“Yeah, sorry about that. I’m tough on cell phones. This one’s a loaner.”
“Does the owner have any use for a cell phone anymore?” the werewolf asked.
I stared at the phone for a minute in confusion, then the meaning of his words sunk in. “Dude! I did not kill the last guy that had this number. Seriously. Now meet us at the back entrance to the church in ten minutes. I’ve got the address. Greg wants to grab a few toys out of the safe at our old place, then we’re going to go be very, very violent.”
It took more like five minutes to get to the church, and we loaded everyone into the pickup. Abby and I took the back seat, and we headed for what used to be our apartment.
We drove right through the yellow police tape, and Greg hopped out, running straight to the burned-out shell of the garage. His boots kicked up little puffs of ash as he ran, and I looked around the desolation that used to be a decent apartment, albeit an underground lair type of apartment. Greg let out a wail of anguish and fury when he got to his car. His beloved 1967 GTO was nothing but a frame on melted tires, barely enough left to recognize it for the badass muscle car it had once been.
I left him to his grief and jumped down into the remnants of the apartment to poke around. Not much was left standing, just the major support beams and a couple of walls. The cheapo desk Greg’s computer had lived on had made it out almost unscathed, confirming my belief that particle board was made of magical components to reduce cost and increase weight. I wandered dumbly through the den and kitchen that had been my home for more than a dozen years, thinking about the good times we’d had there. I made my way into what used to be my bedroom, kicking debris out of the way, until I saw a glint of metal. I reached down and picked up the sword that had come back from Faerieland with me, still in its leather scabbard. The scabbard and sword belt seemed none the worse for wear, and when I drew the sword, the blade gleamed just as brightly as when I had used it to fight trolls in the castle of the Faerie Queen.
Before climbing out of the hole, I paused by what used to be our kitchen and kicked over the refrigerator. The door fell open, spilling exploded beer bottles and bags of boiled blood onto the ground. Our safe was intact, so I yelled up to Greg for the combination. I didn’t understand why he picked 11-10-60, and didn’t care, because when I pulled the door open, there were stacks of cash and a bag full of fake IDs and credit cards for both of us. I stuffed whatever would fit into my pockets and carried the rest up to the truck.
“Nice haul,” King said.
“Well, you always forget something when you go on a trip, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s not always a hundred grand and half a dozen passports.”
“Boy Scout motto is be prepared.”
“You were no Boy Scout,” Abby said from the backseat.
“Yeah, but I’ve drunk a couple of Eagle Scouts in my day. Besides, most of this is Greg’s.” I gave Greg another moment or two to mourn his car, then waved him back into the truck.
“What’s the plan?” Greg asked, as he slid into the backseat of the pickup.
I looked back at him. “We go get our friend back. And kill anything that tries to get in our way. Agreed?”
“Agreed. And maybe get a little revenge for what they did to Maybellene.”
“You called your car Maybelline? Like the makeup?” Abby asked.
“No, like the old song, you know?”
“No. I don’t. And why do guys have this obsession with naming things, anyway?”
“We are so not having this conversation.” Greg turned to look out the window, and we rode the rest of the way in silence.
That sucked for me because I didn’t need more time to think about what they might be doing to Sabrina. Or to worry about Abby’s role.
I wasn’t crazy about bringing Abby in if we were going to fight a bunch of vamps, but we’d seen how well leaving her behind had worked. We parked at the far end of the front parking lot, and I gathered everybody in to explain what little plan I’d devised.
“Here’s the deal. We’re going in blind, with no idea what’s in there waiting for us. Judging from the traps laid out around the frat house, it seems like our friend is a wee bit security-conscious, as well he should be. So we don’t know if Sabrina’s in there, or where she’s being held or how many bad guys we might have to face to get to her.”
“So, it’s hopeless?” Abby asked.
“Well, if we weren’t already dead, I wouldn’t have a lot of confidence in our coming out of this alive. But since that matters less to us than to a lot of people, I think we’ll be okay.” I didn’t think anything of the sort, and I could tell from the nod King gave me that he knew it. But Abby was scared enough, so there was no point in giving her anything else to worry about. “Now, we have enough firepower here to seriously ruin a vampire’s day, but you have to know what you’re doing.”
“I’ve never even held a gun before, but cool!” Abby struck a pose straight out of Tomb Raider. Just what I needed, a psycho gun-nut cheerleader coed to raise as if it were my very own. Next time I’m totally getting a cactus.
“That’s why you’re on the shotgun. Point, pull the trigger and rack the slide. Lather, rinse, repeat. Anything in front of you will have a tough time getting through all the lead you’ll be slinging.” I handed her a twelve-gauge and a couple of boxes of ammo. “When you’re out, put shells in here. If you run out of time, use it like a baseball bat.”
King was already neck-deep in the stack of guns I’d swiped from the pawnshop. He grabbed an AR-15 and a pair of 9mm handguns.
“I don’t know if I have ammo for that rifle, King,” I protested.
“I do.” He reached into a toolbox bolted to the bed of the truck and pulled out a box of rifle shells.
“But you don’t carry a gun?” Abby asked.
“Ammo isn’t illegal anywhere, darlin’. Guns are a different story. It’s not usually a big deal to pick one up wherever I am, but it’s not something I want to have in the truck if I get pulled over by a nervous state trooper.” He took a few magazines, then put one in the gun and the others in his back pockets.
Greg got out of the truck and helped himself to a couple of pistols and a shotgun. I took another AR-15 and started loading my own clips. After a few minutes, we were as ready as we were going to get.
I looked at my motley crew. “I don’t know if we’ll find anything. Might be all that happens is we scare the crap out of a few bankers and move on to the next house on our list. Or we might find a nest of vamps ready to kill us all. But . . .” I ran out of words trying to let them know how important it was to go in and get Sabrina to safety.
Greg stepped up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go get her back.”
We all nodded and headed toward the front door, bristling with fangs, firearms and bad attitude.
The entrance to the restaurant was separate from the apartment lobby, so we had at least a passing chance of getting upstairs without the Master knowing about it. I walked in the front door and strode to the security desk as if I owned the place.
“Can I help you, sir?” This came from a polite blond kid with a crew cut and some fierce acne.
I leaned my elbows on the counter and locked eyes with him. “Everything is normal. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened tonight. You lost your security badge somewhere.” I reached out and snatched the magnetic ID card from around his neck. “You never saw anyone except residents and guests.”
The mesmerized guard nodded slowly, and King took a second to strip down to his undies before shifting into his tall, dark and furry form. I thought I saw Abby lick her lips at the werewolf’s trim form, but pushed any comment aside for later as we got in the elevator.
“We know his apartment number, so that’s the easy part. King and I will go in first. Greg, you follow five seconds later with Abby.” They all nodded, and I took a deep, and completely unnecessary, breath as the elevator dinged at the penthouse level. We crossed the foyer to Wideham’
s door, King on my heels and the others about twenty feet behind.
“What’s the plan?” he whispered.
“I’m making it up as I go along. Can you hear anything?”
“No, but gimme a second.” He put his nose to the hinge side of the door and sniffed deeply. He bent over and repeated the process at the bottom of the door, then stood back up. “There are at least two vampires on the other side of the door, both packing.”
“How—” I started to ask, but he waved me off.
“Stale blood and gunpowder. How do we go?”
“Fast. I’ve got the left.”
King reared back with one huge foot and kicked the door off its hinges. He and I were the first ones through, and what we saw in there made us both stop cold. There were about a dozen vampires in various states of undress, sleepwear and drug-induced stupor.
But my eyes locked on Sabrina. She was tied to a straight-backed kitchen chair with a skinny vampire standing over her. He didn’t look like any professor I’d ever seen, and he didn’t exude that sense of power over the other vampires that would make me think he was their creator, so I pegged him for just another punk bloodsucker in a Widespread Panic T-shirt.
“Make another move, and I’ll drain her before you can blink,” the vamp said. “She’s pretty empty already, what with my boys here snacking on her for the past couple of days. It shouldn’t take more than another nibble or two, and she’ll never need sunscreen again. So put down your weapons, and let’s pretend to be civilized.”
I knelt and laid my rifle on the carpet. As he smirked at me, I reached behind my back, grabbed the .357 revolver I had tucked into my belt and shot him once in each eye.
Chapter 24
The vampires reacted to stress a lot like humans, especially the ones that hadn’t been dead for very long. It wasn’t surprising, since we started off as human, and no one gave us a vampire behavior manual when we were turned. So it wasn’t unexpected when about a third of the vamps took off at a dead run once the shooting started, because that was what about a third of humans would do. Another third sat there like morons and screamed, which made them particularly easy to dispatch, but the final third presented a little more trouble.
I shot the three screamers in their foreheads. The large-caliber bullets wouldn’t kill them since they weren’t silver, but they weren’t going to be any threat for the rest of the night. I tossed the pistol aside and bent down to pick up my rifle again. Before I could raise it, I heard the roar of a shotgun and felt the breeze as pellets flew over my back. I dropped flat onto my stomach and rolled over to see Abby standing over me, barrel smoking. Her eyes were huge, and I followed her gaze to where a vampire lay in two pieces on the tattered rug. A twelve-gauge at eight feet made a big mess, and Abby had gotten the guy full in the gut.
“I think that counts as decapitation,” I said from the floor, and reached a hand up to Abby. I looked over at Sabrina, who had closed her eyes against the splatter of guts, but none of the pellets had so much as scratched her.
Abby helped me stand, and we looked around the room. Of the four vampires who had attacked when I shot the first guy, all but one was down. Greg had emptied a 9mm magazine in one guy’s face, King had ripped one vampire’s throat out with his bare hands, and a third poor bastard was standing there looking at us with a kitchen cleaver in his hand.
I took one step toward him, raised my AR-15 and said, “Did you touch her?”
He stared at me blankly.
I repeated myself. “The girl. Did. You. Touch. Her?”
He shook his head frantically. “N-no.”
“Then I don’t have to kill you.” He stood there, staring at the barrel of my gun. “You should run now.”
He apparently thought that was good advice because he dropped the cleaver and ran straight through the living room window. His legs never stopped moving, and I wondered idly if he’d learn how to fly before he hit the ground. I looked out at where he lay crumpled on the hood of a burgundy Jetta. Nope. Guess not.
Greg was already at Sabrina’s side, kneeling by her legs and untying her. She looked up at me, still bleeding a little from a bite on her neck and splattered with blood and vampire bits and said, “You’re late. The movie started at nine.”
Then she gave me a little grin, and I felt blood flow to places I barely remembered were places.
“Traffic was a bitch,” I said, kneeling beside her chair and cutting her bonds.
“Who’s the Wookie?” She nodded at King, who was still seven feet of hair and bloody claws.
“Remember that PI you met last night? This is his work uniform,” I said.
“Don’t you have any normal friends?”
“Do you count?”
“Not since I met you.”
“Then no.”
She looked around the room at the dead and writhing vampires, and then looked back at me.
“You made a mess of this place. The cops will probably be here soon.” She wiped her eyes, obviously trying to regain her composure.
“I doubt that sincerely, Ms. Law. As a matter of fact, they will not be responding to any calls in this part of town for the next several hours.”
Sabrina leapt to her feet and snatched the AR-15 from my hands. She checked the chamber and slammed the gun into her shoulder, ready to fire.
A tall, well-dressed vampire stood in the remains of the doorway. He exuded class and breeding, things I’d read about in books but never really seen much of. His long brown hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail, and he picked his way through the debris as he came toward me, careful not to soil the cuffs of his suit pants. I hated him on sight.
“Professor Wideham, I presume?” I stepped forward, getting between him and Sabrina, and held out my hand. I wanted him dead, didn’t really care if I killed him or Sabrina did, but I needed information first. And once again, the bloodsucking fiend is thrust into playing the voice of reason. This keeps up, people are going to tell me I’m acting my age.
He shook my hand and nodded. “Precisely.”
I decided if he called me “my dear Watson,” I’d just rip his head off and skip the banter.
“To what do I owe the unique pleasure of your company this evening?” he asked.
“We’re here to retrieve our friend. Oh, and to cut off your head and crap down your neck. That’s all,” Greg said from beside me. He was pretty fast for a fat dude.
“I don’t think that will be necessary, Mr. Knightwood. After all, we have such mutual affection for one of my students. Come in, my dear. Say hello to your big brother.” He waved an arm and a pretty young girl, about the right age for a college senior, came into the room.
I heard a sharp intake of breath from beside me and decided as soon as the girl came into view that this guy was coming down with a bad case of dead. Tonight. I expected it to be terminal. And permanent.
Emily had been six when we were turned. She was the cutest little kid—smart, funny, sweet, and Greg had doted on her. She was the little sister I never had. Letting her believe we were dead had been the hardest thing Greg had to do since being turned, and now there she stood. She stopped beside the elder vamp, her eyes glazed.
“Let her go. She’s got nothing to do with this.” Greg’s voice was low and dangerous.
When I looked over at him, I saw a pain in his eyes I hadn’t seen since a cheerleader pranked him at our junior prom. I swore that night nobody was ever going to hurt my friends like that again. Now this asshole trots Emily out like a goddamn show pony? After burning down my house and kidnapping my girlfriend? Oh, it was on.
“Oh, but she has everything to do with this, Mr. Knightwood. After all, she’s missed you terribly. She talks about her dearly departed brother in all of our advising sessions. She’s really very bright, you know. It would be such a waste if anything were to happen to her.”
He put a hand on her shoulder, but all I saw was how close it was to her neck. There was no way any of us could get to her before t
he monster snapped it like a twig.
A heavy silence fell over the room. I almost heard us all thinking, trying to come up with a plan that didn’t end with Emily dead, or worse. After an eternity or two, I said, “What do you want?”
“Well, I seem to be in need of a new door, for starters,” Wideham said calmly.
“And we’re short a place to live. I think we’re probably even on that count, Teach.” I sat down on the remains of the sofa and put my feet up on the coffee table.
Sabrina lowered the rifle and moved over behind the sofa, putting the furniture between herself and the supernatural creatures. It seemed like he was more into talking than fighting at that moment, and anything I could do to ratchet the tension down a hair was probably a good move.
“Yes, well, that was unfortunate. But you did initiate the hostilities.” He flipped an armchair upright and sat in it. Emily knelt at his side like an obedient pet.
I caught Greg’s eye and gave him what I hoped he took for a “chill out, I have an idea” look. But for all I knew, it just looked like I had to sneeze. Either way, he backed up a step, and so did King.
“What are you talking about? We didn’t even know you existed until I caught your scent where Krysta killed Abby.” I leaned forward, really confused.
Oddly enough, that was a little comforting. When you spent as much time confused as I did, it became kind of your status quo. Without a clue what was going on, I felt a lot more normal.
“You mean, where Krysta left young Abigail as an offering to me. A gracious gift in exchange for passage through my territory.”
“Your territory? I didn’t realize this was your city?” I might not be the most socially-adept vampire in the world, but I was beginning to see the picture.
“It’s not my city, but I have an arrangement by which the University area is my domain.”
Suddenly, it made a lot more sense.
“I get it now. Krysta hunted on your turf, so she had to make it right. And the way to do that was to give you Abby.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sabrina’s gun start to inch up, ever so slowly. King started to ease off to the left to flank Wideham as he fell into the soliloquy trap. Everybody knows the way to beat a bad guy—give him a chance to talk about his plan. And Wideham was more than happy to play all leather-elbowed lecturer. All he needed was a pipe and a poncey accent to complete the image.
The Black Knight Chronicles Page 51
