Nocturnal

by Mark Allen

  They eventually wound their way out of the maze and came to a stop at the main gate. Open to the street, no guard. No witness. A major thoroughfare lay ahead of them, two-way traffic coming and going in each direction. Rudy looked right, looked left. He put his blinker on, turned left. He accelerated gently, stayed within the speed limit.

  Behind him, the other vehicle did likewise. Melvin came to a full and complete stop. He put his blinker on, looked both ways. Only then did he turn right, accelerate gently up to just within the speed limit.

  The last thing anyone tonight needed was to be pulled over by a local gendarme for a minor traffic violation. They would have to kill a cop just for doing his job, and in public no less! It was something none of them wanted to explain to the new boss.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The vampire maneuvered his Lexus through the early morning streets with fluid grace. It was well past midnight, actually past one. Not much traffic out on the road now. He realized time might become a factor soon.

  “So was Danae a hottie?”

  The vampire, distracted, did not comprehend what had been asked. “What?”

  “Was Danae hot?” Reggie asked again.

  “She was very beautiful, and I loved her,” the vampire replied from behind his opaque glasses. “And yes, she could certainly be... sultry when she wanted to be.”

  Reggie grinned. “So great great Grandma was a hottie?”

  “Yes,” the vampire admitted. He smiled wistfully at an intimate memory “I suppose, in the current vernacular, she was indeed a hottie.” He pronounced that last word haltingly.

  “So what happened when you saw her again?”

  The wistful smile disappeared. The vampire glanced his way, then faced the road in front of them. His expression was flat.

  “I can’t believe you loved her that much and never snuck back to see her.”

  “Vampire Mother told me not to.”

  “But she was only your Vampire Mother for one night,” Reggie countered. “After that, you were free to make your own decisions, right?”

  The vampire shrugged. He remembered the wide eyes, the open mouth, the look of absolute horror on Danae’s lovely face. He remembered her recoiling from him, from his cold touch. Her involuntary gasp at the sight of his eyes.

  His fangs.

  Her screaming at him. Calling him “demon”. Calling him “monster”. Her jabbing forefinger pointing to the second story window through which he came come, ordering him to leave, now, to leave her, and never come back.

  Ever.

  “Things did not turn out as I had hoped,” the vampire said.

  She had screamed that the man she had loved was dead, and the unnatural, unholy thing standing in front of her was NOT Eddie Marx.

  “So. She threw your ass out, then?”

  He remembered the rainy night in the filthy alley where he had died. Dying would have been preferable to what he felt that night, skulking away into the darkness. For without Danae, was life worth living?

  The vampire drove for bit in silence. “I was dead.” His voice was forlorn, in danger of breaking. “She felt it would affect our relationship.”

  “Well. She had a point.”

  The vampire did not answer. He sunk down a bit in the seat. The movement pushed his collar up over his chin. The corners of his mouth turned down.

  Reggie finally got an inkling the depth of the vampire’s pain wondered if a vampire could cry. “Hey. It was a long time ago, man.”

  “Not for me.”

  “What about Thomas?”

  “Thomas?”

  “The guy that shot you?”

  “Ah. Him.” Reggie saw the vampire he had come to know returned. “Oh, I killed him,” he replied casually. “Slowly. It took hours. But I made certain he suffered an eternity.” The corners of his mouth turned upwards into a dreamy, contented smile.

  “Sounds messy.”

  “It was.”

  Reggie shuddered. “Sounds like he got what he deserved.” He looked at his great, great Grandfather. “But then again, so did you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You made your choices.

  “When you put it that way, you make it sound bad.”

  “Your choices got you killed. You hurt the people you loved.”

  They stopped at a red light. “Where are you going with this?”

  “I just want you to know I’ve heard your story. I believe you. Every word. But you got what you got because of the choices you made.”

  “As do we all,” the vampire said.

  The light turned green. The Lexus moved forward. “Destination?”

  “East Village,” Reggie answered. “Just south of Market.”

  Rudy Valdez sat in the Land Rover, parked on a narrow side street perpendicular to his target. Down the block, the front entrance to Reginald Downing’s apartment. It had been recently refurbished, only a facelift, an unimaginative paintjob to the front facade. The faded side was still its same old self. The building itself must have been in good condition, though. Reggie’s apartment sat n the second floor over a convenience store. The store was closed, dark, and quiet.

  This area of San Diego had been until recently slums, residential hotels, vacant lots, old buildings dark and evil, with windows broken out and resembling jagged teeth. The bums, drug dealers, crack whores, and other assorted “undesirables” had been rounded up, arrested; pushed out of the area so college students, art students, and young professionals could move in to the refurbished, brightly urbane buildings in their shiny new neighborhood.

  Rudy glanced at his watch. Almost zero two hundred. No movement on the street. His operatives had alighted when they arrived and melted into the shadows. They assumed flanking positions. They had set up interconnecting fields of fire at all angles, effectively surrounding the building from about one hundred feet away. Two had climbed onto nearby rooftops to recon from sniper positions. Nothing larger than a cat would be able to move without someone detecting it.

  “Stay alert”, Rudy whispered into his mic. “This guy might show any time.”

  “He may not show at all,” came a response.

  “Identify yourself.”

  “Razor.” Razor was the street name for the sniper on the roof above, set up with a line of sight into the window of Downing’s apartment living room.

  “You’re right,” Rudy allowed. “He might go to Grandma’s house instead.”

  ‘Or he’s already in the wind.”

  “Maybe,” Rudy said. “Or, he may show up in the next two minutes.”

  Three blocks away, the vampire parked in an empty parking spot along the street. Trees and buildings obscured their view of the apartment. Reggie noticed a change in the vampire’s mood. He was quiet now, mouth drawn into a thin line, his jaw set. And Reggie knew that if his own personal Vampire Protector had dropped into combat mode, he should do the same.

  “So what’s the play?”

  “They lie in wait for you.”

  This simple truth, spoken by this century-old creature, fell like a steel curtain across Reggie’s consciousness. Death was out there, waiting for him.

  The vampire inhaled, steeling himself. “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us lurk for the innocent without cause. Let us swallow them alive as the grave, as those that go down to the pit.”

  The vampire opened his door and slid out. Reggie did the same. The vampire motioned for Reggie to follow close behind him. The vampire immediately went to the sidewalk, hugging the shadows he knew so well.

  As they crept forward, the vampire spoke again. It was not more than a husky whisper, but Reggie heard every word clearly. And he would remember them for the days of his life.

  “My son, cast not thy lot in with them. Refrain thy foot from their path. For their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed blood.”

  The vampire paused. Reggie saw him sniff the air, then stick
his tongue out. Somehow his tongue extended farther out than he had ever seen anyone else’s. The tip of the vampire’s tongue was not blunt and rounded, but rather ended in a muscular tip. Watching, Reggie was reminded of a TV special he had once seen about snakes, about how they flicked their tongues to taste the smells of its environment.

  Finally, the tongue rolled back up into the vampire’s mouth. He turned to Reggie.

  “For surely,” he continued, “they lie in wait for their own blood, they lurk for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is greedy for gain; which takes away the life of the owners thereof.”

  “What is that?”

  “The Bible,” the vampire replied. “The book of Proverbs. Chapter one, verses ten through nineteen. I thought it fitting.”

  He turned away from Reggie and moved on. Reggie followed, falling in close behind him. They moved in silence along the deserted streets. Everyone was already home, either asleep, or close to it. Good, the vampire thought. All the easier to separate the scents of the men ahead and pinpoint their locations.

  All the easier for him to slaughter them.

  As they moved closer, multiple scents assailed hit him: gun oil, graphite. Sweat, starched clothes. Antiperspirant. Even fresh polish on their boots. Locations were becoming clear to him.

  “Men ahead,” the vampire whispered. “Your apartment is surrounded.”

  Reggie reached behind himself, pulled his handgun out. He flicked the safety off.

  “I live the next block up. Across the street. Above the convenience store.”

  The vampire nodded, came to a stop. He melted deeper into the shadows, right up next to the building, shaded by trees planted recently at great expense by the city of San Diego.

  Ahead of them, the intersection of Market and Sixteenth lay waiting. Buildings on all four corners made for easy cover. The convenience store sat at a ninety-degree angle from them. Immediately beside the store’s entrance, a narrow doorway and stairway lead upstairs to an apartment facing onto Market. The traffic control lights were on timer, and cast little usable light and shadow. One halogen streetlight illuminated the scene at strange angles, spears of stark light and black shadow, dark as ink.

  “They are here.”

  “Where?”

  “Down this street to the left, around this corner. Another a half block to the rear to cut off any escape route out back.”

  “There is no back way out.”

  “They do not know that,” the vampire replied. “There is a sniper on the roof cross the street. And one or two others.” The vampire pointed to the roof. “See that glint?”

  Reggie peered upwards to the roof across the street. Unmistakable. It was a rifle barrel.

  On the rooftop, Razor kept a steady eye through the scope, but also kept the other eye open to retain peripheral vision. He detected movement.

  “Wait a second,” he spoke softly into his mic.

  “What?” Rudy asked over the com line.

  Razor ignored him for a moment, peering away from the scope at the intersection of Market and Sixteenth. He though he had detected movement. Nothing now, though. Maybe a trick of the light?

  On the street below, the vampire gently nudged Reggie farther back into the recesses of the darkness until his back was against the building.

  “Razor, acknowledge.” Rudy ordered through the com line.

  Razor heard it. He swung his gun around to the far side of the intersection. “Thought I saw movement.” He peered down through his scope.

  “Where?”

  “Northeast corner. Confirming now. Nothing through the lens. Switching to IFR.”

  The vampire turned and threw his body around Reggie’s giving him a bear hug.

  Razor switched on his infrared switch. The sightings through the scope changed. Anything generating heat would light up orange, red, yellow, or white, depending on its temperature. It would be obvious from the muddy blues and greens of the cooler objects in the target area.

  Razor scanned the area. “Nothing,” he reported. “False alarm.”

  He swung the rifle back around, turned off the IFR. He set up once again aiming at Reggie’s apartment.

  The vampire stepped back from Reggie, patted him on the shoulder. He turned and pointed again, this time at an alleyway about halfway up the next block. Reggie peered, following the vampire’s thin long finger.

  “I can’t see anything.”

  “I see it,” the vampire whispered.

  “What?”

  “A Land Rover. I can see the hub cap emblem on the front tire.”

  “A car parked in an alley? You’re concerned over that?”

  “Who parks a seventy thousand dollar vehicle in an alley in San Diego?”

  “Someone getting stoned? Getting laid?”

  The vampire turned his head. “And you believe that?”

  Reggie admitted to himself he did not.

  “You need to take care of the two around the corner and in back. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I mean, kill them.”

  “I know.”

  “Leave the rest to me.”

  Reggie shuddered.

  “You will be exposed once you are on the street, so wait about fifteen seconds before you move. I must take the sniper on the roof.”

  “Fifteen seconds?”

  “I only need ten.”

  Reggie nodded.

  “Do not die,” the vampire said.

  “I won’t.”

  “Do not miss.”

  “Believe me, I won’t.”

  The vampire picked up on the simple confidence of his descendant, a consummate professional in his own right at what he did for a living. The vampire smiled with affection, and nodded. He turned towards the street, towards his enemies.

  Then he was simply... gone.

  Across the street, past the intersection, on the roof of the three-story building, Razor gazed through the scope. He sensed, rather than saw, a flutter move from left to right across the eyepiece. Nothing more. A shimmer, really. He felt a slight rush of wind, above him, to his right. He glanced upwards.

  Something hit him with so much force it knocked the wind out of him. He skidded across the rooftop, away from his rifle.

  Eyes blurry from the impact and disoriented by his ass over teakettle tumble, Razor did not understand he was seeing. A thin man, not particularly tall, incredibly pale. Long black hair, wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night. The man silently held the sniper’s rifle in his hands.

  Long fingers. Sharp nails.

  Claws?

  Razor assumed his life was over. He expected this strange man to point the rifle at him. Using his bare hands, he bent the barrel to an impossible angle and broke - no shattered! - the plastic stock with a great wrenching motion. He made it seem easy. Like child’s play. Pieces clattered onto the rooftop.

  Instinct kicked in. Razor clambered to his feet and reached for his pistol. But the strange man was already moving towards him as he brought the pistol out of its hiding place. His long coat billowed in the wind as he moved.

  Like a big black bat flapping its wings.

  Razor heard a soft hiss, saw claws out. And did Razor actually see fucking fangs in this guy’s mouth? Razor brought the weapon to bear, pointing at his assailant, extending the arm.

  Those sharp claws –talons, really – neatly sliced through the bone and sinew at the wrist, severing Razor’s hand with surgical precision before he could squeeze the trigger. The useless appendage flopped to the ground in a spray of liquid crimson. The gun clattered harmlessly, still cupped in Razor’s severed hand, finger still on the trigger.

  Razor stared uncomprehendingly at his forearm as warm red blood pumped out, spilling across his boots. No pain, he thought. No jagged rending of flesh. Just a neat thin slice. Those claws must have been sharp.

  Sharp as a razor.

  Razor smiled at the irony.

  Holding his spurting stump in his one
remaining hand, Razor sank to his knees without realizing it. His whole world, his entire universe seemed to be comprised of only this terrible wound he continued to stare at, but never seemed too worried about.

  He looked up; saw the demon monster in the shape of a man standing over him. A man wearing dark, expensive clothes glared down at him from behind those sunglasses. He saw, or rather, he sensed another rapid movement.

  And then he sensed nothing at all ever again.

  The vampire had slashed Razor again, this time across the throat, nicking the right carotid artery, perforating the esophagus, cutting through the larynx, and coming out the other side, nicking the left carotid for good measure. He moved out of the way as bright liquid scarlet sprayed six feet. Razor pitched forward onto the deck, blood pooling rapidly even as the heart seized and stopped beating forever.

  The vampire stepped back farther to keep from getting Razor’s blood on his shoes. Not only did he not want to leave footprints, but his shoes cost over four hundred dollars, and well, he really liked his shoes.

  He disliked working in such a sloppy manner, but he was pissed and wanted to make a statement to whoever had sent this man, the one he had just turned into a human Pez dispenser.

  You did not threaten the vampire’s family and live.

  Over his shoulder, he heard the running footsteps and rising heartbeat of his great great grandson. He turned and moved quickly to the edge of the roof. He wondered if Reggie had a silencer. When he heard a rapid, clipped pop! pop!, he guessed he knew the answer. He did not hear returning fire.

  Good.

  Then the vampire saw movement on the roof across the street, atop his descendant’s apartment. A man’s head popped into view. And like the man he had just killed, he had a firearm and a headset.

  Not good.

  A static squawk erupted behind him. “That’s gunfire. Did anyone make contact?”

  The vampire was already moving towards the slain assassin’s body. “Report.”