Authors: Jonathan Maberry
Totally perplexed by what had just happened—and feeling anger burn on his cheeks and ears—Crow turned away and trudged back to Val’s room, grinding his teeth all the while. Newton was still asleep in the chair, and Crow crossed to the empty bed and sat down, feeling weak and defeated.
(1)
Vic Wingate pulled his midnight-blue pickup into the slot behind his house and killed the lights. The sun was setting brush fires on the horizon, but the back alley was still shrouded in bruise-colored shadows. He lit a cigarette from the dashboard lighter and looked up and down the street. Nothing moved; even the pear trees in his neighbor’s backyard seemed frozen in time.
“It’s clear,” he said, but Ruger was already getting out of the car like he didn’t give a shit.
Inside, Ruger sank down into Vic’s Barcalounger with a volume of Eastern European folklore. Vic went to the wet bar at the foot of the stairs and poured himself a C&C and ginger ale without ice. He took a small sip, rinsing it around to clear out the acid taste in his mouth, swallowed, and then took a larger gulp. When he lowered the glass he saw that Ruger was not reading but was instead staring up at the ceiling. It was only then that Vic could hear the muffled footsteps above, followed by the bang of a pan on the stove. Lois, up early.
“Smells good,” Ruger said in his whispery voice.
“You can smell her cooking all the way down here?”
“No,” Ruger said, his eyes dreamy and unfocused, “I can smell her.” He closed his eyes; one corner of his mouth hooked up in a smile as thin and curled as a dentist’s hook. “Full-blooded bitch.”
“Hey, Sport,” Vic snapped, “that’s my wife you’re talking about.”
Ruger waited maybe five whole seconds before he opened his eyes. All color in the irises had melted into a featureless black. It was like looking into the eyes of a shark. His smile never wavered and he said nothing; all he did was lower his head and pick up his book.
Vic stared at him for a while, then cut a sharp look at the ceiling, angry at Lois for no reason. He slammed back the rest of his drink and built another, searching in the shadows of his mind for that little thread of contact, that indefinable conduit that would link him to the Man. It was getting harder and harder to touch the Man, which made no damn sense since with things moving like this it should be getting easier. The Man was feeding every day now, taking the discharge of pain and terror from each kill that Ruger and his goon squad made. Every day he got stronger, so it should be easy for Vic to reach him. Behind him he heard the soft rustle as Ruger turned a page.
He paused, the mouth of the whiskey bottle hovering over the rim of his glass, the liquid sloshing softly as he gave Ruger a long, calculating appraisal. He didn’t like the thoughts that were forming in his brain.
“Son of a bitch,” he breathed.
Ruger said, “You say something?”
Vic set the bottle down very carefully, screwed the cap back on, and turned with his drink, forcing his hands to hold the glass steady, forcing his mouth to smile a smile that was just as thin, just as icy as Ruger’s.
“No, Sport, I didn’t say a goddamn thing.”
They looked at each other, two sharks smiling across the sea of eddying shadows, seeing each other with perfect clarity.
After a moment Vic said, “At some point you and I might have to sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk about some shit, you dig? But right now we both have bigger fish to fry.”
Ruger kept giving him
the look
for another couple of seconds, then his eyes seemed to lose some of their heat. “Okay.”
“The Red Wave launches in two weeks. We’re nowhere near ready.”
“We’re not behind schedule, far as I know.”
“Yeah? Last night we should have cut down the opposition and increased troop strength. Tell me how you figure we’re on schedule?”
Ruger didn’t comment.
“Not one damn thing went as planned. We didn’t kill Val Guthrie, the Man didn’t kill Crow…which is probably a good thing since that pussy Terry Wolfe tried to kill himself.”
“Maybe the Man knew Wolfe was going to take the plunge and laid off of Crow,” Ruger offered. “After all, we got to have one of them alive until the big day.”
“Maybe, but I smell a nigger in the woodpile. I think something went
wrong
down in the Hollow.”
Ruger said nothing.
“And since I don’t hear Lois up there wailing and gnashing her teeth I can pretty much guess Tow-Truck Eddie didn’t kill Mike. Bottom line, we drew a complete blank last night. Maybe even a setback.”
“You waste too much time on that kid, Vic ol’ buddy. Instead of trying to get that moron Eddie to kill your asshole stepson, why not just do it yourself?”
“I told you already…I can’t. He has to die by a clean hand. That’s why the Man wants Eddie to do it.”
“Eddie’s clean? How the hell do you figure that? He works for the Man just like we do.”
Vic shook his head. “No, he don’t. Eddie thinks he’s hearing the voice of God in his head. Eddie’s this whole-milk-drinking, on-his-knees praying, Bible-thumping child of Jesus, so the Man’s been riffing off that, twisting his faith even more while at the same time making him think he’s the avenging son of Heaven or some shit.”
That nudged an appreciative chuckle out of Ruger. “Sweet.”
“Point is, if one of us—especially one of your bunch—kills Mike, then what he is, his
essence
will be released to the whole town. Once that happens every stick, stone, and blade of grass will be like a holy weapon. It be like everything was radioactive—none of you could even walk here, and the Man wouldn’t be able to
rise.
”
“That’s what being a
dhampyr
means?”
There was a flicker of hesitation before Vic answered, “It’s part of what it means. It’s in the folklore, in the traditions. I don’t want to get it into right now, either…that’s not part of your end of things except that you just make sure your crowd doesn’t put the chomp on him. We clear on that?” Vic pursed his lips for a moment. “If Eddie can’t get the job done by, say, next week, then I’ll just take a baseball bat to the kid’s knees just so he’s not in the game during the Wave. Been wanting to do that for some time. Kid’s a serious disappointment.”
“Maybe he has too much of his father in him.”
“Watch your mouth—”
“Not
him
, dumbass, I meant the—whaddya call it?—the biological father. Maybe he picked up the pussy goody-two-shoes gene or something.”
“Yeah,” Vic conceded grudgingly. “Maybe. Genetics and the supernatural make a weird cocktail. You can sure as hell bet no one’s ever studied it, so all of us, even the Man, are making some of this shit up as we go. Sometimes you never know how things’ll turn out.”
“In a pinch you could always handcuff the little punk to the radiator come Halloween morning. Let him just sit the whole thing out. Ever thought of something as simple as that, Einstein?”
“Of course I have.” Vic felt his face flush because it was so simple a solution that he’d over-thought the situation. So, apparently, had the Man. “We’re getting off the point here. About the only thing we managed to get right yesterday was stealing Boyd’s body…though we’d both better hope that our little bit of stage dressing is going to do the trick.”
“We gotta consider spin control here. Crow and that faggot reporter saw too much down in the Hollow. We have to keep him quiet. Maybe take the Guthrie bitch and hold her hostage to force him to keep his mouth shut, or threaten her and the baby she’s carrying.”
“Be a tricky play, Sport. Do it too soon it would mean having to hold her for two weeks. You got to remember that Crow was a cop and he’s still cop-connected. There’s ten thousand ways that could go south on us. On the other hand, if we wait too long he’ll probably be poking his nose where it don’t belong.”
“That Guthrie bitch probably knows what Boyd is…or
was
, I mean.”
“Yeah, damn it.” Vic sipped his drink. “We have to slow down any attempts they make to investigate things. I have the Man’s house rigged, but that’s only if they get there closer to the Wave. Until then we have to make things look ordinary so nothing screws up the tourist flow.”
“If we have to we can move the nest out of there. Or we can tweak the scene, make it look like Boyd was using it as a hideout. That’ll sell if Polk can handle playing an actual cop.”
“Polk’ll do whatever he’s told, but there’s another potential player in all this and he’s someone people will listen to—that Jew doctor…Weinstock.”
“What about him? We stole Boyd’s body…he don’t have jack shit.”
“Don’t you ever watch
CSI
or any of them shows?”
“No, jackass, I actually have a life.”
“Not anymore,” Vic said and there was a long moment when the two of them stared hard at each other, then Ruger’s lip twitched and they both burst out laughing. Ruger beat the arm of his chair as he howled and Vic had to set down his drink to keep from spilling it down his shirtfront.
“Okay, okay, that’s one for you, you son of a bitch,” Ruger said as the laughter died down. “Get to where you were going, though. How’s the doctor going to be a problem?”
“Forensic evidence. He autopsied those two cops Boyd killed. Castle and Cowan. He’s got to have lab reports and shit. And Polk told us they had morgue video of Boyd stealing your body…what if there’s tape of Cowan and Castle getting up to go out for a stroll?”
“Balls. Even so, we certainly can’t kill him right now. There’s no one to pin it on and it’d draw the wrong kind of attention.”
Vic nodded. “Plus, he’s a good friend of Crow and Guthrie. It’d be way too high profile, too many of the wrong connections, and it would just strengthen anything Crow had to say.”
Ruger’s mouth gave an ugly tremble. “I could turn him.”
Vic considered, but then shook his head. “Too chancy. We run the risk of him going brain dead.”
“Yeah…which is something I don’t quite get. About one in five of the people I turn wakes up with ‘No Sale’ written on his eyeballs. Like Boyd, only worse in a lot of cases. It’s a pain in the ass, and it’s dangerous to the plan. They don’t like following orders, even if they
understand
the orders, which I friggin’ doubt. When they’re not milling around groaning like extras from
Night of the Living Dead
, they’re trying to break out to go hunt. I had to put a few of them down ’cause they were just too unruly. You’re the expert…what’s with that shit?”
“Hell if I know. Some vampires are like that. Not everyone wakes up smart and charming. Look at you, for instance.”
Ruger shot him the finger. He said, “Are you sure they’re actual vampires? They’re more like zombies.”
“Supposed to be vamps, according to the Man. Just different. Just like some of you guys have retractable fangs and some don’t. Some of you guys have these oversized chompers that look like walrus teeth, and some don’t and can pass for Joe Normal. Lots of different species. Maybe it has something to do with ethnic background, who knows? The only ones that are a real problem are those Dead Heads like Boyd. At first I thought he was a fluke but, you’re right, it seems to be a pattern, and that could hurt us if it gets out of hand.” He shook his head. “So, I guess, we can’t risk having it happen to the Jew. Not yet.”
“Well, then the answer’s pretty obvious—we have to find out if he has any forensic stuff, find out where he keeps it, and then get rid of it. Simple as that. Steal his files, fry his hard drive. Your boy Polk’s supposed to be a computer geek, right? He could find out what the doc has stored. Delete it or some shit.”
Vic looked thoughtful as he sipped his whiskey. “That’s not bad. Another job for Jimmy-boy. And in the meantime I have to make a decision about Cowan and Castle. Much as we need soldiers we don’t need liabilities.”
“Let me handle that end of things. Those guys belong to me.”
“You mean they belong to the Man,” Vic said, a warning edge in his voice.
Ruger smiled. “That’s what I meant.”
(2)
Crow heard someone call his name and looked up from the hallway water fountain to see Saul Weinstock coming out of the elevator, his clothes sweat-stained and soiled and his face as gray as five-day-old steak. Crow stepped forward, offering his hand, but Weinstock clamped a hand around his bicep, spun him, and dragged him back down the hall to Val’s room. “We have to talk…right now.”
Once they were inside Crow pulled his arm free. “I’ve been trying to get to you all night. How’s Val?”
“She’s fine, she’s fine…look there’s something else I have to—”
Crow put his palm flat on Weinstock’s chest and gave him the smallest of pushes—not hard, but hard enough. “Saul…tell me about Val. Now.”
Weinstock blinked in confusion for a moment, then his face cleared. “Right, sorry, man…you can’t imagine the kind of night I’ve had. Can I at least give you the short version?”
“Shortish, but tell me something before the big vein in my head pops.”
“All right, all right…Val has a fracture of the medial wall of the orbit and a mild concussion. We did a CT scan and there’s no evidence of a subdural hematoma and though there is some damage to the maxillary sinus there’s been no blowout injury—which is a fairly common result of the kind of injury she sustained.” He looked at his watch. “I have a neurologist coming in at nine this morning to do a more complete workup. Val’s probably going to have headaches for a while, some loss of balance, double vision, maybe some short-term memory loss. We’ve been worried about retinal detachment, but it’s looking better, though we’re still waiting on that report from Dr. Barrett. I told them to page me the second he’s done with her, and they’ll be bringing her up here. Should be pretty soon. If the retina’s good, then there may not even be any vision loss. Considering the trauma she’s had, she’s got luck on her side.”
“Luck’s relative,” Crow said. “You told Sarah that Terry was lucky.”
Weinstock looked pained. “Yeah, well, around here any time a doctor gets to give news that’s not worst-case scenario ‘luck’ is a good word to use. Believe me, we don’t get to use it enough. But I hear what you’re saying, what with Mark and Connie and all.”