Stake

by Kevin J. Anderson

  With a primal scream, he threw himself against the big man, overbalancing him. Shoving Lucius sideways as he bent to clutch his torn knee, Helsing rammed the man’s head against the rock with a hard muffled thud.

  Lucius grunted. The knife dropped out of his limp fingers, and Helsing grabbed it.

  He had the element of surprise, he had desperation, and he knew the reason for Lucius’s hesitation: compassion. Despite all of his harsh decisions and stern warnings, Lucius didn’t really want to kill him.

  But Helsing wanted to survive. He had no choice, allowed no feelings to enter into it.

  The bearded man lurched up. ‘Simon, no!’

  Helsing drove the hunting knife into Lucius’s throat, faster and more effective than a stake through the heart. The point plunged into the back of his head, deep into the brain. One quick stroke. Lucius reached out, fingers twitching, trying to grasp him – or maybe to embrace him.

  ‘Sorry, Lucius,’ he said.

  His shoulder was bleeding again, but fresh adrenalin had killed the pain. Leaving the big man dead in the cache of supplies, Helsing took the rest of the first-aid pack, paused long enough to finish checking his bindings. He found several pain pills and chewed them, not because he couldn’t endure the pain, but he didn’t want it to slow him down.

  He kept moving.

  FIFTY-TWO

  ‘I am afraid the party is over, Miss Tarada,’ said Hugo Zelm. His erudite manner held an undertone somewhere between annoyance and amusement.

  Even though hours had passed since Helsing had fled into the night, an army of security guards still hovered around Zelm like a wall of impeccable dark suits, armed with bravado as well as handguns and muscles.

  The mansion was in disarray, serving trays dropped willy-nilly, window panes shattered, wine glasses spilled. The serving staff looked discouraged at the prospect of cleaning everything up. It was long past midnight, and Lexi felt exhausted.

  Beside her, Blair looked like a wrung-out rag, no longer able to prop himself up with mere enthusiasm and optimism. ‘Not quite what I expected for my first high-society party.’

  The media had captured every moment of the debacle, and Lexi was sure the footage would be sensational. Helsing had fired four times, the first blast directly toward Zelm, but the other shots had gone wild. The spraying silver fragments had caused numerous injuries, even killed the woman in the blue sequined dress.

  Ambulances had arrived to tend the injured, including Lexi. Blair had already helped her wash her cuts, wiping away the blood with his handkerchief and some fine napkins taken from the dessert buffet. She found a small gash on his cheek from a bit of flying glass. She pressed a cloth against it, smearing the make-up that covered his fading bruise.

  ‘Am I scarred for life?’ he asked.

  ‘It’ll look dashing.’

  When the paramedics treated her, one of the last in line because she insisted the others go first, they announced to her relief that she did not need stitches, only a few Band-Aids.

  Colorado Springs Police filled the mansion, taking statements from all witnesses before allowing them to leave. Several of the backup officers in the vicinity had joined Detective Carrow in his pursuit of Helsing, while others helped secure the scene. Lexi had pressed them for a report but they would say only that the CSPD continued to hunt for the suspect in the deep forest.

  By now, most of the attendees had departed, and the security guards had chased away the remaining reporters and photographers. Broad-shouldered Franklin encouraged the paparazzi stragglers toward the door, as implacable as a man made out of cement. ‘Mr Zelm has all the coverage he wants for this evening, thank you.’

  Lexi and Blair saw no reason to stay, but since Carrow had driven them here, they needed to find another way home.

  Zelm addressed her, looking unruffled. ‘This is not what I expected when I invited you, Miss Tarada. I hope you will allow me to make up for it at some point.’

  She searched for her sense of humor. ‘I had a fabulous time. Best party all year.’ Right now, though, she was done. ‘At least you’re still among the living.’

  Zelm seemed satisfied. ‘When you are as old as I am, each day you remain alive is something of a surprise. We can all be very, very relieved once the police apprehend that awful man.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Franklin, I need your assistance.’ The security chief came forward as if responding to an attack. Zelm said, ‘I believe Miss Tarada’s ride has departed without her. Would you please arrange a car and make sure she and Mr September get home safely?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I will take them myself, in case they need extra protection.’

  Blair stepped up and extended his hand, speaking with no apparent sarcasm but rather respect, ‘Thank you for a memorable evening, sir.’ He followed Lexi after the security man toward the door.

  ‘We will have to do this again,’ Zelm called after them in a jovial voice. ‘You can certainly count on my continued support for HideTruth. After tonight, however, we have more to fear from the vampire killers than from the vampires themselves.’ He chuckled. She thought he might be correct.

  During the drive home, she and Blair leaned against each other in the back seat, both of them glad that Franklin wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Lexi’s dress felt disgusting and sticky. Blair’s tuxedo was stained. Neither of them cared.

  She still felt flushed and dismayed. She couldn’t believe that the fanatical, murderous bastard Helsing had actually fired his gun in the middle of a crowd! Now she knew that his vampire fixation was nothing more than paranoia. Helsing saw vampires everywhere: hapless people like Mark Stallings, Douglas Eldridge, Tom Grollin, Daniel Gardon, and who knew how many others over the years? Everyday people who happened to have nocturnal schedules or odd social lives, even a pizza delivery man! Not to mention the poor cop who lay in a coma with a severe head injury. They were all victims of Helsing’s obsession.

  She felt disgusted and afraid. The man had been so convincing, both online and in person, had raised so many difficult questions. He had caught her in his web, infecting her with his delusions. One of these days, I’m sure to be right. Lexi had always insisted that she wasn’t a fool, wasn’t too gullible … and yet here she was. How could she have fallen for it? The embarrassment seemed almost as bad as the fear.

  Blair seemed to know what she was thinking. He hugged her without saying anything.

  She paid little attention to where they were going and was surprised at how quickly Franklin arrived at the house. One light burned in the front room, and the porch light was on. After Blair helped her out, she thanked the driver, but his acknowledgment was merely mechanical.

  As they entered the house, closed and locked the door, Blair said, ‘Quite the party. I can’t believe how late it is.’

  Lexi plucked at her dress. Her hair was disheveled. ‘And you wonder why I don’t go to parties.’

  He forced a reassuring laugh. ‘You simply don’t go to the right ones, my dear.’

  She was exhausted from fear and confusion. ‘Let’s get some rest before the sun comes up. I’ll face the shit storm tomorrow.’

  Inside her room, she set her laptop on her desk, but she couldn’t face going online just yet. The reports would already be buzzing around, but she wanted some peace for now.

  Next time, she would let Detective Carrow hunt the killers by himself.

  FIFTY-THREE

  The watery first light before dawn did little to illuminate the forest. Carrow couldn’t see where he was going, and invisible bushes grabbed at his legs and ankles. He was exhausted and annoyed. Tall granite slabs and outcroppings loomed, silhouettes against the trees and stars. The flashlights didn’t help much. The other searchers crashed nearby with enough separation for a tight grid.

  They wouldn’t miss Simon Helsing.

  Carrow didn’t like the wilderness on the best of days, and he made up his mind never to take his girls on a camping trip for father–daughter bonding. Bushwhacking all night, sli
ding down slopes and wrestling through malicious underbrush made him feel like some surprise contestant on a survival show. Soon enough, he could leave this to the search dogs.

  Carrow couldn’t figure out why Helsing had made his way through this particular terrain on purpose. The man seemed to know the woods very well. Did he have a wilderness hideout? At least he was wounded, as confirmed by the fresh blood droplets along the trail.

  Two of his fellow searchers were hunters, Colorado natives, and Carrow let them take the lead. One of the men said, ‘I wounded an elk while bow hunting once, had to track him for two miles through terrain just like this. But that was in daylight.’ He swung the flashlight around, illuminating a granite outcropping like a fortress wall in front of him. ‘We’ll find him easy enough once the sun’s up.’

  ‘The way he’s bleeding, we might just find him dead in a ravine,’ said the other searcher.

  ‘Fine with me,’ Carrow said. ‘Save a lot of time and paperwork.’

  They kept pushing through shrubs closer to the granite buttress, making as much noise as a marching army. The lead searcher held up his hand as he came around a corner of the tall rock. ‘Talus cave, and the blood trail leads into it.’

  ‘Obvious place for a wounded man to go to ground,’ said the other hunter. The three of them stopped moving.

  ‘Could be an ambush,’ Carrow said. ‘He’s cornered. Gun was empty at the mansion, but no telling what kind of stash he has out here. My three favorite words right now are “Use Extreme Caution”.’

  The searchers stood outside the cave, sheltered by the curve of pale rock. Carrow shouted into the dark hollow. ‘Surrender yourself, Grundy. We are armed and prepared to shoot.’

  Only mocking silence answered them. Carrow drew his weapon, approached the edge of the cleft.

  One of the officers shone his flashlight into the gloomy recess. ‘I see a body. It’s a man … and he’s not moving.’

  Carrow felt relieved, but wary. ‘Be careful.’

  The three moved forward, weapons drawn, shining their flashlights in a combined beam into the cave.

  A figure lay sprawled inside the shelter of the rocks up against the back wall. The flashlight beams glinted off wet pools of blood. Carrow let out a slow exhale and moved closer, extending his revolver.

  The light illuminated a man with a large hunting knife thrust into his throat … a big man with light brown skin, black hair, and a full beard.

  Not Simon Helsing at all.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Lexi awoke from one nightmare into another.

  She saw Teresa in the dream, her best friend coming back to her, no longer giving her quiet and heartfelt encouragement. This time Teresa’s terrified face rose in front of her, screaming.

  ‘Lexi, run! Run!’ her voice commanded as her image dissolved. ‘Run!’

  Lexi’s eyes snapped open, and she found herself tangled in her sheets. Early-morning light seeped through a gap in her drawn curtains.

  In front of her towered the silhouette of a predator, strong, sinister – a monster. Lexi lurched upright in bed, sucking in a breath to scream, but he pointed a weapon at her. She saw a burst of brilliance like a puff of lightning, heard a click, a whistling unspooling of wire. Then her body was entangled in a thousand electrified marionette strings.

  She fell backward, jittering, in spasm. The snapping of stun voltage sounded like a rattlesnake, but she couldn’t feel the fangs of the Taser, only a complete lack of control. Pain sucked all her breath away. She could barely gasp a breath, certainly couldn’t scream.

  This was worse than some vampire come to kill her. It was Helsing.

  His attack was swift and sure, incapacitating her. As she lay paralyzed on the bed, Helsing yanked the curtains open to flood the room with blinding daylight. In the garish sunshine, his face was drawn and grim, his shirt covered in blood. His blue eyes were intense, as if he were possessed by a real demon, not just his paranoia.

  Flat on her back, she struggled, but her muscles and bones had turned to water. Her thoughts flickered chaotically like a dying neon sign.

  Helsing must have broken in, just as he had slipped into the homes of his other victims, just as he had tried to kill the pizza delivery man. She groaned deep in her throat, trying to reconnect the blown fuses of her nerves.

  Helsing stood beside the bed and glowered at her, his expression inhuman. From the deadness in his eyes, Lexi knew that he didn’t see her as human. ‘You’re one of them. You helped them.’ His voice sounded bleak as he stared at the glare of morning sunlight on the bed. ‘Damn you! Haven’t they turned you?’

  With great effort, she made her body twitch, her left hand flutter. ‘Get … out!’ Lexi watched her legs spasm uncontrollably. How long did a Taser stun last?

  Helsing dropped a satchel on the end of her bed, opened it. To her horror, he withdrew a mallet, set it on the comforter, then withdrew a long stake, clean wood, freshly sharpened.

  ‘Stop,’ she said, and her voice sounded a little stronger. Her arms and legs remained uncooperative, but she could turn her head back and forth, and she could speak. ‘Not a vampire … you know I’m not a vampire.’

  Helsing leaned over her with the stake and the mallet. He seemed to be favoring the arm that held the stake. ‘I’m doing this to save you. I saw you with Hugo Zelm. I know he controls you.’

  ‘Not a vampire,’ she insisted, intending her statement to refer to herself as well as to the eccentric philanthropist. ‘Another … mistake.’

  ‘You’re tainted already.’ His expression showed no sympathy. ‘This is the only way I can stop you.’

  ‘You … are … wrong!’ She tried to fill her voice with vehemence, but it was no more than a sorry, pathetic plea.

  He stood close to the side of the bed as morning sunshine washed over the sheets. Her bodily control was returning only in fits and starts. She couldn’t fight him.

  He yanked on the thin Taser wires, jerked the tiny hooks free, and pulled back the sheet to leave Lexi vulnerable. Helsing gripped the mallet, a brutal heavy tool. One powerful strike could drive the stake through her sternum and into her heart.

  ‘No!’ Her gasp was louder.

  The half-open bedroom door swung wide, and Blair barged in, confused and wary. When he saw Helsing standing over her, saw the mallet and stake, his expression flared. ‘What the hell are you—?’

  Helsing spun toward him, and Blair charged forward, bare handed, without thinking. Lexi knew he was not a fighter, but now he dredged up some steel from his core. He let out a wordless yell as he threw himself on her attacker.

  Responding like a viper, Helsing twisted himself, swung the mallet sideways, and smashed Blair in the middle of the forehead with a sickening soft thud. Blair reeled backward and dropped like a felled ox.

  Now Lexi did manage to scream. Rage overwhelmed her terror, and she wanted to strangle Helsing, to kill him with her bare hands. Her arm twitched.

  Leaving Blair crumpled on the floor, the vampire killer returned to her, grabbed the stake, and straddled her on the bed like some horrific lover playing a sadistic game. Her only weapon now was her brain.

  ‘I am not a vampire,’ she said. ‘Think about it. You know I can’t be.’ The words came easily. She moved her legs, tried to bend her knees to throw him off balance, but she had no strength.

  Like a surgeon, Helsing pressed the point of the stake against the center of her chest. ‘I showed you all the evidence. You know vampires are out there. You know that what I’m doing is necessary.’ His voice grew louder, more enraged. ‘But you betrayed me!’

  ‘I gave you the benefit of the doubt,’ she said. ‘I listened. I believed … but you’re wrong.’ His eyes flared as she continued. ‘Vampires don’t exist. It’s all in your mind.’

  ‘Evidence! I gave you evidence. My reports.’

  ‘Circumstantial evidence. There’s a normal explanation for all of it. You already made mistakes, targeted innocent people. You don’t have to ki
ll me.’ She pulled in another breath. ‘You don’t have to kill anyone.’

  ‘I’m saving humanity. I am Simon Helsing!’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ She raised one arm, lifted her head from the pillow. ‘You’re David Grundy, and you … are the real monster.’ Lexi was passionate, too. She had her entire belief system on the line. She’d seen more than her share of gullible crazies, though she had thought at least for a while that Helsing could be right.

  But he wasn’t.

  ‘The people you hurt were just normal people. The motel owner, that poor policeman.’ Her voice came out raw. ‘And now Blair! Just normal people.’

  ‘There are real vampires! And the king vampire turned you. I’m saving—’

  Behind him Blair somehow managed to rise up from the floor, his forehead bloody, his movements jerky. ‘Leave her alone!’ He snatched her laptop from the desk with both hands and crashed it down on Helsing’s head. It was a weak blow, but enough to stun him, distract him.

  Helsing jerked the point of the stake away from her chest, and Lexi managed to knock it aside. Blair collapsed again, still raising his hands to keep fighting.

  Lexi seized the moment. With everything she had, she got control of her arms and reached into the drawer in her nightstand. She pulled out the handgun she kept there, the .38 Special revolver she kept against unlikely stalkers. She had trained, and she kept the gun ready.

  Without thinking, she wrapped her finger around the trigger and swung the weapon toward Helsing. Point and shoot. He turned to her, raised the bloody mallet.

  Lexi squeezed the trigger, squeezed hard, and kept squeezing, pointing the gun at his chest until the .38 fired. The explosion caught him in his body core, as the recoil slammed her back into the mattress. She nearly lost consciousness as Helsing’s bleeding body collapsed on top of her legs.