By the time they were ready to go again, there were only ninety minutes left until sundown.
Not so good, thought Jack Crow. But he kept it to himself along with everything else and hurried them along.
The trouble was, they had had so much to do:
A portable generator for power to their spotlights.
Two extra spotlights to protect those that were smashed.
A new cable.
They had removed what was left of both elevator doors.
They had fixed the front door.
And of course they repaired the walking wounded. Cat's nose was broken. Jack had sutures on his cheek. Felix had a bandage on the edge of his forehead. And Carl Joplin had damn near lost all his teeth.
He hadn't lost a one yet. But he should have. Seems the first time he tried dragging the girl out, she had just torn the Blazer's rear bumper completely off. The second time he had used a police car, actually wrapping the cable around the engine block and getting a much faster start so that he was going almost twenty miles an hour when he ran out of slack.
But she had stopped the police car dead and Carl had gone right through the windshield and his face was cut in what looked like a hundred different places and his lips were split and all his front teeth were loose to the touch. Somehow he had managed to keep his lead foot on the throttle through the whole thing and, therefore, saved their lives.
Or at least kill her, which was what counted.
Cat still managed to bitch at him about being slow and Carl had angrily snarled back that he had changed cars and gotten moving again within thirty goddamn seconds and let's see Cat do it that fast and Cat had asked him if he knew how far a vampire could move in thirty seconds?
"How far?" he snorted.
"Nobody knows, Joplin," Cat shot back, "because there's so many oceans in the way!"
And it was meant to be funny but no one really laughed because they were all going to have to do it again two more times in an hour and a half and...
And nobody thought this was going to work.
Jack knew this, saw it in their faces, and didn't care, didn't give a shit because there was no other choice!
So, "Rock and roll," be barked and got his cast inside again, into the dusty glare of the spolights and the cool dryness Of the air conditioning, which had stayed working all along somehow. While the others got into their positions, Jack walked over and looked at the elevator car. Pig's blood and broken glass were all over the walls and ceiling. There was a large pool of it on the floor.
Jack had nothing to replace their bait. No more blood. No other aquarium. But he thought, from the memory of her feeding frenzy, that just that pool on the floor would be enough to entice.
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...