Texas Hold 'Em

by PATRICK KAMPMAN

  Megan grabbed my cell just as it was about to impersonate a lemming and dive off the counter. She actually hopped a couple of inches into the air, and her frown was replaced by a look of pleasant surprise as she held out the phone, as if I could somehow read the caller ID at this distance.

  “It’s your mom!”

  Chapter 2

  So the call wasn’t from Toni, but it was definitely a buzz-kill. I maintain that we all would have been happier ignoring the phone. I let out a sigh, trying to be content that it was the phone and not the doorbell.

  Megan knew that I had been worried ever since my mom had gone missing last week. Trouble was, for my mom that was normal. She had a sad history of short, intense relationships with men who could generously be called losers.

  However, given the fact that during my mom’s latest absence vampires had killed my friends, burnt down our house, and were probably still looking for me, I made over a dozen unanswered calls to her during the past week. And of course she picked now to finally return them.

  Megan knelt down next to where I lay face up on the floor massaging my temples in a futile attempt to stave off the first signs of a migraine. She tilted her head as she held the phone out to me.

  “Don’t you want to answer it?”

  At that moment I could think of other things I desperately wanted to be doing, but instead, I took the phone, pressed the answer button, and said in what I hoped wasn’t too morose a tone, “Hey Mom.”

  “Chance! I’m glad I finally caught you.” It wasn’t my mom, but the voice was familiar nonetheless. It took me only a second to place it, and when I did, I went cold. I jerked upright to a sitting position. My sudden motion sent the hovering Megan falling backwards to land unceremoniously on her rump.

  The person on the other end of the phone was Christian, the master vampire responsible for everything that had happened back in Texas. He was the one who had killed my friends and threatened me. And he was calling from my mom’s cell phone.

  “What have you done with her? Where is she?” I growled into the phone. It was cliché, but what else could I say?

  His reply was cheerful, as if he were sharing a pleasant exchange with a close friend. “Your mom is quite safe. She’s sitting right here next to me, in fact. The two of us were chatting over drinks, and we thought it would be a great idea if I met her sons. Now that your mother and I have become so close, I think she wants your approval of our eternal love. So tell me, Chance—do you approve?”

  Megan stared at me, her look of surprise at having been toppled over now replaced by shock. Though not as keen as a werewolf’s, I knew her heightened hearing could pick up both sides of the conversation. She had been as startled as I was when it wasn’t my mom on the other end of the call, and it had only taken her a few seconds longer than me to figure out who the caller was.

  “Put her on,” I said to Christian.

  “Why, certainly.” Christian’s voice grew fainter as he moved the phone away from his mouth, and I overheard, “Dear, your son wants a word with you.”

  A moment later I heard my mom’s voice say, “Hi, honey.” She sounded happy, if a little tired. With vampire mind control it was likely she was under Christian’s compulsion. Then again, my mom had a weakness for men. If he treated her even halfway decently, and didn’t let her know he was a vampire, she’d be happy. Heck, to be honest, as long as he treated her halfway decently he could be an actual troll and she’d likely stick it out with him. She made some bad decisions when it came to guys.

  “Sorry I missed all of your calls, Chance. Christian and I were having such a good time! The days have just slipped away. You know how that goes.” She laughed; I didn’t. “How about you come for dinner tomorrow? Christian never seems to eat, but he’s such a wonderful cook, and I want you to meet him. You two are going to get along great.”

  “That’s a fantastic idea!” Christian’s voice was first distant, then louder, as he took back the phone. “Chance, why don’t you come on over. Bring your brother. I’ll have the whole family for dinner!”

  “Touch her and I’ll kill you.”

  “Oh, Chance, I think it’s too late for that, on both counts! But, tell you what—why don’t you come on over tomorrow night like your mother suggested and we can talk about it while I eat.”

  “The only thing you’ll be eating next time I see you is a chest full of stake.” I hung up and sat silently while Megan picked up her dress. I tried my darnedest to burn Megan’s beautiful image into my mind. I knew that tomorrow I was going to do something that would quite probably be life-ending, and I wanted to have at least one last good memory to think about when I died.

  I slowly pulled myself up and searched for my shirt. Megan walked up to me and took my hand, squeezing it.

  “Don’t worry. I’m going to go talk to Donovan tonight. We’ll get your mother back and deal with Christian.”

  “Thanks,” I said, not telling her that I planned to leave first thing in the morning to take care of it myself. I knew she wouldn’t go for that. She was too much the mother hen to let me go after Christian on my own.

  Megan and her friend Lacey had put themselves out on a limb too many times for me already. In the brief time I had known them I had been more or less responsible for their house being trashed, Megan almost getting killed twice, and Lacey being possessed by a demon. I wasn’t going to drag them into this as well. Besides, I didn’t think Donovan was going to help me. He was the master vampire of the San Francisco Bay Area and, as near as I could tell, he had no jurisdiction over the vampires in Texas. He certainly had no reason to go out of his way on my account. He may have lent me a hand in the past, but only because I was in possession of a weapon he wanted to make sure none of his rivals ended up with.

  I considered taking my brother along with me, but decided Bryan would be more of a liability than a help. Besides, he might actually have something good going here in California, and lord knows he needed it. He’d had a tough life, and I wasn’t going to bring him on what was likely a suicide mission just when things were looking up.

  Megan got dressed quickly, eager to go plead my case with Donovan. Once again she was ready to jump in and straighten out my life. When she put her arms around me, I looked into her eyes and saw in those cool blue depths a sense of compassion that was startling. This vampire had more empathy than any human I had met in a while. She smiled, then gave me a kiss on the cheek and a hug that I wished could have lasted forever. Before she left she promised that everything would be okay.

  I fully intended it that it would, at least for her and my brother. I cleaned up the wine that had spilled on the floor, then tried to fit the cork back into the bottle before giving up and using a wadded-up paper towel. Finally, I laid some blankets on the living room floor and tried to get a good night’s sleep. I had expected this night to go a couple of different ways, but this was honestly not one of them.

  When Bryan came in a couple of hours later, I was still wide awake. I had been thinking about what happened to my mom and blaming myself for starting the whole thing with the vampires. Had I left it alone after Kristi had died, a lot of people would still be alive. And now they had my mom, and I knew that, realistically, I would probably fail trying to save her.

  My brother didn’t say anything to me when he came in, which meant that he didn’t know about what happened to Mom and he hadn’t scored with Lacey. I would be hearing about it in graphic detail if either of those two things had occurred. All he said was “’Night, bro” before he wandered down the hall of the apartment to the single bedroom.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard the door to his room shut. I was glad Bryan hadn’t found out about Mom yet. He would have insisted on coming along if he knew, and arguing with him about anything was pointless. Bryan would find out soon, though. I was positive Megan had already told Lacey, and it would only be a matter of hours before she passed it along to my brother.

  So much for living a nice normal life. I
rolled over, and eventually capitulated to a broken sleep.

  I jerked awake, grabbed my phone and stared at the time in disbelief. Not so long ago I had a considerable propensity for sleeping in, but spending several nights at Megan and Lacey’s had messed with my internal clock. Lacey was an obnoxiously early riser, despite rooming with a vampire who slept all day and partied all night. I had spent several days with them, and their habits had thrown my regular schedule for a loop.

  In this instance it served me well. The first signs of dawn could barely be detected peeking through the gaps in the blinds, and I wanted to get out of town before anyone realized I was gone and could stop me.

  I called a cab, quickly showered, and threw on some clothes. Then I prepared for the hunt, because that was what this was going to be: a vampire hunt. Only this time I’d have no team to back me up. Not that a team had helped me any last time.

  I went through Bryan’s large duffel bag, which he referred to as the goody bag. It contained all of the spare weaponry that my last team had, the stuff that we hadn’t taken with us into the ambush. Bryan had collected it all and brought it with him when he came to California.

  I took out one of the assault rifles, an AK-47, along with a few magazines. Bullets wouldn’t kill vampires, but enough of them would slow one down. I also grabbed a crossbow, a dozen wooden bolts tipped with steel broadheads, and two polished wooden stakes. Those were more useful. A wooden shaft through the heart would paralyze a vampire, putting it in a coma so that it could be finished off by beheading or burning. Or, if you wanted to be thorough, both.

  If Christian had friends with him, the likelihood of my getting to use this much firepower was slim. I pushed the thought aside and distracted myself by disassembling the crossbow and rifle and putting them in my backpack, along with the stakes. Robert’s KA-BAR Special Forces knife and my trusty Kimber .45-caliber handgun went under my jacket.

  Antsy, I peeked out of the blinds, watching for my ride. Bryan was still asleep, which was no surprise. He was a late riser when he didn’t have to be up for work, and considering he still wasn’t used to the two- hour time difference, it was a good bet he would sleep through to lunch.

  By the time I heard the squeaky brakes of the cab I was pacing back and forth in the kitchen, reconsidering my decision to go it alone. I might actually have a chance of surviving if I brought along Lacey and Megan. Maybe. But maybe I would just get two more people killed. And when I thought about all the trouble I had already caused, and how everything tended to go south for the people around me…I shouldered my backpack.

  Before I left, I pulled out as much cash as I could spare from my last job’s payment and left it on the counter next to the fern and the abandoned bottle of wine. I grabbed my phone and walked out the door, closing it quietly behind me.

  I told the driver to take me to the hospital where Toni was recuperating from the wounds she suffered during that last job. More collateral damage from the disaster that had been my life over the last few weeks. On the way, I had the driver stop by a grocery store so I could pick up some flowers and a couple of motorcycle magazines. I figured if I threw enough gifts at her, Toni might be distracted enough to not ask any awkward questions.

  Toni was watching a morning TV show when I knocked on the doorframe of her hospital room. She had the small suite to herself. It was nicer than my apartment back home in Austin, though that wasn’t saying much.

  Toni was a pretty Asian-American girl, and also the alpha female of one of the two werewolf packs in the Bay Area.

  “Aw, you got up this early to see little old me?” She stretched her long, lean body and smiled at me as she said it.

  “How could I keep away?” I handed her the flowers and set down the magazines on the bedside table.

  “A better question is: why would you want to?” She took the flowers and sniffed them. “So what’s up?”

  “Not much. My brother’s decided to stick around for a while, so we helped him get set up in an apartment.”

  “We?” Her tone developed a dangerous edge.

  Oops. “Um, yeah…me and him.”

  “Uh huh.” She wasn’t buying it, but she let it drop for the time being. “So by saying that he’s sticking around, are you implying that you’re leaving? Is this your idea of a goodbye?”

  The subtle growl in her voice let me know this conversation wasn’t going well. It was time for some damage control. I decided to divert the topic of conversation to us.

  “I’m not leaving yet. Hey, the new place isn’t half bad. You should come and check it out once you’re feeling better.”

  “Doc says I should be out of here tomorrow or the next day.” She saw my surprised look and explained, “I’m a fast healer.”

  “I’ll say.” I had seen her fly off her motorcycle at fifty miles an hour, sail through the window of an SUV, and then duke it out in the back seat with a couple of heavily armed thugs. She should be dead.

  “It sounds like a party is in order to celebrate your speedy recovery. Maybe you and your friends can come over. The apartment complex has a pool with a couple of grills. We can all hang out, and I can cook something up.”

  “I think I’d rather do my celebrating on a more intimate level. Just you and me. But I’ll tell you what,” she said. “If you’re that anxious to cook, you can fix me breakfast when we’re done.”

  It was impossible to argue with her, so I didn’t even try. Heck, looking at her, I didn’t even want to. “Now that’s an offer I can’t refuse.”

  “Not if you know what’s good for you.” She smiled, then grabbed a magazine and casually began to flip through it before asking, “So what are your plans, Chance? Long-term?”

  The question was as loaded as they come. We hadn’t known each other long, but I got the feeling Toni handled attachment slightly differently from most people. I said, in as neutral a voice as I could, “I thought I would go back to school and finish up my degree. I’m registered for the fall semester, and it starts next week.” You know, after I single-handedly kill a very old vampire and all of his flunkies.

  She stopped flipping. “So you are leaving.”

  “I’ll be back. Definitely for Christmas break, and I’m sure I won’t be able to resist a visit or two before then.”

  “You better. That is, assuming your car can make the trip.” My car, a decade-or-two-old Miata, served as a source of constant amusement to, well, everyone.

  “Hey, now that you mention it, since all the trouble has died down... I was wondering if I could grab my car out of your garage. I have to run a couple of errands today, pick up the last few things for the apartment. I could use it.”

  “Use it to what? My bike has more storage,” said Toni.

  “I guess you’re right. I could always borrow something bigger, but I hate to keep asking the vampires for favors. I don’t want to get in their debt or anything. Though Donovan has lent me cars in the past….” I let the last part trail off, knowing it would do the trick. It bothered Toni to no end that I hung out with what she ironically considered to be monsters.

  “Sure, grab your car, and feel free to use my truck if you need to actually carry anything.” She pulled a set of keys out of her purse and handed them to me. “Notice how I gave you permission so you didn’t have to go ahead and steal it?”

  “Now when have I ever stolen anything from you?” She laughed and I smiled. I had borrowed her bike a couple of times—using the term “borrowed” loosely. I think the couple of cases of grand theft cycle were actually what ended up attracting Toni to me. As an alpha, she responded in strange ways to overt displays of dominance.

  I gave her a hug, not able to stop it from turning into a kiss that lingered until a nurse came in and made disapproving sounds.

  “I’ll see you around, Toni.”

  “Oh, you can count on it. We’re going to do some celebrating, remember? Tomorrow night. I’ll be there at six.”

  “I thought the doc said you might be in anot
her day.”

  “Don’t you worry about the doctor. Just focus on ensuring that brother of yours is out of the apartment. Three’s a crowd.”

  “Will do! Take care of yourself.” I got out of there as quickly as I could. I wouldn’t be back in California by tomorrow night—or probably ever. Which was a good thing: if the vampires didn’t kill me, then the unholy tantrum Toni was going to throw for standing her up would.

  I retrieved my car from her garage, then stopped at a diner for breakfast. Even if I did need to get out of town, I functioned better when I wasn’t hungry, and the rush hour traffic would be a bear for the next hour or so anyway.

  After finishing a rare uninterrupted meal, I stopped by a post office to overnight Toni’s keys back to her at the hospital. Then I filled up the tank of my battered old Miata and headed east to Texas.

  Chapter 3

  I was on the road again, only this time I was heading toward my troubles. It was a long drive from the Bay Area to Central Texas, about twenty-six hours if you drove it straight through, which I had no intention of doing. I was sub-optimal when not well fed and rested, and I had a feeling I would need to be at my best to have any chance of surviving the next couple of days.

  I checked the call history on my phone before tossing it out the window along Highway 5, somewhere in California’s Central Valley. I didn’t want to run the risk of Christian being able to use its GPS to track me. Megan had called several times, as had my manager at Game Shack. In a cowardly move of epic proportions, I had turned my ringer off when I received Megan’s first call. After that, I let each one fall straight through to voice mail.

  I replaced my jettisoned smart phone with a cheap pre-paid one at a gas station convenience store an hour later. I entered the few worthwhile numbers I knew into speed dial. I would make sure to use only cash for all purchases from here on out, another precaution in case Christian could somehow track my credit or debit cards. Thanks to my last job, I was stocked up on paper currency, even after what I left for my brother. Still, I couldn’t afford to squander it on things like clean sheets and healthy food. There was no telling how many days I had to make it last. That night, I shared a room with a colony of roaches at a thirty-dollar-a -night highway special in Eastern Arizona.