99 Coffins: A Historical Vampire Tale

coffin filled with the life of half a dozen men. Twenty ounces wasn’t about to restore her rotten larynx.

Caxton had watched a vampire named Reyes call a half-dead once. He had literally called the corpse back from death. “Will it work if she can’t talk?”

Arkeley just shrugged.

Malvern tried again, this time managing a gargling rasp that sounded like she was choking. She turned to look at the three living humans behind her. Caxton grabbed for the charm in her pocket, expecting some kind of trick.

Arkeley’s Glock came out of its holster and the muzzle pressed against Malvern’s sunken chest in one fluid movement. Right over her heart. The old vampire hunter must have been waiting for just such a move.

Malvern’s head turned from side to side, just a little. As if she were afraid it might fall off if she shook it too hard. Then she reached out a hand toward the laptop and typed a quick message:

if i had but a little more…

“No fucking way,” Caxton said, and Arkeley nodded.

Malvern’s eye rolled in her head. She nodded, however, and typed some more. She looked back at Geistdoerfer, very pale and very dead on top of the display case. She stabbed at the keys, making a noisy rattle as she typed:

come to me. come back to me. hear me.

The words were similar to what Caxton had heard when Reyes brought back his half-dead servant. She repeated them over and over, filling up the screen with her commands. Geistdoerfer’s body didn’t so much as twitch.

Malvern’s bony fingers stabbed at the keyboard. The laptop jumped with every pounding keystroke.

She seemed desperate. Maybe she knew that if this failed they would never trust her again. That she would never get a chance at more blood.

come back. come back. come back and serve.

Harold gasped in surprise. Caxton turned to stare at the night watchman, who pointed at the corpse.

“There! His hands, look!”

Caxton looked. Geistdoerfer’s fingers were moving, it was true. His fingers were curling into tight claws that dragged across the top of the wooden case. His nails dug into the varnish and scratched across the surface, tearing at the wood.

Then his mouth opened wide and he screamed, a high-pitched, terrible scream that turned Caxton’s blood to ice water.

52.

“Take this as my calling card, ya Southron bastard,” Storrow spoke. He was lifting his target rifle to his eye & without further ado he fired, the recoil from the heavy weapon staggering him backward.

Now, that rifle was custom built for distant work, & could make twelve-inch patterns at some eight hundred yards. By necessity its balls were launched at some high velocity & with much power. This one took the top of Chess’ head & his tarboosh as well & spread them over half Virginia. The vampire’s body tottered for a while, sundered just above the bridge of the nose & thus unable to see, & his arms reached for us, but how could any creature that draws breath live long without the organ of sense?

It was over. We had won, & now were free to go. I thought of my Bill, & began to weep again, but there was naught for it. & even I felt some soaring of spirit when Chess’ white body finally fell over & lay still, skidding some way on the shingled roof.

Our peril was ended. We were all but home.

—THE STATEMENT OFALVAGRIEST

53.

Geistdoerfer struggled against his bonds, trying to drag his hands up to his face. He moaned like a starving kitten, cried out sometimes like a man in pain. He writhed on top of the display case until he could press his nose and cheek against the smooth wood. With his shoulder he shoved himself along the surface until his head was hanging over the side. For a moment he lifted his neck to stare at them, to see the strange collection of people who were mute witnesses to his revival. Then he brought his head down fast and hard, smashing the sharp corner of the display case with his nose.

Caxton winced to hear cartilage snap and part under his pale skin. She watched in mute horror as he brought his head back for another bash that tore open part of his cheek. No blood oozed from the wound, but the skin parted like torn silk, revealing gray muscle tissue underneath. A third time he reared up, but Harold was already rushing across the room, grabbing at the rope that bound the dead professor, pulling him back, away from the edge.

“He’s gone crazy,” the night watchman gasped. “He’s trying to kill himself, again!”

“No,” Arkeley told him. “There’s not enough human left in him for that.”

Caxton turned away in disgust. She knew exactly what Arkeley meant. Half-deads were not human beings. They weren’t the people they had been before they died. The curse animated their bodies and it could read their memories, but their souls were already gone, their personalities completely cut away.

Half-deads existed only to serve their vampire masters. Beyond that they knew little but pain and self- loathing. The curse hated the body it possessed, hated it so much it took every opportunity to deface the physical form. Literally deface it, in fact—the first thing half-deads did on their rebirth was to tear and claw at their faces until the skin hung down in bloodless strips.

“Hold him tight. He won’t be very strong,” Arkeley said.

Harold grimaced. Caxton saw something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Had they pushed him past his limit? “This is it, Jameson,” he said. “After this I don’t owe you nothing. You and her get out of here and I pretend like I never knew you. Got it?”

“Yes, yes, fine, but please,” Arkeley said, “hold him.”

Harold twisted the rope in his hands. Geistdoerfer loosed a pained howl. He shook and strained and tried to tear free, but the rope just cut into his deliquescing flesh. After a while he started to settle down, and then he turned his damaged face to look right at Caxton.

A chill ran down her back as his dead eyes studied her. “I was dead. I was happier dead,” he said.

“What have you done to me?” His voice had risen in pitch and become a perverted mockery of the professor’s easy tenor.

Arkeley moved closer to the undead thing and crouched down to get on his eye level. “We have some questions for you. If you answer them nicely, we’ll put you out of your misery. Do you understand?”

The half-dead spat in Arkeley’s face. It was the kind of thing Geistdoerfer would never have done in life—the man had been cultured and refined. “I don’t serve you,” he whined.

Arkeley stood up and wiped the spit off his face with a handkerchief. He looked back at Malvern in her coffin and cleared his throat pointedly.

The vampire’s hand glided across the laptop’s keyboard.

i have raised him and it has drained me

i have not the strength to compel him

Maybe, Caxton thought. Or maybe she’d gotten what she wanted out of the exchange and she no longer cared what happened next.

The half-dead stared at the thing in the coffin and laughed, a fractured, ugly sound that bounced around the corners of the room. “You’re working with her ?”

“Why is that so strange?” Arkeley asked. “She’s the enemy of your killer. I’d think you’d want to help her.”

“Then you don’t know how it all works.” The half-dead let out another laugh, this time almost giggling.

“Oh,” Arkeley said, “I think I understand a little. I didn’t really expect you to be reasonable, but I thought we’d give you the chance. It didn’t work. So I guess we’ll have to go the more traditional route.”

Without warning he grabbed a handful of the half-dead’s hair and yanked upward, dragging his head up,