them into the path of Crow’s next shot. Then he was gone up the stairs.
“NO!” screamed LaMastra as he watched the child’s body tumble down the stairs. The vampires stared, as stunned as the detective was, but Crow jacked a round and the sound of it broke the tableau. He fired and the closest vampire was hurled back against the other, his face torn away. Garlic-soaked pellets hit the creatures behind them and they screamed in fear and agony.
Crow spun around and fired past LaMastra down the stairs. “Vince! Snap the hell out of it! Kill the bastards!” He fired again and that broke the detective’s trance. They both opened up as the vampires, caught between Ruger’s orders and the reality that these men had weapons that could kill their kind, hesitated. That was enough for Crow. In the narrow confines of the stairwell the two shotguns cut them to ribbons.
Then it was over except for the echoes of thunder that rolled up and down the concrete tower. Crow sagged back and sat down hard on the blood-slick steps, not caring that he sat between the outstretched legs of a dead monster. LaMastra stood over him, chest heaving as he stared at the carnage. He shifted the shotgun to his left hand, grabbed Crow by the front of the shirt, jerked him to his feet, and slammed him against the wall with such force that Crow felt the world explode in a blinding fireworks display.
“Vince…!”
“I should have let that son of a bitch kill you!”
“Vince!”
“You shot that kid!”
Crow had just about enough of it. As LaMastra hauled him forward and began to slam him back again, Crow crunched the stock of the shotgun hard against the side of LaMastra’s ribs and at the same time pivoted his whole body sharply around. The speed of the pivot and the force of the blow spun LaMastra into the wall; then it was the sergeant who crashed into the wall, and Crow brought the barrel of his shotgun up under LaMastra’s chin hard enough to lift the detective onto his toes.
“The kid was already dead, you stupid shit!”
LaMastra blinked. “W—what?”
“He was a vampire! He was part of Ruger’s trap. Christ, do you think I’d actually kill a kid, for Christ’s sake?” He stepped back, resisting the urge to butt-stroke LaMastra with the shotgun stock, but he knew that would only be transference for what he was feeling.
“How…how—?”
Crow pointed with the shotgun at the twisted, broken corpse. “Don’t you pay attention? The kid had teeth like a rattlesnake.”
LaMastra turned and looked down. The kid was in a broken sprawl, his mouth open. The fangs hadn’t yet completely retracted into the gums.
“I…didn’t. I was looking down the stairs, man—”
“Save it. We have bigger fish to fry.” Crow said. “Just reload and let’s go find Val.”
Chapter 43
(1)
They crept up the outside of the building like roaches, scuttling up along the brickwork in the dark, silent, patient, fired by hunger and purpose. Five of them went up—the lightest of the pack, the ones with the strongest fingernails, the ones who could dig into the cement between the bricks. Four more waited below, smiling up through the firelit darkness.
When the climbers paused at one window, one of the watchers below cupped his hands around his mouth and softly called, “Next one up.”
The five climbers looked up to the big window fifteen feet above them. There was a boom and a flash. A gunshot. Another, and another.
The climbers grinned and as one they reached up for the next brick, and the next.
(2)
LaMastra led the way up the stairs, whipping the shotgun barrel around every corner, whispering “Clear!” at each bend. The tower was littered with debris as if it belonged in a town where there had been strife and warfare for months rather than hours. Torn clothing, nameless junk, broken glass, and blood. In smears and splashes it was everywhere. The copper stink of it was making them sick; the higher they climbed the fresher and stronger the smell.
They were both sweating heavily and breathing like marathon runners. The gunshots still seemed to echo in their eardrums, and their shoulders were swollen and bruised from the recoiling guns, but need and fear and rage kept them going.
The fourth floor door was ajar, blocked from closing by an empty shoe. LaMastra shifted over and crouched, aiming through the opening. He nodded to Crow, who carefully opened the door. They could see the nursing station forty feet down the hall. There were bodies on the floor, but nothing moved in their line of sight. Crow stepped out first with LaMastra covering him, and moved over to the station. A nurse was sprawled on the counter, her throat torn out. Farther back in the large cubicle was a man in surgical scrubs. He had a bullet hole in his forehead.
Crow leaned closer and whispered, “That’s the nurse who helped stitch up Saul, and this guy here’s Gaither Carby. Local farmer. His son Tyler’s a friend of Mike’s.”
“Val?” whispered LaMastra.
“Don’t know.”
There were still sounds around the corner, down near Weinstock’s room. A whimpering cry, a pleading voice, and laughter.
They looked at each other, nodded, and just as they started to make their play a voice bellowed out: “Freeze! Police!”
They spun around and Officer Eddie Oswald, his uniform torn, his limbs streaked with blood, stood wide- legged in the fire tower doorway holding his pistol in a two-hand grip.
(3)
Jim O’Rear rushed into the Scream Queen tent just in time to see Debbie Rochon run by, screaming. When he saw what was chasing her he almost screamed himself.
There were two of them after her, both of them big, both of them with bloody mouths. The inside of the tent was a madhouse. People fought together on the ground, their thrashing legs kicking over the folding chairs. One of Crow’s pals, Dave Kramer, was using an overturned table to block the attackers long enough for some of the patrons to crawl out from under the skirts of the tent. In the middle of all this, some of the tourists stood looking at colors in the air no one else could see; one was sitting cross-legged on the stage pushing candy corn into his drooling mouth as his eyes jumped and rolled; a few had completely freaked out and were yipping like dogs and batting away at invisible attackers. At least a dozen of the customers were slumped in death, their throats torn to red tatters, their eyes seeing nothing at all.
None of it made sense. It was insane.
