The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  She still didn’t know that I’d almost died last night, permanently and horribly. She also didn’t know how I’d gone over the edge and what had happened when I struck bottom. I could still feel the gun jump in my hand and see the blinding flash. It didn’t quite blot out the man’s last scream or the look on his face.

  No regrets, remember?

  Yeah, sure. Easy to say, hard to do. I was coming to realize that it wasn’t so much that I had killed, but that I’d been out of control at the time. I was caught up in the not unreasonable worry that it could happen again.

  Damn the bracelet. Damn everything and all its relatives.

  I grabbed the broom and made an effort to finish the job. By ten-thirty the floor was clean of every grain and speck, but I was still sweeping for something to do. The mindless activity kept me from thinking so much. My thoughts weren’t exactly comfortable.

  Escott wanted to come along and I had no objections to offer, especially since he volunteered the use of his Nash. The big car was armored, with an engine powerful enough to match anything Kyler had. Much safer than the Buick.

  Exactly at eleven, in an outdoor booth about two miles from home, I dialed in the last number Chaven had dictated to me.

  “What do you want?” No introductions, no preamble. Kyler knew I’d recognize his voice.

  “A truce.”

  “Terms.” He made it a statement, not a question.

  “You and your people leave me and all my friends alone. We do the same for you. For that, you get the item you want.”

  “What else?”

  This seemed too easy, but I plowed ahead. “Your word on it.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as possible. Tonight.”

  A pause from his end. In the background I heard muffled traffic noises, indicating that Escott had been right; Kyler was also in a public booth. For all I knew, we could be only blocks apart. “All right,” he finally said. “And my word that we leave you and your friends alone.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Double-cross me and all bets are off.”

  “Okay.”

  “Come to the warehouse at midnight.”

  I covered the mouthpiece with one hand and hissed at Escott, who was just outside. “He wants to meet at the warehouse.”

  “Ask him why.”

  “Why the warehouse?” I said to Kyler.

  “It’s known to both of us. You’ll be safe from me there. My word on that, also. Agreed?”

  I didn’t like it, but said yes. He hung up quietly, as though he’d eased a finger over the hook. The usual clicks of disconnection followed by the dial tone came a moment later.

  “Not one for wasting words, is he?” Escott commented as I pried myself from the cramped booth.

  “Yeah. And he was awfully damn cooperative. It makes me wonder what I just missed.”

  “He does seem to have you on the defensive. Why is that?”

  “Why are people afraid of snakes?”

  With no better way to spend the time, we went back home again. Escort hung his coat on the hall tree and disappeared for a moment, returning with a crumpled map of the city in one hand. I followed him to the kitchen, where he spread it flat on the table.

  “I know where the place is,” I said.

  “As do I, but it is the surrounding area that requires my attention.”

  “You want to come along again, huh?”

  “I have a more than casual interest in the outcome of this business.”

  A half dozen objections ran through my brain in as many seconds. Escott would have already thought of them all and then some and have counterarguments for each. “Okay, but I go in alone. If things go wrong, I’ll need you in reserve to get us out of there.”

  We bent over the map. Escott was better at making sense of all the thin black lines and tiny letters and picked out a likely place to park. By eleven forty-five we were there. He rolled to a smooth stop on a side street about a quarter mile from the International Freshwater Transport warehouse.

  “Good enough,” I said.

  “Not quite,” he cautioned, and shifted into reverse. The car was now in an angle of shadow created by one of the many tall, ugly buildings in the area.

  “You won’t be able to see anything now.” The high walls blocked all but a narrow view of the main street leading to the warehouse.

  ”Then, hopefully, they won’t be able to see me.”

  Heavy winter silence closed hard upon us when he cut the motor. Each little tick it made while cooling down sounded like a firecracker to my sensitive ears.

  “Have you a gun?” he asked.

  “I’ve got the one I took from Chaven. I’m not planning to do anything with it, but can figure on a search; it’d be a shame not to give them something to find.”

  “And if anything should go awry?” His tone was matter-of-fact, but still expressed a reasonable concern.

  I shrugged. “If I’m not back by half past, then assume something’s fishy, find a hole, and pull it in after you. Same thing if it looks like you’ve been spotted. Take off and stay away from the house and the office. If that happens and we get separated, I’ll leave a message with your answering service.”

  “Presuming that you are in a condition to do so,” he muttered. He wanted to go along, but we both knew that on my own I stood a better chance of bringing it off and getting out with a whole skin. There wasn’t much they could do to me, and, if necessary, I could always vanish.

  “I’ll be careful.”

  Escotr handed me the black velvet bag. I checked the contents out of nerves rather than any lack of trust and shoved it deep into a pocket.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  I got out, shut the door, and started walking.

  2

  MY rubber-soled shoes made soft padding noises on the pavement as I covered the quarter-mile distance in short order. I was dressed to blend in with the neighborhood and the night with dark pants, shirt, no tie, and an old pea jacket borrowed from Escott’s disguise closet. A cloth cap was pulled low over my forehead and I’d wrapped a wool muffler several times around my face and neck. Since winter had set in I’d found it a necessary item to conceal the fact that I only breathed while talking. Most people probably wouldn’t notice what was missing on cold, damp days, namely the usual dragon’s puff of vapor, hut why take chances?

  This kind of worry coming from a man about to walk into a lion’s den. Correction: snake pit. Kyler was anything but warmblooded.

  I got within a block of my destination without seeing anything worth notice. One car went by, but I avoided it by slipping into a deep doorway until it was long gone. At the cross street I cut to the left, away from the river, then right at the next corner. Opposite the IFT warehouse was yet another large building and I was now walking behind it. The place had a back entrance for the heavy trucks; I hopped up on the loading platform and went straight for the nearest door.

  It was locked, but I vanished and went inside anyway. My eyes adjusted quickly to the large dim interior once I re-formed. I took an experimental sniff of the place, catching the good clean smell of cut wood. Huge stacks of lumber loomed around me. So far, so good, as long as none of it avalanched down on my tender skull. I took great care not to bump into anything.

  I crossed all the way to the front of the place but stood well back from the windows. They gave me an adequate, if somewhat grimy, view of the IFT warehouse across the street.

  It looked empty. No cars were parked anywhere near the place and even the outside light over the office door was off. I could just make out the glint of a new hasp and padlock, probably installed by the cops to keep people away from the scene of last night’s crimes. Perhaps Kyler planned to make our exchange in the street.

  Something snuffled and growled behind me. Claws clicked over the bare concrete floor. Turning, I immediately spotted a large pair of glowing green eyes winking balefully in the faint light from the windows. They were spaced very far ap
art. Below them was an endless row of shark’s teeth, and from a vast chest came a continuous rumbling like an extra-large diesel engine. That’s about all I really noticed about the watchdog in the half second that passed before it charged.

  I suppose I could have handled it, could have used my special influence to calm it down and make friends, but logical, friendly ideas like that are for people with the time to think them up. When a mastiff the size of a calf with a mouth like the Grand Canyon comes barreling down on you, the first thing you really want to do is try to get out of its way. My abrupt disappearance was more of a knee-jerk reaction than a planned escape, but whatever works.

  The thing bored through the space where I had once been solid and I heard a muffled crash as it slammed into the front wall. The sound it made was more irritation than pain as it recovered from the shock and turned. It yelped in sudden confusion when it butted into me again and sniffed frantically, trying to pin me down. Its claws dug at the empty patch of concrete where I had stood, gouging up chunks of it for all I could tell; the damn thing was big enough.

  I’m a dog lover, but know when I’m outnumbered. Rather than argue with it, I floated up until I bumped into a scaffolding about ten feet overhead, and sieved through. It was the floor to an upper office I’d noticed on my way in and it had the advantage of putting a locked door between me and the dog. The monster was still furiously investigating below as I became solid by slow degrees and in absolute silence.

  By cautiously craning my neck I had the same view of the warehouse, just a slightly different angle, and could see more of the street. The wait was more uncomfortable since I didn’t want to move around much. The dog was the persistent type, and if it got a clue to my location it would certainly follow. I didn’t trust the door all that much, or the dog to be quiet about trying to break through to get to me.

  With that comforting thought, I stood very still, indeed, and used my eyes and ears. The walls muffled my hearing somewhat, but some motor noises came to me. The vast dark bulk of the Chicago River supported some slow boat traffic, and thanks to my new perch I was able to see some of it. A couple of boats chugged lazily past and I did not envy their crews having to work on a cold night and at such a late hour. They reminded me that Kyler also had a boat and might even use it for his transportation, so I divided my watch between the street and the river.

  At five to midnight I saw, but did not hear, Kyler’s two Cadillacs pull up before the warehouse. The motors were very finely tuned; a cat’s pun-would have been loud by comparison. They cut the lights and I counted ten men as they emerged and crowded by the door. The cars blocked a lot of my view and I couldn’t pick Kyler from the group. There was a brief pause as they did something to the padlock, then the door opened and they filed inside. So much for the police sealing the place off.

  The outside light came on, then an inside one. Silhouettes bumped and thinned out as the men trooped through the office into the warehouse proper. I hadn’t noticed any weapons, but all their lethal hardware would be easily concealed by their long, heavy coats. Kyler wasn’t going to take any chances with me if he could help it. Maybe I should have felt flattered by all the preparations, but it was an honor I’d just as soon skip.

  I pulled on a pair of gloves and checked the velvet bag again. The bracelet glinted, not evil in itself, but certainly an inspiration and a focus for the darkness in all of us. I polished it a little and hoped that it would be enough to buy me and Escott some freedom and peace.

  Drifting down through the floor, I sailed past the dog, who was stubbornly on guard at the spot where it had last seen me. It whined once in puzzlement, but stayed put. I floated on a straight course between the stacks of lumber, brushed against the back wall, and was out again. It was just on midnight when I walked around the building and emerged onto the street.

  No one seemed to be hanging around outside, which struck me as odd since Kyler was the cautious type. They were probably hiding somewhere, then. Yet another comforting thought.

  The front of the warehouse was a blank, giving no clue to what was going on inside. Like the bracelet, it could be innocent or sinister. In my present mood I knew which one to pick. I walked slowly to the door and opened it. The mechanism sounded unnaturally loud to my keyed-up senses.

  No one leaped out at me. So far, so good, again. Two hard-looking men I did not know stared back at me. One stood up from his seat on the desk, the other continued to lean a little too casually against a file cabinet. I kept the muffler in place. The fewer people who saw my mug, the better.

  Neither of them moved. It was like a zoo when you walk past the exhibit with the big cats. You know the bars will keep them in place, but there’s always that shiver of uncertainty in the back of your mind that they just might not be up to the job. The only restraints here were the invisible ones of Kyler’s word.

  I went through the inner door into the warehouse. The lights were on, but I was very aware of all the men I couldn’t see. At least eight of them were lurking out there among the stacks of crates. One of them stepped into my line of sight. He said nothing as I moved forward. He waited for me and became my escort, leading me deeper into the building.

  The line of crates ended, leaving free an open space, or it would have been free except for the ropes the police had left behind. Off to one side an abstract chalk design sprawled at the base of a crate. In the middle, near a closed trapdoor that led down to a river landing, was another. The latter was more recognizably the outline of a man’s body, like a flat ghost. Next to the head was a spray of dark stain. In my mind I could still smell the cordite and blood.

  I tore my eyes from the memory and made myself look at the man standing in the center of it all. Vaughn Kyler regarded me with equal amounts of tension and expectation.

  He was in better shape than when I’d last seen him. The cut on his forehead had been neatly patched over, and either the vicuna coat had been cleaned or he was wearing a new one.

  Chaven stood next to him, arms hanging free, his lean form all but vibrating from unspent energy. His forced retreat earlier had left him with a serious grudge against me.

  The next few steps were difficult. The warehouse was partially built out over the river and the force of the free-running water below made an invisible but effective barrier to someone with my special condition. It was worry making. Kyler had warned his men earlier to beware of anything unusual when they’d searched the house. I wondered if he had chosen this spot because he’d sensed this weakness in me and wanted to test II further. I pushed hard against the opposing press of the water and hoped that it wasn’t too obvious. Once past the first yard or so, it wasn’t so bad, except for all my back hairs standing at attention.

  Kyler, Chaven, and the guy next to me—now, where were the other five? Two of them closed ranks about twenty feet behind us. Another stood off to the left, partially hidden by some loading equipment. The (wo remaining were to the right, concealed by crates.

  I kept going until only a few feet separated me from Kyler. From the very first, he’d given me the panicky creeps, and time had not mitigated that reaction. Fie looked ordinary, just another businessman nearing his fifties in well-dressed affluence. I was beginning to realize that it was the absolute stillness of the man’s manner that made me think of poisonous reptiles, that and his cold, unblinking eyes.

  “You bring it?” His voice matched his eyes, cold.

  I nodded. My mouth was dry. He waited for me to make the next move. I slowly pulled the black bag from my pocket and held it high. “Straight deal?” I whispered, hardly able to work up enough spit to talk.

  “Let’s see it first.”

  Right. Any promise he might give at this point was dependent on his taking delivery of the thing, and we were both very aware of it. I opened the bag and turned it over. The bracelet flowed and twined around my fingers, catching the distant lights, turning them into silver and red sparks.

  It was his turn to nod and he held out his hand to take
it. It anything was to happen to me it would be now. I was expecting either gunfire or a guarantee, war or peace, when I turned it over; anything except what did happen. The only warning I got was Chaven’s mouth curling into a nervous twitch of a smile as the bracelet finally slithered into Kyler’s possession.

  A blinding explosion of white light froze everything in place for that instant. It came from the left, from the guy by the loading equipment. It was incongruous, yet horribly familiar to someone with my journalistic background. My eyes seemed to take an age to recover, but I didn’t have to see to know that he was slotting in another film plate for a second photo. He knocked the spent bulb free of the flash. As if in slow motion, it spun to the floor, scattering into a hundred glass slivers as it smashed against the scarred wood. The pop it made on impact acted like a signal for everyone to close in. The man next to me grabbed my arm.

  They’d caught me flat-footed with this one. My instinct to vanish nearly took me out of things as it had before with the guard dog. I had to ice that for the moment, what with Kyler and all his men looking on. The two behind us crowded in and the other two on the right finally emerged from hiding. The medium tall one in the leather coat wore his hat at a dapper angle over his dandy handsome face. His unexpected presence here only added to my shock.

  The deal was off, but then it had never really been on. It was a trap. Not Kyler’s, though … the cops.

  The man walking toward me was Lieutenant Blair.

  “C’mon,” he said to the one holding me. “Let’s have a look at him.”

  Oh, shit

  The muffler was still around my face. He hadn’t recognized me and things were going to stay that way if I could help it. I savagely shook off the guy’s grip and bolted to the left. The photographer was encumbered by the camera, but tried to block me long enough to hold for his pals. I bowled past him and tore to the right. I absolutely had to get out of sight, and my best hope was to circle around to the stacks.