by Jeffrey Ford
“What now?”
“I was wondering if you could show me your husband’s gun. You know, the gat.”
“Why?”
He was taken aback, and grasped at the first lie he could think of. “I have a friend who trades in old guns. He told me that a lot of times, they don’t have to be all that old and people usually don’t know their value. In other words, you could be sitting on a mint.”
“A mint? Please. For that old peashooter?”
He thought his ploy had failed, but after Mrs. Hultz had finished the slice of pizza she was working on, she got up and went into the dining room. He watched her go to a hutch and open a waist-high middle drawer. From it she retrieved a revolver. She closed the drawer with her hip and grasped the gun by the handle. “I’ll fill you full of lead,” she said, the gun wobbling in her unsteady grip.
“Do you have bullets for it?”
“It’s loaded right now.”
“Loaded,” he yelled. “Don’t point it at me.” He squirmed in his chair and it reminded him of Helen at the Busy Bee when she first faced the gunman’s weapon.
“Don’t be such a wimp,” she said, and handed the gun over to him. “I think it’s a Colt .38 Special. Some cops in the thirties carried them. I don’t know where Stan got it.”
“OK,” said Owen, “I just wanted to see it. I’ll tell my friend and ask what he thinks it’s worth.”
Mrs. Hultz walked back into the dining room. “I don’t know if I’d ever sell it,” she said. “You know, sentimental value.” She returned the gun to the middle drawer. A little while later, when she got up to go to the bathroom, Owen went to the hutch, opened the drawer, and carefully put the gun into his jacket pocket. When Mrs. Hultz returned to the living room, she grilled him on her babysitting assignment. He told her his friend Kiara would bring the baby over to her house, which would make it easier. She said that was fine.
“Tell her to remember some of the child’s toys and a blanket, and if she has a fold-down crib for him to sleep in, that would be great,” said Mrs. Hultz.
“Got it,” said Owen, and then washed the plates and glasses they’d used while she cleaned up and put the leftover pizza in the refrigerator. Soon after, he went back to his place, where he texted Kiara and told her he’d secured a babysitter. He gave her his address and told her he’d lifted the gun from Mrs. Hultz. She wrote back that she’d be over in about an hour, and then added, “Don’t shoot yourself.” He was, at first, surprised by her sense of humor, but then it came to him she might not be kidding. Looking at the gun he’d laid on his kitchen table, he saw the muzzle pointed directly at him. With his pinky finger, he slowly spun the business end of the weapon away.
As he sat musing about Crenshaw and Kiara and Mrs. Hultz, something nagged at him. The entire situation was, in fact, ridiculous. A vampire? A vampire painter, no less. Running around after dark in the guise of a disembodied spirit, interceding in some age-old power struggle between good and evil. All that was swirling in his thoughts, but the one thing foremost on his mind was Melody. He didn’t think it was fair involving her. It was too dangerous and only a matter of time before the old man figured out who his invisible guests were. Perhaps he already knew. She had twice as much to lose, seeing as she was married and had children. He hoped to see her that night and talk her out of participating in whatever plan he and Kiara could stir up.
The sun had nearly set when Kiara showed up at his door with William in her arms. She was frowning and the baby was smiling. She was wearing all black: tight black jeans, a black T-shirt, athletic shoes, and a concealed-carry tactical bag slung across her back. He let her in and they sat at the table in the kitchen. He made her coffee but he had warm milk, hoping it would make him drowsy so he’d fall asleep quicker. She put the toddler down and he waddled off into the living room with his puppy doll and plopped down on the carpet. “Got any ideas?” asked Owen.
Kiara nodded. She pulled out her phone and signaled she was going to text him. Crenshaw could be spying on them from his own OBE. Owen turned his screen on and waited while she typed, her fingers moving in a blur over the tiny keyboard. A few seconds later, there was a ding and he looked down. The message read, When you achieve night world, go to the painter’s and find him. Look for best way in. Once night comes, we can bet he’ll be awake, so no worries that he’ll be in the night world. I need to take him by surprise.
Owen nodded to show he understood, then typed, How will I communicate with you?
Leave phone on, volume turned up, she wrote. I’ll call and wake you before going in and you can give me the info. We’ll set a time. Midnight.
1, he texted back.
She nodded her agreement.
If I haven’t traveled, he wrote, don’t enter the house. He’s fast and vicious.
“OK,” she said aloud, putting down her phone. She then picked up Mrs. Hultz’s gun from the table. Grabbing it by the handle, she aimed it away from them and unlatched the cylinder. With her free hand, she pushed the cylinder through the frame to reveal all the chambers. She squinted, then latched it closed. “You’ve only got two bullets in here,” she said.
Owen nodded like he knew it all along, and she shook her head.
“Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you see what it is you’re going to shoot. You don’t want to misfire with only two bullets. With these rounds, you can hurt him and stop him for a minute or two. That’s all the time it’ll buy you. I doubt you’ll have to use it, but if you do, aim for the heart or the head. The heart of the Ambrogio is dead center.” She pointed directly at her solar plexus.
Owen and Kiara took William next door to Mrs. Hultz’s house, along with his paraphernalia of playpen and bottles and blankets. The old lady was, of course, as Owen had expected, nearly unbearable. Taking William in her arms, she led Kiara around the dining room, where all her photos were on the hutch and the wall surrounding it. “I have three children, all daughters,” she said. “All grown and married.” Owen guessed she took the young mother on a tour of her family in order to illustrate there was nothing to worry about, her baby was in good hands. That wasn’t enough, though. She went on to point out the photos of Owen when he was a baby and in grade school, high school, et cetera. “He was cute,” said his neighbor.
“I’ve always gone for the pale, nerdy types,” said Kiara.
“Well, you hit paydirt with this one,” said Mrs. Hultz.
Owen could feel himself blushing.
“We have to get going,” he said.
Kiara ran through her nightly routine with William. Mrs. Hultz nodded and said, “Everything will be fine, dear. Go and have a wonderful time. Don’t worry if you get back late; you can always pick him up in the morning. He can sleep in his playpen. I’ll watch him like a hawk.”
As they walked next door, Owen said, “The pale, nerdy ones?”
For the first time, he heard Kiara laugh out loud. They wished each other good luck. He quietly slipped into his house and, without turning on the lights, headed for the bedroom. Outside he heard two car doors open and close. He smiled, knowing Kiara was working to throw Mrs. Hultz off from suspecting anything amiss. As the vehicle pulled away, he laid his head upon the pillow, closed his eyes, and tried to think of anything but the old man’s bloody maw.
13
WHEN HE AWOKE IN a state of paralysis, he struggled to turn and see the clock on his nightstand, but, of course, he was unable to move so much as a toe. He gained control of himself by deep breathing and concentrating on those counting on him. It took quite a while, but eventually he achieved release from his body and floated up and out onto the street. The night had changed since he’d been at Mrs. Hultz’s place with Kiara. There was a thick fog infused with scattered streetlight glow, and the night world looked more magical and more frightening than he’d yet experienced it. The thought came to him before he headed in the direction of the meet-up spot with Melody that they’d again have to enter the lair of the Ambrogio.
&nb
sp; His nerves settled somewhat when he saw, through the holes in the hedge, the pale blue form of Melody. Instead of leaping over the shrubs from next to the picnic table, he passed through it. She was standing with arms folded, staring up through the fog as if trying to see the moon. “Back to hell?” she asked. Owen told her the plan and she nodded. “Sounds reasonable. And the woman, Kiara, has the means to kill it?”
“She has a gun that shoots bullets with phosphorous. What phosphorous has to do with it, I have no idea.”
“The ammunition probably bursts into flames when it strikes.”
They left the backyard and bounded down the street toward the center of town. The pace and height of their jumps was almost perfectly synchronized. “I found something out you’re not going to like any better than I do,” she said.
“What now?” said Owen. “I’m already shaking.”
“These creatures have the ability to sever one’s silver cord when in the night-world state.”
“Wait,” said Owen, and landed on the sidewalk across the street from the Busy Bee. “What the hell?”
“That’s what my teacher told me,” said Melody.
“Who’s this teacher of yours?”
“A very old woman. She’s an experienced traveler who has encountered almost every possible circumstance one can in the night world. She’s taught me about traveling the night world since my original teacher passed away.”
“Did she happen to have any possible weapons or defenses against the old man?”
“There’s only one other thing that might buy us a little more time or space. There’s a way to exert minimal physical force by gathering energy from the ethereal form.”
“What’s that mean?”
“If I concentrated, I could actually push Crenshaw away. I wouldn’t have the ability to hurt him, but merely to repel him. It drains an alarming amount of energy, though. I might still have the ability to bound away, but I wouldn’t be very swift.”
“Well, let’s hope he’s awake and not waiting for us in the night world. Could the physical force you emanate in your invisible form repel him in his physical form?”
They began traveling again. “Yes,” she said. “But it would be a weaker push than if both he and I were in the night world.”
“How is it done?”
“It’s too complicated for me to show you now. There’s a sophisticated string of imagery you focus on. You sort of have to charge up, like you’re revving an engine, then push outward with all your might.”
There was silence on the remainder of the journey down Margrave, past Feit’s old place, and along the two streets and their turns beyond it. They stood beneath the stand of oaks across the street from the house. The windows were completely dark, save for one light on in a third-floor window.
“Chilling,” said Owen. “I know this has nothing to do with dreams, but I’ve never been engaged in anything more nightmarish in my life. When I really think about it, the entire thing is madness.”
“I’m leery of it too,” said Melody, “but if we ignore it, it’s not going to go away.”
“But you have kids, and young kids at that.”
“How do you know how old my kids are?”
“I saw you in the market with your family.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” she said. “I like to keep separate my night travels and my waking life.”
“I understand. I was going to suggest that you leave this to me.”
“I can’t now. I’ve taken you on as a pupil.”
“Not to be grim, but I just don’t want to imagine your husband waking up one morning and finding your lifeless body next to him. That scares me more than this dark house.”
“Why?”
“It would be terrible for your children, for your partner. I care about you.”
“You do?”
“I do, and if you know me, that’s not like me at all. I’m pretty much a loner. I usually care more about a book out of place at the library than any person.”
She smiled. “I’ll keep it in mind. Now, come on, we only have an hour before Kiara is going to call and wake you.”
“Shit,” Owen whispered, and they started across the street.
They huddled inside the foyer, in the dark, for a few long minutes, listening to the creaks and pops of the big old house. There was no music playing. They knew the predator would be wary and somehow, to some extent, he could hear and smell them.
“Should we try upstairs first? If he’s up there, we can then look for a way for Kiara to get in down here.”
“It could be a trap, though. He’s as sly as the devil himself.”
“Maybe, but we might as well rule it out.”
“Do you recall seeing a stairway anywhere?”
As they spoke, they crept down the hallway. In every room, they encountered a night-light plugged into an outlet near the floor. That was enough to see most of a room, but anything could have been lurking in the deep shadows of the opposite corner. Owen’s stomach muscles trembled and the hairs on the back of his invisible neck were at attention. He was about to leap right up through three floors and out of the place. If he actually saw the painter come lunging out of the dark, growling, it would probably be startling enough to wake him into his body. If not, he’d certainly be finished. Melody, who led the way, was only a little braver than Owen, keeping her hands out in front of her like a kid playing Marco Polo.
They turned in a direction they’d not gone the previous night and discovered the stairs. “Let’s split up,” she said. “I’ll take the upper floors; you try the basement.”
“Underground?” said Owen.
“OK, I’ll take the basement.”
He shook his head and started up the stairs. She was moving toward the back of the house, and he called after her, “Psst. Where will we meet?”
“Outside, across the street. In a half hour.”
He ascended, mumbling to himself. On the second floor, there were rooms off the hallway. Again, paintings lined the wall. Owen found them enchanting, much like a fairy tale vision, and he admonished himself for doing so. The old man was a serial killer proffering romantic scenes of pale beauties in the moonlight. Tiptoeing along the thick carpet, although there was no reason to, he poked his head into each room. Nothing in the décor said vampire. Two were bedrooms and one was a study with wooden bookcases set into all the walls, save for a window and the door. Owen’s fear left him, and he wanted to go through the room and see what was on the shelves. Many of the volumes looked ancient and rare.
He stopped in the bathroom at the end of the hall and rested on the closed toilet lid. He listened intently and heard a faint sound coming from upstairs. He noticed an extra roll of toilet paper kept in a yellow crocheted hat exactly like the one his grandmother had in her bathroom. He got up, passed through the door, and headed for the stairs to the top floor. As he climbed, he heard a murmuring sound that grew more pronounced as he went. Again, on the third floor there was a hallway with a number of rooms off it. When he made it to the landing, he saw a light shining through a partially open door. It looked to be the room they’d noticed from the street.
He crept up to the open door and peered in. The old man was inside doing something. He could only see him from the back. He was leaning over, maybe painting on a flat desk instead of the easel. Owen stepped through the door. The sight of a body lying on a rolling gurney came into view. He drew slowly closer and saw it was a young man, his stomach split wide open and the flaps of flesh folded back to his sides. Organs and entrails glistened in the bright overhead light. Crenshaw was dipping a paintbrush into the gore of the gaping wound.
Owen turned, unable to look anymore, and staggered away. He could barely stay on his feet. Before he could flee, he realized what the murmuring was. The young man on the gurney was still alive, his eyes wide and glassy, his mouth moving ever so slightly and sound coming from it. It was as if he was trying to discuss with himself what the hell had happened to him. T
he librarian groaned, and when he did, he saw Crenshaw spin around and look toward the door where he stood. The painter stared directly at him. Owen froze and waited, trying to escape detection. The victim then groaned in a weaker voice, much the way Owen had, and the painter turned back to his infernal work.
He flew down the stairs in two long jumps from landing to landing. When he hit the main floor, he passed through walls and furniture, cutting straight to the front of the house and out onto the street. He made for the stand of oaks and stood in its deep shadow, shivering. There was no doubt in his mind that they had to try to kill this monster. A few minutes later, he saw Melody emerge from the side of the place. She bounded across the street and joined him.
“There are bodies in the basement, dried out, almost crystalized, hanging from the ceiling on steel hooks like tobacco curing. I wasn’t sure at first if they were human. He’s drying them out like beef jerky,” she said.
“How many?”
“A half dozen. There are also vats of blood simmering at a low boil and being slowly syphoned into bottles a drip at a time. There’s a walk-in freezer, frost on the walls, where he stores the bottles. It’s like his own little blood factory.”
“Is there any place for Kiara to get in?”
“Yes, there’s an unlatched window in a window well at the back of the house. She just has to push it open and ease herself down.”
“He’s upstairs painting with blood and guts. He’s got some guy on the verge of death with his stomach split open, and he’s dabbing a paintbrush in him. If I had my body with me, I’d have vomited. He was so intent on his work, it was almost ridiculous; the nonchalance. No matter how we hurry to get help, that guy on the table isn’t coming back.”
“It reeks of death a hundred times over down in the basement.”
“I hope Kiara shows up soon.”
While they stood there waiting, they tried to lean into each other to find comfort from the horror. He reached up and put an arm around Melody but it passed right through her. It must have been around one AM when they saw a car come up the street and pull over on the wooded side five or six houses down. Someone got out of the car and came toward their spot.