Julius went for the bone saw on the floor.
Smoke raised the axe high and chopped the little vampire’s hand off. His next strike cracked the monster’s cranium.
Carl hopped toward the door.
“Where are you going, Carl? I thought you said I couldn’t kill you?”
Back against the door with fear in his eyes, Carl said, “That might have been a slight exaggeration.”
Smoke split his face. “Shut up.”
He pushed Carl out of the way and opened up the door. Down the corridor, Vormus was coming straight for him.
CHAPTER 11
“My, aren’t you the formidable one?” Vormus said, walking toward Smoke with an easy gait. He stopped several feet short and eyed the gory axe. “You might have mutilated my expendable men, but you won’t succeed with me. Of course, you’re welcome to try if you like.”
“Just get out of my way.”
“Oh, I can’t do that. You’re not dead yet. And I have to wrap you up into a present.”
Smoke lunged. It was a clumsy telegraphed blow.
Vormus swatted his efforts away. The snake-quick man was a match for everything Smoke threw at him. “This is childish. Put your rattle down and just submit. It’s been a long night, and you need your beauty sleep.”
Like a burly lumberjack, Smoke kept at it.
Vormus shifted from side to side. “Honestly, I can’t fathom how you beat my men.”
Smoke puffed for breath. “Well, now I am tired.”
With his hand, Vormus tossed back his long white hair. “Given your valiant efforts, I think I’m just going to crack your neck and kindly put you in a coffin.”
Smoke sucked in a raspy breath in the steel office door frame. “Good, I could use the rest.”
Vormus’s white eyes bore into his with hypnotic power. “Just rest,” he suggested. “Rest.”
“I would, but I’ve got places to go and people to see.” Smoke cracked the haft of the axe on the metal door frame. It turned the handle into a sharp stick. Propelled by his vitamin-enhanced legs, he drove the sharp end of the handle into Vormus’s heart like a stake.
The vampire let out a loud gasp. The glimmer in his eye went out. He sagged to his knees. “How, how did you do that?”
Still filled with energy, Smoke replied, “It’s called possum Stateside, moron.”
Vormus fell over with his jaw hanging open and no longer moved.
Smoke strode back into the office, found some car keys, and made his way outside through the kitchen. He punched the button on the keyless remote, and the lights on one of the sports cars lit up—a red Jaguar coupe. He hopped in, fired up the engine, found a classic country station on the radio, cranked it up, and peeled out. He was singing along to some solid country gold with The Guillotine miles behind him when the super vitamin wore off. He could barely lift his head up when he pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store and passed out.
***
Smoke’s head snapped up against the driver’s seat headrest. He wiped the drool from his mouth onto his shirt. His head was filled with tiny pounding hammers. Rubbing his temple, he popped open the door and spat blood. The sunrise glared in his eyes.
Blocking the light with his hand, he noticed an older woman with honey-blond hair getting into her car and staring at him. She was in a business suit and held in her hand a white Styrofoam cup with a seven on it.
Squinting, he started to turn away.
“Sir, are you okay?” she said, approaching with caution. Her free hand was inside her purse. “Have you been in an accident?”
“Not exactly,” he said with a grimace. “But I’m okay. I appreciate the concern.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? Because you don’t look okay.” She eyed his shoulder. His shirt was caked in blood. “It looks like you were in an accident.”
“Look, you seem like a decent lady—”
“And you look like a decent man.” There was a spark in her brown eyes. “Real decent. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?”
“I could use some change?”
“You make an awfully handsome panhandler. Bloody, but clean. I like it.”
“I’m guessing you’re a morning person.”
With an enticing smile, she said, “I did Pilates at six this morning. Never miss a day.”
Smoke nodded. “I appreciate the concern, but I really have to get going. Places to go and people to see.”
She pulled a business card out of her purse and handed it to him. “I’m Sherry. Call me. I’d like to have lunch or dinner with you sometime. Anytime would be great, actually. I’m very flexible, and so is my schedule.”
“You seem like someone who has it all together.” Smiling at her, he glanced at the card. It read Cheryl Case, Attorney at Law. It had numbers, a business address, and a tag line: “Let Case Take Your Case.” He stuffed it in his pocket. “Nice meeting you, Cheri.”
“Nice meeting you too.” Searching inside her purse, she said, “Oh, didn’t you need some change?”
Walking away and not turning to look back, he waved her off. “No. I got it.”
Weary limbed, he made his way over to a pay phone in front of the convenience store. People were bustling in and out, but no one aside from Cheryl paid him any mind. He picked up the receiver and pressed a combination of numbers that instructions on the phone said would make a collect call.
The operator spoke with an Indian accent. “What number would you like to place a collect call to?”
Smoke recited the number.
“And who is calling?”
“Smoke.”
The digital tones followed, and after two rings someone picked up on the other side. It was a man.
“Hello?”
“Sir, I have a collect call from Mister Smoke. Do you accept the charges?”
There was a pause and a slight gasp of surprise on the other side of the line.
“Sir, do you accept the charges?”
“Sure.”
Before he hung up, the operator replied, “Thank you for using C&P-Verizon-Frontier-Bell Atlantic.”
“Enjoying your breakfast, Reggie?” Smoke said.
“Why John, what an early surprise it is to hear from you.”
With a growl in his voice, Smoke said, “I survived that death trap you sent me into, toadstool. I bet you weren’t expecting that.”
Reginald spoke after another brief pause. “As a matter of fact, I wasn’t. Kudos to you. Can I assume that you completed my mission?”
“Find out for yourself. I want my money. I want my visit with Sid. Get it together.”
“I’m a man of my word,” Reginald said.
“You’re not a man. You’re a gutless turd. Why don’t you go down to The Guillotine and get reacquainted with filth like yourself?”
“I may do just that. Mister Smoke, do you think you can fill me in on some of the details so I might know what to expect?”
“I met your rival Vormus and staked a claim.”
“You’re telling me he’s dead? Actually dead?”
“He wasn’t moving when I left. The others are probably still twitching. You might want to go and see what’s left of them, unless the sun turned them to ashes.”
Reginald chuckled. “I’ll be in touch.”
Click.
CHAPTER 12
Smoke climbed out of the hyperbaric tube feeling like he could run a hundred miles. It had given him only a fraction of the energy the super vitamin did, but it was still good. Wearing only a pair of dark-blue boxer shorts and patched and stitched all over, he took a seat on a nearby padded stool.
“How are you feeling, big man?” asked Asia, Mal Gunderson’s wife. She wore a unique terrycloth lab coat that could pass for a bathrobe. “You look a few shades better. Acupuncture now?”
He held up his hand. “I’ll pass. I’ve had enough needles stuck in me lately.”
He was inside a new estate Mal Gunderson had set up, a colonial
in a gated suburban neighborhood on the waterfront. It was two stories high with vaulted ceilings and a full unfinished basement. Down there along with the hyperbaric tube were some bookshelves, a huge computer desk, and several monitors. The cooling fans of a server big enough to run a state department whirred nearby.
Sam came down the steps wearing jeans and a hot-pink tank top with some glitter patterns on it. She had a tray full of sandwiches and two big shakes in tall glasses. She set it all down on the bar where Smoke sat. “I imagine you’re hungry.”
Smoke grabbed a Dagwood sandwich and bit into it. “I am. Mmm, I like that mustard. You remembered.”
She rubbed his head, which was the only unscathed part of him. “I’m just glad you’re still around for me to make it for you, stupid.”
Two days had passed since Smoke got off the phone with Reginald. Samantha had finally quit grilling him for the details of his fight with the vampires. Since he arrived at Mal’s place, he’d spent a lot of time resting and taking moments in the hyperbaric tube while everyone else was doing research on Guermo and all the goons he’d fought.
Asia reached for the other sandwich, and Samantha slapped her hand.
“Hey!” Asia said. “I thought one was for me, you amazon.”
“Make your own, Asia.”
Asia glided in front of Smoke and batted her eyelashes. “Smoke, will you share your sandwiches with me?” She rubbed her belly. “So hungry.”
With a mouthful of food and sucking on the milkshake straw, he said, “No.”
“Why do you always tell me no? I take good care of you.”
“If you want Sam to make you a sandwich, why don’t you just ask her?”
Turning around to face the much taller Sam, Asia looked up. “Will you make me a sandwich?”
“I thought you said my sandwiches were—as you so often put things—shitty.”
“They are shitty. I just like watching big white woman make it for me.”
Drawing back her fist, Sam said with a snarl, “I’m going to crush you like a fortune cookie.”
Asia trotted away laughing. She headed up the steps, stopped and turned, and said, “Here is a fortune, Amazon. The giraffes miss you riding them. Go back to the circus.” She vanished upstairs.
“I hate her,” Sam said.
“No you don’t. You love her like a twisted sister, and you know it.”
She shoved Smoke in the head. “Shut up.”
He plucked the straw out and started gulping the strawberry shake down, then wiped off his mouth. “Good stuff, Sam. Thanks. Have you dug anything else up on Guermo?”
“Mal’s coming. He’s going to brief you.”
Smoke cocked an eyebrow. “Really? So you’ve heard something? Fill me in.”
“No. He started hollering that he found something about ten minutes after you went in the tube, but then rushed upstairs, saying he’d be back after you got out.” She made her way over to an end table, picked up a paper, and handed it to Smoke. It was an issue of Nightfall DC. “Check it out.”
The headline read, Club Guillotine Decapitates Self.
There was a picture of the warehouse waterfront facility on the front page. The parking lot was filled with Federal law enforcement officials. Smoke opened up the paper and read the article written by Russ Davenport. It mentioned that several dead were found inside and how none of this story was in the local news. He quoted an FBI Agent named Cyrus Tweel, who had said to Russ, “Get the hell out of here or get arrested.” It said Russ had overheard another agent, later identified as Rebecca Lang, who was inspecting the body bags say, “They have teeth like vampires.” It said she had threatened to shoot Russ Davenport, and that he’d been roughly escorted from the premises.
“Hmmm,” Smoke said, “seems those FBI guys are staying up on things. I can’t help but think Reginald must have tipped them off. It only figures The Drake has people inside the FBI who are checking my story out. Don’t you agree?”
“I’m all about conspiracies. You know that.”
Smoke was too, and the more he learned, the deeper it seemed they ran. And he was still bothered by a few other things. The Drake had been quiet. The freak shifter sightings weren’t even showing up in Russ Davenport’s paper. It bothered him. They had tried to take him out again. Perhaps something was coming after all, and they needed him out of the picture. He tossed the paper aside. “No word from Reginald, I take it.”
“No.”
Mal came down the steps. The scholarly olive-skinned man wore a dark-green dress shirt and brown slacks. His sleeves were rolled up, but he was tidy. “Well, look who’s out of the tube. Feeling even better, I take it.”
“I’m ready to go, but I wouldn’t mind some more of those vitamins.”
“Please, you need to be more self-reliant. Besides, I’m all out.”
“Sure you are,” Smoke said.
“No, really. You need to remember I’m no longer funded by those deep-pocketed Federal officials. Nope, cut off like a spoiled child from his trust fund, so you’d better be more careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
Sam handed Smoke a pair of jeans and a shirt that were folded up in nice pressed squares. “Asia. She’s good for some things.”
Smoke started slipping on his clothes and said to Mal, who had sat down in front of the computer monitors, “So, you have some news on Guermo?”
Tapping away at the keyboard, Mal said, “I do. I contacted a friend in Denmark. I’d almost forgotten about her because it had been so long and she put a curse on me when I broke up with her in favor of her sister who subsequently left me for a higher-ranking government official of the Monte Carlo regime, who coincidentally disappeared on their wedding night, which she was framed for, exonerated, and ended up marrying his brother. They’re doing quite well and have three children with alarming similarities to her sister’s husband that my friend from Denmark divorced. She says she’s doing quite well now.” He spun around in his chair and faced Smoke and Sam. “What was the question?”
CHAPTER 13
“The Many. Guermo. Who and what are they?” Smoke said.
“Yes, sorry.” Mal spun back around in his seat. “I just started reminiscing about my time spent with those twins. You know, one of them had a sixth finger on each hand. Incredible typist.” He brought some images up on the screens. A castle in deep green hills appeared on one, the pictures of the members of Guermo on another. The many eyes and tentacles symbol was on another. “Turns out they’re a rival force of The Drake. As a matter of fact, according to Darlene from Denmark, The Drake split off from The Many, centuries ago. It was believed they’d been vanquished.”
“So are they vampires, or what?” Smoke asked.
“As I was told, they are shifters that reinvented themselves as vampires about a century ago. They aren’t the typical blood suckers you see in the movies. More or less a hack job of them. Well, sort of. They have supernatural powers akin to what they want to be like, just like all of the other shifters. Werewolves. Harpies. Minotaurs. Vampire’s the form they chose.”
Sam shivered. “That Vormus sure seemed like a vampire to me.”
“Based off what?” Mal said. “Have you ever really met a vampire?”
Mal’s point made Smoke’s skin crawl. Perhaps Smoke’s stake to the heart hadn’t killed Vormus after all. He recalled the giants, Thorgrim and Rexor. He’d thought he’d wiped them out too, yet both had gotten up and walked away.
“He landed on the car, Mal. Dropped right from the sky and stuck to the hood.” Sam shoved the scientist in the shoulder. “That’s a vampire, and he had hypnotic eyes, too. Not to mention his image didn’t show up in the picture. How do you explain that? Huh? Huh? He was a vampire!”
Mal flipped his hands out. “Fine, he’s a vampire. It doesn’t really make any difference. The powerful shifters can be whatever they want to be. So if Vormus wants to be a vampire, then he is. And if you want him to be a vampire, Sam, then I guess he is too.
Does that make you feel better?”
“No.” She shifted toward Smoke. “You’re sure you killed him, right?”
“I thought so. When I noticed there wasn’t a stitch of wood in that building, I started putting things together. I thought the axe handle was an oversight on their part.” He drank some more of the strawberry shake. “Figuring Vormus was a vampire, I took a stab at it. No pun intended.”
“Did he dissolve?” Sam asked.
“He was intact when I left.”
Mal cut in. “Again, these aren’t movie monsters. The legends aren’t scientific fact. They are what they are: shifters, and with that come certain weaknesses. Perhaps wood does kill them. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they have it? That said, it seems that Smoke may have crushed their nest. There aren’t any other signs of The Many that I could find. In my opinion, The Drake should be happy.”
Smoke didn’t hide his frown. If his mission wasn’t completed, then he might not see Sid. Also, it wouldn’t surprise him one bit if Reginald was jerking him around. He needed to see Sid, though. He was worried. The longer they had her, the more likely things could change. She was strong, but how strong could she be surrounded by such evil beings?
She’d die before she gave in, wouldn’t she.
He didn’t want her to die though. He couldn’t bear the thought. He slipped a black shirt over his shoulders that read, “Fight or Die.”
“Maybe you should call Reginald again,” Sam said. “I wouldn’t wait around on that guy. Just bug him.”
Smoke squeezed her shoulder. “I’m heading home. If you hear anything, let me know.”
“Stay here, John. With us. Relax,” she said.
“Just give me a couple days. I’ll be back.” Still filled with energy, he jogged in place. “I’m still pumped with energy from the tube. I need to do something.”
Without getting out of his seat or looking Smoke’s way, Mal said, “Up in the coat closet is a case. Take it with you. Don’t go on any more adventures without the sweetheart suit.”
The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files: Special Edition Fantasy Bundle, Books 6 thru 10 (Smoke Special Edition Book 2) Page 5