Congregations of the Dead

by Moore, James A. ; Rutledge, Charles R. ;

  “Thank you, Lord,” Cotton said, “for seeing fit to deliver thine enemies before me.”

  “Deliver this,” Griffin heard Carl say and then the air was filled with gunfire. It was a nice tight grouping. Five out of six rounds from Carl’s .357 struck Cotton in the face. It bothered the man not at all. It did, however, distract him from Griffin and he started toward Carl, who was standing in a shooter’s crouch in front of the upturned truck. Griffin tried to remember where the iron sword and the ax were. They had been in the back of the truck, which meant they were probably out of reach. With his right arm useless, Griffin caught up the iron spike with his left hand. He was starting to really feel his broken arm now. Don’t pass out. Don’t go into shock. He kept inwardly repeating this mantra as he stumbled after Lazarus Cotton.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Cotton looked at him and sneered, the man’s fat face showing exactly how little he thought of Carl.

  Carl spit on the ground at the preacher’s feet. “Know what I’m sick of, you fat old fart?”

  Cotton’s face grew angrier, which was exactly what Carl wanted. If he was looking at Carl he wasn’t looking at Wade. Carl didn’t look at Wade either. He made good and damned sure not to telegraph the way his friend was moving in. Wade was looking a bit beyond pasty. His arm was broken at the very least.

  The vampire took a step toward him. “Living? Is that what you’re tired of?”

  “Mostly I’m sick of greasy old fucks like you using the Lord’s name to justify being assholes. Ten Commandments, you bastard. One of them was ‘Thou shalt not kill’.”

  “And have you not slain my followers?” Lazarus Cotton stormed forward and slapped the weapon from Carl’s hand. Something in his right wrist snapped and he felt his knees threaten to give out.

  “You and your filthy fucking followers are murderers! I’m the Sheriff of Brennert County, asshole. You get me? I’m the goddamned law!” He chose the words carefully, wanting to make the man angrier. Needing to. Wade was moving very carefully in order to avoid being noticed and he intended to keep it that way.

  “God’s law means more than the law of you or any of your kind, boy.” The reverend came closer, his mouth peeled down in a scowl of contempt that showed the fangs in his mouth. The bullet wounds in his face were already almost closed, the flesh reknitting like a film run backwards.

  “What would you know about it? You’re godless if ever anyone was.” Oh yes, that did it. The man’s eyes were absolutely murderous.

  “Watch your tongue, boy, or I’ll tear it from your filthy mouth.”

  “Bring it, fat man! You bring it! You desecrated my wife’s funeral. You murdered good people! You come on down here and try to take anything else from me!” The anger roared inside of him and somewhere, far away from where it should have been, the voice of his reason told him he might want to tone it down if he wanted to live.

  He should have listened.

  Lazarus Cotton’s thick-fingered hands gripped Carl at his face and crotch. Cotton was squeezing the jaw hard enough to shatter bone, and oh, the fingers that squeezed his testicles felt like they were pulping any chance he’d ever had of having children.

  Carl brought his knee up into the reverend’s face as he was lifted from the ground. Might as well have kicked a stone wall for all the good it did. He tried breaking the grip on his face, but his best swings were useless.

  “Damn you, boy! You’ve brought this on yourself!” He looked at the man’s face, watched it stretch in ways that defied all logic. The mouth opened so damnably wide, and the man’s eyes grew black, literally, black, as he roared his words.

  Carl kicked him in the face again. A third time. “You get bent you fucking bastard! You want to have a Come-to-Jesus meeting? You just bought yourself the chance!” His foot slammed into the man’s face a fourth time and slid across the opened mouth. The teeth cut into the leather of his shoe and then scraped across bared flesh under the sock that snagged in those impossible teeth.

  Carl was trying to pull his foot back yet again when the reverend threw him. No way around it. This wasn’t a light toss. The man hurled him at the ground with a deep roar.

  His one saving grace was that the ground he hit was a water-soaked lawn. The turf under him sank with the impact and he felt a few ribs pop in ways that just plain hurt. Whatever air had been in his lungs vanished under the impact. The sky was dark, but all Carl saw for a moment was white stars filling his eyes.

  And when he could see again a long metal post was sticking through the reverend’s chest.

  The man was solid, a barrel-chested bear of a preacher if ever there was one. He was husky to be sure, but not nearly all of it was flab. And even if it had been there was a lot of it to push through.

  He heard Wade grunt as he shoved the iron stake even further through Lazarus Cotton’s heart.

  Cotton blurred as he swung his arm at Wade. Wade almost managed to get away, but the part of the arm that connected drove him backward and he hit the ground with a wounded yelp of his own.

  Had Cotton still been alive at that point they’d have both been dead men.

  The leader of the dead staggered and fell forward, his body hitting the ground and Carl alike. The black eyes looked toward him, and the mouth moved, but no sound escaped. Carl had a thousand things he wanted to say as the man died for the second time, but not a one of them came to his mind at that moment, and his voice had been taken when the breath was knocked from his body.

  Instead he stared in horror as the man’s considerable weight pinned him to the ground and then the preacher rotted above him, spilling into chucks of corrupted flesh that then fell into a thick dust. The iron spike fell from the rotting body and promptly thumped Carl in his nuts, just in case there might be any part of them that didn’t already feel broken.

  Carl managed to kick himself backward with a frantic push of his legs. He held his breath lest any part of the dead man somehow creep into his mouth, his nose, or his lungs.

  Oh, God, how he hurt.

  “You got him, Wade.” The words were croaked out in a rasp. He looked toward Wade on the ground and saw the man looking back. His friend nodded.

  Carl fell back on the lawn and groaned. Damn. Everything hurt.

  Everything.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It seemed to Griffin that it took a couple of hours for him to reach into his pocket and get his cell. He was glad Decamp’s number was programmed in because he was reasonably sure that punching the number was beyond his current capabilities.

  Decamp picked up on the second ring and Griffin said, “It’s Griffin. Cotton showed up at Carl’s place. He’s dead or re-dead or whatever, but I figure you might want to get over here and do some damage control before we call an ambulance.”

  “I’m on my way,” Decamp said. “How badly are you two injured? Griffin? Griffin?”

  But Griffin had finally given up on his mantra. Okay, he’d told himself. Now you can pass out.

  * * *

  “He’s awake,” Griffin heard Charon say. He got his eyes all the way open and there she was, leaning over him. Her dark eyes were red rimmed and her mascara was smeared. She still looked beautiful to him.

  “Hey, wild man,” she said.

  “Hey kiddo,” Griffin said. Or rather he croaked. His voice sounded as raw as his throat felt. “How long was I out?”

  “About six hours.” That voice belonged to Carter Decamp. “The doctors said you weren’t in a coma, but just exhausted. How do you feel?” Decamp’s features swam into view as he stepped up to the bed.

  “Probably about as good as I look. How’s Carl? He took a serious beating.”

  “Ask him yourself,” Decamp said, pointing to Griffin’s right.

  Griffin turned his head slowly, about all he could manage. Carl Price was in another bed just a few feet away. “I can’t
even get rid of you in the hospital.”

  “I’m the proverbial fucking bad penny,” said Carl.

  “You look terrible,” Griffin said.

  “Wait until you see yourself, Wade. Docs say you have two broken ribs and three cracked ones. Your arm’s broken and you got a couple of other bones fractured.”

  “I believe it. What’s your score?”

  “I win the bones broken category. Wrist. Ribs. One ankle. Bunch of fingers. Got some torn ligaments and various contusions.”

  Charon said, “Is everything a contest with the two of you?”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” said Griffin.

  “We should call the doctor in now that you’re awake,” Charon said. “Make sure you don’t have a concussion.”

  “Let me give them a few bits of information first, my dear,” Decamp said. “I did damage control as you suggested, Griffin. Kharrn’s weapons are safely stored away again. Some of the Sheriff ’s more, um, questionable weapons are at my place until you two are released.”

  “Thanks for that,” Carl said.

  Decamp nodded. “I’m afraid I couldn’t give the various authorities much information about what happened to you two. There will be a lot of questions.”

  Carl said, “Par for the course.”

  Griffin said, “Do you think that’s the end of it, Decamp?”

  “I would think so. Cotton and his Deacons are gone and I doubt any other old followers of his are likely to come around. I plan to do a little digging into his movements over the past few years and see if there’s anything I can do about any other congregations Cotton might have left behind.”

  “So what are you, Decamp?” Carl said. “Some sort of monster hunter?”

  Decamp smiled. “I’m a retired English Lit professor, Sheriff. Now, you gentlemen need your rest. I’ll be in touch.” Decamp limped out of the room.

  Carl said, “That guy makes you look like Mister Forthcoming, Wade.”

  “He does,” Griffin said.

  Charon said, “Okay, I’m getting the doctor.” She leaned over and kissed Griffin on the jaw, then hurried out of the room.

  Griffin said, “Any idea what you’re going to tell the authorities, Carl?”

  “Tell them to go fuck themselves if it comes to it.”

  “How do you keep getting re-elected?”

  “Nobody else wants the job.”

  “I can see that.”

  Carl took a long breath. “You think we’re really done with vampires, Wade?”

  “Decamp seemed to think so. I’d sure as hell like to think so too. Maybe we’re done with the supernatural.”

  “The Blackbournes are still out there. They let me know they weren’t done with me. With you either.”

  “We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” said Griffin. “Don’t really know what else we can do.”

  Carl nodded.

  Both men were quiet for a long time.

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