Smith hadn’t fared any better, picking up a few parking stubs and collecting wallets from the vampires we staked and beheaded. If their IDs weren’t lying, none of the vampires from Gus’s crew were local, which meant he was traveling in something big and with a light-tight cargo compartment. That narrowed down his parking solutions pretty dramatically, so Smith got on the phone and started calling long-term lots that were big enough to handle that type of vehicle, and Flynn opened her laptop and started looking up parking citations for oversized vehicles in the past couple of weeks.
I had nothing, so I sifted through papers aimlessly for a few minutes, then started scouring the floor for clues from our earlier fight. I don’t know what I thought I was looking for, but I found a whole lot of nothing.
A few minutes after the last rays of sunlight stopped flickering through my impromptu skylight, my cell rang. I looked at the display and swiped my finger across the screen. “What’s up, Luke? Met up with an old friend of yours today. Boy, that Augustus, he’s got more issues than Reader’s Digest.”
“Quincy, while I often do not mind you borrowing my manservant for your little forays into mortal law enforcement, I must ask that if you are not going to have him home in time to prepare my breakfast, please leave a note. It is only common courtesy, after all,” my uncle’s cultured voice came through the tinny speaker crystal clear, pissiness and all.
“What are you talking about, Unc?” I looked around the stage just to make sure, but nope, no Renfield. Just like there hadn’t been a Renfield there all day.
“Where is Renfield, boy? I just woke up, I want my breakfast, and I am without my manservant! Are you being deliberately obtuse, or is it a natural state?”
“Don’t get bitchy, Uncle, I don’t have your butler. I haven’t seen Ren since I left the house this morning, and I haven’t heard anything out of him all day. Did he go out grocery shopping or something? I know it’s low on your priority list, but he has to eat, and he keeps a few things around the house for me, so maybe he went shopping.”
“He did. Much earlier. There is a new six-pack of that beer you like in the refrigerator and a receipt on the counter from before noon. No, he’s not out shopping. And he never stays out past dark without a very good reason.”
I started to feel a sick feeling in my stomach. “What reason would be good enough?”
“What are you talking about, boy?” Luke tended to call me “boy” when he was upset. Some things you just learn to live with when dealing with monsters that are hundreds of years old. “Boy” was one of those things.
“I’m saying has he ever been gone when you woke up before? For any reason?”
Luke paused and took a deep breath. After what felt like forever, he answered. “No. He hasn’t. Quincy, do you think something is wrong? Had something happened to him?” I gotta give him credit, Luke sounded legitimately worried. In that moment, he sounded more human than I’d heard him sound in years.
“I don’t think something happened, Uncle. I think someone happened,” I replied.
“Augustus,” Luke said.
“Augustus,” I agreed. “After we thumped him here, I bet he went to your place and decided to hit you where it would hurt the most—threatening the people who rely on you for protection.”
“That son of a bitch!” Luke exploded, and I pulled the phone away from my ear. Smith’s head whirled around, and I dialed in my suspicions about him a little further. “I’ll destroy him once and for all. If he’s harmed a single hair on that man’s head, I will tear him apart with my bare hands!” I held the phone further away from my head as Luke ranted. Super-hearing comes in handy a lot of the time, but when people are yelling into a cell phone, it turns every conversation into an argument.
“Luke,” I said, but he ignored me. “Luke!” I shouted, and he fell silent.
“Don’t do anything crazy,” I said. “We’re on our way.”
I turned to Flynn. “You get that?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Explain it to Smith while I pull the car around front. Grab all our weapons and be ready for some superior cover-up work in tomorrow’s paper if we find the bastard,” I said, turning to the door.
Two minutes later we were speeding down Seventh Street headed toward Luke’s house. We turned right off the main road into Luke’s neighborhood, then left into a housing development.
“I still can’t get over Dracula living in a housing development,” Flynn said as a cavalcade of nearly identical split-level houses circa 1964 rolled by outside the windows.
“It wasn’t a housing development when he built here. It wasn’t even Charlotte when he built here. I’m sure if he’d known the city would actually grow into something, he would have stayed far away. But he likes it here, so we stick around.”
“What about you, Harker?” Flynn asked. “Do you like it here?”
I looked over at her, but there was none of the normal mocking in her eyes. I thought for a moment, then said, “Yeah, I like it here. I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere as an adult, so it feels as much like home as anywhere that’s not London. And even London doesn’t feel much like my London anymore. There have been a few changes in the last hundred years or so. Charlotte’s a good place to live, and there’s enough turnover in the population that I can change apartments and names every ten years or so, and as long as I don’t go back to my old hangouts, I don’t get outed too often.”
“How long have you been here?” Flynn asked.
“Well, Luke’s been here in one name or another for a lot longer than me, but I got here in the seventies. If I had to live in America during those years, I was at least going to live in the South where bell bottoms weren’t quite as big as some places.” I chuckled, then grew focused. “We’re here. Smith, I need you to take the back entrance. Can you handle it solo?”
“Kid, I was breaching doors when you were still trying to figure out how tie your shoes.”
“I rather doubt that since I learned to tie my shoes at the turn of the century. The twentieth century.” I parked the Suburban in the driveway and headed for the door. I took the front steps two at a time and hit the door at a run. Good thing for everyone Luke had it unlocked.
He was waiting for us in the living room. Smith joined us a couple of minutes later, shaking his head.
“No sign of anything out back,” he said.
“Luke, what do we know?” I asked.
“We know that rat bastard Augustus had kidnapped my Renfield and is using him for bait to lure me out. We know that I’m going to find him and do largely unpronounceable things to him that wouldn’t be possible if he weren’t an undead monster. We know that you’re standing between me and the front door, thereby impeding my ability to kill Augustus and get my manservant back.”
“We know that you have voicemail,” Flynn cut in.
“What?” Luke whirled around. “I have voicemail?”
“That wasn’t Luke asking if anyone left him a message,” I translated. “That was Luke admitting he had no idea there was an answering machine.”
“True enough,” my somewhat technophobic undead monster uncle agreed.
Flynn pressed a button on the console beside the phone and a tinny voice informed us that we had one message.
“Hello, Count.” Augustus’ voice came through, a little scratchy for the recording, but there was no question who it was. “I have something of yours. I believe you’ll want it back. Did you actually believe this simpleton could replace me? This human fool doesn’t have the power to light a candle, much less destroy the Lord of the Undead. But that’s what I’m going to do, Count. Or should I call you Vlad, now that you’re landless?
Regardless, meet me at the bandshell behind SouthPark Mall at midnight. That will be a lovely place to settle our differences. Oh, and bring the Harker brat. I might have something for him, too.” The recording clicked off and we all looked at each other.
“How does a European vampire from th
e nineteenth century even know there’s a bandshell behind SouthPark? How does he even know there’s a SouthPark?” I asked the room.
“It means nothing to Augustus, but the location is significant to my current Renfield. He was an oboe player in the symphony before I brought him into my employ,” Luke said. “But that matters little at this point. All that matters is rescuing Renfield and destroying that psychopath Augustus once and for all.”
“Hold your horses, Luke,” I cautioned. “You know I’m usually the last one to argue for discretion as any part of valor, but I’ve got an idea.”
“I know that look,” Luke said. “Ever since you were a child, you got that look on your face whenever you were about to do something you thought was clever. It usually ended up with you crying and blood streaming down your face.”
“That’s kinda the plan here, too, Uncle, except I don’t plan on doing the bleeding and crying this time,” I said with a grin.
Chapter 13
We pulled up to the rear of SouthPark Mall in two cars. Me and Luke in his Mercedes coupe, and Flynn and Smith coming in from the opposite direction in a black Suburban. We had little chance of fooling anyone who was paying even a little attention, but it was worth a try. Luke and I started the long walk across the grass down to the bandshell while Smith and Flynn walked in from the side.
The bandshell at SouthPark Mall was built when the Symphony and mall management got tired of building temporary staging for the Summer Pops series. So they got together and built a little stage with a curved roof out on a little island behind the mall. In the summer, yuppies and music lovers of all stripes bring lawn chairs and sip wine while listening to the Symphony. It’s a nice little gig, and now every time I tried to pick up a chick at a concert, I’d think of Gus. One more thing for the asshole to answer for.
I saw the scrawny rat bastard from a hundred yards away, and judging by the low growl he let out, I knew Luke saw him too. He was standing near the front edge of the stage, right smack in the middle. A few feet away, he had Renfield tied to a chair, and even from a distance, I could tell the man had been beaten, and badly.
We stopped just on the mall side of the moat in front of the stage. Twenty feet of water separated us from our prey, but he either thought it was too far for me to jump, or counted on his ability to kill Renfield before Luke could run the bridges at the side of the stage.
“So glad you could join us, gentlemen,” Gus said when we came to a halt.
“Augustus, I command you to release my manservant at once!” Luke commanded, and suddenly I saw the vampire that kept an entire countryside cowed before his power. Every inch of cultured businessman was gone, and left standing beside me was a man who expected his every whim to be obeyed, and woe betide the fool who crossed him.
Gus laughed. He actually had to step away from the edge of the stage to keep his balance, he was laughing so hard. “You impotent old fool,” he sneered. “You actually think you can still command me? I, who have not only grown greater than I ever was as a human, but I have evolved into the pinnacle of the Nosferatu!”
“Vampires who refer to our kinds as Nosferatu are invariably assholes,” Luke muttered to me. I turned to him in shock. “What?” he asked. “You don’t expect me to listen to this douchebag, do you?”
“No, but I didn’t expect you to know the proper use of the term douchebag, either.” I drew my Glock from a shoulder holster and shot Gus in the throat. The report echoed across the expansive lawn, and blood spattered all over the stage. Gus dropped but sprang to his feet almost immediately.
Bad news for him was that twenty feet was less than my standing broad jump, and that Luke was faster than he expected, so when he hopped back to his feet, we were standing directly in front of him. He made a few gasping noises, spraying bloody mist across the stage.
“What?” I asked. “I’m sorry, Gus, I can’t hear you.” I broke up laughing at my own joke, which just served to further enrage the pissed off and newly perforated vampire before me. I holstered my largely useless pistol and got ready for a fight. Luke slid over to the side to position himself between Gus and Renfield, then when Gus charged me, Luke set to work untying Renfield. Everything was going according to plan.
The only problem was that the plan consisted of me going toe to toe with a powerful vampire for long enough to get Ren to safety, preferably without getting dead. Gus dove at me first, so I caught him by his lapels and rolled backward, placing two feet into his gut and flinging him over my head into the moat.
He leapt back onto the stage with a little splash, and I hopped to my feet to meet him. He sprang at me again, not giving me enough time to get a spell ready, so I sidestepped his charge and punched him in the back of the head as he went by. He sprawled on the stage but was back up in an instant. This time he was more cautious, stalking me, feinting a jab here and there. He was consciously ignoring Luke and Ren, which set off alarm bells to me. Then I heard a rustle from above, and it clicked into place. I put everything I had into one massive punch, which took him right on the cheekbone. Gus’s head snapped to the side, his whole body spun with it, and he dropped once again to the deck.
“Luke!” I shouted. “Look up!” He paused in walking Renfield across the bridge to the lawn and looked up. The entire roof structure was covered with vampires, staring down at us, just waiting for the right moment to strike.
Apparently, when I noticed them was the right moment because a good three dozen vampires dropped to the stage around me. The nearest half dozen or so vampires to me got a rude awakening when they landed because decking Gus gave me just enough time to focus my will on the Zippo lighter I carried, shout “FRAGOR!” at the top of my lungs, and jump straight up into the rafters the vampires just fell from.
A fireball ten feet in diameter erupted from the Zippo, engulfing the nearest vampires and turning several of the older ones to dust instantly. The fresher vampires, the ones turned more recently, burned more like humans, except they turned completely to ash when they died. I dropped from the ceiling onto the back of another vamp, snapping its neck like a rotten branch.
That only left thirty vampires plus Gus to go. I glanced over to where Luke almost had Ren over the bridge to the relative safety of the lawn, then turned my attention back to the horde of angry and slightly singed vampires surrounding me. I drew my Glock and put rounds in the chests of the four nearest vampires on my right side, and they dropped like stones. A silver-tipped bullet in the throat won’t do much more to Gus than piss him off for a while, with an added side of shutting him the hell up. But to a new vampire, a silver bullet through the heart turns them to real dead real fast.
Four bullets wasn’t doing much to get me out of harm’s way, so I breathed a sigh of relief when rifle shots rang out from the left side of the stage.
We’re in position, Flynn’s voice came across the mental link we shared, and for a second I had the weird double vision where I saw through my eyes and hers as well, but I shook my head and dialed it back a little. Flynn and I usually keep enough of a conduit open to each other that we know when one of us, usually me, is in trouble, but sometimes you just don’t want to see life through the other person’s eyes. On the other hand, I learned the hard way that my nicknaming her EMT boyfriend Black Superman was pretty damned accurate.
Flynn and Smith were set up in mini-sniper perches on the lawn behind a little grassy knoll with Remington 700 rifles just casually blowing the heads off vampires. Stoker never mentioned that a high-powered rifle round is better than a stake, but I guess he also never fired a really powerful, accurate weapon before. Some of the vampires turned to run up the hill at Flynn and Smith, but they barely made it onto grass before they were taken out with headshots.
I emptied my Glock and pitched it onto the grass behind me, flung one more fireball that took out four vamps, then went hand to hand with the last few vampires until the platform was littered with bodies. I stood in the center of the stage, panting, with blood dripping from my ha
nds, staring upstage at Gus. His throat had healed, but I knew what repairing that damage took out of him. He stepped down toward me, then looked me up and down from ten feet away.
“There’s more to you than I expected, Quincy Harker,” Gus said with a sneer.
“That’s what your mom said when I left her this morning,” I replied. I don’t care if I live to be a thousand, which is unlikely given my mouth, but I will never get tired of “your mom” jokes.
Gus looked perplexed for a moment, then his eyes narrowed and he bared his fangs in a terrifying grimace. Terrifying, I’m sure, if you don’t get to see Dracula in his old man boxers far more often than anyone would like. After that, I’m hard to scare.
Just before he charged me, Gus’s eyes went wide and a crimson stain bloomed on his shirt. A slender piece of wood ripped through the front of his clothes, and Gus dropped to his knees, revealing a smiling Gabriella Van Helsing standing behind him with a second stake in her left hand to match the one buried in Gus’s back. I stepped forward, then looked at Gus again, wondering why he wasn’t toppling over like a good dead vampire.
That’s when I got a better look at the angle of the stake, and my blood froze. “Move!” I shouted to Gabby, but she just looked at me. “You missed the heart! He’s playing possum!” I yelled, and Gabby went white.
Gus hopped to feet, reached behind his back, and wiggled the stake free. “Ouch,” he said. “That got stuck on some ribs. For that, I’m going to make this hurt. A lot.” He flung the stake at Gabby, who knocked it out of the air, but left herself open to Gus’s first punch, which would have been Gabby’s last if it had landed. I poured on the speed and caught the vampire’s arm before he could crush Gabby’s face, then found myself far closer to Gus than I really wanted to be.
Hell on Heels - A Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Novella Page 8