The Living Night (Book 1) (25 page)

"Goddamnit, don't you see? This changes
everything!"

Sophia shook her head sadly. "I won't do
it."

"Then, by God,
I will!
" Shaking
with anger, Cloire moved over to the man, who was quite petrified, and punched
through his chest. Wordlessly, she ripped out his heart and held it up for Sophia's
inspection, then flung it to the floor. She didn’t even feed from the man.

"Does that make you happy,
Sofe
?"

"No.”

Jean-Pierre walked over to Sofia and put a bloody arm around her
shoulder. "Okay, show's over," he said. "Everyone shower and
let's get on with it."

“This isn’t done,” Cloire said.

“It is for now,” he said.

Sophia, feeling Jean-Pierre's strength around
her, watched as the others shuffled away.

"It'll be okay, you'll see," Jean-Pierre
said, and though she knew he couldn't be right, she was glad just the same that
he stayed with her until the others had showered before moving off himself.

*
    
*
    
*

The
death-squad turned off the highway onto the private road, bounced down its
winding path, passing a strange big yellow van (but not stopping to inspect it,
though very shortly Jean-Pierre would realize it belonged to none other than
Junger and Jagoda), then pulled up to the mission/hangar to park near the odd
flock's Volkswagen. Though Jean-Pierre wasn't entirely positive it was their
quarry's vehicle, it didn’t go with the environment.

He saw Cloire smile with satisfaction as she
climbed down from the van.

“A perfect night for mayhem,” she said, hands
outstretched to catch the cool wind.

Sophia glanced up at the half-moon, looking
troubled, though Jean-Pierre couldn’t guess at what. There was certainly enough
to be troubled about.

Cupping his hands, he lit a Pall
Mall, and the others gathered around him.

"Okay, here's the deal," he said,
looking at Cloire and Loirot. "You two walk the perimeter, find a way into
the hangar and come back, fast."

"You mean you're actually going to kill Danielle?"
Cloire turned to the others. "Guys, I think we should make our leader here
personally kill that bitch. He's already shown a weakness for
Sofe
, so maybe he's finally over his little Gutter Angel—but
we should make him prove it."

"I agree," Kilian said.

"I don't know ..." said Byron, and
Cloire slapped him.

"Shut up, Aussie. Loirot, you with
me?"

Loirot nodded, carefully keeping his eyes away
from Jean-Pierre. "I guess.”

"
Normie
?"
she asked Kiernevar.

"
Kiernev
—"

"Oh, I don't wanna hear it. If you wanna
see your maker squirm, just nod." He nodded. "Good, that's settled.
Sofe
?"

Sophia returned Cloire's glare. Could friendship
really turn to hatred this fast? Jean-Pierre wondered. "You seem very
worried about Jean-Pierre's loyalty," the ghensiv said. "It’s called
displaced aggression. In other words, you're the one with the loyalty
problems."

"You're goddamned right,” Cloire said. “Jean-Pierre,
will you kill Danielle?"

For a long moment, he said nothing, then: "Cloire,
if you and Loirot don't do as I've said—scout the perimeter, if you need me to
repeat myself—I swear by the Night that I will, here and now, take off your
fucking heads."

"That's my boy." She and Loirot
sauntered off.

"Now are there any other loyalty problems
here?" asked Jean-Pierre.

Kilian’s eyes narrowed. "Just don't fuck up."

"Forget about Danielle," advised
Loirot, trying to be friendly. "She's white-trash."

Jean-Pierre sneered. "I would see you dead
before her, if I had a choice in the matter. Byron, can I trust in you?"

"Of course." The Australian looked
offended, but deep down, the albino felt, he would decide in favor of Cloire.

"And Sophia?"

She nodded silently. Jesus, was she the only one
he could really count on? And he'd known the others, except Kiernevar, for
decades!

Cloire and Loirot came back at a trot.

"What did you find?"

"On the other side, there's a stairway that
leads up to the mission—all the other entrances are sealed up,” Loirot said.

"Well, that won't do. If we go up that way,
we risk the odd flock being in the hangar and escaping. We can't afford to
divide ourselves. The only thing to do is to blast into the hangar itself—we'll
chase them up to the top and deal with them there."

"And if they jump off the roof?" Cloire
said.

"Then we jump, too—remember, we've just fed
and will probably be stronger than they will."

"I don't like it. The blast will make too
much noise. In fact, you know what I think? I think you just want to alert
Danielle so she can run away."

"He's right,” Sophia said. “Going from
bottom to top is the most strategically sound idea in this situation."

"Oh, and we're supposed to trust you?"

"Yes."

Cloire snorted. "Fine, but if this thing
goes sour, I'm through, Jean-Pierre. The team will have one less member."

Loirot and Kilian agreed.

Jean-Pierre headed back to the van. "Let's
get it over with, then."

They broke out the hardware—grenades, automatic
weapons, a variety of pistols. He knew Laslo was a chalgid and probably had
some zombies at his disposal, though surely not more than half a dozen or so,
and if Laslo was friendly toward Ruegger and Danielle, that meant the
death-squad had to be prepared.

After arming themselves, Jean-Pierre said,
"Remember: if you come across any zombies, aim for the head, just like in
the movies."

As they started in the direction of the hangar, he
lobbed several grenades at the great wooden door. The death-squad barely broke
stride as the explosives went off, blowing a hole. Almost casually, they strode
inside … but then their resolve broke.
Holy
hell, what happened here?

As he crunched over the debris the explosion had
made, Jean-Pierre became aware of walking on top of long wooden beams—
crosses
—and beneath them—nailed to
them—bodies. Bodies being ground into the concrete floor as the crew made its
way into the hangar.

“Fuck!” Cloire said.

Through the smoke Jean-Pierre saw the forest of
living skeletons and bodies, and along the walls crucifixes. He tread on a
dried gooey substance. Damn it all, he was walking on the dried-up liquids
these bodies had released on dying.

He noticed a large group of hooded monks, just
visible through the swaying forest, clustered near one wall, around a cross
with someone on it—

Danielle!

His heart thumped.

At that moment, the monks (zombies, he realized)
saw him too. The
deaders
’ heads had snapped in his
team’s direction at the explosion. Now, in unison, the things turned from
Danielle and ran, howling, toward the death-squad.

“How can there be so
many
?” Loirot said.

Most of them were armed, Jean-Pierre saw. And there
was Laslo, the sick puppy, wearing a priest's get-up and reaching for a rifle—

The door leading into the mission burst in. Jean-Pierre
turned to see another group of zombies descending a flight of stairs. At their
head was Singer, a man the albino recognized. With a start, Jean-Pierre realized
he himself could join their ranks if he wasn't careful.

He turned to his crew. As always, they looked up
to the task, even Kiernevar and Sophia.

“Form a barricade,” he said.

He fired at some of the chains that the bodies
were suspended from, breaking the metal links and causing several corpses to
fall to the ground, striking it hard. With the quickness of an immortal, he
arranged the bodies (some of which stirred slightly) into a little mound, then
squatted behind it, setting his various guns out on the floor around him for
easy reaching.

Turning, he saw that some of the other members
of his crew had done the same. Pride surged through him, and he felt the sting
of sadness at the possibility of losing them. It all depended on whether or not
he was willing to kill Danielle.

The zombies charged. He paused to light a cigarette,
possibly his last, then raised his automatic rifle, took aim, and fired.

*
    
*
    
*

From
his perch on the wall, Ruegger had a clear view of the action. He was high
enough to stare down at an angle on the rotting forest of flesh and the demons
that warred among it. Those that were down there would have their sight obscured
by the bodies, but not him—if he cared to look. Mainly he watched Danielle,
battered and bruised and crucified.
Crucified
.

How could he have gotten her into this? She’d
been right when she had said they should leave.

Suddenly he wished that Hauswell hadn't saved
him all those years ago, had let him go off on his merry way to hell where he
surely belonged. But then what about Danielle? Hadn't he, in some small way,
saved her from a drug overdose or a suicide attempt at some point? Maybe that
simply his ego speaking. Well, he would atone for his sins now. Either the
death-squad would get him or they would join him here on these crosses to die,
slowly and painfully—then be resurrected as a slave to Laslo.

Closing his eyes, he tried channeling his power,
but the mindthrust wouldn't come. He was simply too weak, drained of blood.

Suddenly, he saw something, something that
chilled him to the core: Junger and Jagoda walked through the hole the
death-squad had created, unfolded two lawn chairs and sat down in satisfaction,
each holding a long-necked beer. Jagoda produced an enormous joint, lit it, and
they began taking hits.

Junger saw him, pointed him out to Jagoda, and
they both smiled and raised their beers to the Darkling in a toast. Bullets
whizzed about them, even striking them, but they took no notice, and the
combatants took no further notice of them.

Chapter 20

Zombies
rushed at Jean-Pierre, firing what weapons they had, their rounds slamming into
the flesh of the corpses in his mound, some into Jean-Pierre himself. He fired
back, aiming for their heads. Three crumpled to the floor. He swore. He'd
delivered five good brain-shots, meaning that at least two of the remaining
five had been immortals in life and still retained some of their power.

Just before they came over the barricade, he
grabbed a Magnum .357 semi-automatic and a large knife from off the ground.

One leapt for him. He swung with the blade,
slicing through its neck, feeling the spray of its deathly juices. He hacked
again, cutting off its head and kicking the corpse out of his way to put five
rounds into the face of one of the zombie-shades.

The others fell on him. One started to eat into
his stomach and he broke its skull open with his elbow. It still lived.

He stabbed his blade into the chest of one of
the others (to no avail) and lost it there. Feeling their hands on him—digging
into his back, his groin, his throat, his belly—he twisted and writhed,
emptying his gun uselessly and then unable to reach his other weapons.

DAMNIT, I will NOT die like this.

A gun fired nearby. One of the zombies fell off
him, deader than ever. Jean-Pierre grabbed another creature, this one a zombie-shade,
by the throat. He could hear the last one wheezing and grunting a few paces
away.

Once freed from the constraints of the other
undead, he tore into the zombie-shade, decapitating and dismembering it.

Gasping, he turned in time to see Sophia finish
off the other one, knocking it to the ground and stomping on its skull. She was
completely covered in putrid zombie-grime, and he knew that he must be, too.

"Thanks," he wheezed.

"No problem. They only sent three after me."

A volley of bullets tore into both of them.
Crouching back behind the mound of corpses, they exchanged nervous looks.

"Are you going to kill Danielle?" she
asked, a few bullets whining over the top of her head. The zombies seemed to be
holding off on another all-out assault for the moment.

"I don’t know,” he said.

"If you kill her, you'll never be able to
get her out of your mind. Only by letting her live can you deal with your
feelings for her."

A bullet struck a corpse near Jean-Pierre’s
head, spraying his hair with blood. “Now isn’t the time for this!”

“It’s the
last
time.”

She was right, of course. “What about my crew? Vistrot?”

“You’ve hit what they call a defining moment,
Jean-Pierre.”

The rounds of an AK-47 slammed into his
disintegrating mound of the living dead, and he figured the time for
conversation was about up. Still, he hesitated.

“They’ll abandon me,” he said.

"
I
won't.”

She was serious.

Glancing over the mound, he saw that the zombies
were employing his own technique—taking down the bodies from the hooks and
building mounds to hide behind. Their mounds, however, stretched longer and
higher, making Jean-Pierre think of his days in the First World War. Trenches
and razor-coil …

He searched through the forest of bodies until
he saw Byron and Cloire. They’d finished killing off the zombies that had
attacked them in the first wave and were looking for him, too.

"What now,
Frenchie
?"
Cloire shouted when she found him.

"Take down more bodies. Extend your mound
and I'll come over."

 
As they
obeyed, Loirot darted out from his own shelter and dove behind Cloire’s,
receiving a barrage of bullets for his trouble. Together, Kilian and Kiernevar
rose from behind their barricade. Firing from the hip, they sprinted to Cloire
and Byron.

A
de facto
cease-fire fell among the two
sides as they fortified their barricades. Several zombies broke open the heads
of some of the more dead ones and worked on fastening the skulls to their own
heads, making gruesome helmets to prevent brain-shots. When the mound Cloire
and the rest had been working on became large enough for the albino's tastes,
he grabbed Sophia's hand.

"We're going to make a run for it," he
said. "Keep your head down and your gun up. On three: one, two, THREE!"

They broke cover and ran to the others’ mound.
He felt rounds tearing into him but didn’t pause. He and Sophia ducked behind the
mound, gasping.

"You're out of shape, Jean-Pierre," Cloire
said.

He stuck his head over the mound, feeling a few
slugs slamming into his forehead but ignoring them, and saw again through the
swaying bodies the long, low barricade the opposition had erected. The zombies
apparently realized how vulnerable they were to head-shots and were staying
undercover. Accordingly, they showed no signs of sending out another wave, and
why should they? They could just sit and fortify their position indefinitely,
waiting for the werewolves to attack or go away. Every minute the werewolves
didn't strike, the zombies’ position grew stronger. He turned to the crew.

"What's the plan?" Byron said.

"Kill Laslo. He’s controlling the zombies.
Singer, too, because he looks just ripe enough to be becoming a young chalgid
himself.” Jean-Pierre popped his head up again briefly. “Laslo and Singer are
at opposite ends of the mound. Laslo’s closest to the door that leads up into
the mission to the left. It'll take at least four shades to kill the bastard,
and that’s being optimistic. So Cloire, Kiernevar, Kilian, and Byron—when the
time comes, you chase him up into the mission, kill off his escort and do him
in. Loirot, Sophia and I will try to take out Singer and any others that get in
our way. First, we make a run for their mound, divide them up into two groups
and then you four scare Laslo up into the mission. You do your thing, while we
three stay down here and do ours."

"Sounds half-assed to me," said Kilian.

"Can you think of anything better? All
right then, get your grenades ready. Throw them right before we hit the
barricade. Throw them all. Okay, on three: one, two, THREE!"

They sprinted toward Laslo's wall of flesh,
shooting even as rounds tore into them. They threw their grenades seconds
before breasting the barricade. The explosions rocked the zombies, destroying
many and creating large gaps in their mound.

Once over the barricade, the crew fired with
abandon, scattering zombies in every direction. One fired into Jean-Pierre’s
chest. He shot just beneath its bone-helmet, right into the forehead, and it
dropped like a stone.

“Blasphemers!” Laslo shouted. “Heretics!”

Snarling, the chalgid gathered a small contingent
and made his way toward the stairwell, disappearing into the mission. Cloire
and the other three followed.

A long burst tore into Jean-Pierre. He ducked
behind what once had been the barricade of his enemy and which was now vacant
of them; they were playing it very conservatively, which would make it that
much more difficult to eradicate them. Loirot and Sophia crouched as well. Shifting
a leg of one of the mound-corpses to create a window, the albino chanced a
quick peek at the opposition.

The remaining zombies—about twenty—had taken
cover behind the several smaller mounds that the death-squad had made. Since
there were only three of the crew left, it would be next to impossible to flush
the zombies from their hiding places—positions which even now were being
fortified—because the mounds were scattered and the death-squad couldn't afford
to divide up their forces. Jean-Pierre couldn’t even see Singer, so no point in
making a run to kill the man. Plus, no more grenades. They would have to wait
for Cloire and the others to kill Laslo and break the psychic hold over the
deaders
.

However ...

Turning, Jean-Pierre saw that the crucified
Danielle wasn't very far away, about fifty feet to his left and behind; he
would still have the cover of the rotting barricade for several yards and then
the swaying bodies would obscure the zombies' line of fire.

Loirot saw his look. "Are you going to do
her, Jean-Pierre, or has Cloire been right all along?"

The albino shot him.

Loirot swore. "What'd you do that
for?"

To Sophia, Jean-Pierre said, "Help me get
her down from there."

They moved off at a brisk crouch to the wall
where Ruegger and Danielle hung, surely dying. Jean-Pierre glanced over his
shoulder, trying to determine his vulnerability to enemy fire, and saw that it
was as he’d hoped. He couldn't see the zombies because of all the hanging
bodies, and if he couldn’t see them, they couldn’t shoot him.

Danielle was still unconscious, and it pained
Jean-Pierre to see the wounds in her hands and ankles where Laslo’s minions had
driven their nails. He glanced away, feeling hatred rise in him, and his eyes
fell on Ruegger.

The Darkling observed him coolly.

Neither spoke. Jean-Pierre bowed his head in
acknowledgement of his enemy, and Ruegger returned the gesture, as much as he
could; he seemed terribly weak. Strangely, his attention turned to Sophia.

“Sophia …”

“It’s me,” she said. “I’m here.”

"Here," the albino said, ignoring the
exchange. There would be time for explanations later. With the ghensiv's help, he
lowered Danielle's cross to the ground, letting it down as gently as possible.
As he started to remove the razor wire around her wrists, Sophia held him back.
He flashed an angry look at her.

She indicated Ruegger. "No. Let him.”

Puzzled, the albino glared at the Darkling, who
had eyes only for Danielle. Jean-Pierre understood. It would be selfish for him
to play Danielle’s hero. Then again … hold that up to the ultimate ironic
pleasure of Jean-Pierre, at last,
being
her savior, and it was pretty much a toss-up as far as he could see.

Heads, tails.

“Goddamnit,” he grunted.

With Sophia’s help, he lowered the Darkling’s
cross. They released him, removing first the chains and then the thick, heavy
nails; Ruegger gritted his teeth and sweated, but he made no sound. When he was
free, he lay there, too weak to move, and Sophia helped him to his feet, where
he swayed. Like Danielle, all his major arteries had been slashed, and he had
been grievously wounded beforehand. Jean-Pierre was surprised he could even
stand.

When he was stable, Ruegger nodded to his
benefactors. “Thank you.”

Silently, almost in awe, they nodded back.

Without another word, the tall, lean vampire knelt
beside Danielle and extricated her from the cross, carefully pulling out the
nails from her wrists and feet. The pain evidently registered somewhere in her
unconscious, and her eyelids fluttered. She let out a soft moan, and her eyes
snapped open. When she saw Ruegger, a tired smile swept her face and was gone.
She flung her arms about him and held him tightly, so tightly, and as she
closed her eyes again tears spilled over and ran down her soiled cheeks.

Jean-Pierre glanced sideways at Sophia. She
nodded.

Running a hand through Danielle’s tangled hair,
Ruegger kissed her forehead right on the cross-shaped brand and eased her back.
Still one more nail to go. The one through her feet. She released him while he
went about the painful business of freeing her, but after that first moan she
made no other sound. Finally, he helped her stand, but they didn't break the
contact, just stood there feeling each other and breathing.

Danielle noticed Jean-Pierre, but she didn't
seem to know what to make of him, and she didn’t seem to recognize Sophia, or
perhaps she was simply dazed. In any case, the battle had stopped for the
moment, neither side wanting to go on the offensive, and the four had a few
seconds of peace.

"Danielle ..." began Jean-Pierre, then
stopped. What was there to say?

"You remember Sophia,” Ruegger said to
Danielle.

“Oh,” she said. “Of course. The Ice Queen.”

“Good to see—” Sophia started.

With shocking strength, Ruegger belted
Jean-Pierre across the face. Jean-Pierre reeled back, then placed his hands
over his bloody nose.

"That's for trying to kill Danielle at your
apartment,” Ruegger said.

“I suppose I deserved that.”

Ruegger offered his hand, as if to shake. “And
this is for saving us.”

 
The
albino stared at it. The hand stayed out there, and after a minute Jean-Pierre
accepted it.

"Thank you," said the Darkling, and
for a moment, just an instant, Jean-Pierre could see what Kharker saw in him.

Gunfire erupted. Somewhere Loirot issued a scream.
A moment later the man himself staggered toward them through the bodies, bleeding
badly, his arm almost severed. When he reached them, the sight of the four of them
standing there rendered him speechless for moment.