Vampire$

maggots swarming in the chests.

“How could they rise up after that?” gasped Felix, staring at the maggots.

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know. But they do. Every time. Unless we do this right.” He put down his crossbow and reached back for the ax strapped across his shoulders.. “Or unless I do, rather. You don’t have to do anything. But pay attention to what I do. Okay?”

Felix nodded, moving over against a bare wall.

Jack steeled himself. Get hard, dammit! he screamed inwardly. But it didn’t work. It didn’t help. Not even the hatred of the vampires made it any easier. It never did.

But he did it. He chopped the heads off and put them in one pile and then he dragged the torsos into another heap’ and then he poured gasoline on both piles and set them alight.:

They burned like dry, dead leaves.

Jack and Felix hunkered down in one corner underneath the cloud of smoke to breathe.

“Sometimes the fires go out,” offered Jack by way of explanation.

After that they didn’t talk for several minutes. They just sat there and watched the flames that burned so brightly and so angrily, flames that never would have appeared over normal corpses.

Only here, thought Jack, and he sneaked a look at his companion. He couldn’t see much in the uncertain light, but… there! There was the glimmer of tears! And only after he had seen Felix’s could Jack bear to lift a hand and wipe away his own.

How can this sicken me so much, he thought as he always thought, and still break my heart at the same time?

And then he stood up to retrieve a blazing skull that had rolled away from the flames. He eased it gently back into the fire with the head of his ax.

Eventually the flames did their work and Jack was able to get up and spread the ashes and then the two of them walked back up the stairwell that seemed not frightening at all now, only sad and lonely and forever and ever empty.

Outside in the sunshine, Madame Mayor had already begun the celebration. She had a table set upon the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. On it was a white tablecloth and a large silver ice bucket holding a magnum of champagne. All the city father types stood around her as she began some little speech about the gallantry and bravery of Team Crow.

Jack’s inclination was to insert that bottle of champagne, cork and all, into a certain place in her body. But he was smart enough to control his anger. Even smart enough to signal to his troops to play along. And so they all stood there on that sidewalk while somebody began to pour and they all drank and they all smiled and they all pretended not to notice that too-strident cheery tone the mayor was pumping out.

That’s a terrified woman, Jack thought behind his grin. What if we win? Or, hell, what if we lose? Either way she’s had it.

But he just kept smiling until he had a chance to interrupt graciously and inform the audience of Team Crow’s desire to rest and get cleaned up and change clothes and all that before the dinner in their honor.

Fine they all said. That’s just fine! Good idea! ’Cause ya’ll are gonna need your rest for the shebang we’re hitting ya with tonight! And we got just the place for ya!

And with that they escorted Team Crow the two blocks through the early afternoon sun to the William Willis Inn, the finest hotel in town. Through the lobby door and past the desk to an ancient elevator that required three trips to accommodate all the hangers-on to the top floor and the presidential suite, where food and drink and a cashier’s check were waiting.

It took another fifteen minutes before Cat could usher out the last of the instantly drunk partyers, and then only by promising they’d be down soon.

Then he locked the door behind them.

Then he went to the window and joined the rest of the Team.

And then they went out the window and down the fire escape and into Deputy Thompson’s patrol car waiting in the alley. They hunkered down in the back seat until they were outside the city limits. Twenty minutes later they made their, rendezvous with Annabelle and Davette at a trailer court thirty miles away.

Then they sat down and ate the food the women had ready while Jack Crow curled their hair with his plan to enter the police station, subdue whatever cops were on duty there, go downstairs into the basement where the cells were, and, without a trace of sunlight to aid them, slay however many master vampires were down there waiting for the night to come.

“It’s three thirty,” he announced. “Five more hours of, daylight. We gotta do it right. And we gotta do it now. Questions?”

There were one or two.

But Jack didn’t seem to care. He leaned back in the room’s faded and moth-eaten easy chair and smoked cigarettes and let them rant for some time.

Then he grinned, leaned forward, and said, “Relax. I’ve got a Plan.”

Cat eyed him sourly, disgusted. “Think you can give us a hint, O Great Leader?”

Jack laughed. “Sure. Remember the flare Felix bounced on that woman?”

Cat was still suspicious. “Yes…” he replied cautiously. “It didn’t hurt her a bit.”

“Didn’t harm her maybe. But it did hurt her.”

“So,” replied Jack easily, turning to the deputy, you know where we can get some thermite?”

Chapter 16

Somehow, in all the comings and goings through the three rooms the team had rented in the trailer court, Davette ended up alone in the same room with Felix.

And she didn’t think she was up to it.

It was only the third time she’d seen the man. The first she remembered quite well. He had called her a “siren,” while boring shivering holes in her with his angry eyes. The second time was again at his saloon office. By the time she had arrived accompanying Annabelle and Adam, Felix was sitting behind his desk examining Jack’s check for $50,000 and studiously ignoring her. And that had been as bad, somehow, as being stared at.

But this time was the worst of all. Because this time she knew what he’d just done. She had sat there beside Annabelle while Cat patiently related the events of the day. There was no time to do a hypnotic total recall — the Team was on again in two more hours — but Cat was a natural storyteller, wise in his use of detail. Besides listening raptly, Davette noticed, Annabelle kept a small tape recorder going as he spoke.

And that had gotten to her, reminding her of just how incredibly dangerous their line of work was. They had to make records now because it was entirely possible that every single man on the Team could be dead by sunset and someone had to be able to pass on what they had learned so far.

But what had really gotten to her was the story itself. The Felix part of the story. The lightning-fast, deadly accurate, cold-calm-killer part of the story.

“He saved our lives, Annie,” Cat had said with quiet sincerity, carefully looking her in the eye. “We’d all be dead without him, sure as hell.”

And Annabelle had smiled that knowing smile she had and asked him gently, “Then you’re happy with him, Cherry?”

He had smiled back and softly replied, “Got to be.”

Davette hadn’t been at all sure what that had meant. But she was sure of one thing: Felix was not happy.

He hadn’t actually said so. He hadn’t actually said much of anything, now that she thought about it. But she could read it. And so could everyone else. He moved slowly about the edges of their chaotic planning. He did answer when asked a specific question or even when asked for an opinion on some aspect of Jack’s Plan. And his answers were concise and to the point. But he wasn’t really with them.