Vamp-Hire (33 page)

“Is it your granddaughter and great-grandson
he has?” The gun wavered in Dolph’s grip, only slightly. He pinched
one eye shut as blood trickled into it. “I’m not here for you,”
Leonard said. “I’ve come for the rabisu.”

“You’re lying,” Dolph said. “You can’t lift a
finger against him.”

“I couldn’t lift a finger against him or
perceive him. Someone has done something to him. Things are
different.” He looked into the sky then settled on Nick. “Did you
do something to one of his intermediums?”

Nick held up the chainsaw, then he thought of
Kim. Leonard’s eyes flicked down and back up.

“No. That would only do physical damage. This
was much more.”

“My Skill,” Nick said. “I tapped into his
nervous system and severed Cain’s connection to him.”

Leonard narrowed his eyes. Nick had the
feeling they could see his lie, but the old man didn’t call him out
on it.

“We have to hurry,” Dolph said, breezing past
Nick, headed toward the mall. He still had his gun on him, though
Leonard appeared not to have noticed.

“Wait—hold it!” Nick said. Leonard picked up
his pace. Nick certainly didn’t know if they could trust him, but
it didn’t appear as if they had a choice about his
participation.

“I guess you ought to put that away for now,”
Nick said.

They caught up to him just as he crossed
through some overgrown bushes and into the parking lot.

“You may have brought the rabisu the closest
he’s been to mortal in thousands of years. Despite the lore, he
used to be a man.”

“So he’s closer to being killable,” Dolph
said. “That’s good, then.”

Leonard kept his pace, looking over his
shoulder at him. “No. He’s probably more dangerous than ever. Every
time he’s been captured it’s been because of hubris. Well, almost
every time. A Roman captain bottled him once by outthinking him. It
took almost an entire legion to do that, though. He doesn’t have
that luxury this time. He’s been hurt and he has every reason to
believe he can be hurt again, especially considering he doesn’t
know who did it.”

“How did you hurt him?” Dolph asked Nick.
“Maybe you can do it again.”

“That method of attack won’t work a second
time,” Leonard said. “Think of it like poking a small hole in a big
balloon. His connection to his minions hasn’t been cut, it’s just
been irrevocably strained.”

“Strained how?” Nick asked.

“He can’t feed off them like he used to.”

“He’s supposed to feed off you,” Dolph
said.

“No, he doesn’t feed off me. You read the
lore too literally. I am simply the host, his receveur. If he fed
off me I would have been dead long ago. He is attached to me and I
more or less breathe for him. He must take sustenance from
others.”

“Hmm,” Dolph said doubtfully.

They stopped at the front door.

“So how do we do this?” Nick asked. He’d shut
off the chainsaw as they walked and wasn’t sure if he should rev it
up now or wait until they were inside.

“I’m going to test the limits of our bond. I
could see him after his intermedium was killed. I’m going to see if
I can actually put my hands on him.”

“And what are you going to do if you
can’t?”

“Probably die like the both of you were
planning to do.”

“Okay, let’s say you can touch him,” Nick
said. “What happens up until then?”

“You two do everything you can to survive. He
has about fifteen with him.”

“Can you… can you tell…” Dolph was struggling
with the words and Nick could almost hear the knot in his throat.
“Are my babies still alive?”

“I can sense them. He’s particularly
interested in the boy. He hasn’t done anything to him yet. He’ll
probably have him watch as he kills the boy’s mother.”

“Wait,” Nick said, almost putting a hand on
Leonard’s shoulder. “He has to sense some of this too. He has to
know you’re here. Why doesn’t he just run?”

Leonard looked at him. “Because as vulnerable
as he is, this may be his best chance to win. I knew from the
moment I saw you he wanted you to be his new receveur.”

“Why me? I mean, that vamp we killed said I
was special. That I was like him.”

“No. You are not like him. You are completely
unique. Twenty years ago there was no such thing as a vamp as we
define them, but the rabisu believes there was a creature such as
you.”

He put his hands on the door handle and
stopped. Noticed for the first time the few strands of black at his
receded hairline. “Could you do what you did before again?” Leonard
asked.

“I thought you said that wouldn’t work on him
again?”

“It won’t. However, it would still have the
same effect on whatever intermedium you used it on.”

“Oh, then no. I can’t do it anymore.”

He pushed the door open and they stepped into
the vestibule.

It was dark and musty, about what Nick would
have expected. This was the main entrance, he would have felt more
comfortable had they come in the east or west entrances or at the
rear. He felt more vulnerable here and when Dolph pulled the door
closed it gave a
staccatoed
metallic shriek.

If Cain didn’t know they were here before, he
knew now.

They proceeded toward the concierge’s desk,
careful not to step on broken glass. The doors had been boarded;
the high glass windows had been broken out and birds and other
small animals that had flown or crawled in had taken up residence.
Graffiti decorated every wall and the heavy stank of urine hung in
the air.

A vamp sprang from around the corner and
charged straight at them. Nick grabbed at his chainsaw, trying to
start it. He tripped over his own feet and wound up on his butt. He
caught sight of Dolph moving in, but was distracted by the blade of
the chainsaw banging off his ankle.

Even though it wasn’t on, it hurt. He was
certain he was cut, hoping it wasn’t too bad. He had to ignore it.
One of those monsters was in the process of killing Dolph or
Leonard, or maybe Dolph and Leonard. He didn’t want either of them
to be killed, nor did he want to be in here with these creatures
and Cain alone.

Nick pushed to his feet and was about to
charge in their direction. The vamp had a taloned hand around
Dolph’s throat, its chin down to the middle of its chest. Its head
was turned almost completely around as it screamed in Leonard’s
face. Leonard had his bare hand on its neck. The creature screamed
in agony even though he didn’t appear to be squeezing. When the old
man plucked its eyeballs out, it dropped Dolph and pushed Leonard
aside, who, Nick noticed, looked about ten years younger and had
about a half a head of jet black hair.

It ran straight for Nick and he realized he
still didn’t have the chainsaw going. He didn’t have enough time to
start it and instead crouched, holding the blade up in front of
him. Nick reflexively closed his eyes and he felt its body snag on
the chain. He held the saw tight and when it wasn’t yanked from his
hands he looked above and behind him to see that the vamp had
sprouted wings of some kind.

It didn’t get far. Instead of flapping its
arms and lifting higher, it glid until it crashed into a
pillar.

“You should probably start that now,” Dolph
said. Nick nodded, standing and taking the cord in his hand. It
didn’t start on the first pull and he felt a wave of panic, then
yanked again and it choked to life.

Leonard had already begun walking around the
concierge’s desk, not bothering to check if there were other vamps
hiding behind it. Dolph quickly caught up to him, aiming his gun
this way and that, checking around corners and up to the ceiling.
All it would have taken was a tuck and roll for him to be the
reincarnation of Captain Kirk.

Then he did tuck and roll when he saw a vamp
just as it slashed at his head. Nick took a step forward. Dolph
rolled up to one knee, aimed, and shot.

Nick would have guessed bullets wouldn’t have
done anything. When the wranglers had fired a single round they had
either missed or had tickled whichever vamp they’d shot. The cops
outside had fired several times and neither vamp had gone down.
This vamp’s head exploded.

It clawed at the air as if trying to grab the
bits of skull and brain that had been atomized and then it slumped
to the ground.

Something above and behind them let out a
tremendous screech and Nick whirled, ready to slice. Leonard walked
around the elevators headed for the exposed space. Somerset had
been a three-tiered mall in life and out in the open like that he
was a sitting duck.

Cain may or may not have been able to touch
him, but just because they were vamps didn’t mean one of them
couldn’t have a gun.

“Wait!” Dolph whisper-shouted. Leonard paid
him no mind, stepping around a concrete globe sitting in a
structure taller than him. Nick remembered water had made it rotate
at one point.

There was another screech followed by the cry
of a child. Both he and Dolph lunged after Leonard like fish being
reeled in on a line. That was Randy. Nick had never heard him make
that noise before. The boy never cried and hardly ever spoke. Nick
had always had a sense he’d had the ability to be a lot more
conversational and had chosen not to. Now he was choosing to. He
wanted anyone within earshot to know he was in danger. Nick knew he
had to do something about it now.

Above them, on the promenade, Cain held Randy
up high above his head. To say the Leonard façade had deteriorated
was an understatement. From a distance of at least sixty feet away,
Nick could see he still had the upper face and hairline of young
Leonard, but below that was a ragged hole filled with—well, not
teeth, it was something like shards of bone lining several
concentric circles in its cavernous black mouth. He still had on
the uniform, though the skin had sloughed off one hand entirely,
exposing shiny red musculature underneath. Nick guessed it probably
continued up the arm as well.

He appeared as though he were dying.

“If I hit him from here,” Dolph was saying,
“Randy could fall.” His voice was surprisingly calm, icy, which
helped Nick not run charging up the dead escalator. Cain could have
tossed over three dozen Randys in the time it would take him to
reach the third tier. The fact he was holding the boy aloft and not
eating him or tearing him apart left hope there was a mind left in
that deteriorated body capable of being dealt with. “If there’s
anything that either of you can do, do it now.”

Leonard seemed to be unaware Dolph had spoken
or what was going on above him. He kept heading in the direction of
the west escalator. Nick saw a vamp crouched underneath it, ready
to pounce. He couldn’t do anything about that now. They were
already on the verge of death at any second and he had to do
something about Randy.

“Where is the one!” Cain shouted. Nick
wouldn’t have thought that ragged of a mouth would have been
capable of speech. He knew who he was talking about, though. He was
asking about Kim. Even now, Nick wasn’t going to give her up. Two
shots came from his left and Nick turned to see Dolph aiming at a
vamp he’d put two gigantic holes into. He had no clue what kind of
bullets those were, they were still hard-pressed to put one of
these creatures down. The thing twitched and clawed at the ground,
trying to push itself off the floor despite holes in it Nick could
have put his fist in with room to spare. Dolph shot it in the face
and the top portion of its head evaporated.

“Look out!” Dolph shouted too late; Nick’s
foot was yanked from underneath him and he hit the floor hard. The
vamp that had choked Dolph before Leonard had grabbed it climbed
over Nick. It had the deep grooves of Leonard’s acidic grasp in its
shoulder and its skin was a brilliant red, like it was overheating.
Its yellow eyes were filmy like it was half-blind and its mouth
hung open to the middle of its torso, inch-long scythe-like teeth
ready to tear the flesh off Nick’s bones.

He had the chainsaw wedged between them, but
that was more dangerous for Nick than the creature. It was
painfully thin and Nick couldn’t push the heavy blade away from
himself. It didn’t seem to be aware of the idling weapon between
them. Dolph took a shot, missed, and a huge chunk of wall crumpled
from the explosive round.

“He’s too close! I can’t hit him!”

He wished Dolph would come closer and shoot;
he was going to have to save himself this time. The creature leaned
closer to snap at him, its taloned foot on the chainsaw, pushing
the blade closer to his face. Even idling, the chainsaw would do a
lot of damage to his face.

Then something changed. Nick saw something on
the creature pulsing. An intricate layer of dark red lines appeared
everywhere he saw exposed skin. Its pungent smell grew rich in his
nose and he felt something in his own mouth change.

He was now able to hold the chainsaw with one
hand without it coming closer to him. He let go with the other,
reached out, and grabbed the mutant vamp by the throat before it
was able to bite at him again. Nick pulled it closer, the blade
cutting into its flesh, blood raining down on him. It screamed and
yanked away from him; he held tight, letting blood fall into his
open mouth.

The hidden thing within him surged forth and
he was crushing the vamp’s throat as easily as balling up a sheet
of paper. It bucked and scratched at him, and Nick could feel the
wounds closing as quickly as they opened. He was on his feet,
holding the creature in one hand, the chainsaw in the other. Its
eyes rolled in its head as it began reverting back to a more human
form. Nick jerked it close, plunging teeth that felt much larger
and sharper into its neck and somehow drinking as fast as taking a
deep breath. He instinctively understood he was not only consuming
it by drinking, his teeth were somehow siphoning the life’s blood
of the monster in his grasp.