The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  Then her sweet face went out of view as she leaned close. He felt a profound leap of pleasure in his privy parts as her mouth fastened on his throat. The people behind him held him fast, but he wasn’t about to move, not even when her long corner teeth began to grind away at his flesh. He groaned with delight as she broke his skin and started to suck.

  “ ’Ow is ’e, Gwen?” someone inquired a few moments later.

  “Tolerable,” she replied, lifting away. The whites of her eyes were gone, flushed blood-red now. “Likes his ale too well for me. Someone else want a turn?”

  “Ale, eh? No, thank you, my girl. Used to love the stuff, but now. . .”

  “I’ll have a try,” said Cameron, coming forward.

  Gweneth stepped aside for him. To his shame and horror, Bainbridge again offered no struggle as that handsome young man now suckled at the wound she’d made. It was shameful to him because the bliss that seized him was just the same, just as intense, so much so that he soon altogether forgot himself and gave over to the joyance again, moaning.

  One by one the others gathered around him had their turn until Bainbridge could no longer stand by himself, and with much kind consideration from his hosts, he was gently carried to the council table and stretched upon it. The room tilted—no, he was tilted. Two of them had lifted the end of the table by his feet. A feeble rush of blood went to his head.

  “That’s better,” said Percy, after he’d finished taking his own drink. He did not appear to be quite so morose as before. Blinking hard, Bainbridge could just see them looking down at him like toothy, red-eyed angels at the Last Judgment and finally began to understand the true nature of his mistake.

  “If this goes on much longer it’s going to get noticed,” Percy remarked to Cameron. “We’re going to get noticed.”

  “Then perhaps we should do something about this Witch-Finder General person. He’s the one behind this mischief.”

  “I agree with you, and I know we could. The question is should we?” Percy shook his head. “The last thing we want is to draw any sort of attention to ourselves.”

  “It might be worth the risk. If he’s made to retire from the field, then perhaps this nonsense will stop, and things will settle down again.”

  “I wouldn’t care to wager on that. You know how people are once they start killing.” There was an object in Percy’s hands now. It was a sturdy length of wood, charred and fashioned into a sharp point at one end. He idly turned it over and over, his mind obviously on other things. When he noticed Bainbridge staring at it, he whisked it from sight with an apologetic smile. “Best if we let things happen as they should in the rest of the world and just pay mind to our own matters.”

  “You’re usually right about that, but,” Cameron gestured at Bainbridge, who was finding it hard to keep his eyes open, “this greedy clot’s our third one this year. I think we should make an exception about the Witch-Finder General, He stirs people up and in the wrong way.”

  “Agreed, but we’ll have to be very careful about it if we do anything. Danger of discovery and all that, you know.”

  “I know.” Cameron licked a stray blood drop from his very red lips. “But mind you, danger of discovery aside, they are such a tasty lot!”

  * * *

  Matthew Hopkins of England, the Witch-Finder General, as he liked to call himself, was directly responsible for the torture and deaths of hundreds of men and women in the years 1644-1646. He had many imitators who brought suffering and death to thousands more. There is a story he was finally discovered to be a witch himself when forced to submit to his own swimming test and floated before finally drowning. However, one of his associates recorded that he died untroubled of conscience in his bed in the summer of 1647 “after a long sickness of Consumption.” (Sic) Most scholars of folklore understand that the disease of consumption (tuberculosis) was often seen in past eras as evidence of a vampire preying upon the sufferer.

  * * * * * * *

  __________

  YOU’LL CATCH YOUR DEATH

  Author’s Note: This is the first Vampire Files short, sold to VAMPIRE DETECTIVES from DAW Books, edited by Martin H. Greenberg. Like many of the works in this new collection I’ve done a rewrite and polish on the original. No writer ever stops tinkering! It takes place a short time after book 5, FIRE IN THE BLOOD, and vampire PI Jack Fleming is in a dark, introspective mood. Nothing like a bit of homicide and assault to snap him out of it!

  Chicago, February 1937

  I met a terrified girl named Susan at three in the morning on a barren stretch of beach during an ice storm. The isolated location, late hour, and arctic agony blasting off Lake Michigan gave me the reasonable expectation of having the place to myself.

  I’d was there to figure out how to live; she was there to die.

  * * *

  Black water roared against the shore, spray flying and merging with the sleet, stinging my face. Frozen sand cracked under my shoes as I walked. It was made to order for my bleak mood. I’d planned to do this last night, but delayed when the forecast of a storm came over the radio. The worse the weather, the better so far as I was concerned. A good dose of physical misery would shake me up, maybe help me shed the emotional pain.

  Things had been rough for the last few nights. Not far from this spot I had killed, again, had come close to being killed, again, and in that damned lake, again. Each day’s dose of dreamless oblivion helped distance me from the bad memories, but only an inch at a time. The creeping pace felt like failure.

  I’d been the same after the War. Getting shot at, losing friends in an instant when a bullet found them, seeing the influenza murdering more men than the bullets, and countless other horrors taught me all there was to know about cruelty, suffering, stupidity, and senseless death.

  Since arriving in Chicago last August I’d wised up to the disturbing fact there’s always more where that came from.

  In a remarkably brief time I’d been murdered, returned from a watery grave, and delivered payback with interest to my killers. In the months to follow I’d been subjected to and committed even worse crimes. I’d learned that when someone pushed me I could and would push back ten times harder. Literally. A few never got up again.

  Like the man who’d had gone into that freezing black lake, never to return. I’d done that.

  It didn’t bother me as much as I thought it should.

  Apparently a chunk of ice had formed in my soul sometime when I’d not been looking. It had nothing to do with my being a vampire. If I thought that to be true then it was time to give up and find some way of bumping myself off. This inner chill was wholly human—and scary.

  I could not ignore it: I was glad to still be walking around and just might be able to live with the fact that yet another man was dead at my hands. I’d done the world a service with that death. He could stay at the bottom forever with the rest of the slime and good riddance.

  I wanted to not know such things about myself, but too late, I was stuck with it.

  Now what?

  When I’d come back from the War it had been simple: find enough work to support getting a few years of college into my head, get a real job, meet a nice girl. That had worked at the time. I was with other young men in the same situation. We told our stories, mourned our dead, and got drunk. The camaraderie kept most of the nightmares at bay.

  I didn’t have that now. Yes, I had friends ready to help, but they didn’t know what I was going through, not really. It’s a hell of a change to wake up dead: no need to breathe except to talk, no heart thumping stolidly away, trapped in a dead body while the sun made its round.

  And overshadowing it all was the exquisite physical joy of drinking blood. Not even those closest to me could fully understand that one. Hell, even I found it hard to accept, and I’d had months to get used to it.

  As far as I knew, I was the only vampire in Chicago. We’re a rare breed. I kept an eye out for others who might also haunt the Stockyards to feed, but without luck.
They were either better at keeping their heads down or didn’t exist.

  You’re on your own, Mr. Jack Fleming of Chicago.

  Strangely, I found that to be more annoying than intimidating. If I could get knocked flat and come back pissed as hell and swinging, then there was hope. That part was also wholly human, a part I could respect.

  Maybe you shouldn’t think too hard about this crap.

  True. It didn’t make me feel better.

  It’s not like I’d wanted to kill anyone. If—God forbid—I ever got to that point. . .no. Human or vampire, that just wasn’t going to happen to me.

  Of course I knew better. You just can’t anticipate what bad choices lie in the future, but for the present, this would keep me from putting a wooden bullet in my head.

  Turning into the slicing wind, I was now able to savor the solitude and the noisy black water. That restless lake was my vast and ignorant ally, enemy, murderer, and midwife, and a great keeper of secrets. It was comfortable with mine.

  I’d come to confront demons, hoping a stormy walk where they’d been born would shake them loose, and it had worked. Perhaps some shred of crippling guilt might sneak up on me later, but not tonight.

  Drinking a lungful of damp air sharp enough to cut iron, I held it until the edge was gone. Releasing, the wind whisked it from my lips into the endless sky to grow clean and cold once more. I could do the same, spreading my arms, fading from the world until the wind swept my invisible and formless self away.

  In this gale I’d soar up the low bluff to the road like a lost balloon and blunder into my car parked on the shoulder. That would send me solid fast enough. Nuts to that. And nuts to standing out here courting frostbite. The harsh weather and lonely location had worked. I’d needed something bigger and stronger than myself to put my life and hard times in perspective. I was going to be all right…or close to it.

  Time to head home.

  I glanced up and down the wide stretch of beach a last time as though crossing a street. It didn’t seem so bleak now. The high restless clouds reflected back pale glow from the city, not that I needed much to see well at night. My changed condition had its compensations, otherwise I’d have missed the figure struggling along the shoreline from the north.

  Fisherman? Not at three in the morning in this weather. Fresh air fiend out for a walk? What a crackpot.

  Yeah. I know. I should talk.

  The distant figure hobbled closer: a woman, on the small side, looking done in as she stumbled over the uneven sand. She wore a simple dark dress and shoes and nothing more. No coat, hat, or gloves. She was hunched forward, arms folded tight to hoard what warmth remained in her slight body.

  A dame alone on a beach in this murderous cold—of course something was wrong. Whatever problems I thought I had, hers were worse. I moved toward her.

  “Hey, lady, can I help?”

  She didn’t hear. Distance, roaring wind, and water masked my voice.

  Stepping up my pace, I yelled again. She stopped, swaying a little, and looked behind her. The wild wind grabbed her brown hair as she turned, creating a vertical part along the back of her unprotected head.

  “Over here,” I shouted, waving, moving closer.

  She snapped around, clawing hair from her eyes, and stiffened when she caught sight of me. I glimpsed a young face burned white by the cold. Terror and torment flashed in those wide eyes, then she whirled to her right, away from the lake, toward the road, and tried to run. She didn’t get far; the sand slowed her too much. I caught up easily, but kept a couple yards between us so as not to scare her more than necessary.

  Blocking her path, I called again, my hands palm out and angled down the way you do to calm a spooked animal. She stopped as abruptly as she’d started, gaping at me. She looked crazy, but fear can do that to you.

  “Who…?” was all she gasped. She didn’t have enough breath to finish the question.

  “My name’s Jack. Can I help?” I spread my empty hands, trying to look harmless. It seemed to work; she took a half step toward me with an expression like a lost soul who’d just gotten a reprieve from hell. Then a small, hopeless shriek twisted her mouth and made it ugly.

  What the—

  In utter silence she and the rest of the beach flared into a blaze of hot silver light. The earth bucked once as though to get rid of me and damn near succeeded; I sprawled on its lurching surface.

  My hearing swooped back. There was a grunt that might have come from me as I hit the ground, I wasn’t sure.

  The silver light focused down to an excruciating spot on the back of my skull, pinning me to the sand.

  She screamed again, full-throated, anguished. Behind and above me, a man snarled at her to shut up.

  “Move, you dumb bitch!” There was raw venom in his tone.

  Footfalls, clumsy in the sand. Fading.

  He turned me over, cursing under his breath the way other people nervously whistle. He was big and young with a tough jaw in a lean, jaded face. He wore an red plaid hunting jacket and hat that weren’t enough to protect him from this kind of cold, but were more than the girl had on.

  I’d been struck by wood, recognizing its vivid agony all too well. If he’d hit me with something metal or a rock, I wouldn’t be lying paralyzed at his feet, but he’d used wood—probably the stock of the rifle he carried. While I’d been concentrating on the girl, he’d slipped up behind and—

  Mugs unused to dishing out violence hit too hard or not hard enough. This large lad slammed down with enough force to kill an ordinary man and yet seemed surprised by the results. My fixed and staring gaze alarmed him.

  He didn’t know I was different, still awake and aware.

  With his teeth, he tore off a glove to feel for a pulse in my neck and swore again when he couldn’t find one. I wanted to swear, too. Pain is always worse when you can’t give it verbal expression. My head hurt like New Year’s morning in hell. Jesus, what had I done to deserve this?

  I’d recover. Eventually. Being a night-stalking blood-drinking vampire had some advantages, and healing fast was one of them. Before dawn came this idiot was in for the shock of his life.

  Only he wasn’t hanging around. The bastard took off, not after the girl, but up toward the road. I moaned inwardly with disgust and tried to move.

  Silver light lanced through my brain. Molten pain on the back of my head swelled, threatening to open my skull.

  Too soon. Much too soon.

  The wind plucked sand from my cheeks; some grains lodged in my eyes. I couldn’t even blink. Shit…that burned. Tears clouded my vision, trickling past my temples into my hair; I imagined threads of ice clinging to my skin.

  There was nothing I could do until the shock wore off. I’d have to wait it out, unpleasant but—

  The man returned. First I heard the air rasping in his throat, then his awkward, irregular footfalls as he came down the rise from the road. He must still have the rifle; its weight would throw off his balance. I picked up the sound of another person with him.

  “Here,” he said. “He’s right here.” His voice was high and taut with near-panic. They reached the bottom, stopping a few paces outside my field of view. The bright beam of a flashlight played erratically over me.

  “Give me that thing,” ordered the newcomer. A woman. She had a more mature voice than the girl I’d encountered. The light jumped as it transferred to a more steady hand.

  “I think he’s dead,” the man told her unhappily.

  “Shut up, Lloyd. Cover him,” she said.

  The woman drew near, cautiously, as though my apparently final stillness might somehow be catching. After a moment she knelt within my limited range, though I couldn’t focus well because of the sand and tears. She had the same general look as the man, big and tough. Family resemblance, I thought, the hard jaw softer, but just as distinct. She wore a heavy cloth coat with a fur collar, with a thick scarf tied firmly under her chin. Her expression was as cold as the wind booming off the lake. />
  She stretched out a hand as though to caress my face. Her fingertips brushed at the tear tracks from my smarting eyes. I wanted to flinch away, but could not. She aimed the flashlight’s beam into them again, blinding me.

  “Ellie?” His voice was thin. “Is he…?”

  She sought the big vein in my throat, pressing hard. My heart beat its last months ago, churning wildly in a final berserk denial of fate before a bullet ripped through it and stopped everything, changed everything.

  Ellie withdrew after a few seconds, then worked on the buttons of my overcoat.

  “What’re you doing?” Lloyd demanded.

  A question I might reasonably ask if I’d not guessed. She opened the coat wide and pawed at the clothes beneath. Her head ducked from my dazzled view and lay heavily on my chest, ear flat to my cold skin. She listened for what seemed an excessively long time before straightening.

  “You killed him,” she concluded. She sounded matter-of-fact, and I wondered at her choice of words. She could have used a more neutral, “He’s dead,” but had chosen to keep the blame squarely on Lloyd.

  He was anything but contrite, to judge by his language. “What’ll we do?”

  “We don’t do anything.”

  “But he’s dead.”

  “You wanta call a cop?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, so think about it. That’s probably his car up there off the road. When someone finds him, they’ll figure he stopped to pee, slipped on something, and cracked his head. There’s nothing to tie him to what we’re doing.”