He ducked under it and with lightning speed lashed out at me with his left catching me in the nose. A fire lit in my belly, and I heard my dad's voice in my head, "Do or die, boy!"
Maliki hissed at me and barred his fangs. I aimed for his nose again: this time with a will and a vengeance. I connected nicely, and blood flowed. It knocked him backward. I advanced on him raining punches on his face until he just lay on the floor.
My eyes adjusted to the dim light, and a roll of duct tape sat on a workbench. I bound Maliki's wrists and ankles together. I taped his mouth closed. Then I picked up my Colt and holstered it. I grabbed Maliki by the ankles and dragged him outside to my truck. I threw him in the back of the truck and threw a tarp over him. If I had a baseball bat handy, I would have clubbed him, but I was not prepared.
I drove out into the woods to a clearing I knew about. I picked Maliki up by the arms and set him down on the grass. I looked at my watch, 5:30 AM. My, how time flies when you're having fun.
Maliki opened his eyes. I removed the tape from his mouth.
"What the fuck are you doing?" He asked.
I said, "Waiting."
"For what?"
"For the sun."
He paused as if in thought. "Release me."
"I don't think so, Maliki."
Maliki took a look around. He stared at my truck for a moment and then back at me. He said it again, "Release me."
I walked back to my truck, grabbed a folding chair, and set it up near Maliki. The sun barely started to break on the horizon.
Maliki looked lost in thought. "I'm a psychic vampire you fool. I have tapped into a neural network of over a thousand souls. Release me."
I nodded.
"You're an idiot or something?" He asked.
"I just don't believe you."
"Your full name is Sidney Porter Daniels." Then he rattled off my social security number and birth date.
I smiled, and my insides did a little dance. "That's a neat trick."
"My friends all know your face! They'll come for you and kill you."
"I guess I'll have to buy more bullets."
The sun started to streak through the trees, and I noticed a slight complexion change in Maliki. Where he was pale and white, he was starting to turn pinkish as if he was sunburned. I smiled.
I went back to my truck and picked out a razor knife.
I walked up to Maliki. He said, "What the fuck are you doing?"
"You look kind of warm. I thought maybe I'd free you up from that shirt."
"You fucking pig! They'll torture you!"
I knelt down to him, and he tried to bite me. I dodged out of the way. Cut his shirt to ribbons and pulled the material off him. I went back to my chair and sat down. As I watched, blisters started to form on his skin. He shouted, "You son of a bitch! Kill me!"
Ever so slowly, the blisters got worse and worse. His breathing became rapid and shallow. He said, "I'm tied into a thousand master vampires. They're feeling my pain. They'll remember what you're doing. You're going to die!"
I nodded. Didn't care. I wanted to see what the sun would do to him. Slowly, in patches, his skin started to turn black and began to peel off in chunks. He started to wrestle with his bindings and squirm around on the ground. The faintest whispers echoed in my mind, Emily's voice, and she said, "When you die, we'll be together again…"
I grinned wide at her memory.
Maliki thought I was mocking him and started with the foulest of curses. He finished though begging for death. I simply ignored him and watched his transformation into a burnt mass of flesh.
Then he burst into flames and shouted, "I'll be avenged!"
He died then. I waited for the fires to burn down. I didn't want to start a brush fire. When he was mostly a skeleton, I went and got a fire extinguisher from my truck and sprayed him down with it.
Chapter 3
I had some thinking to do, and I wasn't sure where to start. I pulled into a gas station for fuel for the truck. I slid my card into the prepay without thinking. The machine paused for a long time and then said, "Rejected." I tried another card. Same result. I tried my last credit card. No luck. I looked in my wallet and found a twenty and a five.
I went inside the gas station and grabbed a cup of coffee with cream and sugar. I gave the attendant the twenty and said, "Put the change on pump three."
I started driving. It dawned on me the vampires hacked my bank account, but I wanted to be sure. I went to an ATM. My bank card failed, and my credit cards failed. Then I remembered my PayPal debit card. I smiled and thought, no way they hacked my PayPal. The machine spit out two hundred dollars, and I pocketed the cash and the card.
The vampires had seemed so human, and I felt like talking to Father Paul. Guilt wracked my soul. I went into the church, and the little light above the confessional was on. I stepped inside and kneeled down. I said, "Father, forgive me, for I have sinned."
"What is the nature of your sin, my son."
"I killed some vampires."
"Sidney?"
"Yes, Father. I think I got them all, but I'm not sure."
"Killing vampires isn't a sin. You know they'll come for you?" He said.
"Yes. Apparently, Maliki was psychic."
"You didn't kill the master quickly?"
"No. I let the sun kill him," I said.
"YOU WHAT?"
"I took him into a clearing in the woods I know about. I took his shirt off. He burst into flames in the end."
Father Paul started breathing rapidly. Finally, he said, "Dear God."
"What should I do, Father?"
"Only the slayers can protect you now. That's if they'll take you on. Let's go to my office and call them."
We went to his office. He opened his computer and poked around for something. Then he dialed a number on the telephone and hit speakerphone. It rang and rang. I counted seven rings when I said, "They aren't answering."
Father Paul said, "Wait."
The phone rang five more times, and then it clicked. A voice said, "This is a priority line. This had better be good."
"I have a young man here who killed a master vampire."
"So?"
"He killed the master vampire with sunlight."
The voice on the other end of the phone cackled with laughter. Then he said, "Has he notified his next of kin?"
I said, "I'm not dead yet."
"No, but you're an idiot. They'll kill your family, you fool: parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, nieces, nephews, and grandparents. They'll wipe out your entire line."
My eyes nearly popped out of my skull, and I stared at the phone. I grabbed the phone and disconnected and then dialed my parents.
My dad answered, "Hello?"
I said, "Dad, we have a problem."
"Did you get the vampires?"
"Yes. But the master was psychic. They know my face. They know my name. They hacked my bank accounts. They're going to come for you and mom!"
"Calm down. What do you mean psychic?" He asked.
"They're all tied together in a neural network of some kind. I killed the master with sunlight, and they're onto me. You have to run and hide!"
"I guess it's time I converted the AR-15 after all."
"No, dad. You've got to run and hide!"
"Boy, I was at war when you were in diapers. Don't lecture me on how to wage a war! I'm better at it than you'll ever be. They want one then they'll get one."
"No, dad!"
"Oh, it's ok for you to wage a one man war, but it isn't ok for me to? Don't be a hypocrite. The world has been going to shit for years, Sidney. Your mother and I have a contingency plan. Don't worry about us. Worry about your own neck."
A very tiny expanse of tears wandered out of my eyes onto my cheeks. I didn't want to argue. "What about Emily's folks? Her sister? Jim?"
"There's room in our plan for them," Dad said. "I'll start calling them. Run and hide, boy. They'll be far more interested in catching you tha
n us."
"OK. I'll call."
"You won't have a number. Email us. We're going to assume your emails are suspect, and you need to assume our emails are suspect. Maybe we'll talk on the phone again someday. We'll see. Goodbye, Sidney. I have things to do. I'll always love you."
The phone clicked off.
I buried my face in my hands.
Father Paul started to recite the Lord's Prayer. I whispered the words along with him. Then he dialed the phone again, and it started to ring. It rang three times this time, and the same voice answered, "This is a priority line!"
"This is a priority," Paul said. "Sidney needs your protection."
"He's not coming here. Don't send him here. It's not safe for him."
"You took an oath to protect civilian lives."
"Not if it means jeopardizing my own life. And that kid is a serious risk to everybody's health that he's around. Goodbye, and don't call on this line again unless it's a real emergency."
Father Paul sighed as the phone clicked off.
I said, "Now what?"
"There are a few other slayer teams in North America," he said. "We call them one by one."
He dialed a new number on the phone, and it rang. A voice said, "Hello?"
"This is Father Paul. I have a young man here who killed a psychic vampire with sunlight. He needs protection."
"Don't look at me. Give him last rights and tell him to put a bullet in his brain."
The phone clicked off.
I said, "I'm beginning to like these slayers."
Father Paul said, "I'll try again."
The next caller the voice on the other end laughed, and then said, "Tell the kid to be sure to save his last bullet for himself. He doesn't want to be captured alive. They'll keep him in agony for years feeding him through a tube through his nose."
Three more calls with similar results and Father Paul simply sighed. He peered out the window as if pondering some great cataclysm.
"Is that all of them?" I asked.
He didn't answer me.
I said, "Well?"
"The Dayton team still remains. But you must understand. Dayton is a lost cause--it's a war zone. There are thousands of vampires. You might be better off staying on the move."
"How long will I survive staying on the move?"
"Who knows? A few months maybe."
"Call Dayton."
He dialed the numbers ever so slowly. A voice answered, "Manuel here."
Father Paul said, "I have a little problem."
"Who are you?"
"Father Paul, out of Wisconsin. I have a young man with me, Sidney Daniels."
"What's this about, Father? What warrants calling me on the priority line?"
"Sidney killed a master vampire with sunlight."
"Is he a simpleton?"
I said, "Hey, fuck you."
Manuel laughed.
Father Paul said, "He needs your protection."
"I've got my own problems," Manuel said. "Call another slayer team."
"I've called all of them. You took an oath to protect the lives of civilians."
"You killed a master vampire with sunlight?"
I said, "Yes."
Manuel asked, "You had a tranq dart?"
"No."
"How'd you capture the vamp?"
"With my hands. I punched him into unconsciousness."
Manuel said, "Really?"
"Yeah."
"Well, you can't come here. Stay on the run, kid, keep moving, stay armed, stay indoors at night."
"You have to take him in," Father Paul said. "I'm asking for divine intervention. I am demanding it on my faith."
Manuel paused for the longest time. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on. Then Manuel said, "We're a team here. I don't make a decision like this lightly. Hold on a minute while I go wrestle up Ben and Lambert."
After a while, footsteps thumped thump over the phone, and a low throaty voice said, "Hi."
Then a high pitched voice say, "Hi!"
I said, "My name is Sidney."
The deep voice said, "I'm Ben."
The high-pitched voice said, "Lambert."
"Sidney the Simpleton killed a master vampire with sunlight," Manuel said.
Ben said, "How'd he get a tranq gun?"
"He used his bare hands."
Lambert said, "Holy shit."
"He wants us to protect him."
Ben said, "Fuck that."
"How many of the bastards did you kill?" Lambert asked.
I said, "Eight or nine, I forget."
Ben said, "Damn."
"We have the strongest vampire fort in America," Manuel said.
"If they come for him here at the warehouse," Lambert said. "It'll be an excuse to finally use the claymores and the 50 cals."
"We'd have to train him. It'll take months if not years."
"It's been a while since we've had any fresh faces around this place," Ben said.
Lambert said, "I'm ok with it."
"Sidney, our address is 970 East Third Street," Manuel said. "Write it down. We'll be expecting you. Father, email me a picture of Sidney the Simpleton."
I said, "Don't call me that!"
Manuel said, "Fine. See you soon."
The phone clicked off.
Father Paul took a digital picture of me and then walked me out to a garage. He said, "Give me your cell phone."
I gave him my cell phone, and he smashed it with a hammer.
I said, "Hey!"
"Most cell phones that rely on towers can be triangulated. It gives away your location."
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a fresh cell phone. "This one is a satellite phone, and they can't triangulate it. Give me the keys to your truck. We need to hide it. Do you see that minivan over there?"
I looked at the minivan, and it looked like it had seen better days. I nodded.
He held out the keys to it. "There are maps in the glove box. Dayton is a big city; it won't be hard to find. Make sure you stop at a hotel long before dusk."
"They zapped my credit cards. I won't be able to stay at a hotel."
"Stop at a church and tell your story to the priest. They'll set up a cot for you."
"I need to stop at my house," I said.
"No."
"I need my pills. As well as a few other necessities."
"Nothing that can't be replaced," he said.
"My wedding pictures can't be replaced."
"You'll be taking a grave risk."
"It's worth it."
The power steering was going out on the minivan, and it went clunk over even the slightest of bumps. The stop at my house was uneventful. I picked up my bottle of Lithium. I packed a duffle bag full of clean clothes. I put our picture album in the bag at the top. I wanted to look through the pictures again, but I knew I didn't have time.
I grabbed some extra shells for the Colt and said goodbye to my home. An image flashed in my mind of Emily's face as she first walked through the house. Her face glowed with life, and her grin ever widened as she touched the woodwork and examined every nook and cranny of the old house. I shook my head and tossed the bag in the back of the minivan.
I hit the freeway heading south. There was a slight shimmy in the steering wheel, and I wondered how many miles the van had on it. I looked at the odometer, and it said 72,003. But there was no digit for the 100,000s.
I didn't push my luck and drove at the speed limit. Around five o'clock, I started looking for a town big enough to host a Catholic church. I pulled into the parking lot and rang the buzzer at the rectory. A priest answered the door and asked, "Can I help you, my son?"
"I'm in a bit of trouble," I said. "I can't get a hotel room because my credit cards got hacked by vampires. Father Paul told me if I asked at a church you'd set me up with a cot to sleep on."
He asked, "Sidney Daniels?"
I nodded.
"Pull the van around behind the rectory," he said. "Drive through the g
rass: it won't kill it."
I parked behind the rectory, and the priest met me out there. He said, "I was about to grill a hamburger. Would you like one?"
The last food I'd had was coffee with cream and sugar, and I nodded. He said, "Cheese?"
I said, "Yes, thank you, Father."
The priest grilled a thick and juicy cheeseburger, and I ate happily. Fatigue started wearing on me, and I asked, "Where do I sleep?"
"I have a small prayer meeting tonight. Would you like to attend?"
I said, "I've been awake a long time, Father."
He said, "Right this way."
He opened the door to a room off a hallway. "This is Father Andrew's room. He's in Rome. He won't mind if you take his bed for the night."
I sighed. "I think I'd prefer a cot."
"Nonsense, young man. The sheets are clean, and the bed is soft. If you need anything, you know where the kitchen is."
"Thank you, Father. I just need sleep."
He left me to my room. Paging through my old photo album, I cried myself to sleep. I woke to a knock on my door. "Enter."
The priest poked his head inside. "There's a shower down the hall. The coffee is ready. I have cinnamon rolls for breakfast."
After breakfast, I hit the road heading south again. After an hour or so, the satellite phone Father Paul had given me started ringing. I looked at it. The caller ID said, "Blocked."
I hit the talk button. "Hello."
"Sidney Daniels?"
"That's me."
"Father Paul is dead. They tortured him. He was a priest, so he likely held his tongue for a while, but he was human. What they did to him any man would talk. They likely know your destination and what you're driving."
I said, "Who is this?"
"You don't need to know who I am. I'm giving you information to help you survive. I'm giving you all the information you need to know, and it's all the information I have. No more, no less. Get off the road."
"It's daylight out. I'm safe for now."
"You're a fool. Get rid of that vehicle. Keep the satellite phone."
Then the phone clicked off.
My eyes started to water thinking about Father Paul. He had been my priest all my life. He even visited me a few times when I was in juvenile hall. He married us. He buried Emily. Now he was gone and to torturers no less. My hands gripped the steering wheel with an ever growing tightness until the muscles in my forearms started to burn.
Bullets Will Work: A Vampire Slayer Novel Page 3