Dark Corner (64 page)

The raven alighted on a stone monument just inside the
entrance, in the cool shade of a maple tree.

David parked nearby, on the shoulder of the narrow asphalt path that curved through the graveyard.

"This is it?" Nia said. "I don't get it."

"Me, either." David's heart drummed. "But let's check it
out"

"You want to bring King with us?" Jahlil said. "Or leave
him in here?"

"He's coming," David said. "He's part of the team, too"

They climbed out of the truck. A wind whispered through
the cemetery, like a forlorn spirit. Morning mist shrouded
the headstones, and the boughs of the large elms and maples
drooped, as if burdened with sorrow.

David and the others strapped their bags over their shoulders. Each of them drew a weapon: David and Nia had handguns, and Jahlil carried his shotgun.

Standing atop the monument, the raven regarded them.

David approached the bird.

"Why did you bring us here?" he said.

Staring at him, the raven cawed. But the telepathic moment that he had experienced at the cabin did not repeat itself.

King's ears prickled. The dog growled.

"He senses something," Nia said. "But what?"

King started to trot through the grass.

"Let's follow him," David said. He looked at the raven,
but the bird only watched them, impassively.

They jogged in order to keep pace with the dog. They followed King in a twisting route around the headstones and
monuments. David read some of the inscriptions on the graves.
Most of the people had been buried decades ago.

Farther ahead, deep in the heart of the cemetery, standing
atop a slight hill, a dark mausoleum rose out of the fog, like
a temple to some ancient god.

King halted. But the dog continued to growl. He glowered at the crypt as though it were his mortal enemy.

"Oh, my God," Nia said. "I get it."

"What is it?" David and Jahlil said simultaneously.

"Edward Mason was buried in there," Nia said. "That's
the Mason family mausoleum. Remember what Franklin told
us, David?"

David nodded. "I remember. There's a shelter, under the crypt. Mason had it built so that he could hide there if Union
troops ever invaded the area"

"Are you for real?" Jahlil said. "That thing leads underground?"

"For real," Nia said.

"Think about it," David said. "What a perfect hideaway
for a vampire. A sanctuary amongst the dead"

"No, not all dead," Nia said. "Look"

Like ghosts, large shapes emerged from the mist around
the mausoleum: vampiric hounds.

King was barking. David, Nia, and Jahlil had raised their
firearms.

Three bloodsucker hounds gathered in front of the crypt,
like modern-day counterparts of Cerebrus, the mythical, vicious guard dog that guarded the gates of Hades.

"I'm sick of these fucking mutts," Jahlil said. "They act
like they own the town"

Cold sweat plastered David's shirt to his torso. He was
frightened beyond reason, and they had not confronted
Diallo yet. He had to buckle down and handle this. He had
to.

"Listen, we know that guns won't kill those mutts," David
said. "At best, they'll knock them down, temporarily. We hit
them with enough firepower to paralyze them, then we move
on, inside. Let's not waste our energy and resources trying to
kill them. Remember: we take care of Diallo, and every
creature under his power will die, too"

"All right, sounds like a plan," Nia said. Her fingers tightened on her gun. "Let's do this."

The monster canines broke into a run, scattering in various directions.

"They're gonna try to trap us in a circle!" David shouted.
He swung around. The hounds dashed through the cemetery
like trained soldiers. Shit, those suckers were smart. "Everyone, spread out and take a different side. I'm out front, Nia, you
get the right, Jahlil, grab the left. Go!"

They positioned themselves as he commanded. King remained at David's side, snapping furiously.

A huge, vampiric canine charged straight toward them,
its eyes ablaze with supernatural hunger. David fired the .38
and missed terribly, the bullet ricocheting off a headstone.

The beast leapt high and tackled him. He slammed to the
grass.

The monster dog's strong paws dug into his chest. Saliva
poured from its lips, and a rank stench spewed from its mouth.

I can't let it bite me; if it bites me, I'm through.

The gun had popped out of his grasp when he had fallen.
He was defenseless.

Snarling, the vampiric mutt dipped its large head, to tear
into his neck.

He would have been finished, had it not been for King.
King jumped onto the creature and tore into the back of the
hound's neck.

The creature shrieked. It fell off David's chest.

David rolled over. His gun had fallen beside a headstone.
The inscription bore his first name.

No death today, dammit, not for me.

He grasped the gun. The vampire dog was trying, unsuccessfully, to throw off King. The German shepherd had
locked its jaws onto the creature's neck.

David scrambled forward, took aim, and shot the monster
in the head. It dropped to the grass with a whimper, legs
kicking spasmodically.

Saliva glistening on his lips, King seemed to grin at
David.

"Good boy," David said.

Gunfire rang through the graveyard. David turned to see
how the others were doing, and that was when Nia screamed.

She lay on the ground, clutching her leg. A vampiric dog lay in a heap in the grass nearby, blood leaking from its
breast.

"It bit me before I could finish him." Nia gritted her teeth.
Blood seeped through the gash in her jeans, high on her
thigh. She pounded her fist against the ground. "Dammit, I
don't believe this!"

David knelt beside her. Jahlil had just dropped the final
vampiric mutt with his shotgun, and he hurried to kneel beside her, too.

David touched her shoulder. Her skin was hot, and she
was trembling.

He might be more frightened than she was. He could not
bear the thought of losing her. He could handle anything
else, but not that.

"How do you feel?" he said.

"David, I'm not going to turn into one of them," she said
savagely. "Hell, no. We're going to finish this before that
happens"

"But you're gonna start getting weak," Jahlil said. His
eyes were wet. "When that vampire poison gets into your
blood, it numbs you, knocks you out."

"Then we better finish while I still have the strength," Nia
said. She began to push herself to her feet. David tried to assist her, but she brushed off his hand. "Don't baby me, honey.
Please. I'm with you on this all the way, I'm not going out
like a punk. Let's move while those mutts are down"

"Let me at least put something on your wound," David
said. "There's a first aid kit in the truck"

"There's no time for that, David," she said. "We've got to
keep going."

David had never loved her more. But his fear that he
would lose her was just as powerful as the love that poured
through him.

"Okay," he said. He looked at each of them, then faced
the mausoleum. "Let's go inside."

The mausoleum had been standing for over one hundred
and forty years, and the granite structure had endured the
time well. The exterior walls and the two supporting columns
were smooth and shiny, as if they had been recently polished. Elaborately sculpted white angels flanked the bronze
double doors. Above the doorway, "Mason" had been engraved in large, gray letters.

Metal handles were set in the thick doors.

"Those doors looks heavy as hell," Jahlil said. "Hope
they aren't locked."

David grabbed the handles. He leaned back, and pulled.
At first, the doors did not budge. He tried again, and then
they loosened, yet it still required help from Nia and Jahlil to
force open the entrance.

Shadows congregated inside the vestibule. A musty odor
hung in the still air.

David switched on a flashlight. He shone the beam
within.

It was a spacious chamber, about the size of a large master bedroom. Six granite tombs stood on stone blocks in the
center of the crypt, ranked in a line.

"Ed Mason's family was buried here," Nia said. "Him, his
wife, and their three kids. After they died in the slave insurrection, their corpses were found and interred here, like he
always wanted"

"Where's the door that goes to the underground place?"
Jahlil said. "That's all I wanna know."

"It's hidden, I'm sure," David said. He stepped across the
threshold. The others entered behind him.

"We'd better close these doors," Jahlil said. "The mutts
are getting up"

Indeed, back in the cemetery, the vampiric hounds had
begun to stir, like broken toys that had been repaired and
gifted with new batteries.

David and Jahlil grabbed the interior door handles and pulled the doors shut, cutting off the daylight. The flashlight
was the only light source in the silent vestibule.

Nia ran her palms across the walls, searching for an indentation, or a lever. Jahlil began to do the same along the
opposite wall. King sniffed curiously at the tombs.

Slowly, David walked, scanning the light beam around.
He did not know what he was looking for. Anything out of
the ordinary. As if walking inside a family mausoleum was
an ordinary task.

"There's gotta be a door, somewhere," David said. He noticed King snuffling around a tomb against the far wall.
"Wait a minute. King, move away from there"

Ears raised curiously, the dog edged aside.

David shone the flashlight across the lid of the stone coffin.

Large fingerprints were imprinted along the dusty edge.

Someone had recently opened the tomb.

David looked at Nia. "You said Mason, his wife, and their
three kids were buried in here. But there are six graves, not five"

"You're right," Nia said. She came closer. "I didn't notice
that"

David gave the flashlight to Nia. "Jahlil, help me open
this, would you?"

Nia kept the light over them as they lifted the tomb's
heavy lid. The thick cover raised like the hood of a car, attached to the granite casket via a set of steel hinges.

The tomb was empty.

A circular hole, large enough to admit a man, yawned in
the center. The flashlight revealed a set of stone ladder rungs
that began along the side of the opening, and dropped down
into the darkness. David could not see the bottom of the shaft.

"You've got to be kidding me," Jahlil said, dusting his
hands on his jeans. "We've got to go down there? Why can't
we lob a bomb down there and call it a day?"

"That won't work," David said. "We have to be sure that
he's gone"

"He's right," Nia said. She looked weary, and a pang of
anxiety twisted through David. How much time did they
have before the vampire poison worked its way through Nia
and robbed her of consciousness? Most likely, not much
time at all.

Jahlil groaned. "All right. This just keeps getting better,
doesn't it?"

Nia peered over the lip of the hole, directing the flashlight
down there.

"I can see the bottom, but barely," she said. "My guess is
that it's a drop of about twenty, twenty-five feet"

David looked, too. "Yeah, something like that" He stepped
back. "You don't all have to go, I can go by myself. You can
wait up here"

"Negative, Hunter," Nia said. "How many times do I have
to tell you that I'm with you all the way on this? I'm going,
and you can't stop me"

"So am I," Jahlil said. He sighed. "I guess. Let's pray for
God to stay with us on this, y'all."

David opened his mouth to argue about them following,
then stopped, knowing that debating would be fruitless.
Already, the three of them had endured so much together. He
could not demand that they stand back and watch. Not now.
They had already passed the point of no return.

"But you, King, you're staying up here," David said to the
dog. "Unless you can climb down a ladder."

The dog wagged his tail eagerly, as though game for the
challenge. But there was no way that David was carrying the
dog down there. It was out of the question.

"Let's lighten our load, then," David said. "We need to
bring only the essentials: guns and explosives."

They stuffed the remaining Molotov cocktails-they had
only three left-into David's duffel bag. David carried the
bag over his shoulder. Jahlil carried his shotgun, Nia wore her gun on her hip holster, and David had slid his own pistol
at the back of his waist, where it was held snug by his belt.

"I'll go first," David said. "Nia comes after me, and Jahlil,
you'll bring up the rear. Everyone ready?"

They nodded. David gazed into the shaft. It was like staring into the throat of a giant monster.

We're out of our minds for doing this, he thought. But the
thought did not stop him. This had long since ceased to be a
rational mission. They were fueled by faith alone. As he
looked into the pit, he had an acute understanding of why his
ancestor, William Hunter, had never been the same after
confronting Diallo in the cave over a century ago. The man,
operating on faith and courage, had looked Death in the face
and survived, and there was little wonder why, afterward,
William had become a legend who dedicated his life to saving others. Why fear man when you had conquered something greater than man?