B005N1TFVG EBOK

by Bruce Elliot Jones

  I hunkered down, wiped stringy hair from her eyes. “What?”

  “The pit bull. Neutered! Not a drop of jiz in his shriveled little sack. Could have sniffed my butt all day and never realized I was female. Not even sure he knows what a female is. Bastards turned him into a choir boy.”

  Clancy bent with concern. “Are you all right?”

  “It got pretty hairy there for a minute. Big dog. But I had the element of surprise. He’s disposed of, won’t be bothering anyone for a while. Weird. I mean, who the hell neuters a guard dog, anyway?”

  Clancy shrugged. “Alicia the ball buster?”

  Even Mitzi’s swollen muzzle grinned at that.

  “Come on,” Clancy urged, “we’ve no time to lose.”

  We passed quietly beside the baths, rectangles of brownish-green mud ringed by privacy curtains from the ceiling like the ones in hospital rooms. Abruptly I became aware the lumpy mud held definite shapes: three figures lying supine in the muck, eyes closed, only dead-white faces and chests visible. I thought I recognized Mr. Crenshaw, the bookish guy from Alicia’s soirée the other night. He was either asleep or in a pleasurable coma. A waft of steam rose from the mud, to be sucked away by ceiling vents.

  There was a small dressing table beside each bath; the patrons’ clothes were folded neatly atop them. Clancy stopped next to Crenshaw’s stall.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “You two go on,” she nodded at the stone entrance to the next gallery. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

  I didn’t like the idea of separating. “Why?”

  She shot me an impatient look “I’ll be there, Ed! I just want to check on things here a second.”

  “Come on,” Mitzi told me, “she’s probably picking their pockets for loose change.”

  I followed the dog’s slightly limping form down the rocky tunnel to the next chamber. “Any idea how we’re going to explain the beat-up pit bull?” I asked her on the way.

  “Beats me,” she glanced about. “The rats are pretty big around here.”

  The vat—a twenty-by-thirty steel kettle, actually—took up most of the next chamber. It squatted on steel legs like a dark metal spider, or one of those old water towers you used to see, except this had part of its bulbous top missing. It was from that open top that the burbling sound was emanating. Surrounding the whole thing was a maze of tubes and refining equipment. Once corner was stacked high with what I assumed were boxes of empty blue jars. Everything was done by hand here.

  It all smelled pretty awful.

  “They must add the perfume later,” I noted.

  Mitzi looked up at the burbling lip, twenty feet above us. “How am I supposed to get up there to make pee-pee?” she asked dubiously.

  I cast about the shiny underbelly. “Over there. A little spiral staircase. And look, there’s a small metal platform at the top. Come on, I’ll help you.”

  “Did I mention I’m afraid of heights?”

  “You’re a dog.”

  She looked at me. “Thank-you, Edward, I’m sure there was something cohesive about that remark.”

  I urged her toward the winding stairs and handrail.

  Halfway up the curving metal steps, she halted in front of me, head hanging.

  “What’s the matter? Are you sick?”

  She nodded. “I have to pee.”

  “Well, hold it! We’re almost there!”

  “It’s the height. I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Like hell you are! Climb!”

  I turned at the sound of hollow footsteps below us.

  Clancy stood down there looking up. “Is everything all right?” she called softly, hands cupped to her mouth.

  “She’s afraid of heights.”

  Clancy made an exasperated sound. “Tell her to close her eyes!”

  Mitzi lifted her head to me, then craned down at Clancy. “That’s brilliant, Irish! That’s terrific! Climb the tiny little narrow stairs blind! Why didn’t I think of that? Tell you what, Madam Curie, why don’t you come up here and lift your leg in the batter and I’ll come down there and micro-manage!”

  I clutched the thin rail, groaned. “Don’t start, you guys…”

  “No, it’s okay!” Clancy called. “She’s right! I was being thoughtless! She’s been through enough already, poor thing! Tell her to come back down…” Pause. “…if she’s afraid.”

  That warning rumble in the poodle’s throat.

  “That contemptuous Irish bitch…”

  “Mitzi,” I tried calmly, “save your breath. In fact, take three deep ones, hold the last for a moment, then try the next step up. We’re out of time! The walking dead are going to be up and around any minute! You know how cranky those people can be when they wake up!”

  Mitzi nodded gamely, took the next step…then the next…and suddenly, magically, we were at the top. We stepped out carefully on the little workman’s platform, stared down into the pasty stew within the bubbling mouth of the cauldron.

  A few silent moments passed.

  “What’s the matter now?” Clancy called, hardly bothering to lower her voice anymore.

  I leaned over the rail. “She can’t pee!”

  Clancy stepped back, incredulous. “She what?!”

  “She can’t make water just now!”

  “For the love of—her eyes were floating an hour ago!”

  “I wasn’t trying to pee off a high dive an hour ago!” Mitzi glared up at me from behind her lifted leg. “And you! Stop watching!”

  “Since when are you so demure? You irrigated half the park in front of me!”

  “You’re not helping!”

  “Christ!” I slumped back against the rail. “What do you want me to do? I can’t run tap water up here!”

  “I need to be alone!”

  I threw up my hands, called back over the rail. “Clancy, I’m coming back dow—“

  But Clancy wasn’t listening.

  She was staring solemnly at the three mud dripping figures surrounding her…

  TWELVE

  “Get down!” I hissed at Mitzi, and thankfully she dropped flat to the steel mesh floor of the platform.

  “I don’t think they can see you from down there!” I whispered. “Stay put!”

  Then I stepped boldly to the rail and waved expansively below. “Good evening, gentlemen!”

  Three mud faces turned to look up at me.

  “Hope we didn’t wake you!” I glanced poker-faced at Clancy but she seemed to have it mostly under control. “Be right with you!”

  I started down the winding stairs jauntily.

  All three men were wrapped in mud-dripping terrycloth robes, gathered before Clancy on the flagstones. She was talking reassuringly to them. She turned, smiling, at my approach. “Ed! Just in time!” She gestured at the portliest of the three to her right. “You remember His Honor the Mayor…”

  “I certainly do!” extending my hand, “good to see you again, sir!”

  The Mayor gave me a quick up and down, finally smiled companionably. “My pleasure, Mr.—“

  “Sutter,” I said quickly in case Clancy forgot. “Ed Sutter.”

  “—Sutter, that’s it! From Alicia’s party, I believe!” He turned up a dry-caking hand apologetically. “You’ll forgive me for not shaking, Mr. Sutter! The three of us were just at the baths!”

  “Yes,” I chimed in personably, “Miss Cummings was just telling me all about them! Fascinating.”

  The mayor pivoted left, gestured toward a balding mud head. “You recall Bill Benson, and Kevin Crenshaw from the party! Crenshaw here’s usually bespectacled! Gentlemen, say hello again to Mr. Sutter!”

  Everyone helloed, bowed politely.

  Crenshaw was wiping his hands on his robe, reaching into the terrycloth pocket for his glasses. “So, Mr. Sutter—“

  “Ed. Please.”

  “Ed. Clancy here was telling us you’re thinking of taking the plunge! I wasn’t even aware you’d signed your
card!”

  “Just yesterday,” I lied through my teeth.

  “Wonderful!” from Bill Benson. “Miss Cummings says you’re as trustworthy as you are smart! And we need both on our team! Welcome aboard! Uh…when were you turned, again?”

  “Recently.”

  “Ah. Good. Well, our Clancy’s quite the salesgirl so I shouldn’t be surprised to see you around again if you’ve already made it down here to the famous dungeon!”

  “I certainly hope so!” I smiled. And added: “But not too famous!”

  And everyone laughed good naturedly at that, Clancy gracing me with a smile that said: Don’t press your luck!

  “We were about to shower and go for a drink,” from the Mayor, “would you two like to join us?”

  “Some other time, perhaps,” I said, “afraid I’ve already made plans.”

  “And I’m a working girl!” Clancy laughed too loud and kept on laughing until everyone was chuckling with her.

  “Well, then,” the Mayor nodded, “I’m going to excuse myself and get this layer cake off! It’s my last time at the baths tonight! Tomorrow I go into full sunlight with the aid of our lovely Alicia’s astonishing lotion! Have you seen it yet, Ed? The miracle lotion?”

  “I certainly have. Remarkable product!”

  “Ingenious is the word! Just like the formidable Alicia herself. Well, then—“ and he started to turn with the others, but Benson was giving me a studied look. “Say, you were the chap who returned Alicia’s dog that night, weren’t you?”

  I felt a wedge of unease. “Guilty as charged!”

  “That’s right,” Crenshaw chimed in, “and then it got away again! The same night. What ever happened to that strange animal?”

  “Lost/Died,” Clancy and I said at the same time.

  Crenshaw frowned.

  “Lost first,” I injected, “and then she died.”

  “Oh, dear,” from Benson, “how unfortunate.” Then winking, he leaned toward the group. “Though between the five of us, I must say that was the ugliest damn beast I’ve ever laid eyes on! What the devil breed was it, anyway?”

  The others laughed.

  I chuckled along. “Poodle mix, I believe.”

  “Mixed with what?” from the cherubic mayor, “Warthog?”

  And another round of hearty, mud-dripping laughter.

  Which stopped suddenly.

  When something splashed and dripped off Benson’s bald head.

  Something yellow.

  “What the hell—“the Mayor started, holding out a hand as if to catch rain. “Is the cave leaking?”

  He tilted back his head in time to catch a fresh splash raining from the worker’s platform.

  “It’s piss!” Crenshaw exclaimed.

  “From him!” Benson shouted, pointing upward at Mitzi’s head peeking over the platform end. “It’s that same damn dog! Alicia’s dog!”

  I was getting the studied look from Benson again. “You said he was dead.”

  I smiled uncertainly, held up innocent hands. “No, I said he was lost.”

  “You said dead,” the Mayor rumbled suspiciously, jerking a thumb at Clancy. “She said lost!”

  “What the hell’s going on?” Benson demanded. “How’d that animal get in here?”

  “We found/brought him,” Clancy and I said together.

  I shrugged a smile. “Well, we found him first. Then brought him. Along. With us.”

  “Something screwy here!” Crenshaw was sure, fishing his smartphone from his lumpy robe pocket. “--I’m calling Alicia.”

  Clancy and I stood there a heartbeat watching Crenshaw punch in numbers.

  “Hello? Alicia--?”

  --then a brown blur smashed into Crenshaw and his phone, driving them to the stone floor.

  Crenshaw sat a stunned moment, looked up at us aghast.

  The other two men looked back at Crenshaw aghast.

  For a moment everything seemed frozen.

  Then Mitzi rolled to her feet amid the startled vampires and locked eyes with Clancy. “Run!” crashed into my brain harshly, but whether it was from Mitzi or Clancy or both I couldn’t be sure.

  Abruptly Clancy’s pretty face twisted into a loathsome sneer, her eyes like hot agates. “He’s a spy! Get him!” And she leapt on me.

  I was too shocked to defend myself.

  In the next instant Clancy and I were thrashing across the cold stones, her steel fingers about my horrified throat. “Kill the dog!” she screamed at the others.

  From the corner of my vision I saw Benson and the mayor leap at Mitzi with a speed that can only be described as inhuman. But Mitzi was no slouch herself, and trying to wrestle her into their muddy hands was tantamount to holding onto a greased pig. In a moment she shot through their arms and landed hard on Clancy’s back. Clancy shrieked as white canines sank into her neck.

  “Lying bitch--get off him!” the poodle screamed in my head.

  She shook Clancy like a terrier shakes a rat. A mist of blood sprayed over me as Clancy, howling like a banshee, was flung across the stone gallery, somersaulting. Even then she was shouting at the others. “Get Sutter, you fools! Kill him!”

  Benson got to me first but then Mitzi had him by the ankle and slammed him down on his surprised face. “Will you kill that fucking dog?” I heard Clancy yelling in the background.

  Then Mitzi had me by the shirt sleeve, yanking me to my feet. “The phone!” her voice bloomed in my skull. “Get the phone!”

  For a moment I had no idea what she was talking about.

  Then I saw Crenshaw’s mud-caked smartphone lying on the flagstones a few yards away. I barely had time to grab it before Mitzi was at my pant cuffs and dragging me past the steaming row of mud baths. “Front door of the shop!” she cried and, needing no further encouragement, I bounded after her.

  “Damn you!” Clancy was screaming behind us, “will you bumbling slugs get them?”

  “I will not go outdoors naked!” I heard the Mayor protest huffily.

  “Idiots!” from Clancy, but Benson and Crenshaw’s footfalls were pounding behind us, and vampires can move, let me tell you.

  Just before we reached the earthen foot of the cellar stairs, Mitzi jarred my teeth once again by jerking me into a darkened alcove beside them. She shoved her rump against me and pushed me further back into the shadowed wall. “Now don’t breathe!” she commanded.

  In another instant, Crenshaw, Benson and the Mayor, trailed by a sprinting Clancy, were thundering up the stairs past us.

  Their echoing footfalls gradually diminished upward.

  “We’re trapped down here!” I told the dog.

  “Shh! No we’re not! Just stand still and listen a minute…”

  I waited, stomping shoes still receding above us. A moment later I heard one of the vampires yanking open the door to the cellar. Then came a terrible animal roar. Followed quickly by a series of surprised yelps.

  “Okay,” Mitzi urged, “now! Let’s get out of here!”

  She led me across the stone floor past the baths again. “I thought you said you killed the pit bull!” I panted.

  Mitzi chuckled. “I said I ‘disposed’ of him. Thought he might make good back door getaway insurance.”

  I was about to congratulate her when the pit bull’s high pitched yelp of pain reached us.

  Dead silence a moment, then the returning tramp of the avenging mob coming our way again, back down the stone staircase. “Now the guard dog’s killed,” Mitzi said.

  I shuddered disbelief as I ran. “The Mayor—Benson? They’re that strong?”

  “You wouldn’t believe it, Eddie.”

  “Christ,” I huffed, lung laboring, “we’re all dead!”

  “No, we’re not,” and Mitzi nudged me left with her shoulder.

  --straight into a blind alley.

  I skidded to a halt. “What the hell? We’re cut off!”

  But Mitzi was pawing anxiously at the blank wall, nose to the floor, sniffing. “There’s a
hidden lever here somewhere…camouflaged to look like just another part of the stone…”

  Her paw depressed something and the “wall” slid back with a sibilant pneumatic hiss.

  Mitzi turned to me, panting proudly. “Just like Star Trek, huh, Sport? C’mon!”

  We leapt through into yet another rocky tunnel as the wall hissed closed behind us.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later we were up to our asses (literally) in cesspool water.

  The stench was unbelievable.

  My voice rang repugnance from the smooth, circular walls of the Topeka Sewer and Drainage System. “—I mean, I can see how you thought hiding underground is a good idea,” I said, “but a sewer? The smell!”

  Mitzi sat beside me on a small patch of dry concrete, eyes fixed to the curving cement roof ten feet above us. “That smell is saving your life,” she told me calmly. “Vampires have olfactory nerves nearly as good as mine. This level of stench is about the only kind of thing that masks our odor from them. And please keep your voice down, it carries a mile down here. You’ve really got to try talking with your mind.”

  I shook my head, arms propped on wet, stinking knees. “I have. Not very good at it.”

  “Well, practice.”

  When I didn’t answer, Mitzi looked up at me. Saw my listless demeanor.

  She sighed, looked back up at the ceiling as if seeing through it to the street above. “Are you really surprised, Eddie? I told you she was an Irish bitch.”

  I put my head in my hand wearily. “I just don’t get it. I mean, why this circuitous runaround through shops and catacombs? Why not just bite my neck and get it over with?”

  “You’re a Reader,” she said, “Alicia is fascinated by Readers. Wants to study them. See what makes them tick. Vivisect one someday.”

  “Great,” I grunted. “I feel so much better now.”

  Mitzi stiffened suddenly, nostrils flaring. “Sh!”

  I turned to her. “What is it--?”

  Her eyes were riveted to the dripping ceiling. “Footsteps up there! They’re searching for us!”

  I suppressed a chill, cocked my head, ears straining. “I don’t hear a thing…”

  “You’re not a full-blooded award winning poodle.”

  “Neither are you.”

  “Shut-up.”