by P. T. Phronk
“What’s that?” asked Howard.
Morgan waved at him in a shoo gesture. “Weather apparatus,” he said.
“I know it ain’t.”
Morgan sighed. “It detects the proximity of the mojo that’s out there tryin’ to kill us. Thing with a proximity detector is, it can be an early warning when something’s comin’ closer to you, or, if you make it mobile, it can bring you closer to the something.”
The stooge frowned. “This have to do with the stuff Alejandro sent us to do?” asked the stooge, except he said it like he believed the man’s name was Alley Handro.
Morgan nodded.
“The guy gives me the heebie jeebs. I ain’t even sure who all these people are any more. ‘Specially don’t know what they’re doing. You heard the ruckus last night?”
Morgan nodded again, barely paying attention to the kid. He scrolled back up to double-check the numbers that had just passed by. He reloaded, then triple-checked. It wasn’t an anomaly; a fourth influence was affecting the probabilities. A new player had just entered the game.
“There’s a storm comin’, boy,” he muttered gravely.
Howard’s eyes were already too close together, but somehow they scrunched closer as he surveyed the sky. “I don’t see one cloud.”
“You know what I mean,” said Morgan.
“Well it don’t seem like a very good way of describin’ things is all. Why you always gotta be so cryptic?”
Morgan laughed. “Cryptic. That’s a big word for you, boy. Come on, let’s get this over with.”
17. Get a Room
SHE WHISTLED AS SHE WORKED. Stan couldn’t identify the song that kept her entertained as she shimmied around the hotel room, rubbing oil on the walls and carving jagged symbols into the door frame.
“Is the dancing part of it?” he asked.
“Don’t you like it?”
He smirked. “I do. I’m just curious.”
“I used to think so. Books I found in Father’s basement gave the exact movements of your hands and feet that go with the ritual. But he caught me trying them out one day and he told me that it was all malarky. It was like cooking, he said. As long as you have the right ingredients in there, it doesn’t matter how you’re flipping the pancakes.”
She sighed. “But you know, Father hadn’t eaten a pancake in 100 years. So I still do the dance. With my own touches, of course.”
She kicked to the left, then kicked to the right, then did a little twisty butt-wiggling move before moving to the next window.
When she’d circled the room and arrived back at the door, she bent her wrist back and sunk her fangs into it. She caught some dripping blood in her other hand, then smeared it over the carved symbols.
“Want some?” she asked, holding out her bleeding wrist.
Bloody roused from a deep sleep, her nose twitching. Stan put a hand on her head. “No thanks,” he said.
“Your loss,” she said, then sat on the bed, not bothering to stop the blood from soaking into the sheets.
“Would that do it? Would it make me like you?” asked Stan.
She tittered. “Takes a lot more than that, hun. Hours of draining and feeding. If you wanna do it properly, at least.”
An hour passed. Stan sat at the foot of the bed, scratching his stubbly chin and sweating despite the air conditioning. In the mirror above the dresser, he could see Dalla’s ghostly form balled up behind him, knees to chest. She rocked like a scared child. This creature that had caused untold suffering to so many people—Stan included—she was scared. Of course she was. Fox would be coming for her with everything he had, and now that he’d gone through that fucked up ritual, he had a lot. Dalla’s resistance to traditional death would only make her fear its inevitability even more.
Her image in the mirror was suddenly clearer. He could barely tell that she was supposed to be invisible.
He had the insane urge to turn around and take her in his arms. When her eyes met his through the mirror, that fear in them, that humanity, it told him that she would let him.
Bloody jumped off the bed, clawed once at the door, then sat and looked back at Stan with her big bloodshot eyes.
“She’s gotta go. If this is gonna be her last piss, she deserves better than a bathroom floor.”
She frowned, but didn’t stop Stan when he opened the door. They took the stairs down eleven floors, then emerged into a courtyard in front of the hotel, lit with the yellow glow of lamps overhead. Bloody found a patch of grass to piss on, then trotted toward the front gates.
“Where you going, girl?” He followed his dog out onto the sidewalk beside the busy street. “Hey, cars, careful.”
Bloody quickened her pace down the sidewalk.
“We can’t, Bloody. I can’t.”
The dog stopped, turned around, and snorted.
“You know she’ll just find us again.”
Bloody snorted again, then jabbed her nose toward the road they’d come in on.
“Yeah, Fox might kill her. He might not.”
She lowered her head and stared at Stan. Yeah, but he might, Stan could almost hear her say.
“I can’t believe I’m arguing about this with a dog. You of all, uh, people, should know something about loyalty.”
Bloody bared her teeth. She trembled slightly. Her eyes turned wet.
Stan turned red. “I didn’t mean—or maybe I—I don’t know what I meant by that.”
Bloody sighed and looked away.
Stan leaned against a wall. He took his glasses off and wiped them with his shirt. “I can’t leave her to die,” he said. It felt like confessing a crime. “You go. She can’t track you down. Fox doesn’t know you exist. You have a chance. Go.”
When Bloody still stood there, trembling, Stan raised the back of his hand to the dog. “Go, you god-damn mutt!”
He replaced his glasses, then turned and walked away, biting his lip. He hoped Bloody’s little doggy brain would get spooked, run away, and never think of Stan and Dalla again.
He wasn’t surprised, however, when he heard the clicking of overgrown toenails on concrete catching up behind him. Instinctively, he stooped and scratched his dog behind the ears. She looked up with a sad look in her eyes that made Stan’s chest ache.
When they arrived back at the hotel, there were two vehicles parked on the road in front that hadn’t been there before.
Stan smiled when he saw the news van. His call to the media had drawn at least one reporter, and there would be more on the way, especially if any of them spotted Fox. He just hoped that the other call he had made earlier in the day—punching in the number that Paul had, thank God, delivered—would be effective too.
His self-satisfaction was cut off when he made eye contact with the occupant of the other new vehicle. Jeffery Humber-Wilcox calmly stepped out of his minivan.
Stan scanned the courtyard; it was busy with people dropping off their luggage at the front door. He’d learned to spot bodyguards and other thugs, and none of those people set off his thug-sense. Wilcox was alone. Stan walked through the front doors of the hotel as calmly as he could, though his knees felt so weak he must have looked like he was limping.
He chanced a look back. Wilcox was striding toward the hotel, a briefcase in his hand. This was the game they were playing, then. No commotion, not in public, not in front of the media.
Stan hesitated at the elevators. Why? He could lead Wilcox to Dalla, let them fight it out, then be rid of at least one monster. Yet, the same compulsion that had brought him back to the hotel brought him to the bar instead of the elevator. He told Bloody to hide at his feet, then sat and ordered a rum and Coke. After a moment, he added “with a freshly sliced lime, please.”
He reached over the bar to grab the bartender’s knife when her back was turned, then slipped it in his pocket.
Wilcox arrived a moment later, sitting a few stools down from Stan. He asked for a rum and Coke.
“Good choice,” said Stan, after taking
a sip of his own.
“Thanks bud. Where you coming from?”
“Let’s say, Washington.”
“Ah, a fellow American,” said Wilcox as he watched the bartender fumble at the uncut lime on the counter, pat at her sides, confusion pinching her face. She tapped the counter, then wandered to the sink to wash another knife.
Wilcox leaned in close. “I hope you visited your dear mother in Michigan. I hear she doesn’t have long.”
Stan’s nostrils flared.
“Travelling with your girlfriend?”
Stan remained silent.
“I was in love with one, you know,” whispered Wilcox. “It’s not worth it, Stanley. They’re animals, monsters, cranium to cunt. I know the sex is fantastic, but stop thinking with your cock. You don’t fuck vampires.”
Stan’s eyes flicked to Wilcox, then back to his drink.
Wilcox smirked. “You haven’t even fucked her. My God, you’re weaker than I thought, you poor bastard. A vampire’s bitch, and you haven’t even fucked her.”
“You think I have a choice?” Stan snapped. “Where’s your master today?”
Wilcox had a hearty laugh. “The eminent Mister Fox doesn’t quite know I’m here, you see. He got himself a new lackey for tracking you down. Evidently one that operates much slower than I, even after you gypped me out of my share of Fox’s, um, upgrade, when you and your bitch pulled your baby-napping stunt.”
“Wait, so am I the bitch or is she? This is getting confusing.”
The asshole’s smile never reached his eyes. “Looks like we got ourselves three grade-A bitches here,” he said, then shot his foot out, connecting with Bloody’s neck. Bloody squealed, then began to cough.
The bartender turned around, drying off her knife, her face further contorted with confusion.
Stan’s mouth became a tight line. “I need to piss,” he said, then stood.
“Hey, you still need to pa—hey, you can’t have a dog in here,” stammered the bartender behind him.
“I’ll handle this,” he heard Wilcox say, then footsteps behind him.
He only had a moment between getting into the bathroom and Wilcox coming in behind him. “Listen,” he said to Bloody. “I know you understand more than a dog should. I need you to understand this. Give us a distraction the moment I zip up.” He mimed zipping his fly. “Do you get that? Zip! Attack!”
Bloody looked up at him with her big brown eyes, like she wanted nothing more than to understand.
Stan was too nervous to squeeze anything out, but he went through the motions anyway. Wilcox took up the urinal beside him, unzipped, then immediately let the piss flow as if he didn’t have a worry in the world.
“Calling the media was a nice touch,” said Wilcox. “Hitting Fox where it hurts. Real good thinking. Unfortunate that I informed your buddies out front that there’s been a wave of hoax celebrity sightings going around.”
Stan grunted. He grabbed his zipper. “This, though, this will be harder to cover up as a hoax.”
Wilcox frowned slightly. “This?”
“Yeah,” said Stan. “The body in the bathroom.”
Bloody snapped at Wilcox’s leg the moment Stan’s zipper zipped. The knife was in Stan’s good hand, and then it was in Wilcox’s gut.
He stumbled backwards, piss still flowing, sprinkling on Stan’s shoes. After a moment, it turned from yellow to red.
Before Wilcox could regain his footing, Stan lunged. Wilcox’s head hit the floor with a ceramic thud, but that seemed to only fuel the fire in his eyes. Stan grabbed the knife, which came free with a sucking sound, then held it ready to plunge into Wilcox’s neck.
Could he really do this?
In the moment’s hesitation, Wilcox had gripped Stan’s wrist. He was still strong. Stan leaned forward, but his weight wasn’t enough to overpower Wilcox. This was not going to end well.
Suddenly, Wilcox went limp. There was another sound of suction, a flash of red. Stan dropped the knife and leaned back.
Wilcox’s neck was splayed out in strings across the floor. Bloody’s face was matted red, a flap of skin dangling from her chin.
“G—good girl?” was all Stan could think to say.
He wedged a trash can under the bathroom door’s handle, then quickly wiped as much blood as he could off of himself and his dog, avoiding the spreading pool on the floor. He poked his head out of the bathroom, making sure nobody was around, then took the stairs to Dalla’s room.
Stan was right. The body in the bathroom brought more media attention, especially combined with his earlier anonymous tips that Fox would be at the same hotel.
“We must emphasize that the link with Fox is only speculation at this point,” said the reporter on the hotel room’s television. “What we do know is that a man’s body was found in the Westminster Hotel’s bathroom at approximately nine o’clock this evening. Police have surrounded the building. Sources speculate that the killer may still be inside.”
Dalla sat on the edge of the bed with her jaw dropped. Her fangs were halfway extended and the corners of her mouth twitched. “What have you gotten us into, Stanley?”
“One down,” he said from the bathroom. He scrubbed at Bloody’s face with a towel, but the blood was embedded deep in her gray chin hairs. She was shivering and staring at Stan with sad pleading eyes, as if she’d just been caught tearing up a couch cushion.
“One down,” repeated Dalla. “One down, one down.”
Was she losing it? Was it possible for a vampire to lose it? And how did Stan feel so damn calm?
He scrubbed at Bloody’s chin as hard as he could, giving the dog a scraggly little beard. Suddenly, Bloody wriggled free from his grip, shook herself off, then ran into the bedroom. She barked once, poked at the bag containing the Damien Fox T-shirt, then barked again.
“He’s coming,” said Stan.
“Oh goodie gosh,” said Dalla. “You know, Stanley, I really think we can talk this out and all be friends.”
“You have lost it. He’s coming here to find his kid so he can kill her, eat her heart, then kill us. All he wants is more power. You, of all people, should understand this.”
“He’s already got all the power he needs,” she said in that bizarre little-girl singsong voice. “Now he’s just like meee.”
Stan sighed. “Well just in case he wants to fry you instead of fuck you, are you ready? Is all this voodoo bullshit set up?” He tore the fitted sheet from the bed. “And maybe you should cover yourself up? In case he’s got one of those UV thingies that make you catch fire?”
He tossed the sheet over her head. She shook until it slipped down around her shoulders, then looked up at Stan, grinning. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for some alone time with Damien?”
Stan felt a growl escape from his throat, then, barely thinking, he slapped her across the face. “He. Is. Going. To. Kill. You.”
He felt like he’d been sucked out of an airplane. One moment he was standing over her; the next, he was on his back, her hands gripping the sides of his head and pushing it deep into the mattress. She leaned close.
“Let me have this,” she whispered.
“You don’t need this. Not with him,” he whispered back.
Her eyes searched his. Her lips lowered close to his. He closed his eyes. Their lips met. She undid a button on his shirt. He caressed her breasts, feeling her nipples harden under her dress. She undid the top button of his jeans.
A voice in Stan’s head said, anyways, and then.
Bloody barked. She faced one wall, then whipped around to face the other wall. She turned one more time, then stared at the window, snarling.
Dalla eased off of Stan, stood, faced the window, and smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress. Stan did up his jeans.
Glass exploded inward. Stan felt a shard puncture the arm he raised to cover his face.
“Finally, we’re together again,” said Dalla. Stan stared out the window, but he saw only the night sky.
; “Excuse me?” said the night sky.
“I know you felt it, Damien.” She approached the window with a coy smirk on her face. “In your bedroom. Now that the young skag’s out of the picture, you don’t have to pretend anymore.”
A joyless laugh, polished smooth by years of continuous acting, floated in through the window. “You do know that I have no idea who you are? Insane cunt. I’ve had some sad fans before. I’ve hollered in laughter at their letters; I’ve called the cops on their fat asses camped out by my house. Other than the fangs, you aren’t special. You’re not even the craziest I’ve had.”
Her smile faltered. “You know that’s not true.”
Stan squinted into the darkness beyond the window frame, all carved with symbols and smeared with Dalla’s blood. Bloody leapt up beside him and went to lap at his wound, but Stan pushed her away.
A few more barking laughs issued from the darkness. “Just hand the kid back. I could promise that I’m going to let you live if you do, but we know that would just be a formality. At least, the nerd in there knows it.”
“You’ll never find her,” said Stan. He dug his camera out of his pocket, then aimed it at the window, watching the viewfinder. There he was—Fox—only visible in the little screen, floating in mid-air just outside the window. He wobbled unsteadily, like he was riding a bicycle for the first time.
“Shame,” said Fox, his pixelated image shaking its head. “But, well, I’m pretty sure I will find her. Or Alejandro will; I really don’t give a shit either way. I already got my share of power, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty pumped about trying it out.”
Stan stood beside Dalla. “Why aren’t you in here trying it out then?”
Fox twitched as if to rush the window, then hesitated. “I—why don’t you come out here and face me?”
“Kinda reminds me of when you came to visit my apartment,” Stan whispered to Dalla. He didn’t miss the smile that briefly flitted across her lips. “Don’t do it. Don’t invite him in.”
“Let’s meet out back and handle this like adults,” said Fox. He leaned forward, then back again. Even in the wobbly image on the screen, Stan could see frustration building in his face.