Nothing good, that’s what.
Sure they’d overwhelm me eventually, but they had to know I’d take a lot of them with me. Not to mention I was up on the second level and they were mostly down below.
None of the vamps up on the scaffolding made a move to stop me. The ones closest to me couldn’t make a move to stop me even if they wanted to considering the state of their bodies.
Tough shit.
“Look, what if I make you a deal?” I asked.
The vamp held up a hand to stop the horde of vampires that wasn’t converging on me. His mouth twitched in irritation. He had to realize it wasn’t necessary to call off his minions since his minions all seemed too scared shitless to actually take me on.
“A deal?” he asked.
“Yeah. You tell me where my daughter is and I don’t kill you. Tonight.”
The vamp threw his head back and laughed. It was a cruel laugh I recognized from the night the asshole killed Rachel. Oh I was going to enjoy messing up this asshole.
“Big words from a little man,” the vampire said.
I reached into my pocket. Pulled out a simple lighter I’d picked up from a gas station on the way out here. I flicked it once and let the flame dance.
“Yeah? Well I’m the man who’s killed everything you sent at me. Seems to me you might want to take me and my offers a little more seriously.”
The vamp stared down at the lighter. Moved back up to my face. There was hesitation there. Uncertainty.
He knew what I was capable of.
I could see the wheels turning in the vamp’s brain. Sure it looked like I was holding up a simple lighter. Sure there wasn’t really anything anyone could do with a flame that small.
But…
I’d done a lot of damage. I’d proved surprisingly resourceful when it came to killing vampires. Obviously this head vampire asshole had to weigh all of that death and destruction I’d left in my wake when he looked at that simple flame and wondered what the hell I had up my sleeve.
“Last chance asshole,” I said.
“Kill him,” the vampire said.
It was simple. Matter of fact. No villainous screeching. No monologues about how I was going to regret it or I needed to join the vampire so we could rule campuses around the state as father and son.
A simple declaration. We were beyond the bullshit. It was a simple acknowledgement of everything I’d done to hurt him and his people. The time for games was over.
Unfortunately for that asshole he thought all his newly turned college minions meant he was holding a royal flush. Meanwhile I was holding a lighter I was going to use to burn all the fucking cards at the table to ash and destroy the game before anyone else could be dealt in.
I shrugged. “Your funeral. Assuming there’s still anyone around to come to your funeral. Not like I was planning on letting you live even if you told me what I wanted.”
I looked up. It was no coincidence that I was standing where I was. There was a sprinkler right overhead and all I had to do was step on a couple of twitching vamps who’d been seriously maimed when I blew the door.
“What the hell are you doing?” the head vamp asked with a laugh. “Do you think we’re witches from a movie or something? Vampires don’t melt in water! Sprinkler systems don’t even work like that!”
I locked eyes with him. Grinned. The sort of grin that said I knew something the vampire didn’t. The sort of grin that had the vampire taking a step back because he suddenly seemed to realize that maybe he’d done fucked up, and it was going to be the last time he ever fucked up.
I’d been seeing that look a lot the past few nights.
I put the flame to the sprinkler. Normally this was Hollywood bullshit that wouldn’t work. The head vamp was absolutely right about that. I shouldn’t be able to set off the entire system with one lighter against one sprinkler.
Of course that was before I did a little bit of tinkering with the main control for the fire suppression system. Those movies also depicted residential or commercial buildings, not factories where fire suppression was taken a hell of a lot more seriously because an out of control fire could very rapidly turn into and out of control explosion.
That meant it only took a little bit of fucking with the ancient system, something I was familiar with from going on so many false alarm calls to ancient buildings around the university where I’d had been given a crash course in similar systems, to set it up so the whole damn thing went off at the first whiff of heat in one part of the system.
Hopefully. That was the idea, but it was an old system. I’d be royally fucked if it didn’t work as intended.
I held my breath. This could still go very wrong in a lot of different ways. All it would take was the system being too old or the heat from my lighter not setting off the chain reaction I’d gone for and…
The fire suppression went off above me. Then it moved out in a literal cascade from my sprinkler to every other sprinkler in the building until the entire room was coated in a black wet sludge.
That was something else they never showed in the movies. The water sitting in the massive tank I’d said a few words over before I left the fire suppression control room had probably been sitting there for decades. At least since the last time the system was inspected. Which meant it didn’t look pretty.
The water was disgusting, but it did its job. It coated the vampires just like I’d planned. Though there was a moment where I worried the second part of my plan wasn’t going to work.
It’d been a hell of a long shot to begin with. I wasn’t sure if being ordained on the Internet would even count, but any port in a storm.
The head vampire threw his head back and let out a maniacal cackle. Other vampires seemed to finally realize it might be worthwhile to go after me. That I didn’t have anything up my sleeve after all. There weren’t going to be any more hail Marys. I wasn’t going to pull out another set of LED lights that created a circle of death around me.
I started to sink. I looked down and blinked some of the grimy water away. The vampire body I stood on to get to the fire suppression system was shrinking. Pulling in on itself.
Steaming and turning to a puddle of vampire goo.
Ugh. It was going to be a real bitch getting that off my boots. Like we’re talking I was going to have to throw them away and get a new pair now.
I looked up. All around me vampires twitched and steamed and convulsed as the water hit them. They all started rapidly decomposing into vampire goo. Vampires on the scaffolding dripped down through the grated metal flooring creating a disgusting rain of vampire goo that fell on the disgusting flood of vampire goo down below.
I wasn’t sure what smelled worse. The decomposing vampires all around me or the water coming out of the sprinklers.
I walked across the scaffolding to the central area. Looked down at the sticky mess that until moments ago had been the head vampire who killed my wife.
I felt a profound sense of satisfaction. Rachel’s life was avenged. Sure I still didn’t have Zoey and I had no fucking clue how to find her, but at least I’d accomplished part of what I’d set out to do.
I looked down to the factory floor. To the lights and DJ equipment were covered in vampire muck.
Yeah, maybe I’d done more than that. There was a very good chance I’d just saved the world tonight. At the very least I’d saved whatever universities they planned on infecting with their bloodsucking plague.
It was a weird feeling, but it was also a good feeling knowing I’d ended so many undead with nothing but my wits and a lighter.
I leaned against a spot on the railing that wasn’t covered in vampire goo. There weren’t many. I looked down at the chaos I’d created.
“Good fucking thing that online ordination was enough to create holy water,” I muttered.
It’d been a desperate gamble. I wasn’t sure if getting ordained online would “count” in the eyes of the Almighty or whatever higher power turned holy water into pur
e acid for vampires.
Apparently it’d been good enough for whatever higher power called the shots on that sort of thing. And apparently blessing the sprinkler control system’s reserve tank was enough to spread that blessing to the rest of the water in the system.
Yeah, it had been a long shot, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to argue with results.
I sighed. I might’ve gotten some great results with this crazy scheme and some higher power that recognized Internet priests, but I wasn’t done. I might’ve saved the world, but my little girl was still out there somewhere.
At least I could take some comfort in knowing she wasn’t down there in the crowd of vamps. No, I figured if the asshole who killed Rachel actually had my daughter he would’ve pulled her out to taunt me way earlier.
I pulled out a cigar and lit it. Took a couple of deep puffs and coughed. I might be the tough bastard who just took out a massive vampire plan to infiltrate college campuses in the region as a first step towards taking over the world, but it had been way too long since I’d smoked these things.
What can I say? Tonight felt like the kind of night for getting back into some bad old habits.
38
In Custody
I stared down at the muck and goo that had been an entire factory floor of vampires until a few moments ago. There wasn’t a chance I was making my way through all that to the front door.
I took another puff from my cigar. The longer I had the thing between my lips the more I got used to it. The more I wondered why I’d ever given them up.
Because of my wife. That’s why. A wave of grief washed over me. It was as though finally killing the bastard who’d killed her was opening the floodgates. All the pain I’d kept bottled in covered in a fresh layer of rage was roaring to the surface.
For a moment I actually contemplated throwing myself over the edge of the scaffolding. Sure it might be a little gross landing in vampire muck, but the floor was far enough below that it would do the job.
The moment passed almost as quickly as it hit me. No. I wasn’t going to do anything like that. That wasn’t who I was.
My little girl was still out there. She still needed me. I could mourn Rachel when I found Zoey. If I ever found her.
I dropped some ash down into the muck below. I was pretty sure that was safe. Vampire goo didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would be flammable, after all.
I sighed. A puff of smoke came out with the sigh. No, I was far from done. I might have saved the world, or at the very least the partying population at several colleges in the region, but I hadn’t come close to saving my soul.
It would take saving my little girl to do that.
I flicked the cigar down to the vampire goo below. It was time to get the hell out of here and figure out what the hell my next step was. The problem was I had no idea what the fuck that step was or what I was going to do to track down the assholes who had Zoey.
Obviously the head vampire guy I’d killed here tonight wasn’t the actual head vampire dude. That or he’d sent my daughter off to some other head vampire dude for safekeeping because he figured he wasn’t long for this world once I went on my rampage.
Either way it was another headache, and the long and short of it was I was probably going to have to do a lot of sucking up to Anderson and Hooks before this was all said and done to get access to some of their resources and figure out where the hell they might be keeping Zoey.
I had other problems right now though. Problems that were far more pressing than the prospect of sucking up to Anderson and Hooks. Like the fact that the vampire guts and muck down below ignited the moment my smoldering cigar made contact and the fire was spreading as though I’d just dropped the thing on gasoline.
Damn. So much for vampire guts not being flammable. They were more than that. They were a fucking accelerant. And from the way it was behaving it was working its way up to something impressive. Something I didn’t want to be around for.
I really fucking hoped that Claire girl got the rest of the college kids out of here. Otherwise they were about to have one hell of a bad night.
I bolted for the exit. It was made a little difficult by some of the vampire muck that had dripped on the scaffolding as they melted their way through, turns out it’s hard to keep your footing on dead vampire muck, but soon enough I was outside and taking the stairs three at a time.
The stairs went about halfway down the building and then doubled back to go to the ground level. I didn’t bother doubling back. I vaulted over the edge as soon as I was halfway down the building, and it was a good fucking thing I was pumped with adrenaline because I barely felt it as I made contact with the ground and kept running.
My ankles were going to really feel that later. It wasn’t any worse than landing after jumping out of a plane, but it had been a long while since I’d done anything stupid like that so my body wasn’t used to it.
I sprinted along the side of the building. As I ran I caught flickers of light in my peripheral vision and figured that was the fire building up inside the building, but I’d never seen a fire that flickered with an alternating red and blue and purple and even a couple of colors I’m pretty sure no mortal had ever seen before and lived to tell the tale.
Fuck.
What I really needed to do was get the hell away from the building, but I couldn’t get those college kids I’d saved out of my head. They’d come out of an emergency exit along the side of the building somewhere, and I’d be really pissed off if I got them away from the vampire blood factory only to have them die in the subsequent explosion I’d inadvertently caused.
I rounded the edge and found myself running up against a bunch of cop cars and a large crowd of the college kids I’d saved down in the basement. And sure enough they were standing right in front of the massive brick building that was going to turn to so much brick shrapnel if it went off like I thought it was.
I wasn’t sure what that vampire muck was made of, but it was sure as fuck behaving like gas which meant there’d probably been vampire muck fumes building up around me while I enjoyed my cigar and all those fumes were going to go up any moment now.
Or maybe there wasn’t a physical explanation for it. Maybe supernatural vampire muck was magically explosive. No further explanation needed.
Either way, those kids and those city cops needed to get the fuck away from the building. And they needed to get the fuck away from there five minutes ago.
I sighed. This night just wasn’t my fucking night.
People turned to face me. Cops and students alike. I figured I must’ve looked like one hell of a sight. Tearing across the parking lot as fast as my legs would carry me trailing vampire much and waving frantically when I realized I had their attention.
“You need to get the fuck out of here!” I shouted. “It’s gonna blow!”
One of the windows chose that moment to blow out and purple flames roared out in a massive column that couldn’t be explained by regular fire. No, regular flames didn’t turn purple. They also didn’t scream with the tortured souls of the damned, but that column of flame sure as hell did.
Oh fuck no. It looked like vampire muck created a supernatural fire after all. No natural explanation needed. That was the last thing I needed on top of everything else.
As I drew closer I noticed something really odd. The cops were campus cops. Not city PD. What the hell were they doing out here just on the other side of the line that marked their jurisdiction?
“Byron?” Hendricks shouted. “What the fuck are you going on about?”
The campus cops had formed a circle around the college kids. Like they were trying to keep them from getting away or something. What the fuck was going on here? I didn’t save all those kids from fucking vampires running a blood factory just so they could get killed in an explosion I may or may not have inadvertently created.
“Get the fuck out of here! Are you fucking blind? It’s going to blow!”
That seemed to g
et through to the group of college kids. Claire stood near the front by one of the campus cops. A guy I recognized, but he was on the day shift so I had no idea what the fuck his name was. Claire didn’t look too happy with the guy, that was for sure, and she took charge of the situation just like she had down below.
She stepped forward and rammed her shoulder into him which caused him to go to the ground looking very surprised.
That was enough for the rest of them. Claire might’ve been in trouble if she was the only one who acted, but her shoulder check was enough to cause a college kid stampede and a moment later they were all running as fast as their legs could carry them across the parking lot to freedom.
“Motherfucker,” Hendricks cursed. “Would you assholes please take care of them!”
I frowned as I pulled up next to Hendricks.
“What are you going on about? Those kids were attacked by vampires. Let them go!”
Hendricks shook his head. “You never knew when to leave well enough alone, did you Byron? Always getting in trouble.”
I opened my mouth to tell Hendricks exactly what I thought about that, then I realized Hendricks hadn’t hit me with a line about how vampires weren’t real. He’d just said I had a habit of not leaving well enough alone. Which sounded suspiciously like the sort of thing someone might say if they were in on a conspiracy.
“Let those kids go Hendricks,” I said, my voice suddenly quiet.
“I’m sorry Byron,” he said. “But I get paid a lot of good money to make sure those kids don’t stick around to talk about things like what happened here tonight, and now you’ve gone and fucked it up by helping them escape. Do you know how much fucking extra work that’s gonna make for me you asshole?”
I moved without thinking. One moment I was standing next to Hendricks and the next Hendricks was on the ground with my fist repeatedly making contact with his smarmy mustached face.
Blake Byron: Paranormal Investigator Page 24