“Yeah, whatever,” Jules mumbled. A flying roach landed on the toe of his boot. He flicked it off, giving it a nice spiral trajectory. It splatted against the broken shell of the Mercury’s side-view mirror.
Doodlebug reached over and yanked the corner of his hood; Jules’s eyeholes ended up over his nose. “So, Man of Mystery, are you going to tell me anything more about what happened to you last night? Maureen and I were privy to an ugly phone conversation. And you came home pretty torn up. But the only thing I could get out of you was that you’d learned where Malice X would be tonight.”
Jules couldn’t decide whether to share with Doodlebug what he’d learned-about the vast governmental apparatus that sought to crush him by any underhanded, sneaky, disreputable means available. The thought of it made his blood boil-his own government, the very government he’d fought to protect back in World War II! He squeezed the Mercury’s front wheel rim until the rusted sheet metal crumpled in his fist. Should he tell Doodlebug? A distraction like that could only hurt right now. One threat at a time. Besides, if he went into the whole story, he’d probably end up having to tell the sexy parts, too. And he definitely didn’t want to rehash allthat.
“Not now, kid. Maybe when you’re older. Us old bulls, we gotta keepsome secrets.”
His friend let the matter drop. Jules was about to lose himself again in memories of his golden war years when the door of theRUN club burst open. Jules leapt from Memory Lane back to Melpomene Street-every muscle in his massive frame tensed as he waited to see who would exit the building.
Two pear-shaped, middle-aged women stepped out onto the rickety porch, beers in hand. They lingered to talk a few seconds longer with someone still inside the bar, then laughed and walked down the uneven steps to the sidewalk. Jules’s stomach growled. He found himself licking his lips; in happier times, these ladies could’ve meant an evening’s amusement, followed by a good, hearty meal.
Both were wearing T-shirts with a photo of a woman’s face on them. As they walked down the opposite sidewalk in his direction, Jules was able to get a better look at their shirts. Beneath the photo of the woman’s face were the words: HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Jules’s blood ran cold as he remembered the posters he’d seen taped to shop windows in the French Quarter. He was almost afraid to look at the silk-screened image of the woman’s face, but he forced himself to. Sure enough… it was Bessie. Bessie’s plump brown face was plastered on a pair of massive chests bobbling toward him up the sidewalk. A ghost in the shape of a steel bear trap, she had clamped hold of his leg and wouldn’t let him go.
“Sonofabitch… I can’t believe it… she was a nobody, a nothing,why — ”
“Jules, what are you talking about?”
Just then, the door on theHIT side of the club swung open for the first time since they’d arrived on Melpomene Street. A broad-shouldered, tall black man exited. He was made even taller by six-inch platform shoes and a wide-brimmed hat crowned with massive white feathers. Jules recognized him immediately. It was Malice X. And he was alone.
“Forget about it,” Jules said breathlessly. “That’shim. It’s showtime.”
“That’s him? Where are his bodyguards? This doesn’t feel right-”
Jules clamped a paw over Doodlebug’s mouth. “Shaddup, kid. I’ll never get another chance like this. Just follow my lead.”
They watched as the black vampire crossed the street without bothering to check for oncoming traffic. Confident bastard, Jules thought.Boy, am I lookin‘ forward to wipin’ that cocky smirk off his face. He pulled himself into a crouch, ready to spring toward the alley’s entrance. His heart raced. His knees were shaking-whether from excitement, fear, or the strain of holding up his 450 pounds, he couldn’t tell.
He picked up his gun from the sidewalk. Malice X walked into the alleyway. It was now or never-in seconds, the black vampire would discover his unconscious sentry and race back out onto the street. About twenty yards of broken sidewalk separated Jules’s hiding place from the alley’s mouth. As a young man, he could’ve run that distance in little more than five seconds. Now? Who knew?
He pushed off from the car and launched himself into a run. Holding the unwieldy gun in his right hand threw his stride off. The soles of his boots sounded like small bomb bursts as they slapped the sidewalk. He felt his cloak billow out behind him like a battle flag.
Jules reached the entrance to the alleyway. He nearly panicked-he couldn’t see Malice X anywhere.
But then he spotted his rival behind the limousine, hunched over the man Doodlebug had knocked unconscious.
Breathing hard, Jules spread his legs wide and aimed the gun at Malice X with both hands, a pose he remembered Harry Callahan striking in theDirty Harry movies. “Freeze, dickhead!” he shouted with the most aggressive growl he could muster. “We got you covered!”
Malice X stood. “Who’sthis?” He took two steps forward, halting next to the Cadillac’s rear tire. “Lemme see… Orson Welles is dead an‘ buried, so I guess it must be my ol’ buddy Jules Duchon. Who’re you two dressed up as? Fat Man and Robin?”
Jules fingered the gun menacingly. “An‘ who areyou supposed to be-Chuckles the Pimp?”
Malice X clutched his heart. “Youwound me! Actually, Wednesday night is Classic Blaxploitation Night in my household; last week, I dressed as Truck Turner. Helps keep those Hump-Nights lively, seein‘ as I plan on being around for an eternity of them.”
“Maybe you won’t be around for as many as you think,” Jules said. “Unless you agree to play ball with me, that pimp suit’ll be the blaxploitation outfit they bury you in.”
“You think?” The black vampire walked steadily up the narrow corridor between the car and the wall. His eyes flashed darkly. “That wasn’t very nice, what you did to my sister.”
Jules kept the gun pointed at his rival’s chest. “We coulda done a lot worse. But we didn’t. ‘Cause we’re reasonable men. But not so reasonable that I won’t fire half a dozen mini stakes through what passes for your heart if you keep comin’ at me.”
“Oh, you won’t,” Malice X said. But he stopped nonetheless. “Y’know why not? ‘Cause if youwere gonna do it, you woulda done it already. You wannatalk, is what you want. You wanna say your piece, get all them heavy frustrations off your fat chest. Then you wanna hear what I got to say back. You know the rules of the game as well as I do-the nasty ol’ villainalways gets to spill his nasty ol‘ plans before the hero does him in. Break the rules, an’ you’ll never work in this town again.”
Jules’s face went hard as weathered marble. “You don’t think I’ll use this gun?”
Malice X scowled. “Fuckno, man.”
Jules angled the gun’s nose up five degrees and pulled the trigger. The mechanized crossbow-type mechanism fired its wooden dart at a velocity of five hundred feet per second. The projectile struck Malice X in the concavity just below his left collarbone. On its journey into his grayish flesh, it broke the links of a gaudy gold chain. The vampire’s medallion clattered to the cobblestone alley.
“Oww.”Malice X looked down at the dart protruding from his shoulder, a disbelieving look on his face. He clutched the tail of the dart and yanked it loose, offering no more than a brief grimace, although blood ran freely down his partly bare chest, staining his white silk shirt. He crushed the dart to splinters in his fist. Then he leaned down to the cobblestones and scooped up his medallion, dropping it into a pocket beneath one of his jacket’s winglike lapels.
“Huh. You actually managed tosurprise me. Didn’t think you could do that. Tell you what. Since you managed to exceed my expectations, you get to say your piece.”
Jules didn’t relax his aim. “That’s mighty cocky, fer a guy who’s got a gun pointed at his heart.”
“Hey-either you can waste my patience on stale macho banter, or you can say your piece. Your choice, fat man.”
Jules took a deep breath. Although his heart still beat double time, he felt calm. Amazingly calm. “Okay. This shit between
you and me, it ends here. Tonight. Look, I can understand you bein‘ pissed off at me and all. I know how Maureen can be. I know how that woman can get under your skin, believe me. But you’ve had your pound a flesh. You burned down my house. You destroyed a century’s worth of good stuff. You made my life hell for a month. Enough is enough already.”
Jules gathered his thoughts. He’d start the bargaining a little high; it was always smart to ask for more than you really wanted. “Now me, I’m a reasonable man. I got you in my crosshairs. I could kill you right now. But I’m not gonna. I’m not gonna, ‘cause we’re gonna make us a deal. Bottom line: There’s no way in hell I’m leavin’ New Orleans. I was born here back when William McKinley was president. This town’s in my blood. That’s Number One. Two: A vampire in this town can’t expect to make any kinda decent livin‘ preying on white victims only. The wayI see things, vampires is vampires and victims is victims, no matter what color they are. A fair share is a fair share, period. And that’s all I want-my fair share. Here’s my deal. I can make do with, oh, let’s say one black victim every two weeks. Twenty-six a year. No, tell you what, we’ll make that twenty-fivea year, ’cause I’ll skip one black victim in honor of Black History Month.”
Malice X looked at Jules with the same disbelief as when he’d stared down at the dart protruding from his body. Only this time, the disbelieving look dissolved into laughter so hard he doubled over and clutched his knees. “Man,that’s thefunniest fuckin‘ shit I heard all month!” He wiped his eyes with a monogrammed silk handkerchief snatched from his pocket. “I’m tempted to keep you around just for yucks. You want a deal?Here’s the deal. I play around with you ’til it ain’t no fun anymore. Then I kill you. Deal?”
Jules didn’t see any reason for laughter. “I’m still the one holding the gun, asshole. Maybe after your return trip from Fantasy Island you’ll be willin‘ to talk turkey-” He was distracted by cold, wet noses burrowing beneath his pant legs. He glanced down to see two pairs of gray canine eyes staring into his. “ Again?Fuckin’ mutts been doggin‘ me all night long! Shoo! Geddoutta here!” Keeping the gun pointed at his adversary, Jules kicked furiously at the two large dogs, whose muzzles and tails flashed within the folds of his black cloak. “Doodlebug! How about makin’ yourself useful here?”
“Uh, Jules, I don’t think these animals aredogs — ”
Malice X’s sharp, high-pitched laughter echoed through the alleyway again. “And you thinkI’m the one on a trip to Fantasy Island? I knew you’d be comin‘ after me here. Didn’t take no big detective work; I knew it from what you stole from my sister’s house. It was just a matter of waitin’ for you to show. And since you read my business binders, you know I’m the source for a new, improved type of street drug, a derivative of heroin I call Horse-X, patent pending. What youdon’t know is what it is that makes my Horse-X so special. Oh, sure, it’s three times as potent as run-of-the-mill heroin; that’s what makes it attractive to the user. What makes it attractive tome, apart from the fact that it buys me things like this fine-ass Cadillac car here, is a veryinteresting property of my blood when it’s combined with an opiate. See, anybody who snorts or shoots up the stuff becomesexquisitely sensitive to my hypnotic powers. I don’t even hafta be lookin‘ at ’em, Jules-if they’re within a quarter mile of me, all I hafta do isthink real hard about what I want ‘em to do, and I play the suckers like dime-store kazoos.”
The black vampire smiled. “Now, how many users and abusers of Horse-X do you figure are hangin‘ within a quarter mile of this herelovely alleyway?”
“Kill him, Jules,” Doodlebug said, his voice hard as tempered steel. “Kill him while you still can.”
Jules’s thoughts were as scattered as the blobs of color in a Jackson Pollock painting. It had been so perfect. He’d been doing it allhis way. But now everything was spinning out of control again “Jules!”
“What-?”
“Ohshit, just give it here-”
Doodlebug grabbed the gun from Jules’s hands. With a fluid and intuitive motion, he fired a pair of wooden shafts directly at Malice X’s heart.
“Too slow, little mama!” The darts struck and pierced Malice X’s velvet jacket, but the wily vampire had already transformed his upper torso to mist. The projectiles clattered harmlessly against the far wall.
Other sounds jolted Jules from his stasis. From somewhere above him, hurried footsteps scuffled, dislodging roof tiles that exploded to dust on the cobblestones below. Heavy fabric unfurled, disturbing the stagnant air in the alleyway. Jules looked up. The storm clouds and faint stars were partially blocked by the tight mesh of a heavy-gauge net, no doubt put there by some of Malice’s faceless minions. This batproof barrier covered the entire top of the alleyway.
But not the entrance. Malice X stood at the back of the alley. They could make a break for it Jules swiveled away from his nemesis. Behind him, Doodlebug had already trained Tiny Idaho’s gun on a new set of targets. The dogs-no,wolves — were shimmering like oil slicks on water, their forms elongating, growing more muscular and less hirsute. Their faces foreshortened, taking on features that Jules knew all too well-the feral leers of the vampires who had hunted him through the streets of the Quarter.
That wasn’t the worst of it. Far from it. Jules’s balls shriveled when he heard the staccato impacts coming from the street, like the approach of a rapidly moving hailstorm. But it wasn’t hail. It was the sound of dozens of footfalls. Dozens of mind-controlled zombies converging on the alleyway.
The Hooded Terror closed his eyes and wished he were back at the bayou again.
FIFTEEN
Too fast-everything was happening toofast!
Jules rushed Malice X, trying to pin him against the wall with his superior bulk. But his antagonist avoided Jules’s clumsy lunge easily, leaping over him onto the roof of the Cadillac.
An inhuman scream made Jules turn back to the alley’s entrance. Doodlebug had fired two darts into the face of the shorter of Malice X’s two vampire lieutenants, catching him midway through his transformation from wolf to man. Almost simultaneously, Doodlebug hurled a vicious side kick through the taller vampire’s midsection. Jules recognized this vampire as Cowboy Hat, the leader of the toughs who’d attacked him near Maureen’s. The kick dislodged wet hunks of gray proto-matter, splattering them against the brick wall, disrupting Cowboy Hat’s change back to human.
“Jules! Catch!”
Doodlebug pitched the crossbow back toward Jules. It missed the net covering the top of the alleyway by inches. The big vampire reached up and-yes! Caughtit! The catch felt like the climax of a recurring dream. He was back on the St. Ignatius football field, running long for a decisive touchdown. Usually he dropped the ball, but tonight-well, tonight he caught the gun, all right, but his thick fingers got wedged in the magazine, spilling darts and garlic pellets onto the ground.
Shit!Tiny Idaho had only given him a single lesson on how to load the thing! He’d never collect the spilled ammo and reload it in time!
The vampire with two darts protruding from his face lunged wildly at Jules. His agonized curses were eloquent testimony that having his cheekbone and nose re-form around those two missiles must’ve hurt like hell. Not sure the gun would fire, Jules flung his free hand forward to hold off his attacker. His palm collided with the blunt end of the dart protruding from the attacking vampire’s nose. The unintended impact drove the missile deeper into his skull. Spasming violently, the black vampire plunged to the ground, letting loose a howl that must’ve shaken the stained-glass windows of Garden District mansions a mile away.
Jules stared, horrified, as his erstwhile opponent writhed in agony on the cobblestones at his feet. He’d never doneanything like that to a fellow vampire before.
The smack of leather against bone, coming from the alley’s entrance, distracted Jules from his ethical predicament. All flying feet and speed-blurred fists, Doodlebug was holding off a horde of mind-controlled neighborhood folk who surged, blank-faced and si
lent, toward the alleyway. He was trying desperately to slash an escape route through the seemingly endless bodies, tossing attackers aside like a garbage collector heaving trash sacks. But by sheer weight of numbers and insensitivity to pain, the zombies were slowly forcing him back into the alley.
Before Jules could take a step to help his friend, viselike talons dug into the flesh of his calves. “Muthahfuckah,” a pain-racked voice croaked. “Gonna make you pay for what you done to Sonny and me… gonna make you pay inspades, soon as I get myself togethah-”
Cowboy Hat hung on to Jules’s legs with unholy strength, even though his lower body was only tenuously connected with his torso. Jules watched, both fascinated and sickened, as Cowboy Hat’s body completed its transformation, rebuilding itself in the process. His bones fused and veins reknotted as the torn shreds of his skin surged together like a colony of mating slugs.
Dazed, nauseated, Jules pointed the gun at his assailant’s forehead. “Leggo, or I’ll… I’ll shoot. I swear I will-”
Cowboy Hat’s face was twisted by pain and hate. “Do yo‘worst, you fat fuck. Youstill be a dead man-”
Not knowing whether any ammunition remained in the magazine, Jules closed his eyes and pulled the gun’s trigger. He heard a click as a cartridge slid into firing position, aphffutt as it raced out the barrel, and a rotten-eggblatt as it struck home.
The odor of something unbearably pungent burned the hairs inside his nose and forced Jules’s eyes open-the stench of concentrated garlic.
Cowboy Hat immediately released his grip on Jules’s legs. He bellowed like a branded mule and rubbed frantically at his eyes. Jules was close enough to feel the garlic fumes bite at the patches of skin exposed by gaps in his costume. As he was backing away toward the car, powerful arms reached from behind him and yanked the weapon from his hands.
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