30 Days of Night: Light of Day (24 page)

He looked up at one of the tall buildings, feeling like a rube, just in from the country.
Look at that, Maw! That’s what you call a skyscraper!

But his mind was racing. Wide distribution—that was the key.

In case something happened to him, in case the meet didn’t go as he had planned, he needed a backup. And he knew what it would be.

Vampires read the message board and websites. So did humans, and wannabes. But if they read about his discovery and spread the word, understood its potential, then his work was half done anyway. And the vampires who came across it could put it into practice, with or without Larry’s presence.

All he had to do was get back to his computer and upload the formula to as many sites as possible, until he had to leave for the meeting.

Whether or not he survived the next twelve hours, his work would live on.

Really, that was what mattered the most.

T
HE VAN WAS REGISTERED
to a guy named Walker Swanson, who lived in a dump out in Harvey that needed yard work and a coat of paint, or maybe just a good roaring fire.

It was outside jurisdictional boundaries for Alex and Larissa, and for Greg Fielding, but because they were the ones who had broken the case—Alex knew it had been him alone, but he was willing to share credit with his partner, and she insisted on including Greg—they were the ones to follow up on it. They sat outside Walker’s house in two separate unmarked cars, because although Alex didn’t think Walker was any kind of criminal mastermind, multiple-vehicle surveillance was both easier and safer than single vehicle. So far all they had on Walker was that his van had been parked near a homicide scene, but from what little he’d been able to find out, Alex liked him for the killings. He had gone to high school with the first victim, and he had turned up on surveillance video at the fast-food joint Wanda Case worked at. He was antisocial, a loner who worked from his home, a white guy in his twenties. None of it was definitive, but it fit the profile Alex had been developing.

Alex wanted to catch him in the act of breaking into a house or abducting a victim. Once they had something serious on him, they could break him. A search of his house would reveal clues. His DNA would match that found at some of the crime scenes. They would have their “vampire,” and he would prove to be just another garden-variety, human psychopath, as Alex had insisted from the start. He wanted to build an airtight case, one that would persuade the most recalcitrant jury, so they would sit outside his place as long as necessary, until he went out for another victim.

“Good thing about a creep like this is he doesn’t have much of a social life,” Larissa said, as if reading Alex’s thoughts. “So we probably don’t have to worry about him going to a lot of parties or anything.”

“If he goes out at night,” Alex agreed, “it’s probably to kill someone.”

“Sooner the better, far as I’m concerned. I want to put this one to bed.”

“You and me both.”

She leaned back against her seat’s headrest and blew out a breath. She sounded frustrated.

“What’s up?” Alex asked.

“Hey, I’m gonna go keep Greg company for a little while,” she said. “No reason he should be the one to sit around alone.”

Alex started to respond, but caught himself.
You should stay with me, because you’re
my
partner, not his,
he wanted to say.
Because it’s not our fault his department’s
too cheap to assign him a partner of his own. Because I don’t know how far things have gone between you two, but I don’t want you sitting in a dark car with him, with nothing to do. I need everybody’s attention on Walker Swanson’s door, not Greg Fielding’s zipper.

But he couldn’t make himself give voice to any of those arguments, so instead he swallowed his anger and his fear. “Whatever,” he said, his voice close to breaking. “Fine.”

“Cool,” she said. She opened her door—the dome light had already been disconnected—and started out, but then stopped, leaned back in and touched Alex’s thigh. “Thanks, Alex,” she said.

Then she was gone, but her touch lingered on his lap like a hot coal, and Alex wondered if there was a way to set Walker Swanson loose on Greg Fielding before they brought him in.

Walker and Mitch stayed inside most of the night. Mitch had suggested the location for the meet, an abandoned motor court between home and the city, and the time had been set for just before sunrise so when the Light of Day formula worked, as its maker swore it would, they could test it by going out into the sun.

To Walker, that was a double blessing. Not only would he and Mitch be turned, but they would be a new breed of vampire. Advance soldiers of the new era. The later the hour, the more anxious he became. All of
their work, all the people they had killed, led to this moment. And none of it had made him more anxious than this, the culmination of it all.

He tried to sleep, but every time he drifted off he would snap awake again, tingling with anticipation. Finally he gave up and spent some time working on uploading auction items.

About five-thirty, Mitch cleared his throat. “Walker, it’s time to boogie.”

Walker looked away from the monitor. “Finally.”

“No shit.”

Walker shut everything down. “Let’s motor.” He pulled on a jacket against the early morning chill, then went to the refrigerator and took out a Nalgene bottle of blood. With trembling hands, he unscrewed the lid. “One for the road,” he said, and he took a drink.

The motel was empty when Larry approached, or it looked that way. There was a monument signpost by the sidewalk, but the sign it had once held had blown down or been torn off long ago. Words could still be seen, faded but legible, painted on the office wall.
ROOMS BY HOUR DAY OR WEEK. WATER BEDS. XXX MOVIES.LO-RATES.
A hot-pillow joint, then, the kind of places blue collar guys took women they were having affairs with, or streetwalkers. The white-collar guys would spring for decent hotel rooms. Then there were guys like Larry had been, who had never interested the sort
of women who would come to a place like this, but still dreamed about it when he drove past one.

The place had eight square concrete block buildings, each with two recessed doors, arrayed around a parking lot of cracked asphalt with weeds growing up through it. Most of the windows were broken and boarded over. Larry observed the place as he drove by, then parked down the street in the lot of a two-story office building, and walked back carrying a duffel bag with his things inside. A few cars passed, but he saw no sign of motion or life at the motel.

Walkin_Dude had promised that the door to Room 14 would be unlocked, and that’s where they would meet. Larry stepped into the shadowed doorway of Room 4 and observed for a few minutes. He didn’t see or hear anyone, and more important, he didn’t smell anyone. If this was a human-laid trap and vampire hunters waited inside, he would be able to sniff them out.

He had spent most of the night online, uploading his formula to every place he could think of. Emails had poured in asking for more information, and he had answered what he could. Finally, he had shut off the computer. He left it and his other equipment in a motel room on the north side of the city, fully aware that he might never make it back there. But he had done what he could. If things worked out as he hoped this morning, he would go back to that motel to collect his things—but he would go back as a recognized prophet,
a prince of the undead. In life he had been nobody, a nameless scientist working alongside his fellow drones. But in death, he would be so much more.

And it would all begin soon, here in this no-name motel, where humans had mated and sweated and spawned more meat for the taking.

Smiling, Larry crossed the pitted parking lot and pushed open the door to Room 14, ready to meet his future.

L
ARRY HAD BEEN IN
the room for about fifteen minutes when he heard footsteps outside. He went to the window, where a sheet of plywood had buckled out just enough to offer a strip through which he could see, and looked out toward the lot. Dark forms moved toward him. A lot of them. He heard whispered conversation. He tasted the air, but didn’t detect human.

This had to be the group from New York, then. They had indicated that they were a much larger group than Walkin_Dude’s; the latter had been reticent about how many his den really had, but Larry got the impression that it was just a handful, if that.

He moved into the darkest part of the empty room. Spider webs were thick, as was the stink of old piss. The walls were coated in grime, oily and streaked. As the door started to creak open, Larry tensed, ready to run or attack.

“Hey?” A male voice, young sounding but with a bit of a rasp. Then the door opened wider and Larry saw the speaker, tall and lean, with long dark hair and a goatee. He wore black clothes. At his side as he came through the door was a heavy young woman, a hippie
type with flowing, straight hair. “I’m Rocco,” the man said.

“Larry.”

“You’re the guy. Light of Day.”

“That’s right.”

Rocco came forward, leaving the woman at the door and the others outside. “It’s an honor,” he said, extending his hand.

Larry took it, felt his cool, firm grasp. “Thanks.”

“If this works … man.”

“It works.”

“Excellent.”

“You should get your … them … out of the parking lot.”

“Yeah,” Rocco said. He crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. He was a good-looking guy, Larry thought, charismatic. “They’re good at blending in, but inside is better.” Rocco stuck his head out the door, gave a low whistle and a beckoning motion, and then bodies filed in, blocking light from coming in the doorway. They came into the small room, their scents filling the space with a pleasant musk. Rocco introduced them: Shiloh, Angel, Chip, Winston, Brick, Goldie, Dragon Lady, and Nightmare, who looked like a Hell’s Angel, only worse. From having been around only one vampire, Larry was suddenly surrounded, and it felt wonderful.

It felt like home, like a family reunion.

When Walker pulled up at the old motel, he was surprised to see an RV in the parking lot. The joint was deserted, or should have been. He parked near the RV, which appeared empty and silent.

“What do you think, man?” he asked Mitch.

“Maybe it belongs to the dude. The Light of Day guy. He said he’s been on the road, right? And with a bunch of scientific equipment or whatever.”

“I guess. I just don’t tend to think of vampires as RVers.”

“Maybe that’s because you’ve never met any. All you know, RV parks around the world could be full of ’em.”

“Could be,” Walker admitted. “Should we go in?”

“We didn’t come this far to sit in the van playing with ourselves.”

“You’re right.” Walker tried to pull on courage, like drawing a cape over his shoulders. “Let’s get in there.” Before he could think it over any longer, he threw open the van’s door and stepped to the broken asphalt. He straightened his shoulders, tried to suck in his gut, and took purposeful strides to the Room 14 door.

He was about to knock, then changed his mind. He was the one who had picked the place, who had come out here a couple of nights ago and pried out the nails holding the door shut. The Light of Day guy, if he was inside, was
his
guest, not the other way around. Instead of knocking, he pushed the door open with the flat of his palm. A wave of some sour stench met him halfway in, a smell of rancid meat and old blood.

The room was mostly dark, with just some light filtering in from outside, and that went away as the door swung shut. But before that happened, Walker saw enough to know that he and Mitch were seriously outnumbered.

“I thought we were meeting one guy, not going to a convention,” he said. His voice quaked in spite of his efforts to control it.

“You must be Walkin_Dude,” someone said.

“That’s right. You can call me Walker. This is Mitch.”

“I’m Larry.” Someone came through the crowd, which parted for him—Walker could hear it more than see it. “I’m the one you came here to meet. These others—they came for the same reason, so they could try out my Light of Day formula.”

He emerged from the pack, stopping in a shoestring-thin band of light filtering through the crack of the door from the street lamps outside. He was an older guy, with thin hair and a big gut. He clapped a hand onto Walker’s shoulder and reached for his hand. As he did, a strange expression washed over his face, and Walker almost lost control of his bowels.

“You’re alive!” Larry said.

A hush fell over the crowded room.

“I thought you were one of us!”

“I want to b-b-be,” Walker said anxiously.
“We
do. We’ve done everything we can—we’ve killed people, we’ve been drinking blood nonstop. We just haven’t been able to find anyone to turn us.”

“I don’t know about turning,” someone said from the midst of the crowd. “But I know where you can find someone to kill you.”

“Whoa, hold up!” Walker shouted. “We … we don’t mean anyone any harm. None of you, I mean! We hate people. We just want to be like you …
guys
. More than anything.”