The Invoker: A Lawson Vampire Novel 2 (The Lawson Vampire Series)

by Jon F. Merz

  Vampires have existed alongside humans since the dawn of mankind. We’re parallel lines of evolution, not the undead your silly myths and legends make us out to be. And all those horror novels might put a spike of adrenaline into your daily dull life, but truth be told, we’re out there walking right beside you. We’re in your offices. We’re in line at the registry of motor vehicles. And we’re in the car behind you at the McDonald’s drive through.

  We eat food. We walk in the sunlight. We live. We even die. Eventually.

  Along the path of our evolution, we began hunting other humans. Our ancestors decided that the blood of other humans would give us more power. They were right. Human blood contains the life force that helps sustain us. It makes us more powerful. It slows our metabolic process and we age very slowly. We live for hundreds of years.

  Do some research. You’ll find mention of us in every annal of time. Long lost legends in Native America, the Caucusus Mountains, Central Asia, Japan, China, Europe, everywhere. We’re there.

  Bram Stoker did a lot to resurrect the old tales. But he added a lot. He made us undead. Insulted us by forcing my kind to sleep in coffins during the daytime. Weakened us with silly holy water, garlic, and crucifixes.

  It’s rubbish.

  But there is something about wood that kills us once it enters our blood stream. I’m not a scientist, so I can’t explain it fully. But the ammunition I carry in my gun has wooden tips for just that purpose.

  Killing vampires.

  It might seem a little strange for a vampire to be killing other vampires, but it’s my job.

  Watterson should have been just another easy assignment. Should have been. Lately it seemed that life had it in for me. Every time I thought something was going to be cake, I ended up getting food poisoning licking the damned bowl.

  Chapter Three

  Snow in Boston is one of those bizarre things no one ever seems to be able to figure out. Meteorologists always draw a line that cuts the city in half, call one side as a blizzard and the other as rain. Then of course, the opposite happens. Or, as was the case tonight, both happens.

  Which, naturally, was the reason why my black Volvo S60 was currently engaged in negotiating the winding and decidedly treacherous Jamaicaway down toward the Fenway. Time was, the J-way used to be the most dangerous road in America. I’d hate to see what street stole the title away.

  With the lane markers blurred under a half inch of slush and ice and Boston’s snow removal plows doing their usually shoddy job, it was a wonder I made it down to the intersection of Longwood Avenue in one piece. But make it I did. I turned left at the lights, taking the street into Brookline, past the Longwood Towers and elegant Veronique restaurant where I’ve taken a few dates in the past.

  The address I had for Henry Watterson put his house behind the Longwood Towers, in a part of Brookline that’s nice but not too nice. Old Henry was smart – to a point. He wasn’t flashy with his cash, at least not where his house was concerned. Or his cologne either.

  It was single family in white with black shutters and no aluminum siding. In this area of town, most of the houses still used wooden clapboards.

  I slowed the Volvo to the side of the road between a snow emergency tow-away and a resident-permit parking only sign. Then I waited.

  Rain tainted the snow tonight, making the thick flakes fall with water weight, almost dripping on their way to the ground. Like bloated leeches, they clung to everything before their sheer weight caused them to drop off in chunks. I had to flick the wipers every few seconds to keep the house in sight.

  Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing there. A simple request to keep a kid safe wasn’t so simple anymore. The prospect of babysitting some tike didn’t wow me. I’m not comfortable around kids. Never have been. It’s not an easy thing to con a kid. Adults are easier, but kids are sharp. They know when you’re lying.

  They make me nervous.

  So here was Henry Watterson’s house. His wife and kid were probably safe inside. And here I was, waiting in my car with the heater on full blast, listening to a bit of Delerium on the CD player and watching a dark house, a dark night, and white flakes coat everything in sight.

  Just as I was chalking this up as one of my more thrilling nights, the shit hit the fan.

  Albeit subtly.

  I’d parked three houses away, but even the presence of my car engine’s obvious life didn’t seemed to make much of an impact on the three goons in black that were maneuvering their way up toward the house from three angles.

  Maybe they couldn’t hear the engine over the roaring wind. Maybe.

  I watched them for a few seconds and came to my professional opinion pretty soon thereafter. They weren’t good.

  I shifted in my seat, feeling a rush of blood spike into my legs like so many needles and frowned. I should have been home asleep. I should have been anywhere but here.

  I should have been.

  Instead, I jacked a round into the chamber of my pistol and got ready to leave the obvious comfort and warmth of my car to go protect the kid of someone I’d killed earlier in the evening.

  Ain’t life grand?

  I double-checked to make sure my interior lights wouldn’t come on as I exited the car. The three goons in black had closed on the house now and still seemed largely oblivious to me.

  I pulled back on the door latch, cracked the door and instantly the cold and flakes stung my skin. I eased out, crouched down, staying next to the car’s profile, then closed the door very carefully.

  Black is a preferred color for me. I’m not into depressing Gothic nightclubs or any of that crap. I just happen to like the color and it allows me to get work done sometimes that wearing white corduroys might not.

  Tonight I was glad to be wearing it. Even with the whiteness of the snow, there were still plenty of dark shadows I could use as concealment while I worked my way toward the house.

  I moved ahead to the nearest tree and knelt down, chancing a look around the trunk. One of the goons was working the front door lock. The other two were crouched beside him.

  I smiled, in spite of the situation.

  As a rule, I don’t tolerate fools gladly and I tolerate obvious amateurs even less. These guys ranked about as skilled as a bunch of blind nuns at a firing range.

  Check that, I’d probably put my money on the nuns.

  At the very least one of them should have been on the lookout for anything that could have threatened their security. Namely, they should have been looking out for a roving police car on patrol. Or even a vampire stupid enough to wander out in that god forsaken weather.

  But as I’ve noted more than a few times before, should have’s don’t figure into my line of work very often.

  Which is why my appearance on the scene a minute later, precipitated by cold-cocking one of them upside the head and then pointing my very persuasive-looking pistol at the other two, shocked the hell out of them.

  I love a captive audience.

  My stage domination didn’t last very long. The goon on the left decided he could move faster than one of my bullets and tried to tackle me on the steps.

  Bad move.

  I sidestepped and he slipped on the ice-covered bricks, falling ass-over-teakettle down about six feet and slamming his head against the iron railing with a dull but audible crack.

  Unfortunately his lack of balance kept me occupied long enough for his buddy to knock my pistol out of my hand and try to punch me in the head.

  I ducked out of the way and brought my hands up for cover while simultaneously counter-attacking with a palm heel strike to the underside of his chin. His head snapped back. I followed up with a sharp knee to his groin, doubling him over and then brought my elbow down on the back of his neck. Judging from the series of cricks and cracks, he wasn’t going to be doing any yoga for a while.

  I dragged them both down next to their third friend and frisked them. Aside from three pistols, they carried nothing else. No identif
ication. No papers. Nothing.

  I turned my attention back to the guns. Three Sig Sauers. I popped the magazine out on one and frowned.

  The rounds had wooden tips.

  The guns were Fixer pieces.

  Like mine, they’d been designed to kill vampires.

  But these guys weren’t Fixers. I was sure of that. They moved like amateurs. Offhandedly, I tugged down the base of one goon’s turtleneck, searching for the birthmark that marks every member of my race. We’ve all got them, and even the latest in cosmetic surgery and laser erasure can’t wipe it off.

  Nothing.

  That accounted for the relative ease with which I’d been able to knock them out. Vampires are stronger than normal humans usually. These guys were pretty easy to take down.

  So, the equation thus far on this shitty night was three humans armed with vampire assassin guns targeting a vampire household during a blizzard.

  I chewed my lip and nodded. Math always was my worst subject in school, but even a dolt like me could see this was going nowhere good fast.

  And even though I still had no clue as to why anyone would want to knock off a vampire house, I wasn’t at all comfortable with leaving the inhabitants alone either.

  I ripped the magazines out of the three guns and tossed them into a nearby snow bank before retrieving my own piece.

  It felt weird ringing the bell, considering that it was going on one-thirty in the morning. Still, as soon as the mother came to the door I could explain everything, she could call the authorities, and be on my way.

  The door clicked open and once again I found my plans being tossed in the air with reckless abandon.

  The boy in front of me looked like a twelve year-old human who had just been woken up from a nice sleep. Poor kid had no idea three bad guys were just on their way to whack him.

  He had scraggly brown hair jutting out of his head at strange angles and a pair of glasses that hung heavy on the bridge of his nose. Freckles tickled his cheeks and wound their way down his neck. The frown on his face counter-balanced his decidedly apple-pie looks.

  "Yeah?"

  "Hi, is your mother around?" I glanced off the stairs and saw that the raiding party was still fast asleep.

  "She’s dead."

  Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. No problem. Adapt and overcome is my middle name. "I’m Lawson," I said extending my right hand.

  "I’m tired." He rubbed his eyes underneath the glasses. "What do you want?"

  I made a decision. "You’ve got to come with me, your life’s in danger."

  He grinned. "Funny. My dad’s coming home soon, mister, so you’d better get outa here." He started to shut the door.

  I put my foot on the inside so he couldn’t close it. "Listen to me-"

  But at that precise instant, the kid opened the door and then slammed it back – right on my foot.

  I must have hollered because his face took on a scared look. But even though the pain was intense, I kept my foot there. I couldn’t risk him locking the door.

  I took a breath. "Your dad’s not coming home tonight. There’s been an accident."

  "Huh? What do you mean? What happened?" His eyes got that wide-eyed stare that kids reserve for genuine surprise. I could sense the tears starting to form somewhere back in the depths of his emotions. I swallowed and took another breath. I couldn’t very well tell him I’d wasted his father for breaking the law. That wouldn’t do any good.

  "He was in a car accident, son. I’m sorry."

  "He’s…dead?"

  It looked like the Hoover Dam might bust open, but then I saw his eyes go from mine to focusing on something behind me. "Hey, who’s-"

  But I’d already begun diving inside the house wrapping my arms around him, tucking him into a ball and rolling toward the first room doorway. I felt the air break hard around my head as the bullets went past – smacking into the wood trim of the doorway.

  Damn. I’d hoped the bad guys would be out of commission a little while longer. Should have figured they come back around quicker the way Lady Luck was teeing off on me tonight.

  I unfolded the two of us and pushed him down to the floor. "Stay down!"

  Another bullet whizzed into the room biting through the drapes. I yanked my pistol out, clicked off the safety and stuck the muzzle around the corner, squeezing off two rounds. Inside the house, the shots sounded like explosions making me wince. Beside me, the kid stayed quiet with his hands clamped over his ears.

  Another two rounds came zinging in. Then there was a break. This was bad.

  Gun shots in Brookline usually herald the unleashing of Brookline’s entire police force. We needed to move and move fast. Questions were something we couldn’t afford.

  I leaned down next to the kid and broke one of his hands away form his ear. "We’re getting out of here, you understand?"

  He nodded and looked up at me. He actually looked okay.

  I poked the muzzle of my gun around and squeezed two more rounds off. A dull thud and a clunk followed along with a low groan. Good. Sounded like I’d nailed one of them.

  Two doorways led off this room and I chose the one that looked like it led toward the back of the house. Hopefully a back door. I just hoped all three members of the hit team were at the front otherwise we might be walking into an ambush.

  But I didn’t have a choice and I’ve often found a lack of choice always makes decisions easier. I grabbed the kid under one arm, kept the pistol pointing behind me, toward the first place the bad guys would come around the corner, and hustled.

  Inside the kitchen I went to the back door, opened it, and pushed our way outside, plowing the snow drift piling up against the back door.

  We dropped off the steps into the snow. Within the space of just a few minutes, it had gotten deep. The kid didn’t have any shoes on. He’d survive. For right now we just had to get out of here.

  The backyard sloped down toward the street. If we could reach the Volvo, we’d be all set.

  Right then I tripped over an unseen tree root jutting out of the ground and masked by the snowfall. The kid and I went sprawling – my gun flipping over into a snow drift the size of a garden shed.

  Shit.

  The back door banged open.

  Double shit.

  The bad guys, two of them now, eased out of the house and fanned out to either side when they spotted us. I got to my feet but things weren’t good. Both of them carried the pistols I’d tossed away earlier.

  If they’d had regular guns, it would have been one things. But Fixer guns can kill me. As a general rule, I’m not a big fan of things that can kill me.

  Seeing I was unarmed, one of them looked at the other and smiled. Great.

  Almost in unison they raised their guns and aimed them at me.

  That’s when I heard the moaning. I glanced over quickly and saw the kid writhing in the snow – sweating of all the weird things – groaning loudly, making a peapod-shaped impression in the snow. His eyes were closed tight and he’d wrapped his arms around himself.

  But what was he…saying? Chanting?

  It sounded a little bit like the old language. But I couldn’t make out a single word of it. It flowed out of the kid like an endless litany of harsh consonants and flowing sing-song rhyme.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of a chance to consider what it might have been. The two goons approached and heard the moaning too.

  They both looked at each other and then at the kid.

  The chanting grew louder, as if a chorus of other voices had joined in suddenly. The wind started kicking up snow around us like some freakish hail storm. I ducked down and covered my face from the snow, rain, and hail. It was like standing in the middle of a whirlpool – or a cyclone.

  I felt twin blasts of intense heat – like someone had opened a forge or belched fire – go rushing past my body.

  Then I heard screams.

  I tried to open my eyes but the heat surrounding me forced me to squint to make an
ything out. What I could see didn’t comfort me one bit.

  The two bad guys grabbed at their faces, clutching folds of sweaty skin, almost gouging their eyeballs out, ripping tufts of hair out in big bloody chunks. And all around their heads swirled this funnel of pinkish haze that screeched as if a thousand voices were echoing up from the depths of hell.

  A wide swath of snow melted around me and blossomed out, hungrily devouring any ice and snow and reducing it to grimy water. In seconds, the kid and I were on wet muddy ground.

  And still the kid lay where he was, writhing and chanting.

  Both goons dropped to their knees, screaming, blood gushing out of their faces in a torrent. I saw an eyeball plop to the blood-soaked ground and grimaced.

  My gun lay a few feet away and I scrambled for it.

  Then the screams stopped.

  Abruptly, the inferno of heat vanished, replaced by winter. Snow rushed into cover the ground once again.

  The kid stopped moving.

  And so did the bad guys.

  But the kid was alive.

  I didn’t think the bad guys were. Something about watching two guys tear their own faces off has a way of convincing you that death can’t be far behind.

  I grabbed their guns, slippery with gore, and then poked the kid.

  "You okay?"

  His eyes fluttered once, then opened. He exhaled in a long stream, but then nodded.

  Jesus.

  In the distance, the first of several sirens began to pierce the night. I hustled the kid down to the Volvo, buckled him in, and then jumped into the driver’s seat, gunning the engine.

  As I sped back up Longwood Avenue toward the Jamaicaway and out of Brookline jurisdiction, I kept stealing glances at the kid. He was curled up on the seat looking out of the window.

  Suddenly, he didn’t seem very much like just another kid anymore.

  Chapter Four

  I still didn’t have a replacement Control.

  One thing I’ve noticed is that bureaucracies, whether they’re human or vampire, all function as about the same two speeds – slow and stop. The odds of me getting a Control I could bounce my current situation off of were about as great as my chances of winning a trip to the Moon.