Descendant

there was a sickening smell of putrescent flesh and dried herbs, the unmistakable stench of Screechers.

“Jill!” I yelled, pointing my gun at them with both hands. “Get in here, now!”

“What do you think you’re going to do with that?” the young man sneered at me. “Kill us?”

“We’ll suck you empty,” said the gingery-haired girl. “You and your girlfriend. And your bleeding dog.” There was no doubt where the piece of skin in the park had come from: the girl’s face had a pale greenish tinge to it and its eyes were already starting to milk over. It was very close to becoming a strigoi mort.

Jill came in with my Kit. Bullet was close behind her, eager to get at the two Screechers, but Jill said, “Stay, Bullet!” and he reluctantly waited in the hallway, panting, his tail thumping against the umbrella stand.

Keeping my gun pointed at the young man, I went down on one knee and opened up my Kit. The young man started to come around the side of the couch, and as it did so it took his kitchen knife out of its belt.

“I’m going to split you wide open, mate, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

I was reluctant to shoot it. For one thing, I didn’t want the neighbors to call the police. For another thing, I had only six Last Supper bullets left, and I wanted to conserve them. The young man came up to me, crouching slightly, holding out its knife, and grinning. Like most Screechers, it thought that it was immortal, and that even if I shot it, it would survive.

“I think that’s near enough, son,” I warned it. Out of my case, I lifted the Bible with the ash-wood cover and the silver crucifix, and held it up in front of it. Immediately, it turned its face away, as if I had shone a blinding light in its eyes. The gingery-haired girl clamped both her hands over its face and cried out, “What’s that? Micky, what’s that?”

“I’ll tell you what this is. This is the first Bible that was translated into Romanian for Serban Cantacuzino, of Wallachia, when he swore to rid his country of unholy vermin like you.”

“Take it away!” the girl screamed at me. “Take it away, it’s hurting my eyes!”

The young man raised one hand to protect its face, and started to edge its way toward me again. But then I handed the Bible to Jill, and said, “Open it where it’s bookmarked, and hold it up high.”

She took the Bible and found the faded red ribbon. Then she opened it wide and held it up. It was marked at Revelation, Chapter 20: “A prins balaurul — arpele eel veche, care este Diavolul i Satan, l — a legat pentru o mie de ani.”

Both Screechers found it almost impossible to see. When I had first used this Bible on a Screecher, during World War Two, I hadn’t been able to believe that the word of God could have such a blinding effect on them. But they were totally unholy, and it did. It was like throwing salt on slugs.

I shoved my gun back into its holster and took out my silver-wire whip. I made Jill take a step backward, toward the door, and then I lashed it sideways so that it wound itself around the young man’s chest, pinning its arms. I gave the whip a sharp yank, and the young man fell onto the worn-out carpet, struggling and swearing.

“What you done to me, you bastard? What you done?”

You never forget how to restrain a Screecher. After you’ve done it often enough, you could almost do it in your sleep. Kneel on its chest, fasten its thumbs together with the silver thumbscrews, then drag off its rancid shoes and fasten its big toes together, until you hear the screws crunch into the bones. The gingery-headed girl kicked and wrestled me, too, but for a Screecher it was very weak. I must have hurt it badly when I shot it, and Jill helped me by holding the Bible right in front of its turquoise-mottled face so that it was completely dazzled.

When I had tightened up their thumbscrews and toescrews, I pulled the young man so that it was sitting upright, and unwound the whip. Then I dragged the girl off the couch so that it was sitting upright, too, back-to-back, and I wound the whip around both of them, so hard that it was cutting into their arms.

Jill looked at me, and I could see that she was disturbed.

“You’re going to regret this, you bastard,” the young man told me.

“Not half as much as you are, sunshine.” You see how British I was becoming, and I’d only been there a couple of days. “Especially if you don’t tell me what I need to know.”

“I’m not telling you nothing. You can effing eff off.”

“I want to know where Duca is, that’s all.”

“Micky’ll split you wide open and I’ll drink you dry,” the girl spat at me.

“Um, I don’t think so. You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that I can’t kill you. The truth is, I can, and I’m going to.”

Jill was still holding up the Bible. I said, “It’s OK, Jill, you can put that down now. The only way these characters are getting out of here is in a sack.”

She slowly closed the Bible and put it back into my Kit. “You’re not really going to.?”

“Kill them? Of course. They’re half-dead already. But I need some information first.”

“Why should we tell you anything?” said the young man. “If you’re going to kill us anyway, what’s the effing difference?”

“The difference is that if you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’m going to hurt you both very badly.”

Jill said, “Jim — can I talk to you? Outside, if that’s all right.”

“Sure. These two aren’t going anyplace.”

She went out into the front garden. I could see that she was very agitated. Bullet stayed close to her and kept looking up at her anxiously.

“Jim, they told me that you were going to kill the Screechers, when you found them, but I never realized that it was going to be like this.”

I didn’t know what to say. She was a lovely and sensitive young woman and I really didn’t want to distress her, but she had to realize that we were hunting some of the most disgusting parasites on the face of the earth and there was no easy or humane way of exterminating them.

“Listen,” I said, “why don’t you go back to that laundry and call Terence for me again? Tell him where we are and tell him that we’re going to need an unmarked van. He’ll know what you mean.”

“I don’t know how you can do this,” she said.

“If it’s any consolation, neither do I.”

“How long do you need?”

“Give me ten minutes, OK? If they’re going to talk, that should be long enough.”

“And if they don’t?”

The Curse of Duca

The two Screechers looked up at me as I came back into the house and I don’t think that I have ever seen such hatred on any creature’s face, human or not.

“You still don’t want to answer my questions?” I asked them. “All I need to know is where Duca is hiding himself, and how many people he’s infected.”

“You can kill us but we won’t die,” said the young man, contemptuously. “You can even cut our heads off and we won’t die.”

“Oh, yes, I know that. But that can only happen if your body is able to escape from the place where I put it, and your head is still reasonably intact. Since I’m going to bury your bodies in consecrated ground, and I’m going to boil your heads until there’s nothing left of your brains but soup, which I’m going to pour down the drain, there isn’t much chance of that happening.”

“Duca will find you, and Duca will make sure that you suffer.”

“Duca doesn’t have to worry about finding me. I’m going to find it first. I have a score to settle with Duca.”

“Well, we’re not going to help you find him,” said the gingery-haired girl.

“You want to bet?” I asked it. I went to the windows which overlooked the backyard, and pulled down the