Vamp-Hire (32 page)

“No.” “Then you can show me where you keep
the tubes for siphoning.” Doug went on staring up at Dolph.
“Now.”

The place was near empty and checkout was
fast. Doug tried to pass them off on a cashier but Dolph had
insisted he check them out instead of having them wait in line.
Nick grabbed a few chocolate bars to be rung up as well.

As he handed Dolph the receipt the old man
took it and leaned in close. “If you hit him again, he should kill
you. If I find out you did, I will.”

Doug nodded and they quickly left. Once back
at the Hummer, Dolph used the tube to siphon gas out of vehicle’s
tank.

“You said ‘he’ to Doug. How did you—”

Dolph fixed him with one eye. “It was written
all over him. Simple as that.”

Nick didn’t think it was simple as that, but
didn’t push. He didn’t actually care; he’d bothered asking for the
same reason Dolph had entertained answering: it was something to
fill the space in the time before. Nick could sense it was the same
with Dolph despite his crusty exterior—the silence was tortuous.
Dolph hung back for Nick to initiate anything resembling a
conversation, however, he was near enough to eager to answer. Dolph
had to have loved Phoebe and Randy more than Nick had belatedly
realized he did for the simple fact he’d been in their lives
longer.

Dolph filled the chainsaws carefully from his
gas tank. Unlike in movies where someone siphoned until they got a
mouthful of gas, he’d been careful not to do that, looking for the
first time hesitant in Nick’s estimation.

“I hate the smell of gasoline,” Dolph said
unprompted. “It makes me nauseous.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Nick said. “I could
have done it.”

“No. They’re not your responsibility.” He
yanked the length of tubing out, letting the gas still in it spill
out as he tossed it casually aside. He put the cap on his chainsaw
and Nick did the same.

An incredible wave of guilt came over Nick.
They were well en route to certain death and he hadn’t bothered
being honest.

“Dolph, I need to tell you something...”
Either his tone or his prefacing statement grabbed all of Dolph’s
attention. “That first day, at the house, I wasn’t looking for
work. I… I live there. Phoebe texted me to tell me all the work you
were having done. All this time I’ve been bouncing place to place,
waiting for you to leave so I can go back home. But we’re just
roommates.”

“You live there?” He sounded thoroughly
shocked, which in turn shocked Nick.

Dolph fired up his chainsaw and Nick realized
he’d chosen the absolute worst time to tell him that tidbit of
info. Five feet away from him stood a military-sharpened,
barehanded Mozart of pain and now he had an instrument that could
render Nick in several large pieces in seconds.

Instead of slicing him in two or in any
number of pieces he turned his chainsaw off and indicated
Nick’s.

“Turn yours on,” he said. “See if it works.”
He did so while Dolph set his on the back seat and climbed in. It
worked fine and Nick cut the motor, putting his in the back
opposite the other. By the time he’d gotten in and was reaching to
shut his door they were screeching toward the street.

Nick wanted to ask something. What, though?
He wanted to start up some banal conversation, however, nothing
beyond pondering the decision behind choosing an octagon as the
official shape of stop signs would come to mind.

He settled on something and was opening his
mouth to speak when Dolph said, “I can’t kill you because I need
you. I can’t let you die because then I can’t kill you later.”

“Okay,” Nick said, hoping that was Dolph’s
version of gallows humor. The man didn’t smile. They took Dequindre
to Big Beaver and turned right. The old Somerset Mall was a
straight shot, a few miles away.

He carefully unwrapped one of the chocolate
bars and bit off half of it. Nick hadn’t realized he was hungry
until then. His stomach groaned in anticipation of food, but it
tasted like he was chewing on wax.

“That’s not the same as what I gave you. It’s
a purer form of chocolate along with a few other choice
ingredients.”

Nick looked at him, realizing what it
was.

“Blood.”

“No. Close though.” Dolph’s smirk looked
cruel in that moment and he must have felt like he was striking
back for Nick’s deception. “Let’s just say that what I gave you is
rich in lipids and nutritious proteins.”

Even though the candy bar Nick was eating
wasn’t what Dolph had given him, he couldn’t swallow it. He pressed
a button to roll down the window and spat out the chocolate, wiping
the trail of brown saliva that had plastered to his chin. He turned
an evil look on Dolph.

“Your great-grandson eats it too. Yeah, I
know he’s a vamp.”

Dolph shrugged. “So far as he’s concerned
it’s plain candy.”

There were only a few active traffic lights
between here and the mall even though it was a near five mile
stretch, and with Dolph’s heavy foot they made it there in about
four minutes. The mall had been constructed as two separate
buildings, one on the north side of the street and one on the
south, connected by a skywalk. He was about to ask which building
they should go to when he saw the south side building had been
reduced to rubble save for a north-facing wall.

Dolph pulled the Hummer up on the sidewalk
and stopped. “Get out.”

“What? What about the plan?”

“Won’t work. They still haven’t found the old
man. I have a relatively good idea how to put the genie back in the
bottle if we’d had him. Without him, we have no choice.”

“He’ll kill them.”

For an instant Dolph’s eyes looked slightly
more moist than normal. “He may have done that already. The only
thing this is is a trap. He wants you and we can’t let him have
what he wants.”

“I don’t accept that.” Nick shook his head
like a three year old. “What are you gonna do?”

“Go inside. Do my best Rambo impression.”

“Who’s Rambo?”

Dolph only shook his head. He was prepared to
walk into a death trap if that meant there was the slimmest of
chances of saving Phoebe and Randy.

“There’s no chance of us making it out of
this. Get out of the car and head south. I’m going to keep them
busy until the strike team comes.”

“What strike team?”

“The one that’s going to firebomb this mall
into oblivion at three o’clock sharp.”

Nick checked the display on the Hummer’s
dashboard. It was 2:22.

“The rabisu is supposed to be unkillable.
That’s not going to stop anything!”

“It’ll wipe out his super lackeys and he’ll
have to start all over. Maybe he’ll be weak enough for us to catch
him. If this hadn’t been a black operation we might have been able
to track him by GPS.” Dolph pounded the steering wheel.
Surprisingly, the steering wheel didn’t break.

“What do you mean?”

“He probably has a cell. If we had the number
we could track it.”

“And why can’t we do that?”

“Because. We don’t have the number.”

“So? Leonard’s cell has to be listed in some
military directory. If we know he’s in the mall, either GPS shows
he’s in there because the rabisu has it or the real Leonard has it
and the guys can grab him.”

Dolph narrowed his eyes. Nick had come to
learn this was a sign of his wheels spinning.

“I know somebody who might be able to help me
with that.” His hands were already moving over his cell, opening
the back and putting that little chip back in. Nick was surprised
again that such thick fingers could move so deftly. A second later
the old man had the phone to his ear.

“Yo, I need you to find someone right now.
Lieutenant Gregory Leonard. No, not that one. Yes, give me his
number. Got it.”

He looked at Nick as he dialed another
number. “I’ve been so preoccupied with strangling him to death I
missed the solution right in front of my nose.” He put the phone
back to his ear and a moment later someone picked up. Dolph recited
the number and was nodding when the Hummer flipped over.

Nick could feel them walking around the
Hummer. They could have kicked in a window or ripped off a door,
but they hung back. What were they waiting for?

As if in answer, Nick heard a siren. He felt
a tiny surge of hope before realizing that the officers wouldn’t
stand a chance.

Nick had to pull himself off Dolph, who’d
been knocked unconscious. He would have guessed such a thing to be
impossible, then remembered a peanut had almost killed him.

If he were the one they wanted, Nick was
going to make them sing for their supper. He got on his hands and
knees and crawled to the back, swiping blood out of his eyes. He
made the mistake of licking his fingers and realized instantly this
wasn’t his blood. He looked back at Dolph and saw a knot on the
corner of his head and a steady trickle of blood pulsing from
it.

He located one of the chainsaws and saw the
chain was busted. The other one had bounced all the way to the rear
window.

Nick grabbed it just as the first police
officer screamed. There were several shots in rapid succession and
he used the opportunity to rear back and kick out the rear driver
side window. He got out with the chainsaw and put his back to the
Hummer. After three deep breaths, Nick stepped around and began
walking toward the cruiser.

One of the vamps had a police officer held up
by his throat, an impossibly wide smile on his face and a forked
tongue lolling down to his chest. The officer was alive, holding
onto the creature’s arm to keep his neck from snapping. It took a
moment for Nick to spot the other vamp, mostly obscured by the
cruiser, hunched over the splayed legs of the second officer. The
only way he could have described the messy sounds coming from over
there were eating.

Nick thought of the blood he’d tasted. He
felt tingly, though not on the verge of fainting like the other
night. He understood how vamps might become addicted to blood, and
he had no desire to go down that road.

If he was supposed to be like them then maybe
he was as strong as them too. He cranked the chainsaw and it roared
to life. The one on the ground went on feasting, paying him no
mind. The other turned its head, his tongue retracting into his
mouth. Nick noticed something about it that he should have seen on
Brandon.

It was dying.

Nick was certain even if this vamp didn’t
know it. Its face was haggard, filled with wrinkles and splotches.
He—Nick supposed the creature was a he—may have been a monster, but
it was an ill one. He could even scent illness wafting off it over
the smell of oil from the buzzing chainsaw.

He smiled and charged. The vamp tossed the
officer at him and Nick dipped to the side, picking up speed. The
vamp clawed the air, warning him away, giving up precious seconds
it should have been running. Nick chanced a look over his shoulder
and saw the other vamp as he passed and it still didn’t appear to
have noticed he was there.

He waved the chainsaw around in his arms for
more effect and the vamp turned all the way around to run.

Unfortunately for the creature, the county
had fallen behind on its duty to maintain the road and the vamp
stepped into a pothole, tripped, and went sprawling. Nick caught up
quickly, raising the chainsaw high over his head to strike.

He found that he couldn’t. The vamp had
reverted to a more human form. He looked like he was about Clip’s
age and forty years older at the same time. Though the eyes were of
a teenager, the face had the jowly look of a senior citizen who had
lost a great deal of weight over a short period of time.

“Please,” the boy said. “I’m sorry, I’m just
so hungry.” Nick knew he should strike, that this was some sort of
stalling tactic until he gathered his confidence or saw Nick’s
attention had waned and sprang upon him. He stayed put, or rather,
scooted away from him.

This wasn’t his enemy, this was just some
kid. Sure, Nick couldn’t justify him and his friend eating the
police, neither could he simply slaughter him. Maybe it was more
about him than the person crawling away from him. He dropped his
hands.

His shoulders were starting to burn
anyway.

Nick couldn’t let him go. He had to be
arrested or something. Nick didn’t have time. He needed to be
inside that mall right now, figuring a way to get Phoebe and Randy
away from Cain and his minions.

While he was thinking, he didn’t notice the
person walking up until he was about ten feet away. It was Leonard!
The old man had on a fur-lined puffy coat and he turned down the
hood when Nick looked at him. Leonard took off one mitten and knelt
next to the vamp still on the ground.

“You’ve broken your ankle,” he said. “It
doesn’t even hurt, does it?” He reached for the boy’s cheek and the
young vamp pulled away.

“No. Don’t.”

“It’s okay,” Leonard said. “It’s okay. It’s
over for you now. All over.” Nick didn’t understand until Leonard
laid a hand over his face. The boy hissed like a cat and his skin
started cooking. It had begun to rain and each droplet of water
that touched his face sizzled and evaporated. He struggled weakly,
not actually touching Leonard to try to push him away.

After the old man’s fingers had melted into
his face the boy’s struggles intensified, then abruptly ceased.

Leonard pulled his hand out of the dead boy’s
face, wiping off black-red muck on the boy’s tattered shirt.

“There isn’t much time.” He stood. Nick took
a step back, still holding the idling chainsaw. “Is it only you
standing in his way?” Nick raised his weapon as if to ward him off,
but the old man only flicked his eyes at it. “That won’t be
enough.”

“I’d say he’s a good start,” Dolph said. They
both looked and saw him holding a gun on Leonard. Nick took another
step back like the man would explode if shot. Leonard went on with
his ice-blue stare.