Rule of Vampire (12 page)

The tall one, Jeffers, started to reach toward the back of his belt and then stopped. He appeared to be confused. Callendar also seemed paralyzed with indecision.

They don’t know,
Jamie thought.
They suspect, but they don’t
know
.

“I’m so glad to meet you,” she said as cheerfully as she could. She continued on into the room, but instead of shaking their hands, she sat down on the sofa across from them. They sat down, too, looking perplexed and wary.

Robert remained standing, and it was clear that he could tell something unusual had happened but couldn’t figure out what. Finally, he joined Jamie on the sofa.

Ordinarily, they might have continued to make small talk. Instead, Jeffers turned to the couple on the sofa and, looking straight at Jamie, said, “What do you know about what we do, Robert?”

“Do? You’re Special Agents of the FBI.”

“Yes… but as it happens, we’re kind of
special
Special Agents. We seek out unusual cases, cases that don’t have logical explanations. Much like the case of your eight dead teenagers and the spate of other murders and accidents your town is suffering.”

“So, serial killers, spree killers; that kind of thing?” Robert asked. “Well, obviously, we could use your help.”

“No,” Callendar said. “There’s more to it than that.”

He’d been toying with a glass ashtray on the end table, and suddenly, he threw it at Jamie. His aim was off, though, and it headed directly for Robert’s head.

Jamie reached out and snatched it before Robert could even process that it had been thrown.

Callendar and Jeffers leaped up and drew their guns. Jamie ran for the back door before they could pull their triggers, and she knew that she probably looked like nothing more than a blur to Robert. It would be this and her preternatural catch of the glass ashtray that he would remember, that would undoubtedly, eventually, break through his denial about what she was.

A bullet slapped into the wall next to her as Jamie slammed into the door, breaking the locks and ripping it off its hinges, and sprinted into the backyard. The woods were only a few dozen feet away, but the bright sunlight began to burn her hair away as she ran. She put her hands over eyes, trying to protect them, and felt the skin sloughing off. Her bare feet seemed to be falling apart with each pounding tread, and her exposed neck and backs of her legs felt like they were on fire.

She heard another shot and something slapped into her shoulder, but the pain was almost inconsequential compared to the agony in the rest of her body. She heard Robert shouting “NO!”

No more bullets came her way and she made it into the woods, where she kept running until her legs gave out and she slammed face-first into the dirt. She couldn’t move. It was going to take time to heal, especially without fresh blood. When they followed her, she’d be helpless against them.

As she waited for the inevitable, she considered crawling into the patch of sunlight she could see ahead of her and putting an end to it all before Robert could find her.

But the day wore on and dusk fell, and she finally began to feel herself start to heal. She staggered to her feet, and even in her diminished condition, she managed to catch a stray cat, which she consumed from tail to head.

It was nearly morning before she felt well enough to start looking for shelter, which turned out to be a cave littered with empty beer cans and potato chip bags. She stayed there for the entire day, wondering why they hadn’t come after her.

#

“You’re going to leave her alone,” Robert said firmly.

“She’s a fucking vampire, Robert!” Callendar exclaimed. “Don’t you understand that? How much evidence do you need?’

Robert’s face showed both confusion and a kind of resoluteness that Callendar recognized. His sister had fallen in love with this idiot because he’d been so naïve and yet so strong.

“A vampire,” was all Robert said.

“Yes, Robert. They exist. Tell me: How many times did you and your girlfriend go out during the day? Did she tell you she was a late sleeper? Did she keep you up till all hours of the night?”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“Come on, Robert.” Callendar was growing exasperated. “You’re not that stupid. You saw her move––did that look normal to you? We all saw her run across the yard on fire. How do you explain that?”

They were on the back patio. Robert collapsed onto one of the lawn chairs and put his hands to his face. “How can this be happening?” he groaned.

“I’ve got something to tell you, brother,” Callendar said. “Something I’m legally not allowed to say but I’ve always thought was unfair for you not to know. I’ve been tempted a thousand times to tell you, so to hell with the law.

“Brenda didn’t run away. She was killed by a vampire. A vampire who was trying to get back at me.”

Robert stared at him, mouth open. He obviously wasn’t processing this information.

“Too much, partner,” Jeffers said gently.

Robert began to cry. He put his head down on his arms and bawled. The two FBI agents just watched uncomfortably.

After a while, Robert stopped sobbing and raised his head, and his tearstained face was serene, as if he finally understood, finally accepted the truth. “Thank you for telling me, Bill,” he said calmly. “I never understood why Brenda left. It was as if everything I thought I knew turned out to be wrong. Now I know the truth.”

Callendar got up and Jeffers followed suit. “So you’ll let us kill her, this Jamie,” Callendar said.

Robert stood and went into the house. Jeffers and Callendar looked at each other blankly. Robert came back out with a pistol in his hand.

“Stop,” he said in a flat voice when Jeffers went for his gun. “I
will
shoot you. We’ll see who the local authorities believe: me or Bill. Sure, your FBI colleagues will probably arrest me in the end, but you’ll be dead and Jamie will be long gone.”

Jeffers and Callendar sat back down. Robert kept the gun trained on them. They watched the day go by. After a while, to pass the time, the two FBI agents started telling the local cop everything they knew.

Chapter 20

Stuart came home right before dawn to find his mom and dad’s heads on the mantel and Greg standing in the middle of the room, covered in blood and grinning.

Stuart was across the room in what seemed the blink of an eye; certainly Greg wasn’t ready for him, for he went flying across the room, landing on the back of the sofa and breaking it in half.

“I’ll kill you!” Stuart shouted.

“I’m sorry, man!” Greg cried. “I didn’t know you cared! You used to bitch about them all the time!”

“Care? Shit, no! But both my parents work, and when they don’t show up for a few days, their bosses are going to send someone around.”

“I’ll clean it up, Stuart. I promise.”

“Besides, they’ve got the money for gas and stuff. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna get a job.”

“No problem, Stuart,” Greg reassured him. “We’ve got all the money we need walking around outside at night!”

“Dude. Don’t you get it? The more people we kill, the less chances we’ll get. Hell, I was out all night and didn’t see a soul outside the bars, and everyone in the bars looked ready to fight anyone who looked at them weird.”

Even as he spoke, Stuart realized it didn’t matter. He was getting out of this town. His parents had a stash of money that he’d occasionally plucked a dollar or two from when he was desperate. It was about five hundred bucks: enough to get him to fresh meat markets.

He’d wanted to leave for years. He hadn’t told his friends this, but he’d been told that he’d have to repeat the school year. There was no way he was going to do that. He hadn’t told his parents, either. Parents, teachers––it seemed like all the adults in town had it in for him.

He laughed and thought,
Yeah, right. School. Don’t think that will be a problem now.

He would leave the next evening.

He even had a place in mind, less than a day’s drive from Crescent City. Jamie, the bitch who had bitten him and Turned him vampire, had said she was from Bend, Oregon. It was in the High Desert. Stuart had had enough of the coast and the fog and the never-ending rain. Time to check out someplace new––though the idea of constant sun was a little scary. Still, as long as he stayed inside during the day, what did it matter?

He’d like to look up Jamie, say hello, maybe get a few clues about how to live as a vampire. She owed him that much, dammit.

#

Greg left his best friend’s house, though it was close to dawn. He knew of a garage nearby he could hide in if he had to. Stuart was right. It was getting hard to find victims. Even the homeless population was wary of strangers these days, almost as if they’d all been told what was stalking them.

He could still break into houses and get what he needed, but the night before last, while doing that very thing, he’d been met by a shotgun blast. It had mostly missed him, though a few pellets had hit him in the arm. That had been painful, and it had taken all day for the little balls to fall out.

Fuck that. The humans couldn’t touch him––and even when they did touch him, he got over it. It had occurred to him last night that if he was going to kill people, there were some beautiful girls he could do stuff to before he killed.

Greg didn’t feel a twinge of guilt at the thought. He didn’t want to hang around Pete, who was wild and uncouth, or Jimmy, who was always being careful. Even Stuart, who’d always been up for anything, was acting like a grumpy shithead.

Who needed them?

He saw sunlight glimmering on the horizon and realized he’d better hurry to the vacant garage.

A car came up behind him and screeched to a halt. He turned around to see two men get out, both of them holding guns.

Shit, that was going to hurt. Still, he almost welcomed the action. He was ready to kill again. The men looked at each other and then, moving almost in sync, holstered their pistols and pulled––of all things––crosses and spray bottles out of their coats.

Whatever
, Greg thought. He walked purposefully toward them, in no hurry, wanting to relish the look of horror on their faces when his claws and fangs extended.

But the two men’s expressions didn’t change. They raised their crosses, and suddenly Greg felt paralyzed; he couldn’t manage to take another step forward. One of the men approached, and Greg heard him chanting: “Behold the Cross of the Lord; flee, bands of enemies. We drive you from us, whoever you may be, unclean spirits, all Satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions…”

Greg stopped listening and started trying to retreat, but his legs would barely move. The second man approached from the other side and sprayed Greg with liquid from the bottle he was holding.

It burned like fire, and Greg felt his skin shriveling. He heard a strange snarling sound, like a rabid dog, and realized to his dismay that it was his own voice.

To hell with this!
He turned to run, but the sun came over the horizon and washed over him, and it was all too much: burning water and crosses and now the sun.

He stood on the sidewalk and went up in flames, and his last thought was regret that he hadn’t thought of using his powers to get at the pretty girls before it was too late.

#

Jeffers turned to Callendar. “Do we clean up after ourselves?”

They looked down at the charred meat on the concrete. It was turning darker with every moment as the sun continued to rise.

“Nah. The dogs and cats will take care of him. Let’s go.”

They got back in the car, but before Jeffers started it up, he turned abruptly to Callendar. “Something’s wrong here. I doubt they’re having a vampire convention in town, and all these vampires appear to be very unwary––untutored, almost. Like baby vampires. But how is it possible for there to be so many?”

“Remember that case study they taught us at the Academy? About the infestation in Eastern Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century? How a virulent strain popped up where everyone who was bitten Turned?”

“Yeah, but that was never confirmed,” Jeffers objected. “It was probably just a case of mass hysteria.”

“I’m starting to think it actually happened,” Callendar said. “Not only that, but this may be the same strain. Remember the legends of the vampire Michael? Supposedly the oldest vampire alive? Well, his progeny have always seemed the most fertile––and if he hadn’t disappeared, who knows what would have happened?”

“So you’re saying the legendary
Michael
is behind this?” Jeffers laughed. “Good luck including that in your report! Next thing you know, you’ll be blaming Terrill.”

Callendar fell silent. Most vampire hunters thought Terrill––a vampire who didn’t kill humans––was a myth. But so far, just about every legend Callendar had ever investigated had had its origins in truth.

“I’m calling for backup,” he said finally. There might prove to be an explanation for what they were seeing, and then they’d look like alarmists. But if what he thought was happening was really happening, they’d be remiss not to get help.

“What do we do about Robert?” Jeffers asked.

“Robert?” Callendar echoed. “Nothing happened with Robert. Unless you want to write a report that proves we’re idiots and incompetents and violated every nondisclosure rule that exists.”

Jeffers shook his head. “I don’t suppose it matters. He’s dying anyway. Do you think he’ll stay quiet?”

“I’ll ask him to. I’m pretty sure he’ll agree.”

“I sure hated to let that vampire get away,” Jeffers said regretfully. “No matter what, next time I see her, I’m taking her down. I’ll bet you anything she’s the Maker of all these vampires.”

“Right. Well, the daylight’s a-wasting. Let’s get to looking.”

#

Stuart heard a commotion just as he was getting ready to bed down for the day. He opened the curtain a couple of inches and stepped back a few feet, out of the sunlight.