LANCELOT

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “We have an hour before we meet up with our old buddy, Weston,” Lancelot said. “Any suggestions I’m not going to take anyway?”

  The others laughed, but Merlin spoke up.

  “You could let it go. The fact that the young Guinevere is well, and her would-be kidnapper disappears, will throw Mallor and Madeline into a state of confusion.”

  “Weston dies,” Lancelot replied. “If he brings friends, they die too. We’ll bring a dustpan and broom with us. A bag with what’s left of them and a note that Guinevere is under my protection should be sufficient for now.”

  “Thank you, my boy,” Merlin sighed audibly. “I am perplexed with regard to how they knew of Guinevere’s existence, and we didn’t.”

  “We did know, thanks to Arthur’s visions,” Vivian pointed out. “They had a way of detecting the players, and we have a small window of opportunity in which to keep our players out of their hands.”

  “I hope there will be no retribution for Modred’s death,” Merlin said. “He is the only one not to survive this period of discovery.”

  “Boo hoo,” Lancelot said.

  “Boo hoo,” Vivian added.

  “Boo hoo,” Serge joined in quickly with a smile.

  “I assumed that would be your reaction. This Weston could have an army with him.”

  “I doubt it, but the Vicster has a great dusting spell for vamps, and I brought along something extra, this trip, just in case,” Lancelot replied to Merlin’s caution. “When do the kids have to go home?”

  “The parents agreed that the two girls could stay until ten tonight. I figured you’d want to make sure that they get home safely. Will that give you enough time?”

  “If I’m not back here in an hour, we’ll be toast, and you should pull up stakes,” Lancelot told Merlin seriously. Do you have a back-up plan in case I get it?”

  “I purchased a ranch in Arizona,” Merlin answered. “We will grab what we can, and drive straight through. What of Guinevere?”

  “Shit!” Lancelot cursed, standing up. “Forget it. Nothing will happen to us. You’d have to kidnap Guinevere, and in this day and age, it would probably take more than your magic to pull it off. Sure you want some of this, Serge?”

  Serge grimaced. “That was a rhetorical question, right?”

  * * *

  Lancelot eased down East Twelfth Street in Oakland. He and his two passengers looked for the warehouse buildings at the address the woman had given Serge. Lancelot pointed to his left.

  “There it is,” Lancelot said. “Vivian, look who guards the street.”

  “You didn’t kill enough of those pricks.” Vivian leaned across Lancelot, checking out the black-figured gang-bangers milling around in front of the warehouse. “I guess the attack at the bus station wasn’t really a coincidence, huh, Monte?”

  “Not likely,” Lancelot agreed. He quickly told Serge about the attack on Vivian at their first meeting, and the subsequent attack on his house.

  “Want me to get out here and handle them?” Serge asked.

  “I want you and Viv to stay in the car here at the front,” Lancelot replied, taking a Colt .45 automatic out from under his seat. Two spare clips were taped to the barrel. “I’m going to enter at the back. If I cause a commotion and these guys at the front run to check, you two take them. If I don’t cause a commotion, I’ll come out the front. Since these gang-bangers are fronting for kidnapping and murder along with acting as Weston’s accomplices, I think we should make another statement. I have my cell phone. I’ll call, if I want to abort.”

  “Why not take them all out here in the front and go in together?” Vivian asked.

  “We’d alert Weston, and the prick would split,” Lancelot explained, driving by the warehouse front. A block down the street, he turned off his lights and pulled over. “I’ll see you out front. Don’t cast the dusting spell until you’re clear of Fang. You may not need it.”

  “Good safety point, my lady,” Serge added.

  Lancelot moved quickly away from the car. Vivian took his place behind the steering wheel. She did a u-turn and drove up the street without lights. Lancelot jogged along the ragged string of buildings until he reached the targeted warehouse lot. Un-taping the extra clips, he stuck them in the thigh pockets of his pants. After sticking the Colt .45 into a special holster he had on the back of his belt, he vaulted a damaged part of the fence.

  Utterly confident in the gang that fronted the warehouse complex, Weston left the rear unguarded. Lancelot moved slowly in the nearly pitch black darkness along the warehouse wall. Finding a small entrance door near a larger roll-top one, Lancelot tried the knob. When it didn’t turn, he set both hands on the door knob, with his eyes closed in concentration. The knob slowly turned in his grasp, pulverizing the locking mechanism. Lancelot waited, listening intently. When he heard no reaction during the following few minutes, Lancelot slowly pulled the door open until he could slip through.

  The smell first assaulted Lancelot’s senses. A dull red bulb cast dubious light down on what looked like two dozen cages. Inside the cages, emaciated figures clamored at the bars, trying to focus on who had entered the rear door. It was apparent to Lancelot that this room housed people Mallor used to feed his vampires. He walked past the cages, noticing that the inhabitants looked to be young teens, which added perspective to the gang’s attack on Vivian at the bus station.

  Lancelot moved into the outer warehouse through an open door. Five vampires reclined on various lounge chairs and couches positioned outside their meat room, feeding. They were oblivious to Lancelot’s presence because of the overpowering odor everywhere. Lancelot stayed in the shadows near the wall, looking for Weston. The huge vampire fed from a near-comatose woman on a couch to his left. Lancelot moved silently over to a lounge chair on his right with silver-bladed knife in hand. Pulling the vampire’s head back, he slit his throat. The teen-aged boy the vampire held fell listlessly to the side. With a quick rip upwards, Lancelot separated the head. It flamed brightly, causing the other vampires to do as Lancelot hoped. They stood up alone.

  Lancelot drew his Colt, and fired left-handed, killing two more with silver bullets. A third reached him, only to be ripped from groin to heart. He died in flaming agony. In seconds, Weston was alone, holding his victim as a shield, looking longingly toward where the gang members were. Instead of thugs bursting into the warehouse, a blood-soaked Serge, followed closely by Vivian, rushed in.

  “Let the woman go, and I kill you quickly,” Lancelot offered. “Harm her, and I keep you trying to die for three days.”

  “You broke the truce!” Weston screamed.

  “We know about your plot to kidnap the girl from the park,” Vivian told him. “She’s one of us, so it was you who broke the truce.”

  “Put the knife down, and we settle this one on one. I’ll release the woman and step away. I want your word that I go free if you die.”

  “You have my word,” Lancelot said, dropping his knife. He took his Colt automatic out and set it down carefully. “He goes free if he kills me.”

  “Sure,” Vivian agreed, pulling Serge toward the opposite side of the room. “C’mon, Serge, we’ll leave Weston an open path out of here.”

  Weston released the woman, who collapsed across the couch. He attacked Lancelot immediately, his movements a blur. It looked to Vivian as if their hands and feet moved in a constant motion, in a danse macabre. Serge tensed next to her. He could see every movement. The action went on for an indeterminable time until Serge grunted in appreciation, and Weston’s arms dropped to his sides. Weston stared at Lancelot, who stood holding Weston’s heart in one bloody fist for a full second before the vampire flamed into dust. Lancelot clapped his hands together, shedding Weston’s remains from his hands.

  “Oh, God, that was good,” Vivian breathed.

  “We had better leave quickly, my friend,” Serge cautioned. “All of the gang members are no more.”

  “This place is a feeding room for Mallor’s
vamps,” Lancelot said, pointing back toward the room he had passed through. “We have to make sure the cops get here quickly. There are several dozen people caged back there.”

  “Are they all like these five?” Vivian asked, gesturing at the moaning husks around them.

  “Some are worse. Let’s go. It won’t help them if we have to explain what we’re doing here to the police.”

  The three companions jogged past the dead gang members that Serge had killed without pause or mercy. Only minutes later, they drove away and stopped a mile down International Boulevard at the first phone booth they could find. Serge made the 911 call and hung up. Lancelot drove down to Thirty-Fifth Avenue and turned right. Circling a large block, they heard the many sirens. When Lancelot drove past, a block up from the warehouse, there were ambulances as well as police cars already at the scene.

  “They’ll have a great time coming up with an explanation for all of that,” Vivian noted.

  “Especially when they find the silver 9mm slugs on the floor amongst piles of ash and clothing. Too bad the vamps were all old. The cops would have really had fun with some of the young fanged ones. You’re getting blood all over my seats, Fang.”

  “Don’t get pulled over,” Serge warned, chuckling.

  “Can you do one of those clean-up spells of the sort Merlin used, Viv?”

  “Yeah, but we have to be out of the vehicle. In other words, don’t get stopped.”

  Lancelot dropped off Serge first, at Lancelot’s house.

  “Thanks, Fang. Don’t get blood all over my place.”

  “Any time, Monte. Fuck you.”

  Lancelot and Vivian laughed, watching Serge enter Lancelot’s house.

  “You two must have been something back in the old days,” Vivian commented as Lancelot drove toward Merlin’s place.

  “We definitely thinned out the horde of Ottoman Turks,” Lancelot replied. “It looks as if we’ll have ten minutes to spare before we see the kids home. Do I smell like ash?”

  “You can duck into the bathroom and wash up. We won’t be going in the Pontiac anyway. I’ll get Merlin to clean it up while we ride along with the kids. I’m interested in meeting Gwen’s parents if they come out to greet her. Did you get a chance to find out if she has anything freaky about her upbringing, as do the rest of us?”

  “Her last name’s Andreyev, but who knows? There wasn’t any birth-parent information in the database where I found out who she was. I’m so lost in Camelot: The Gathering, that I’m beginning to lose track of where I came from.”

  Vivian laughed appreciatively.

  “Arthur seems taken with his true love,” she added a moment later.

  “They were looking good at the park.” Lancelot explained the ploy he used to talk Arthur into breaking the ice. “He even won over her friend.”

  “He’s a charmer…at least until he changes into the devil incarnate.”

  “You mean whenever he’s talking or tickling you?”

  “Shut up. Hey, how long have you had the silver bullet clips?” Vivian asked.

  “I had them made up for me before going overseas in World War I,” Lancelot replied. “The Colt .45 automatic has the best stopping power, and since I bought it over a hundred years ago, it’s clean. There’s no way they can track the slugs back to me.”

  “I get it. You thought you’d run into more shape-shifters and vamps overseas in the old country,” Vivian reasoned.

  “There’s no way to know for sure,” Lancelot acknowledged. “I kept it in storage during World War II, because I was sent to the Pacific. The age of the powder had me a little worried. Nothing like a misfire with vamps looking to rip me apart. I knew the Colt would be fine, because I’ve shot it many times. It was the only gun I had at my place. There’s a false board in the garage wall where I keep it hidden.”

  “Good thing the cops didn’t find your hidey hole. With gang members getting killed tonight, I bet they’ll be over for a conversation with you as to your whereabouts.”

  “That was the main reason I didn’t pick up the slugs,” Lancelot said, parking near Merlin’s building. “Given the presence of the vamp dust, the silver slugs, and the caged humans, I figure the cops will be busy fitting round info pegs into the square holes of their reality. Cast your dusting spell before we walk over to Merlin’s.”

  Vivian did as Lancelot suggested, but their approach was unimpeded. Merlin met them at the elevator. The mage looked a little harried but cheerful.

  “Charlie’s waiting in the limo,” Merlin told them. “He has already programmed in the girls’ addresses. You can tell me how things went later.”

  “Sounds good, but we aren’t staying long tonight,” Lancelot replied. “I’ll be right back.”

  After Lancelot washed up in the bathroom, he used the hand towel to damp-wipe his jeans and tee shirt. He walked out of the bathroom in time to see Arthur lead the way out of the game room with Gwen next to him. The girl’s uncanny resemblance to the Guinevere Lancelot knew stunned him. Vivian took his hand, feeling his thoughts.

  “Gwen, Diane,” Arthur began when they drew abreast of the elevator, “this is Jim and Vivian. They’re my friends.”

  “Hi, girls,” Vivian greeted them. “Was Arthur a gentleman?”

  Giggling, the two girls nodded their heads.

  “We’ll be riding along with you to your homes,” Lancelot added, smiling. “I hope riding in a limo doesn’t bother either of you.”

  “We love it,” Diane said.

  “You look really familiar, sir,” Gwen told Lancelot as a curious look overspread her face.

  “Call me Jim,” Lancelot replied, exchanging glances with Vivian. “I have that kind of face. We’ll have Arthur back shortly.”

  Merlin nodded, saying, “This is a school night, Arthur.”

  “I know,” Arthur replied, following everyone out. “I’ll go to bed as soon as I get back.”

  “Are you two going together?” Gwen asked Vivian when they were on their way to Diane’s house.

  “I think so,” Vivian answered, pointing warningly at Arthur, as the two girls giggled.

  “We are, Gwen,” Lancelot added.

  “Are you going to get married?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Lancelot said. “We have a few things to work out first.”

  “Jim was in the Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Arthur told his two friends. “I’m going to join the Marine Corps too.”

  “You are?” Gwen asked in a shocked voice. “I thought with your intelligence level… Oh, sorry, Jim. I didn’t mean-”

  Vivian and Lancelot were already laughing. Lancelot gestured that it was okay.

  “I get that a lot, Gwen,” Lancelot said.

  “It is honorable to start adulthood as a warrior,” Arthur said in solemn manner, meeting Gwen’s eyes. “Our country needs its citizens to defend it willingly, so others who are unable or unwilling will not be forced to do so.”

  Lancelot smiled approvingly as he saw the respect well up in both girls’ eyes at Arthur’s statement.

  “Women serve now in war zones too,” Lancelot added.

  “My folks would keel over dead if I ever joined the military,” Diane stated with vigor.

  “Mine would disown me,” Gwen sighed. “I’m going to college.”

  “Me too,” Arthur said, “but I’m going into the Naval Academy.”

  “So you’ll be an officer,” Diane commented.

  “Did you go to college, Vivian?” Gwen asked.

  “No,” Vivian replied with some embarrassment. “It didn’t work out for me, but you three will have everything going for you.”

  “Maybe I could get into the Naval Academy,” Gwen said suddenly.

  “It’s been done,” Lancelot told her. “You can be accepted. Vivian could actually go to college now. It’s never too late.”

  “That’s right.” Arthur seized the moment, as Vivian began to protest. “There are a lot of junior colleges around, and you’re only what, eigh
teen?”

  As Gwen and Diane added their encouragement, Vivian traded an irritated glance for Lancelot’s amused one.

  “I might sign up for classes next quarter,” Vivian confided, relenting, “but Jim and I are planning on entering a business venture with Arthur’s guardian.”

  “We have arrived at Miss Diane’s house,” Charlie announced, as the limo came to a stop.

  Arthur hurriedly stepped out. Without any prompting, he walked Diane to her door. Lancelot and Vivian again exchanged somewhat surprised looks at the maturity of the gesture. They noticed Gwen watching the boy intently, as a slight smile turned up the corners of her mouth. She twisted toward Vivian and Lancelot quizzically.