Vampire$

Hattoy eyed him. “You’d be—”

“That’s right, sheriff.”

'You’re still following him.”

Cat grinned. “Don’t let his rank fool you. We all drew straws and he got Kimosabe.”

“That make you Tonto?”

Cat shook his head. “Court jester.”

Hattoy looked him up and down. “That figures. Tell me, did you really give up a corporate law practice in Oklahoma City to paint spaceships?”

“It was Edmond, Oklahoma, and I was a science-fiction book-cover illustrator.”

“Okay. What’s the difference?”

Cat shrugged. “A hobbit or two.”

“Uh-huh,” muttered Hattoy and turned to the others. “Enough small talk. Let’s get to it.”

“What’s up?” asked Kirk nervously.

“Relax, deputy. For once you picked right. Mr. Crow checks out with his former associates. Nobody liked him much. And nobody but nobody wants to hire him again — but they do trust him. And he’s got a lot of very important people behind the scenes believing in his vampires.”

“Unofficially, of course,” added Jack.

“Unofficial is being generous, I’d say. But it is a backup, of a sort.”

The sheriff paused, took his hands out of his pockets, and stretched mightily and yawned and they saw the pistol on his back right hip the size of a Buick.

“Okay,” Hattoy went on, “So. There are vampires and you’re their hunter on this continent is the story I get. If that’s so, what’s your problem?”

“The problem is your mayor and your police chief,” said Crow, “and who knows how many others, are doing what the vampires tell them to do.”

“Oh, yeah? Why?”

“They have them under a sort of spell, sheriff,” said Father Adam.

Hattoy eyed the priest unhappily. “A ‘spell’…”

Kirk spoke up. “I don’t know what else you’d call it, Richard. We took two jailers outta here that were about bled to death and crying ’cause it was over.”

“Okay… But is that any reason to blow up my goddamned jail and maybe the whole block with it?”

Crow shook his head. “Not possible, sheriff. The charges are too small. You might lose a next-door window or two.”

Hattoy’s tone was one of withering disgust. “‘A window or two’?” he repeated. “What about fire? Shouldn’t you have fire trucks all over the area?”

Jack Crow was starting to get hot. He didn’t like the change in Hattoy’s tone and he didn’t like his antagonistic manner. Just when he thought he had finally found somebody, dammit, with brains enough to see!

“Yes, sheriff. You’re right about fire trucks. But it wasn’t my idea to seal them out of this area.”

“No. You’re just the one who’s gonna risk a whole city block and maybe a whole downtown by going ahead anyway.”

Jack met his eyes. “Yes.”

“You take a lot on yourself, Crow. You think maybe that’s why you got yourself kicked out of every fucking federal agency in the Congressional Registry?”

And that did it for Jack.

“Two things, sheriff,” he all but barked. “One: you find me a president with enough balls to publicly recognize this nightmare and I’ll be his janitor for life. Two: you could lose a couple of blocks. Or downtown. Or this entire one-horse town as far as I’m concerned and I’m not just real sure anybody this side of the interstate would notice, much less care! I’m not killing people, for crissakes! I’m killing old dead buildings. I’m trying to save the people in this dump. Or maybe you think the ones that died so far are AIDS victims?

“Look. We can kill two master vampires today. But only today. We know where they are. And they can’t move for…” He looked up at the inexorable sun sinking lower and lower. Crow pointed at the horizon. “That’s all the time we’ve got. It’s a chance that won’t come again.

“And it’s a chance I’m fucking well gonna take if you send the marines in here! Risk? Risk? Lemme tell you something, Hattoy:

“Fuck your buildings and fuck your town and fuck your mayor and if you aren’t going to help us — knowing we’re right — just because you’re afraid of a little risk… Well, then, fuck… you… too!”

Dead silence for three long beats.

Then the sheriff said, without taking his eyes off Crow, “I can see why you like him, Kirk. Let’s go.”

Kirk, dumfounded, managed, “Where to?”

“Well, I gotta save this here Jack Crow hero type and then get him outta town… before I have to kick his butt in half for talking to me that way. C’mon.”

And then as they were walking away the sheriff looked at Felix, looked down at his hand, and Felix followed his gaze and only then realized he was carrying the squashed Browning.

“Having a little pistol trouble, boy?” whispered the sheriff and then he was gone.

Felix lifted his hand in front of his face and looked at what was left of the gun. In the sunlight the marks of the monster’s fingers were clear. No machine could have vised like that.

Now when, he wondered, did I find time to pick this up? And when, he wondered next, glancing down at his second pistol back in its holster, did I put this one back?

Hell, he didn’t even remember drawing the second gun.

When, he asked then, is this luck going to run dry?

In the meantime, Carl was arguing with Crow over the sheriff.

“…testing you, Jack. Picture this from his point of view for a second. It’s one thing to call up some old favors and have you checked out. But this is his town. He had to read this face-to-face. And if you hadn’t shown the balls to stand up to him for what you knew you had to do… Well, he probably wondered why you didn’t detonate up front. Probably wondered why you tried to go inside in the first place.”

“So do I,” offered Cat quietly and Carl didn’t like the look that passed briefly between Cat and Crow.

“He was trying to piss you off,” Carl went on quickly. “I’m surprised you didn’t see that one coming.”

Jack lit a cigarette, looked tired. “You’re right.”

Carl’s voice grew gentle. “Rough in there, huh?”

“If you hadn’t opened that door,” replied Jack Crow softly, “or if you had waited just five more minutes to open it, we’d all be dead.”

“Felix,” said Cat. “Show him the gun.”

Felix tossed the lump to Carl and sat down on the curb.

Carl caught it and drew in a sharp breath. “It did this?”

Felix lit a cigarette and nodded without looking up.

Carl shook his head. “Wow,” he muttered softly. “Strong.”

Jack’s voice sounded odd: “Yeah. Strong. Unreal strong. Strong like we never imagined.”

“Something,” muttered Cat, “for you to look forward to.”

“Huh?” asked Carl.

Cat lit a smoke of his own. “Haven’t you heard? Jack’s going to be a vampire.”

“Not funny, Cherry,” growled Jack.

“Not meant to be, buddy,” was the response.

“What is all this?” Carl wanted to know.

“It’s a fact,” drawled Cat. “We just heard from his recruiter.”

“You talked to her?”

“Well, for one thing we mostly just listened and for another thing, it wasn’t her. It was