Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (23 page)

I slammed my open palm down on the top of the glass showcase hard enough to sting and to make Smitty jump in surprise.
“I don’t have time for games, Smitty. I need something with penetration and stopping power.”

“I got nothing like that,” he protested. “I’m legit.”

“You heard about my partner?” I asked.

He nodded. “
S
o?”

I leaned over the counter. “So I’m in no mood for your damn games. I told you what I need. Now get it or I’ll rip off your God damned head and shit in it.”

The threat produced the
desired
results. His eyes went wide and he backed up against the wall
cringing
.

“Wait! Wait!
” he yelled. “
I got
th
omething you might like. Come on.”

I followed him into his storage room. He moved
aside
two cases
from a stack marked
‘
.38 caliber ammunition
’
and pried open the
case
beneath. Inside
, nestled in a
vinyl
form
-
fitting case,
lay
the biggest pistol I
had ever
seen. The barrel was almost two feet long.
Smitty’s eyes gleam
ed
like a
hungry fat
kid tearing into his Easter basket full of chocolate bunnies
as he
described
the pistol.

“It’s an Austrian Pfeifer-Zeliska .600 Nitro Express Magnum.”

“It’s the biggest damn gun I’ve ever seen,” I replied
suitably awed
and more so that Smitty could say all of that without lisping
.

He smiled. “
Peni
th
envy.
It’s eight times as powerful as a Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum.
They mix nitroglycerin with the powder
to increase its power
.
It
fires
a 900 grain
, .60 caliber
bullet that can penetrate 10 mm steel plate at 12 yards like butter.”

I picked it up by the polished wooden handle. It was
surprisingly
heavy.

“Thirteen pounds,” Smitty said
, reading my mind
. “The weight helps reduce
recoil
, but it’s still like firing an elephant gun. As a matter of fact, the ammunition was developed by the British for just that type of game.”

I ran my fingers along the barrel
lovingly
.

“42 CrMo4 Tungsten steel. It won’t rust or scratch. It’s a single action revolver. Holds five rounds. You have to cock it each time to fire, like in the old days.
The hammer is made of gold.
”

I held the revolver out and aimed. I could see I would not be able to hold it level for very long.
After a few seconds, my wrist began to burn.
I would have to raise and fire
it
quickly. I turned to Smitty.

“How much?

“
Th
eventeen thousand dollars, plus forty bucks per shell.”

I laughed. “Where did you expect to sell this thing?”

He shrugged. “Oh, I got connections.”

“I’ll take it.”

He
wet his lips with his tongue and smiled
. “Cash or charge?”

I stared at him. “No, I’ll take it. Just for tonight. Plus ten rounds of ammo.”

“No way in hell?” he yelled and grabbed for the gun. I pushed him back
against a stack of creates and laid my arm across his throat
and applied pressure
to his prominent Adam’s apple
.
I did
n’t
like to use
strong-arm
tactics, but I needed the weapon.

“I need it for one night
, Smitty
. After that,
you can
wipe it down and sell it
and I won’t bust you for having it
.”

“Do I look crazy?
” he groaned
, his face turning red
.
“
What if something happens to you? I’m out seventeen thousand bucks.”

“We could go downtown and discuss the legality of possessing such a weapon.
Then
I could borrow it from lock up for a few hours, put it back when I’m through and let the courts decide if it’s legal. Of course, you might have to spend the night locked up behind bars.”

Smitty winced. He had done a few days
jail
time before and had not done well
. Small, nervous men usually don’t
.
They make easy targets.
“You bastard,” he spit. “If anything happens to that gun, I swear I’ll sell my shop to pay for a hit man from Jersey.”

I laughed. “If I don’t bring it back in perfect working order, you won’t have to worry about me.”

He grabbed the
pistol, put it back in the case,
and
tossed in a box of ammo. “
There are
twenty rounds in here. I’ll take the
unfired ones back, if you please. I
operate
on a small
profit
margin here.”

“I
promise to
be as precise as I can.”

I
grabbed a pair of
earplugs
out of an open canister and
walked out with the heavy gun case under my arm feeling a little more confident about the coming night.
I wasn’t sure I could hit anything with the cannon I was carrying, but I sure as hell could rupture a few
eardrums
.

The rain had returned
with a vengeance
. My Acura needed new wiper blades
, something I had been putting off for a while
. I drove squinting out through the rain streak
ed windshield
and streetlight glare
. Once, I thought I spotted the
black S
UV but if they were following, they were
now
keeping a low profile. In spite of the weather,
I
managed to reach the
monastery
unscathed. I searched the sky as I got out of the car, but it was so dark I couldn’t have seen the
Chupacabra
until it was on top of me.
A thick drapery of rain clouds hid the moon.
I hurried to the side door waiting to feel talons rip into my flesh the entire way. Inside, I felt a little better.
I was familiar enough with the way not to stumble over everything.
I risked a flashlight occasi
onally but did not want to grow dependent
upon it.

I
caught the odor of
fresh blood as I entered the old
chapel
and wrinkled my nose
. The creature had fed
recently
. I shook my head sadly at the thought of one more victim I could not save. I
spotted
a
body tossed unceremoniously against the wall of the apse like a discarded soda bottle
and
grew
angry
.
She had been a pretty little thing, barely out of her teens,
red
hair matted with blood. Her throat was open to her chest, one naked breast shredded where a talon had
cruelly
ripped into her. I scanned her quickly for signs of life, expecting
none
and finding none. Her body was cold
and stiff with rigor mortis
. She had been dead since before the creature’s game with me the previous night.
I picked up a piece of
police tape
and covered her staring eyes. It was all I could do for now. If I called
in my
discovery, forensic
s
would descend on the place and I would lose my chance at killing the creature. She could wait a few hours
longer
.
She certainly wasn’t going to get any deader.

I scanned the ceiling and the columns but saw no sign of the creature.
I was searching for a likely spot to hide out and wait, when I saw that the wrecked remains of the wrought iron gate behind the altar.
One of the
ornamental metal
spears was detached from the gate and
lying on the ground. T
he
gate
hinges were hanging loose. It had taken a massive amount of strength to wrench the gate from its concrete mountings. I took a deep breath and
began
to
descend the stairs
when something caught my eye
.
Around the far edge of the altar, I was shocked to discover a second body, another young girl viciously mutilated, her head almost ripped from her torso, a pool of congealed blood spread around her like a crimson sheet. She, too, was cold. Two bodies? Why would the creature kill two women in one night? This was something new. I left her
lying beside her companion in death
and continued down the steps.

I entered a
small
basement
room
with a vaulted roof
crammed
full of rotten, moldy furniture, broken statuary, and dust-covered portraits – worthless detritus of an abandoned
monastery
. The floor was covered with cobwebs
, rat
droppings, dirt …,
and footprints. The creature had been
h
ere, could be here even now lurking in some dark corner, waiting for me. I tried to get my apprehension under control. I gripped the
Pfeifer
.60 caliber tighter. It’s heavy weight felt reassuring in my hands.
The basement was empty, but I discovered two entrances to crypts deeper in the subbasement
, one on each side of the basement
. I chose
the one on the right
and followed the twisting stairs past open alcoves filled with decaying coffins, bones and mummified skin poking through open holes. Some
niches
bore only dismembered piles of bones.
Stacks of skulls stared at me as I passed
by
.
I wondered why the
Jesuits
would leave bodies
beneath
an abandoned
monastery
but decided it was
a
more dignified
end
than scooping them up in
cardboard
boxes and moving them elsewhere.

I
grew
concerned
by
the lack of rats. Every basement ha
d
rats
scurrying about
.
The city was full of rats.
Every alley held its compliment of rodents. Yet, t
his
basement
had none. What did they know that I did not?
The old adage about rats and a sinking ship gave me pause to think. I searched a maze of small rooms and catacomb-like corridors but found nothing, no sign of the creature. I was ready to retrace my steps back to the basement to try the second door, when I heard a strange noise coming from
somewhere
ahead of me. I
continued
forward
as stealthily as possible, the .60 caliber held in front of me with two hands. I had
the earplugs draped around my neck.
I donned the
m
in case I had to fire
quickly
.
This limited my hearing, but I din't want to go deaf from firing such a massive cannon in an enclosed space.

I stepped into a sticky mess in the darkness
and cursed silently
. A foul odor rose around me, the smell of corruption and decay. I risked a quick flash of light and bit back the gore that tried to climb my gullet. I had found the rats. They had not
fled,
as I had feared, though doing so might have saved them from their indignant fate.
Scores of rotting rat carcasses lay strewn across the floor amid a congealed morass of blood and fluids.
Most were headless.
Maggots crawled through the mess
and wriggled beneath the skin
and beetles scampered off with choice morsels
between mandibles
. At the edge of the pile of dead
rats,
I spotted
two
strange
cylindrical
objects
like
partially deflated balloons, somewhat oval
and
about two feet in length. The ends were
shredded
, as if
ripped
open from the inside
. My stomach churned when I suddenly realized I was gazing upon discarded eggs,
Chupacabra
eggs.
A third egg lay a few feet away partially hidden by a rotting wooden crate. With
three discarded eggs, I assumed three offspring
lurking
somewhere in the
dark underbelly of the church
. Judging by the size of the eggs, they should be small, but I had no idea of their rate of maturation.