Vampires of the Plains (Book 2): Blood Tells True

by Alan Ryker

  “Why would he want his arm?”

  Amy scanned Jessica's face as if checking for sarcasm, but her face was inside of a paintball mask. Amy raised an eyebrow. “To put it back on.”

  The first thing Jessica felt was shock. The second, indignation. She didn't like being made to feel stupid. She thought about stun-gunning the bitch. Instead, she looked forward and started the car. “Showdown on Main Street, huh? You watch a lot of westerns?”

  “Would you rather fight him in the dark? Or in a residential area?”

  Jessica had to admit that was a good point, except that she didn't have to admit anything. She just drove.

  “After this, I walk away,” Amy said.

  Jessica didn't reply.

  “Either you let me walk, or you face Willie on your own. I've got no reason to help you if you're going to kill me.”

  “I don't know if I can do that.”

  “I'm not like them, Jessica. They did this to me, then kept me a prisoner. You don't know the things they did to me, but you're a woman. You can imagine.” Amy's gaze intensified as she searched for a reaction through Jessica’s mask. Amy was a phony. “I just want to live quietly. I'll know you're out there, and I won't do anything to make you want to come looking for me.”

  Jessica didn't reply, but Main Street was coming up. She drove slowly.

  “Either you tell me that you're gonna let me live, or I'll scream and let Willie know the deal is off. Then you can spend your short life waiting for him to burst through your window, or drop on you from a tree, or pop up out of your goddamn toilet.”

  “You scream and you die.”

  “And Willie will obviously know the deal is off.”

  There was no way out of it. “If you don't give me a reason to, I won't kill you after this is done.”

  The phrasing was important. Jessica hated lying.

  It seemed good enough for Amy.

  Jessica parked at an angle in front of an antique store. The street was indeed well-lit. Jessica got out of the car and gasped for fresh air. Amy stank. Fatty tried to follow, but Jessica shut him in.

  “Deputies'll show up soon,” Jessica said.

  “If they show before Willie does, I'll lead you to him after the sun rises, just like I said. We'll be sleepy and slow.”

  Jessica nodded and checked over her weapons.

  “He's very close,” Amy said.

  Jessica was used to vampires announcing themselves, usually with a shriek. And Dennis, the vampire who had killed her family, had been so mouthy. So she almost missed the scraping sound from two stories overhead.

  She and Amy both jumped aside as a blue mailbox smashed into the concrete between them.

  Willie followed after it, and Jessica dodged again. Willie was fast, but he couldn't change direction in mid-air. Jessica shot him in the guts before he hit the ground. The blast reverberated down the stone storefronts on either side of the street.

  It barely made him pause. She shot again, but he wasn't there anymore. He'd gone airborne again. She followed his arc like a clay pigeon, and that time she hit him. The shot plowed into his thigh and tilted him forward. Jessica stepped sideways and he slapped the pavement directly beside her.

  But she was out of shells. She'd used one on Douglas and hadn't reloaded. She tossed the shotgun aside and drew her machete in time to watch Willie scramble away like a crab before rising to his feet. He pulled up the rags of his shirt and showed her the buckshot being ejected from his wounds as they closed up.

  She found it more interesting that he had the use of both arms. Dennis's arm healed, but it had never left his body.

  Jessica flipped her stun gun into her left hand, cocked her machete up on her right shoulder, and shuffled forward.

  Willie walked backwards. “Amy, this doesn't make sense.” His voice was thick with fangs and dripping venom.

  Amy didn't respond.

  “She's a goddamn vampire hunter. She won't let you live. Did she tell you she would?”

  No response.

  “Even if she does, she'll keep you locked up. You'll be worse off than you were with us. Listen, I'm glad you killed Douglas.”

  He kept walking backward, Jessica kept pursuing, but she was tiring of the game. Tiring of his running mouth.

  “Douglas wasn't like us. He had to die. We're smart. We can go our separate ways.”

  Jessica sheathed her machete and pulled her .40. She thought of saying something snappy, but let go with the .40 instead.

  For a small-town at night, the street was well lit. But the muzzle flash still blinded her just a bit, and after two shots, she didn't know where Willie had gone.

  Then she knew.

  She fell to her back and got her feet up just in time, catching Willie as he came down, compressing her thighs to her chest. It was like the time she'd fully loaded the leg press at the gym, then released the safety catches.

  Willie slid sideways in a jumble, but raked his claws across her chest. The vest held.

  She stuck her stun-gun in him and pulled the trigger.

  Every muscle in Willie's body went tense with such force that he was popped away from where she lay. But it gave her a moment. She rolled to a knee and unloaded her .40 into him. Holding the big gun with one hand, it jumped with every crack.

  He skittered away spastically. As her vision cleared, she could see that she'd caught him in the face with one shot, just above his mouth. Still, he kicked at the ground and slid away.

  It was time to finish him.

  She stood, then fell. Something was wrong with her left leg. From ankle to hip it roared with pain when she put weight on it. But Willie's movements were becoming more coordinated, and he moved away faster.

  Jessica got her right leg beneath her. It hurt, but it held. She drew her machete and closed with the injured vampire. He stared at her with eyes that almost met his mouth for the new hole in the center of his face, and he went limp. Jessica raised her machete and swung. Willie's hand closed around her left ankle—

  And then she opened her eyes. Pain in her spine brought her back. She sat against something hard. As her vision cleared, she saw Willie trying to get to his feet and falling, stumbling, crawling, but moving closer to her all the time.

  She pushed herself up. Her back was against the stone wall of a building. Her left hand shrieked in protest as she pushed it against the concrete sidewalk.

  He'd thrown her. He'd moved faster than she'd thought possible and hurled her all the way across the street.

  She tried to stand, and slid back down the wall.

  Willie approached more and more steadily. If a lucky shot hadn't scrambled his brain, she'd be dead.

  She pulled the .32 from her ankle holster. She could handle its kick with one hand. Slowly, methodically, she unloaded the revolver into Willie. She hit him in the head again.

  He dropped to what was left of his face. His hands flapped, slapping the asphalt. Then they dug in, and he began to pull himself forward again.

  “We were right to fear you,” he said as he tumbled forward. “You're a goddamn monster.”

  He made it to one foot, then the other. He fell forward, but caught himself with one long arm. He'd almost reached the sidewalk.

  Jessica drew her .45 from the shoulder holster. Even Willie couldn't stroll through that.

  One bullet at a time, she aimed and fired. The pistol roared and snapped her wrist up with every shot. She tried to support it with her left hand, but the pain blinded her.

  Willie kept coming, staggering back, then forward like a drunk, but making slow progress as gore exploded from his back.

  Jessica got to her knees. Even from there, her hips wobbled and she nearly toppled over. She got her right foot planted. She pushed the barrel of the .45 into the concrete and pressed herself up the wall.

  If she was going to die, she'd meet death standing.

  No, she'd already met death—many times—and it hadn't taken her yet. The nightmare staggering towards her was
only the latest incarnation. She aimed carefully, putting the wobbling sights over its skull.

  Then Willie smiled, and winked, and hurled himself at her.

  But he didn't move with the same graceful, alien speed he had before. As he lunged at her, she thrust her left hand out at his face. He hit it and the shock of pain nearly dropped her back to the concrete as whatever was in her arm that had begun breaking broke. Willie chomped down on her chainmail-clad hand, and more things broke.

  But it brought the spastic movement of his head to a brief halt.

  Jessica put her .45 against his skull and pulled the trigger.

  His mouth clamped shut even harder, his fangs snapping off against the glove. His knees went out from under him, and he fell.

  He wasn't that heavy, but her legs gave instantly and she went down with him.

  Willie flailed like a half-crushed spider. He flailed against her because she could not get her hand from his mouth.

  She dropped her pistol, pulled her machete, and began to hack at him. He came apart in chunks that continued moving on their own. And still his mouth held her hand.

  She dropped the machete, and drew her long hunting knife with the serrated back. She started sawing.

  Then a gun cracked, and a cloud of dust puffed from the wall beside her.

  Jessica tensed, but the next bullet didn't come yet. She scanned the street, and saw Amy step off the curb on the opposite side.

  With his spine sawed through, Willie had stopped flailing. Jessica ran the knife hard through the remaining meat and cartilage, and his head came away. Still, the jaws held.

  Snakes bite even in death.

  She dropped the knife and grabbed her .45 from the sidewalk.

  Amy strode purposefully across the street. She didn't run. She kept her revolver on Jessica. Jessica roared in anger, though as much at herself as at Amy.

  Amy held Sheriff Yoder's revolver. She'd taken it from his body.

  If the ex-party girl knew how to handle a gun at all, Jessica knew she'd be dead already.

  Jessica aimed her own pistol at Amy. She wouldn't miss at that distance, but she didn't know how many bullets she had left, and unless she blew most of Amy's brains out with one shot, she'd end up trying to reload her gun with a vampire head clamped to her left hand.

  She was certain she had one round in the chamber, and that's all she was certain of. So she waited. Amy fired and missed again, but Jessica could literally feel the bullet pass by her, and thanked God that it dug into the soft stone instead of ricocheting because she didn't believe she was lucky enough to dodge the same bullet twice.

  Still, she held her .45 out and waited as Amy came closer.

  She winced at the next explosion, but felt nothing. And Amy's gun hadn't flashed. And the roar had been too loud for the revolver she wielded.

  Amy fell, plowed over from the side.

  She clawed at the asphalt. Jack jogged up, put the barrel of a shotgun almost against her head and finished her. Then he headed for Jessica.

  “What in the hell were you waiting for?” he asked.

  She fired her pistol into the air. The slide didn't return. She'd been right. She showed him the spent gun.

  Jack was still tensed from the unexpected shot. “You're a goddamn psychopath. Here.” He pulled at her hand. She tried to stand, but nothing worked right. She guessed that her left leg was broken, and both her hips were either bruised or dislocated from Willie landing on her and then tossing her at the wall. She fell back with a groan.

  “I'll get the car. Keys?”

  “In the car. Pick up my guns.”

  On the way to his battered Cutlass, Jack gathered up the firearms that littered the ground.

  He pulled the car up onto the sidewalk. As he ducked down to grab Jessica under the arms, she held up her left hand, where Willie's head still clung.

  “Can you help me with this, first?”

  Inside her mask, she burst into laughter at the expression on his face.

  After Jack had helped Jessica pry Willie's fangs from around her hand and dragged her into the car, the first thing she did was remove her left chainmail glove and check for wounds. She'd been incredibly lucky. His teeth hadn't penetrated the glove, but that's not what she was worried about. He'd soaked the glove in venom, and she worried that it could have seeped into any small abrasion. But when he chomped down, he hit the center of her hand, which she wrapped in gel-cushioned boxing handwraps. The delicate bones inside her left hand were certainly broken, but the skin wasn't, as her fingers had dangled safely inside his fetid mouth.

  She pulled the rattlesnake rattle from inside her vest and kissed it.

  Jack couldn't have given her a more sour look.

  Because they took dirt roads the entire way to Jessica's house, the drive took over an hour. She didn't sleep because pain wouldn't let her, but she entered some state of delirious semi-consciousness. It only lengthened her perception of time, and the night seemed to stretch on endlessly as every big chunk of gravel Jack hit sent pain rioting through her pulverized body. Electrifying spasms shuddered through her bruised spine as she clutched her broken left arm to her chest.

  “You need to go to a hospital,” Jack said, bringing her back to herself just a bit.

  “I'll go, but Sheriff Wheeler has to arrange it. You'll call him for me.”

  After an eternity of darkness, Jack pulled into her driveway. The road grader had come by recently and left a ridge of gravel a foot high to drive over, and the sharp, jarring pain shook away some of the delirium that the dull, constant pain had brought.

  Jack stopped in front of the porch. In the kennel, the dogs were going nuts. Jessica smiled.

  “You're soaked in sweat,” Jack said.

  “Just help me inside.”

  He scooped his arms beneath her armpits and lifted her from the car. She tried to stand on her right leg and collapsed. Jack put her right arm over his neck and stood, and she screamed through a closed mouth as her weight hit her legs and hips and went through her spine. She locked up and fell back to the ground.

  Jack tried to scoop her up, but she was as big as he was.

  “It's okay,” she said, once the taste of copper that usually preceded losing consciousness had left her mouth. They'd at least managed to get to the grass, and she lay back. “Take my keys. Go call Sheriff Bill Wheeler for me. His home number's in a book by the phone.”

  She looked up at the stars and scratched Fatty's head with her right hand. The air was warm, but not uncomfortable. Even nights would be bad soon, as the summer took hold.

  Jack returned and knelt beside her. He dropped her keys into her hand. “He's on his way. He sounded pissed.”

  “I'm sure.”

  Jack remained squatting. She was conscious that he wasn't making himself comfortable.

  “I'm trying to figure out if we got away with it,” she said. “Wheeler will do his best to protect us, but I don't know.”

  “You don't have to worry. Everyone who knew about you is dead.”

  She barked out a laugh. Then felt horrified at her mind’s bitterness.

  “What?” he asked.

  “That tends to happen,” she muttered.

  He snorted and nodded. After a moment he said, “Me, I'm gonna have to run.”

  They'd taken everything from him. She knew that it would be easy for him to leave, because he left nothing behind. He couldn't do what she had done. He couldn't bury himself in a memorial to everything he'd lost.

  But running constantly, that wasn't a good life, either. And he'd helped her. He hadn't saved her. No. She'd still had one bullet. She still had a belt covered in blades. She didn't need saving. But he'd come back when he didn't have to.

  She looked at his face. The dark eyes. The high-bridged nose. The hurt.

  He knew. He understood.

  “You can hide here for awhile. Once I explain things, the sheriff will help you hole up here.”

  He didn't say anything. Maybe, like her,
he didn't want to lean on anyone.

  “You could help me out, keep an eye on things while I'm in the hospital.”

  After a moment, he said, “I have to be honest, Jessica. I don't think I ever want to see you again.”

  He stood and looked into the night.

  It hit her so hard her vision narrowed to a pinpoint. Tears welled in her eyes, then spilled over, as she stared up at the night sky. Her throat swelled shut. She felt sobs coming.

  Anger came instead. And it closed over the sadness and killed it.

  “I'm gonna go,” he said.

  “Wait,” she said. “Turn on the porch light.”

  He did. She held up her keys in her right hand and tangled with them until she held the one she wanted.

  “Take this key off,” she said. “It goes to the brown Ford in the carport over there.”

  He shook his head. “I don't want it.”

  “They're after you, and your windshield is half smashed in. They'll find you in a day.”

  He didn't say anything.

  “And I don't want your dumb ass leading them to me. Take the fucking truck. I have four.”

  “You have four trucks?”

  “And two cars. My family's.”

  He took the key from the ring and dropped the rest beside her. He left without saying anything else.

  The stack of cinderblocks sitting on Jessica's chest got a bit lighter as she listened to him drive away until the night was full of only the sounds of insects.

  So there was one person out there who could tie her back to the slaughter in Krendel. No, there were two.

  She'd forgotten about Charlie, gagged and tied up to a tree outside Jack's safe house. She didn't know if Jack remembered him, or if he'd want to go back to save him, but he couldn't. He had to leave. Leave Kansas altogether.

  She could tell Wheeler about him, but she wouldn't. Charlie would want revenge. So he'd die out there, hanging from a tree behind an abandoned old house. It wouldn't take that long. He wouldn't die from starvation, or even dehydration. Eventually his legs would give out, and he'd strangle.

  So that made another human she'd killed. But this one was worse. The other had been shooting at her.

  It didn't matter.

  Jessica tried to imagine what she looked like, laying there on the ground. She almost laughed. She could already hear Wheeler. He'd tell her that it had to stop.