by J. C. Staudt
It startles us all when the minotaur slams the table with a fist, rattling everyone’s change and cracking the wooden table. One of my quarter rolls does a hop-skip and rolls off the table edge. The goblin winces. The gnoll gives a nervous snicker. The human scoots his chair away from his minotaur neighbor, bumping into the Kegerator along the back wall. The vampires are the only ones who don’t jump, or seem to mind.
When I lean over to grab my quarter roll off the floor, my coat opens. I pull it closed, hoping nobody’s noticed my shoulder holster. While I’m under the table I glance at the crotches across from me. The old man is jogging his leg. A long-barreled revolver rests against the thigh of the bugbear’s slacks, while a much shorter snub-nose is tucked into the goblin’s belt. A plan, or just a precaution? I wonder.
My fingers close around the quarter roll. The old man’s leg hops so high it bumps the table. There’s something not quite right about the black socks hugging his ankles below the cut of his slacks. I come up for air with my lost quarter roll in hand.
The bugbear dealer nods at my long woolen trencher. “Why don’t you take off your coat and stay a while?”
I hesitate. Setting the roll of quarters on the table, I slide my chair out and stand. I remove my coat and drape it over the chair back. My shoulder and appendix holsters are both exposed now, and everyone’s eyes are on me. I sit, slow and gentle-like, as though the guns are live snakes I’m trying not to rile.
“Busy night planned, Mr. Savage?” asks the elder vampire.
“No busier than most.”
“What brings you here this evening?” asks the bugbear, gathering the cards and shuffling them into the deck.
My heart is pounding, but I keep it casual. “Fun and games. It isn’t often I enjoy an evening out these days, especially one where I get to play cards and make new friends.”
The dealer button moves one space to the left, making me the big blind for the next game. It’s at this point I notice that although the room’s air is thick with smoke, no one’s smoking. There isn’t an ashtray to be seen amongst the beer bottles and ice-filled glasses around the table. The bugbear deals the cards.
“What do you do?” Ponytail wants to know.
“I’m an investor.”
“What kind of investing?”
“The profitable kind, I often hope.”
The gnoll cackles with hyenic laughter. He looks at his cards and tosses a quarter into the pot.
I look at mine and toss in two quarters. I’ve got a good hand, Ace-Jack diamond-suited.
Betting starts with the ponytailed vamp to my left and proceeds around the table. The old man is sweatier than before, his skin reddening. He scratches beneath his chins, making the whole mass jiggle.
The bugbear clears his throat. “What I meant to ask earlier, Mr. Savage, was how you heard about us.”
“Oh.” I smile. “Auntie’s nephew told me where you’d be.”
“Which nephew?” asks the elder vampire with the red pendant, acutely interested. He leans forward and steeples his fingers, elbows on the table.
“She’s got more than one?” I ask.
“Several, in fact. All very close associates of ours.”
“If you know all her nephews, I’m sure you’ve met this one.” I give the vampire a level look, but avert my eyes before he can lock me in his stare. I’ve got nothing to protect me from a vampire’s glamour, so I study my cards.
“You’re up,” barks the gnoll to my right. “You wanna raise? Stelios called you.” He gestures toward the half-minotaur, who sits huffing and flaring his nostrils at me. He’s thrown two quarters into the pot, giving me the opportunity to increase my bet before the first card is revealed.
“Oh. No, I’ll stay.”
Stelios the half-minotaur gives a dissatisfied grunt.
Everyone tosses in their extra quarter to match.
“We all set then?” asks the dealer. He burns a card and flips the flop.
Ten of clubs, eight of spades, three of hearts.
My Little Ponytail tosses in two quarters and turns to me. “I’d like to know the name of your friend.”
“Why’s that?”
“Auntie’s nephews are in some trouble. We’d like to give them a hand.”
More like a broken neck, I surmise. “How will me telling you his name allow you to help him?”
“Through process of elimination.”
The bugbear and the goblin share a look.
The old man between the elder vamp and the minotaur is fidgeting with his coins. He tosses fifty cents into the pot with a shaky hand. His skin is red and blotchy, his hair sweat-pasted to his forehead. He shudders as if suddenly cold, or on the verge of a seizure.
“He alright?” I ask.
“Fine,” says the elder vamp. “Should be done any minute now.”
Stelios pushes a stack of quarters worth almost three dollars into the pot. It’s an absurd raise for this early in the hand. The bugbear shakes his head, but matches it. So does the goblin. The gnoll cackles and folds.
My hand is nothing good yet, but it’s my first game and my bankroll is high. I push eleven quarters into the pot to stay in. Ponytail hangs tight while elder vamp folds. Old man matches the bid, then scratches beneath his chin so hard his fingernails leave flaky pink trails in the skin.
Dealer burns one and flips the turn.
Queen of hearts.
This gives me Ace, Queen, Jack, ten. If the river is a King or an Ace, there’s a good chance I win. Anything else and I’ve got nothing.
Ponytail starts off, raising the bet by fifty cents.
When the old man tries to grab two quarters, he knocks over the whole stack. Too jittery to stack them again, he gathers his coins into a mound and tosses two into the middle.
Bull Boy is in with the big bucks again, offering a five-dollar raise this time. He’s snorting and grunting like he’s going into heat. I can feel his eyes on me, though I don’t return his gaze. I won’t do myself any favors making him think I’m interested in a challenge.
His raise is enough to knock both the bugbear dealer and the goblin out of the game. When the bet comes around to me, I call. Ponytail calls as well. The old man hesitates, then shoves his mound of coins toward the center. All in.
The elder vampire counts the old man’s coins on his behalf. “Twelve dollars and twenty-five cents,” he announces.
Stelios the half-minotaur and I each count the difference and push our money into the center.
“This is gonna be good. Real good,” says the gnoll, cackling.
The old man sniffles and mops his brow with a yellowed handkerchief. He makes a strange gurgling noise as he sways in his chair, eyes vacant, lids drooping.
The dealer looks around. “We ready?”
The table goes quiet.
The bugbear burns a card and flips.
King of spades.
“All reveal.”
The old man reveals Jack-nine, giving him a straight of nine, ten, Jack, Queen, King.
Stelios has three-eight, one of the worst possible starting hands made better only by the two-pair flop.
I reveal my Ace-Jack, giving me an Ace-high straight.
The old man gurgles in exasperation.
Stelios pounds the table.
I offer them a weak smile. “Beginner’s luck?”
Stelios shoots to his cloven feet and stamps the floor with his hoof.
Ruh-roh raggy.
The old man stiffens in his seat, spine whiplashing as if he’s in a vehicle that’s just been rear-ended. He lurches and faceplants on the table, then wrenches himself upright. His eyes bulge. He begins to cough and retch.
“Uh, guys. Someone might want to administer some first aid here.”
Stelios is too enraged over losing the hand to pay attention to the convulsing old man. He grabs the table and flips it, sending quarters jingling, cards fluttering, and glasses shattering. I stand and draw from my shoulder holster against the char
ge I’m certain is coming.
The others rise as the tabletop smacks the floor. The goblin stands on his booster seat while the bugbear and the gnoll back away from the vamps, drawing weapons. The gnoll’s is a compact submachine gun, a MAC-11 knockoff with a two-stage suppressor. He must’ve been carrying on his opposite side for me to have missed it beneath the table.
The only one still sitting is the old man, who doesn’t appear capable of much else. Foam bubbles at the edges of his mouth. His arms hang at his sides, his chins resting above a protuberant gut. His whole body twitches, then goes still.
Stelios stamps his hoof, staring me down. I’ve got a two-handed grip on my gun, sighting in on center mass. Goblin, gnoll and bugbear keep their guns trained on the two vampires, who appear relaxed in the opposite corner.
“Sorry we missed you the other night, Mr. Savage,” says the elder vampire, turning to me. “Glad you could join us for this… spectacle.”
“What’s going on here?” I demand. “And what’s happening to him?”
A smile creases the elder vampire’s lips. “The same thing that will happen to your brother and sister, Mr. Savage. He’s changing. The Book of the Grave has empowered us with the ability to reach beyond death and pull the souls of our lost ones from the realm of the immortal.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Some kind of vampiric reincarnation?”
“Precisely. Mr. Tarpley is to be the first of our thralls to undergo the transfiguration.”
“Mr. Tarpley? This is Paige’s father?”
The vampire cocks his head. “Ah, yes. His daughter. She is to be transfigured along with the rest. Mr. Tarpley here will become the vessel through which the legendary Lord Strix Montrovia shall be reborn as a revenant. Even now, Lord Montrovia’s essence is being entwined with his. The others will follow when the sun sets tomorrow. Our ancient lords will inhabit the shell of each body to begin their undeaths anew. Our kind will be restored to the greatness of ages past, despite the efforts of the goblin rabble who call themselves the Warrendale Crew, and whom we believed were allies.”
“That’s why Buster wanted to steal the grimoire? To prevent you from doing this?”
“No,” Mr. Tarpley screams, gripping his head, fingers digging into the skin. “No. Stay out. Stay out, damn you.”
“You know Auntie and me’s got nothing to do with the Warrendale Crew,” says the goblin, visibly shaken. “We ain’t no gangsters. Them snot-nosed gits is forever causing us headaches. Auntie and me, we takes no part in their schemes. You and us, we plays in peace. We don’t brings outside feuds into our alley. Your dispute is with them, not us.”
“Get out,” screams Mr. Tarpley, convulsing. “Get out of me.”
“In protecting your nephew, you’ve made your position clear, Mr. Golug,” the elder vampire assures him. “And while we’re here, we also owe a reckoning to the wizard in our midst. This man who calls himself Savage has, with the help of his accomplices, destroyed Mottrov Manor and murdered several of Gilbert’s most prized subordinates.”
The top of Mr. Tarpley’s head splits open. His skin sloughs off with a wet mucosal sound, the human face distorting like a rubber Halloween mask. Beneath is a sinewy, emaciated creature with purple-green skin and sharp ears, who veritably climbs out of Mr. Tarpley’s skin like a diver shrugging off a wetsuit. If this is a metamorphosis, it’s the ugliest cocooned butterfly of all time.
Now I see what was so weird about his socks earlier. They’re the synthetic polyester kind, and they’re melted to his ankles. Smoke fumes from the vampire’s glistening body as it slips free of its shell. The skin slumping away from the left ankle is pierced by fang marks.
I shift the gun to my left hand and draw its mid-sized counterpart from my appendix holster, training one on Stelios the half-minotaur and the other on ancient Lord Whatshisname. “So these are all Mottrov’s thralls. Lorne; Carmine; Paige Tarpley; Mr. Tarpley. He’s breaking coven law.”
“The coven’s laws are outmoded, Mr. Savage. The transfiguration process requires several specimens with strong bloodlines. Families like the Tarpleys and the Savages have proven themselves to be of powerful blood.”
“And he bit them on the ankle to hide their thralldom from everyone else.”
“A method of concealment was necessary in order to mitigate any prying eyes.”
“He’s working against the leadership of the coven?”
“He is making changes. In bringing our ancestral lords to revenancy through the bodies of his thralls, Gilbert Mottrov becomes their master. Soon dozens of the most powerful vampires in history will be reawakened, and Gilbert will control them as his own. We the Ascended shall rise to our rightful place as the foremost power in this world.”
“You guys are creeps.”
The goblin and his two allies turn their guns on me.
“Relax. I was talking about them.”
The gnoll shifts his weapon to the vamps and back, confused. He giggles, his eyes wild with excitement. I wouldn’t put it past him to be trigger-happy, and he’s holding the deadliest gun in the room if one assumes it’s loaded with silver. Which I don’t, necessarily. It’s just as deadly to me either way.
“I’m not your enemy, Mr. Golug,” I assure the goblin. “I came tonight to find out how to save my brother and sister. These vampires can’t be allowed to come into your bowling alley and threaten you for something you had nothing to do with. What’s to stop them pushing around all the othersiders in the city? Where does it end? I say it ends here.”
Mr. Golug thinks. Swings his revolver back toward the vampires. “Mr. Savage has it. You three can get out of here and never threaten me and my kin again, or we can settle this here and now. Stelios. If you’re gonna charge, do it to knock these blokes on their arses.”
The half-minotaur snorts. He turns toward the vamps and bends into a three-point stance sure to put any NFL lineman on notice. Glad he’s on my side now. Theoretically.
The vampires are unfazed. “Your defiance has sealed your fate,” says the elder. “Unless one of you tells me where I can find Kaz Golug, you’re all going to die tonight.”
Chapter 26
We look around at each other, guns trained on vampires, vampires unconcerned. I wonder who’s going to snitch on Kaz. For a moment, silence pervades. Then the submachine gun leaps in the gnoll’s hands, spraying a fast drumroll of bullets. Holes open in both vampires, and close again. No silver in the gnoll’s gun. Just lead. Plain old lead.
Ponytail leaps the table legs and tackles the gnoll into a steel shelving unit. Stelios charges the elder vampire, who counter-charges. I fire a double-tap at the vampire and miss. They collide in a storm of crunching bones. Stelios glances off the vampire and crashes through the upturned table legs. I manage to put a shot on target, nicking the vampire’s collarbone. He looks at me, eyes glimmering red like the jewel around his neck. As he turns toward me, Stelios pounds him with a stampeding headbutt, and the two go tumbling ass over elbows.
Across the room, Ponytail jerks his head back and hisses blood, holding the stringy bulk of the gnoll’s throat between his teeth. Lord Montrovia is peeling away the last of Mr. Tarpley with a wet crinkling sound, so I bring both guns to bear and plug him with silver. Never let it be said that I won’t kick a man while he’s down.
Lord Montrovia’s wounds corrode and steam. He clenches his fists and flexes every rope of muscle in his body. A dozen hunks of leaden silver emerge from the holes and thud to the floor.
Well, shit.
Mr. Golug and the bugbear are unloading on Ponytail, but I doubt they’ll last long. Either I light up the place with a fireball, or I run. In a room this narrow I’ll light myself on fire as easily as anything else. The choice is clear.
I turn and sprint for the door, only to trip over a heavy box of Heinz ketchup packets and go sprawling to the bare concrete. Knowing I’ll never escape before Lord Montrovia catches up, I roll onto my back and lift my guns. He scrambles up the shelves
, evading my first two shots. I leave a trail of bullet holes in his wake as he vaults from the top shelf and clambers across the ceiling like some bloodthirsty spider. I sink a lucky shot into his calf. He screams and flinches as the silver steams in his leg.
There’s a hissing sound from the back wall. One of my bullets has penetrated the steel door of one of the Kegerators. A thin stream of beer is misting from the scored keg within. That’s when I notice the identical steel door beside me; a second Kegerator. Lord Montrovia is above me, and I’m almost empty. Not enough ammo left to put him down, or even slow him down. The lone Kegerator stands like a beacon of freedom in my moment of last resort. I might die tonight, but I won’t be the only one.
Lord Montrovia falls, twisting at the waist like a cat aiming to land on its feet.
I roll onto my left shoulder and empty both magazines into the steel door beside me.
Does running beer count as running water? This is a question mythologists and conspiracy theorists and amateur vampire hunters haven’t thought to answer. Most beer is upwards of ninety percent water. I sure as hell hope it counts, because if not, I’m fucked.
Beer fountains across the room, blasting the shelves on the opposite wall like a firehose. I hold up a hand to fan the stream. Around the second finger of that hand is my father’s signet ring. There’s no magic jingle to proclaim the beer holy, but I know the ring has done its job by what happens next.
The stream cuts Lord Montrovia in half. When the two halves of his body flop onto me, his upper half is still moving, hands clawing and jaws snapping. I shove him away and crawl to safety, dripping with beer and covered in soggy ash. Lord Montrovia crawls after me on two arms. I plant a shoe on his forehead and shove him into the stream to be incinerated.
The jet of holy beer divides the room, separating me from the two vampires on the other side. Stelios is bleeding, the bugbear and Mr. Golug both out of ammo. The vamps cringe away from the sacred lager and back toward the rear wall. I should run while the running’s good, but I can’t resist calling out to them.
