Surrounding the bar, surrounding the last of the booze, surrounded by Jack Crow's obvious glee, they played his little guessing game.
Carl evinced irritation. Annabelle tried to look bored. Cat was amused. Adam was just as bewildered as he had been since Rome. But Jack -
Jack was having so goddamn much fun that nobody really cared.
He's back, thought Cat to himself.
And when he spotted the misty affection in his comrades' eyes, he knew they were feeling the same.
"Look," Jack began again, propping his boot on the railing behind the bar with a thump that echoed in the now-empty room. "It's just a matter of putting the pieces together."
He stared at their blank faces. He somehow managed to smile while still grinning.
"All right, class. We shall begin again," he said and they did.
And this time they began to see.
"... and the bullet hole from the sheriff's gun - in his forehead, remember? It was already closing, right? And it was trapping the blood from Hernandez's silver cross gash, right?"
No one spoke.
"Right?" repeated Jack.
"Right," Cat responded slowly. "Well?"
"Well, what, goddammit?" growled Carl.
Cat suddenly sat forward. "The gash hadn't healed..."
"From the cross..." continued Adam.
"From the holy silver cross," Jack corrected.
"But the bullet wound was already closing!" Carl jumped in, seeing it all now. He stood up from his stool and slapped the flat of his hand loudly on the top of the bar.
Jack was grinning mischievously. "You see it, don't you?"
Carl looked disgusted. "I see it, all right. I just don't believe it."
And then Cat saw it. He moaned. "I don't believe it either," he said. But now he, too, was starting to grin.
Annabelle looked lost. "If somebody doesn't tell me what's happening pretty soon..."
Cat leaned close to her against the bar. "A cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-yo fucking Silver!"
And everybody, save Annabelle, laughed. She looked downright angry. "Would someone please tell me what's going on?"
"Silver bullets," said Father Adam. Then he paused and, with a nod toward Jack, amended, "Holy silver bullets, blessed by the Church."
"But I thought silver bullets were for werewolves," Annabelle asked.
"They are," replied Adam calmly.
Too calmly, thought Jack. He held up a hand to cut off the questions all had turned to ask the young priest. "No!" he barked firmly. "No! I don't even want to know, Adam."
Adam smiled, eyed his glass.
"You hear me?" Jack insisted.
"I hear you."
Jack turned to Carl. "Can you pour the bullets?"
Carl grinned smugly. He sat back down. "Sure, I can pour them. But can anybody here shoot except me?"
Jack frowned. "You're not going, Joplin. You're the base man. How many times do I have to - "
"This is different," Carl insisted. "I'm a marksman. Somebody else could..."
Jack leaned his elbows on the bar and stared him into silence. His voice was gentle but absolutely final. "It's not going to happen, my friend."
Carl hated this. "Well, dammit!" he retorted. "Can you shoot?"
"Qualified whenever Uncle Sam asked."
Carl snorted. "Qualified! Shit! Any fool don't shoot himself in the foot can qualify!"
"Then good news, everyone," popped Cat brightly. "I can probably qualify."
Jack sighed, looked at him. "That bad?"
Cat smiled back. "Pretty bad. I can hit the broadside of a barn, but..."
"But what?"
"It would help some if I was inside the barn at the time."
Jack put his face in his hands. "Oh, great."
"Jack," Carl began. "I..."
"Shut up, Carl. You'll do no shooting."
Carl laughed. "Like hell I won't, big boy. I'll have to just to teach you bums." He turned to Adam. "Unless you're a fast draw or something."
Adam smiled thinly. "They didn't teach that in seminary."
Cat nodded. "It's why I didn't go."
"Quiet, Cherry Cat," snapped Jack. "Carl's right. We need the training. Tell me, Crack Shot, how long till we get as good as you."
Carl took a sip from his glass. "Forever." He held up his hand before Jack could say anything. "I'm serious. Jack, this is a very different, very special tool. You've gotta have a knack for it. A certain touch. I was just thinking that it's small enough that you could both carry it as a backup. That damn crossbow of yours is too unwieldy and too tough to load in a hurry, and Cat needs something besides those stakes and wooden knives he carries. Always has."
He sat back, drained his glass. "But neither one of you is good enough to depend on your shooting. If you were that good, you'd already know it. I can teach you to be better than you are. But if you're serious about this you're gonna need something else.
"You're gonna need a gunman."
Annabelle spoke up. "You've already said you need at least two more men."
Jack looked at her. "At least two."
"Then one of 'em had better be a shooter," added Carl.
"Or both," said Adam.
"Or both," Jack agreed.
Carl rattled the ice cubes in his empty glass. Jack took it and started to refill.
"The thing is," Carl mused, almost to himself, "that the kind of man we need, the kind that fits in around here, well, he's not likely to be good at this sort of thing."
Annabelle frowned. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."
"Well, no..." Carl admitted.
"You're good at it."
Carl nodded, took a sip from his new drink. "I am. An expert pistol shot. But the real gunmen I've known... and for our work it's what we need... real gunmen. That's just a different kind of a dude."
Jack stood up suddenly. "Well, I'll be damned." He grinned and looked at the others. Then straight at Carl. "Carlos! Everything you say tonight reminds me of something. Silver bullets, and now..."
"A gunman?" Annabelle asked quietly.
Jack ignored the question. "Adam, call the Man and have some silver shipped to Dallas in a hurry. Annabelle, give him the address."
"I can get us silver," protested Carl. "Can't the kid here bless it?"
"Kid." Adam frowned. "It should at least be a bishop."
"Okay," said Jack. "Call the Man. Have him send an ingot or three... Hey! How about a shotgun? Anybody could with that! Or an M-16 or..."
Adam shook his head. "It must be a single bullet. It must be a small one. And it must have been part of a cross at one time."
"How do you know this?" Carl wanted to know.
Jack did not. "Never mind. How small a bullet?"
"Any pistol will do."
Jack looked at him. At his confident face. The kid knew his facts, it seemed.
"Okay," he said. "Have 'em send us enough for a thousand rounds."
Adam smiled. "How much is that?"
"We'll know when it gets here. Carl, you sure you can melt the crosses? Pour the silver?"
Carl snorted. "Fuck off."
Cat, grinning, leaned close to Adam. "Allow me to interpret. 'Fuck off,' in this case means: 'Why, of course, Mr. Crow! I'm surprised you asked!'"
Adam smiled readily, but distantly. Cat noticed it. "You still with us?" he asked smiling.
Adam shook his head, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I was just thinking." He looked at Jack. "For over four hundred years... longer, really. But for four hundred well-recorded years man has been fighting vampires. And nobody has ever thought of using silver bullets before." He paused. "His Holiness was right. You do have good instincts." And then he blushed and sipped.
And when Cat saw that Jack was almost doing the same thing, he about laughed out loud. But he didn't, thank God.
"Yeah... well..." mumbled Jack and then, abruptly, shook all that away and raised his glass in a toast. Everyone else did the same.
"Here's to the great ones..." he began.
"There's damn few of us left," finished Cat and Carl and Annabelle and for a single instant, as Adam watched, a look of infinite sadness and... and what? Something else, passed between' them. What is that look they share? wondered Adam. And then he recognized it.
Fatigue.
Bone-aching, soul-grinding tiredness. Because this job would never, ever, ever be over.
"So!" began Jack, suddenly almost cheerful again. "Tell me about the house in Big D." The goddamn toast had been just a little too pertinent in this great empty house. "How many bedrooms?"
Annabelle offered him her empty glass. "Seven," she replied. "And quite lovely."
"There's even room for Carl's hobby," Cat added, grinning wickedly.
Carl growled, drained his glass. "Hobby, my ass!"
"I'll try," replied Cat with an absolutely straight face. "But you have such a big ass. And I have such a small hobby."
"Children!" snapped Annabelle, pretending offense.
"Right," agreed Jack. "Enough of this shit." He stopped mixing more drinks and came around from behind the bar. "C'mon, Annabelle. Let's go get it over with."
"You want to do the tape now?"
"Yeah. Let's get it done."
"But you can't go under drunk!"
He gave her a hug and lifted her off the stool to the floor. "Young lady, you'd be damn surprised at the stuff I've done drunk."
"Humph," she said, rearranging her skirt. "No, I wouldn't."
"Hell," Jack cackled, "I've even fought vampires drunk."
She stopped, looked serious and school-teacher-like. "You have never gone to battle drunk."
Jack nodded. "True. But if things keep on like this, I'm gonna start."'
And together, arm in arm, they marched in step from the room.
So Cat and Carl sat and talked to the young Father Adam to see what he was about. The first thing they discovered, with more than a little embarrassment, was that he considered them both to be heroes - make that Heroes. Heroes for Mankind, Heroes for the Church, Heroes for God.
It was awful.
Cat not only hated it but found it a complete mystery. This kid has heard my tapes and still thinks I'm a hero? Has heard all the times I was scared and all the times I screamed?
Hell, he's heard me scream, by God, 'cause Annabelle said I did that once making a tape under hypnosis. And he thinks I'm a hero?
Cat fixed himself another drink and eyed the young man suspiciously.
I wonder if he's on something, he thought to himself.
Carl was pretty much miserable, too. Not as much as Cat. Being base man got him a little less (but damn well not enough less) hero worship from the priest.
They learned a lot more about him. He was, for one thing, a good one. Adam was true Boy Scout blue, secure in his faith and in what it all meant and eager to do the right thing.
Maybe a little too eager, actually, but who knew if that was bad in this stupid job?
Born Adam Larrance, originally, in Berkeley, California, and infused with the "in" thinking of both that place and the new leftist leanings of so many priests concerning Liberation Theology for the masses in Central and South America, gun control, the death penalty, women's lib, the two superpowers as synonymous and, of course, more welfare. But even with all of that, and the driving antiviolence that pervaded it, the lad knew just why he was there - to kill vampires. Just kill them. He didn't want to "communicate" with them or get them government benefits or free mental health care or even try to bring them back to God.
He wanted them slain, purged, wiped out, wiped away.
He wanted them gone.
The punk had even learned to shoot a goddamned crossbow.
And yes, he did believe the silver bullets would work. And better still, he didn't tell them why he thought so. It was close, but they managed to stay out of the werewolf business, too.
Then the kid did something else that surprised and confused and pleased them. He got up to go to the bathroom, paused, looked back at them and spoke: "I just want to say that I know I acted like an ass at the airport about the press thing. It was wrong of me. I humbly apologize." And then he was gone to pee.
Carl and Cat looked at each other and frowned. They didn't speak. Then Carl leaned away from the bar and fixed them both another drink. They went back to sipping and staring. Still, they said nothing.
Adam came back in shortly and resumed his place in the triangle. He looked a bit nervous and stayed quiet. At last, Carl met Cat's eyes and turned to Adam.
"If you're gonna apologize that easy," he said, "you're not gonna be much fun to pick on."
Annabelle returned to tell them that she and Jack were up to date and Cat thought she looked damn good, considering. A little pale, a little shook up, but overall just fine.
Maybe it was better to do it drunk.
And then again, he reminded himself, she's already cried for all of them once.
Jack was sleeping comfortably, she informed them, and would continue to do so for another forty-three minutes on the nose.
Aha! thought Cat. So it took you seventeen minutes to get yourself together before coming back in to see us. Still damned good, Annie.
And he gave her a little mental pat.
But he was still worried about Jack.
"Is he all right?" Cat asked gently.
She looked at him, surprised. Then she smiled reassuringly. "You heard him, Cherry."
He considered, thought back. "So I did," he replied and smiled himself.
"Who's that?" asked Adam, gazing past them out the leaded-glass window.
They all turned to look. A young lady with light blond hair and rumpled clothing was walking rather stiffly up the walkway to the front door. She was trying, all at the same time, to smooth out her dress, check her makeup in a hand mirror, and feel her teeth with her tongue to see if they were clean enough.
"Aha," announced Carl, lifting his glass. "The press has arrived."
"The reporter?" Adam asked nervously.
"Yep," Cat told him. "Looks like she spent the night in her car waiting for us. Or part of the afternoon anyway."
"Bless her heart," mused Annabelle. "She must want this awfully bad." She looked at Adam. "Relax, dear. We just won't tell her you're a priest."
"Naw," offered Carl. "She'll find out if she's any good at all. Better just make her keep that part tied down. Off the record or whatever it is they call it."
"And if she doesn't?" Adam wanted to know.
Cat grinned. "Our father's met the press before, sounds like."
"Oh, I think she will," said Annabelle.
"But what if she doesn't?" insisted Adam.
"Then," snarled Carl, "we'll knit her tits together." He drained his glass. "Behind her back. Somebody wanna answer the door?"
Somebody did. Cat fetched her to the bar and offered her a drink. She declined, looking nervous and flustered and...
And incredibly beautiful, Adam realized. Incredibly beautiful and incredibly vulnerable and something else, too, as Cat had said. Imperial. Regal. As though touching her was possible but a horrible sin.
It was very strange. Adam saw her no more sexually than any other priest but her aura was still unmistakable.
My Lord, he thought to himself, what a reporter she's going to make! People would tell her anything.
He rose from his stool to be introduced. Annabelle called him simply Adam Larrance. Her hand was cool and her eyes warm and friendly but also penetrating and assertive. Adam wondered how she learned so much so young.
There was an awkward pause after they met until Annabelle patted the stool next to her and she took it. Adam, feeling unreasonably at sea, nudged Carl Joplin beside him.
Carl glanced at him, read his unease, felt it necessary to provide a little in-character show of tedium, and then proceeded to explain to the girl what Adam was and what it meant and what she could write about it - which was zero.
He did not mention her tits.
He didn't need to. One glance around her and Davette saw they meant it. They were polite and friendly and they liked her (she felt sure of that) but they were also quite firm. Don't write about the priest. She tried comforting herself with the thought that she had never meant to. But there was no way around the fact that it changed things that these people had their very own priest with them.
These people! she thought and sighed. She had never seen any group like them. They had a glow of health about them that seemed to radiate for ten yards in every direction. Not physical health particularly, though all save round Carl seemed fit enough. And not really mental health or so much emotional...
Soulful health. Is there such a term? she wondered idly. For that's what they seem to have. Soulful health.
She rather supposed thinking yourself a crusader for Right versus Wrong would do that to you.
"Is Mr. Crow in?" she asked Cat. Cat was caught napping.
"Huh?"
"Is Mr. Crow in?" she repeated, smiling.
"He'll be down soon."
They talked about Dallas. They were moving there, and Davette lived there. She had come all this way across the country just to see them.
"It's not," she reminded them, "the kind of story you run into every day."
They talked about restaurants in Dallas and people they knew there and famous Texans in general. It turned out Davette was Davette Shands of the once-notorious Oilfield Shands family.
"But that's all gone now," she assured them with a self-deprecating smile.
I doubt it, thought Annabelle. This child has been rich all her life and always will be.
And then she thought, I can be a little bitchy, can't I?
Adam smiled in reply to the banter but offered not one word himself.
"Offhand," offered Carl, mixing himself another drink, "I'd say the kid's met a reporter before."
"Do you believe all reporters are dishonest, Mr. Joplin?" she asked.
Carl grinned, sipped. "That depends on whether it's a reporter or a journalist."
She sort of smiled back. "What's the difference?"
"Well, a reporter lies to get himself a better story and a raise."
"And a journalist doesn't lie?"
"Well, yes. But only out of a deep sense of compassion and concern."
She laughed gamely enough along with the rest of them.
Not bad, thought Cat.
Annabelle checked her watch. Jack was due in a few minutes. So they all chatted some more before he showed and heard an odd story from Davette. Seems she had been the editor-in-chief of her college newspaper but had quit last spring, in the final semester of her senior year. Quit school entirely, as a matter of fact, and gone home to get to work.
"I needed to get off my... rear," she offered with a patronizing smile. "I needed to get out in the real world."
God! groaned Cat to himself. I hate to be conned.
The great oaken door burst open and Jack Crow strode in, looking fresh and invigorated and thirsty. While Carl played bartender he met Davette, shaking her hand firmly and telling her outright what a beauty she was. She seemed a little taken aback after all the beating around the bush she was apparently used to.
"You wanna talk to me, do you, young lady?"
"Why, yes. If it's convenient."
"It is for the next coupla hours. Then we hit the road. C'mon."
And just like that they left the room.
