally landed on the correct beach, the invading fleet was viciously embarrassed by shameless snipers who leaped out of the bushes, dropped their pants and mooned the entire assault force, sending more than one shaken young soldier to the psychiatrist for much needed counseling.
As news of this brutal slaughter was made public, every country in the world wisely put their bakeries on emergency status and began stockpiling lemon cream pies.
The rest of the sad story is history.
-THE END-
With an expression of horror, the Sound Effects man was frantically tapping on the thick glass partition, but Nick glibly ignored him.
"As for this next tale," the author crooned melodiously, stroking his moustache. "I was watching a splendidfilm noiremovie on television one night, when I started to wonder what Sam Spade, or Mike Hammer would have done if they ever meet real evil, like, oh, Satan? A few hours later, I had an answer...."
THE COLLAR
I like to kill.
It started as a feeling when I was a kid, then became an obsession and finally my line of work. Why fight nature? There was a lot of money out there, and I wanted all of it. So I went with my natural talents. Besides, I really like to kill.
But this night the hit was going weird. Everything had been jake when I got the word through my usual contacts that there was a client looking for some wet work. I still preferred the term murder, but the market wanted to be PC, I used wet work. Stupid term, murder wasn't wet, it was hot. Hot guns, hot screams. Murder was hot.
The client had my fee, the bills were legit, and after giving me an ID on the target he started wasting my time telling me why the target deserved to get croaked. I had to laugh. Who gives a damn? Pay me enough, I'll ace the pope. A job was a job. For some reason this impressed the Hell out of him and he promised me lots of additional work if I got this one right. The implied insult made me want to use my gun and slap the teeth out of his solicitous face, but as my brother always said, most folks were idiots, so why fight nature? True words.
After a few more minutes of assurances and mutual threats, we parted company and I grabbed a cab. The target was only across town. Easy pie. I'd be home in time for nachos and The Tonight Show.
Leaving the cab a few blocks from my destination, I paused to light my pipe and smoke a bowl of shag-cut brandy. Always gave me an edge. Some amateurs liked to get high, or wired, but that only blurred the sensation, the delicious rush of taking a life. None of that for me. I was a purist.
A pair of rich folks in fake fur strolled by giving me the eye, glaring hatefully at my smoking briarwood, but since I was on the open street they couldn't even say anything about my social crime. Hey, my lungs, my cancer, why should anybody else care? When a doc told me I had the Big C, I would have a wild week in Vegas, then eat my gun. Life was pain, my pipe removed some of that. If there was a price to pay down the line for my fun, so be it. Nothing was free.
Finishing, I tapped out my pipe, cleaned the bowl and tucked her away inside my trench coat. Wonderful things those, seemed to be made for hiding weapons. Just then, a patrol car rolled into view. Forcing myself to stay loose, I watched curiously as they passed by, the driver giving me hard once over with the full know. That was the only thing I truly feared, the collar. Getting arrested. Chains, shackles, iron bars, the whole thing gave me night sweats, and there was no way I was ever going in, even with an army of crooked lawyers on my side. The thought of handcuffs closing around my wrists made me nauseous and I stumbled into the alleyway and breathed in the sharp stink of rotting garbage for a while until my head cleared.
Felling better, I walked quickly through the darkness of the alley hoping that some dumb-ass mugger would try for my shiny, gold Rolex. A nice shot of death was just what I needed to clear my mind, but no such luck, and I was still feeling the shakes when I reached the address, using the corner street light to read the numbers printed on the inside of the matchbook given by my client.
Knocking hard on the door, I could hear it was iron plated on the inside, but lots of doors in the city had those. Good way to stop gangbangers with those ceramic nines from shooting through wood. The metal even slowed down the fire department with those titanium axes they used nowadays. Decent hinges, fancy French lock. Combined with the iron plating this door would a real bitch to get through fast. Unless you simply knocked.
"Who is it?" a thin voice demanded, a quaver of fear marking the challenge.
Okay, he was armed, but with an old man's gun. Maybe a .32, or even a .22 pistol. No problems there.
"You don't know me," I said clear and slow. "But you got a relative who is in big trouble. Stupid bastard has lost a fortune to the mob, and needs your help. Call 'em right now. Goodbye."
That was the kicker, saying goodbye. That removed all of the threat from the presence of a stranger and the dumb fools opened the doors right then and there, nine times out of ten.
I turned my back to maintain the illusion that I was actually going, and heard the lock slid aside and the door swing open. No squeak. He must oil the hinges. That was dumb. Creaky hinges were an excellent way to hear burglars in the night. This guy was no Einstein.
"Wait a sec," he demanded.
I turned and sure enough he was packing heat, but an Uzi machine pistol. The .22 mini-Uzi to be sure, but more than enough firepower to remove me from this world, and I was twice the size of this wizened old geezer. My instincts flared that this was a step-up and I raised my hands high in surrender.
"Put those down," he snapped, and I slid my hands into my coat pockets to grab my guns. "Now who did you say was in trouble again?"
"Your cousin," I lied. But it was a good one, rock solid. Damn near everybody on Earth had a stupid cousin. Even me. Mine wanted me to open a video store and go legit. What an imbecile.
But the geezer stepped back and grabbed the mini-Uzi with both hands dropping into a firing stance. "I don't have a cousin," he snarled, snapping the arming bolt on top. "I'm an orphan!"
Well, son of a bitch. Ten years in this job and I finally meet a goddamn orphan. Had to happen some day, I guess.
"McPherson?" I said leaning close as if looking at his face. "Craig McPherson, right?"
"Daniel McPherson," he corrected with a snort, lowering the barrel of the rapidfire. "You got the wrong-"
Using both guns, I fired through the fabric of my coat, the silenced .44 rounds sounding no louder than a door knock. The little guy flew backwards into his home, and I followed closed behind, pumping more slugs into his chest with my right hand as the left closed the door. He was dead before hitting the floor.
A c
op friend who didn't know what I did for a living had told me that men always had to finish a sentence before shooting you. Some sort of sexual link to fucking, I suppose. Woman were the dangerous adversaries, they would often shoot you in the middle of a sentence and then finish talking to your corpse. I'd never aced a woman before, but was looking forward to the challenge.
After beating out the small fire on my trench coat caused by shooting through the fabric, I shrugged it off and kicked it aside. Its job was done for the night. Removing my spent clips and tucking 'em into my shirt pocket, I reloaded the Magnums and put two more rounds into his head, just to make sure, then removed a college signet ring from his warm hand as proof of the hit. Next, I checked the apartment over for any witnesses or spare cash. I had a trench coat to replace, and British shag-cut was very expensive. But then, the good stuff always was.
What a dump, a classic old man's home, lots of medicine and lotions, except for the back room. That was, well, I didn't know what the hell that was. Workbench with a lathe set to make slim wooden spindles with sharply tapered end, I guess, there was a pile of them in a box. A pegboard wall covered with a wide assortment of guns, ceramics pieces, derringers, machine guns, even a US Army M79 grenade launcher. This neighborhood was not that rough. Maybe he sold guns on the side, was cutting into some big boy's action and wouldn't play ball. Stupid. Always cut a deal, then shoot them in the back. There was no God. And no justice, just us, as the smart kids like to say.
But this old fart had a lot of crucifixes and rosaries everywhere, bottles labeled Holy Water, and brand new water pistols, the ones that held a gallon and could shoot a hundred feet. And fine tooled leather bandoleers lined with wooden stakes. It took me a sec, then I broke into laugher. The old freak was crazy, thought he was a vampire hunter! Now that was truly, honestly, funny.
Then I stopped cold in the middle of a chuckle. So why would somebody pay my rates to ace a crazy man? That old feeling that I was being scammed somehow came back strong, and I turned on a heel to leave, then paused and took a few of the more choice items from the collection on the walls. They'd fetch a good price on the street, and might come in handy. Just in case.
Invasion from Uranus Page 2
