Deal with the Devil

by Kevin Lee Swaim

  She pointed to a picture on the yellowed page. It showed runes that looked remarkably similar to the ones carved into Callie’s flesh.

  “What are those?” I asked.

  Callie leaned over to inspect the picture and sucked in her breath. “What did they do to me?”

  Madame Wang’s head swiveled to Callie, and she regarded Callie with pity. “They marked you with Angelic script.”

  * * *

  “Angelic script?” Callie asked. She extended a trembling finger until she almost touched the book. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Of course you haven’t,” Madame Wang said. “Few on earth have. I know it only from books.”

  “But why?” I asked. “Why carve Angelic script into her skin?”

  The old woman shrugged. “I can only guess.”

  “I need to know,” Callie said.

  Madame Wang blinked. “These witches. How did you meet them?”

  “Does it matter?” I asked.

  “They hurt you,” Madame Wang said. “Both of you. I can read it in your faces. What did they do?”

  “They attempted to sacrifice us,” I said.

  The old woman frowned. “For what purpose?”

  I glanced at Callie, who shifted from foot to foot. “It’s your call. If you think we should tell her…”

  “There was a demon,” Callie said.

  The old woman raised her hand. “Stop. I don’t want to know any more. You must go now.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Angelic script would be very similar to Demonic script,” Madame Wang said. “You are but children. So innocent. You don’t even realize—”

  “You said it didn’t matter what you did,” Callie said. “You foretold your own death. Sending us away—”

  “Better I take my own life now,” Madame Wang said. “While there is still some hope for my soul.”

  “Don’t turn us away,” I said. “We need your help.”

  “You need,” the old woman said slowly, “to go somewhere far away. An island, perhaps. Or a mountain. Yes, a mountain. Bar yourself from humanity. Don’t put others at risk. You must leave now.”

  I felt the anger rising again. “We’re not going anywhere. You need…”

  As I trailed off, the old woman inspected my face. “What is it?”

  An oily blackness brushed against my neck, curled around my insides, and settled into the pit of my stomach. “Oh, no.”

  “Sam?” Callie asked.

  “A vampire,” I said. The pressure grew stronger. “There’s more than one.”

  Wang’s eyes widened. “You brought them here!”

  I crouched down and raised my pant leg, only to find my ankle holster empty. “Where is my gun?”

  The old woman pulled back. “If you think—”

  “Lady,” I muttered, “there are vampires coming. I don’t know who they are, or what they want, but if they’ve come to kill us, then I’m going to need my gun or we are all dead.”

  As Madame Wang reached into her pocket, the door to the front exploded inward with the force of a bomb, sending bits of wood from the door frame flying in all directions. I barely had time to register the snap of fabric moving at high speed and then a vampire was upon us.

  * * *

  The vampire was a fresh-faced woman in her late twenties with shoulder-length black hair. She had high cheekbones and wore a broad grin that verged on a leer.

  The doglike creature barked and jumped at the vampire, but it was too late. The vampire flew at Madame Wang, and there was a crunching of bone as the vampire crashed into the old woman with the force of a dump truck.

  Madame Wang didn’t even have time to scream as the force of the vampire’s attack threw her across the room and into the wall. She hit hard and rebounded, just as Callie’s crucifix blazed to life, bathing the room with a fierce white light.

  The doglike creature froze, then its skin turned gray and hard as the magic powering it gave way.

  Brushing her hair over her ear, the vampire held her left hand up as a shield against the light streaming from between Callie’s breasts and kicked the doglike statue over, shattering it into pieces.

  She grimaced at the light, but then her eyes caught mine and she was coming at me with her fingers outstretched, her fingernails thickened into talons.

  She moved so fast that I barely had time to recognize that I had seen her somewhere before, a fleeting glimpse as Jack had shot up Silas’s mansion in Indianapolis with his Thompson, and then something hit me from behind.

  I face-planted into the green oriental rug on the floor, and when my face hit, even the soft rug wasn’t enough to keep my nose from exploding in pain.

  For a second, all I could do was lie there, the pain so intense that I couldn’t see straight.

  Callie shouted something, and I blinked furiously, wiping at the tears in my eyes and sitting up just in time to see two vampires, Elijah and Greta, fighting with the other vampire.

  A vampire I recognized as Tessa Spurlock.

  It was like watching a whirlwind of violence. Their hands swung at speeds no mere mortal could track, but thanks to the change, I was afforded a front-row seat. Every punch or slash from Elijah was met by a block from Spurlock. As she did, the vampire Greta would strike.

  Impossibly, Spurlock fought them off, always one step ahead of them. Callie watched in horror, the light still blazing from her crucifix, which she held in front of her like a shield.

  My brain was full of cotton and my thoughts were as slow as molasses, but my mind finally cleared.

  The gun. Get the gun!

  I scrabbled across the floor to Madame Wang. Her body was limp and her eyes glassy. The impact against the wall had shattered her skull.

  She must have died before she even hit the floor.

  Behind me, the fight continued with all its ferocity.

  I rummaged through the pockets of Madame Wang’s robes until my fingers touched the cold steel of the Kimber.

  Just as I did, Callie screamed, and I turned to see Spurlock sneering, her hand stained in crimson up to her elbow. She held something aloft, something bloody and ragged and quivering, and Elijah stared at it in shock. There was a hole in his chest where his heart had been, and then he collapsed as flames burst from under his skin.

  A surge of energy washed over me, brushed against my neck, then slammed down into my chest as Elijah’s essence plunged into my soul.

  Greta froze. Her mouth opened in horror as Elijah burned, which allowed Spurlock to hurl Elijah’s heart at Greta’s face.

  Greta snarled, and the gaunt skin on her face pulled back into something not even remotely human. She jumped at Spurlock, only to have Spurlock slash her talons through Greta’s black silk shirt like tissue paper, flaying the flesh and fat of Greta’s breasts to the sternum.

  Callie pointed at Spurlock and screamed, “Shoot her!”

  I yanked the Kimber from Madame Wang’s pocket and brought it up, pulling the trigger.

  Spurlock saw me and moved out of the way as the roar of the Kimber echoed around the room. The bullet missed her, and she was coming at me. I squeezed the trigger again, and the young vampire spun out of the way.

  Damn, she’s fast!

  I squeezed the trigger again and again, and somehow Spurlock spun as I pulled the trigger, the bullets whizzing past her each time by mere inches.

  Greta had fallen to the floor, but while I distracted Spurlock with my Kimber, Greta took the opportunity to rush up behind her.

  Spurlock’s eyes widened as Greta latched onto the young woman from behind and nodded at me as I aimed the Kimber again.

  This time, I can’t miss.

  The gun barked just as Spurlock realized her predicament. She spun to the side, and the silver bullet punched a hole through Greta’s arm, then Spurlock gave me one last hateful glance and fled through the front door.

  Greta fell to her
knees, the hole in her arm smoking but not yet burning, and she stared at the pile of greasy fat and ash that had been Elijah.

  My ears rang from the gunshots, but the sound of Greta’s moaning twisted like a knife in my gut. Callie approached Greta, stopping short, and the light from her crucifix finally dimmed.

  Greta glanced up at Callie. Her lips were pulled back and her fangs exposed, but she shook her head and asked, “Why?”

  Callie glanced around the room. “Why what?”

  “Why did … she do this?” Greta asked. “Why attack you? Why kill Elijah?” She glanced down at the smoking hole in her arm. “It … burns.”

  Callie reached for her, then pulled back. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Greta put her hand over the wound in her arm, trying to stop the smoking. “We told you about her.”

  It had been less than six hours, but it seemed like a lifetime ago. “She was there, in Indianapolis. I remember her.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Greta said. Scarlet tears filled the corner of her eyes. She clutched her bicep, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop the smoke from intensifying. “I’m … going to die.”

  A part of me took a certain satisfaction in that. “The people you slaughtered over the years probably felt the same way.”

  Greta looked up. Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving bloody red trails against her caramel skin. “I didn’t know any other way.”

  Callie took the Kimber from my hand. “We can’t leave her like this. She tried to help.”

  “You want to save her?” I asked. “We kill things like her. She deserves it. Maybe not for anybody she’s killed in the past few decades, but for the people she killed before. How many people? Hundreds? We’re trying to figure out who killed all these young men, but if you took her victims over the years and added them up, you’re telling me it wouldn’t be in the thousands?”

  “Sam,” Callie said. “She saved us.”

  “I’ll buy her a damned medal. Oh yeah, and I’ll throw it on the pile of ash where she used to be.”

  “We need to know why Tessa attacked, Sam. We can’t just let her die.”

  Greta was hunched forward on her knees. She took fast, shallow breaths. She didn’t look like an evil monster. She looked like a woman who was contemplating her own death, the afterlife, and what might come next.

  She looks … vulnerable. “Dammit, Callie.”

  “Language,” Callie said absently. She leaned in close enough that caught a whiff of something.

  She smells like … fear. Can I actually smell fear now?

  Callie didn’t seem to notice. “She can be useful.”

  “Fine,” I said. “We will try to save her, but I have no idea how.”

  “The club,” Greta gurgled. “Take me … to the club. Desmond can help.”

  * * *

  Greta weighed over a hundred pounds, but I carried her through the front door as easily as I used to carry my daughter up the stairs to her bedroom.

  The sun was low in the sky, and the city bore an orange-red sheen. Callie followed me across the street to the 7-Eleven parking lot. A massive white Lincoln Navigator came to a screeching halt, and the woman inside glared at me, banging her fist against the wheel and honking. Cars backed up behind her, many of them also honking, but the woman in the Lincoln mouthed obscenities and began punching furiously at her cell phone.

  I gave her a dirty look and willed some of my anger at her. Hasn’t she ever seen a vampire hunter carrying a smoking vampire who was one step from catching on fire before?

  She froze, the cell phone slipping from her fingers, and looked terrified.

  Uh-oh.

  Callie clapped me on the shoulder. “We don’t have time for this.”

  She was right. Greta was trembling in my arms.

  “I’m dying,” the vampire whispered. “I’m … dying.”

  You’re already dead. It’s just that this time, your body will stay dead.

  It wasn’t the kindest thought. As I lugged Greta across the street, I wondered if the change had hardened my heart, or if I was consumed with hatred for what the vampires had done to me and mine. The thought whispered up, a feeling that had been rattling around my head for months.

  None of this would have happened if Jack had just left us alone!

  It wasn’t true, of course. Silas was weary of fighting with Jack. Turning me into a vampire, along with Lilly and Stacie, was his last, mad plan before finally giving Jack the gift and remaking us into a murderous vampire family.

  If Jack had just killed his son…

  Another thought had been rattling around in my head.

  If Jack had killed Silas all those years ago on his farm, then Silas would never have killed generation after generation of our family.

  I tried not to continue that line of reasoning, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  My mother might have lived. Maybe Dad wouldn’t have had his heart attack.

  I hated myself for thinking it, but it had the ring of truth. Jack could have slain Silas and stopped what had come after.

  But, even if Jack had somehow understood the tragedy that had befallen his family all those years ago, asking him to kill his own son was too much.

  It was only after understanding what had happened to Silas that I was able to … kill Lilly.

  I reached the truck and placed Greta in the middle, between the driver and passenger seat. She looked up at me, her eyes barely open, and pleaded, “Stay with me.”

  “I’ll be right here,” I said. “I’m just going to drive us—”

  “No,” Greta whispered. “Hold me.”

  “I can’t…”

  “I’ll drive,” Callie said. She stuck out her hand and grabbed my keys.

  We were soon barreling south through the evening traffic, and I had time to wonder about the woman in the Lincoln.

  It was almost like she could feel my emotions. My anger. It was an awful lot like how a vampire can sometimes make others feel strong emotions.

  I hadn’t killed anywhere near the number of vampires that Jack had, and it had taken Jack nearly a century and hundreds of vampire kills before he had turned without receiving the gift.

  Is it happening to me? Am I going to become a vampire?

  I held Greta against me, and she shivered in the blazing heat that the Cheyenne’s air conditioning couldn’t seem to reduce.

  I shivered, too.

  Chapter Ten

  Vampires have a scent to them. It’s almost snakelike. You will never forget the smell, no matter how hard you try. It lingers in the back of your throat and makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

  Maybe it’s the primordial fear that prey exhibit when too close to a predator, but as Greta clutched me, my stomach tightened and the part of my brain that senses danger lit up, screaming at me to run, run far and fast, and don’t stop because my life depended on it.

  It was hard to reconcile that feeling with the pitiful woman whimpering next to me.

  Callie glanced over at a stoplight. “Is she okay?”

  I shook my head. “I hope the other vampires know what to do. I mean, we’ve never tried to stop one from burning. We’re usually the ones putting silver in them.”

  “You did put silver in her.” The light turned green, and Callie floored the Chevy, which leapt forward from the light like a gazelle chased by lions.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I said. “I meant to hit Spurlock.”

  “I know,” Callie said, a little more gently. “I’m surprised you hit either of them. They were moving so fast that I could barely see them. It was like … watching a blur.”

  I thought back to what I had seen. They had been moving fast, almost too fast for me to see, but I had seen them. “I guess I got lucky.”

  Greta moaned something I couldn’t understand.

  “Or unlucky,” I mumbled. Callie shot me a dour look. Greta was
mumbling, and I awkwardly stroked her short hair. “You’ll be all right. We’ll be at the club soon.”

  Callie kept pushing the Chevy above the speed limit, and twenty minutes later we pulled up in front of Desmond’s club. The woman from before was nowhere to be seen, but a burly black man nearly six and a half feet tall in an expensive black suit and sunglasses stood next to the entrance.

  “What should I do?” Callie asked.

  “Park here,” I said. “We can’t carry her all the way from the parking deck without attracting attention.”

  Callie nodded and turned off the engine.

  The burly guard barked out, “You can’t park there!”

  I opened the door and stepped out into the stifling heat, then reached inside and carefully lifted Greta. When the guard saw her, he rushed forward like he was about to attack.

  “Stop right there,” I said, “before I put this little lady down and beat you to death.”

  The guard froze, his hand going for something at his waist.

  “No guns, either, or I’ll still put this little lady down and beat you to death.”

  Maybe it was something in my voice, but the guard’s hand stopped moving and his mouth opened and closed.

  “Call your boss and tell him we need help if we’re going to save her.”

  A well-dressed white couple approached from the south, but when they saw us, they, too, froze.

  The man, a mild-mannered fellow in his late fifties, gave the guard a questioning look. “Jimmy? What’s going on?”

  “Ain’t no problem, Mr. Fitzpatrick,” the guard, Jimmy, said. “I think the club is gonna be closed for the night. I’ll see you next week.” The man stared at me like he wanted to speak, but Jimmy said softly, “Please, Mr. Fitzpatrick. It’s gonna be fine. Go on home and forget what you saw here.”

  The man glared at me, but I glared right back, until he finally nodded his head. “Let’s go home, honey.”

  They turned, and Jimmy let out a sigh. “You know who that is?”

  “Nope. I don’t care much, either.”

  “He’s an alderman,” Jimmy said. “That could have been bad. It still might be.”

  Cars kept passing, but the longer we stood there, the more they slowed so their drivers and passengers could gawk at us. “Call your boss,” I said, holding Greta against me. “We need to do something if we want to save her.”