CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOURTEEN
“She went out,” said Rex. He sighed. Too damn old for this shit. Was too old five years ago, and I haven’t got any younger. “She went out with Carlisle.”
Danny was staring at him, the same way she’d been staring at him since she’d come out wearing a bathrobe and a frown and found her daughter gone, smoke on the wind. If Rex was being honest, he was a little worried too, but what was he supposed to do? The kid channeled the power of the Universe. It’s not like he had any kind of special powers to keep her to a curfew. It’s not like she couldn’t just change the wind to stone or cats into dogs or whatever the damn Universe-power-thing let her do.
“Rex,” said Val, “you know that we’re hunting vampires, right?”
“I do know that,” said Rex. “It keeps me up at night.”
“Cool,” said Val. “You know that vampires are out at night, right?”
“It’s a part of the lore I’m familiar with.” Rex rubbed his face. Too damn old. Vampires, for Chrissakes.
“And you let,” said Danny, “my daughter go outside. At night. Where there are vampires. By herself.”
“With Carlisle,” said Rex. “She was with—”
“Melissa,” said Danny, “is not really up to this.” She sat down on the couch, put her head in her hands, ruffled her hair, and sighed. “It’s not that she’s not capable, it’s that—”
“It’s that we’re just normal,” said Jessie, coming in from her room. Rex knew she called it her rack, like she was getting a little rack time. Rex took a double-take: first damn time he’d seen Jessie wearing a bathrobe in as long as he’d known her. Always, always she wore her clothes like some kind of uniform, always pressed, always neat, and Rex didn’t know who else had time to iron their denim but it wasn’t him. “We’re just people, right?” She started rummaging around the kitchen. “Rex, where’s the coffee pot?”
“It’s in the—” Rex started.
“I’m going out after her,” said Danny, rising from the couch.
“The thing about people,” said Jessie, “is that they can do amazing things if you trust them.”
“Vampires are a bit above Melissa’s pay grade,” said Danny. “They are fast, and strong, and they terrify me. Me. I’m a werewolf, Jessica. I can tear the door off a car or run faster than a train, and they scare me.”
“I get that,” said Jessie, putting some grounds into the coffee pot. “I was scared, too. I was scared when I was deployed to a place with no family, nothing but sand, IEDs under every rock. I was scared when they told me that my son was dead. I was scared when we went out yesterday to get the creature we’re keeping in the cage out the back. What I’m not scared about is whether Carlisle has this one. She’ll make it work.”
Danny looked uncertain.
That’s my cue. Rex ran a hand over his chin, feeling the stubble that was one hundred percent grade-A silver. “Danny,” he said. “Danny, weren’t you the one who said she should get a ‘real job?’” Like this isn’t the realest job in the whole world. “You’ve got her working at Starbucks.”
“So she can learn about how things work,” said Danny. “Anyway, that was Val’s idea.”
“Right,” said Rex. “It was Val’s idea, and he—”
“Hey,” said Val, a startled expression on his face. “Don’t put me in the middle. I didn’t—”
“The thing is,” said Rex, “it was a good idea.”
“It was?” said Val and Danny, together.
Jessie winked at him from the kitchen, so Rex pushed on. “She’s learning about people. You know, she talks to me, probably because I’m so close to death’s door any secrets have a finite time to live. You know what she said to me last week? She said that she doesn’t use it anymore.”
“That’s it,” said Danny. “I’m—”
“She doesn’t use her gift,” said Rex, “because everyone she meets has a, hell, I’m not saying this right, but some kind of thing that makes them hard to deal with. Baggage, I guess you’d call it. So she doesn’t look to the future, or the past. I’d doubt she even looks both ways when crossing the road anymore. She doesn’t use her gift because the world’s full of noise, and you’ve got her working at Starbucks, where there’s nothing but people with their noise. And you know, she’s doing it anyway, because you asked her to. Not told her, mind, because you couldn’t tell that kid what do to even with the best of intentions. You raised her right, to be true and strong, and tonight she found a chance to be what she was made for again. She’s not making caramel lattes, she’s out there, fixing things. That’s her real job.” He stopped talking, felt like a clock that had wound down. “That’s what I think, anyway.”
“I…” said Danny. She looked lost.
“Hell,” said Rex, “I’ve probably said too much. I’m an old man who can’t sleep at night. Wrong place, right time. I just happened to see her go outside, that’s all. You know what she said?”
“No,” said Danny.
“She said,” said Rex, “that she’d be back in time for breakfast. So she could go to work.” He paused. “At Starbucks.”
Danny sat back down again. “Oh,” she said. “Why was Carlisle awake?”
“She wasn’t,” said Rex. “Or, I don’t know, not at first. She came out here with that damn hand cannon and asked where they were going. Looked angry.”
That put a small smile on Danny’s face. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
“Not really,” said Rex. “She looked like she was going to shoot someone. I didn’t want to give her an excuse.”
“Do you know,” said Val, “where they were going?”
“Yes,” said Rex.
“Where?” said Danny.
“I’m not telling,” said Rex, feeling vaguely like he was channeling his long-past five-year-old self.
“You’re … what?” said Danny, leaning forward.
“I’m not telling,” said Rex, “because you should trust her.”
“I trust Melissa,” said Danny.
Rex looked at her for a moment. “Not Melissa,” he said. “That’s not who I meant.” He wanted to say, kid’s got to make her own way, or, your kid’s got real fire in her, or even, don’t sass me, girl, but he didn’t. He sat there, still as midnight.
Val looked like he wanted to say something, so Rex shot him a look. He hoped the look said something like not now, rather than come punch me, because the man was mostly calm but there’s no way Rex wanted to wrestle a tiger before breakfast. Hell of a way to go out. Rex sighed. “Look,” he said. “I don’t want to tell you how to raise your kid—”
“But you’re going to anyway,” said Danny.
Rex chewed that one over. “More or less.”
“I get it,” said Danny. “I still want to go after her, but I … shouldn’t.”
“Right,” said Rex. “Great.”
“I’ve got just one question,” said Val. “Where’s John?”
Now that’s a question. Rex coughed. “On a date, I think.” Not — strictly speaking — a lie. Not full quality truth either. Good enough for now. “You remember, right?”
“Still?” said Val. “That’s a long date.”
“Sure,” said Rex. “Who wants coffee?”
Jessie winked at him, started pouring. Chalk one up for normal people.
• • •
The thing in the cage stared out at Rex. Damnedest thing, vampires, werewolves, and you thought you’d spend your twilight years in a home slapping the asses of pretty nurses. Rex shook himself, took a couple of deep breaths, and walked towards the thing. Rex, Rex, Rex: you know you shouldn’t think about … him that way. He was a person once. Named Jeremy. “Hungry?” He took a sip of his coffee.
Jeremy’s eyes opened, and he licked his lips. “I could eat.”
Rex walked across the gloom of the garage to the double doors of the refrigerator. “How much you need?”
“Not much.” Jeremy thought for a second. “You kno
w, I’ve never measured it.”
“Well, son,” said Rex, “that’s kind of what this is about. Finding out things.”
“Let’s start with one bag,” said Jeremy. He looked across the room at the black body bag. “What’s with the stiff?”
“Uh,” said Rex. “I think that’s, uh, well.”
“You wanted something to experiment on, and then I got here,” said Jeremy. “That about it?”
Rex rubbed his chin, nodded. “That’s about it.”
“Won’t work,” said Jeremy. “I don’t mean me. I mean the guy in the bag. Doesn’t work that way.”
“Son—”
“I’m not trying to be a dick about it,” said Jeremy. “I’d far prefer you to experiment on whoever that asshole was. But open the bag.”
“Uh—”
“Look,” said Jeremy. “You got to start somewhere. Just open the bag.”
What the hell. Rex walked over to the black body bag, grabbed the zipper, and yanked. The plastic peeled open, smoke pouring from the side along with a charnel reek. The remains in the bag were … ancient. Charred, and where they weren’t charred, rotted. “Uh,” he said, then stepped back, covering his nose.
“Yeah.” Jeremy looked out from behind the bars. “When we die … well, shit catches up on us. How about that food?”
Rex looked at the mess in the bag, then back to Jeremy. “You’re hungry?”
“I’ve killed literally hundreds of people,” said Jeremy. “Murdered them. It’s not fun, okay, but a man’s got to eat. So, you know. I’m used to it, I guess.”
Rex nodded, walking back to the refrigerator, then opened it. Cool white light spilled out around his feet. There was a digital readout, big red letters with 42.8 glowing red. Temperature’s still fine. He snagged a clear plastic bag, the blood on the inside a healthy red. There was a label stuck to it, a bunch of barcodes and a big AB+ right in the middle. It had a tube coming out, coiled like a big flexible straw. “You … hell, son.” Rex let the refrigerator door close. “Hell. This is, well, what I want to know is whether I need to warm it up.”
“That’d be nice, actually,” said Jeremy. He pushed fingers through his hair. “Look, I don’t want to gross you out, but if you give it to me like that it’s a little sludgy. Sticks to the throat, you know? Warm, it’s…”
Rex looked at him. “More authentic.”
Jeremy sighed. “I don’t really like it any more than you do,” he said. “The difference is that I have to do it. You just have to watch it.”
Rex took the blood to a small microwave, tossed it inside, and punched a few buttons. The machine beeped back at him, then hummed.
“Not too much,” said Jeremy. “People aren’t boiling on the inside.”
“I gave it twenty seconds,” said Rex. “Twenty seconds sound good to you?” He sipped at his coffee again. Damn, but he wished Val had made it. Jessie made coffee like she was still out in the desert hunting insurgents. Served a purpose, had caffeine in it, but lacked a little soul. Val, though, the man made coffee like some kind of Zen master, and the cinnamon was inspired.
“Sure,” said Jeremy. “You know, I could do it myself.”
“No way,” said Rex, “that I’m opening the door of that cage.”
“Oh,” said Jeremy, then paused as the microwave beeped. “I meant, if you put the microwave in here. But thinking about it, you’d also need to put that big ass refrigerator in here, and I don’t think it’d all fit.”
“Yeah,” said Rex. “I guess.” He fished the blood out of the microwave. There’s a thing. You’re microwaving someone else’s blood, and you’re about to serve it to a vampire. It’s not too late to check into that nursing home. “It doesn’t feel too hot.”
“People aren’t,” said Jeremy. “Ninety eight point six.”
“Figures,” said Rex. “Warm summer day.”
“Warm summer day,” agreed Jeremy, holding a hand out through the bars. “Toss it over.”
Rex looked at the bag, then at Jeremy’s hand. “Son, we don’t work like that here.” He walked on over, close to the bars, and held up the bag.
Jeremy took it, then leaned back away from the bars. “You like taking risks?”
Snagging an old camp chair, Rex sat down in front of the cage. He took another sip of his coffee. “Not particularly.”
“Coming up to a hungry vampire,” said Jeremy, “would be risky.”
“Sure,” said Rex. “I’ll write that one down.” He took another sip of his coffee.
Sitting down in his cage, Jeremy shook the bag, plumped it, then stuck the tube in his mouth. He sucked, the blood moving down the straw, turning the clear plastic red. He drained the bag, scrunched the plastic up, and sighed. “You’re pretty fearless.”
“I’m not fearless,” said Rex. “I’m terrified.”
“You’re sitting on a fold-out chair with a cup of coffee, in a dark room with a vampire. You look … well, if you don’t mind me saying, you look fearless.”
“Son,” said Rex, “I was thinking. You know, about what it’d be like if I found myself in a cage, locked away, sunlight scorching the outside of this big old building. You know, if I was a vampire, you see? Not a lot of safety outside, nowhere to run. And then I was thinking, you know, about what it would be like if that big old building just so happened to be owned by a werewolf Pack. I don’t know your history, don’t really care, if I’m being honest, and I like being honest. Hell, my wife used to say I was too honest.” He took another sip of the coffee. It was growing on him. “But let’s say those werewolves were my sworn enemies, for thousands of years. Wanted to snuff me out and were just looking for an excuse. And when they grabbed me, out of a nice safe hotel, a thousand people all around, and took me away in broad daylight, and got away with it, well, I was thinking all those things might add up to me being terrified.”
The vampire in the cage — the real beast behind this kid Jeremy’s eyes — looked out at him. Those eyes glinted in the gloom like mirrors. “You don’t know anything about fear. This is nothing.”
“Okay,” said Rex.
“This isn’t … in a hundred years, I’ll still be here, and you’ll be dust.”
“Okay,” said Rex, again.
“Do you understand?” said Jeremy, and Rex could swear he could see that kid come back out from behind those vampire eyes. “Do you know?”
“No,” said Rex. “Not really.”
“Of course not,” said Jeremy, his voice bitter.
“But,” said Rex, “I’d like to learn.”
“What does it matter?” said Jeremy. “You want to kill me or cure me. You think I’m an oddity, a science experiment. It can’t be cured. God, if it could be cured…”
“God,” said Rex. “You leave God to us.”
Jeremy blinked at him, then leaned forward in his cage. “Do you know how they work?”
Rex thought about that for a minute. The they that Jeremy mentioned had to be Vampire High Command or something, that was obvious. But how High Command worked, well, no. He opened his mouth, then closed it, thinking some more. Finally, he said, “No. Son, I wish I did.”
“They come to you,” said Jeremy, “when everything’s completely fucked. When there’s no damn light in the sky in the middle of the day, you know?” His voice turned quiet, harsh, tinged with self-loathing. Rex had heard enough of that in his time to recognize it instantly. “They offer a way out. An eternal rescue. No more being afraid.” He gave a brittle laugh.
“What was it?” said Rex. “You on the run from some big bad? Trouble with the law?”
“No,” said Jeremy. “My girlfriend, see, she had stage four cancer. You know,” he said, rubbing his face, “they use stages, this word that sounds all nice and measured, like it’s a process they can manage. Fucking doctors. They don’t manage anything. Stage four, it’s a term for, ‘you’re fucked and you’re going to die.’”
“Okay,” said Rex. He took a sip of his coffee, but found it had
gone cold and bitter.
“So we’re in the hospital, and Vi—”
“Vi?”
“Vi,” said Jeremy. “My girl.” A small smile lit his face for a moment, a memory of something better. “Vi, she was beautiful. Not like, pretty, I mean yeah, she was pretty. But she was nice. I was more of a downtown kind of guy, if you know what I mean. Vi, she was all uptown.” He sighed. “It was a while ago.”
Rex thought about his own wife, dead and gone. “Son,” he said, his voice soft. “It doesn’t matter how long ago it was.”
“Right,” said Jeremy. “So, Vi, she’s dying. She’s just skin and bones in that hospital bed, all kinds of tubes coming out of her. Doctors say she’s got a week if we’re lucky. A week. You know what you can do in a week? Nothing. So you start talking, and you talk until the words run out, and then you just start crying.”
“That sounds about right,” said Rex. “That sounds about what I remember, too.”
Jeremy tossed him a sharp look. “You lost someone too?”
“Hey,” said Rex. “This isn’t about me. I’m not the one in a cage. Fearless.”
“Fearless,” said Jeremy. “That’s right. That’s me. Big ol’ fearless.” He sighed. “They came to me on the second night. There were two of them. I don’t know why they needed two. Maybe because it’s a peer pressure thing. So they come to me, and they say they want to give me a gift. They say they can make me live forever, and get this, I can give the gift to Vi. She’ll live forever too. Cancer, gone. And all I got to do, they say, is never go back outside in the daylight.”
“They didn’t want anything else?” said Rex. “No favor? No special task?”
“No,” said Jeremy. “A gift, they said, had to be freely given. And freely taken. Like the Muppet I was, I took it. I damned myself.” He grabbed the bars of the cage. “Right there, right then, in the back ass-end of this hospital, they stripped the life out of me, drained me dry, and breathed new life back into me. I woke up, I saw the world after I’d died. You want to talk about being terrified, being terrified is dying. Dying, and knowing that’s the end. And then, just like that, you come back.”
The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy Page 86