Vampire$

 

By the time they got to the Adolphus, Felix's only remaining emotion was disgust.

Disgust with the whole damned deal. Disgust with the loss, with the waste. Carl Joplin and the bishop and the bishop's people and poor, brave redheaded Kirk and Annabelle and...

And disgust with Jack Crow and, come to think of it, disgust with himself for being a part of it all.

But mostly disgust for the two cowboys in the back of the Blazer wearing their full chain mail and toting their cross-bows and in such a hurry to be killed rescuing a man who wanted to die.

Felix wore no chain mail because he had no intention whatsoever of going up there.

And he said so. Often.

"This is bullshit, Cat! And you know it. And Adam, you oughta know better than this. It's suicide."

Cat stubbornly shook his head. "Not if we can get him out of there before they show up."

"What if they're already there?"

Cat was silent.

"And what if he doesn't want to come, Cat? Ever think of that?"

"He'll come when be sees us."

"Will he? Cherry, he wants this."

"You don't know that," retorted Cat desperately.

"Then why is he there?" Cat was silent.

But Adam said, "We can't let this happen to him."

And Cat added, "How can you?"

Felix turned around in his seat and glared at him. "Because it's none of my business, either. Can't you see that?"

"Felix is right," said Davette suddenly. And firmly. And that stopped the conversation.

For Davette had been silent throughout the argument and the drive, sitting quietly behind the wheel of the Blazer. Now, in her voice was the tone of someone who knew exactly what she was talking about.

"Felix is right," she said again. "Jack is a victim, just as much as anyone. Just as much - as I was. And... it wears you down."

She pulled to a stop at a red light and turned and faced the others.

"Sometimes you get so tired. Then all you want is for it to be over. Jack has had it differently from what happened to me. But he's had it for three years."

"It's not the same," insisted Cat.

Davette's voice was warm but her eyes were very direct. "You don't know that, Cat. Jack is tired."

It was quiet for the next few moments. The light changed, the Blazer began moving again, and soon the Adolphus was in sight. Davette pulled to the curb across the street from the famous entrance and turned off the engine.

For a few seconds, no one moved. Then Cat took a deep breath and reached for the door.

"Don't do it, Cat," Felix told him.

Cat hesitated, then ignored him. Both he and the priest climbed out. Felix got out, too, and stood on the sidewalk glaring at the both of them.

This was bullshit!

"Have you ever thought how Jack's gonna feel if you go down, too?"

Cat's grin was thin. "At least he'll be alive to hate me."

"No, he won't," snapped Felix cruelly. "None of you will."

"Felix," said Adam slowly, "we just can't let a Jack Crow die like this."

"Oh! You can't. Thanks, God."

Adam just shook his head and the two of them started across the street.

Then Cat stopped and looked back.

"Tell me this, Felix. You're so sure Jack wants to die. If he lives through tonight, you think he'd be happy? Or would he just do it again tomorrow?"

When Felix didn't answer, Cat smiled again.

"He's down, now. Annabelle... But he'll come back if he can get the chance."

Cat smiled again and waved.

"Don't worry, Gunman. We'll get a taxi."

And then he and Adam tripped across the street to the hotel entrance.

Ouch.

Felix stood there a long while, watching them enter the lobby. Then he lit a cigarette. Then he looked at the Blazer, at Davette sitting behind the wheel. Then he got inside and closed the door and stared straight ahead.

Ouch.

Davette started the engine and they pulled away from the curb a few yards to the light and stopped again.

Ouch.

"Felix... ?" she began.

But be shook his head.

Ouch. Ouch!

Because hadn't there been a moment, lying there on the bishop's rug, when he'd just wanted it over with? When he wished Jack would just give it up and let them get him? Stop prolonging the inevitable?

Wasn't there?

Wasn't there a moment like that? And wasn't he glad Jack had kept it up?

Shit.

Shit!

"Pull over."

"Felix! You can't - "

"Pull over," he repeated and his voice was hard.

"Felix! Please..." she urged. But she began pulling the Blazer to the curb.

"I know," he said harshly. "I know, I know I know!"

And this time his disgust was all for himself.

He got out of the truck. An elderly couple, both black, were staring at a window display of garish, cheaply made leather shoes.

Is this the last store I'll ever see?

He looked at Davette. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Did you know I love you?"

She smiled grimly, nodded.

He nodded back, shook his head, and sprinted across the street to the hotel.

The polished bronze doors opened smoothly, almost silently, onto the twenty-first floor and...

Ha! There in the thick, rich carpet - the impressions of chain-mailed boots! The Two Stooges were here!

If he had laughed - and he almost did - it would have been a wild, broken cackle.

Felix had never known such fear.

Such anger.

Such... disgust.

He knew his face would frighten a passing stranger.

He knew he was going to die.

He knew he was never going to see Her again and he knew he couldn't have Her unless he went ahead.

He knew it was madness.

It was out of control.

Two ways into this prestigious hallway. The fire stairs at one end, the half-open oaken double door to the Governor's Suite at the other. He glanced briefly toward the fire stairs, then strode boldly along the footprints in the carpet and pushed the suite's door open all the way and then just stood there and waited for something to happen.

But nothing did.

Not going to be that easy, eh? Fine.

He stepped into the room.

Magnificent room. Antiques and imported carpets over polished hardwood floors and fifteen-foot ceilings and flowing diaphanous curtains pushed in from the steaming terrace breezes. The terrace ran the length of the L-shaped living room and there, at the far end of the huge room, in the dim light from the downtown high rises, were Cat and Adam, crossbows in their fists, crouched down next to the open french doors.

Felix almost laughed. He almost shouted out to them.

But he didn't. Instead he looked to see what they were seeing.

It was easy. There was another set of french doors by the front entrance, right next to him, also blowing hot the diaphanous curtains, also pale against the lights from the towering downtown buildings, also open to the terrace where, less than thirty feet away, closer to Felix than Cat and Adam or the safety of the fire stairs sat Jack Crow.

On a stone bench.

Talking to a vampire.

Felix stepped closer and felt the disgust welling up, swelling up and through his eyes and out the top of his head. By God! but it was beautiful.

He had forgotten how beautiful they were.

It was young and thin and blond and tall, lazing confidently and casually against the four-foot walled railing, the lights from some glass tower delicately illuminating his stark yet smooth and precious features. White shirt and black pants and black leather boots. Not the same outfit as the little god in Cleburne. But close enough. The same grimy elegance.

The same shoddy, sexy, decadent, beautiful...

Fuck you, little god. Fuck you and all the rest of you.

And fuck you, too, Jack Crow, for talking to it.

Talking to it. Like it was human. Like it was only half bad. Like it was misunderstood or "two-sides-to-everything" and not a crushed, smeared, cockroached soul.

And then he saw the crossbow Jack had hidden.

It was down behind the bench on which he sat, propped up against some huge potted terrace tree, and Felix really did almost laugh this time, at the puny, pitiful, all-destructive self-deception of it all.

Felix read it all, now. Saw it all. The whole sad script.

What was Crow going to do? Just wait up here with arms flung open, yelling "Bite me!" into the night? Oh, no. Gotta at least pretend you're going down nobly, don't you, Warrior Jack? Gotta make believe this is a Something, right? A Something, a last 'bold thrust' instead of the seamy suicide it really is.

And he almost left right then. He almost left Jack Crow to his paltry, sickening, disgusting little Passion Play.

Ha!

But what about the Two Stooges? All crouched down and ready to rush up and save him and ensure that three, rather than just one, get swept to ugly, ugly hell. Can't leave the Two Stooges, can I?.

Especially since I'm the goddamn third one?

Out of control.

He heard his heart and he could see his pulse, throbbing through the thumb wrapped death-grip tight around the Browning.

Madness.

But a lovely night, he thought. If a trifle warm.

Then he crossed his hands, with the Browning, behind his back and kicked the french doors open all the way and stepped out onto the terrace just as loudly as he knew how.

"Hey, you! Little god! Is it true your dick doesn't work anymore?"

Silence. Then surprise from those piercing eyes, then understanding of what was said.

Anger flashing his way.

"Felix!" shouted Jack. "Felix, no! What are you doing?"

"It's not just him!" popped Cat, stepping out onto the other end of the terrace.

"Cat!" yelled Jack, stricken.

"It's all of us," added Father Adam, joining Cat.

"No!" whispered Jack weakly. "No... no..."

"What is this?" flashed the monster. "Am I to be trapped here?"

And then he smiled that cocky, beautiful smile.

"Hey!" snapped Felix with his own smile. "Tell me about your dick." And then, in a conspiratorial tone: "Can't get it up, right?"

And the smile vanished and the evil sneer spread out to him.

"Puny little man... How I will enjoy your crushing, bleeding, death cries and your - "

"Sure, sure, sure," replied Felix calmly. "But let's face it. You can turn 'em on pretty good. But when it gets down to it..." And he held the fingers of his left hand out in front of his loins and dangled them limply. "When it gets down to it, it's floppity-floppity. Right?"

Its burst of loathing, even from fifteen feet away, all but staggered Felix backward. The eyes went black, then red. The mouth slit itself wide as it stepped toward him.

"Welcome, puny mutt-man, to the... yolk..." and the fangs sprung out wide "... of the egg..."

And the laughter was a spear.

But Felix just laughed back and shot it right between those fucking fangs.

"Heeachaaaahhh!"

And it hissed and shook and the black gob spat out with the pain and surprise and... the hatred - And Felix shot it again, through the chest. And it staggered back, off-balance and reeling, and the backs of its legs bounced against the walled railing and...

It almost went over the edge!

And that gleaming thought, that wish, that insane hope... It stalled Felix for just an instant, just long enough for the monster to right itself and warp open its full monster's face to the Gunman and Felix heard a crossbow go off... but so did the beast.

And it caught it. It did catch it in the air, goddammit!

Felix shot it again, in the shoulder of the hand that snatched the bolt.

The shoulder warped and shivered and there was more hissing and more black bile spat and Felix shot it again as it jerked toward him and the second crossbow - Adam's? Jack's? - tore through the air and crunched loudly through the center of its chest and out against the city lights.

Ungodly, unholy screams filled the night and the city and their heads and the monster's frenzy was a blur of pain and horror and fury as it bounced and twitched and grabbed at the spit and there was another thong and another bolt pierced its chest from the side, splitting it neatly in the center, and the monster splattered black bile and rocked backward and bit the wall again and reeled, losing its balance and...

Yes! Yes! Go over, you prick! Fall! Fall!

And Felix fired again and again but the shots had so little effect next to the wooden stakes piercing it and there! From the side, motion rushing forward! Jack coming on!

And Felix wanted to shout "No!" but he could not, he could not. It was their only chance and he fired again and again, fired the Browning empty to keep it off balance and then Jack was there running full speed into it but at the last second...

At the last second it saw Jack.

And held up its hand.

And stopped him, all two hundred plus pounds at breakneck speed.

Stopped him. Caught him. Held him, ignoring its own pain and hissing:

"You foolish little..."

Before Father Adam appeared and slammed point-blank into the two of them...

The three went over the edge.

Just like that.

And quiet. So quiet, suddenly. Only the breeze and a far distant car horn and his own breath heaving and...

And Cat beside him, staring wide-mouthed at the wall.

Felix did manage to approach and look down and just glimpse, twenty-one stories down, three forms on the pavement, before.

"Nooooooooooooo..." burst slowly from Cat beside him and Felix felt his forward movement and he dropped his pistol as his right hand shot out and snatched a chain-mailed shoulder and he spun the smaller man toward him and away from the wall and sank his fist deep into his middle.

"Ooomph..." went Cat and sagged.

Felix didn't wait. He followed with a right uppercut that caught Cherry full under the chin and decked him flat onto the terrace tiles.

Then he pounced on either side of his chest and jabbed a finger into Cat's face and spat, though he knew the other man was too groggy to hear him: "No! You are not following anybody down!"

Then he rolled him up into a fireman's carry and somehow bent down and picked up his empty gun and spun around for the door.

We've got to get out of here! We've got to get out of here now!

Because no fall, even twenty-one stories, was going to kill a vampire.

Back through the french doors and that huge room and those oaken double doors into the hail and mashing the elevator button. Should I wait? Should I take the stairs?

Or will it take the stairs? Just streak up them, floor after floor, to come get me?

But then the bell and the doors opened and the elevator was still there! Had it happened too fast for them to start down? Or some luck for a change?

Does it matter, stupid? Get moving!

The long ride down, floor after floor after fear of what might be waiting when they opened at the bottom.

But nothing. Just the lobby and startled people. Felix trotted down the steps toward the front door before pausing, suddenly, at the sights out on the street, people milling and cars pulled over and - Oh, shit! This is the side they fell on! It's on this side!

He turned so abruptly toward the back entrance he almost dropped Cat.

The back entrance was at the end of a long tunnel-like corridor with nothing on either side of it but display windows and his own reflection and he thought about stopping before bursting out. Stopping and sneaking a peak. But he was too scared and too shaken and he might not have the nerve to move again, so when he came to the glass doors he simply bounced them open with his hip and he was out onto the sidewalk and there, parked across the street, was the Blazer.

"You stupid broad!" he cried delightedly and sprinted toward her.

Davette had the engine running and the side door open by the time he got there. The smile on her face was sweet and warm and simply everything.

Then she noticed it was just the two of them.

"What? But where... ?" she began before he cut her off.

"This is it, dammit! Hit it! Let's go!"

And she hesitated, but only for a second. Then she slammed the Blazer into gear and screeched away from the curb and ran the first light, turning right with the one-way street and then right again for the next one before Felix realized they were going back around to the front of the goddamned hotel!

"Uh... uh..." he tried to say. But it was too late. She had already made the turn and the front of the hotel Was there with its growing crowd out in the street.

"Hit it!" he yelled. "Faster! Faster! Don't slow down!"

She barely glanced at him before obeying, slamming her foot down even harder on the gas and bursting past the pale, opened-mouthed faces and around the cars that had haphazardly stopped short, and then they were past them all.

But not before Felix had a chance to see it.

One body. One bloody crumpled form.

Adam.

But there had been three! He had seen three! What could it want with Jack's dead body?

What?