Supernatural Fresh Meat (16 page)

Sam jumped out of the van, running to the front door of the Nest. The place must have just caught on fire because even the fire department wasn’t there yet. Sam called 911 and reported it.

Johennie joined him and they looked for a way in. The kitchen seemed to be the seat of the fire.

“Bobby!” Sam yelled. “Marta!”

He didn’t see any movement inside. He ran around back. The door was open. Marta appeared in the flaming doorway, her arms full of old books.

Sam rushed to her. “Where’s Bobby?”

“Inside,” she said, coughing. Soot coated her face, stained her brown hair ebony. “He’s getting the last of the manuscripts.”

Sam ran in, saw the burning hallway and Marta’s office just to the right. A blast of heat hit him like a visceral force, and he felt as if every little hair on his face was instantly singed off. The office hadn’t caught yet, but the fire was drawing dangerously close. Thick black smoke hung heavily, so dense he could barely see. He ducked low, entering the office. Bobby stood at the desk, scooping up spices and a few ancient leather-bound texts.

“Bobby!”

He saw Sam and ran to him, dumping the books and supplies into his arms. “Wait for me outside!” he ordered, then coughed.

“Not a chance!” Sam yelled back. The fire hissed and sputtered, working its way down the hallway. Sam choked, trying to bend down lower to get beneath the layer of acrid smoke.

Bobby took another stack of books and added them to Sam’s load. “This is the chance I never got with my place!” he said, then went into a coughing fit. “These books are irreplaceable.”

He returned to a shelf, got two armfuls of books and staggered back to Sam. “Now we get out!”

They passed through the outside door, the wave of cool night air a blessed relief. Sam breathed it in, then started hacking.

Marta passed them and ran inside.

“Marta!” Bobby called to her in protest.

Sam and Bobby rushed to the van, dumped the books inside, and sped back. Sam didn’t see Johennie around.

As he and Bobby went back inside for the rest of Marta’s research material, Sam heard the wail of a fire engine’s siren in the distance. Relief flooded over him.

Inside the office, the air temperature had grown searingly hot. Sam could feel it burning his lungs as he grabbed the last of the books and retreated with Marta out of the door. Bobby was the last to leave, rolled manuscripts tucked under both of his arms.

They carefully piled the ancient books and scrolls inside the van, then sat catching their breath and coughing.

Sam looked around for Johennie. “Something’s wrong,” he wheezed.

Bobby wiped soot from his eyes. “You mean other than the towering inferno?”

Sam moved away from the van, checking the other side of the building. “Johennie was with me.”

Marta looked incredulous. “Odysseus left his shop?”

“It was sort of an emergency. But I don’t know where he is now.”

The sirens grew in volume and soon red flashing lights filled the night sky. Firefighters piled out of the truck, ordering them to move to a safe distance. Instantly the hose was out, water pouring onto Marta’s restaurant.

She watched the flames consuming the kitchen and two of the walls. “This is sickening,” she said.

Neighbors emerged from houses and nearby restaurants and shops, all staring at the blaze.

They moved Bobby’s van farther away, and got out.

Sam stared around the faces looking for Johennie, then a glint caught his eye in the darkness, off to the side of the restaurant in a vacant lot. The lot stood on the very edge of town, with no buildings beyond it. Sam lifted a hand to block out the furious brightness of the fire, and peered at it.

There was another flash of light, and Sam saw it wasn’t one pinpoint, but several. They blinked and moved, and he realized he was staring at eyes.

A flashlight clicked on in the lot, and illuminated in its beam was Leather Jacket, holding a knife to Johennie’s throat.

TWENTY-FOUR

Sam turned to Bobby and Marta. “There! In the field! Vampires. They attacked me outside Johennie’s shop. And now they’ve got Johennie.”

The two hunters followed Sam’s pointing finger, seeing the reflective eyes in the darkness.

“Vampires?” Marta asked. “I didn’t know there were any nests left around here.”

“This is special,” Sam said. “They knew my name. They’d come specifically for me. They might not be locals.”

Bobby coughed into his sleeve. “They probably set this fire to drive us out.” He glared in their direction. “Divide and conquer.”

“Those bastards,” Marta hissed. “They burned me out of my restaurant. Didn’t they? Didn’t they?” She turned to Bobby. “What do you have in your van?”

“Two machetes. A chainsaw.”

Marta set her jaw. “That’s a good start.”

Bobby opened up the back and they armed themselves, hacking and coughing. Then they marched toward the field.

As they walked, Bobby gripped one of the machetes, his knuckles white. Marta swung the other one, getting used to the weight. Sam opted for the chainsaw. If it weren’t for them pausing to hack up a lung every few feet, they’d look pretty formidable.

Sam could still feel the heat from the blaze, even in the vacant lot. He counted six pairs of eyes.

“Winchester,” sneered Leather Jacket when Sam drew closer. His face was a mess. The buckshot had tattered the flesh. “You ran like a squealing little pig back there.”

“Now you have to fight three of us instead of ambushing me.”

The five other vampires clustered around in a semi-circle. Sam recognized Cowboy Boots and a couple ofothers who had pounded on the van’s windows. One of them sported a black Mohawk. Another struck Sam as out of place, a professor type in an honest-to-goodness tweed suit with elbow patches. One circled them in a rockabilly red and black bowling shirt with a skull vomiting fire. The last was a gaunt and pale female, her dark eyes glittering beneath a mane of tangled, ebony hair.

Mohawk held Johennie’s shotgun, trained in Sam’s direction.

Leather Jacket sneered, moving the blade tighter against Johennie’s neck. The spice shop owner’s face remained expressionless. He stared up at the sky, unmoving.

“We’re willing to make a trade,” said Leather Jacket, apparently the leader of the nest. “The old man for Winchester and Singer.”

Johennie shifted, moving for the first time. “That’s hardly a fair trade. I’m worth ten of them.”

That made Bobby smile.

“No trade?” the vampire growled.

“What am I? Chopped liver?” Marta said.

“Listen. We don’t want to fight,” the lead vampire said. “We just want to kill you.”

Sam looped his fingers through the pull for the chainsaw.

“Oh, hell,” Leather Jacket added. “Who are we kidding? Of course we want to fight!”

He had no sooner finished his sentence than Johennie spun suddenly, forcing the vampire’s knife hand down and stabbing the blade into its belly. In a flash, Johennie threw him to the ground, then lashed out and grabbed the barrel of his sawed-off. He slammed his fist down on the end, causing the stock to careen upward and smash Mohawk’s mouth. His hands went slack and Johennie took back the shotgun.

Sam revved up the chainsaw, feeling the powerful thrum of it. The female and Rockabilly scattered at the sound of it, but the other four held their ground.

The creatures attacked, running toward them. Marta stepped in, wielding her machete like a samurai. She swung it forward over her head, connecting with Mohawk. His head flew off in a spray of blood, landing in a bush some ten feet away. Then she ducked and rolled under the Professor as he tried to dive-tackle her. The vampire hit the ground and Sam closed in with the chainsaw, sawing through the creature’s neck as he tried to stand up. The body flinched, toppling over in the dirt. Two down, four to go.

Sam moved in toward Leather Jacket, who stood with a hand clasped to his injured side. The chainsaw was bulky and cumbersome, but Sam knew it would be hard for anything to get near him and keep its head.

Leather Jacket started circling.

Bobby closed in on Cowboy Boots. Blood streamed from the vampire’s broken lip. Sam saw the eyes flash again, and the vampire barreled toward Bobby. Johennie darted out of the shadows and threw out his leg to trip him. He went sprawling, cowboy boots stretching into the air. He rolled to a stop and Bobby came down fast and hard with the machete blade. The head rolled away.

Sam saw fear enter Leather Jacket’s eyes now, replacing some of the cockiness. Marta, Bobby, and Johennie approached him from different sides, and the vampire started to look downright panicky.

Then Sam heard brush break behind him and turned in time to see two eyes flashing in the darkness only feet away. He lashed out with the chainsaw, connecting with something soft and pliable. Blood sprayed outward, coating his shirt and arms. He’d cut right into a vampire’s stomach. In the flickering light from the restaurant fire, Sam could just make out a ripped bowling shirt coated with blood. The vampire cried out in agony, and Marta raced in, swinging her machete down on his neck. The head separated, white bone gleaming in the light.

Sam glanced around for the other vampire who had hightailed it. She could be circling around like Rockabilly had just done. Something whizzed by his ear,
thunking
into the trunk of a tree right next to him. He snapped his head that way, seeing a crossbow bolt thrumming in the wood.

“I’m on it!” Marta shouted, and tucked and rolled as another crossbow bolt hit the dirt when it missed her head. Sam caught movement in the corner of his eye and saw the last vampire, standing up on a small hill, putting another bolt in the weapon. Marta was on her so fast that Sam almost couldn’t believe it. Marta thrust a leg out, kicking the vampire in the chest and knocking her down. Marta punched her in the trachea, then brought the machete down on her neck. Sam heard a sickening
shick
and the head came rolling down the hill, landing at Leather Jacket’s feet.

He really looked nervous now, glancing around for an escape route. Bobby advanced, gripping the machete, while Sam circled around. Leather Jacket turned to run away, but Sam intercepted him. He felt the chainsaw bite into bone as he slid the blade across the top of the vampire’s shoulders. Blood showered Sam, and he wiped his face off with his jacket sleeve. Marta came running down the hill in time to see Leather Jacket’s head fly off his torso and land in some weeds. In one hand she carried the newly acquired crossbow.

Sam did another pass with the jacket sleeve and checked around cautiously for other vampires.

“That was weird,” Bobby said. “Vampires seeking
us
out?”

“Dad said once, they get your scent, they never lose it.”

“You’re thinking old vendetta?”

Sam turned the chainsaw off. “Maybe.”

Marta was staring at her still-burning restaurant.

“That’s quite a blaze,” Johennie said.

The firefighters were making headway though, and Sam let himself hope that they would be able to put it out and some of the structure could be salvaged. They watched for a few minutes longer, but Sam didn’t feel safe in the open. The vampires had sought them out, and something told him that they might see more of them.

“I have to get back to check on my shop. If those jerks set fire to my place…” Johennie’s voice trailed off. “I’m getting too old for this.”

Sam withheld a laugh; he sounded just like Bobby. “I’ll drive you.”

They left Bobby and Marta staring at the blaze, and Sam returned Johennie to his store. He heard Johennie sigh with relief when they found it untouched. “I’m ready for sleep. Live on the upper floor,” he told Sam.

“It’s been a pleasure meeting you,” Sam told him, and meant it. He hoped he was just as spry when he got to be Johennie’s age.

“You, too.” Johennie shook his hand in another painfully tight grip, and got out of the van. When he was safely inside, Sam retrieved the spices from under the VW Rabbit. None of the bottles had broken. Relieved, he drove back to the Pelican’s Nest.

Bobby and Marta were still watching the terrible fire. Sam joined them, seeing sadness consume Marta’s face. He could feel the heat blasting over him, even from hundreds of feet away.

“I hate to rain on this joy parade,” Bobby said, “but we still need to finish that weapon.”

Marta tore her eyes away from the flames. “We salvaged everything, but we need a place.”

“Not enough room in the van.”

“We can go to my house, but I live with my niece. She doesn’t know squat about hunters and monsters, and I want it to stay that way. So no mention of ghoulies or things that go bump in the night.”

Bobby nodded. “Understood. We’d be much obliged.”

“Okay, then.” She looked at Sam’s bleeding head wound. “First we need to get you cleaned up. Let’s stop at a gas station.”

They piled in the van and reluctantly Marta closed the passenger door behind herself.

From the back seat, Sam tried to reassure her. “I’m sure they’ll notify you as soon as they get it under control.”

She frowned. “Yeah, but there’s some kind of perverse longing to watch it. Like if I take my eyes off it for an instant, it’s going to burn to ashes. What’s that old saying? ‘A watched pot never boils?’ Maybe a watched restaurant doesn’t burn.”