The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  We reached the lobby floor, and Desanctis rounded on me. “What are you saying, Fleming? You think I wanted that bastard to run off? My head’s on the block for this.”

  He might lose his job and get sent somewhere disagreeable as punishment, but Gordy was a fair man—in his own way. He wouldn’t order Desanctis put down without a compelling reason. Good help’s hard to find, and the man was good at his job.

  “Why did she come to you, anyway?” he wanted to know.

  “Emma needed someone to get her in to see the boss.”

  “Maybe you’re helping the two of them lam it out of here.”

  “Yeah, that makes perfect sense what with that grenade nearly killing us.”

  “Neither one of you’s got a scratch. Maybe you set it off on purpose.”

  “Gino, why would I blow up my own office? How could that possibly help either of them escape?”

  He had no answer. While he was good at collections, it was a job that did not require much brain.

  The light behind the lobby bar was still on. I’d had the idea that electricity for the whole building was gone. We took the curved hall into the main room and found the lights on there as well.

  “Who else is here?” Desanctis wanted to know.

  “Just us.”

  “Someone put those on. We didn’t.”

  “The building’s got electrical problems, always has. Ask anyone.”

  The floor tables were stripped of their cloths, with chairs stacked on them upside down. They gave the huge room a forlorn appearance. The fixed tiers of booths arranged in a rising horseshoe shape with the open end toward the stage looked more normal. All they needed were people, but there was no show tonight. The stage was dark, its empty boards thick with sullen shadows. I was aware of every mood of this place, and it didn’t like being closed.

  Our footsteps created hard echoes from the black and white tiles, turned hollow as we crossed the wood dance floor, then resumed hard again. A service door on the other side of the stage took us to a wide hall. It gave access to the basement, backstage dressing rooms, and wide double doors to the alley.

  “Why didn’t you guys come in the front?” I asked.

  “Didn’t want to get noticed,” said Riordan. “We saw the great boom, left a lad on watch for cops, and Gino kindly got the back open.”

  “There’s a guy? I didn’t see him.”

  “He’s in the doorway of the haberdasher’s shop across from ye.”

  I stopped short of pushing forward to the outside. “No, he isn’t.”

  “The streetlight doesn’t reach. Deep shadow.”

  “Riordan, I’d have seen him. I took a look out the office window after the boom. He wasn’t there.”

  Desanctis shoved past. “So what, he moved. Come on.”

  The lights flickered off-on, just the once. Myrna’s communication was limited, but that was her way of sending up the alarm. I stayed put, and Riordan and the others hung back with me, looking uneasy. Desanctis held the back door and watched us watch him for a long moment. He glanced either way in the alley.

  “No one’s here,” he stated.

  I transferred Emma’s hand to Riordan’s arm. “How ’bout I check and make sure?”

  “We’ll both check.” Desanctis took the direction leading to the street, I went toward the parking lot. Two vehicles were there: my still-new Studebaker coupé and next to it what was probably his car, a blue Hudson.

  Both had flat tires: driver’s-side front on mine, passenger front on the Hudson.

  Crap.

  Feeling vulnerable, I ducked between the cars, probably in the same spot where the vandal had crouched with something sharp. He had efficiently cut off our means of escape, barring a footrace out of here. The mental picture of our little group sprinting along in full rout, getting picked off one by one by a pursuer shooting from cover, I could blame on a too-vivid imagination. That was not going to happen, but once the thought crossed my paranoid mind, I couldn’t shake it.

  I didn’t care to attempt changing a flat until long after this party left the neighborhood—which would be soon. We were only temporarily stuck. A phone call to Gordy would bring in transport and as many armed mugs as he deemed appropriate. He wouldn’t mind.

  First, I needed a quick look at the street.

  Back to the wall, I eased along, checking everything in my angle of view, my hand twitching, missing a reassuring weight that should have been there. I kept a gun in my office, hadn’t thought to bring it along, and I should have. Yeah, I know, I’m a big bad vampire, but Chicago’s a rough town. Even the undead need an edge. That damned grenade must have knocked all sense out of my noggin. There were no windows on this side of the club. I could ooze my way through the bricks to get in and raid the top desk drawer, but it would be easier to borrow a gun from Riordan. He always carried more than one.

  The shop doorway was indeed empty. A narrow alley divided the opposite block; the ash cans crowding it would make good cover. Half a dozen other doors and nooks offered shelter and were within shooting range. Until now, I’d never thought about the exterior of my club in terms of attack and defense.

  I put my head around the corner, letting myself fade from full solidity. My sight dimmed, but in this state a bullet would pass harmlessly through my skull. No one fired, but I did spot what looked like a drunk taking a nap in the club’s entry. He was right under the red awning that ran from the door to the curb. I wouldn’t have been able to see him from the office window.

  Still slightly incorporeal, I drifted toward him; my legs were moving, but I was really floating silently over the sidewalk. Reaching the shadow under the canopy, I went solid to check for a pulse. The man was limp as wet laundry, but alive. Someone had coshed him good.

  He wasn’t Foxtrot Joe.

  He was positioned so that when the front door opened, he’d fall back and in, blocking the way and providing a distraction.

  Someone must have thought we’d come out this way. I whipped around, alert to threats, but nothing happened.

  Having completed his half-circuit of the building, Desanctis barreled up, face red with fury, his gun out. I put my finger to my lips and hastily signed for him to get down, but he wasn’t interested. He kept moving, heading toward the parking lot and rounding the corner. His ripe and heartfelt swearing carried, signaling that he’d found the flat tires.

  I had my keys and opened the front door and, with a grim sense of déjà vu, dragged in the casualty. The other time, the guy being dragged had caught a bullet in his leg, so I wasn’t experiencing the same kind of life-and-death panic. I was pissed off.

  “Heads up, Myrna, we got more trouble.” I pulled my burden out of the way so he wouldn’t be stepped on accidentally.

  I’d had an extra phone installed behind the bar, a fancy one. Punch a button you get my office, punch another and you can make an outside call. It was past time to let Gordy know what was going on. If Foxtrot was hanging around, we might have a chance of grabbing him.

  But the phone was dead, its line ripped from the wall.

  That wasn’t Myrna’s style; Foxtrot must have found a way inside. But why? If he had the money, then why risk himself? I checked the lobby’s alcove phone booth and found it had also been sabotaged. The receiver lay on the floor, trailing a short tail of cut wire.

  Drawing a breath to curse, I caught the scent of human blood hanging in the still air. A second breath, mouth open . . . I could almost taste it. Fresh, mixed with sweat, the distinct sour tang of fear, and, above all, immediacy—he’d been here scant moments ago.

  No hiding places in the lobby; I would have noticed anyone taking cover under the naked tables and stacked chairs and had already been behind the bar.

  Going still, I listened, sifting out the breathing of the unconscious man, the distant sounds of city traffic, Riordan holding forth on the other side of the building, the creak as wind played on the awning outside, the clock above the bar ticking, my watch a tiny counterpo
int to it . . .

  For the barest second, I caught the rasp of air against vocal cords. It took more effort to pin down a direction for that faintest of whispers . . . but I got him.

  He was in one of the restrooms. The closer of the two, the ladies’ lounge. It was just past the bar, and if you cracked the door, you could see a good section of the front. He’d taken out the front man, left him as a decoy. While we were busy with him, Foxtrot could sneak up behind. The ambush was meant to be inside, not out. So why hadn’t he tried for me? Was he waiting for the others?

  Desanctis barged in, pausing right in the line of fire to snarl something at me, but I launched at him. We hit the hard marble tile in front of the bar with bone-bruising force a hair ahead of the flat crack of a gunshot. The bullet snapped into a wall on the other side of the room but missed us, and that’s all that mattered.

  I was okay, but it knocked out his air. The single-minded idiot tried to bring his gun around. I slammed it fiercely down and clapped a hand over his mouth, hoping he’d take the hint. He couldn’t move, was struggling to breathe. I took my hand away and signed for him to be quiet.

  He wheezed and nodded, finally figuring out more important things were going on and that he’d better pay attention.

  “Foxtrot’s here, hiding in one of the johns,” I murmured.

  A flash of wide-eyed disbelief, then Desanctis looked ready to pop a blood vessel. Teeth showing, he started up, but I grabbed him back.

  “He’s in too good a spot, he’ll scrag us both. There’s a service door for the janitor. I’ll get in that way, come up behind him. You stay put. Make him think we’re both out here.”

  He grunted cooperatively. I hurried toward the curving hall to the main room, while he hunkered down at the end of the bar to cover the lounge door. As soon as he turned from me I vanished, changed course, and floated right past him, a necessity since there was no such service entry. Desanctis might have felt a deadly chill as I went by. Unable to see in this form, I had to bump and bumble along by memory and the awareness of solid shapes between me and my goal. This was a stool, that bulk to the right was the bar, skim along a vertical plain of wall on the left, and for the love of Mike don’t miss the door.

  I found it and slipped quickly under the threshold crack and in. My hearing was limited; I couldn’t locate Foxtrot by sound, so I cast about with what should be my arms, a blind, invisible monster trying to find its prey before anyone else got hurt.

  He was on the floor just inside, right where I’d have been. This close and I could hear his quick, labored breathing. I set myself and went solid, and he was too surprised to react when his gun was suddenly yanked away.

  His back propped against the wall, he held the door open a few inches with one outstretched leg. He shifted and the door shut automatically, cutting off most of the light. There was some glow seeping through the red-tinted windows, enough for me, but he’d be blinkered. Just as well; I didn’t want him noticing how the mirrors here kept missing me.

  I tried a reasonable tone. “All right, Foxtrot, game’s over—”

  He flopped on one side, throwing his right arm wide to grab. I backed away and smelled fresh blood again, a lot of it, mixed with the sharp, sweet odor of cordite from his one shot. The red color of the window glass made it difficult to see, but his middle was soaked. He held his left arm tight there, panting with pain. His voice was slurred and rushed. “Who izzit?”

  “Jack Fleming.”

  He grunted disgust and stopped trying to find me. “Na’ dead.”

  “In so many words, not quite.” I was being strangely polite to him, considering the dirtiness of the grenade trick. His wounding puzzled me, and tardy alarm bells only I could hear went off inside my thick skull. I cursed while pocketing the gun and grabbed him under the arms to drag him out of the way, exactly as I’d done for the fellow in the lobby.

  He did not resist. “ ’f tha’ bas’ard’s hurt her . . .”

  “She’s fine, Joe.” I eased him down flat, got towels from a cupboard under the sinks, and pressed a wad of them to whatever damage he’d taken. “Hold it there, can you do that?”

  He made no reply, responding by dropping a bloody arm over the makeshift dressing. “Emma . . .”

  “Keep quiet.”

  I opened the door and called out to Desanctis, “It’s clear, Gino, I got him.”

  Desanctis was already in the hall, striding forward, gun raised, which I did not expect, which was damned stupid, but I faded just as he fired. It was such a near thing that I felt the sharp passage of the slug tugging with miserable familiarity through my chest, and it was enough to startle me into vanishing completely.

  Dimly, I heard the door thump shut.

  Damnation.

  I went solid, listening. Desanctis was just on the other side, certainly doing the same thing, reluctant to try the door until he was sure he’d gotten me. It was dark for him; the disruptive flash from his gun would have prevented him from seeing me wink out. I shoved hard on the door to knock him silly, but he skipped back and fired three times right through at chest height, and that did the trick.

  I dropped like a bag of sand, nerve and muscle in shock from the bullets’ passage. The lead shattered bone, seared flesh, and I’d have screamed had there been breath. Instead, I made an ugly choking sound down in my throat and thrashed like a fish. I should have vanished, but something short-circuited things. Blood flowed out front and back, weakening me. I had to vanish to heal or—

  Damned wood.

  The door was made of pine panels, soft, splintery pine.

  My fingers raked over the holes in my chest, clawing for the slivers that had to be there. I pulled one clear but remained solid, still bleeding.

  How many more?

  They were like little daggers. I had to get them all, but if they were too small or if fragments had tattooed themselves under my hide . . .

  Desanctis hauled open the door. I frantically rolled out of the way of his next shot.

  It was nearly pitch dark for him. I could use that—

  He flicked on the light, revealing the whole appalling mess of what seemed like gallons of blood smearing the black and white tiles, Foxtrot Joe helpless on his back over there, me fumbling desperately to get one slick hand on the gun in my pants pocket, knowing I’d be too late.

  Desanctis showed teeth in the bright, ferocious grin of a man who’s won everything—

  Then one of the heavy chrome bar stools slammed into his shoulders and head like a cannonball.

  It knocked him sideways with swift and hard and decisive force. The grin was still on his mug as he hit the inside wall and slithered down, stunned.

  The stool clattered metallically on the hall floor, and the door closed again.

  I scrambled over to get his gun, but he was in no shape to notice.

  My panic-driven strength fled, leaving behind a terrible and mounting exhaustion. I pulled more damned splinters from my skin. Daggers, hell, they were like hot needles, or maybe it was the damned bullet holes that tore another breathless scream from me.

  But the instant I dragged a finger-long shard clear, that comforting gray nothingness swept me into a soft, painless haven.

  It takes only a moment to heal, and then I’m all right.

  Physically.

  The rest of it, the recovery that may or may not come when you have to face the ghastly fact that another two-legged predator has tried to remove you from life, takes longer. Much longer. You wonder what’s worse, someone murdering you in the heat of rage or coldly blotting you out simply because it makes things easier for his own nonstop and futile strivings to continue.

  And I was no better; I had murdered as well. My reasons seemed good enough at the time, but it is a certainty none of them would have convinced my victims.

  Maybe it’s the ones who don’t have a reason that sickens you the most. They carry a darkness that no one can understand. You ask why and get a shrug, and it is the truth. They don’t kn
ow themselves.

  Desanctis, though, knew exactly what he was doing.

  Bastards like him leave behind damage that can’t be stitched up by a doctor or even a supernatural edge. Parts of my soul were still in tatters from my murder two years ago.

  But I can forget that when I’m like this, a ghost but not a ghost.

  It is so good to be free of a solid body, free of gravity, free of outraged nerve endings, responsibilities, homicidal lunatics, dames in distress, and all the other insane annoyances associated with the farce of living. One of these nights I would vanish and never come back.

  But not tonight. I had to get help for Foxtrot. The men who came with Desanctis might be in on things with him. Emma had to be taken somewhere safe. . . .

  Solid again and on my feet, I started for the door, but it was yanked open, and by great good fortune for us both, I did not blow a hole in Shamus Riordan’s head.

  He gaped and pulled back, startled by something other than the gun I’d taken, probably the look on my face. It could not have been reassuring.

  Thankfully he was at the wrong angle to see the mirrors, though he did finally become aware of Desanctis and Foxtrot.

  “What a riot you’ve had, Jacky-lad. Where’d they get you?”

  “It’s not my blood.” I could hear the fast pounding of his heart. I shouldn’t be noticing things like that, but hunger sharpened my already excellent senses. Lingering adrenaline would keep me going for a little while, but I’d have to replace what the bullets had taken, and soon. Tunnel vision would come next, then— “What’d you say?”

  “Are they dead?” Riordan asked, his voice louder.

  “Not yet.”

  “Where’s that girl?”

  “Emma’s gone?” I asked stupidly.

  “She’s with me mates. I meant the other girl.”

  My brain began working. I was in a mood to accept the uncanny. “You didn’t throw that bar stool, did you?”

  “Now why would I bother when I’ve a perfectly good shooter?”

  True. He held a pipsqueak .22 semiauto, the kind that requires good aim and doesn’t make a lot of noise.

  “You saw a girl?”