Dear Lord, please . . .
What if the fuses were all blown and there weren’t enough replacements?
And on the heels of that thought came a sudden shock to my toes. “Shit!”
“What is it?” Deirdre called down from the open door above.
“Someone,” I said slowly, carefully, nursing my bruised toes, “didn’t put their dumbbells away when they were done working out!”
“I put them away.”
“I beg to differ.”
“I like it when you beg.”
“Don’t taunt him, dear . . .” It sounded like Lupé was suddenly standing behind Deirdre. “ . . . that’s my job.”
With the reestablishment of territorial boundaries the upstairs door was closed.
Now it was really nice and dark.
And quiet.
Deirdre liked to crank up her boom box while she was working out so I had spent the past month stapling insulation, nailing sheetrock, and hanging a thicker, tighter cellar door so I could study to the strains of Wolfgang Mozart while she strained to the sound of Iron Maiden.
I carefully gimped my way across the floor, mindful that dumbbells came in pairs and that I had toes that were still unbroken. At least with the door closed I could cuss at the top of my lungs if I stumbled over any additional workout gear.
Where was I? Oh yeah: the icy fear was just starting to sink in that once I got to the fuse box I would find all of the fuses blown and I was pretty sure we didn’t have enough spares to get everything back up and running.
Dead flashlight and shortage of replacement fuses: could it get any worse?
I bruised my shins on Deirdre’s tanning bed.
I’d asked her once why she needed a man-made cocoon lined with UV lights when Louisiana provided plenty of natural sun exposure ten months out of the year. Aside from some mumbo jumbo about the difference between UV-A and UV-B wavelengths, I think she pretty much dodged the question. What’s wrong with a blanket or a lawn chair? I mean, it’s not like The Neighbors or I would be popping out in the middle of the day to gawk . . .
I climbed up on top of the closed lid of the bed to get to the fuse box and realized another complication: how could I tell which fuses to replace with what in the dark? A blown fuse does not make the same “tinkling” sound as a blown light bulb. And as for matching the correct amperages—I slapped the metal box in frustration but pulled my punch: the crapparatus was so old that it wouldn’t take much to turn it into so much scrap.
As I prepared to climb back down, I caught the side of the box to balance myself and felt the circuit handle in the down or off position. That was odd—not that it mattered now, of course.
Unless . . .
I pushed the handle back up.
A lone thirty-watt bulb stuttered to life back toward the bottom of the steps. Distant cheers from the first floor and the backyard confirmed that I had solved the power problem.
“You don’t look so tough,” said an unfamiliar voice from behind me. “I bet you’ll scream like a little girl before I’m done.”
Chapter Three
I spun and dropped off the tanning table, landing in a Karate Kid combat pose. Mr. Miyagi would’ve been proud.
“Correction,” the voice said. “I should’ve said ‘scream and dance like a little girl . . .’” The voice belonged to a sinewy caricature of a human being. He wore peg-legged jeans over cowboy boots and a denim jacket with the sleeves torn off to form a raggedy vest. He was whippet-thin, all muscle and sinew and made Iggy Pop look like the Michelin Man. His head was shaved; the only hair aside from his eyebrows was a razor-trimmed moustache and goatee framing his fang-filled mouth. He wasn’t just a vampire, which was badass enough, but he was cultivating the whole “other vampires think I’m a badass” vibe. I would be out of my league tangling with his baby sister.
I could scream and I could dance but I would be dead before anyone upstairs would have a clue that the enemy was under the doorstep.
“How did you get in here?” I wasn’t just affecting a cool disinterest; I was coldly pissed off. Somebody had to invite him in; vampires couldn’t cross a private threshold uninvited. The implications of that were as disturbing as his actual presence.
He smiled. It was like opening a tin of frozen sardines. “The owner invited me in.”
“I’m the owner, baldy, and I’m dis-inviting you right now!”
He shook his head in an almost lazy fashion. “I speak of the original owner. You may have a way with some of the dead like those hapless fools next door, but not all of the corpses you will encounter will turn out to be such fawning sycophants.”
Fawning syncophants? Great. I have met my arch-nemesis and his name is Lexicon Luthor. “So, the original owner . . .”
“A Madame LeClaire. Buried under the weeping willow by the front gate in 1869. She misses her headstone.”
“Didn’t know she was there. No headstone when I bought the place.”
“Should have done the research. I did. Found out she was unhappy with the present tenants. Guess she doesn’t approve of the Three’s Company living arrangements. Very traditional, Madame LeClaire is.”
“A nineteenth-century ghost told you all this?”
He shrugged. “I hired a medium.”
Crap! An eloquent biker-vampire-assassin who did research. In-depth research. When the predators are stronger and faster than you are, you hope to gain a little edge by being smarter. This one, however, could not only outrun and outfight me but probably would kick my ass at the undead science fair, as well. “You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble.”
“The contract on you is worth a great deal of money,” he said. Like he had to justify the extra trouble and expense of tracking me down to kill me. “Not to mention the street cred.”
Yeah, he looked like the type who valued street cred over practical considerations. I wondered if he appreciated where an overinflated reputation had gotten me.
“You realize, of course,” I said slowly, “that what we have here is a Mexican standoff.”
“Really?” He grinned. “I don’t see it that way at all.”
“I know that I’m no match for you,” I continued, “but, as you so colorfully phrased it, I can scream like a little girl before you kill me. And you are definitely no match for the people upstairs or the security team on the property. If you don’t stand down, we both die.” Of course I would have to scream real loud now that I had soundproofed the cellar.
“Stand down,” he mused. “I like that. So military. Probably something to do with your service records. I did a lot of research before I came here and that’s the one part of my file on you that’s incomplete. Why are some of your military records under a Pentagon seal?”
“Come back next week and I’ll tell you.”
He shook his head. “The money or the mystery—decisions, decisions.” He pulled a wireless detonator out of his pocket. “I think I’ll take the money.” He flipped a switch and a flash lit up the basement windows followed by a loud “bang!”
He tossed the detonator aside. “That got their attention. The next one will get them moving. In three. Two. One.” A second “bang,” farther away this time and the accompanying flash was dimmer.
“Now,” he announced, “while your security team is running about outside, seeking the source of the mysterious explosions . . .” Another, more distant “bang” sounded. “ . . . we can conclude our business without untimely interruptions.” He reached down and pulled a combat knife out of his left boot. I patted the empty shoulder holster under my shirt as he held it up. Yeah, I wouldn’t need to carry a gun inside my own house: I didn’t need to go to bed or to the john or to the dinner table armed. Apparently trips to the cellar were a different matter.
The vampire brandished the weapon, turning it back and forth so we could both admire how the silvered blade gleamed under the General Electric Soft White.
“Oh, thank God,” I said, “a knife. And here I was afraid yo
u were going to taunt me to death.”
He nodded. “A smartass. I heard that about you.”
I nodded back: “Jack . . .”
“That’s not my name.”
“How would I know? Because that’s what I’ve heard about you.”
He grinned now. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you won’t squeal like a little girl after all.”
“Bet I can get you to do a pretty fair impression of Mariah Carey, though.”
Maybe I could keep him talking until the others came looking for me.
He stopped grinning. A look of slow surprise filtered across his scary visage. “You’re trying to piss me off?”
“Jeepers, Jack, now why would I want to do that?”
“Probe for any weaknesses, goad me into making a mistake. And my name is not Jack.”
“I figured that’s what you’ve been doing with me. And what am I supposed to call you? Mister Cuddles?”
“Call me Razor.” He was back to sneering.
“You’re kidding.”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
“You look confused.” I tried to look like I was relaxing while preparing to dodge at the first sign of forward momentum on his part.
“Confused?”
“If you were standing there, brandishing an actual razor, by God, I would be more inclined to take you seriously. At least in terms of attempted packaging. But you’re waving a knife, not a razor. Therefore your moniker, your alias, nom de plume should match your weapon of choice. You should be ‘Shiv’ or ‘Shank’ or ‘Blade’—no, Marvel Comics would probably sue your ass. So, what sort of nickname is going to suit? I know! For the few remaining minutes that you remain corporeal, I shall call you ‘Pigsticker!’”
He growled. “That would make you the ‘pig.’”
“Or we could use your manhood as a metaphor and christen you ‘Penknife.’”
He took a menacing step forward. “The money is great. The rep I’m gonna get out of this is priceless. But killing you slow is going to be the sweetest part of the deal.”
“I win,” I said. “I made you madder, first.”
He leapt.
He missed.
If I’d been human I would have been skewered. As it was, he grazed me as I spun out of his way.
His momentum carried him smack up against Deidre’s tanning bed, jostling the Bakelite clamshell frame.
I followed through on my spin and kicked toward him. My right foot missed him by a good six inches and my toes slid into the opening between the lid and the bed surface. A quick scissors kick dislodged my foot and caused the lid to fly up into the full open position.
“Ha!” gloated Pigsticker. “You missed!” I guess he was feeling a little sheepish about doing the same a half-second earlier.
“You think so?” I followed through with my left foot which was lined up with his solar plexus. I would have nailed him this time except he leaned back. The edge of the bed tripped him further and he fell onto the bed in a half-sitting position.
“And again,” he mocked.
I think he expected me to turn and run for the stairs. He certainly didn’t expect me to throw myself on the knife that he was thrusting toward me. By the time he decided I must be crazy enough to jump him after all, he had lost the better part of his advantage.
Two things saved me. I wasn’t actually leaping on top of him; I was throwing myself against the lid and pulling it back down. And I turned as he jabbed at me with the blade. His awkward position, coupled with the descending cover, made the thrust less effectual. The tip entered my shirt beneath my left arm, hitting two thick layers of leather minus the customary handgun: he stabbed me in the holster.
I turned back, further loosening the knife in his grasp while redirecting the point to angle past my body, and reached over his wrist with my left hand. “I’ve changed my mind,” I hissed as I pushed down the cover with my right arm. “’Razor’ suits you, after all. Disposable Razor, that is.”
He squirmed, trying to escape the awkward confinement. Although he was stronger, I had a momentary advantage of leverage. But only momentary: one-armed, I was starting to lose the battle to keep the lid down. The fingers of my left hand fumbled under the cover at the end of the bed.
“Oh, and one last thing,” I said as I felt the toggle switch. “Neither of those kicks missed. They accomplished exactly what they were supposed to!” I pressed the switch.
Nothing happened.
Except that Not-So-Disposable Razor flung the lid up and sat up like a Jack-in-the-Box of Doom!
I shrieked like a little girl. And kicked him like Michelle Yeoh. As he fell back I slammed the lid back down and reached under the end. This time I found the timer next to the toggle and twisted the dial. The ultraviolet tubes flickered to life inside the bed and now Razor began to shriek—not like a little girl but like a 300-pound castrato. His legs kicked and I was knocked back across the room and into the weight bench. The bruises were worth it. Although the UV radiation was harder on a full-fledged vampire, I still risked a nasty burn by standing too close.
I circled the room toward the stairs, keeping my distance as what was left of my would-be assassin thrashed and smoked and burned in the purple-blue glare of the special fluorescents. When I started up the steps I saw that he had taken extra precautions while I had first stumbled around in the dark. A chair and a brace of two-by-fours were wedged up against the door and under the doorknob: it couldn’t be opened from the other side.
Easy enough from this side though, I figured—until I tripped on the fourth step up and fell on my face. That smarted—but not so much as the third step and then the second and the first and finally the floor as I was dragged back down into the cellar. Razor had a chary grip on my ankle and was looking rather crispy. Maybe I should call him Ashley from now on.
“I kill you!” he wheezed.
No more witty banter. No more smug exposition or questions of how and when. He’d dropped the knife in fleeing the fluorescent inferno but needed the blood even more: his fangs were fully extended in his hideously seared countenance. He’d drink me dry, regardless of reward or street cred.
I kicked up at him and broke his grip on my leg in a smoky explosion of ash. Rolling away, I leapt up and scurried under the stairs. Somewhere in the jumble of boxes stored beneath the ascending risers was a set of lawn darts—not the most ideal of weapons but one made do with what was at hand.
Except they weren’t.
At hand, that is.
By the time Count Charcoala grabbed my leg and started yanking me back out I’d only succeeded in uncovering a badminton set. I flung the net at him and then whacked him with a racquet. He was no longer operating at one hundred percent but I didn’t seem to be inflicting any real damage, either. I grabbed at another box to slow my momentum but it just gave way, falling over and spilling a series of implements with a wooden clatter.
Croquet equipment.
With wooden goal stakes!
I grabbed for the nearest one but he kicked it out of reach. Then he kicked one of the wooden balls at my head. It barely missed, grazing my ear. I grabbed blindly, trying to pick up something that would serve offensively or defensively. My fingers closed around a piece of bent wire, about the thickness of the type used to make coat hangers. Deep Fry went one better by scooping up a wooden mallet. Yelling “It’s Hammer Time!” he rushed me.
He had the better line. What was I going to say? “No rest for the wicket?” Still, I took the blow in the shoulder where the leather strap from the holster rig helped absorb the shock while he took both pronged ends in the chest, straddling the sternum and double punctuating his heart like a sidewise colon.
It wasn’t a wooden stake but just about as effectual. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
I climbed wearily to my feet and tested for broken bones. None apparent but I was going to purple up like a Grand Canyon sunset on the tomorrow. Back when I was still fully human, the bruises would have lasted sever
al weeks. Now? Maybe a couple of days.
Maybe.
Tonight?
I looked around the cellar at the minor mayhem left in the wake of the fight. The timer on the tanning bed ran out just as I noted that it was going to require some major detailing and rehab work. As for the rest . . .
I started up the stairs. It could wait until tomorrow. Tonight was movie night. I was going to relax and have a good time.
Even if it killed me.
* * *
Mr. Disposable Razor aka the French Fry Guy had planted flash-bangs, not bombs, on the property. Since their purpose was to distract and lure the others away while murder most foul was committed, their destructive potential was quite minimal.
After a quick recap of my story and making sure that I wasn’t at Death’s door, the ladies descended into the basement to check on the real damage. Deirdre’s security team was out, combing the grounds and walking the perimeters in case anything else had slipped through. I was pretty sure that the rest of the night would be relatively quiet but then I had gone into the cellar unarmed so what did I know?
After a couple of moments The Kid closed the door on the sounds of Lupé sweeping up and Deirdre mourning her Solar-Tropic 9000 Ultra Bronzing Environment with duo-control tanning options. He sat down across from me and leaned close. “You okay, chief?”
“Ducky. My home turf is turning into Vampapolooza and my only recourse is to go to New York and face down the fang gang all at once so they won’t keep dropping in on me a few at a time. Other than that—”
“Sure, sure, lissen: I need a palaver,” he said in hushed tones. “I need some advice on the frail side.”
It took a second to run that through the time-warp translator. Frail: chick, squeeze, babe. Female. It helped if one watched a lot of the old Warner Brothers gangster movies from the forties. “Two questions, Junior,” I growled, “who is it and why me?” I had a new bodyache to go with my previous headache and I wasn’t in the mood for any additional complexities to the evening.
“Well . . .” His gaze swept the room like a film noir lookout planning a bank heist. “You’ve got experience.”
Habeas Corpses - The Halflife Trilogy Book III Page 5