Vampire$

 

The bishop's residence was a heavy tudor mansion connected by wide sculptured gardens to the church of St. Lucius, the largest - and wealthiest - Catholic church in Dallas. It had balconies and a turret and several stained-glass windows sending multicolored hues into the rain.

Felix thought without the electric lights it could have been built two or three hundred years ago.

"Cat doesn't like this guy," offered Kirk as they pulled into the wide circular driveway. "Says he's too good for sinners."

Father Adam frowned. "I think you'll find he has a different attitude now."

Kirk smiled thinly. "Cat told us about that, too. After you pulled rank on him."

The priest shook his bead. "After he's had a chance to think about it." He looked at Kirk. "There is a reason why people become priests, Kirk."

The deputy shrugged good-naturedly, his hair seeming even more red in the half-light from the bishop's front door.

"I'll go in ahead," said Father Adam as Felix pulled to a stop.

Felix nodded, lit a cigarette, and watched the priest skip through the puddles to the front door.

"Felix?" Kirk whispered from beside him.

Felix looked at him. "Yeah?"

"Do we really have to chop his head off?"

"Looks like."

Kirk shook his head and stared out the window. He shivered.

"Who's going to do it?"

Felix frowned. "Crow, I guess. If he's up to it."

"What if he isn't? He didn't look so good to me."

Felix shrugged. "Then somebody else, I suppose."

"You?"

Felix stared at him. "Why me?"

Now Kirk shrugged. "You're second in command."

Felix stared at him a second longer, then turned away. Jesus Christ! Is that what they think? Hell! I'm the guy that's leaving!

Or was, he reminded himself, dimly, before they found me, too.

Shit! All the more reason to go.

So why do you feel so guilty?

I don't. I don't. I do not. I... I don't know what I feel...

And he stubbed his cigarette out too forcibly into the dashboard ashtray.

Lights hit them from behind as the Blazer pulled into the driveway alongside the motorhome. Felix exchanged a look with Kirk, then climbed outside to greet them.

Cat still looked terrible, ashen and pale. But Jack Crow looked... pretty damned good. His broad shoulders were straight and his bearing seemed to have... But no. Those eyes. Too deep. Sunken and dark and unseeing.

"Oh, Felix!" cried Annabelle as she came around the side of the Blazer, eyes pouring tears.

And then she did an odd thing. She threw her arms around him and pressed her head into his chest and sobbed.

Felix stared blankly at her. Then he did what she wanted: he put his arms around her and comforted her.

Not just what she wanted, he thought suddenly.

What she expected.

As he stood there holding the sobbing Annabelle, he saw Davette, tears also in her eyes. They exchanged wan smiles.

Who do these people think I am?

"Mr. Crow!" called out from the front door.

It was the bishop, with Adam and what looked like his entire staff trailing behind him from the house. The cleric came to a breathless stop before Jack.

"Mr. Crow!" the bishop repeated. "We are so grieved at your loss. We..." And then he stumbled, fishing for words. At last, he held his arms out, palms up. "I'm so very sorry, Mr. Crow. I didn't understand."

Felix watched Jack eye the cleric suspiciously for a moment. But what can you say, Jack? This guy clearly means it. Look at him.

Jack nodded abruptly, said, "Thank you, bishop. I appreciate it. We..." and he turned and made a gesture to include the others.

The bishop was way ahead of him.

"Father Adam has told me everything. Come inside. Please. Let us help you."

They did. And the bishop was, Felix decided later, quite wonderful. He was everywhere at once, it seemed, tending to them. And where he wasn't, his staff was, several young priests or priests-to-be - Felix was never sure which. They got them inside and dry and sitting down and got them something to drink and something to munch on while dinner was being prepared and were not offended when no one had an appetite and it was more the bishop's manner than anything else. That haughty, aristocratic, God's-house-is-too-good-for-the-likes-of-you attitude had been replaced by a focus of warmth and keen piercing insight.

Felix had never met the man before. But this guy was a priest.

But it was his help with Carl's body that meant the most to the Team. He listened quietly and patiently as the macabre necessities of a vampire killer's funeral were explained to him. He did this without evincing shock or repulsion or anything else they didn't need right then. After he listened he left briefly to change to his full bishop's robes and ordered his people to do the same and something that had always before been just one more dreadful chore would become, in the light of the many golden candles and the soothing symbols of the bishop's office, something else.

As soon as they found Jack.

Felix was in one of the many rest rooms trying to tidy himself up for the ritual to come. He'd managed to dry his hair and smooth out his work shirt some. Well, maybe the windbreaker would cover some of the wrinkles the way it covered the Browning. He had thought about taking it off, this being a funeral and all. But it really was a warrior's funeral, wasn't it?

There was a light tap on the door, followed by Davette's voice.

"Felix?"

He opened the door. She had made herself up, too. Her honey-blond hair was soft and clean and neatly combed and beautiful.

"Hello," was all he could think to say.

"Hello," she smiled back, her eyes downcast shyly. "Have you seen Jack?"

"Huh? No."

"We can't find him and... Well, they're ready to start."

Felix nodded at her and then stepped out of the rest room into the hall. Annabelle and Kirk and some of the bishop's people were there, looking concerned.

"Where's Cat?"

"He's in the chapel already," whispered Annabelle worriedly.

"What about Adam?"

"They're all in there, Felix," Davette said. "It's just Jack."

"Okay," he said, thinking. He started walking down the hallway but paused when he realized they were all following him. He turned and looked back, at their eager hopeful faces and...

And he wanted to scream at them: What do you want from me?

But instead he said, "We'll meet you in the chapel."

And then he just stood there waiting until they reluctantly dispersed.

When they were gone he thought a second, decided he knew where Crow would be. He continued down the hallway, walking on some thick paisley-looking rug that felt rich and expensive, with paintings on either side of him hung on the richly paneled walls that were probably more so. The hallway took him to the center of the house, a massive twenty-foot-ceiling, sixty-foot-long place called, for some reason, the Common Room.

Felix hadn't expected to find Jack there, but it was on his way. He paused for a moment, admiring this room that looked like the lobby of the world's most exclusive hotel. Nice work, if you can get it.

But he knew where Jack was and it wasn't in these magnificent rooms. Wasn't in the house.

Felix went through the formal dining room, through the grand oak-paneled entry hall, and opened the front door.

The night was still cool for summer, but the storm was over and the stars were coming out. Felix stepped through the door and closed it behind him and stood there a moment letting his eyes adjust to the dark. Ten feet away, a figure sat on the edge of the wide front porch, his great back a dim softness in the shadows.

"Jack?" he called softly, almost whispering.

"Here," was the tired reply.

Felix hesitated, then walked down the broad steps and sat down. The rain-drenched steps began immediately to soak through his pants and he stood right back up again.

He looked down at Jack, sitting forward - hunched forward - with his elbows on his knees.

"Kinda wet, isn't it?"

The dim figure shrugged, a slight motion in the dark.

Get up, you sonuvabitch! Felix wanted to scream, sudden anger and disgust welling from within him. He was furious with Jack cowering out here and he wanted to grab him and shake him and some part of him knew he was being unfair.

But dammit! Jack was supposed to be the leader of this deal and there were people in there waiting on him. Counting on him.

He tried to calm himself before he spoke, but he knew his tone came out hard. "Time to go, man. Time to do it."

At first Crow didn't move. Then he stood up slowly and put his hands on his hips and stared out into the night.

"Got a cigarette?" he whispered harshly.

Felix nodded. "Sure." He fished out a smoke and handed it over and thumbed his lighter.

Jesus, Jack! he thought when the flame illuminated the man's face.

For Crow looked tight and drawn and weak and... and beaten.

But he didn't say anything. And Crow didn't say anything. He just puffed two or three times on the smoke, still staring into the night. Then Felix felt him take a long deep breath and let it out. Then he tossed the cigarette away into sparks, pulled up his belt, and beaded for the door.

"Come on," he said gruffly.

So off they went to do the deed and as they walked, Jack leading, Felix trailing behind, a transformation took place. At first Jack looked pitiful and sorry, with his wrinkled shirttail out and his baggy pants wet on the seat from the damp step. The walk wasn't much better, more like a reluctant lope. But steadily, the pace quickened and those great shoulders thrust up and those powerful hands reached back and thumbed the shirttail in and that big head went up high on his neck and...

And Felix felt himself smiling in amazement. Thirty seconds before he had been disgusted and now he thought: Look at this guy! Look at him, coming through.

By the time the reached the hallway outside the chapel Jack was strutting like a drillmaster. He stopped, abruptly, outside the chapel door and took another deep breath and turned and looked at Felix.

Felix looked back into those same sunken eyes and he saw the pain was still there and the weariness was still there and decided that was probably more impressive then any of it.

Jack nodded questioningly at Felix.

Felix nodded back.

And they went in and did it.

They had Carl's body wrapped up in some heavy white fabric and laid out on a table up in front by the altar. The bishop was there, surrounded by his robed attendants and that smoking goblet-thing they used and dozens of candles. The women sat in a pew in the back row. The men, Kirk and Cat and a robed Adam, stood by the table.

The whole thing was, Felix had to admit, beautiful. You really needed Catholics for the big stuff.

Jack walked up to the table and Felix took the empty spot beside him. Felix had thought Carl's body looked awkward lying there. And that's when he noticed the saw.

The saw was not a saw at all, but a sharp stone fashioned to slip inside a grooved harness that supported the head and neck of the body. "Cutting" consisted of rapping the blunt end of the stone sharply with a heavy wooden mallet which lay there at Jack's right hand. Beside the mallet was the stake, an intricately carved piece of wood about half the size of a baseball bat and proportionately thinner. In the light from the candles Felix could just read, on the side facing him: "Carl Joplin." He could see further lettering on the other side of the rounded wood but couldn't read it.

First were the prayers, not too different from the mass Felix had become used to, but longer somehow.

Or maybe I'm just ready to get it over with, he thought.

And then he thought, Could I do this if I had to?

Can I stand here now while Jack does it?

Then the time was there and Jack Crow reached out and fitted the cutting stone in place and then he grabbed up the mallet and held it high and muttered something Felix couldn't hear and then the mallet came down and there was an awful "snick" noise and the fabric around the throat separated cleanly and then heavy fluid began to stain the edges.

Jack didn't pause to tamp the flow with the towel there at his other hand. Instead he grasped the stake, placed it over the heart of one of his dearest comrades, and drove it mightily home with one solid rap.

There were more prayers but Felix didn't hear them. He didn't hear anything but the pounding of his own heart and wondered if that was fear or hatred of the beasts that made this necessary.

After a while, Felix realized he was the only one still standing there except for the bishop's men ready to take away the body. He nodded self-consciously and stepped back to give them room. But just before he did he craned his neck around to see the writing on the other side of the stake.

It read: "Not one damned regret."