“Yes, with one little exception.”
“What? Annoyed that I didn’t consult with you first?” she sniffed.
“No,” I continued. “Annoyed because the cops are going to be after us, anyway.”
“You might want to catch up with the conversation,” she replied. “I just finished telling everyone that the cops would be after Harold.”
“Yes, Harold – who just so happens to be driving around in the same Escalade that we’re sitting in,” I said with just a trace of my own smugness.
She just stared at me with a blank look for a moment and then blurted out, “Oh, crap.”
“Oh, crap, is right,” I agreed. “Thus, I suggest we hightail it back to the city as soon as possible, and ditch the pimp mobile here at the first chance we get.”
For once, there was no dissent with something I suggested.
Grudge Match
We parked the Escalade close to Flushing Meadows and, after a thorough wipe down for prints (I wasn’t worried so much for Sally, but Tom, Ed, and I were still on the grid, so to speak), we ditched it and headed about a half mile south to grab the M train. It was a long ride back home with several transfers, but there was one high note to the whole thing. I don’t think I’ve ever been this at ease riding the subway so late at night. Ed and Tom both looked fairly relaxed, too. Safety in numbers is great and all, but it doesn’t beat traveling with two vampires, at least, one of whom has shown relatively little concern so far for silly things like human life. There were definitely some perks to this whole undead predator of the night thing.
We finally arrived back at our building in the wee hours of the morning. Well, at least we couldn’t complain that it hadn’t been a full day.
We stopped at the stoop of our apartment and I turned to Sally. “Heading back to SoHo?”
“In a bit,” she answered. “Just as soon as we plot out some next steps. We should probably have a contingency plan ready, in case Jeff is already on the warpath.”
“In other words, you’re reluctant to leave my studly side,” I said with a grin.
“I’m no scholar of linguistics, but I’m fairly sure the English language doesn’t allow words such as studly to appear in sentences about you,” she shot back.
Unfortunately, our little discourse – or as I liked think of it, foreplay – was cut short by Ed’s voice from the top of the stairs.
“Uh oh,” he said.
“Define ‘uh oh’.”
“This.” He stepped aside to give the front door a small push. It opened freely. “I haven’t pulled out my key yet.”
“Someone could have left it unlocked,” I pointed out.
“More like someone kicked it in,” Tom said. “It looks like the lock is all busted.”
“Coincidence?” I asked Sally.
“Call me pessimistic, but I don’t think you’re going to get that lucky,” she said, striding up the steps and ordering my roommates to stand aside. She looked over the area for a moment and then declared, “Vampire, but, lucky us, only one.”
“How can you tell?” I called up to her.
She pointed to her nose. “It’s obvious. Can’t you smell it?”
“We can do that?” I sheepishly asked back, getting an eye-roll in return which surprised me not at all.
“Should we get out of here?” Ed asked.
“No. I think he’s gone,” she said, and then turned to me to add, “Yes, we can do that, too.” Bitch.
“Get out of my way.” I pushed past her to the door and then started walking up. My roommates followed right behind.
As we could have guessed, the door to the apartment had also been kicked in. Hell, it had almost been kicked in half. Whoever had been here had definitely been disinclined to take no for an answer.
“Motherfucker,” said Ed softly as we walked in. The place was trashed. Debris that had once been our belongings littered the floor, holes had been punched in the walls, and the couch had been utterly gutted.
“Think someone wanted to get our attention?” Tom asked, his tone attempting to be strong, but cracking a little at the edges.
“Maybe just a little,” I quipped.
“Whoa,” Sally said as she entered. “Hope you guys were insured.”
I was going to say something to that, but Ed caught my attention.
“Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.” He pointed to a section of floor close to the kitchen.
I stepped over to him. The area was clear of debris with one notable exception. There was an arrow, drawn in some brown sludge-like substance, pointing toward the counter where the only things that remained untouched were our phone and answering machine.
“Looks like someone shit on the floor and then drew with it,” I said. Tom stepped up and echoed the sentiment.
“That’s just wrong on so many levels,” Ed replied.
“I think,” Sally said, “that someone was trying real hard to make sure you didn’t miss that.” She indicated the blinking light on the machine. Someone had left us a message.
My roommates and I looked at each other for a moment. I’m sure we all could guess whose voice would be awaiting us on the message. Well okay, they had never heard my dickhead coven leader speak, but I’m sure they could make an educated guess if they had to.
“We should probably see who we need to send the cleaning bill to,” I said, pressing play. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Jeff’s voice started speaking back to us.
“Hey, asshole. Nobody was home, so I let myself in. Hope you like what I did with the place. Gives it some character, don’t you think?
“This is just the opening course. I don’t know if you heard or not, but your buddy, Ozymandias, is going to be out of town for a little while. What that means for you, Dr. Dead, is that his protection is now null and void. Your ass is mine, and don’t think any of that freewill bullshit is going to save you.
“Now you’re probably thinking you might hightail it out of town and you still might, not that it would matter. I’d hunt you down and make you hurt for a long time. But just to give you some reason to stay and play, I have a little incentive for you. I got your mom, bitch.”
“What?” I blurted out, but Sally shushed me.
“Say hello to your baby boy…(There was a distinctive tone of a female whimpering) …that’s enough (another sound, this time like someone being hit). Now I’m a fair master. If you do what I say, I might let your dear old mommy walk out of this alive. But you better hurry, because I’m getting hungry. There’s an old warehouse down by the docks on West Tenth. Be there at dawn. I’ll leave the front porch light on for you.
“You show up, and I’ll let you trade yourself for her. If you pussy out and run, she dies…badly. And then, I still hunt you down and kill you. Either way, you look at it, you come to an end. It’s up to you whether you do it like a man or a dog. I’ll be waiting.”
“He has my mom?” I asked, panic setting in.
“Calm…” Sally started to say, but I cut her off.
“Do not tell me to calm down. We are not even remotely close to the proximity of calm down here.”
“I take it that fucker was Jeff,” Ed commented.
Sally nodded in response.
“Dude,” Tom said, sounding nearly as shocked as I did. “We gotta save her.”
“No shit!” I growled at him, causing him to jump back a little. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean that.”
He nodded to let me know it was cool, but then got that panicky look in his eye again. “What about your dad? He didn’t say anything about him.”
“Oh, god.” A sinking feeling began to permeate my very being.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Ed said, trying to exude some calm onto the situation. Yeah, good luck with that.
“What other conclusion is there?” I practically jumped down his throat. “What the hell did that fucker do to my parents? We have to go check on him.”
Tom just shook his head sadly, “We
’ll never made it down to Scotch Plains and back in time to save your mom.”
“Then you and Ed go check on my dad and I’ll rescue Mom,” I countered.
“No way,” he replied. “You’re not going in there solo.”
“I don’t have a better plan, do you?”
“Call him,” said Ed.
“What?” Tom and I both asked.
“Call him,” he repeated. “If there’s no answer, then call the cops. They’ll get there a lot faster than any of us will. Besides which,” he put his hand on my shoulder, about the closest I’d ever seen him come to anything remotely like human sympathy, “you probably don’t want to…find him.”
There was a moment of silence. He had a point, although I wasn’t sure I was ready to face the awful truth just yet. I looked to Tom for guidance. He had known my parents for as long as we had been friends. I knew he was almost as messed up by this as I was.
“Do it,” he said.
Slowly picking the phone from the cradle, I hit the talk button and sure enough there came the sound of a dial tone. I hesitated for a few more seconds, and then dialed my parents’ phone number.
*ring*
Who was I kidding? I was too late. I had failed my parents.
*ring*
He was gone. My father was gone.
*ring*
He had faced a demon too strong for a normal man to overcome.
*ring*
He had died protecting my mother.
“Hello?” answered a groggy voice on the other end.
He was answering the phone?
“Dad!” I yelled into the receiver. “Is that you?”
“Huh, Bill? What time is it?” asked the unmistakable voice of my father.
“Dad, are you okay?”
“I was until you woke me up. Is something wrong?”
Had my father been out when Jeff attacked? Perhaps he had come home, assumed mom was at a friend’s house, and then had just gone to sleep. It was possible he didn’t even know. If so, I had the terrible duty to break it to him.
“Dad, you need to listen to me. Something terrible has happened to mom.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, irritation starting to seep into his voice.
“Dad…”
“You know this drunk dialing thing wasn’t funny even when you were still in college.”
“Dad, are you even listening!?” I screamed into the phone. “Mom is in trouble!”
“Your mother is asleep right next to me. (???) Pray tell, exactly what trouble is she in?” he asked in a deadpan voice.
“Mom’s okay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, for Christ sakes! Here…” I could hear him shifting around and then a soft snoring noise filled the phone. Yeah, that was Mom, all right. She slept like the dead (no pun intended), and was a heavy breather throughout the night. A few seconds later, my father came back on the phone.
“There, happy?”
I was stunned for a second…glad as all hell, don’t make any mistake about it, but confused, too. “Yes. Thanks, Dad,” I answered, trying to collect my wits.
“Good,” he replied sarcastically. “Now, why would you think she was in trouble?”
I thought fast and then gave him the only excuse that came to mind. “I…uh…had a nightmare that…vampires were attacking you guys.”
There was a momentary pause on the line and then he replied, “Bill, you know your mother and I love you very much, don’t you?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Then I’m sure you’ll forgive me for doing this…” *click* The line went dead.
I exchanged glances with my companions. They had obviously heard my side of the conversation and could no doubt figure out the rest.
“Is it safe to assume your mom was there?” asked Ed. I nodded. “Well, that’s the important thing, anyway.”
Tom noticed me being a bit too quiet. “So, what’s wrong, man?”
“Nothing,” I answered. “I’m glad Mom and Dad are fine. But still…what the fuck?” I turned to Sally. “Is Jeff’s master plan just to try to give me a panic attack?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Even a complete moron would have to know that you could call that bluff with just one phone call. Besides which, that’s not Jeff’s style. If he says he has a hostage, then he has a hostage.”
“Maybe this is a distraction,” Ed offered, “to set us up for an ambush?”
Sally again shook her head. “Also not his style. He likes to make a big scene. A showdown, like he set up on the phone, is just the kind of thing he loves to do. Fucker’s probably been sporting an erection about it ever since he left here.”
“Okay,” I replied. “And thank you for that imagery, by the way. Now I have a picture in my head of him clubbing me to death with his dick.”
“Worry about Jeff’s cock later,” Ed said. “If he doesn’t have your parents, then who does he have?”
I shrugged. “No idea.” Then an unpleasant thought struck me. “What if he found some of your info while he was trashing the place?” I asked my roommates. “What if he made a mistake and grabbed the wrong mom?”
Both Tom and Ed visibly paled at that. Moments later, they repeated my earlier action and made phone calls of their own. After a few tense minutes, though, they both met with similar results (although to Ed’s credit, at least he came up with a less lame excuse for calling than vampire nightmare). All of our folks were fine, thus, after everyone had been hung up on, we found ourselves again wondering what the hell was going on.
“You’re sure he’s not just screwing with our heads?” I asked Sally.
“I don’t see the point. What benefit would he get from it?” she responded. “No. I’m certain he has somebody.”
“So, the question is,” Ed asked, “do we march into his trap and try to save this somebody? Or do we leave them to die and then go after Jeff at a time and place of our choosing?”
“I don’t know,” Tom replied in a small voice. Now that the adrenaline of the past couple of hours was wearing off, he looked like he’d had enough for a while. “I don’t want to see anyone die because of me, but putting ourselves right where he wants us…I just don’t know.” With that, he wandered away and disappeared into his room.
I started to follow, but Ed held up a hand. “Leave him. He needs a few. Shit, we all probably do.”
“So, you want to go with option two, I assume?”
He gave me a grin and replied, “No. I think if we wait, then this’ll just get worse. If you don’t show up for your big cage match, how long do you think it’ll be before he starts hunting you…and by proxy, us, down? He has home field advantage, but from the sound of it, he’s probably expecting you to be alone. No doubt he probably also thinks you’re going to be completely distraught. That gives us a chance. You go in, but with a clear head and us there to back you up – well, it might be enough to even the odds.”
Sally clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to make him stumble, and said, “Your friend here makes a lot of sense…for a walking Happy Meal.”
“Care to play with the toy that comes with it?” he asked with a wicked grin.
“Maybe some other time,” she replied dryly. “For now, I suggest we get ourselves ready. I know the place he’s talking about. It’s supposed to be a coven safe house, but Jeff likes to use it as his own personal larder. We have a few hours until the three of us…”
“Four,” said Tom, reappearing from his room, something clutched in his arms.
“Four?” I repeated.
He stepped forward and dropped what he’d been holding. A bunch of broken action figures fell to the floor. “Four! Son of a bitch must pay,” he said with an almost scary determination. It was on.
* * *
My roommates stayed behind to do a damage assessment of the apartment and to see what could be scavenged. Sally and I headed out to grab a few supplies for
the coming conflict. I was a little leery of her plan. Sure, New York has the reputation of being the city that never sleeps, but that only goes so far. At this late hour – or early, depending on your point of view – our options for places that were open were pretty much limited to pizza, convenience stores, or maybe an all night rave, or two. None of those, as far as I was aware, were particularly good for combat preparation, unless maybe the plan was to eat enough Slim Jims so as to make us look forward to our impending deaths. However, Sally wasn’t daunted by little details such as that. It soon became apparent why.
“This will do,” she said coming to a stop in front of a store about a mile from my apartment. It was a sporting goods shop, probably family owned, and small enough that you could easily pass by without noticing it. Such it is with city-based small businesses. Space here is at a premium and you make do with what you can.
“For what?” I asked. “It’s closed.” I pointed out the locked security gate covering the entranceway.
“Not for long.” She took a look around to confirm the street was empty and then gave a hard tug on the gate. The lock held, but the latch itself broke off. She moved it aside and said, “Wait for it.”
I did, and then after a few seconds replied, “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly. Small shop like this probably can’t afford an active security system. If there are cameras inside, it’s a good bet that they’re just props.” She grabbed the front door and gave another pull, which had a similar effect as on the gate. “After you.”
“Age before beauty,” I quipped in return.
“After today, let’s hope age is still something we can worry about,” she replied as she entered the shop.
I figured we’d be loading up with football pads and other such protection, but Sally told me to leave them. She explained that, against a vampire of Jeff’s strength, a little bit of padding would have about the same effect as using a Kevlar vest to stop a cruise missile, especially for my roommates. Speed and mobility would be more important than body armor. I protested that at least some protection would be better than none, and, after a moment’s consideration, she agreed. We settled on a few helmets for my roommates (being thrown face first into a wall could seriously ruin a person’s day) as well as some basic protection for our extremities such as elbow and knee pads. We’d look more likely to be spending the day at a skate park than in battle, but it covered the basics of leaving us mobile, but not entirely unprotected.
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