Vampire$

The men just sat there, not talking, just waiting for the women to spend the money. Jack watched the deputy find himself a comfortable spot on the motorhome’s sofa. Even in civilian clothes, the kid still looked like he was wearing a uniform.

I ought to talk to him about paying him, Jack thought. But he doesn’t seem worried about it. Just slipped right into us. We were lucky.

Felix sat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, looking anxious but unworried.

Even you’re coming along, Gunman, thought Jack next. That is, as far as you’re willing to come.

“Think they’ll remember cigarettes?” Cat asked suddenly.

Kirk waved at the smoky air. “Hope not.”

They remembered. Felix cranked up the motorhome and they steamed through the rainy city to his bar. He was worried about the Antwar. He’d only had one chance to talk to them since he’d been with the Team, and he knew what happened to the staff of a cocktail lounge without someone standing over them. He had some pretty good people, but still…

Damn it was raining! And the thunder and the lightning — it took him thirty minutes to cross town, using his headlights the entire time.

It really does look like nighttime out there, he thought as be finally pulled onto his Street.

Cat was sitting behind him playing with Carl’s detector.

“Hey, Felix! Maybe I’ll quit, too, and write a book.”

“Smart move,” said Felix.

“It’ll be all about a gay vampire.”

Felix frowned, Jack and Annabelle looked at one another and groaned.

“You want to hear the title?”

“Sure. What’s the title?”

“‘The Tooth Fairy,’” replied Cat happily, just as Felix pulled the motorhome up to the Antwar’s front door and…

And the detector in Cat’s hands went wild.

Beep-Beep-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-

…and Felix yanked the wheel away from the curb tromped on the gas and the huge motorhome skidded, righted itself, then vaulted down the street, fishtailing at the first turn.

But Felix didn’t let off. He knew what that meant! He knew! And he made that bloody jump!

“Felix!” Jack yelled to him a few blocks later. “They aren’t coming!”

Felix’s foot hesitated over the throttle.

“You sure?”

“Sure! Slow this thing down.”

Felix reluctantly obeyed, slowing it all the way down, finally pulling over to a stop at the curb and turning off key. Then he just sat there, in the silence and the rain, breathing hard, before he spoke.

“They found me,” he said quietly.

Then: “They know me, too. And they’ve found me.”

It’s worse than that, Gunman, thought Jack Crow. Know you. They’ve found you. And they’re after you.

But he didn’t say this. He didn’t say anything. He like he knew what Felix was feeling. And he couldn’t but have sympathy.

But you’re in it now, Felix, he thought. In to stay.

Jack Crow did not know how Felix felt.

Felix did not know how he felt.

He felt… nothing, really. Empty and numb and…

I knew this would happen, he thought again and and again.

I knew it.

“Carl!” whispered Cat suddenly.

“Huh?” asked the Deputy.

“If they thought enough to have somebody waiting Felix’s bar — on the off chance he’d be there…”

“Then they’re bound to have somebody at the house,” Jack finished for him. And he was already Felix out of the driver’s seat.

“Get dressed,” he told them and started the engine once more. “We’ll drop the ladies off.”

“Carl!” whispered Cat again, almost to himself. He turned and looked at Annabelle’s pale face.

She looks like I feel, he thought.

Carl! He’s all alone out there…

Chapter 24

The detectors said: no vampires.

But they had been there.

Felix, wearing full chain mail, with halogen cross blazing on his chest, and with Browning drawn and cocked, stepped carefully through the shattered door of Carl’s workshop and gazed about at the destruction.

Good Lord! Maybe they are gods!

Equipment was strewn everywhere, upside down, lying on its side, crushed. Workbenches were shattered. Heavy wooden packing crates lay tossed about like so many child’s blocks. Parts of the ceiling hung almost to the floor, with wiring wrapped around it like a spider’s web.

That clear sticky goo the monsters used for blood was everywhere, on the floors, on the walls, dripping from the ceiling and from pieces of splintered crossbow bolts. The puddles ran in a vague pattern, like a funnel. The wide end was by the doorway, where the concentration was the least. But as Felix, with the others moving quietly behind him, moved forward across what was left of the room, the vampire blood grew thicker and thicker, with huge splotches there an there and there, where a crossbow bolt had split an overturn chair. By the time they reached the far end of the room, by the time they reached that barricaded closet, the goo was so thick on the floor it was slippery to walk.

Carl Joplin had made them pay.

They found his body in the closet.

He was huddled, crumpled, beaten, slashed, in one small corner.

Too small, Felix thought, for that great body.

Jack’s face in the halogen glare was unnerving. He was pale and drawn too tight and Cat, poor laughing Cat, looked a lot worse.

Surprised! realized Felix. They look so surprised!

I suppose, he thought next, that they thought Carl would always make it. Because they kept him in the rear. Because…

Because they loved him so much.

Damn.

Quiet in here, he thought next. No one talking. Everyone moving so slowly and carefully. Only the sounds of the storm whistling through, and even that had finally begun to abate.

There was a smear of that black bile the monsters spat when injured by his elbow on a broken countertop. Felix started to find something to wipe it off with, but stopped.

Let them come back. Let them come back and see this.

It was left to Felix and Father Adam and Kirk to take care of the body. Jack and Cat had left to stand outside by themselves in the rain. Adam brought the other two together and explained to them what had to be done to the body. That it must be staked and beheaded and that there really was an ancient Church ritual of interment that covered it all.

Felix was repulsed and sickened and… what? Scared? Certainly wired. His chest thumped and his thoughts