Texas Hold 'Em

by PATRICK KAMPMAN

  The hero image melted as soon as he spoke. “Great, he’s awake—now can we kill him?”

  “Not yet, Martin. Christian wants to speak with him first. In fact, he’s heading down here from Austin as we speak,” said the schoolmarm. She, at least, took the time to change her clothes. She now wore a clean, pressed grey skirt identical to the last one and a similar tight-fitting wool sweater in white rather than pale blue.

  “Tell Christian to use a medium,” said Martin, taking a step forward.

  “No one’s killing him. He’s mine,” Katy said, searching for what I could only assume was her axe.

  “Excuse me?” said the schoolmarm.

  “I found him, and I’m keeping him.”

  “Oh, Katy. I’m afraid you’re rather overstepping your place, dear.”

  “Screw you, Sylvia. I’ll overstep all over you if you get in my way.”

  “Our little girl has developed quite a temper, don’t you think, Martin? But she’s right, no one’s killing him. Yet. We can, however, hurt him a little,” the schoolmarm said. “Tap him, Martin—Eric needs blood. I think it’s only fitting this one donates his, since he’s responsible for Eric’s misfortune.”

  Martin picked up a discarded liquor bottle from the floor, busted the top off with his hand, then shook it upside down to get rid of any nonexistent remainder of booze. He came toward me with the makeshift jar and I tried unsuccessfully to hop backwards. I cried out in pain as my chair toppled sideways and I crashed to the floor on my bad leg.

  Katy cut Martin off, putting herself between us. “Back off, scuzzball. No one’s tapping him but me!”

  “Fine, you want to do the honors?” Martin held out the makeshift jar to Katy, who smacked it out of his hand, sending it down to shatter on the floor. I closed my eyes as a couple of stray pieces of glass bounced off me.

  “That’s not what I meant! Find some other blood bag for Eric. I told you, this one’s mine.” I had to give it to Katy—outnumbered and significantly out-aged, which in vampire terms meant overpowered, she still wasn’t backing down.

  I tuned them out and looked for a way to escape while they squabbled. No luck. The place was obviously abandoned, and, being a theater, was probably soundproofed well enough so that if I did scream, no one but my captors was likely to hear it. By this point, Katy was screaming louder than I could anyway.

  Examining my immediate predicament, I found that what the duct-tape job lacked in professionalism was more than made up for by enthusiasm. Someone had used a lot of the tough silver stuff to make sure I wasn’t going anywhere.

  I did a quick inventory of my belongings. My guns and knife were missing, obviously. And Katy clearly had lifted my phone. My front pockets seemed empty, which meant my keys were probably gone as well. I was pretty sure I could feel my wallet in my back pocket, which was a relief; it had a couple of grand in it. Assuming, of course, they hadn’t taken the cash out of it and put it back. The thought made me sad.

  Nothing I had on me was of any particular use. I was about to suffer from a wave of serious despair until I spotted the glass remains of the broken liquor bottle on the floor next to me. If I could somehow manage to get to one of the larger pieces, I might be able to use it to cut myself free.

  Then what? After that my plan fell apart. My leg was literally shredded from what Sylvia had done to it. If I did make it out of this, I was probably going to limp forever, and at the very least I was going to need a rabies shot, or whatever the vampire equivalent was. So even if I made it out of this chair, I wasn’t going anywhere fast. Certainly not fast enough to outrun vampires.

  The sound of Martin backhanding Katy brought my focus back to my captors. Her defiance had finally worn out the other vampire’s patience.

  Katy’s head recoiled, then snapped back faster than my eye could catch. Her eyes promised murder. A trickle of fresh blood ran down from the corner of her mouth, creating a vibrant river over the crusted dried stuff.

  Her expression was furious, and by the way she held her hand, I got the feeling that if she’d had her axe, things would have gotten a lot more bloody very quickly. Instead, like the kid she used to be, she stomped her foot, wheeled around and stormed off.

  Martin chuckled, said something off-color about Katy’s ass, then stared down at the shattered glass and shook his head. He glanced around, and not seeing another suitable container, looked at Sylvia.

  “Can’t we let Eric drink from the guy?”

  Sylvia stood with her arms crossed, a look of displeasure making her appear even more like a schoolmarm than usual. “And what if he doesn’t stop, or goes too far? I’d rather not be the one responsible for denying Christian the pleasure of his re-acquaintance with the boy. Hurry up and go get another container. Eric needs blood.”

  Martin grunted something, then started searching for something else to put my precious bodily fluids in.

  “Actually, never mind—I’ll do that. You better go after Katy before she does something stupid,” Sylvia said.

  A leer crossed Martin’s face as he stopped his search and headed in the direction Katy had left. I wasn’t a psychic, but I predicted a bad end for Martin.

  “I’m hungry.”

  A pitiful whine brought my attention to what I assumed was Eric. He was dragging himself down an aisle. Between the meaty eye socket, the bullet holes in his head, and his tangled bowels, which he was trying unsuccessfully to hold in as he shambled, he looked like an extra from a zombie apocalypse movie.

  “Eric, I told you to stay put,” scolded Sylvia.

  “But I’m hungry! I can smell the blood. So much of it is going to waste!” He managed to whine despite the raspiness of his voice. His eyes had that feral red cast. We locked gazes and I knew he was about to go for me, until he tripped over an intestine and fell face-first to the floor with a wet thud.

  “Eric, pull yourself together.” Sylvia found an ancient cardboard soda cup and walked to where I lay.

  “Do you really think that’s sanitary?” I asked.

  “Oh, honey, that’s the least of your worries.”

  “I meant for poor Eric. I wouldn’t want him to catch anything.”

  “How kind,” Sylvia said before she reached down and started hoisting my chair upright. I was most of the way up when she paused, cocking her head to one side. “Martin, I told you to find Katy. She’s liable to—”

  Maybe it was because she was an old vampire, or perhaps she had been gifted with exceptionally keen senses, but she had already started moving before the crossbow bolt struck her. Her quick reaction meant the stubby wooden projectile pierced her shoulder rather than her heart. It also meant she dropped my chair.

  I crashed back to the floor. An involuntary cry burst out as my weight once again crushed my injured leg against the hard ground. This time the pain was so intense I almost blacked out. I took a deep breath, trying to regain some focus.

  Confusion swept across Sylvia’s face as she tried to process what was happening. I struggled to see where the shot had come from, but the angle from where I lay prevented it. All I could get a good look at was the red stain spreading across Sylvia’s white sweater.

  Sylvia was moving again. She sidestepped the next crossbow bolt with inhuman speed, and the projectile whizzed over my head, planting itself in the stage floor a couple of feet behind me.

  I decided it would be prudent to use the distraction to escape before I was killed, either intentionally or otherwise. The good news was that Sylvia had dropped me closer to the broken glass. The bad news was that some of it was now embedded inside of me, which explained part of the additional pain I was in.

  The impact of my second fall had loosened the tape enough to give me some limited movement in my arm. It was enough to allow me to get my hand to within inches of what remained of the bottle. The bottom circle was still intact. Jutting up from it, like a wicked shark’s tooth, was a single triangular piece of glass. I stretched my fingers but couldn’t quite get hold of it. It was
mere inches out of reach.

  “Damn, that bitch is fast!” I heard the unmistakable voice of my brother, followed by the staccato of a fully automatic M4 assault rifle. He must have grown impatient and dumped the crossbow for something he found more gratifying but, of course, less useful.

  “So shoot the slow one over there!” A new voice. Female. Lacey?

  I heard more gunfire, a cry, a loud crash, then the sounds of an epic catfight. High-pitched snarls and screeches were interspersed with more crashing and gunshots.

  “Look out, she’s coming right for you!” My brother’s voice was followed by more automatic gunfire.

  “You hit the wrong vampire, you idiot!” Lacey screamed.

  I strained with everything I could to get hold of the piece of glass, but it remained out of reach. I began rocking back and forth, slowly inching my chair toward the bottle. It was almost unbearable. The chair moved each time, but so did my leg. The large open wound screamed along with its smaller glass-induced brethren as they scraped against the floor one excruciating millimeter at a time.

  Finally the tip of my finger touched the edge of the bottle bottom. I gave it a flick, causing it to turn so I could pinch the edge of the triangular wall between the edges of my two fingers.

  “Yes!” I was victorious. I slowly began reeling in the glass when I noticed Eric. After Bryan had directed the one burst of gunfire at Eric, he had apparently become so preoccupied with Sylvia that he’d forgotten about the other vamp. No one was keeping Eric in check, and he had been steadily making his way up to me the whole time.

  At least Bryan had hit him multiple times with the one burst. Eric was no longer shambling. Now he was crawling. He had already hoisted himself up the stairs and was slowly moving across the stage.

  We were at eye level. He smiled at me. Part of his lower jaw was missing, a casualty of the earlier gunfire. The resulting grin was even more unsettling. He began to pull himself toward me faster, the eagerness and hunger showing in his remaining eye.

  I began to saw at the duct tape. My makeshift knife was sharp, but it was slow going through the multiple layers of tape, and the farther I went, the more the sticky glue covered the glass and slowed my progress.

  There was a loud crash.

  “She’s up in the balcony!” More gunfire—this time the heavy thunder of a large-caliber handgun. I thought I heard Lacey begin to chant.

  Eric was closer now, and I could hear each time his remaining lip made a smacking sound against what was left of his tongue. He tried to say something, but it came out as a garbled mess.

  I cut faster, but the edge of the glass was so gummed up it barely worked. I yanked it out and turned the glass around in my hand, giving myself a nasty slice in the process. At this rate I would bleed out before the vampire even made it to me.

  When Eric paused his advance to lap up some of my blood that had splattered on the floor, I realized that not even my death was going to deter him. He was only a few feet away now. It wouldn’t take him long before he licked the floor clean on his way to the rest of me.

  Lacey’s chanting had reached a crescendo. A chilling scream of agony ripped through my eardrums, cut short by a thunderous Whump!

  “Holy shit!” Bryan’s voice was full of awe, and I almost stopped my efforts to free myself to try to see what happened, but I forced myself to keep working at my bonds. Eric had grown tired of the meager puddle of blood, and resumed his advance toward a more concentrated reward.

  “Dude, you missed a spot!” I told Eric, my cutting becoming frantic.

  Eric’s grin widened as he reached out a hand. The claws dug into the wood floor inches from my stomach. His muscles tightened, and the rest of him slid forward as the glass finally passed through the last bit of duct tape securing my right wrist. I almost shouted in triumph when my arm broke free from the chair.

  I immediately transferred the tool and started working on the tape binding my other wrist. I wasn’t going to make it. Even if I got both hands free, I doubted I could fight Eric off. Despite all of the damage he’d sustained, he was still going to be too strong for me. I was too hurt to put up an effective fight.

  A fashionable silver pump came into view. The leather was scuffed, one of the straps was broken, and the four-inch heel was twisted at an odd angle. As I studied the shoe, I realized that quiet had surrounded me. The fighting had stopped. The only sound left was the wet smacking of Eric’s ruined mouth and the scuffing of his body inching toward mine.

  The pump left my view, and I heard a quick, hollow thud like that of a spike being driven through a side of meat. The smacking stopped.

  A bare foot appeared where the pump had been. It was a nice foot with painted toenails. It was attached to a shapely leg. I twisted my head, and my eyes traveled up a pleasant five feet until they met with pursed lips and a furrowed brow.

  An intensely displeased Megan cleared her throat, signaling that she expected me to say something.

  As usual, she was dressed inappropriately for a fight. In this case, her cocktail dress was a pale blue color that matched her eyes. It was torn, bullet-riddled, and stained with blood and grime in several places. It, along with the shoes, was certainly a casualty of war. She bent sideways to slip off the other shoe and discard it next to its mate, which was embedded in Eric’s back.

  On one hand I felt bad, because the outfit was no doubt a product of some foreign designer and probably cost more than one of my entire Game Shack paychecks. By my count, it was at least the fourth such dress and third pair of shoes she had ruined while in my company in the last few weeks.

  On the other hand, this was the fourth such dress and third pair of high-heeled shoes that she had ruined in my company in the last few weeks, and yet she still insisted on wearing them. Kind of like the kid who keeps sticking his finger in the light socket despite the shock he receives. If he hadn’t learned his lesson the first couple of times, well….

  She cleared her throat again.

  I elected to remain silent, mostly because I couldn’t think of anything to say that might help my cause. Instead, I strained to look around the theater to get an idea of what had happened. Bryan had walked over to admire Sylvia, whose sprawling form lay face down on the stage only a few yards from mine. Her glassy eyes stared into mine.

  I blinked. She didn’t.

  A hole the size of a grapefruit had been blown in Sylvia’s back where that first crossbow bolt had emerged. Like some morbid modern art, the silver screen behind her was sprayed with so much blood it was hard to believe it could have been contained in one body. The finer droplets even reached the top of the forty-foot-tall screen. It was as if Sylvia had been a soda can and someone spent a long time shaking her up before popping the top.

  Bryan used the toe of his boot to roll her onto her back. “Dude, what a waste!” He shook his head, bending down to get a better look at her.

  From my sideways angle on the floor, I couldn’t see Lacey at all. It elicited a brief moment of panic, thinking she might have been hurt or worse, until her voice came from a far-off part of the auditorium.

  “Ew. Bryan, she’s dead.” Lacey sounded tired.

  “What? I’m just looking! Cool spell, babe, you have got to teach me that.”

  “I want to know who taught her that,” said Megan, obviously displeased by Lacey’s display of forbidden power, despite the outcome. I had a whole new level of respect coupled with a large dose of apprehension for Lacey. Blood magic was a dark art, and she seemed to be getting rather good at it.

  Lacey was a witch. Witches practiced different types of magic. Most of it—like brewing potions, creating charms, and even casting destructive incantations—was accepted and classified as white magic. Then there was black magic. Into this category fell things like necromancy, demonology, and blood magic, which was what she had used to kill Sylvia. Lacey had the power to shape, control, and sacrifice human life force, whether the owner of the blood was a willing donor or not.

  No on
e was making any move to help me. I still hadn’t thought of anything to say to Megan, so I went back to cutting my other wrist free. The process was much faster now that I had full use of my arm. A moment later I was reaching down to work on my ankles.

  Finally free, I attempted to stand. When it became apparent that I wouldn’t even make it to my knees—I think it was right after I fell for the third time—Megan reached down and yanked me up.

  I was verbally accosted the second I achieved verticality.

  “Well? Do you have anything to say for yourself?” She was furious. I considered fainting to avoid the question, except I didn’t think I could take any more falls.

  “What are you guys doing here?” It was the best I could come up with.

  “What are you guys doing here? What are you guys doing here? Is that all you can say? Really, Chance? After you up and left, what, hours after I told you I was going to get help? Minutes after? Tell me, how long was it after I left before you ran away?”

  I started to calculate the time, but she didn’t bother to wait for my answer. “No message. No word on where you were going. Nothing! You didn’t even bother to return my calls! And then you have the gall to ask me what I’m doing here? What the fuck are you doing here?” I think it was the first time I’d ever heard Megan swear.

  “Would you believe I joined an avant-garde neo-artist colony, and this was our performance art piece? I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  Apparently she didn’t. Much like Katy’s before it, her slap came so fast I didn’t see it coming. Unlike the last one, the force wasn’t enough to knock me out cold. But it stung. A lot. And the pain this time was more than just physical. I had hurt Megan, and I found that it bothered me. Me, a vampire hunter, upset because I had hurt a vampire’s feelings.

  Unfortunately, my reflection on what exactly that all meant was cut short, for Megan had hit me with the same hand she had been previously using to steady me with. Without its support I started to stumble sideways, and the subsequent impact of her hand on my face was enough to send me tipping toward the ground.