“There,” Beth answered. “At Axis.”
He weighed the information carefully before asking the next question. Everything hinged on her answer. “Before all of this started, did you see anything strange in the lower levels? Maybe in the basement?”
“Nothing in the basement but rats. Well, not anymore. They all seem to have disappeared.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Two months, maybe more.”
“Are you sure you didn’t see anything else? Think carefully.”
“Yes.” Her eyes were suddenly bright with remembrance. “Down at the back of the liquor cage. There was a hole in the brick, and at the base of it were these . . . scratch marks.”
Jack snapped his fingers. He looked back to the marked-up map, the X drawn through the spot where the nightclub stood. Finally, he had the last piece of the puzzle, an eyewitness account. Wherever those creatures chose to feed, somewhere deep beneath Axis stood their lair. “Can you get me inside? When the club isn’t open for business. Can you get me in then?”
“I can try. I’ve still got the key.”
It was the best he could hope for. For almost a third of his life, he’d fought them alone. One on one. But now things had changed. There was no way he could continue on his own, not with this many of them out there. He’d need an ally. This girl would be his best option, his only option.
“Your friend is probably dead,” Jack said. “And your boyfriend, too.”
“Dead?”
Jack nodded.
The girl did too, but hers was the sad slow nod of one resigned to fate. “Then I want to see whoever—whatever—is responsible. I want to make them pay.”
That wasn’t good enough. Revenge would only get her so far. The rage that would build inside her could only compromise his mission. “No,” he said. “No. My job is to protect the innocent.”
“I want answers, then.”
“And?”
“That’s enough for now.”
That was fair; it would be enough, at least for now. “It’s not going to be easy,” he said slowly, not even sure where to begin. “It’s not going to be easy to believe. But you are going to have to believe everything I tell you. Not humor me, not see it halfway. Believe everything, even when you don’t. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“And you are going to have to follow my instructions—my orders—to the letter. You don’t do that, and it’s highly unlikely that either of us will survive. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “What happened to Ryan? Which one was real?”
“None of them.” He shrugged. “All of them.” What other answer was there to give? She’d understand in time. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all an illusion. Their illusion.”
“What are they?”
“Terrors in the night.” His voice grew almost wistful as he remembered how many times he’d asked that question of himself. “Monsters at the edge of the map. Demons from our own personal hells. Take your pick.”
“The old man, the prophet, he said they were vampires.”
“That’s the name they’ve been given.”
“Vampires?” she repeated. The word hung between them like a soap bubble waiting to be popped.
“Perhaps. But not what you think.” He looked at her, wondering just how much truth she could handle before her mind shut down. He’d have to take it slowly, baby steps if need be. “What you see is what you want to see.”
He leaned back against the counter, feeling a strange weight begin to lift as he unburdened himself of even the slightest amount of the secrets he’d been holding in his heart for so very long.
“What you see is not what they are,” he said. “They project an illusion, a chimera, a mirage—call it what you will. You’ll see them as an object of sexual desire. A loved one who has recently died. Someone who’ll whisk you off to a magic fairy land. Whatever will get you in their power. Whatever’s in your head. The mind sees what it wants to see. The truth is far less attractive.”
“But you can see them, right? You know what they are. What they really are.”
“Sometimes,” was the only answer he was prepared to offer. At least for now.
“Jack, please, what are they? You have to tell me.”
“In time.” She’d heard enough for this night. The rest could wait, would have to wait. In the state she was in, the truth—the full truth—might send her careening over the edge, crush her psyche like an eggshell.
Jack walked to the door. “I’ve got a police car to dispose of. There are towels over there and hot water in the sink. You’ll want to wash up, maybe get some sleep. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Then we go to work.”
Thirty-two
Morning came, and Beth sat in the van’s passenger seat, gazing through the windshield at Axis’s barred façade. Jack was next to her, busily scanning the club with a set of high-tech binoculars. He swept them back and forth like a search beam. He’d been repeating the same action in total silence for almost an hour.
Between them was wedged the dog. His alert eyes were as fixed on the club as those of his master. Another growl began to form in the dog’s throat, hackles raised as he bared his teeth. It was almost as if he could see straight through the brick, right to the evil heart of it all.
Jack placed a comforting hand on the dog’s neck, calming him with a touch. “I know, boy. I know.” Seeming to sense her eyes on him, the dog turned toward Beth, nailing her with a gaze only slightly less hostile than the one he’d reserved for those things.
“Don’t think your dog likes me very much.”
Jack said nothing.
They both shifted low in their seats as a police cruiser rolled by slowly, a squat uniformed officer at the wheel scanning the sidewalk in front of Axis. Since they’d arrived, the same car had made the same pass every fifteen minutes, so consistently you could set your watch by it.
Beth checked the dashboard clock. Almost four p.m. Normally, Axis would be open for business by now. She’d watched Hank enter the building a couple of hours ago, but no one else. He was probably still dealing with the aftermath of last night’s devastation or fielding calls from the police about the two cops who’d responded to a disturbance at the club and were never heard from again. She shrugged even deeper into the seat, hoping her baseball cap and oversized dark glasses would be enough to disguise her if Hank ever decided to take a gander out of his office window.
Jack lowered the binoculars, then handed them to her. “Front door’s out,” he said. “Too conspicuous. Especially with that five-oh circling like a buzzard. Options?”
Beth scoured her mind. The only other street-level entrance would be the fire-escape doors on the far side of the club. Except during business hours, they would be padlocked outside and chained from within. There was a service elevator, but even if they could get through the heavy steel doors, the only way to activate it was from inside Axis.
A thought hit her. “They always shut down for a few days between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Give the staff and management a rest before the holiday crush. No one will be there; we can barrel in through the back door.”
“When?”
“A few days from now.”
Jack shook his head. “Can’t wait that long.”
“How soon do you need to get in? I can probably get us in tonight, after hours.”
“No. Has to be during the day. They sleep during the day.”
Beth looked out at the sun, just now submitting to dusk, painting the western sky a dappled damask. “Does it hurt them? The sunlight?”
“They don’t crumble to ashes, if that’s what you’re asking. More Hollywood bullshit. But they despise the sunlight. I’ve never known one of them to willingly come out during the day.”
“Is there truth to any of the legends?”
She wanted to ask him what that was but knew she’d just get another of his frosty glares. Right now, nothing seemed real besides the van’s stiff seat, the air her breath stained white, and the man sitting next to her. She would just have to be patient. Learn to trust him and to earn his trust in return. “Can you pull around the block?” she asked suddenly. “I’ve got a hunch.”
Jack put the van into drive and obeyed. Half a minute later, they were staring at the faux-stone facing of a new apartment complex across the street from Axis. It had gone up a few years ago, before the economic downturn had brought the Strip’s encroaching gentrification to a grinding halt. A massive vinyl banner hung on one corner of the building, advertising units for rent—advertising also, albeit inadvertently, that tenancy was far less than one hundred percent. “Go down the alley between the two buildings.”
They did, and as they pulled into the shadows, Beth could see that her hunch had paid off. She pointed up to the side of the building that housed Axis. Set in the decaying brickwork was a bank of modern glass windows. From them sprouted a wide granite ledge that led to a folding fire escape. “There’s a file-storage room up there. And next to it is the office. You can get downstairs from there. Hank—that’s the manager—he doesn’t come in until afternoon.”
Jack looked up to the window and then over to the luxury loft apartment building. Its fire escape hung a mere three yards from Axis’s. “Think I can make that jump,” he said. “Guess we go in tomorrow.”
Beth wondered what part of the “we” would be hers. She glanced back up at Axis’s rickety fire escape and the distance between the two buildings. A distance they would have to traverse three stories above the cracked pavement, in broad daylight, and in full view of any sky-gazing pedestrians. She could only hope that any onlookers would turn out to be as oblivious as she was just a few days ago.
Jack put the van back into drive, and they were off.
“Where are we going?”
“Back to the Docklands. We’re going to need to plan. To prepare. And to get some rest.”
“Can we go to my apartment? Let me pick up a few things?”
He shook his head. “Too risky. As far as the outside world is concerned, it would be best if you were just another one of the missing. Do you have a cell phone?”
Beth remembered the shattered screen she’d tried to show the policeman. “Not anymore.”
“Good. Will anyone be asking about your whereabouts? Friends, family, landlord?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Good.”
Beth wasn’t sure about that. But she didn’t have it in her to dispute the sentiment. They rode the rest of the way in silence, eventually pulling back into the same abandoned lot. “We’ll get up before dawn,” Jack said, all business. “You should get some sleep. There’s a roll-out mattress under the counter. A blanket, too. It’s not much, but it’s served me well.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Where are you going to sleep?”
“Up here,” Jack answered as he eased back against the seat, pulling down the brim of his cap and closing his eyes. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
He fell silent, leaving Beth to stare out at New Harbor’s gloom-cloaked skyscape. For a moment, she sat listening to the martial lullaby of Jack’s soft breathing. So even-keeled it was, untroubled, as if the man possessed an on/off switch. After a while, she rose and slipped through the tiny half-door that led to the back cabin. Almost instantly, the dog took her place in the passenger seat, ready to stand his own vigil.
The “mattress” was where Jack had said it would be, rolled and tucked under one of the steel counters. Although Beth thought that the term was a bit generous for what she shook out onto the floor. She’d seen yoga mats with more padding than this well-worn thing. The blanket turned out to be one of the Army surplus variety, itchy recycled wool, but it looked warm.
As she settled down, trying to get as comfortable as possible, she took another look around the inside of the van. The chemistry equipment, the long wooden stakes, the blueprints and alarm panel. She wondered how long Jack had made his home among these instruments of death. No personal touches graced the walls, none that she could see, anyway. No family pictures, no artwork, not even a funny refrigerator magnet. Nothing. In fact, the only object that even marked Jack as human was the pillow-less bed she now rested on, and he’d given that to her. It still smelled strongly of him, a musky but not unpleasant scent of earth and work.
Beth pulled the blanket over her, still struggling to comprehend why Jack had allowed her into his world. The best she could come up with was that with Zoë and Ryan gone, she was now just a ghost like him, a survivor. Still, something tugged at the back of her mind, telling her that it was more than simple fate that had thrown them together.
Beth had never been a big believer in destiny, but looking at Jack in action—so focused, so determined—she thought they could put his picture next to the word in Webster’s New American. She wondered if, given time, she’d understand what had happened to him, what made him what he was now. She wondered also if it was what she’d have to become in order to survive. If hers was a grave he might have to dig one day. Or perhaps it would prove the other way around.
She rolled onto her side, tucking folded hands under one cheek. He’d told her to get some sleep. Beth, however, felt that sleep was as far from her as the stars. But sleep she did, with all the cabin lights still on.
Thirty-three
It was long before daybreak when Jack’s eyes snapped open. He sat bolt upright, worn seat springs squeaking as he shifted from sound sleep to wide awake in the barest of instants, just as he’d been trained to do what seemed like a lifetime ago.
Blood was dozing in the passenger seat, twitching again at whatever dogs dreamed of. Jack hoped they weren’t the same terrors that plagued his own nights. He ducked down and headed to the back cabin. Every fluorescent tube in the ceiling burned brightly, but the girl was curled up on the floor, asleep. He nudged her gently. “Time to go to work.”
She shot up, rubbing the sand from her silky black eyes. “I was having a nightmare.”
“It’s all a nightmare,” was all he could offer in response. There was not a trace of pity in the declaration, just a flat statement of fact. There would be enough flesh-and-blood demons to fight today. No time for phantoms. “Shake it off. I’ll make us coffee.”
He pulled a can from the cabinet and tore open the lid, and the pungent scent of dog food filled the air. Jack set the can on the rubberized floor. Blood wasn’t long in coming. Then he scooped grounds into the percolator’s basket and set it on the upturned butane burner he used as a stove.
“Here. I got you this.” He tossed the girl a plastic travel mug he’d just purchased. Across it the words “No Matter Where You Go . . . There You Are” had been stamped in gold letters. He’d woken up sometime around midnight and gone for a walk. He stopped at the all-night bodega for more dog food and spotted the mug there.
“Thanks. Should I put my name on it?”
Jack said nothing, just poured her half the coffee.
Beth held it aloft in salute. “Breakfast of champions.”
Again, Jack wondered if her gallows humor was a welcome addition. He guzzled half of his coffee in one swig. “Exterminator is as good a cover as any,” he said as he reached into the ceiling’s web of elastic cording to retrieve a worn cardboard box. “That’s the one we’ll use to
get inside the apartment building. Nobody takes much notice of the people doing the dirty work in this world.” From the box, he pulled out one of his spare jumpsuits. It would be far too big for Beth’s lithe frame, but he handed it to her anyway. “Put that on.”
He turned, pretending to check on his equipment as she changed. It was in deference to her modesty and his own. Jack Jackson hadn’t seen a woman undressed since Sarah, at least not in person. Along with most pleasures of the flesh, he’d long since packed that away in a box of its own.
“How do I look?”
He faced her. Made for Jack’s six feet two inches, the starched jumpsuit hung on her like a graduation gown with the hanger still stuck in it. “It’ll have to do,” he said as he looped a blank web belt around her waist and cinched it tightly. Getting better, but she still looked like a kid playing dress-up in her father’s closet.
He pulled his knife from his belt, flicked it open, and with a few quick slices had cut the sleeves and pant legs close enough. He made note of the fact that Beth didn’t flinch once or recoil at his slashing blade. He wondered if she was still dazed at it all or if she was beginning to demonstrate the kind of trust that would be so crucial to their continued survival.
Beth lifted her hands to check the sleeves, quickly cuffing them to hide any frayed threads, then did the same with the legs. Jack scrounged a couple of Velcro TOTAL EXTERMINATION patches from a Rubbermaid tub and slapped them on her shoulders, and suddenly, the ensemble worked. She looked like a pint-sized version of him—just one that was far easier on the eyes.
Jack retrieved his own tactical belt, buckled it, and checked the contents of each pouch and loop, running his preengagement list over and over in his head like a mantra. Pellets, check. CO2 spares, check. Snap vials, check. Spray solution, check. Salt bag, check. Road flares, check. Auto-snares, check. Juniper stakes, check. Finally, he slipped his twin pistols into their worn holsters. He watched as Beth eyed the guns. Perhaps one day, she’d hold a pistol of her own, but not now, not yet, not before she’d been properly trained in how to use it.
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