Out of the Night

by Robin T. Popp

  “Yes.” She managed a smile and pointed to the bar. “There’s extra, if you’d like some. Also, I ordered room service earlier and took the liberty of ordering something for you as well. It’s in the microwave.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her, and she got the impression that he was pleased. He poured himself a cup of coffee, which she noticed he took black, and after he took a sip, he opened the microwave door and looked inside. Then he gave her a surprised yet pleased smile and pulled out his steak, bloodred in the center, with fries on the side.

  “I wasn’t sure what you’d want,” she started to explain, but he cut her off.

  “This is perfect. Thank you.” He pulled out the plate, grabbed the extra set of flatware, and sat on the edge of her bed. It surprised her because she hadn’t expected him to stay in there with her, but she found she liked it. She watched him cut a bite of steak and caught a glimpse of his fangs as he popped it into his mouth to chew. Seeing them added a touch of surrealism to what was already a bizarre experience for her.

  “I thought I might be able to help you find where Burton and my father are staying,” she said, trying to get her thoughts back on the right track. “I figured they’d have to stay somewhere during the day. In the movies, it’s always a crypt or graveyard, but somehow I don’t think that’s where we’ll find the modern-day vampire.

  “So I did a search of the city’s public records and real-estate listings for empty homes, apartment buildings, city buildings, warehouses—that kind of stuff. I then did a search on all news reports in the last couple of days covering unusual murders or anything having to do with blood. Interestingly enough, two hospitals have reported the theft of venipuncture, blood bank, and chemical lab supplies. I don’t know if that’s related or not.”

  He’d been cutting his steak and looked up at that bit of news, his brow furrowed. “Why would they steal supplies?”

  “Assuming that my father is still more or less himself, despite being a vampire, then I can understand the chemical lab supplies. Dad is the type who’d want to know more about how the venom turns humans into vampires. That might also explain why they took blood supplies.”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged, popped a fry into his mouth, and thoughtfully chewed before swallowing. “Anything else?”

  “Not really. I’ve got the list of empty buildings. I thought that maybe tomorrow I could start visiting them.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said without even looking up at her. “I don’t want you looking for Burton on your own. Dirk and I have a plan. Believe me, we’ll find him.”

  She’d expected this type of reaction and finished downloading her file and broke the connection to the Internet.

  “So what are the plans for tonight?”

  “The same as they were last night. Dirk will watch one while I watch the other. If we’re lucky, we’ll get there before Burton arrives, catch him in the act, and terminate him.”

  “Sounds good. What should I wear? Something dark?”

  “You’re not going,” he said around a mouthful of steak, still not looking at her.

  “Wait a minute. Last night—”

  “Last night, I said you could stay. I’m not taking you with me to face Burton. It’s too dangerous.”

  Trying to control her temper, she glared at him. “Fine. Then I might as well go ahead and start searching the empty buildings for where they’re staying.”

  “No, you won’t.” Mac laid his flatware across his plate and, pushing off the bed, set the plate with partially eaten food on the tray holding her empty dishes. Then he turned to her, his gaze steely. “How long are we going to argue about your going out tonight?”

  “How long do you plan to stand there and tell me what I can and cannot do?”

  He drew in a deep breath and then let it out. “Wear dark clothes. I’ll call Dirk for the address, okay?”

  She smiled. “Works for me.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered as he walked out the door. “You say that now.”

  An hour later, Mac and Lanie stood in the hallway outside of Smith’s hotel room. They had no idea if the man was inside or not, but Mac felt certain that they couldn’t just stand around in the hall all night. Someone was bound to ask them what they were doing and then call the cops if they didn’t leave. Innocent bystanders were the last thing they needed, Mac thought.

  He knocked on Smith’s door and waited. There was no sound from the other side, which could have meant anything. For all Mac knew, Smith might not even be there. Or, worst case, he was there and dead or dying. It was this last thought that gave him his greatest concern.

  “What now?” Lanie asked, standing beside him.

  “I go in. You wait here.” The hall was empty, so Mac gripped the handle of the door and, using his newfound strength, forced the handle down and opened the door. The sight that met him told Mac they were too late.

  The inside of the room was a wreck. The bed linens were strewn across the floor, and the curtains were ripped and torn where they hung. Even the dresser was knocked askew. The remains of the desk chair lay in pieces, and Mac wondered if Smith had used it to defend himself. There was enough blood around to know violence had taken place—a pool of it on the floor near the remains of the chair and more of it sprayed across the bed.

  “Mac?” Lanie’s voice came to him from the hallway.

  “He’s not here,” Mac informed her.

  “Meaning he’s checked out or . . .” Her voice drifted and he answered her unspoken question.

  “Yeah, Burton got him.”

  Across town, Dirk crouched behind the hedge of bushes running along the front of a house in a modest residential section. He was grateful the owners weren’t home. The windows were blessedly dark, making the shadows between the house and the bushes, where he crouched, even darker.

  He’d been waiting for almost two hours now and was beginning to think that Burton had chosen Mac’s target to acquire tonight instead of his. It might be just as well if that was the case, he thought. Mac, with his newfound inhuman abilities, was the better match for a vampire. Of course, Dirk worried about what that made Mac. If he was turning into a vampire himself, then sooner or later Dirk would have to terminate him. It wasn’t something he looked forward to.

  A movement in the shadows next door caught his attention and Dirk focused on Harris’s house. He knew Harris was home because he’d done a preliminary inspection and had seen his former team member watching TV.

  The movement that caught his eye came again, this time from the far side of Harris’s house. He debated on leaving his hiding spot but thought better of it. He didn’t want to alert Burton to his presence, if that’s who it was. So he continued to wait and watch.

  Whoever it was turned out to be as patient as Dirk, because almost thirty minutes passed before anything happened. Finally, Dirk saw a dark figure emerge from the deep shadows. Dirk stared in amazement as Burton walked up to the front door as if he were paying a call on a neighbor. Dirk wasn’t sure what he’d expected the vampire to do, exactly. Maybe something more sinister? Then he remembered that Burton and Harris were old friends, and Harris probably wouldn’t think twice about inviting Burton inside.

  As it turned out, that was exactly what happened. After Burton disappeared inside, Dirk considered moving in, but didn’t. He saw a second shadow in the bushes. Thinking it might be Munoz, he decided to wait.

  Straining to see into the dark, Dirk thought he saw the tip of a fin. He followed it downward until he saw the outline of the body. He recognized it instantly, although he’d never seen it like this before. Last time he’d seen the creature, it had been a stone figure in a cage—and presumably harmless.

  Reaching for his phone, he called Mac, as per their agreement. “He’s here,” Dirk whispered when Mac answered.

  “Roger—we’re already en route. Don’t do anything until I get there.”

  “I don’t know how much time we’ve got. What’s your ETA?”

  “Five minut
es, max.”

  At that moment, the front door opened and the creature moved toward it. Dirk knew he was out of time. “It’s going down now. I can’t wait.” He disconnected with Mac shouting on the other end.

  By now, the creature had disappeared inside the house and the door was closed once more. From inside, Dirk caught the sounds of a man’s scream, and then all hell seemed to break loose. Pulling his gun, he raced for the front door. As expected, it was locked. He thought about smashing it down, but decided that the element of surprise would be ruined if once inside the house he had to go find which room they were in.

  He ran around the house, glancing at the curtained windows as he passed, searching for the telltale shift in shadows that would indicate Burton, Harris, and the creature were on the other side.

  He had to vault the fence to get into the backyard, but the open vertical blinds of the sliding-glass doors gave him a panoramic view of the chaos inside.

  The creature held Harris in its clutches, and Burton stood nearby, watching smugly as it bit Harris’s neck. The man must have put up a fight because blood was splattered across the room. There was even some on Burton, who wiped a drop from his face with a finger and then licked his finger clean.

  Staying off to the side, Dirk moved toward the house until he could reach the handle of the sliding door. He pushed, but it didn’t budge. There was only one other option and it had better work, because the creature was killing Harris.

  Moving back into the yard, Dirk took a bracing breath and then ran straight at the sliding door, firing his gun as he did. The glass pane shattered just as he hurled himself through it. He immediately tucked his body into a ball and rolled, coming out of it with his gun leveled at Burton, who reacted with a bored kind of smile.

  “Really, Adams. Such dramatics. What? Are you going to shoot me?” He laughed and Dirk fired off a shot. It struck Burton in the chest but seemed to have no more effect than to irritate the man. His smile vanished, replaced by a glare. Dirk fired a second time, aiming for Burton’s head. He missed and quickly fired again. And missed again.

  Then he realized that it wasn’t his aim that was off. Burton was moving so fast that he was literally dodging the bullets. A feeling of dread hit Dirk. He was in serious trouble.

  As Burton moved toward him, Dirk remembered something Mac told him. He looked around for a chair he could smash or a fireplace poker—anything that he could use to stake Burton through the heart, all too aware as he scanned the room of the creature sucking the blood from Harris’s body. Dirk worried that his efforts were for nothing. Harris had stopped struggling, and his unnatural stillness cast an eerie silence over the scene.

  Dirk spotted the fireplace just as the creature dropped Harris’s lifeless body to the floor. Dirk ran for it but never got there. From seemingly out of nowhere, Burton appeared in his path.

  The first punch sent Dirk flying across the room, and in some small, still-functioning part of his brain, he marveled that the blow hadn’t broken his jaw. He landed in a heap against the far wall, and then shook his head to clear it as he struggled to push himself to his feet.

  He didn’t get the chance. Burton dragged him up as if he weighed nothing and punched him in the side. Once again, Dirk went flying, his ribs aching as only broken bones can. This time, he’d barely made it to his knees before Burton was on him. After that, everything happened so fast, Dirk didn’t have time to defend himself.

  “Adams, I thought better of you,” Burton mocked, picking him up again. “How disappointing, but perhaps we can reform you.”

  Dirk landed at the feet of the chupacabra. He could only stare into the creature’s glowing red eyes as it leaned down and grabbed him. The thought that he was dead barely registered before he felt two sharp fangs sink into his neck.

  Mac’s sense of foreboding added weight to his foot on the accelerator as he raced down the streets of the neighborhood until he found the house he sought. Beside him, Lanie had long since given up trying to caution him to safety.

  He slammed on the brakes, threw the car in park, and was out the door, racing across the lawn toward the front door. He didn’t even bother trying the handle—merely hurled his body against it and broke it open.

  The scene that met him was worse than he’d expected. Harris lay dead at Burton’s feet, and the chupacabra had Dirk in its claws, its teeth buried in his friend’s neck.

  Chapter 13

  Mac wasn’t aware that he’d pulled his gun, but he immediately opened fire on the creature, being careful not to hit Dirk. The bullet ripped into the creature’s side, causing it to pause and look up. Behind him, Mac heard Lanie run into the room and heard her quick intake of breath. Then, before he could shield his eyes, she’d turned on the overhead lights.

  Deprived of sight, Mac grew acutely aware of a low thrumming in his head. He focused on it and several conflicting emotions hit him. Pure hatred and anger; a lust for death and destruction that warred with a weaker resistance and pain. Mac knew they weren’t his own emotions, and as his eyes adjusted, he looked around the room.

  Burton’s face was a mask of fury as he stared at the creature, which seemed to simply be holding Dirk in its clutches, and Mac sensed its reluctance to attack. In a moment of sudden clarity, he realized that the emotions he felt were those of Burton and the creature. Somehow, he seemed to be sharing a psychic link with them, and as he tried to make sense of this discovery, he felt the urge to kill grow stronger. He saw the creature bend its head toward Dirk and knew that Burton was somehow projecting his own emotions onto the chupacabra, wearing down its resistance.

  If Burton could do it, Mac thought, then he could as well. Focusing his thoughts, he urged the creature to resist, praying that he was using the link correctly.

  Miraculously, he saw the chupacabra hesitate. A look of surprise crossed Burton’s face. The small victory encouraged Mac, and he put more effort into his projections. It came easier the second time and the chupacabra, already reluctant, released Dirk’s unconscious form, which fell to the floor.

  At that moment, Burton looked around and his eyes fell on Mac, who smiled.

  Burton’s eyes grew wide in a moment of surprise, and then his look turned to one of pure hatred. Moving quickly, he crossed to Harris’s body and picked it up, slinging it over his shoulder. Then Burton raced out of the house. Mac wanted to chase after him but knew he needed to stay and help Dirk, who lay deathly still.

  “He needs to go to the hospital,” Lanie said, already leaning over Dirk and checking his pulse. “He’ll need a transfusion—I just hope it’s not too late; otherwise . . .”

  She didn’t need to finish the sentence. They both knew what would happen if Dirk died.

  “We can’t call the ambulance here,” Mac said, going over to the limp body of his friend. “Too many questions that I can’t answer.”

  Lanie had stopped the bleeding, but Dirk’s complexion was extremely pale, and Mac, with his hypersensitive hearing, could barely detect Dirk’s heartbeat when he placed his head to the man’s chest.

  Mac lifted Dirk up into his arms, and Lanie ran ahead to open the back door of the car. She climbed in and then helped him get Dirk inside.

  Mac drove like a madman, amazed that no one tried to stop him. He arrived at the entrance of the hospital’s ER, and rather than wait for someone to come out and meet him, he pulled Dirk from the backseat and carried him inside.

  The emergency staff wanted to know more about how his injuries were sustained, but thankfully were too busy to wait for answers that weren’t forthcoming. They started a blood transfusion while Lanie and Mac were forced to wait in the outer lobby.

  Two hours later, they were still waiting on word about Dirk’s condition. Whether he lived or died, things would be different. If he died, Dirk would have to be staked, and Mac would be left to deal with Burton and the others on his own. If he lived, Lanie knew there was a good chance he would recover as quickly as Mac had—and be affected in the same way, or maybe ev
en worse. The damage he’d sustained had been more extensive. The amount of blood the chupa had taken, and subsequently the amount of venom introduced into Dirk’s system, was far greater than it had been for Mac. It made sense to her that his changes, too, might be more pronounced. She couldn’t help but wonder what Mac would do if Dirk suddenly became part of the problem.

  Another, more unsettling thought hit her. What if the evolution of changes in the two men didn’t stop until they both became vampires? She’d be the only one left who knew of their existence. It would be so easy for Mac to slip into her room one night and kill her, before she even realized how far gone he was. Even if she fought for her life, it would do no good—he was so much stronger. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, wondering if it would even bother him to kill her. She thought that he cared for her, a little, but that was the human side of him—the side that was disappearing.

  She had to share what she knew with someone, and Uncle Charles was the obvious choice. He knew the men and their capabilities, and because of his friendship with her father, the notion of vampires and chupacabras existing wouldn’t be too far-fetched. Satisfied that telling Uncle Charles was the thing to do, she resolved to slip out the following day, while Mac slept. There were advantages, she thought, to being a plain old human.

  Feeling better now that she had a plan of action, Lanie allowed herself to relax. She knew there was nothing more she could do for Dirk right now. She closed her eyes and felt the burn from having worn her contacts too long. Elsewhere in the waiting room, she heard the sounds of the triage nurses assessing incoming patients, the clerk at the front desk keying information into the computer, and the sounds of men and women praying, crying, and whispering to themselves as they awaited word on loved ones.

  Outside, a siren’s wail suddenly grew silent as the ambulance pulled up with its latest victim. Medical personnel shouted orders and Lanie opened her eyes, curious to see what was happening.