They Thirst

by Robert R. McCammon

  As they walked along a wide, cold corridor, Wes was aware of figures moving around them, shapes scurrying across their path, glittering eyes staring hungrily from arched doorways, hideous pallid faces hanging like death masks in the darkness, whispers and chuckling and an occasional knife-blade pierce of freezing laughter. Figures shambled out and plucked at their clothes; there were many young girls—black, white, and Chicano—who had the sad and ravenous eyes of street prostitutes but whose need now, Wes knew, was of a more terrible kind.

  Kobra herded them up a long, twisting stairway. On an upper corridor something leaped for Wes out of the darkness. A cold hand gripped his shoulder, fingers digging into the flesh, but immediately Kobra barked, “The Master wants them!” and the thing scurried back to whatever hole it had crawled from. Another figure—a very beautiful, blond woman in a black dress—stepped from a doorway and took Wes’s hand. She smiled at him seductively and nipped at his knuckles with her fangs, then slipped away and was gone.

  “Here,” Roach had said.

  They had waited almost an hour, guarded by Kobra and Roach, before the door opened again. When the black-garbed figure stepped into the orange glow of the firelight—Halloween colors around a face as sharply cut as an alabaster sculpture but strangely, in its own way, angelic—Wes had known that this was the thing they’d come to find. The Dark Angel. The Master. But…a boy, hardly older than an adolescent. The vampire’s eyes sparkled like emerald chips, his mouth twisted to one side in a mocking sort of smile. Beside him, Wes had heard Silvera catch his breath with a shudder. The vampire stared at them for a moment in silence, then his gaze had shifted toward Roach. “Go to the balcony and call the dogs in. Feed them and lock them away for the night.”

  Roach had taken a metallic, high-pitched, dog whistle from a back pocket and left the room. Wes had noticed how Roach had stepped back, his shoulders slumping in deference, when the boy vampire had come in. Even Kobra had made a slight bowing motion with his shoulders. Royalty, Wes had thought. We’re in the presence of vampiric royalty. And power.

  Now Prince Vulkan picked up the .45 from the table, examined it, and set it back down. “What my father would’ve given for weapons like that,” he said quietly. “Ah! That’s the thunder and lightning the dogs feared, isn’t it? A theoretical question for you—if Alexander the Great had possessed such thunder, how long would it have been before the world fell at his feet? But then again, he made his own thunder, didn’t he? The thunder of an unstoppable army.”

  The vampire sat in a chair, crossing his legs under him as any boy might do. “When Alexander’s enemies heard that sound, they knew all was lost. Oh, they fought, of course they did. But they fought like trapped dogs, without plan or purpose. They ran to the four winds, but they couldn’t get away.” He smiled, his eyes glittering.

  “The world is about to hear Prince Vulkan’s thunder. It’s going to roll eastward across this land, and then…they’ll run, but they can’t get away. This city is my Babylon. The noise of its falling will cause the world to tremble. And then they’ll know the king of the vampires is on the march with an army no power on this planet can stop.” He sat back, looking from Wes to Silvera, and stared at the priest’s grimy white collar. “You!” he said sharply. “What’s your name?”

  Silvera didn’t answer. Kobra stepped forward and thrust down with his boot on the trap’s edge. The priest screamed in agony, the beads of sweat growing larger and streaming down his face. “That’s enough,” Vulkan said, and instantly Kobra stepped back.

  “He was carrying something, Master,” Kobra said. “A bottle of water that…burned my fingers when I held it.”

  “And where is this bottle now?”

  “I threw it away, over the cliff.”

  Vulkan nodded. “Good. So we have a lelkesz among us. A priest. You won’t be the first to join our ranks, I promise you. Nor the last.” He giggled suddenly with high, childish glee and clapped his hands together. “They’re falling, left and right, up and down! Thousands and thousands of your kind down there right at this moment! All the humans are dying, and all the vampir are being born!” His gaze darkened like an approaching storm cloud, and Wes realized with a sudden start that he could see the shadow of the chair cast by the firelight on the opposite wall, but the boy vampire himself did not throw one. “How did you find me?” Vulkan asked him. “How many others know where I am?”

  “I don’t know,” Wes said. “I came here to find someone else.”

  “You came to kill me!” Vulkan said. “Why else was the lelkesz carrying his holy water?”

  “I’m looking for the woman he took from me,” Wes said and motioned with a tilt of his head toward Kobra.

  “Woman? What woman?”

  “The black bitch,” Kobra explained.

  “I see.” Vulkan regarded Wes for a moment and grinned. “Human loyalty, is it? The dumb concern of one lower species for another?” He concentrated on Wes, his eyes flaming, and Wes felt as if two drills were spinning at his forehead, slowly cutting through his skull and probing deep into the brain. A chill rippled through him; he felt filthy and violated, utterly helpless. He could not force himself to look away from Prince Vulkan until the vampire nodded and released him. “Love?” the vampire said. “Yes. Love.” He savored that word on the tips of his forked tongue. “Your conception of that is very different from mine. Is she here, Kobra?”

  “Downstairs, still sleeping.”

  “Bring her here. And find Roach as well. He’s taken much too long.”

  Kobra nodded, put the Mauser into his jacket, and left the room.

  “I like courage,” Vulkan said to Wes. “You’ll be fine hunters, both of you.” He stared at Father Silvera for a moment and then glanced toward the iron trap. “The Bite of Life heals all wounds and sicknesses,” he said softly. “It stops all time forever. You’ll see.”

  Silvera raised his head and spat.

  The vampire threw back his chin and laughed, and Wes could see the gleaming fangs in his sickle-mouth. When Vulkan looked at them again, his cat eyes glowed with an unholy spark. “What else could I expect of a lelkesz? I’ve always found them quite unreasonable and stupid.” His eyes narrowed now, and Wes could hardly stand to look at them. “You,” he said to Silvera. “You came to kill me, didn’t you? What were you going to do, splash me with that aqua pura? Drive a crucifix through my heart? It’s been tried before, by better men than you. And where are they now? They’re part of my army. Or they’re dead. No man—no one—can kill the King of the Vampires!”

  Silvera crossed himself, his head pounded. He felt dangerously close to passing out. “My God,” he whispered. “My God, help us…”

  “NO!” Vulkan shouted, rattling the rafters high above. In a leap too fast for Wes to follow, the vampire was there, bent over the priest one clawlike hand gripped around the man’s face. The fingers dug deeply into the flesh. Vulkan’s eyes were blazing.

  “Priest!” he hissed. “Fool! With one hand I could peel your face away like the skin from a grape! I could squeeze your skull until your brains ooze out! And you dare to use that name in my presence? You’re close to death now, priest. Be very careful, very careful indeed! If you use that name again, I’ll twist the head from your body, and I’ll do it very slowly, do you understand?” Wes could see the fingers tighten, and Silvera’s eyes began to bulge. He moaned once, very softly. When his eyes had closed, the vampire loosened his grip and stepped back, his gaze moving toward Wes. Vulkan blinked and rubbed his temple. It seemed to Wes that he’d been hurt in some way, but he wasn’t sure how. Wes crawled over to Silvera. The priest was still alive, but his nose was bleeding from the pressure of Vulkan’s grip.

  Prince Vulkan sat cross-legged on the table near the golden urn with its spinning column of sand. The firelight flickered across him, transforming him into an unholy orange-fleshed icon with green-jeweled eyes. “The Headmaster was wrong,” he said to Wes in a steel-and-velvet voice. “I’m stronger than he is now.
I’ve learned all the lessons, and there’s nothing else to learn. He was wrong. Nothing can hurt me. I’ll be young forever and ever and ever…” He clasped his hands together and began to laugh. The sound of that chilling, childlike laughter pushed Wes further toward the dark edge of madness.

  SEVENTEEN

  Palatazin and Tommy moved through shadowy catacombs, following the flashlight’s beam. They’d climbed another series of stone stairs, leaving the barking of the dogs far below them, and now found themselves in a maze of large, high-ceilinged rooms. Some of them were empty, but some held assorted debris—boxes, piles of newspapers where rats nested, old discarded furniture, scattered pictures and posters from Kronsteen’s glory days. In one of the rooms the flashlight picked out large wooden crates, all of them empty and stenciled LAX…FRAGILE…THIS SIDE UP.

  Then they began to find the caskets.

  Some of them were already open, the bed of dirt holding the impression of the body that had been lying there. When they found the first closed casket, Palatazin stiffened with disgust; his stomach gave a quick lurch, and he knew he’d have to hurry before either his nerve gave out or Benefield started screaming from below. He handed Tommy the light, laid the pack on the floor, and took out a stake. When he spoke in a whisper, he could see the white curls of his breath in the cold room.

  “Some are still sleeping. That one may awaken as soon as I open the casket lid, so I’ll have to strike quickly. I don’t know what’ll happen after that. Just hold the light steady, all right?”

  Tommy nodded. His eyes were as shiny as new quarters, and he was trying hard to keep his hand from shaking. They’re brave in the movies, he told himself as Palatazin, gripping the hammer and stake, stepped forward. His heart was racing. There were no klieg lights up in the rafters, no dry-ice smog floating at their feet, no Peter Cushing looking wise and courageous, just Palatazin, his face filthy and sweaty, one hand trembling now as he reached out to open the coffin lid.

  A very handsome young man lay inside, arms folded protectively across his chest. The light brown eyes, veined with red, stared balefully through the milky lids at Palatazin. He was bare-chested, a gold ankh on a chain around his neck, and wore tight brown corduroys: Tommy recognized him almost at once as the star of a CBS-TV movie on drag racers called Thunder City. At any other time, Tommy realized, he might be asking for this man’s autograph. Except he wasn’t a man anymore, he was one of them.

  Palatazin pushed the lid all the way back. When the flashlight beam touched his face, the vampire, just between sleep and waking, shifted away from it, his mouth coming open in a silent snarl. Palatazin saw with a start of dread that the vampire’s hands were locked firmly on his biceps, the arms drawn up so that getting to the heart was impossible. Something moved behind those transparent lids—a flicker of awareness, as quick and cold as mercury. The vampire was about to awaken.

  Palatazin saw his striking point. He placed the stake’s sharp tip at the hollow of the young man’s throat. Then he braced his legs and swung the hammer with all his strength. Instantly a freezing hand came up and grabbed Palatazin’s left wrist, crushing it, but too late. The hammer struck with a terrible wet sound, and the stake ripped through vampiric flesh, pinning the head down. The eyes came open, blazing with a hatred that might have gnawed the marrow out of Palatazin’s bones. A black, forked tongue snaked out of the mouth with a hideous rasping noise. The body thrashed, both hands gripping the stake and now…starting to pull it out of the bloodless wound.

  Quickly Palatazin took another stake from the pack, aimed its point over the thing’s heart and drove it deep with one strike of the hammer, like sinking a blade through rotten cheese. A foul, graveyard odor bubbled up; the entire chest seemed to cave inward, and for an instant Palatazin thought he could see through the satiny flesh a black, malignant lump pierced by the stake. The body thrashed wildly, mouth opening wide and snapping shut with a noise like a gunshot. A reddish-black ooze that smelled of crypts and evil and all the things that lurked in shadows or cut the throats of children or raped babies began to rise out of the wound, and Palatazin stepped back as the black tendrils of liquid streamed down the heaving chest and stomach. He didn’t want any of that stuff to get on him, afraid that if it did, he would be forever cursed. It was the vampire’s hideous ichor, Lucifer’s wine flowing from a cracked cask. The body suddenly stiffened, both hands straining to reach Palatazin. The staring, vengeful eyes caught fire, blue flames eating deep into the skull. Tommy made a low, gasping sound of sickness and turned away, but Palatazin felt compelled to watch. The blackening face collapsed as if it were a waxen Halloween mask; fire glowed through the empty eye sockets for a few seconds more, then abruptly burned itself out. Something dark and dreadful passed through Palatazin—a dank breath of cold wind that carried in its wake a whispered scream, then whirled itself away. The vampire’s dead body had already started to shrivel like a November leaf.

  “My God,” Palatazin whispered hoarsely. His right arm, the arm that had struck the killing blow, seemed to be full of power, tingling with it. His hand wanted to strike again. He picked up the pack, then turned toward Tommy. The boy’s face was as gray as a ninety-year-old man’s. “Are you ready to go on?” he asked the boy.

  “Yeah,” Tommy said. He was weaving slightly and dared not look at the thing in the coffin, but he handed Palatazin the flashlight and followed, holding up the broken staff like a spear.

  They found two more sleeping vampires and killed them the same way. The first was a young black man, the second a dark-haired little girl who must have been about the same age as Tommy. The child was awakening when Palatazin opened the coffin, stretching like a cat, but she was still dazed from sleep and too slow to stop the descending hammer. When it was over, Palatazin’s stomach heaved, and he stood retching in a corner for a moment, trying to get something up. But they had to go on. The supply of stakes was dwindling fast.

  The next closed coffin they found was in a room that contained two others, but both of those were open. Tommy put the staff aside and held the light. Palatazin readied his implements, leaned down, and flung the lid open. Inside lay a very beautiful black woman, her arms at her sides. She wore a white silk blouse, black pants, and a belt with a half-moon of diamonds on the buckle. Palatazin looked into those stunning, terrible eyes and shuddered; he could feel his resolve quickly seeping away. He bent to strike.

  But before he could lift his arm to its zenith, the beautiful vampire came up out of her coffin, her eyes burning him to the bone. He heard the word “NO!” shouted in his brain and allowed it to stun him, allowed his will to be sapped. She gripped his other wrist and grinned, starting to rise toward him, that beautiful unholy face split by the seeking fangs.

  “STRIKE HER!” Tommy screamed.

  Palatazin heard himself cry out as he tried to pull free of her. He swung the hammer toward her head, but she reached out and caught his hand.

  As her grip tightened around his wrist, she could feel the tides of blood flowing within him, and she was ravaged by total, hungry need. She could see everything so clearly now—this was life, not that other, former existence. It was all so simple this way—nothing mattered but the blood and warming the urgent freeze that gnawed at her. Solange drew him closer, and when the smell of his fear washed over her, she heard her own small, frantic voice calling from the flipside of her soul—don’t let them have you, don’t, don’t, don’t…

  But oh, the need…oh, the sweet, freezing need was so strong…

  “You don’t want to destroy me,” she whispered. “You want me to…kiss you. Like this…”

  “NOOOO!” Tommy backpedaled, turned, and picked up the split staff he’d laid on the floor so he could grip the flashlight with both hands.

  The vampire drew Palatazin’s head down. His eyes swam with helpless tears and stupid rage. She pressed her frigid lips to his throat, opened her mouth wide, and plunged the fangs deeply. Palatazin felt an instant of searing, white-hot pain, followed by
a dull thundering in his head that he knew must be the sound of blood being sucked from his veins.

  Tommy stepped forward, his eyes wild, and started to strike with the staff.

  Suddenly a hand closed around the back of his neck and flung him like a rag against the far wall. He fell, all the breath squeezed out of his lungs, and tried to crawl for the staff. A booted foot came down on his arm. He looked up into the scorching red eyes of the albino vampire who grinned down at him. Tommy could hear the female vampire’s hideous sucking, her grunts of pleasure, and Palatazin’s soft whimpering.

  The albino picked up the staff and started breaking it into small, useless pieces. “Where’s Roach, you little shit?” he said quietly, his voice brimming with menace. “This was his! Did you and the man kill him?”

  When Tommy didn’t answer, the albino gripped his hair and wrenched him to his feet. He withdrew a pistol from his jacket and jammed the barrel into Tommy’s mouth. “I’ll ask one more time, then your brains go on the wall…”

  Palatazin, his veins filling with arctic cold as his blood emptied into Solange’s body, was falling into a dark crevasse that had suddenly split the earth at his feet. He could hear high, freezing winds, silvery laughter, moans, and guttural screams. His soul was dying, falling from light into darkness, from life to the terrible kingdom of the Undead. He could feel his own hand at his throat, ineffectually trying to push her head away. The fangs were fastened tight. His fingers moved slowly…so slowly…

  Until they closed on the chain of the $19.99, jewelry-store crucifix that dangled down in his shirt.

  He tore it off his neck. His arm fell, weighed down by the thing. Then he lifted it again, thunder hammering between his temples, and pressed it against the vampire’s cheek.

  Instantly there was a hiss of blue flame, and the black flesh blistered. She shrieked and pulled away from him, dragging four furrows across his throat. He fell on his side, curling up like a fetus for warmth against the frost that had filled a quarter of his body. He put the crucifix to his lips and fought the shivers that raged through him like cold, conflicting currents.