by P. T. Phronk
Even before the sickening thump, the chef’s neck opened up like a second mouth. Blood poured onto his chest, a red blotch spreading on his pure white uniform. For a moment, he looked like a Canadian flag.
Then, thump.
Dalla landed in front of the tall guard, then elbowed him in the chest. He went flying out of the room, into the foyer, the sound of shattering glass following.
There was a crack as the room was filled with a red glow. Dalla turned to Jeffery. He held a flare, like the ones at the side of a road after an accident. It was etched with symbols, and a tassel with various baubles dangled from the cold end.
The vampire was a blur for a second, then visible again as she stopped dead in her tracks before pouncing on Jeffery. She tried again, but she couldn’t get close to him.
She smiled. “That’s a neat trick,” she said.
“A buddy of mine improvised it up just last night,” said Jeffery.
“Where’s my Damien?” she asked.
Jeffery laughed, a deep belly-laugh. “Your Damien. Is that what this is all about? You’re just another stalk—”
Mid-word, he whipped a blow-dart from his belt, then fired it. She was too fast; she casually stepped aside as it sailed out the shattered window.
Jeffery set the flare down in the doorway to the room, then lit up another one. He backed into the foyer.
“We’ll touch base again soon, all right?”
The vampire nodded, grinning. Jeffery clomped into the foyer and up the stairs.
Dalla glanced around, then hunched over the dead chef and lapped at his spreading pool of blood.
“Yuck!” she said. “Too greasy!” She moved on to the bald guard, scooping up chunks of his brain and mashing them into her mouth.
Stan gagged. “Can we just get out of here?”
“Get out? But we haven’t paid my Damien a visit yet.”
“He’s going to be ready for you. You’ll hit a wall of arrows and stakes as soon as you step upstairs.”
She stood and ruffled Stan’s hair with a bloody hand. “You’re always thinking, Stanley. I think I’ll keep you.” With one hand, she swept him up in her arms, then they floated to the ceiling, two stories up. She put an ear up against one of the walls.
“Can you hear that?” she whispered.
Indeed, he could hear, muffled from behind the wall, chanting, and the sound of a crying child.
“You know what, Stanley, I think we chose the perfect night to arrive.” She tapped his coat pocket. “You’ve still got your toy with you. Get ready for baby’s first photo shoot.”
They floated backwards, ducking under a ceiling fan, then bumped the opposite wall. She turned around, put her feet against the wall, and bent her knees until they poked into Stan’s ribs. “Hang on,” she whispered.
She pushed off, and they shot backwards, toward the sound of the crying. Her back smashed through the opposite wall in a cloud of wood and drywall, bits of it scraping and cutting at Stan’s cheeks. Then they were in a room full of strange smells and stunned faces.
Hillary Miller lay in the bed in the center of the room. Her hair was matted with sweat. Dark wet blotches stained the foot of the bed. Her belly was distended.
Fox stood at the foot of the bed. He had a wrinkled, white, crying baby in his arms, still attached to Miller by its umbilical cord. He held a dagger to its throat.
Jeffery was near the door, facing the hallway, holding the flare in one hand and a crossbow in the other. The tall guard ducked beside him, another crossbow aimed in the same direction.
On the other side of the bed were a young woman holding a cloth to Miller’s head and a man in a robe.
Dalla dropped Stan, then began to turn around.
The man in the robe moved in a flurry of flowing clothing. His hands emerged from under his robe with a pair of stakes. At the same time, he leapt sideways toward Jeffery.
Fox turned to the exploding wall, then immediately dropped the dagger and the baby.
Stan leapt toward the child.
The midwife leaned forward to cover Hillary. In doing so, she ended up with her head closest to Dalla when the vampire recovered from bursting through the wall.
Stan cupped his hands under the falling baby.
The midwife was elbowed in the face as Dalla turned around. The woman’s skull caved in, her eyeballs squirting out of their sockets like smashed grapes.
As she hit the far wall, Stan felt the wrinkled baby slap into his hands. He pushed forward to huddle around it like a football.
Fox stumbled into Jeffery from one side, the man in the robe from the other. Jeffery turned around and aimed the crossbow at Dalla.
Dalla suddenly had an arm behind Hillary, her fangs out and half an inch away from Hillary’s neck.
Hillary screamed deliriously. Her eyes were half closed and rolled back in her head; she didn’t even seem to know that the vampire was there. Blood was slowly flowing from her onto the bed.
Stan cradled the baby. He reached into his pocket.
A crossbow fired. Dalla lifted Miller’s arm to block it. The arrow pinned her hand to the headboard. Her screaming intensified.
Stan felt his camera, still intact in his pocket. After a moment’s hesitation, he pushed it aside to get at his knife. He cut the baby’s umbilical cord.
“Let her go,” said Fox, jabbing a finger at the vampire.
“Oh, Damien Fox!” said Dalla. “I have waited so long to meet you. I am your biggest fan.”
Fox scrunched up his face. “What?”
“You for her. Come with me someplace more, mmm, private, and I’ll let your little sweetie go.”
Fox squinted at her with disbelief. “No,” he said.
“I’m not asking twice.”
Stan backed toward the hole in the wall. God damn, it was a long way down.
“Not. A. Chance,” Fox said.
Dalla’s fangs sunk into Miller’s neck. She screeched so loud it overpowered the squealing baby in Stan’s arms.
The room lit up with blinding white light. It emanated from a sizzling pile of powder that the man in the robe held in his outstretched hand.
The vampire’s skin sizzled. She hissed and tore her bloody mouth away from Miller.
Before grabbing Stan and flying back out of the hole in the wall, the vampire gripped Miller’s head and twisted. There was a wet snap. Her screeching finally stopped.
Dalla dropped Stan and the baby off at the edge of the forest, then turned around.
“Wait!” screamed Stan.
The vampire whipped around to face him. Her skin was steaming in the cold air and her eyes burned with reflected moonlight.
“You can’t go back. They’re even more ready for you now than before. You won’t make it out alive. Is he really worth it?”
“Details!” the vampire hissed through clenched teeth, her upper fangs digging into her lower lip. She turned toward the house. Stan grabbed her by the wrist. She looked at Stan’s hand like she was about to rip it off, but then she stopped, sighed, and relaxed.
The glow from the upstairs window flickered, then intensified. The cold wind picked up, and carried with it the sound of chanting: Fox’s voice, the man in the robe’s, and Jeffery’s. Their silhouettes were sharp on the window’s blinds. Fox stood in the middle with the dagger held above his head as he raised his face to the roof, chanting. The man in the robe looked down, reading, leading the chant. Jeffery’s silhouette was blurrier, further from the window, kneeled beside the bed.
Stan finished wrapping the baby up in his coat. “What are they doing?”
Dalla put a finger to her lips. She turned her head, one ear facing the window. “That language … I have only ever heard Father speak it. And only in anger.”
Stan couldn’t make out words, just the tone: angry, powerful, greedy. The man in the robe cried out a final, indecipherable line, then Fox and Jeffery repeated it. A moment of silence. Jeffery leaned forward.
“Please tell me
resurrection isn’t possible. I can not handle a zombie pop star right now.”
“Shhh,” said Dalla.
Jeffery’s blurry shadow leaned back, then stood. He stepped forward, and held his arms to Fox. The silhouette came into sharp focus, and Stan bit down on his own hand to suppress a scream.
It was another baby. Hillary Miller had, for a few brief moments, been the mother of twins. How could he not have noticed that Miller was still large in the belly, still pushing?
Fox brought the dagger down. Red flecked the room’s blinds. Stan put his arms around the child that shivered in his arms, silent. He squeezed his eyes shut, a single tear falling from them, but he couldn’t help looking back up a moment later. Fox held the dagger like a pencil, then brought it down again, carefully, surgically. He made a cut, then Jeffery reached forward, dug down, and plucked something from the bundle in his other hand.
He held it to Fox between two fingers; a twitching round object, smaller than a bulb of garlic.
When Fox brought the baby’s heart to his mouth, Stan finally turned his back. He crouched, sheltering the baby he’d saved. When he glanced sideways at the vampire, her jaw hung open. Out of shock or out of hunger, he couldn’t tell.
Bloody trotted out from the forest. Her head jerked sideways when she saw the baby, but then she licked Stan’s face.
“Please,” he said to Dalla. “Do what you want with me. Rip my heart out and eat it, I don’t care anymore. Just please, let me drop—” he pulled his coat back for a moment to get a good look at the child, who stirred and looked up at him with sad blue eyes in a wrinkled face, “her off at a hospital first.”
The vampire’s face was blank, her mouth agape, her fangs retracted. She nodded. Her voice was low, free of sarcasm or malice, when she said, “yeah, okay Stan.”
16. Baby, Baby, Baby No
THE KID COULD NEVER KNOW who she was. It’d be a rough life, sure, growing up an orphan, never knowing about her famous parents. But she’d also never know the horror of how close her life came to being over before it began. Plus, she’d be gorgeous. That would help.
Stan hoped—prayed, even—that Fox and his little cult would never find her. They’d think to check hospitals, but hopefully only in Victoria, and maybe Vancouver, never thinking to check the tiny clinic in White Rock. He also hoped that the note he scrawled in shaky writing— husband says baby will ruin his political career, wants it dead, please keep safe—would pique the clinic’s interest enough to beef up security.
Not that it would help if Fox found her.
“Why?” Stan asked Dalla as he closed the door to the hotel room then stuck his eye to the peephole. “Why did he do it?”
“It’s an act of pure depravity. He took a life that couldn’t possibly have deserved it. An act that depraved leaves a hole. Deep in his psyche, a gap. With a hole like that—this is how Father explained it to me—a hole like that, it needs to be filled. He filled it with something he desired. Something better.”
“Power.”
“Power. Something like mine, I imagine.” Her hand paused on the way to washing off her makeup. Stan could see her image in the mirror, only slightly translucent. “But …” she trailed off, mumbling something under her breath. Something like most people don’t ask for this.
When he asked her what she said, she pretended not to hear him as she turned on the shower. He watched her ghostly form in the mirror as she took off her clothes. She looked so human, teetering on one foot for a moment before stepping into the tub. He saw her faded silhouette scrubbing, scouring every inch of her body.
Stan hugged his dog. He thought of his mother, sick at home. She wouldn’t last long; he denied it before, but with all the death around him, it no longer seemed such a far-off spectre.
Wasn’t power about death? Overcoming this frail humanity—his mother with her withering, skinny arms. What could she be with Dalla’s power running through her? Fox found a way to obtain it without the pale skin, the hunger for flesh, the fangs. One act of depravity traded for a lifetime of avoiding it.
Stan shook his head, then slapped his own face. He was exhausted, not thinking straight. Although … maybe, yes, maybe understanding Fox would help if they met again. Maybe getting his motives would be another detail to use against him.
Paul’s voice was a growl. “You know I can’t do that,” he said.
“I know you shouldn’t do it. I know you might lose your job over it, but Paul, this is important. You—you don’t even know. This is the last favor I’ll ask, I promise.”
“No,” said Paul. There was a whoosh on the other end of the phone. Stan’s childhood friend was hanging up on him.
Dalla stood outside the phone booth. She turned to face him as the phone call ended; she must have sensed the pang of fear that jolted Stan when he realized what she would do to him if he couldn’t convince his friend to get the information.
“Remember Garbage in Grand Rapids?” Stan blurted into the phone.
Another whoosh. “The band? What about them?”
“Nineteen ninety eight. You were in love with Shirley Manson. Posters of her all over your walls, pathetic, right?”
Paul barked a single hah! “You dug her too. Her and every other chick in a band.”
Stan glanced at Dalla, her bare shoulders flattened against the glass of the phone booth. He laughed. “Whatever. But who got you into that concert? Who got us backstage? Who got us so close to Manson that you were shaking? You had to go puke in the opening act’s dressing room after we finally got her autograph.”
“Stan, are you seriously comparing getting into a concert by bribing a few security guards to abusing my duty as a police officer to get you a phone number for your amateur paparazzi crap?”
“Hey, for a kid, that was a big deal. Proportionally, it’s about the same.”
Paul chuckled. “You’re unbelievable. Freakin’ insane, you know that?”
“Just this one last favor.”
Paul sighed. “It’ll take time if I’m as careful as I should be.”
“Please, as quickly as possible.”
“What the hell are you involved with, Stan? I checked up on the guy from last time. Wilcox? All the credit records I gave you, they were erased a day after they were posted. Disappeared as if they weren’t never there. I never seen that; didn’t even know it was possible. The guy must have some serious pull, up high. If it’s him you’re tussling with, you watch yourself. All right?”
“I will. I know. That’s why I need your help.”
Paul sighed again.
“How is mom?”
“You need to come and visit.”
Stan squeezed his forehead. “Okay. Make sure she’s taken care of okay? I’ll visit soon, if I am still—” alive, he thought, but instead finished, “if I can.”
“Because you’re good with the details,” Dalla told him, when he asked, again, why he was still alive. “You see strengths and weaknesses and you use them.”
“And you know they’ll come for you. You think I’ll help protect you with my details.”
Her cold eyes met his. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
Stan frowned. Suddenly he felt shaky. He laughed nervously. He felt compelled to resist. “Right,” he said. “Right. Me, protect you, just so you can kill me later. I’ll do anything for my dog,” he said, patting Bloody, “but you’re just some bitch.”
He twitched, expecting a blow to the head. Instead, she sighed. She looked tired. “I have some items you must pick up for me. If you don’t, I’ll torture you, kill your dog, et cetera,” she said. She held out a list in a limp hand. “Addresses are on there. Make it snappy. We might not have long.”
(FOUR)
“I HAVE SOME ITEMS FOR you to pick up for me,” said Alejandro. Morgan skimmed the list; he couldn’t imagine why a spiritual guru would need gunpowder, crushed fireflies, and crystallized amber essence. Then again, it was quickly becoming obvious that he was more than a spiritual advisor, and F
ox wasn’t just learning yoga. “I trust you know where to find them?”
“Yes,” said Morgan. “I can track these down.”
When Alejandro was pleased, his thin moustache curled at the edges, like he had two smiles. Morgan felt a shiver when the robed man shook his hand. Was that dried blood under his fingernails?
Morgan stuffed the list into his pocket, then got on his boots. Mister Fox had offered to buy him new shoes, but he couldn’t part with the steel-toed shitkickers he’d barely taken off in years. Even slept in them when he didn’t have a bed. He’d saved up for months to afford them; those boots were one of the few possessions he could be proud of.
He clomped down the stairs. A maid was in the foyer, scrubbing the hardwood floor with steel wool. She was sweating, pale. When she looked up at Morgan, her tightly closed mouth trembled, as if she wanted to open it and tell him something. She didn’t.
He’d heard bits and pieces of what happened the night before. Rumors spread through the small crowd of Fox’s helpers that gathered for breakfast in the kitchen—breakfast that never came, because the chef was nowhere to be seen. Some people heard crying. Some screaming. Everyone heard the series of crashes. Still others saw strange lights.
Carley had said she tried to leave, but got lost in the woods. Coffee shaking in her hand, she said she’d been here a dozen times, but, this morning, somehow, she got herself lost in the woods and ended up right back at the front door.
Morgan found his usual driver at the door: Howard, the thick-skulled dimwit who was quickly becoming one of the few people he could trust. Before getting into the car, he stopped by the polished new truck parked on the other side of the fountain. A man in a mechanic’s jumpsuit was strapping Morgan’s threat detection array to the truck’s bed. Morgan grunted his approval, then checked the cell phone he’d managed to substitute for a proper display. A stream of numbers scrolled down the screen.