Vampire$

Chapter 28

Felix’s disgust started kicking in when he had to shut down the Antwar Saloon.

He had to do it. It would delay his return to the hospital, but he couldn’t have his customers and employees sitting innocently around the place while vampires wandered through looking for the owner.

No. He had to do it. And it only took half an hour.

But then, sitting there at his desk, with his closing note to his employees and their checks all written, it started getting to him. The waste. The whole, useless, worthless messy waste of it got to him. Dammit! It wasn’t like he had much of a life, anyway, and he was going to have to lose even that? Shit.

Jack Crow and the Crusaders. Noble and brave and tough and all the rest of it.

But losers. Losers because they were losing.

No way they were going to make it through tonight. No way they were going to stop the vampires at that hospital. Witnesses? Hell, the vampires wouldn’t care and, anyway, who would believe it? And who would believe it after seeing it? A couple of days later — with everyone treating them like they were nuts — and even the eyewitnesses would think they had imagined it.

The ones that lived, anyway.

Shit.

Crow loses — what is it? Six, seven men? And he goes to Rome and comes back with what? One priest. Father Adam was a good man. Well, better than good. In fact…

But he was still just one guy. Crow shoulda brought back twenty men, all priests, and a bishop of his own.

But he didn’t. He didn’t do a lot of things and because of that they were all gonna die.

He turned in his desk chair and looked out the picture window that overlooked the bar. Only it was dark in the bar now. The only thing he could see in the glass was his own face, in the reflection from his desk lamp.

All going to die.

I’m going to die.

“You’re going to die,” he said out loud. “Tonight.”

Shit. It didn’t even sound dramatic enough.

If it was anybody else but Annabelle… Well, if it was her, of course, Davette, he’d have to do it. And maybe…

But that wasn’t the goddamned point.

The goddamned point was that they were going to lose.

And the vampires were going to win, those slimy, greasy, bloodsucking fuckers were going to keep at it. That really riled him. And that notion that they had been sitting here, in his bar, while his waitresses and bartenders served them because they didn’t know. That was the deal. These miserable bastards would be treated as real live people by those who didn’t know. Like they really weren’t scum. Like they really belonged to the company of mankind, instead of… of what? What did they really deserve?

Sewage.

“I’m going to die,” he said again.

And then he turned back to his desk and wrote what he hoped was a legal document and be hoped he spelled her name right. Then he put it in an envelope, labeled it “Last Will and Testament,” and shoved it in the back of his checkbook. They’d find it.

Lousy Crow with his samurai bullshit. We’re already dead so nothing matters but Style! Crap! Is that his excuse for losing? Because the only thing worse than letting the vampires run free was losing to them first.

Shit!

He stepped away from his desk and looked around his rooms one last time, at some photographs on the wall, some souvenirs, some knickknacks. Not enough to leave behind after thirty-odd years.

Well… then… fuck it.

Fuck it!

At least he’d make damn sure he hurt them first.

And he stopped and looked again into the glass laughed.

Talk about your samurai bullshit.

Felix got lost in the vast complex of Parkland Hospital trying to find a new route from where he’d parked the motorhome. It took him ten minutes to finally come around a corner and see the sign for ICU/EMERGENCY. Below the sign, on a couch against the wall, were Cat and Davette. Adam stood against the wall beside them.

Davette was crying.

“What?” he called out, tripping toward them.

Davette lifted her face from her hands and it was all red and bright and tears streaked her cheeks.

“Oh, Felix!” she cried. “Annabelle died!”

And she leapt up and threw her arms around him and sobbed like a child, her fragile ribs heaving under his rough hands. He held her and patted her dumbly. Past her, Adam still leaned against the wall, his face grave and pale. And on the couch, Cat looked a whole lot worse, staring straight ahead, boring his eyes at nothing.

“I don’t get it,” Felix managed. “The doctor said—”

“She killed herself, Gunman,” rasped Cat in a voice from the grave.

“Sleeping pills,” added Adam in a quiet voice.

“But… why?”

Cat turned his head at last and looked at Felix and his eyes were scary.

“Because she knew we’d stay to protect her. And she… couldn’t… stand…”

And then Cat lost it, broke down completely. He collapsed, folding into his own miserable dry sobs, and Felix didn’t think he could stand it, Cherry Cat bawling, and even Davette, hearing that awful wrenching sound, pulled herself loose from Felix and returned to the couch and embraced him and the two of them shook and rocked together.

Felix sat down hard on the magazine-littered coffee table in front of the couch and fumbled around and found a cigarette and put it in his mouth and managed to light it and…

And he was too stunned, too shocked to do much else. Too blown to think. Numb and stupid and… Annabelle dead? Dead? Killed herself? He couldn’t bear their tears but there was no place to go and Adam didn’t look much better so he just sat there and stared at the hospital tiles under his feet.

I should feel relief, shouldn’t I? I mean, I’m not going to die tonight, after all. I should feel relief.

Why don’t I?

He started to take another puff and realized the cigarette had burned, unsmoked, down to the filter while he sat there numb and stupid and—

Waitaminute!

He caught Adam’s eye and mouthed: Where’s Jack?

But Adam only shook his head grimly.

What the hell…

Felix got up and went over to him and moved him down the wall away from the others.

“Give,” he said tersely.

Adam shrugged, looked miserable.

“Jack’s gone.”

“Where?”

“We don’t know. He… He just walked out when they told us.”

Felix glared at him. “Did he say anything?”

Now the young priest looked about to cry.

“He said, ‘I even managed to get her killed.’ Then be just walked out.”

Felix looked around. “Is he outside, then?”