It seemed unlikely, as he would no doubt have been killed where he lay amid the remains of the other two. Just the same, he armed himself with the pointed staff that had destroyed his first attacker before going deeper into the house.
Stroud found the office with no difficulty and he passed through it and into the doctor's workroom and lab. Beneath a cabinet he found the weapon he was looking for, the S-choline, exactly where Magaffey had told him it would be. Magaffey had told him of this after he was dead--it had to have been after Magaffey was dead, because none of them knew of its destructive power against the vampires until Ray Carroll was killed by it, none but Lonnie Wilson who claimed that the notion and the action of striking out at Carroll just “popped” into his head. Later, Magaffey's disembodied spirit had told Stroud where a supply could be located. He'd done so without words. It had been a picture that fired off like a flashbulb in Stroud's mind when he saw Magaffey's apparition before him.
Stroud searched about for a supply of hypos, laid several out side by side, opened the S-choline and began the labor of filling each in succession, his time running out by the minute. He glanced at his watch to learn that he was ten minutes behind schedule. He found a roll of adhesive tape and rushed back for the other spears he'd brought, four in all, and taped a hypo to each end firmly and completely, leaving the mechanism free to be pressed down in the event the lance missed the heart. He somehow knew that, given their strength and the fact their hearts seemed to supply all that power, these creatures could walk, or fly, away from a hit to the stomach, back, or other area that would kill a man.
Stroud then saw a dart gun looking much like a staple gun behind Magaffey's glass case. He found the case locked, broke it, and grabbed up the gun and the darts that went with it, filling each with the S-choline.
Finished and pleased with his finds, Stroud trundled off with half of the large jar of vampire poison under one arm, the dart gun loaded and ready in one hand, the lances balanced in the crook of his other arm. He was behind schedule, and wondered if he should not see to his wounds before racing headlong to the Institute. If he stopped to do so, it would put him a half hour behind instead of the ten or fifteen he had already lost.
Abe Stroud half stumbled, half walked, rushing from Magaffey's and returning to his Jeep. Every ink-blotted corner of the yard and the garage might hold another attacker, every tree and every ceiling for that matter. Stroud had been lucky--he had killed Briggs's two men before they'd gotten a chance to call for help.
He raced for the Institute, reviewing in his mind what he thought he knew about the area where the special bone marrow elixir was produced and packaged for the vampire colony. As he drove for his destination, Stroud wondered what properties in the S-choline were so effective against the vampire. He'd read his grandfather's books and not a word about any special medicines ever having been used effectively against the vampire existed. There were only old herbal medicines to combat the fever and pain of the bite, to stanch the blood flow. His own blood continued to flow, and now he wished he'd taken a few moments to clean and dress the wounds. He recalled some mention of the wild rose having some anti-vampire properties, but there was no explanation as to why, other than the rose's origin and its general association with Christ. He knew that the wild rose was the rarest flower in the Holy Land. Jesus had said that He was the rose and the lily of the valleys in Song of Solomon 2:1.
His grandfather's voice came into his head as clear and as strong as if he were in the backseat of the Jeep, startling him, and making him wonder if he would ever get used to this ghost. His grandfather said, “Land Beyond the Forest by Emily Gerard.”
What of it? Stroud thought but did not say aloud.
“Page one hundred eighty-six.”
Damn it, I don't have the books with me! he shouted in his head, but said nothing aloud.
“Tells of the custom in Transylvania of laying a thorny branch of a wild rosebush across the body during burial.”
“For what bloody reason?” Stroud said aloud.
He didn't hear the answer, but he knew it: to prevent the body from leaving the coffin.
Stroud had never thought of himself as a soldier of Christ, and he wasn't certain he wanted to start now. Never had he been a particularly religious sort, never had he maintained even a semblance of ritualistic function in this regard. Yet here he was, carrying the modern equivalent of the wild rose in a test tube, carrying on the modern equivalent of a crusade.
Still, Stroud also knew that the loss of blood he had sustained, and seemed to continue to be sustaining, had not only produced a quicker heartbeat and respiratory rate, but had clouded his judgment as well. Fewer red blood cells to the brain. A normal respiratory rate was fourteen to sixteen breaths per minute. A mental check of his own rate had him up around thirty-five. He was still losing blood, and his wounds continued to throb so that he feared touching them. He feared looking at the wounds, knowing that to see them could be a worse shock to his system than not seeing them.
He fought back the pain, trying desperately to reduce his breathing rate, perspiration coursing down his face as he tried to consciously slow his heartbeat as well. A check of his own pulse where he held onto the wheel revealed that it continued to race--this long after the period in which he had put together the weaponry in Magaffey's office. He could not understand why. He could not understand it and almost instinctively his right hand went up to his shoulder to where one of the gashes seemed to be splitting with pain and opening farther. His hand went into a squirming morass of worms at the wound. Worms, like a mindless army of ants, keeping the wound open for their dead master. The shock of this realization, that the nerves about all the wounds were deadened and filled with maggots that kept it both clean and open for the vampire's pleasure, sent Stroud into a spin at the wheel. He and the car came to a screeching halt in the parking lot at Banaker Institute, but not before slamming into a parked car.
-22-
The Jeep tore into the side of a car that looked like an unmarked police car, and the noise caused enough of a stir around the doors to the emergency center to bring out curious, white-coated onlookers. Stroud grabbed all that he needed, his cloth bag filled with plastique explosives, enough to get the job done. He slid out and crouched amid the parked cars, making his way to a service entrance he saw in the distance. As he did so, he saw a small crowd of them inspecting his Jeep, and amid the crowd stood Chief Briggs. Of all the luck, Stroud thought now. He'd run directly into Briggs's unmarked vehicle.
He kept one eye on the curious ones combing his Jeep for clues to his whereabouts, and another on the escape door. Or was it a trap door?
The noise of the crash had brought the pseudo-humans out, some staring down from windows high overhead. One of them might've spotted Stroud; one of them might be Banaker.
Behind him, Briggs, his .38 extended, grabbed hold of the Jeep door and tore it open. All of them were trying to understand the situation and, no doubt, Briggs could not believe the nerve Stroud showed in coming here like this after all that'd gone before.
Stroud quietly sprinted for his objective.
Briggs stood staring at the maggot pool on the seat of the abandoned Jeep, saying, “Can you believe this? The nerve?”
“But look,” said one of the white-coated attendants from Emergency, “the worms.”
“That must mean ... maybe he's now one of us,” said the other one.
“Don't be stupid,” said Briggs. “I mean, if he was one of us, the worms wouldn't be just left here to go unused, to die, would they?” Briggs lifted a handful and popped these into his mouth like popcorn. The others took what was left and did likewise.
“He could still be one of us, if whoever got to him took enough of a bite out of him,” ventured the first attendant.
Briggs thought about this. He thought about his two men at Magaffey's, and he wondered who'd been the one to inflict pain on Stroud, and if he'd live to tell about it, and what rewards Banaker would bestow on th
e one who brought Stroud either down or into the fold.
“Phil could be right, Chief,” said the second attendant.
Briggs bit his lower lip and nodded, giving them a noncommittal maybe. Then he said, “I'll just make a call and we'll see. Tell you one thing, whoever gets the son of a bitch's going to please Banaker to no end.”
Briggs's time as a policeman wasn't completely wasted. He had learned a thing or two, and one was that physical evidence spoke reams if viewed carefully. While the two attendants were wishfully hoping Banaker's problems with Stroud were over, he reserved judgment for good reason. Some of the worms on the driver's seat of Stroud's Jeep were dead. No pire would willingly kill his parasitic helpers. Briggs also knew that if Stroud were still the enemy, and if he, Briggs, were to bring Stroud down, then there would be an eternal thank you and reward that the high and mighty Dr. Oliver Banaker would be bestowing on him.
Briggs had learned via the Institute grapevine that Dolphin Banaker had not returned from Stroud Manse, and rumor had it that Stroud had tortured the young pire to death using some holy and sanctified torture chamber there. Briggs had to go to the other side of the vehicle to reach inside his car for the police radio. His mind wandered over the immense darkness of the eternal damnation that would now befall Banaker's boy; he wished death on no vampire. He pressed to send his message when just outside he heard the disturbance. Stroud was spotted.
Briggs half rolled, half jumped from his mangled car to get a fleeting glimpse of Stroud as the attendants pointed and shouted.
“There!”
“There he goes!”
“Where?”
“Service bay, see the door?”
Briggs did indeed see the top of the door as it closed slowly behind someone of Stroud's general build. Briggs froze for a moment, terrified of Stroud, a man capable of killing one of them. Despite all the bullshit Briggs'd heard about some legendary ones who opted to lie down and die out of a desire to quit living--so I long had they lived--Briggs couldn't imagine anything so asinine as that: to lie down and wish oneself to death. He knew every vampire had it within him to do so, the death wish as it was known, but he could not imagine such despair.
Some ripples of rumor had it that Banaker was on the verge of the death wish decision, but he doubted this. Banaker? Never. Not him. He liked power too much. Cooper, now there was a pire that could maybe take his own life in this manner, but never a pire like Banaker.
Briggs raced behind the two attendants who were going up a flight of stairs. “Is Banaker here, on the premises?” he shouted.
“No, at least, I don't think so.”
“He's probably going for Banaker. Probably go right for his office on the top floor,” said Briggs. “Let's take the elevator, hurry!”
When they came to the next landing, the three vampires caught the elevator on Briggs's hunch. Briggs was certain that Stroud was bent on killing Banaker as much as Banaker was bent on killing Stroud. Just before the elevator was about to close, a nurse raced toward them, shouting for Briggs, but the doors closed on what she was saying.
“Your office has been trying to reach you! Two of your men ... dead ... at Doctor Magaffey's!”
After the door closed Briggs felt a hot shiver race along his spine, and while he nor any other vampire ever perspired, he felt that uneasy odor that his body exuded whenever he was particularly harried or low on his food supply. He'd been waiting for his replenishment to begin when Stroud's Jeep had torn up the parking lot, banging into his own car.
“What was that she said?” Briggs asked the two attendants.
“Something to do with Magaffey,” said one.
“No, she said two of your men were dead.”
Briggs thought about Whiley and Buttrum over at Dr. Magaffey's offices. Dead? Impossible. But the elevator ride to the top floor seemed now interminable as his mind kicked over the possibilities. If he added up, Stroud had dispatched three vampires in a matter of hours.
Stroud knew the rules of infiltration and camouflage, and that when in Rome...
He'd taken great pains to present himself as just another of the Banaker Institute family. Although it was an ill fit, he'd gotten hold of one of Magaffey's white lab coats, which covered the worst of his wounds until the coat became blood-soaked. He'd located stairwell underpasses and a linen closet to stow his firepower close to his target and diversionary target. Before leaving Banaker Institute he meant to display some of his talents, primarily in explosives. But first he must locate his primary target. He calculated his chances of getting out of this place, but it made him lose heart to do so, so he terminated the calculation. He knew he could not very well destroy the entire hospital complex, that there was too much of a chance that some of the patients in beds here were still as human as he was. The blood bank was their only hope of an effective weapon against the number of vampires here.
He'd wisely chosen the stairs, assuming they'd be used less. He found the floor where he now recalled seeing the blood bank.
Someone was coming down the corridor he stepped into, and the fact he was carrying Magaffey's jar made him even more conspicuous than he already was. He grabbed an unattended gurney, placed the S-choline plainly in view on top, and pushed it along. Two vampire doctors passed him without giving him the least notice. They seemed engaged in a conversation revolving around a technique of surgery one felt to be an improvement over earlier methods. Stroud caught only snatches of their talk, but it was fiendish in its overtones, more by virtue of the fact he knew what they were. He also knew that for what he was contemplating, he could be locked up for life, possibly sent to the electric chair.
He came around a corner and saw the sign over a door that designated this area the blood center. Taking the clear liquid solution, cradling it in his arm as if it were a child, he pushed through the door. There was a thrum-thrum-thrum noise on this side of the doors that'd been masked out in the hallway. The churning noise of rhythmic machinery lulled the mind here. It reminded him of being in a downtown laundromat in Chicago when all the machines were in use at once. The place was a maze of outer rooms where “donors” gave willingly of their blood, and labs where the bone marrow was extracted. The corridors between these rooms, labs, and offices led him closer and closer to the source of the humming machinery. If anyone saw him or was watching him, he did not know of it. For a moment, the S-choline firmly in his hands, he forgot his mission and the place he was in as his mind locked on the comforting, seashore sound of the machines ahead.
He very likely passed some white-coated monsters in human form, but he did so with such determination and the look of a man who knew where he must be, that no one questioned him.
It was going too easily, he felt, when the corridor led to a glassed-in area that overlooked an enormously large machine squatting below him in a sunken area. A quick calculation led him to realize that the blood bank area linked up with the morgue. Two and two added up to the fact that when someone died at Banaker Institute and his body was sent to the morgue to be prepped for burial or autopsy, or whatever, that the vital red fluid was not simply washed from the corpse along with all other bodily fluids, but pumped in here, to join with the enormous vat of blood being filtrated and enriched through the bone marrow and vampire gene components.
This was the central food processing plant for them. This was Stroud's primary target.
“What is that you have there?” asked a female voice behind him suddenly.
Stroud only slowly turned from the glass. Fumes like those of dry ice, giving off an eerie, ghastly pink cloud, rose from the square vat at Stroud's back now. He'd witnessed the strange red liquid slushing in one compartment, flushing and cascading through funnel tubes in another section of the vampire still.
“I ... beg your pardon?” asked Stroud.
“What is that you are carrying into the blood room?” She was a tall, raven-haired woman with piercing black eyes with an accent that might be that of a Rumanian. She was instantly suspi
cious. “Who sent you here? Who are you?”
“Doctor Banaker ... he sent me.”
“Oh?”
“Additives,” said Stroud, hefting the clear liquid in the jar. “Vitamins.”
“Really?” She was incredulous. “E, I suppose. You men.”
Stroud almost took a breath, when she said, “I'll just call Doctor Banaker. He said nothing of this. Highly irregular; no paper. Just a moment.”
Stroud allowed her to walk back to her office, eyeballing the catwalk over the vat just outside. From there, he could drop the entire jar into the works. A little glass in their diet wouldn't harm the bats any. But a phone call would alert the others to the fact this place, the source of their power, was his target tonight. She mustn't be allowed to make that call.
Stroud placed the S-choline in a corner and followed her, snatching out a hypo as he did so. She had her back to him, and he was about to jam the hypo into her when she wheeled, grabbed his hand with an almost superhuman strength and thrust him across the room. She screeched his name, realizing who he was now. “Ststrooooouuuuud! Stroud!”
She next scowled and showed her fangs, her gums crawling with white worms. The hypo had gone flying to another corner of the room, so he snatched out the dart gun. He fired point-blank at the heart as she leaped for his throat, but she'd caused the dart gun to fire to one side, striking the wall, quivering there. She was still struggling with him as they fell through the door that led out into the main corridor on the other side of the blood bank. Here they struggled in an empty corridor before the elevator doors. An elevator was passing and Stroud, still in her clutches, snatched out another hypo and jammed the S-choline solution into her gullet now. At the same instant he slapped the elevator call button, the doors swung open and he shoved her into the car. Inside it, she screeched in banshee alto soprano, but just as the doors closed her white-uniformed chest exploded with blood from within, some of it shooting out into the corridor and onto Stroud's clothing, already encrusted with vampire blood.
Vampire Dreams (Bloodscreams #1) Page 23
