The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  No response.

  “An’ the only reason you’d wanna hide from him is if he’d killed Ruzzo. It’s a double cross. Am I right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Come on, help me out here and help yourself. What happened with Ruzzo?”

  “I went there and found ’em like that. It wasn’t me.”

  “But you emptied their wallets, didn’t you?”

  “What if I did? They weren’t needin’ it.”

  “You were hiding with them?”

  “At first. Then Mitch came over, an’ we got to talkin’. He knew me from when he worked for Morelli. I tol’ him how you was screwing things up, so we went off private for a drink and made some plans.”

  The plans being to send Kroun and me in pieces to kingdom come. “You make your bomb here?”

  “In his hotel room; I was hiding with him for a day. I’d moved outta Ruzzo’s place, but left some things, an’ when I went back…”

  “Must have been a shock.” From which he quickly recovered and was able to coolly pick their pockets for spare cash. Nice guy. “Where’s Mitchell?”

  Silence.

  “Why have you got the girl here?”

  “Why do you think?”

  He was just egging me. There were still bullets left. I make a move and boom. He’d want that. “You got the girl because Mitchell wanted her. Now why in the middle of all this malarkey does he want a date?”

  “You tell me.”

  I couldn’t see Hoyle’s hands, couldn’t see if they were scratched up or not, but the fact that he’d not killed Evie sparked a new line of thought about Caine’s and Jewel’s murders. “Because she knows something she shouldn’t. Because he’s afraid of her.”

  “Mitchell afraid of a twist.” Contempt in his tone.

  “Because he thinks she saw him kill Alan Caine.”

  More silence.

  “But you worked that out already, didn’t you? So why did Mitchell kill Alan Caine?”

  “Damn you…”

  “Come on, Hoyle. Bump me, and Gordy feeds you to the fish. You can definitely count on Mitchell disappearing you—you know too much. But ease off, and you get out alive.”

  “Mitch won’t kill me.”

  “The hell he won’t. He has to give New York a corpse for killing Kroun, and you’re it. But I’ve got people waiting to grab him. If we walk into Gordy’s office and say the same thing, he’s toast. You can say he asked you to make a bomb, only he didn’t say for what. I can get you clear.”

  “Why should you?”

  “Because I’m just really tired of people getting killed. Kroun took me down a notch tonight because of that. Almost the last thing he said was I didn’t have it in me to order people killed, and he was right. I’ll look after myself and my own, but I don’t mark through names on a page.”

  “No guts.”

  “That’s right. But I can get you clear. Evie can back us up, too.”

  “You kiddin’? She’s an idiot. That’s how I got her so easy. She was dumb enough to go back home to pick up an extra pair of socks, then take a ride from a stranger. But what a mouth for saying a whole lot of nothing.”

  I could imagine that’s why he’d gagged her, so he wouldn’t have to listen to her talk. He’d likely questioned her, though, and figured out why Mitchell wanted her. “You wanna get out of this breathing? What d’ya say?”

  He didn’t say anything while I stared at the wall.

  “C’mon, Hoyle.” I must have cut close to the bone, given him too much to think about. Counted a slow ten, then said, “If we don’t do what Mitchell expects, don’t kill each other…then we can both go after him. We win, he loses.”

  A very long silence. Cautiously, I tried turning again. He let me get all the way around.

  He looked bad. Unsteady on his feet, having to brace with one hand on the ceiling, unshaved, and eyelids twitching. He was scared. Of me. I understood now. My threat to kill him, with or without eye whammy, was something he’d taken to heart.

  “Where’s Mitchell?” I gently asked.

  “I donno. If I did, he’d be dead.”

  “We need him alive to take the whole blame.”

  “None of that matters,” he said.

  I recognized the finality of his tone. Scared or not, he’d made up his mind. “I get ya. It’s how it’s supposed to be. You can come clean with me, I won’t be walking out with anything you say. Why did he kill Caine?”

  Hoyle made a slow smile. On his broken, rawboned face it was a very unpleasant sight. “You’ll never guess.” He centered the aim of the gun. “And you’ll never know…”

  Even as I rushed forward and grabbed—

  —another gun went off and Hoyle’s right eye exploded in a puff of red that splattered hot on my face. Bone and brain hit a fraction behind that, and Hoyle dropped heavily on me.

  I reeled under his sudden weight, dizzy from the abrupt change, struck the wall, and felt my legs go. Couldn’t do anything but fall over with his body on me, my wet face against the freezing concrete floor, arms loose, hands spasming. Too much like that other place where Bristow had…

  No…please, God, no not again…

  The stuff within unsympathetically took over, set me to groaning and shivering as though from malaria. I was cold inside and out and empty and lost in the dark forever; it would never let go its grip. I might as well declare a surrender and vanish.

  But I couldn’t. A dim part of me was aware I had a witness who’d already seen too much.

  “Boss? Hey, Boss? Fleming? What is it?” Strome’s voice cut into my fog. There was a concern in his tone that told all I needed to know about what he saw at the freak show.

  The weight lifted as he dragged Hoyle’s body off me.

  “You’re okay,” Strome insisted. “I got him. It’s over! Hey! It’s over!”

  Oh, God…

  I pulled my arms in tight, tried to suppress the shaking. Locked my jaw, refused to let any more sound escape.

  Nothing to do but wait for it to fade. I hated him seeing me like this. God, I felt sick.

  The humiliation finally played itself out.

  Strome knelt on one knee next to me, gun in hand, his stone face showing worry. “Jeez, I dint know you were so bad off. Thought for a second he shot you. You okay, now? You need a doctor or somethin’?”

  “I told you to say put,” I rasped. A change of topic. Anything so long as it wasn’t about me.

  “Seemed like I waited there long enough. Thought I should check on you. Good thing you left that key in the lock on the outside. Heard you guys, saw he had the drop on you. Jeez, you ain’t mad ’cause I killed him, are ya?”

  Shook my head. I felt a lot of things, but mad wasn’t one of them. I was too tired and ashamed of my weakness to feel anything else.

  “I’ll back up whatever you wanna say about this,” Strome added.

  “I don’t wanna say squat. Ever. If we work this right, Mitchell gets the heat for it.”

  “Sounds good. You need help?”

  I was making ready to stand, and let him take some of my weight as I struggled up.

  “You find out where Mitchell is?” he asked.

  “No.” I paced a little to make sure my legs weren’t just fooling, making a point not to look at Hoyle’s long form huddled on the floor. My face was still wet with his blood. I went to the hanging blanket and tried to wipe away the evidence. It’d take an all-day dip in that damned lake to clean this kind of stuff from my soul.

  “Who’s the twist?” He noticed Evie Montana. She lay so still I thought she’d been shot, too, but it was an animal’s defense. Stillness meant you could be overlooked.

  I went to Evie and told her who I was and to relax, she was going home. I said this before removing her gag and blindfold. Her eyes were crazy; I thought she might be in shock. She wasn’t talking any. I found my folding knife and cut off the bonds, massaging her wrists, told her everything was going to be all right.

  Sh
e must have been chilled through, but her flesh felt very warm to me, very soft and warm. I liked the feel of it too much. She looked up into my eyes, blanched, and launched clumsily off the cot toward Strome. She fit right under one of his arms. He looked surprised that anyone would come to him for protection.

  “Take her up to the car, drive her where she wants,” I said.

  “What about you?”

  Ignored him. “Tell Derner everything. Mitchell killed Alan Caine and Jewel Caine, God knows why. He’s running loose, I want him landed. I’ll look through this mess in case there’s a lead to him. Now get out.”

  He got out, taking the strangely silent Evie with him.

  I waited until they were quite gone, until the only sounds were caused by the heater and the wind playing on the tin roof. I waited, and if my heart had been working, it would have been going faster than any drum.

  My brain was frozen, but the rest of me moved just fine.

  My hands shook as I turned Hoyle so he was faceup. I pulled on his coat and shirt, opening them, freeing his neck.

  Hovered over him, wavering, feeling the press of appetite. A part of me that stood outside myself looked down at the dangerous, crazy man crouched on the floor next to a body so freshly dead it was still twitching. Hoyle was gone—there was nothing left in his eyes—but that shot in the brain hadn’t stopped everything yet. I heard that after death the brain could still send out messages, and the flesh, not knowing the futility of it, would try to respond.

  My corner teeth were out.

  And here was my food.

  I dug into his exposed neck with the same force I used on the Stockyards cattle, ripping the skin to open the big vein. When I was with Bobbi I never went so deep. The smaller veins close to the surface were sufficient. If I went in like this, tearing into her carotid, she would die, bleeding to death in seconds.

  Didn’t have to worry about that with Hoyle.

  I fastened my mouth on the flesh and drew on the blood. Even without a heart to pump there was plenty for me. Death was in that first taste, not life. Dark, heavy, fascinating, and final.

  For everyone else.

  The realization flared through me like a storm.

  It was my nature to feed from this kind of destruction. I was immune, so my craving for death was a safe, fundamental thing, inherent to what I’d become. Really. It had been like that with Bristow as he hung upended like a slaughtered animal, his blood flooding me, bringing me back from the edge. I’d thought the shadow taint was from his booze, but now I knew it had been his dying.

  Another long draft, then I made myself lift away, sat up, and let it work in me. The cattle blood was pure and filling sustenance, but human blood satisfied another kind of hunger.

  Or rather appetite.

  They’re different.

  The awful and eager thing within urged me to go back for more, to empty him, take everything he had to try to fill my own void.

  He won’t need it, and didn’t the taste feel so good?

  This was why I so freely drained it from the cattle, trying to capture the too-swift thrill of red life that can only come from humans. Living, dying, or already dead, it didn’t matter.

  Yes, it was good. Much too good. I liked this far too much.

  That was ugly to know.

  But I continued to drink from this broken vessel, not caring, not caring as my soul slipped away.

  THE next time I noticed anything besides blood, I was on the street, walking hunched over, hands in my pockets. My face was very cold at first, especially around my mouth. That was where Hoyle’s blood had smeared.

  I found a drift of snow and scooped some to clean up a little. Left behind a lot of fresh red on the pavement. Kept walking. I wasn’t sure where I was and didn’t have the energy to worry about it. My mind was fogged in. I wanted to sleep, but that wasn’t going to happen. It was almost like being drunk, except with the opposite effect on my senses. I heard and saw everything, only none of it was worth my attention.

  So I walked and walked and hated what was in my head, hated what I had become. Now I was one of those deep-night predators. Always had been. It had just taken me longer to figure it out.

  With a kind of internal “Huh, how about that?” I realized I’d walked all the way to Lady Crymsyn. The look of the street seemed changed, but that was my doing. I was changed, and my perceptions made the world different.

  I had company. Coldfield’s car was in Crymsyn’s lot next to Escott’s. I tried the front door. It was locked, but, no problem, just vanish.

  Listened when I went solid again.

  Radio music upstairs, low conversation from the main room. Light on behind the bar as usual.

  I whispered. “Hi, Myrna, I’m back. How was your evening?”

  Nothing blinked in response. Maybe she was enjoying the radio in my office.

  Wandered into the main room. Escott, Coldfield, and Isham had taken over a large round table closest to the curving passage. Before them was a litter of glasses, full ashtrays, and cartons gutted of their Chinese food. The boys were playing cards and hailed me as I came in. I stood in the shadows of the curved entry.

  “Something wrong?” asked Coldfield.

  I shook my head.

  “Jack!” said Escott. “Derner called to say that Evie Montana is alive and well and that the other problems have been solved, but he refused to go into detail on the phone.”

  I stepped clear of the shadows.

  “My God, is that blood on you?”

  I looked at their alarmed and questioning faces and realized this long night was about to drag on even longer.

  God, I wanted a drink. The old-fashioned, alcoholic kind. It was safer than the other stuff.

  TALKING about it made it real all over again. That’s why I’d sent Strome to deal with Derner. I didn’t like the remembering or the taste of the words. The bloodsmell clung to me; I seemed to notice it more here. I skipped the ugly business with Hoyle. Even I didn’t want to know that part, but was stuck with it. When I finished, the atmosphere had turned irredeemably gloomy, and no one seemed to want to speak first.

  “Everything was quiet here?” I asked after a moment.

  Escott stirred slowly, as though reluctant to move.

  He shot a look at Coldfield, who asked, “What about this Mitchell bird? Your guys covering places like the train station and the buses?”

  I almost winced at his calling them “your guys.” They weren’t mine, just borrowed. “Mitchell probably won’t leave until he’s killed Hoyle. He doesn’t know he’s dead yet.” The leftover smears of Hoyle’s blood seemed to pull at my skin. I wanted to wash them off. “Mitchell’s our proof. If we can bring him in alive and send him back to New York in one piece, that’ll clear up the whole mess and keep Gordy from getting blamed for Kroun.”

  “But Kroun’s death happened while you were on watch. Won’t they be blaming you?”

  “It’ll still come back on Gordy because he put me in charge. My reputation’s not hot with the big boys, but I can live with that.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. No problem.”

  COLDFIELD, Isham, and Escott went off their separate ways. I told them I was tired and wanted to clean up. Escott gave me an odd look, but didn’t say anything. I felt sorry for him.

  Once I’d locked up I went to the basement, turning on all the lights. We had a small workshop there with tools and other equipment. I found what I needed and made what I wanted. It took about an hour to make and get the fit perfect. I’d only need one.

  Then I went upstairs and showered. Emptied the hot-water tank again. No matter. It still didn’t warm me. I was past shivering, though, cold and numb inside and out.

  Up to my office. Bathed, shaved, fresh clothes. They used to improve my frame of mind. Not tonight. Fortunately, there wasn’t much night left.

  I found a box of stationery and used a few pages. In the end none of the pathetic scribbles seemed right, so I tossed the
m in the trash.

  Dawn was a minute away when I stretched on the couch. I would fight off the temporary death to the last second so it would seize me faster, preventing the awful paralysis from taking over a slow inch at a time.

  Only a few seconds to go, my body beginning to stiffen up, I lay flat and shut my eyes. I sensed the sun’s approach and fought it, fought its weight on my bones, its freezing of my joints.

  When I was utterly anchored in place, so solid that it would be impossible to vanish and heal, I knew it was time—and that I could do it.

  Absolutely my last conscious act was to put my revolver’s muzzle to my right temple and pull the trigger.

  16

  I hurtled awake shrieking, then vanished almost in the same instant. The agony abruptly ceased, and, floating in the grayness, my dazed mind slowly grasped the appalling truth that I’d failed.

  Solid again. Lying as before on the office couch. Bloodsmell on my left. A spray of long-dried rust brown blood on the lighter brown leather by my head. Hole in the leather from my carefully crafted wooden bullet. It’d passed right through my skull.

  I still lived. Would continue to live.

  God damn it.

  Then I noticed Escott standing over me.

  I’d never seen such a look on his face. Infinite rage. Infinite pain. It was raw as an open wound and still bled, the pain carving deep lines into his gray flesh.

  “You bastard,” he whispered.

  I made no response.

  His eyes blazed, hot enough to scorch what was left of my soul. Why couldn’t I have just stayed dead?

  “You bastard. You idiotic, selfish bastard.” There was enough venom in his voice to kill an elephant.

  I stopped meeting his gaze. Maybe he would get fed up and leave, then I’d find some other place to be at dawn and try again. Next time, a shotgun. Wood pellets in the cartridges. Ugly. I’d have to blow my whole head off. So be it…

  Anger like a living force rolled from Escott to smash against my body. For a second I thought he had hit me. His fists shook at his sides. He trembled all over. “You bloody coward! Did you even think how it would be for her walking upstairs, opening the door, and finding you?”