“Come on,” Huck laughed, looking to the others. “You can’t be serious.”
“That’s holy water, Johnny,” Andrews said, gesturing to the various vials strapped inside the lid. “We’ve got garlic, wolfsbane, holy chrism, and pepper seeds, just to name a few.”
“And this?” Taylor removed a pistol which looked like it stepped from the yellowed pages of an eighteenth-century pirate novel.
“That’s a Flintlock pistol that shoots silver musket-balls.”
The Sheriff arched an eyebrow at him. “Of course, it is,” he muttered, returning it to its slot.
Andrews swept a hand over the box. “We’ve got a silver dagger and crucifix, a mallet and wooden stakes, a blessed bible, and a map of eastern Europe – including Transylvania.”
“What’s this?” Johnny asked, unrolling a piece of parchment paper that looked like a dead sea scroll.
Andrews snatched it from him. “That’s the instruction manual, but you can have this,” he said removing a silver cross from the red velvet.
“Nice!” Johnny thrust it out before him. “Die suckers!”
“Where did you get this?” Nina asked, staring incredulously at the odd assortment of weapons and potions. “And why?”
“eBay. Cost a pretty penny too but the way people go missing around here, I knew it would pay off one day.” He looked up from the antique box. “I’ve also got an underground bunker if we can make it to my place.”
“I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation.” Nina dropped her face into her hands. “This…changes everything.”
“Look, we just have to make it until dawn,” Andrews reminded her, pouring thirty grains of black powder down the Flintlock. “We stay right here in this kitchen and make it our stronghold.”
“Fuck all that,” DeSean said, slamming Sheriff Taylor up against the wire rack and sending a stack of napkins seesawing to the floor. “You never answered my question!”
Taylor wrestled against the big man’s grip. “What question!”
A gun hammer locked in place. “Let him go or I’ll paint the walls with your brains,” Andrews growled, pushing his service revolver against the side of DeSean’s head. “These bullets may not work on them but they will on you.”
“How many times are you guys going to do this?” Huck yelled, running his hands through his hair. “Look, DeSean, I get that you don’t trust cops because you’ve said so a hundred times, but this is getting old. Let him go!”
DeSean stared into Taylor’s dark eyes, searching for something unseen. “But do you get why I don’t trust cops?”
“Of course, I do! They failed you and your family when you needed them most.”
“I stopped trusting cops long before they failed my family! But why?”
Huck hung his head and rested his hands on his hips. “Because lower budgets brought shitty wages which, in turn, attracted power-hungry mall cops – like the ones you see beating on people in the news. The good guys don’t want to be cops anymore because no one likes cops and the pay sucks. It’s a vicious cycle.”
DeSean snorted, a white cloud hanging around his head. “So what’s the solution, Dean Koontz?”
“Higher pay! Come on, DeSean, you pay people who can handle high-pressure situations with the least amount of force as possible – like high-ranking former military. Until then…” Huck threw his hands out in exasperation. “Listen, Big Man, if we’re going to get out of here alive, the bottom line is we have to work together – all of us: black, white, cop, civilian.”
“Vampire.”
Everyone slowly turned to Johnny.
“Sorry,” he said, taking a chocolate chip cookie from a huge baking sheet. “But seriously, if you thought bad cops were your biggest problem before…” Johnny bit into the cookie and smiled. “Surprise.”
Huck set a hand on the deputy’s shoulder. “Let your boss answer the question, Andrews. I think we all deserve an explanation at this point.”
Snarling, the deputy yanked the revolver away with an angry grunt and jammed it into an empty holster.
DeSean balled the sheriff’s uniform into his fists and pushed him up against the rack. “What was Bud talkin about in your truck?”
Taylor relaxed and stared into DeSean’s wild eyes. “I have no idea.”
“Bullshit!” DeSean threw him across the room, sending him crashing into the floor mixer and knocking it onto its side with a loud clang.
“That’s enough, DeSean!” Andrews took aim with the Uzi.
“He’s lying,” he barked, crossing the room and lifting Taylor off his feet. “Whatchu hiding, Walking Tall?”
“I’m not hiding anything. Bud wasn’t Bud anymore!”
DeSean’s eyes narrowed. “You hiding something out in your truck, Bob?”
“No, I’m not!”
“You got some bags of blood or something out there?” Taylor laughed and DeSean pinned him to the wall, knocking an autographed picture of Anthony Bourdain to the floor. “You keepin some of these bloodsuckers for pets, Bob? Feedin em on the slide? Because Bud sure seemed like he wanted it pretty bad.”
“Let’s just go check his truck.”
His eyes jerked to Huck and narrowed. Dropping Sheriff Taylor to the floor, DeSean grabbed the meat tenderizer from the table. “Yeah, good idea, Huckleberry Finn. Why didn’t I think of that?”
A bright light slipped in through the server’s window, lighting up the lobby and turning everyone to ice.
“Da fuck?” DeSean muttered, inching closer.
Huck followed him through the swinging door, squinting out the wall of windows up front. At first, he wasn’t sure if it was headlights or floodlights shining in at them, then he saw the silhouette of a suit coat flapping around somebody in the wind. Stiffening, a cold feeling washed over Huck, chilling him to the bone. It was him, facing the diner while adjusting a shiny cufflink.
Huck stopped next to DeSean, pulse racing. “That’s him.”
DeSean squinted against the glare. “Him who?”
“Ambrose.”
Ramona slipped between them and pushed through the front door.
“Ramona no!” Huck said, grabbing her arm.
Shaking him off, she pressed on. “I can’t help it,” she said, letting in the cold. “He’s calling me.”
Slack jawed, Huck watched her stumble across the lot, tripping over the fact that the door wasn’t locked again. When Ramona reached Ambrose, the headlights on the vehicles behind him went dark. Parked off to the side, a black SUV flipped on its lights, illuminating the smug grin settling into Ambrose’s gray cheeks. Whatever he had hidden up his two-thousand-dollar sleeve, he wanted a spotlight for it. Wanted them to see what would happen if they didn’t give him what he wanted. No, not what.
Who.
“I just need Mr. Law and the boy,” he said without moving his lips, confirming Huck’s worst fear. Somehow, through the storm and the glass, they heard him perfectly clear. The frightened looks they traded were proof. “The rest of you are free to leave.”
“No,” Taylor barely said, the revolver tugging on his arm.
Ambrose shrugged, making his suit coat jump on his shoulders. “Have it your way, Sheriff,” he said, pulling the toothpick from Ramona’s eye. There was a loud pop, like a suction cup coming off a window as her eye popped free of its socket. A gory trail of veins and muscle followed behind, running into her skull. Pulling out a switchblade, Ambrose cut the orb free and Ramona fell to the side into a fresh bed of powder. Winking, he cheered them with the bloody eyeball on the end of the silver toothpick and slipped it into his mouth like a party hors d’oeuvres at a gallery opening. Pulling the toothpick out clean, he sucked in the trailing veins like spaghetti and Nina shuddered when he bit down. Through the windows, they could hear his teeth crushing Ramona’s eyeball and it sounded like someone chewing on glass. Holding his breath, Huck couldn’t believe his ears.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Yanking a folded handkerchief from a breast pocket, Ambrose’s neck expanded a little when he swallowed. “We can do this all night,” he said, wiping his chin and neatly folding the handkerchief up again.
“Why Johnny and I?” Huck whispered, trying to control his breathing.
“Because your biggest fan has an expensive crush on you,” Taylor answered frankly. “Johnny because of his blood type.” He looked back at the boy. “Do you know your blood type?”
“Why would I know that?”
“Are you vegan?”
“Vegan?”
“Vegans are in high demand right now.”
Johnny’s face soured. “No, but I have diabetes.”
“There ya go.” Taylor turned back to Ambrose. “Probably some older vamp with eclectic taste.”
“For a twelve-year-old boy with diabetes?” Nina gasped.
“They like all kinds: bipolar, MS, leukemia, even HIV positive.”
“What!”
“It doesn’t matter.” The deputy sighed, the old-fashioned Flintlock pointed at the glass. “They’ll never let any of us go, regardless of who we give them.”
“No, they won’t,” Taylor agreed, not taking his eyes from Ambrose. “They have a code.”
“Code?” Andrews screwed his face up. “What code?”
“No witnesses and no police, similar to the mafia’s code of silence, called Omertà.”
He blinked blankly at him. “How the hell do you know all this!”
Ambrose laughed as if he’d been listening the entire time. “Perhaps you could use a little more persuading. This is important to me,” he said, smiling warmly and gesturing to his right. His dark eyes stayed on the diner, gauging their reactions with keen interest, as a little black girl with pigtails stepped out from behind him.
Chapter Fifteen
Enforcer
DeSean’s jaw dropped with the meat tenderizer to the floor and Huck instantly knew who the little girl was. It was written all over her daddy’s face. “Cassie?” the big man whispered, pushing on the glass door with both hands.
“DeSean, no!” Taylor grabbed his shoulder. “It’s a trap!”
Like Ramona before him, DeSean shook him off and pushed outside, drawn closer by some unseen force. Snowflakes rushed inside and Huck followed him out the door, barely noticing the frigid temps turning the Nano to ice in his hands.
“She’s already gone!” Taylor yelled as the door swung shut behind them.
“I’m with you, DeSean,” Huck yelled over the storm, surveying the vehicles pointing at the diner. In addition to the SUV parked off to the right with its headlights on, there were three others as well – another black SUV and two older Cadillacs parked behind their leader. “We get your daughter and end these fuckers! Right here, right now.”
DeSean paid him no attention, glassy eyes firmly locked on the cute little girl standing next to Ambrose. Crossing the lot on heavy legs, his lips mouthed something Huck couldn’t hear over the wind but could see in his eyes. The big man stopped and stared down at her with his chest pumping. Tears stormed his cheeks, turning to crystals in his beard. “You haven’t aged a day,” he breathed out.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said without expression, shivering against the cold in a dirty purple coat.
DeSean fell to his knees and searched her tiny face, chasing his racing breath. Lifting a heavy hand, his shaky fingers reached for her cheek, planting a glimmer in Ambrose’s cold, dark eyes. Finding her smooth skin, the breath stopped uncurling from DeSean’s lips as he gently traced her cheek, disbelief swelling in his eyes.
“No!” The sheriff shot through the front doors. “Don’t do it!”
In a flash, DeSean pulled his daughter against him and hugged her like he’d dreamed of doing every single day for the last two fucking years. It was something he couldn’t have stopped if he wanted and only a parent could ever understand. Burying his face in her neck, he breathed her in and cried. Icy tracks formed on his cheeks and when she bit into his neck he screamed to the heavens above.
Ambrose’s excited eyes flicked between DeSean and Huck, toothpick excitedly wiggling in the corner of his mouth. Removing her curvy fangs from his flesh, Cassandra pet DeSean’s disheveled hair with loving strokes. Her face didn’t change into something sinister and when she looked up, Ambrose smiled down at her like a proud father. DeSean’s body hitched as he sobbed against his daughter’s chest, a grim reality prying its way into his mind one teardrop at a time.
Ambrose began to laugh, his breath invisible in the bitter cold. “Welcome to the family, Mr. Owens! It will be a pleasure having you at my service.” He glanced at the vehicles behind him. “Good help, I’m afraid, is an evil necessity in this business.”
DeSean cried harder and Ambrose’s belly jiggled with amusement.
Yanking up the pink Nano that seemed so damn small in the face of such great danger, Huck took aim at Ambrose. All the headlights came on at once and Ambrose’s laughter died with the wind. Light glinted off the toothpick in his mouth. DeSean bawled against Cassandra. Huck blinked snow from his lashes, heart throwing itself against his ribcage. Shifting his wingtips in the snow, a sluggish frown pulled on Ambrose’s lips. He looked down at DeSean and that’s when Huck realized the same thing Ambrose was registering at this very moment. The big man wasn’t crying against his daughter from his knees, he was…laughing. Tipping his head back, DeSean laughed to the darkened sky above, skin already turning waxy and gray. His delight pulled odd looks from the group and when the bone chilling mirth ran its course, the smile sobered on his face. Setting his jaw, DeSean jammed a blurry fist up into Ambrose’s crotch. Surprise widened the portly man’s eyes and blood spilled over his lower lip, running down his chin and painting the snowfall around his feet. DeSean pulled his bloody fist out with a sickening crunch and Ambrose’s insides spilled out over his shoes.
Car doors opened at the same time and gunfire went off like fireworks. A bullet whizzed past Huck’s head in a high-pitched zing, shattering a diner window behind him. Diving behind the sheriff’s truck, he peeked over the hood and returned fire, laying down cover for Taylor and Andrews to scramble to his side. United, the three men picked their shots wisely, peppering the night with heavy gunfire. But only Taylor’s silver bullets kept the fiends at bay. In a horrifying moment that was bound to happen, Huck’s gun clicked dry, followed by the others. The three men ducked down to reload, bullets sinking into the other side of the truck.
Shwoomp.
Shwoomp.
Shwoomp.
Glass rained down on top of them and the tires blew out, making the Bronco dip to the side.
Taylor patted himself down like he was on fire, eyes hitching on a box of ammo poking from the snow near the front door. “Fuck me.”
Huck slapped a new magazine in and yanked on the slide. “Go get it; I’ll cover you!” Everything got quiet, making his words echo in the night. Breathing hard and fast, he peeked over the hood to see Greeve pointing an assault rifle at Cassandra, who was busy weeping over her dead daddy lying in the snow.
“Fucking nigger!” Ambrose stumbled towards a black SUV, holding his intestines in and dragging a gory trail of intestines through the snow. “When he wakes up, kill his daughter and make him watch. Then kill them all!”
He turned back to the SUV and called out for help. “Talon!” The burly guy with a blond mohawk and motorcycle jacket sprinted over and helped Ambrose through the snow while the other henchmen hid behind their car doors with weapons trained on Taylor’s truck.
Grinning, Greeve brought the assault rifle into a bony shoulder and waited for DeSean’s eyelids to peel back. When they did, the big man sat up and took in this new world order through inky eyes. Huck lined Greeve up in his sights, knowing these next few rounds would only buy a limited amount of time for Taylor to retrieve his magic bullets and start making shots count. Blowing out a long breath, he squeezed on the trigger, but the gun blast that followed wasn’t his. The Flintlock jumped in An
drews’ hand. Looking down in surprise, Greeve watched blood begin to seep from his chest. He covered his heart and dropped to his knees, spraying the ground with erratic gunfire. Then came the smoke. Joshua exited the nearest SUV and hurried over, hugging the trigger of an assault rifle like a seasoned Delta Force operator.
“I got him!” Andrews slid to his butt and hastily dumped black powder down the barrel, spilling most of it in the snow as Taylor fled the safety of the truck for the box of silver bullets. “Holy shit, it worked!”
Jamming the buttstock against a shoulder, Joshua watched Greeve turn to ash before releasing an angry cry that sounded like a wounded animal in the throes of a miserable death. “Fuck you!” he shouted, taking aim at Cassandra’s frightened face. “And fuck her, too!”
DeSean sprang to his feet and pushed her behind him, glaring defiantly down at the little man. “No, fuck you, Frodo.”
“You like silver, rook?” Clenching his teeth, Joshua curled a finger around the trigger. “This is going to hurt you a lot more than it will me.”
Blowing out a slow breath, Huck squeezed the trigger. The gunpowder sparked, sending a nine-millimeter slug shooting out the barrel into Joshua’s head. He jerked to the side and nearly fell over, tossing Huck an evil glower and regaining his footing.
“Fucker,” he yelled, aiming at DeSean again. “Move!” Joshua’s index finger hugged the trigger while DeSean dropped to one knee and hugged his baby girl.
Breathing heavily, Andrews dumped another musket ball down the barrel.
Cassandra squeezed her eyes shut, sending tears streaming over the apples on her cheeks as her father stroked her hair and whispered in her ear.
The deputy tipped the Flintlock too far down, dumping the musket ball into the snow. “Shit,” he cried, searching a coat pocket for another as Taylor hurried back to the Bronco and reloaded The Peacemaker.
Aiming at Cassandra’s head, the hint of a grin reached Joshua’s lips. “Nap time, sweetheart.”
Slapping the chamber shut, Taylor rose from behind the truck and stood tall, his beige button down pulling taut against his slender frame as he raised the Colt to eye level. Squeezing the trigger, he put a bullet through Joshua’s face. The silver slug burst out the back of his skull like a zit, jerking him to the ground in a pile of smoke and fire. “Stop!” Taylor shouted, raising something high into the air. “In the name of The Council, stand down!”
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