Vampire$

Or maybe not, bethought calmly and lit a cigarette. What does it matter?

“We’re all going to die anyway,” he muttered and then caught himself. Did he say that? Hell, did he say that out loud?

And he turned and looked at the others, at Cat clambering back atop the elevator, at the priest with his crossbow and the deputy with his puny pike and at the gunman with his dark thoughts and dark skills and he thought…

He thought: Why are we doing this? Why? This is crazy!

And that scared him most of all because he had never, in all the fears and kills and slaughtered friends, had such thoughts. And he wondered if he was going soft and then another part of his head stepped forward and quietly whispered that anyone can be pushed too far and there is such a thing as too much and for just an instant the desire to quit was so strong he thought he would weep.

But he did not.

Neither did he work it out. Not at all. He just stood there for a few seconds to be sure the tears had stopped welling and then mechanically shoved himself ahead, going through the motions instead of dealing with it and feeling like a cheat whenever he met another’s eyes because he knew they would never try again unless they thought he believed and… Did he?

“Rock and roll!” he muttered angrily one more time, because none of this shit really mattered, because it still had to be tried, because…

Because… well, because “Rock & Roll,” dammit!

And he looked around and made sure everyone was in place and set to go and then he just damn well got on with it.

The screens monitoring the cells were clear of streaks or ghostly movement, which only meant they weren’t moving around down there, so Jack reached forward and flipped a switch to send the elevator down a second time and give ’em something to move for..

There was some creaking and groaning from the battered elevator car but it started down. Without doors on it, all could see it move, see its ceiling pass the floor, see the cables and wires sprouting from the top, see it stop with a truly horrible sound of grinding twisting metal.

And stay stopped, within six inches of the floor.

Jack muttered something under his breath and tried the switch again. The car acted like it wanted to move, sort of shivering in place, but it basically wouldn’t budge. Jack sighed and flipped the switch off.

“You want me to call Carl?” asked Father Adam.

Jack stood up from the screens. “I don’t know. Hold a second.”

“I think,” offered Cat from his perch atop the elevator shaft, “that it’s just stuck on something.”

“Okay,” replied Crow. “Everybody else hold tight.”

He walked around the TV screens, still carrying his crossbow, and went over to have a look. With his free hand he picked up one of the spotlights and took it with him, the cord hissing dryly behind him as he walked.

Cat hopped down to the - floor as Crow got there and pointed down at a corner of the shaft.

“Looks like it’s jamming up in there somehow.”

Crow nodded, put his crossbow down, and lit a cigarette.

“It’s never worked really great,” offered the deputy from just behind him.

Crow turned to the voice and saw that everyone, even Felix, had crowded up behind him to see.

Are we undisciplined? wondered Crow to himself. Or just afraid to be alone?

But he said nothing, just puffed on his cigarette.

It was almost like, he thought idly, Somebody was trying them not to do this.

Well, fuck that!

“Here,” he said to Cat, holding out the spotlight, “hold this.”

Cat took the light, frowning. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna get this sonuvabitch unstuck,” growled Crow and stepped up to the edge.

What Crow was planning to do was just step on the roof there, on that corner Cat had pointed to, and just sorta hop up and down until he felt something give and then go back to Carl’s little remote control box and try again.

And he’d begun doing that. Stepping out onto the top of the car, bracing himself first on the edge of the doorway and then on the walls of the shaft itself. And the whole assembly groaned and creaked when he stepped on it and he could feel it giving just a little right away and he thought about jumping back out before it fell or something but then it seemed to be more or less stable so he stayed put. But he looked quickly around for something to grab in case the whole damn thing went and as he did his eyes crossed across the hole they’d cut in the roof for Cat to drop his gas balloons and he saw, there on the floor of the elevator car, a brand new hole, a hole that had been torn in the floor, a hole that hadn’t been there five minutes ago, had it?

And then something obscured his view and he saw and recognized the face, that face…

“Oh, my God…”

And the face smiled and said, “Crow” in that voice.

Crow was throwing himself backward out of the shaft to safety when the top of the car blew out and the air was filled with shrapnel and everybody else hit the deck and Jack, still on the floor, grabbed his crossbow out of Cat’s hands and yelled, “Get back! It’s him!”

But it was too late. He had already begun to rise from the hole he had just made and it was really the effortless way he did this that froze them so. The way he simply raised himself with the grip of a single beautiful hand, almost levitating toward them, his power and eyes and smile and terrible beauty so alien but so familiar, so pale but so solid, so horrible but so magnetic.

He wore black leather boots that laced to just below the knee and black ballet tights and a black silk sash and a huge white billowy shirt and he was magnificent and beautiful and scary and ungodly strong and the instant, almost spasmodic, desire to harm him was strong and deep and true but so, somehow, was something just as strong and deep — the itch to do something that would make him smile.

But he was smiling already as he strode casually toward them.

Jack took a step back and raised his crossbow.

He/It smiled more broadly and the white teeth against that pale skin surrounded by the fall of curly jet-black hair and… The headband, Jack thought. He’s wearing a white headband. That means something.

Doesn’t it?

And he raised the crossbow higher.

“Crow,” it said and its voice filled them. “You and your wooden stakes. When you are one of us, we’ll have a big laugh together about them.”

This was looking grim.

“Everybody back,” ordered Crow. “Back away and out.”

But before anyone could move, the voice came once more: “Too late. You’ve let me get too close.”

And he/it took another casual step toward them.

“Get back!” ordered Crow again over his shoulder. “Move it!”

And they started to obey but the vampire took another step and Jack raised the crossbow all the way then, to firing position, and said, “Hold it there.”

And the thing laughed and said, “Are you joking? Why? I’m not one of my women…”

“Stop!” said Jack Crow.

And the thing smiled more and showed the big teeth and said, “Stop me.”

And Jack Crow said, into his radio headset, “Hit it, Joplin!” and fired his massive crossbow at point-blank range.

The vampire caught it. In midair.

And then it took the baseball-bat-sized arrow bolt in both hands and, with a flick of his wrists, like a breadstick, broke it.

And the cable went taught and the piece still connected was zipped out of sight through the door and the vampire laughed again.

“You fools!” it said. “Did you really think you could slay gods and face no