“Actually . . . ” Vicki didn’t bother finishing and Ren clearly didn’t need her to.
“This my fault. I told them about this. I convinced them to come.”
“You didn’t force them to come here.”
“I didn’t tell them we were coming here.”
“True.”
“You’re not very comforting.”
“Not my . . . ”
The skittering returned.
Pulling Mike’s Glock from where she’d tucked it up against the small of her back, Vicki whirled and blew the head off something that looked like a cross between a rat and a rotweiller seconds before it took a bite out of Star’s leg.
“ . . . job,” she finished, ignoring Ren’s scream in favor of grabbing the rat thing by the tail, carrying it outside, and whipping it about forty meters back toward the flock of scavengers. On her way back inside, she scooped up a double handful of grey sand from where the building met the road.
She could feel Ren watching her as she scattered the sand over the blood and brain spatter on the floor.
“You have a gun. What kind of vampire carries a gun?”
“One that’d like to keep us all alive until morning.” Vicki told her, rejoining her at the door. With any luck the bang had scared off the rat things and hadn’t attracted anything else. “The gun’s Detective Celluci’s. He must’ve tossed it through as the portal was closing.”
They turned together to face back down the road where the arc of ribs stripped clean of flesh gleamed in the spaces between the black birds.
Vicki could hear Ren’s heartbeat and breathing speed up. “We’re never going back, are we?”
“Please.” Given the light levels, Vicki made sure the eye-roll could be heard in her tone as she stretched the truth a bit. “This isn’t our first portal; Mike’ll work it out.”
“The cop?”
“He’s got resources.” He’d probably been on the phone to Tony before Vicki’d hit the ground on the other side and Tony’d know how to fix this. Tony had to know how to fix this.
“But he’s a real cop?”
“He is.”
“And you’re a real vampire?”
“I am.”
“Oh man, that’s totally like a bad romance novel!” And this time, Vicki could hear the eye-roll in Ren’s voice.
She grinned, thinking of Henry. “Kid, you don’t know the half of it.”
Something skittered in the background but didn’t come close enough to shoot. Ren’s shoulder pressed up against hers although Vicki doubted the girl had consciously sought out the contact. “You’re a vampire, right? And given the whole non-sparkling, lack of emo thing, I’m guessing you’re like a traditional vampire?”
Vicki frowned, decided not to bother translating the teen speak, and shrugged. “Traditional enough, I guess. Why?”
“If there’s like even a sun here, what happens to you when it rises?”
“All right, I’ve got the mouse.” It was in a little, green plastic carrying cage and Mike felt like shit every time he looked in at it. He’d had to drive out to the Super Walmart at Eglinton and Warden to get it and that went on the growing list of experiences he never wanted to repeat.
“What color is it?”
“What fucking difference does the color make?”
“It’s probably safest if we keep as close to the original ritual as possible.”
Setting the cage on the crypt, Mike took a deep breath and reminded himself that he—and more importantly, Vicki—needed Tony. “Probably?”
“Well, magic is mostly a matter of will so you should be able to bull through any minor variations but . . . ”
There was a whole wealth of things Tony clearly didn’t want to say in that but. And that was fine because Mike didn’t want to hear them. He shone his flashlight down into the bowl and scowled. “I can’t tell what color it was—too burned. She must have used an accelerant.”
“That was the spell working. Is there dirt in the bowl? Toss it out and get fresh,” Tony instructed when Mike grunted an affirmative. “I’ve sent you the symbol you have to draw in the middle of the circles.”
“That’s not what was there before.” Mike squinted down at his screen. “It’s, I don’t know, backwards.”
“It’s supposed to be. This thing’s a cut-rate gate; one way only. This is the inbound symbol.”
He found a broken piece of sidewalk chalk, no doubt tossed aside by the idiot teenager who’d gotten them all into this mess. “I’ll call you back when I’m done.”
“Don’t take too long, remember . . . ”
“You don’t have to fucking remind me about the time,” Mike snapped and hung up. Sunrise hadn’t been his friend for some years now.
Returning from disposing of another rat thing’s body, Vicki glanced up at the sky where the stars were definitely a little dimmer. Clearly it had been too much to hope that this shithole would be a shithole without a dawn. Sitting down next to Ren, she sighed. “Okay, I didn’t want to do this but, can you shoot?”
“A gun? Eww, no. Guns are stupid.”
“Guns are dangerous. People are stupid. And we don’t have time for that lecture right now.” Vicki pulled out Mike’s weapon and held it resting across her palms. “If I shut off at dawn, you’re going to have to keep us all alive until sunset.”
Ren shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Kid, you opened a portal between worlds. In my book, that says there’s not a lot you can’t do if it comes down to it. Hopefully, it won’t come down to it, but, if it does . . . ”
“I don’t even like first person shooter games!”
Vicki ignored the protest and held up the Glock. “How much can you see?”
“What?”
“I can see in the dark. How much can you see?”
Frowning, Ren leaned away from the gun. “It’s not as dark as it was.”
Not an answer but it would have to do. “Okay, these are the sights—ramped front sight and a notched rear sight with white contrast. You aim with them but I’ll use some wreckage to build a shelter with a limited access so all you’ll have to do is point and shoot. Now the Glock has a triple safety system to prevent accidental discharge but once you’ve released the external safety, here, the two internal safeties automatically disengage when the trigger is pulled.”
“Forget it!” Ren shoved at Vicki’s arm. “I’m not going to shoot anything!”
“Would you rather be eaten by a giant rat?”
“No, but . . . ”
“Then pay attention.”
“It’s arunda-ay!”
“It’s nonsense!” Mike protested. “It doesn’t mean shit!”
On the other end of the phone, Tony sighed. “It means we get Vicki back,” he said quietly. “Try it again from the top.”
One hand gripping the edge of crypt, Mike, glanced over at the square of sky he could see through the grill, took a deep breath, and started again.
And then again.
One more time before Tony muttered, “Close enough.”
“Close enough?”
“Look, like I said before, it’s mostly a matter of will. The rest is just a way to focus power.”
“I don’t have that kind of power.”
“How badly do you want Vicki back?” The phone casing cracked in Mike’s grip and although he couldn’t have heard it, Tony snorted. “That’s plenty of power, trust me. Light the candles and get the mouse.”
The mouse seemed oblivious to its fate. Mike thanked heaven for small mercies. He couldn’t have coped with a terrified animal. “Why . . . ?”
“Its death symbolizes the journey from one world to another. I don’t like this either but I don’t think you can skip it. Put it in the bowl and cut its throat then set it on fire and start the chant. When you finish, the gate should open.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“I’ll be on the first plane to Toronto. Don’t hang up, just set the phone down. I’ll chant with yo
u.”
“Will that help?”
“It can’t hurt.”
The silver knife was surprisingly sharp. The mouse’s head came right off. It helped, a little, that it didn’t have time to suffer. Its fur had just started to smolder when Mike began the chant.
The rat things were getting bolder. She’d killed two more and had just given thanks that they didn’t hunt in packs when she saw a large shadow moving through the building across the road. Back home, a lot of predators hunted at dusk and dawn. It figured, Vicki noted silently, that would hold true here as well.
No, not moving through the building. Slithering.
All things considered, she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised by giant snakes. “And no fucking sign of Samuel Jackson when I could really use him,” she muttered rubbing the back of her neck. She could feel the dawn approaching. The shelter she’d built would give Ren and the kids a chance against the rat things but giant snakes were a whole different ball game.
“What are you looking at?”
Vicki glanced down the road to where the portal wasn’t, and shook her head. “Nothing.”
The portal wasn’t opening.
The stone under the symbol remained solid.
He should have known this magic shit wouldn’t have a hope in hell of working. Charging around the crypt, Mike smacked the wall with both palms. “God damn it! Open up!” And again. And then with his fists. “Open the fuck up!”
There was a whoosh behind him.
He turned to see the mixing bowl melting in the heat of the flames.
Turned again to see the center of the circle flare white, then grey under a smear of blood.
“All right, you’re going to have to . . . ” The flash of light she caught in the corner of her eye had probably been nothing more than an indicator that dawn was closer than she thought, but Vicki turned toward it anyway.
“Is that?” Ren’s fingers closed around her arm hard enough to hurt.
“It is.”
“But what if it doesn’t lead home!”
Vicki took another look across the road. She couldn’t see the snake. Probably not a good thing. “Trust me, we’ll still be trading up.” It was hard to find the Hunter this close to sunrise but, somehow. she managed it. “Gavin! Star! Wake up and come here. Quickly!”
Still wrapped in her imperative, they did as they were told.
Vicki shoved Ren out into the road and the other two out behind her. “Get them through the portal,” she growled. “Get them home.”
“What will you be doing?”
“I’ll be right behind you.” She could hear the slithering now. “Run!”
To her credit, Ren grabbed her friend’s hands before she started to move.
They’d made maybe twenty meters when the rush of wind at her back had Vicki spin around and squeeze off five quick shots.
Giant snake.
With arms, of a sort.
And no visible eyes.
The bullets dug gouges in the charcoal grey scales. It paused, head and arms weaving about three meters off the ground, but seemed more puzzled than injured.
“Vicki!”
“Keep running!” Next time she ended up on another world with teenagers, she’d add don’t look behind you.
On the bright side, the giant snake thing had to be keeping the rat things under cover.
Fifty meters further and hunger apparently won over annoyance. Vicki felt air currents shift as the snake lunged. She dropped, rolled, came up, and grabbed the nearest limb above the . . . well, fingers given their position, snapping it at the elbow.
Leaping clear of the flailing, she raced down the street and hauled Gavin back up onto his feet. He’d torn his jeans and his palm was bleeding and desperate times . . .
She dragged her tongue across the torn flesh and shoved him toward Ren adding what should have been a redundant, “RUN!”
Pain did not seem to make the creatures of this world cautious. If forced to guess, Vicki’d say the snake thing was pissed.
Diving under its charge to the far side of the road, she got a grip on its other arm, braced herself against a piece of broken pavement, and hauled it sideways. There was a wet crack at the point where the arm met the body.
And more flailing.
Ren had shoved Star through the portal and was working on Gavin by the time the snake got moving forward again.
Another time, Vicki might have admired that kind of single-minded determination. But not right now. She grabbed the polished leg bone of the creature she’d killed when they arrived, made it between the snake and the portal just in time, and slammed it as hard as she could on the nose.
“Vicki, come on!”
A glance over her shoulder. The kids were through.
And the portal was about twice as big around as the snake.
The snake didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word quit.
She hit it again.
“Vicki! It’s closing!”
Mike.
The portal was still bigger than the snake.
And the sun was rising.
She threw the bone. It skittered off the scales. When the snake lunged, she stood her ground and emptied the Glock into its open mouth. Changed magazines, kept firing. Ignored the pain as a fang sliced into her upper arm.
Stumbling back, she could smell burning blood.
A hand grabbed her shirt then she was on her back, on the floor of the mausoleum, still firing into the snake’s open mouth.
The portal closed.
The snake head dropped onto her legs.
“Vicki!”
She felt Mike pull the weapon from her hand. Grabbed his hand in turn and sank her teeth into his wrist. Mike swore, she hadn’t been particularly careful, but he didn’t pull away. One swallow, two, and she had strength enough to tie up a couple of loose ends. “Star, Gavin, forget this night ever happened!”
“I don’t . . . ” Ren began.
Vicki cut her off. “Your choice.”
“I want to remember. Well, I don’t really want to remember but . . . ”
A raised hand cut her off and Vicki managed to growl, “Sunrise.”
“Got it covered.”
She was heavier than she had been but Mike lifted her and dropped her into the open crypt. The open occupied crypt.
And then the day claimed her.
“Okay, I’m impressed with your quick thinking . . . ” Vicki shimmied into the clean jeans Mike had brought her. “ . . . but waking up next to a decomposed body was quite possibly the grossest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“At least the body didn’t wake up,” Mike pointed out handing her a shirt. “Given our lives of late, that’s not something you can rule out.”
“True.” She shrugged into the shirt and moved into his arms, head dropping to rest on his shoulder.
“You need to feed.”
The wound in her arm had healed over but was still an ugly red.
“Later.” She needed more than he could give and right now, she needed him. “The kids?”
“They’re all home. The two you told to forget are . . . ” She felt him shrug. “I don’t know . . . teenagers. The other girl, Ren, she’s something. You’re going to have to talk to her.”
“I know. Cameron?”
The arms around her tightened. “Teenagers run away all the time.”
She could tell he hated saying it. “I was too late to save him.”
“Yeah, Ren told me.” He sighed, breath parting her hair, warm against her scalp. “There isn’t enough crap in this world, they had to go looking for another.”
Vicki shifted just far enough to press the palm of her right hand over his heart. “There isn’t enough love in this world, they had to go looking for another.”
Outfangthief
Conrad Williams
The title of this chilling story is an archaic word meaning “the right of a lord to pursue a thief outside the lord’s own jurisdiction a
nd bring him back within his jurisdiction to be punished.” But there’s nothing medieval about it. The bloodsuckers involved are the antithesis of benign. If you want “lite bite” fiction—this one is not for you. Of course if you are acquainted with the work of Conrad Williams, you’ll not be expecting “lite.” The author of six novels, four novellas, and around one hundred short stories, some of which are collected in Use Once Then Destroy, Williams has won the British Fantasy Award three times, most recently for Best Novel (One). He is also a past recipient of the International Horror Guild Award and the Littlewood Arc Prize. His latest novel is Loss of Separation. He has a new collection, Penetralia, forthcoming from PS Publishing, who are also releasing his first foray into editing, with Gutshot, an anthology of weird west stories. Conrad lives in Manchester, UK, with his wife, three sons, and a monster Maine Coon cat. You can find out more at www.conradwilliams.net
At the moment the car slid out of control, Sarah Running had been trying to find a radio station that might carry some news of her crime. She had been driving for hours, risking the M6 all the way from Preston. Though she had seen a number of police vehicles, the traffic had been sufficiently busy to allow her to blend in and anyway, Manser would hardly have guessed she would take her ex-husband’s car. Michael was away on business in Stockholm and would not know of the theft for at least another week.
But Manser was not stupid. It would not be long before he latched on to her deceit.
As the traffic thinned, and night closed in on the motorway, Sarah’s panic grew. She was convinced that her disappearance had been reported and she would be brought to book. When a police Range Rover tailed her from Walsall to the M42 turn off, she almost sent her own car into the crash barriers at the center of the road.
Desperate for cover, she followed the signs for the A14. Perhaps she could make the one hundred and thirty miles to Felixstowe tonight and sell the car, try to find passage on a boat, lose herself and her daughter on the continent. In a day they could be in Dresden, where her grandmother had lived; a battered city that would recognize some of its own and allow them some anonymity.
“Are you all right back there, Laura?”
In the rear view mirror, her daughter might well have been a mannequin. Her features were glacial; her sunglasses formed tiny screens of animation as the sodium lights fizzed off them. A slight flattening of the lips was the only indication that all was well. Sarah bore down on her frustration. Did she understand what she had been rescued from? Sarah tried to remember what things had been like for herself as a child, but reasoned that her own relationship with her mother had not been fraught with the same problems.
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