One of the other vampires hissed. Ron said, “It’s not like that. Reverend Cotton said some people would think that. We’re not undead. We have eternal life. We’re part of God’s kingdom right here on Earth.”
“Enough,” one of the other vampires said. He was a big one. Had probably been a weightlifter when he was alive. It was hard to tell because most of the flesh had melted from his bones.
Ron said, “I can’t kill this man, Henry. You and Alice will have to do it.”
Henry nodded and one of his eyes slid down his cheek. “We’ll take this burden from you, Ron.” Henry had a slight limp, but seemed otherwise unharmed. The vampire had picked up the ax and though he couldn’t use it as easily, Griffin knew the wiry man was stronger than he looked.
Griffin took a slow breath in through his nose and blew it out and downward through his mouth. Classic martial arts breathing. A way to push back pain and nervousness. The few moments of rest had allowed him to regain a little strength. He said, “Goodbye, Ron.”
“Huh?” Ron said.
Griffin lunged forward and drove the sword through Ron’s heart. He spun as he cleared the blade, shooting between Henry and Alice so that he was behind them. The sword sang again and Henry’s head went flying even as he turned. Decamp struck Alice with the ax before she realized he was there.
Griffin looked at Decamp. “Is that all of them?”
“For the moment,” Decamp said. “Where’s the Sheriff?” Griffin felt a stab of concern. He had forgotten Carl during the fight. “Down near the water. Let’s go check on him.”
Decamp said, “Let’s trade weapons. This thing weighs a ton.”
Not without some reluctance, Griffin handed over the exquisitely balanced sword.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Ow. Fuck. Ow. Fuck. Ow. Ow.” Carl stood and headed for the top of the quarry. There was too damned much going on and not nearly enough evidence that everything was done to his satisfaction.
Lazarus Cotton had not shown up, and that was a problem. The bastard behind everything going to shit just lately was supposed to be making an appearance and he didn’t much like their chances if he was meaner than the Deacons.
And according to Decamp it was almost certain that he was meaner than the Deacons.
The air had that annoyingly still quality he hated about summertime in Georgia. There was no breeze, no hint of a breeze, and the clouds had blown away over the last day or so, but the humidity was still obscene.
So how come he was hearing a lot of rustling noises? Decamp and Wade had finished with the last of the dead things, near as he could tell. He didn’t quite want to slow down yet. If he stopped he might not be ready to start again. As he walked up the hill Carl flexed his fingers. Most of them worked. Two on his left hand were too busy screaming out their agony to pay any attention at all to his attempts to move them. Never a good sign.
Also, his damned leg hurt. A lot. At least it was supporting his weight.
He managed to get back to the top of the quarry and over to the supplies he’d stashed away. He also managed to be pleasantly surprised they were still where he’d put them. A few decent sized chunks of granite were all that hid them from view and if anyone had taken the time to actually look around – hey, they were underwater, he supposed that took away from the whole reconnaissance thing – they’d have found his special surprise for the Reverend.
Just in case he took a look at the device and hoisted it in place. He’d take it off when Wade and Decamp were back up at the top.
Sword. He needed to make sure someone remembered Decamp’s sword. He was just getting ready to call out about that when he saw two things that stopped him. First, Decamp already had the sword in his hand. Second, there was a big wave of darkness heading into the quarry from the other side. He didn’t have to look hard to figure out what the wave was made of. He could smell them from here, a wild gamey stench that was deeply unsettling.
“Get your asses up here! Now!” The two men looked his way. Wade started moving sooner, probably because he knew Carl well enough to know he’d never try bossing them around without a solid reason.
Decamp looked around, saw what Carl had seen and poured on a little extra speed.
They were up the hill in a damned big hurry. The good news was that the rats were coming from the other side of the manmade pond and they had to either go around or swim it. Most of them went around. God only knew what those waters smelled like after dead things had been stewing in them all day long.
He made a mental note to see about having the quarry waters drained. He didn’t much like the notion of kids swimming in that shit.
“Nope. Worry about that later.” He shook his head to clear out a few last cobwebs and then checked that the ole’ pilot light was burning.
And as soon as Wade and Decamp were out of the way, Carl aimed with his confiscated flamethrower and pulled the trigger. He’d been on the raid that took the device from the house of a drug dealer who was maybe a little too much of a survivalist for comfort. He’d even played with the controls a time or two, but Carl had never actually used the device before. He knew how it worked. Aim, step back and watch out for fire.
He just hadn’t expected how much territory the thing covered. The flame that roared from the business end of the nozzle gouted almost twenty feet, and the light and heat alike were stunning in the growing darkness.
The rats never had a chance. The front of the wave caught fire almost instantly and whatever hold the master vampire might have, it wasn’t really stronger than their survival instinct. The rest of the rats stopped their forward motion and then scattered.
Carl chose not to take any chances and bathed the quarry in fire. Any slow moving vermin paid the price for thinking he was just bluffing. A few moments after he started there were a couple of hundred small burning bodies and a whole lot of scorched spots on the ground at the base of the quarry.
Wade moved up next to him, looking dirty, winded and sore. Decamp looked wounded and sore, but managed not to look quite as dirty.
Carl looked at the flamethrower’s nozzle and then looked at Wade. “I seriously want to keep one of these in my truck. Bet it would end a lot of arguments.”
Wade nodded. “Problem with that is somebody has to clean up when you’re done.”
“Nope. The little dead rats are staying there.”
“Well, I meant if you use it in a town.”
“Screw that. They got fire departments.”
* * *
When Carl had shown Griffin the flamethrower, Griffin had suspected it might come in handy, though he had figured it would be against the vampires themselves, and not against an army of rats. Still, it was a damn good thing Carl had brought it.
Griffin could smell the reek of singed flesh and fur. It reminded him a bit too much of other battlefields, when the burning corpses were something far worse than rats. He pushed those memories away before they could take hold and said, “So where the hell is Cotton?”
“If I had to guess,” said Decamp, “he’s decided not to enter the fray. Both his cannon fodder and his elite troops have failed. If anything, he’s gone to ground to consider his options.”
“That’s just fucking wonderful,” Carl said. “Now we have to wait and wonder when that bastard will pop up again.”
Decamp said, “Considering how many injuries the three of us have sustained, it might be just as well.”
“I’d agree,” said Griffin, “but we don’t know where he is and that’s bad. Hell, he can start all over again.”
“No, he can’t do that,” said Decamp. “Not here. There are too many people aware of him now. It’s not like he can just start having tent revivals again. Maybe a few states away under another name, but he’s done in Georgia.”
“Do you think he’ll just go then?” Griffin said. “Just like that?”
“So we just have to live with the knowledge that he could drop by some dark night?” said Griffin. “That’s not how I operate. Somebody makes a run at me, I go after them.”
“What he said,” said Carl.
Decamp smiled. “No, we won’t just wait for him to reappear. I can find him. It may take time, but there are ways. I’ll find where he’s gone and then we’ll hunt him down. The three of us.”
Carl said, “I’m starting to like you, Decamp.”
“Thank you, Sheriff. Right now though, I suggest you go home or to the emergency room. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“Probably good advice,” said Griffin.
Decamp handed the iron sword back to Carl. “You two hang on to Kharrn’s weapons for now. We shouldn’t drop our guard yet.”
“Sure he won’t mind?” said Griffin.
“He left the ax and sword with me many years ago, saying to use them as I would. I haven’t heard from him since. But I think I’ll see him again one day. For now, gentlemen, I’ll say good night.”
“Sure you don’t want us to drive you back to your car, Decamp?” Carl said. “Like you said, we shouldn’t drop our guard.”
Decamp smiled again. “I haven’t dropped my guard in decades.” He turned and disappeared into the trees.
“That is one odd guy,” Griffin said.
Carl said, “You should talk, Wade. Now, help me pick up my gear and I’ll drive you home.”
“Let’s swing by your place first. I’d like to take assessment of how bad I’m fucked up before I let Charon see me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Job suffered too. That was the thing he had to remember. It was best not to question the Lord’s motives.
Lazarus was alive, and much as it pained him, he would have to move on and begin anew. There was Mexico to consider, of course. Sister Hope’s followers would be looking for a leader.
Cotton fell to his knees and clenched his hands together as he sought the Lord’s wisdom. The pain of feeling his children falter and die was overwhelming. There was surely a reason, wasn’t there? For everything he believed in to be tested again and again? There had to be.
And yet he felt forsaken, hollowed out and torn asunder. How long since his faith had been this sorely tested? Had he grown too sure of his place in God’s schemes? Had he allowed himself to suffer arrogance and call it faith?
“Surely not, Lord. Surely not that.” Tears stung at his eyes, but could not fall. His tear glands had not worked properly since he came back from Death. He’d thought that too a sign of the Lord’s blessings. He needed to remind himself of all that had gone right since he’d been brought back, since The Beggar had raised him.
But sometimes it was so hard to do.
His lips barely moved as he prayed. He knew that words were not truly necessary. God knew what was in his heart, what he felt, what he feared.
He prayed for a very long time, it seemed, without a response. Had he been looking at a watch he’d have known it was only an hour. It merely felt like more. Finally he lay back and closed his eyes, the weight of his sorrow almost too much to bear, and let his mind flow from him.
His awareness was greatest when he let himself drift, and so that was what he did. The signs that the Lord offered might not always be easy to see, but he was safe in the ground, hidden where none would think to look for him.
The night air was heavy with humidity, and as he rose through the night he saw the flames that sputtered and died out where the plague he’d sent to finish the sheriff, the soldier and the wizard had faltered and been defeated. His fault, surely, and not the Lord’s failure. He was given gifts, granted powers, and any failures that came were a result of his hubris, not the Lord’s errors. Did not Moses have his moments of doubt? Did not the devil try to tempt Jesus away from His path?
One tried to do one’s best to live by the example offered by Jesus Christ. He offered hope and salvation, He offered a place to the lost, and He offered the gift of eternal salvation.
Anger bloomed within his heart. He did not push it aside. In return for faithful devotion a small herd of unbelievers, bureaucrats and heathens comes along, sees the Lord’s work and reacts with petty minds!
He searched for them. The warlock was hidden from him. That was not a surprise. Satan’s minions had many ways of hiding themselves away. The Sheriff and the cutthroat, however, were not as difficult to locate.
They were coming right toward him. Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways.
And sometimes when you want something done the right way, you simply had to take care of it yourself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
There was a certain edge of hysteria to their laughter, but the two of them were laughing and it felt good. You know, where it wasn’t causing them pain. Even as he spoke, even as he tried to suppress his laughter, Wade was holding his side where his ribs were tender. “I’m just saying now and then it would be nice if the creepy crawly things would, I don’t know, be slower. Maybe just sort of meander where they’re going instead of coming on like freight trains.”
Carl chuckled and agreed. His right hand was firm on the wheel. His left was there too, but sort of just to have a place to be.
“I’m just glad the rats weren’t all vampires too.”
“That’s not even funny, Carl.” Wade laughed as he said it. And winced.
“No, think about it. All of ’em running around with little capes, or in this case carrying little Bibles.”
“Gotta say, I thought the flamethrower was overkill when you first hauled it out.”
“Well, I thought if there was a lot of vampires left, you know, but I never even got to the damned thing for them. They were all too fast.” He shook his head. “Even the half one.” His eyes were wide and a little shocky, but he started laughing. “That little bastard was trucking! I thought he was gonna take out your kneecaps for sure!”
Wade started laughing again too, and it got bad enough that Carl pulled over while the two of them laughed and shook and tried their best to get past the freak show they’d just survived. They’d been there before, of course. They’d shared a couple of beers after the incident in Crawford’s Hollow and spent most of the time comparing notes and cracking wise about things that simply weren’t funny until you looked at them in the right light.
When Carl could drive again they moved, carefully, back onto the road. Ten minutes of comfortable silence followed as they wound their way back to Carl’s house and the very extensive collection of first aid bandages he had there. It wasn’t that he was overly prepared for taking care of himself, more that he tended to prefer mending his own wounds when he could, to waiting at the hospital’s emergency room.
Besides, bandages were cheap. Also, he had better coffee. He parked the truck just a little after nine in the evening.
There were spots where the faint glow of the sunset could still be seen, but mostly in Wellman the mountains around them had long since hidden the dusk away.
“Got to tell you, I really hope that bastard ran. I don’t want to deal with any more dead things.” Carl wasn’t really sure if he was talking to himself or to Wade. Either way, Wade made a noise of agreement as he reached for the passenger’s side door handle.
Carl looked at his lawn and frowned. Somebody was messing with his property again. The grass was bulged out around the same spot where the bastards had put the grave marker before.
Even as he thought that, the ground exploded. That was the only word for it, really. The lawn and the sod and the fresh soil all exploded outward in a geyser.
And while he was watching chunks of
dirt flowing, Lazarus Cotton reached the side of the truck closest to him, grabbed the lower edge of the whole damned thing and flipped the truck with him and Wade still in it.
He came out of the damned ground! He came out of the damned ground where some bastard had dug a grave and I never once thought to double check on who fixed my lawn.
And then the world turned over.
* * *
Griffin sagged against the seatbelt as the truck came to rest on its roof. What the hell had just happened? No time to worry about it. He couldn’t reach the latch for the seatbelt from his current position so he popped open the lock blade knife he kept clipped to his left pocket and cut the belt away. The windshield had collapsed inward, but the safety film manufacturers used on them had kept the glass from shattering. It didn’t do shit for the passenger side window however, which shattered as a hand reached through and grabbed a fistful of Griffin’s shirt. A moment later he was pulled through the window.
Lazarus Cotton held Griffin at arm’s length, keeping Griffin’s feet just off the ground. Folding knife still in hand, he jammed it into Cotton’s forearm. That did no good whatsoever and Cotton smiled at him before pitching him across the yard.
Griffin wasn’t caught off guard this time so he managed to land a bit more gracefully than the last time a vampire had sent him flying, though the impact was still considerable. Griffin got up cursing. He was getting God damned tired of being tossed around. At two hundred and thirty-five pounds he was used to being the one doing the tossing.
He stalked across the yard, pulling the iron spike from its sheath as he went. He went into a crouch, what the Nam vets called ‘short timer’ stance. Knife held low in the rear hand, front hand extended to block or grab. He moved in fast, trying for Cotton’s heart.
With embarrassing ease, the gray haired, chubby preacher slipped out of the way. He caught Griffin’s arm and twisted and Griffin felt the bone break. He stumbled back as a wave of nausea swept across him.
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