Night Mask

by William W. Johnstone

  “Hell with taking them alive for fun and games,” Greg Stern said. “Let’s kill them and split.”

  “The game must end here,” Jimmi Lee said. “It’s over, Greg. It was written that way.”

  “I don’t read the rules that way,” the turncoat cop said, and jumped to his feet, running toward a side door, the Uzi in his hand spitting out lead.

  Lani and Leo fired as one, the buckshot tearing great holes in Stern. The renegade cop flopped to the dusty floor, dying.

  A teenager, who should have been interested in girls and cars, not the devil, jumped up, screaming obscenities at the pair of cops. He also had an Uzi in his hands and knew how to use it.

  Lani silenced both the kid and the Uzi.

  The quiet seemed loud after the gunfire.

  “Well, now,” Jack spoke. “You pigs seem to be doing a good job of holding your own. We’ll have to do something about that, I suppose.”

  Lani and Leo had again changed locations, working closer to the Longwood boys ... or the brother and sister. Whatever. They both knew that by now, dispatch had ordered a code three search for them. Surely help was on the way. Neither could understand why backup had not already arrived. What they did not know was that as soon as they had entered the warehouse, their car had been moved by one of the teenagers; simple matter to hot-wire it. He had learned how to do that by watching TV.

  Every cop in the county, including a dozen units of the CHP, were frantically searching for the missing detectives. Two units had actually driven past the warehouse, and one had circled the huge building. But it looked so deserted, no vehicles in sight and no sign of human life; the latter being something that would be debated for years to come.

  “I’m out of here!” a teenage girl said, and took off for a side door.

  She was not firing, and Leo and Lani let her go, hoping she would throw open a door and give them at least a small chance of getting out of this death trap filled with loonies.

  Jack Longwood fired a long burst from his Uzi, just as the girl flung open the side door. The impact of the lead threw the girl outside, her back bloody. She managed to stagger to the front of the warehouse, before collapsing on the parking area. She lay in plain sight.

  But this area had already been searched by several units. It would be several more minutes before Indian Drive and Indiana Drive would be compared.

  Leo took careful aim with his .45 and blew the lock out of the side door, before gunfire from the other side forced him down. The door might close, but it would no longer be able to lock. Leo did not know what had happened to the teenage girl.

  Jack and Jimmi Lee and the two who remained loyal to them began hurling jars at the two cops. Human faces flopped out as the glass jars burst upon impact with the concrete floor. Breasts and penises and other parts of the human anatomy lay quivering and glistening wetly all around the two cops.

  By now, it had reached the point where Lani and Leo had seen it all. Their minds just turned off and tuned out to the horrible sight. They were drenched from feet to knees, and the odor of dead flesh now exposed to air insulted their nostrils with a putrid stench. They could not take a step without the soles of their shoes landing on some piece of human flesh. There was no way for them to avoid it.

  “Isn’t this great fun?” Jimmi Lee shouted, then giggled. “Here is your evidence, pigs. Have some more with my compliments.” She flung a jar at the cops. “This is Violet from Omaha. Here’s what I saved of Stud from Dallas, Lani baby. Suck on this dick, you dick!”

  “You want to see something beautiful, Leo pig?” Jack yelled. “Here, see this.”

  A thrown eyeball struck Leo on the cheek. He recoiled in horror.

  “See it, pig!” Jack laughed. “You get it? See it!”

  “I’ve had it!” Leo said. He stood up and leveled his shotgun. He shot Jack in the center of the chest, the buckshot knocking the man to the floor.

  Jimmi Lee laughed.

  Jack rose from the floor, the front of his shirt soaked with blood. He smiled at Leo.

  Leo was numb. Dumbfounded. He stood almost rooted to the spot, listening to Jimmi Lee’s taunting laughter. No, Leo thought. Nobody took a magnum load of buckshot in the chest at close range and lived. Nobody . . . human, that is. Was his theory correct? Had to be.

  “Poor Leo,” Jimmi Lee said, a sneer in her voice. She spoke from the shadows, and neither Lani nor Leo could get a good look at her. “He doesn’t get it, brother dearest. He’s simply not as smart as we first thought.”

  “Perhaps he never will, darling,” Jack replied.

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “Such a pity,” Jimmi Lee said. “But it must be him.”

  “Bad grammar, dear. But don’t belabor the obvious. Shall we resume play, Leo?” Jack asked, as he lifted his Uzi. Leo hit the floor as the lead howled and bounced all around him.

  Lani crawled over to Leo. “That’s not possible... What you did. I saw it. He’s dead!”

  “No. But bullets won’t kill either one of them.”

  “What? What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

  “Later.”

  “Fuck later! They’re not trying to kill us. I get the impression they want us to kill them!”

  “Again.”

  “Again? Again what?”

  “Oh, my, sister dear!” Jack said. “I was right. He really is a bright boy. Just listen to them.”

  “But the cunt is stupid as shit.”

  Lani narrowed her eyes at that.

  “It’s time, Leo. You must know what to do,” Jimmi Lee said.

  “I don’t know what to do!” Leo yelled.

  “Yes, you do, darling,” Jimmi Lee said. “You were born to do it.”

  “Where were you born, Leo?” Lani suddenly asked. “You’ve never said.”

  Jack and Jimmi Lee both laughed.

  Leo stood up then, and faced the pair of loonies. Lani slowly rose to stand beside him.

  “Yes, Leo,” Jack said. “Do tell us where you were born.”

  “I don’t know,” Leo spoke to the buckshot-mangled and bloody man. “I’m adopted.”

  “Yes,” Jimmi Lee said. “We know.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “We know many things that you don’t know.” Jack smiled. “You bastard whelp out of a priest and a nun!”

  Chapter 35

  Leo did not lose his composure. “None of us have the option of choosing our parents.”

  Jimmi Lee giggled. She coyly covered her mouth with one dainty-looking hand. But Leo was of the opinion that hand was much stronger than it appeared. “Stop playing with him, brother. Tell him the truth. We don’t have time for games.”

  “Oh, very well. Our parents, whom you two got to know quite well during your snooping around back in New York—not as well as you think, but well enough—had four children. The firstborn was not marked to carry on. He was given up for adoption. Of the triplets, who were born some years later, only two were suitable to carry on the family tradition. One of them was given up for adoption. You see, Leo, you and Stacy Ryan are brother and sister.” His smile was grotesque.

  “Hello, big brother,” Jimmi Lee said with a giggle.

  “I don’t believe you,” Leo said.

  “Oh, it’s true,” Jack said. “What reason would we have to lie? Do you think our coming here to La Barca was mere coincidence? Why not Los Angeles instead? It’s much larger, and it would have been so much more difficult for the pigs to catch us. No, Leo. We have to use you and Lani in order to live.”

  “Now, wait just a damn minute!” Lani said. “You’re saying, I think, that you both are some sort of... immortals?”

  “Ummm,” Jack mused. “Well, yes. If you wish to put it that way.”

  Leo had been looking for the two remaining locals who had joined the Longwood boys. His eyes finally found them, sprawled in pools of blood behind a crate. His last blasts of buckshot must have caught them. He shifted his gaze back
to Jack. “If you two are immortals, why weren’t your parents?”

  “Oh, they were,” Jimmi said.

  “But you killed them!” Lani blurted.

  “No, we didn’t. They’re alive and doing quite well, thank you.”

  “But the police positively ID’d them,” Leo said.

  “They ID’d them as best they could. It’s rather difficult to identify someone without hands or a head.”

  “Who were the man and woman you killed?”

  “Transients we found on the road and brought to the house,” Jack said. “Throwaway people. They were of no significance.”

  “Where are your parents?” Lani asked.

  But Jack and Jimmi Lee would only smile at that.

  Lani suddenly burst out in a fit of giggling as a wild thought hit her.

  Leo looked at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. “You find this funny?”

  “I keep looking around for John Carradine and Boris Karloff to stroll in.”

  “Oh, that’s funny!” Jimmi Lee said, and laughed. Then she waved a hand effeminately and all humor left her. “Get on with it, Jack,” she said harshly. “We’re running out of time.”

  Jack’s eyes turned cruel and evil as he stared at Leo. “Are you both ready?”

  “Well, goddamn, man . . . whatever you are,” Leo flared. “Ready for what?”

  “They’re crazy,” Lani said.

  “Hardly,” Jimmi Lee said, adding, “you stupid bitch!”

  Lani jerked her 9 mm from leather and emptied it into the woman’s chest. The force of the many hollow-nosed slugs knocked Jimmi Lee off her feet and to the dirty and bloodstained floor.

  Jack stood unmoved by the sight. He smiled at Lani. “That, dear, was a very futile act.”

  Jimmi Lee crawled to her feet. Her blouse was bullet-pocked and wet with blood. She smiled at Lani. “You really are quite proficient with that weapon, aren’t you?”

  Lani ejected the empty magazine and tried to insert a full one. Her hands were shaking so badly, that Leo had to take the weapon and click the full mag into the butt. The slide slammed home. He handed the weapon back to Lani. “Put it away. It’s useless.” He looked at Jack. “We’re good and you’re evil. Is that it?”

  “That’s part of it. But you’re not all good. You’re a team. A combination of good and evil. We need that.”

  “I’m evil?” Lani found her voice.

  “Your grandfather was, back in Louisiana,” Jimmi Lee said, a disgusted look on her face as she held out her ruined blouse with her fingertips. “I paid a hundred dollars for this.”

  “My grandpere was a kind, gentle man,” Lani said, slipping into a word of Cajun.

  “Your grandfather was a loup-garou,” Jack said.

  “That’s a goddamn lie!” Lani flared. “My grandpere was no damn werewolf.”

  “Oh, yes, he was. He prowled the bayous at nights, when the moon was full and blood-red. We know all about you. Your blood is dark and tainted.”

  Before Lani could once more deny the charge, Leo said, “You don’t want us to kill you. You could have killed us a dozen times over. But we’re no good to you dead. You want to become us. ”

  “Oh, my!” Jimmi Lee said. “He is a bright boy, isn’t he?”

  “Well, now,” Jack said with a smile. “You almost completed the puzzle, Leo. You win the cigar.”

  “How in the hell do you plan to become us?” Lani questioned.

  “Well . . . I will admit that it is rather an awkward procedure, quite pleasurable for us. But the both of you will have some slight discomfort. However, we’ll try to make this as painless as possible.”

  “Fuck you both!” Leo said.

  “Really!” Jimmi Lee said brightly. “Oh, goody. That can certainly be arranged.” She started to peel out of her bloody blouse.

  “Figuratively speaking,” Leo quickly added.

  “Shit!” Jimmi Lee said.

  “That’s how it’s done,” Lani slipped the final piece of the puzzle into place. “Got to be. She was too damn eager to oblige, Leo.”

  Jimmi turned mean eyes to Lani. “You’re not quite as stupid as you first appeared, dear.”

  “Hell with you, lady—Jim—whatever the hell you are,” Lani told her.

  “No, dear. Not yet, for us. Hell is where you and your partner are going.”

  Jack smiled. “Slipping into the vernacular of your relatives down yonder on the bayou, dear—why don’t you just shuck out of them drawers and let’s fuck!”

  Leo jerked up his shotgun and blew Jack’s face into a bloody mask of blood and shredded tissue, the force knocking the man to the floor. “Run, Lani! Go, damnit, go!”

  But Lani wasn’t about to desert her partner of so many years. She grabbed her shotgun and turned Jimmi’s face into the twin of Jack’s. “Now, we run!” she yelled, and the both of them took off for the open side door.

  Jimmi Lee jumped to her feet and looked wildly around her. One eyeball was hanging down on her cheek. She paused long enough to jam the eye back into the socket and locate the running cops. She screamed and took off after them. Leo paused in his dash for the door and leveled his shotgun, shooting the woman four times in the stomach, chest, neck, and face; the shotgun jerked upward with each boom. She staggered and stumbled, but kept right on coming, covered with blood.

  “She won’t go down for me, Lani!” Leo yelled.

  “This is no time to be thinking of sex, Leo!”

  Street-hardened cops often develop a very wild and weird sense of humor.

  Leo watched Lani make the door, just as Jimmi Lee came within swinging range of him. He reversed the shotgun and, using all his strength, hit her in the face with the butt of it. He hit her so hard the stock broke off. Jimmi’s feet flew out from under her, and she hit the floor. Leo turned and jumped out into the welcome but waning daylight.

  A dozen vehicles from the local PD, Sheriff’s Department, and CHP were wailing up, as Lani and Leo ran to the front of the building.

  “Circle the building!” Lani yelled, frantically shoving loads into her 12-gauge “Shoot anything that comes out. Use your shotguns and keep pumping the buckshot at them. Drive them back inside.”

  Brownie and Gene Clark jumped out of their cars just as Anna was driven up, riding with Brenda and Ted; Connie and Frank were right behind them. “What the hell is going on?” Brownie yelled, just as Jimmi Lee came screaming out of the warehouse, the flesh of her face hanging down in bloody shreds and her throat and chest shot full of holes. Still, she kept on coming. “Good God in Heaven!” the sheriff yelled. “What the hell is that?”

  Lani put five loads of buckshot into the woman, knocking her to the ground.

  “Keep the press out!” Leo shouted. “Shoot them if you have to, but keep them out of here. Don’t let them film this.”

  Jack staggered out of the side door and looked all around him. Half his head was missing, and he could only see out of his right eye. He spotted Lani and laughed.

  Leo picked up a length of steel concrete reinforcing rod, about five feet long, and walked toward Jack Longwood.

  “What the hell are you doing, Leo!” Ted yelled. “For God’s sake, man, get back, get back!”

  Lani dropped her shotgun to the ground and picked up a length of steel rod about the same size as Leo’s. She joined him in his slow walk toward Jack and Jimmi Lee, who was rising to her feet. The brother and sister stood like some bloody monsters from out of a terrible nightmare.

  Jack and Jimmi Lee both laughed and then charged the cops, screaming in some language that had been unused for thousands of years and was understood only by the undead.

  Dozens of cops stood in silence and watched the unthinkable events play out before them.

  As if they had been rehearsing for this moment all their lives—and they probably, unknowingly, had— Lani and Leo sidestepped the charge of the brother and sister and drove the steel rods into the chests of Jim and Jack Longwood, piercing the hearts. The broth
er and sister fell to the ground. They did not move. They were dead. It was over.

  As much as it would ever be over for Lani and Leo.

  Chapter 36

  Brownie was issuing no statements on the case other than that it was over. He would have an official statement after reading the reports from Leo Franks and Lani Prejean. When a network reporter insisted on a statement, Brownie walked out of the room, after having come perilously close to telling the reporter (Brownie couldn’t stand the guy anyway) to go screw himself . . . with a Roto-Rooter.

  About thirty minutes later, after Brownie read the preliminary workup sheets, he seriously thought he might be suffering a massive heart attack. When he had recovered, he shouted, “Leaping Jesus Christ!”

  “He read the prelim workup,” Lani said.

  “Holy Joseph fucking Mary!” Brownie squalled, his voice carrying all over the huge building.

  “I do believe you’re right,” Leo said.

  “Great God Almighty!” Brownie screamed. “Werewolves!”

  “I wonder if my granddaddy was a loup-garou?” Lani mused aloud.

  “Ask your parents.”

  “I believe I will.”

  “Immortals!” Brownie shouted. “Demonic shape-changers!”

  “At least you have parents to ask,” Leo said.

  Lani touched his hand. “We just might both have bad blood in of us, Leo.”

  “Holy shit!” Brownie finished the report. The volume of his shouting had not lessened.

  Leo looked at his watch. “Thirty seconds to go.”

  They both heard a door slam.

  “Twenty,” Lani said.

  “Get out of my way, goddamnit! Move that chair. Clear the aisle!”

  “Ten,” Leo said.

  “I want everybody out of the room adjacent to Leo’s office! Move, goddamnit!”