Vampire$

into immobility, stood like a lump in the middle of the parking lot staring at the old battered Cadillac convertible alongside his patrol car pickup.

“Jack, please!” Cat moaned, shoving him along and Crow looked down at him and saw the tears in his eyes and realized that it was fear for his own safety that so terrified his friend.

So he hurried, because he couldn’t stand to see Cherry Cat crying.

Crow opened the side door to the pickup Cat shoved him at and climbed in beside the sheriff that somehow Cat had collected from the driver’s side. And then Cat was inside too behind the wheel and Omigod! The keys! Where are the… but they were there, the sheriff had just left ’em there in the ignition, why not? Who would steal it?

And Crow found himself laughing at this as they screeched out of the parking lot onto the highway. Because it was better, it was fun, to have something to laugh at besides crying at the continuing thumps of horror from inside the motel or allow himself to actually focus on the slaughtered occupants of the convertible, the whores who had been too late, but not late enough and — “CROWWW!” sounded out in the darkness, piercing through the roar of the engine and the distance and twisting each man in the cab of the truck into a little ball. “CROWWW!” shouted the vampire, as Cat gunned the engine even harder and the truck vaulted forward to sixty, seventy, eighty miles an hour down the two-lane state highway.

“CROWWW!” blasted them as the vampire caught them and leapt onto the back of the truck bed and slammed his hands through the rear window and Crow found that he had the sheriff’s huge cannon pistol in his hand and he jabbed it in the monster’s face and — why not? — pulled the trigger.

The fiend, all shiny blood-red teeth of his ghastly smile and soul-ripping gleam of intelligence, disappeared backward rolling from the concussion of the cannon-pistol, cracking through the tailgate and slamming it open like it wasn’t there and then skidding all asprawl on the sandpaper asphalt.

“Oh! Yes, yes! Ha! Hey!” the sheriff whined delightedly at the sight, the thought that the monster could be killed. But even knowing better, the other two in the cab still crumpled a little more as the sheriff’s cry of gasping pleasure changed to a shrill baby-boy whimper at the sight of the monster back on his feet almost immediately, almost before he had stopped kicking, and coming back at them again.

It got close enough for them to see the hole from the cannon pistol already closing up, trapping the trickling black blood left from the priest’s stabbing cross and — “Jesus Christ!” screamed Crow as they topped over a hill at over a hundred miles an hour up behind a farm truck doing maybe twenty in the center of the highway.

Cat wrenched the truck to the left and missed the farmer but got onto the shoulder and got sideways and careened back across the center line starting to spin around and around and topping up over another hill so they could see the city square in the distance and Crow thought, Well, at least we almost made it into town. And he mourned the unattainable sight of redemption of that little town square with the morning sun just starting to peek out over…

The sun! The fucking sun! was his last thought before the truck began to tumble, rolling over and over on its sides and then end over end and then sliding forever and ever down the main Street of the little Indiana town.

He awoke first and got himself up. And then he got the other two up. And then he got the three of them through the gathering crowd down the three blocks toward the hospital before the ambulance met them halfway. He got them inside and got their blood types, and when they were all set and going to make it, he lay down and collapsed, his last thought:

I thought sure it was the leader.

First Interlude

The Man sat calmly, in regal white, waiting for his aide to compose himself. When at last he seemed in control, the Man smiled and nodded.

“Holiness,” began the aide, his voice rich with frustration and almost childlike pique, “this man Crow is a catastrophe.”

“Tell us,” said the Man.

“Holiness, the man arrived drunk. He was loud. He was obnoxious and profane. He insulted everyone in sight. He referred to the priests as eunuchs. He called the sisters penguins. He attempted to engage one of the guards in a fistfight on the steps outside the private entrance.”

“Was there a fight?”

“No, Holiness. I intervened.” The aide sighed. “Forgive me, Holiness, but I almost wish I had not. It would have done that buffoon good to have been thrashed by the Swiss…”

“Our orders were very clear, we hope?”

“Yes, Holiness. And it was for this reason that I intervened. I received scant appreciation for my concern. Mr. Crow called me… me…”

“Called you what?”

“Nutless.”

The Man sighed. “It is very difficult for you, my old friend. We are sorry.”

“Oh, please, Holiness. I am not complaining. I only…” The aide stopped and smiled with some embarrassment. “I suppose I am complaining at that. Forgive me, Holiness.”

“There is nothing to forgive.”

“Thank you, Holiness.”

“We hear the man is injured.”

“Yes, Holiness. His entire right shoulder is wrapped in bandages. But he will not let any of our doctors examine him.” The aide paused, looked at the window at the far end of the ancient room. “He claims he is fine, Holiness. But he lies. I believe him to be in great pain when he moves.”

“He is indeed, my friend,” said the Man softly. “Even when he does not.” The Man smiled sadly. “Great pain.”

The aide was silent for several moments. Then: “Holiness, I know this Mr. Crow is of great importance to… But it would help greatly if — Holiness, can we not know who he is?”

“You cannot.”

“But Holiness, if we could just…”

“You cannot.”

The aide sighed once more. “Yes, Holiness.” He took a slow deep breath, seemed to rid himself of the concern, said, “All is in readiness. The dining room is prepared. American food, as your Holiness ordered, will be served.”

“Thank you. You have been very thorough.”

“Thank you, Holiness. The man Crow is already in the dining room, has been for” — he checked his watch — “almost fifteen minutes. He is already intoxicated, Holiness. Perhaps there would be a better time.”

“There will be no better time,” replied the Man in a voice of such infinite sadness and despair that the aide found he could not speak for a bit.

He made ready to go, kissing the ring. But at the door the aide paused. The Man could see how clearly the other felt driven to utter this last.

“Holiness, be very careful with Mr. Crow. He has much anger in his soul. And… I believe he hates you.”

The Man waited until he was alone before rising. Then he padded softly across the room to the side entrance. He paused before opening the door to his private dining room.

“So he does,” the Man muttered softly to himself. “And why should he not?”

Then he opened the door and went in.

Tapestries. A broad arched ceiling. A carpet over three hundred years old. A long, thin table with a single heavy wooden chair at each end. In the far one sat Jack Crow, one leg over an arm, a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

The Man nodded to the bows of the four servants — two on each wall and recessed like the paneling —