The first rule Hoss had insisted on, with Pete and Jimmy as his enforcers, was that no one was to leave without his permission.
His charges were getting more and more antsy, and he had expressed concern to Jimmy that he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to maintain control. But for now, as long as the hunting parties he sent out came back with fresh meat, most of the vampires were willing to listen to him. They’d seen too many others of their kind get snuffed out by the vampire hunters.
It had proven to be ridiculously simple to find a ready supply of fresh meat. It turned out that the cold of the ocean waters didn’t affect them, and they could hold their breaths for extraordinary lengths of time and could see a long way, even in the murky water. Even when one of them drowned, he simply needed to be dragged onto the beach, and in a few minutes he’d spew up water and start breathing again.
Best of all, practically no one noticed them. The few humans unlucky enough to stumble across them were added to the food supply. So they had a steady diet of seafood, and just enough human victims to keep most of them happy.
Hoss sat on a raised dais, in a large overstuffed chair that had been accidentally left behind when the motel had been abandoned. Pete and Jimmy were perched on barstools on either side of him. Jodie sat at his feet. Jimmy laughed at how it must look. It’s like a Frank Frazetta cover on a Conan book, he thought.
At first, the dais had been used because Hoss was so small that it was hard for everyone to see and hear him when he gave his talks. Later, it had seemed natural that he be raised up. Without meaning to, he’d become the leader of the vampires. Pete thought it was funny that the “little turd” was bossing them around, but they usually did what he asked. In fact, a bit of a power struggle was developing between Pete and Jimmy over who would be Hoss’s right-hand vampire.
“Why don’t we just kill the vampire hunters?” Pete asked. “There are only two of them. I bet Hoss could come up with a clever plan to trap them. Right, Hoss?”
“Yeah, right,” Jimmy said, trying to gauge Hoss’s reaction to Pete’s suggestion. “I’m sure Sitting Bull thought the problem was solved once he snuffed out Custer.”
Hoss just sat there thinking. He did a lot of that. He’d get an intense look on his face, then not hear anyone talking to him or see anything happening in front of him for a while, but when he finally smiled, he always had a solution to whatever problem was bugging them.
“Too many vampires,” he said quietly.
“What’s that, Hoss?” Pete asked.
Hoss looked up at them. The shrewd intelligence in his eyes made him seem like a 100-year-old trapped inside a 13-year-old body. Sure, he was slender and small for his age, but he projected authority. “What I’m trying to say is, we have too many vampires. There’s no way to control them. They’re bound to get us all killed. Whereas if there were only, say, a dozen of us, max, we could remain hidden.”
“So what do we do?” Pete asked. “Kick them out? Go somewhere else? Leave them behind?”
Hoss stared at them.
Jimmy smiled. “Well, Pete… you were wondering what vampire tasted like.”
Chapter 26
Jamie ventured out of the hideaway for a couple of hours every night. She’d find a small business to break into, steal what cash she could, and then go to the Burger King, where the same girl was waiting with a bag of raw beef for fifty bucks. The pimply-faced teen was getting a nice bonus.
Jamie had hit the jackpot on the third night, finding over three hundred dollars in the cash register of a clothing store. It only took her half an hour to walk to the hamburger joint, get her food, and scurry back to her new home. She didn’t want to do anything else. She just lay in the blankets and waited––for what? To die?
Easy to do––just crawl out into the daylight, she thought.
But she didn’t.
One evening, she saw a police car approaching, and she hid behind an abandoned building and watched as Robert drove by. Her heart ached at the sight of him. He looked pale and wan, and she wished she could reach out and hold him. She almost stepped out under the streetlamp, almost let him see her, come what may.
But she didn’t.
She wasn’t sure what would be worse: that he’d reject her and arrest her––maybe even try to kill her––or that he would accept her back into his life. The second alternative was far too dangerous for him. It would be the end of his career, and the vampire hunters wouldn’t let her live peacefully with him. Even if they tried to flee, they’d be followed.
And yet… Robert was dying. Did it matter what happened to his career? Did it even matter what happened to her, as long as they could be together one more time?
She dreamed every night that he was lying beside her, and when she woke in the morning, she reached for him. And every time it happened, she had the same thought: We could be together… forever.
Jamie wouldn’t Turn him without asking first. But was it so crazy to think that maybe, just maybe, he’d say yes? She’d convince him that it was possible to survive as a vampire and not kill anyone. It had been done––once. Terrill had gone for decades without killing a human.
Yeah, she thought. And how did that end? Her own Turning was proof that even the most disciplined vampire could fail.
But if anyone can do it, she thought, it’s Robert.
As the days passed, Jamie got stronger. After a week, she ventured out late one overcast afternoon and visited the thrift shop where Marc-with-a-C worked.
He almost didn’t recognize her at first; then his eyes lit up. “You look great!” he said. “You look completely recovered!”
She hadn’t said anything about being sick, but she could understand his confusion. “Hi, Marc-with-a-C. How you been doing?”
“It’s been kinda slow, actually,” he said.
The big building was empty of people. Jamie realized that the last few times she’d visited, there had always been at least few customers browsing the aisles.
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” Marc said. “I mean, some of the street people usually head north this time of year. But some of the folks are here year-round, and I haven’t seen any of them, either. I wonder if they’re laying low because of the massacre.”
Jamie felt a chill. Since she’d run away from the two vampire hunters, she hadn’t thought about anything but losing Robert. Now the memory of the vampire attack in the woods returned in full force. She had smelled four vampires at the crime scene that night: Stuart and three others. At the time, because of what Horsham had told her about the difficulty of Turning people, she’d thought that was impossible.
It hadn’t been impossible: it had been a warning sign, but she’d been so miserable that she hadn’t thought any more about it. Now Jamie remembered the two vampires who had stolen her kill––Stuart’s friends. They’d probably been Stuart’s first victims.
“And then there are the others,” Marc was saying.
“Others?”
“Don’t you read the newspapers?” Marc asked, then looked chagrined. “Don’t answer that. I always forget most people don’t read the papers anymore. Anyway, there’s also a bunch of people missing. I’ve heard conflicting stories: a gang war over meth territory, or an epidemic of some new disease that they’re trying to keep quiet––or both.”
“How many are missing?” Jamie asked.
“No one knows, but I’m guessing quite a few.”
Again, Jamie felt a shiver down her spine. In a way, Marc was right. She had been ill––or at least, not thinking straight. This “epidemic” was her fault, clearly. At the very least, she should have checked on Stuart, and then taken him under her wing. Maybe if she had done that, none of this would have happened. Now there were at least four vampires running around town without any tutoring at all.
She remembered how hungry and confused she’d been when she’d first Turned; how she’d killed indiscriminately, putting herself in danger. Hell, if it hadn’t been for Horsham
’s tutelage, she might have been standing in the middle of a field when the sun came up that first morning. She’d been that confused.
It was almost cruel, what she’d done through her inattention and inaction. It was time she started venturing out into the world again, time to find out what was happening.
“The cops come around here every ten minutes, it seems like,” Marc said, “which could be another reason folks aren’t coming in. Street people always think they’re in trouble even when they aren’t. I keep asking the cops what they’re looking for, but they won’t tell me.”
“Local cops?”
“Yeah, and a couple of FBI guys. Real scary dudes.”
Jamie had been there for at least half an hour, and unless Marc was really exaggerating, another visit from the cops could take place at any moment. Time to get moving.
“I want to leave a donation,” she said, pulling out her last hundred dollars. She hadn’t intended to give the money away, but now that she was here, it seemed like the right thing to do. She felt strong, capable of taking care of herself again. If she was going to return from exile, she’d find another way to feed herself.
The pimply-faced girl was going to be so disappointed.
#
After she left, a slender young man with black-rimmed glasses came out of the dressing room, where he’d been listening to the whole conversation. He walked up to Marc, who turned around with a shout of surprise when Stuart tapped him on the shoulder.
“Jesus, Stuart! I forgot you were here!”
Stuart held up a long coat with a hood. “I’ll take this.”
“Sure. That’ll be five dollars.”
“No,” Stuart said. “That’ll be a hundred dollars.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll take that hundred dollars the nice lady just gave you. I’ll need it to buy gas to get out of this stinking town. And by the way… I’m really hungry. Sorry about this.”
Marc must have seen something in Stuart’s eyes. He backed away and pulled a baseball bat from behind the counter, then swung it at the advancing vampire, but Stuart barely felt the blow on his forehead before the blood started to heal him. It was too bad: Stuart had always liked Marc. But it was getting harder and harder to find any prey in this town, and he needed to regain some energy before he headed up the highway to Oregon.
Even when he was firmly in Stuart’s grasp, Marc kept struggling, but he wasn’t getting away: Stuart’s fangs were sunk deep into his throat. Still, he got hold of some scissors and managed to stab Stuart in the chest. That hurt, and Stuart almost ripped the spine out of his victim, but he held back.
As a favor to Jamie, he didn’t eat Marc. Let the nice vampire lady teach him how to be a proper vampire, if she liked him so much.
Stuart’s stolen Corvette was outside, loaded up with what few possessions he still wanted. He was leaving Crescent City forever.
Chapter 27
“What do you mean I can’t go outside?”
Slatter was the town drunk. He was also a bully: huge, loud, and constantly throwing his weight around. He was mean when he was drinking––which, until recently, had been all the time. He’d been fuming for days that as a vampire, he could no longer get drunk. Sober, he was meaner than ever.
The night before, he’d accidentally discovered that if he gulped down the blood of an intoxicated human, the effect was like the best drunk he’d ever had. He couldn’t wait for night to fall again.
“It’s against the Rules,” Hoss said. He was calm and measured and sounded like the adult, while the older and bigger Slatter sounded like an aggrieved teenager.
“What rules?” Slatter shouted. “We’re fucking vampires!”
“The Rules are for your own protection,” Hoss repeated.
“What are you, ten years old?”
“I’m thirteen, but that doesn’t matter now,” Hoss said.
“I’m not taking orders from some damn kid,” Slatter said. “You can just try to stop me.”
Pete and Jimmy had both stood up and were facing off with Slatter, but Hoss looked undisturbed. “All right, all right,” he said soothingly. “I’m not your boss; it was only a request. However, I’m going to ask you to carry one of our cellphones so that we can keep track of you.”
“It’s none of your business where I go!” Slatter snarled. Hoss’s giving in so easily had only emboldened him. There is no way we’re going to control him now, Jimmy thought.
“Please, Mr. Slatter. Take a cellphone. That’s all I ask.” Hoss leaned down to Jodie. “Babe, show Mr. Slatter where the programmed phones are.”
Jodie stood up and walked toward Slatter, who watched her appreciatively. She brushed past him, looked back, and smiled. When she walked out of the room, he hesitated, then followed her.
“Jimmy,” Hoss said. “Go with them.”
Jimmy went after them, not sure what was going on. He hadn’t heard anything about programmed phones, but Jodie seemed to know what was up. Jimmy had been angling to become Hoss’s go-to guy, but he’d seen Jodie and Hoss cuddling and whispering, so it was clear that he was no better than third in line. Pete was clueless, unaware he could have been in the running.
The first three rooms they passed through were full of vampires waking up from the day’s slumber. Jimmy caught up with Slatter and Jodie by the fourth room. Now the connecting holes were rougher and smaller, barely big enough to squeeze through. There were fifteen rooms in the motel altogether, but Jimmy hadn’t explored past the fourth room. In fact, he hadn’t realized the walls had been breached in the others. What else don’t I know? Jimmy wondered.
They went through room after room. “You sure you aren’t just trying to get me alone, girl? You want my body?” Slatter laughed, and Jodie laughed with him. Jimmy was starting to get a creeped-out feeling.
They reached the final room. The last two rooms had a real connecting door between them instead of a hole in the wall. They were the two biggest rooms in the motel, and inside the last one, Jimmy saw a small table with a pile of cellphones on it.
Jodie ushered the big man in. “Take your pick!” she said cheerfully.
“Whatever,” Slatter said, stepping inside.
She slammed the door behind him and locked it.
“What are you doing, girl?” He was pounding on the door, which shook under the onslaught. “You think you can keep me in here?”
“That door won’t hold up for long,” Jimmy said. “This is stupid.”
Jodie smiled at him and went to one corner of the room. There was a string dangling down through a small hole in the wall. She pulled on the string, and through the tiny aperture, Jimmy saw daylight flooding into the other room.
The cry that came from the next room wasn’t made up of words; it was a shrieking sound, rising steadily from a low bellow to a scream of disbelief and denial to a mindless wail. Even through the wall, Jimmy thought he could feel the sudden blast of heat.
The vampire in the next room seemed to be pounding on all the walls in turn, as if trying to punch through them with his bare hands. Then the pounding and wailing stuttered and weakened, and finally stopped altogether after one last whimper emanated from the death chamber.
Jodie went back over to the corner, and Jimmy saw that there was a second string, which she now pulled. The little bit of sunlight that was infusing its way through the hole disappeared.
Jodie didn’t even bother to open the connecting door to check the results. She turned and started walking back to the restaurant. Jimmy shuddered and followed her.
“You were in my seventh-grade health class, weren’t you?” she said casually, as if they were having a chat on the street. “I thought you were cute, but you were so quiet. You’re smart; I like that. Maybe not as smart as Hoss. Still, maybe we could, you know, hook up sometime?”
Jimmy was tempted, but…
“I think you belong to Hoss now,” he said.
When they got back, Pete looked at him questioningly. Jimmy
supposed he was looking a little pale. He pulled Pete to one side. “You need to quit making fun of Hoss,” he said.
“What are you talking about? The little freak likes it.”
“Listen to me, Pete. You need to leave him alone. Quit calling him names. Treat him with respect.”
Pete fell silent as he studied Jimmy’s face. Then he said quietly, “What happened?”
Jimmy told him what he had seen––and heard. He was just finishing the story when Hoss called them over.
“So,” Hoss said. “Anyone else been giving us trouble?”
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Jimmy said.
“We’ve got it under control, boss,” Pete echoed.
Chapter 28
“The infestation seems to be contained,” Callendar said to the first team of vampire hunters to arrive as backup. It was Feller and Abercrombie: the B team who thought they were the A team. Well, technically, they were ranked the number-one team, but everyone knew that was only because the real number-one team had a problem with authority. “There have been no new cases reported in forty-eight hours.”
“What was the infection rate?” Feller asked. He was big, beefy man who was serious all the time. Abercrombie, on the other hand, used a steady stream of quips and asides as a way to survive being attached to such a humorless partner.
“As far as we can tell, if the body was left untouched, a one hundred percent Turn rate.”
“Jesus,” Feller said.
“Jesus Christ on a crutch,” Abercrombie elaborated.
“We’re lucky this didn’t get out of control!” Feller continued.
The Vampire Evolution Trilogy (Book 2): Rule of Vampire Page 13
