The room opened up, and the scariest thing I've seen in my life loomed in front of me. Row up row of metal cages sat in filth with human captives stuffed one and two to a cage. The cages were about the size of a big Doberman dog cage.
A lone vampire fumbled with an AK-47. A gunshot rang out, and his head jerked. I turned, and Nathan was standing there with a sour look on his face. Erin just stared. The people who hadn't been shot in the cages stared at us with wide eyes.
I said, "Pup, report!"
Pup said, "I got them, boss. Relax."
"Come inside."
"I think I should stay out here."
"What? Get in here!"
"I'm watching some of them die…"
I growled. I barked, "Nathan, Erin, find the key to those cages!"
Nathan and Erin started searching.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed my line to the police. They answered, "Dispatch."
"I need every ambulance in the city," I said. "I need every available cop in the city. I've got dozens of gun shots wounds and over a hundred survivors that need help."
"Jesus."
"Send everyone! Now! Tell them the building isn't secure yet!"
Chapter 41
The survivors resembled the dead to me. They were pale skinned with hallowed, dark eyes. They had cuts on their arms and necks from razorblades. Most of them couldn't walk but instead crawled out of their cages as Nathan unlocked them. Some had obvious broken bones. Erin simply stared at the people in awe. "This is mankind's future…"
A little girl who couldn't have been more than nine or ten darted out of a cage and hugged Erin's leg. Erin paused. She reached down gingerly and patted the kid on the head with her gloved hand. I started looking for a first aid kit or some bandages finding nothing. The first paramedics came running in from the loading dock. They started looking over the wounded picking which ones to bandage first. One looked at me. "You should go out back."
I walked to one of the open loading dock doors and looked out back. Vampires littered the field, but they weren't dead. They had all been shot in the gut or lower on the extremities. You could see blood trails where they tried to crawl along. I drew my Glock and started putting bullets in their heads.
Across the comm gear, Pup said, "Awww…"
I shouted across the comm gear, "You're asking for reprisals against civilians!"
"Oh! Sorry, boss! I hadn't thought of that!"
Pup opened up again with the M-240 blasting away at the wounded.
I ducked inside the building and growled. "Don't shoot that thing when I'm down range, you idiot!"
Cops showed. One had a camera and started taking pictures. Erin said, "Can we go home? I'm not feeling well…"
"I'm going to scout those offices in the front first," Nathan said. "There might be a few hiding."
"The cops are sweeping them now," I said. "You'll just get in the way. As many as Pup got, I think we got them all."
I hit the comm gear. "Pup, saddle up and meet us back at the base."
"Aye, boss."
Erin tried to separate the little girl clutching her leg with no luck. Erin looked at one of the paramedics. "Help me."
The paramedic reached down to the little girl and pulled her away.
As Nathan, Erin, and I walked towards the front of the building, I shut off my comm gear and said, "Well, at least we know we can trust Pup."
Erin said, "We already knew that."
"You didn't know."
Nathan said, "Yes, we did."
"You didn't know."
"In truth, he could be a very patient plant," Erin said. "He could be planning to rat us out in a year or six months from now. But I trust him. I've seen the glee in his eye. I saw his face when I opened the gate for him."
"I've seen him eat," Nathan said. "He has a one track mind. He may be hiding a few things from us, but I doubt he's hiding any ill will."
I said, "What are we having for dinner?"
Erin sighed.
Nathan said, "You haven't cooked in ages, boss."
I turned my comm gear back on. "Pup, meet us at the grocery store instead of the warehouse."
Pup said, "Cool."
"What are you going to make?" Erin asked.
I said, "Pup hasn't had my kung pao yet…"
Nathan said, "Good."
"Are you going to try and give us fatal doses of cayenne pepper?" Erin asked.
"I didn't make it that hot last time," I said.
Nathan said, "Not that hot, he says."
"I'll limit myself to ten or fifteen peppers."
"How many did you use last time?" Erin asked.
"I don't know. I didn't count them."
Nathan said, "At least thirty."
"Yes, I think I saw close to thirty as well," Erin said.
It might have been thirty in the last batch. I clearly remember using a lot. I still wasn't sleeping right. "I'll only use ten or fifteen…"
We pulled into the parking lot, and Pup was waiting. We split up inside the grocery store and hurried. It was four o'clock, and the store would be closing soon. When Pup saw my grocery cart, he said, "Cayenne peppers, soy sauce, ginger root, chicken, peanuts, etc. You're going to try and make kung pao."
"I'm going to do more than try!"
The kung pao turned out good. After Pup finished the last of it, I said, "We were talking today, Pup, and the subject came up… You may not have been completely truthful with us about everything, and I wanted to give you an open forum of sorts to tell us anything that perhaps you might have left out…"
Pup pushed his plate away from him. "Well… Do we get paid? I read on the internet slayers make good money."
"Speaking of getting paid…" Then Nathan reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a brand new deck of cards. He started tapping them with his fingers.
Pup said, "I don't play cards."
Nathan's eyes went wide. Erin said, "Good."
Pup laughed. "I don't have anything to bet with."
"Sidney will seed the pot," Nathan said. "Won't you, Sidney?"
I smiled and nodded. I went and got a stack of cash for each of us. I passed them out to everybody. Pup said, "This is ten grand."
I said, "Yeah."
"This is mine to gamble with?"
"You can keep whatever Nathan doesn't steal at the end," Erin said.
"I thought slayers were all religious folk?"
Nobody said a word. After a while, Pup said, "I'm in."
I lost. Erin lost. Pup gained a little ground. Nathan slaughtered us like he'd been saving up all his spare luck since the last time we played.
Pup looked at me. "Can we talk, boss?"
I said, "Ummm, sure."
Nathan and Erin left us alone.
Pup said, "I need to take this money to somebody."
"No."
"Can I mail it?"
"No. I could open a checking account for you, and you could mail a check."
"Can you do that for me, boss?"
"Who are you sending money too?"
"I'd rather not say."
"Tell me, or we'll start calling you dog-boy instead of Pup."
"My girlfriend is pregnant. She doesn't have any money. Her parents are having trouble affording the prenatal care and stuff. There's going to be baby food and diapers."
I said, "You came here looking for a job?"
"My mom and dad were turned. I've lost more friends than I care to count. I had my fingers crossed you could solve all my problems."
I nodded.
Pup said, "How much do we get for kills, boss?"
"I've been told not to say how much we get for kills. We made around a million for today's raid."
"So how much of that do I get?"
"Most of it goes to your retirement. When I seeded Nathan and Erin's bank accounts, I gave them 100k each. I'll seed yours with that much."
Pup started counting on his fingers. "That's great, boss. I sure appreciate it."
He wandered off, and Fred the cat approached me. He sat and eyed me at first. Then he reached his paws up and started pawing at my leg and purring. I said, "Get down!"
The cat kept pawing at my leg. I tried to nudge him off my leg with my hand gently. He pushed into my hand with his face and climbed onto my lap. I shouted, "Erin!"
I didn't hear a response. The cat circled around a bit on my lap and then lay down. I moved to grab him around the middle, and the little heathen turned on me and hissed. I shouted, "Erin!"
I started to move like I was going to stand up, and the cat dug its claws into my legs and purred, obviously planning to hold on for dear life if I stood up. I shouted even louder, "Erin!"
They didn't hear me, or they were ignoring me. I sat and whimpered while Fred pawed at my leg and purred.
I'm not sure how long I spent in that chair with the cat asleep on my lap. Both of my legs went to sleep. I may even have dozed off a little. I dreamed of being chased by giant, three-legged pumpkins, and it was more of a nightmare than a dream. Finally, the cat hopped off.
Chapter 42
The next morning we were having breakfast, and Erin said, "Are we going to hit a nest today? I mean, Pup has made the grade hasn't he?"
"No. We can't just station him with a machine gun," I said. "The vampires will catch on, and he'll get gunned down."
Nathan poured extra syrup on his waffle as if the first syrup wasn't enough. "Back to training then?"
I took two bites of bacon at once and nodded.
After breakfast, they headed for the basement. I turned on the television and flipped to the national news. They were still covering our raid on the blood farm. Some of the pictures had even been released to the media. The media didn't show the pictures: they used sketch artists and drew mockups of the pictures then they showed the sketches on the air. Unlike so many of the day-to-day stories involving the infestation, the media seemed hell bent on keeping this story alive.
I couldn't remember the last time I slept through the night. Fred the cat prowled into the doorway to the tv room and eyed me with malice. I decided to trick the cat. It should be easy to trick a cat: definitely no harder than tricking a small child. I lay down on the couch and said, "Come here, Fred."
I patted the couch by my stomach. The cat pranced up to the couch and hopped up. He curled up into a ball and wedged himself up against my stomach. I sighed. Reached for the cat to throw him off me, and he turned to me and hissed. I patted him on the head even though I wanted to wring his little neck.
Trapped, with the remote out of reach and the rest of the crew in the basement, I resigned myself to my fate and tried to reach for the sleep which had been so elusive lately.
I don't know how much time passed. I don't really think I fell asleep. Somebody said, "Boss."
I looked up, and Nathan was holding the phone.
"It's Dawn. She wants another blood sample."
I held out my hand for the phone. Nathan said, "She already hung up. She said come to the hospital."
The next day, we went to the hospital, and they took a blood sample. My phone rang that very day. I said, "Hello."
Dawn said, "Sidney?"
I said, "Hello my pretty."
"Dick. Are you sitting down?"
"Why? Are you going to tell me a funny joke?"
"It's not that amusing really."
"No. I'm not sitting down."
Dawn sighed. "The concentration of venom in your bloodstream is actually higher than it was before."
"How is that possible?"
"I'm not certain. You might have a virus that's producing the toxin. Your body may have started producing the venom."
"Fuck!"
Dawn said, "Maybe."
"Huh?"
"Oh, nothing."
I paused. "Did you ever get the studies on the anti-venom?"
"Well, yes…" She said.
"And?"
"Those two studies were done on rats."
"Tell me about them," I said.
"You don't want to know."
"I just asked."
"The anti-venom didn't work on the rats over the long term, Sidney. The treated rats just seemed to turn slower than the control group. I'm sorry, Sidney. Look, they did zero aftercare on those rats; they never even checked their blood. We're giving you diuretics and a restricted diet."
"What about taking more of the anti-venom?"
"That's a fine idea, Sidney. Get more of it."
"Without the anti-venom how long do I have?" I asked.
"Oh, Sidney… Weeks, months, years: hell if I know."
"Well, can you find out?"
"Setting up that kind of simulation would take weeks if not months, and it would be a guess. I'll email some doctors I know."
I said, "Thanks, Dawn."
I dialed agent nine. When he answered, I said, "I need that anti-venom!"
He sighed. "You found out about the studies?"
"Yes."
"I've been trying to get you more of the anti-venom. The pharmaceutical company is telling me it doesn't have FDA approval, so they can't manufacture it with clear conscious for use on human beings."
"Convince them we're going to use it on rats or something."
"We would have to be a viable research entity, and that would be fraud. I can't commit fraud as a government agent."
I said, "Grrrrr…"
"I'm sorry, Sidney. I've been working the FDA to get an emergency approval, but they're making me jump through every last hoop."
I clicked the phone off. I went downstairs and watched Nathan, Pup, and Erin spar. Erin was taking on both boys and doing a fine job of it. She seemed to step up her pace when she realized I was watching. Pup was getting good, though. Erin had to watch herself.
I grabbed up a practice sword, and Pup actually started doing better against three opponents than he had against two. I noticed it creeping towards dinner. "Dinner."
They stopped.
I threw my practice sword at the rack, and it bounced off and hit Pup in the forehead. He should have ducked, but no.
Nathan and Erin laughed.
I kind of shrugged. "Sorry."
Erin threw her practice sword at the rack, and it landed perfectly point down first, and then the handle clicked in place at the top of the rack.
Nathan threw his next, and it too landed, but reverse order, the handle settled in the top first, and then the tip slid into the bottom part of the rack.
Pup looked at one of them and then the other. He tried to hit me on the forehead with his practice sword, and for sure I ducked.
Days passed. No rest for the wicked echoed in my mind morning, noon, and night.
I was in my room thinking about dinner, as it was almost time for dinner, when "Pup's hurt!" went across the intercom.
I hit the intercom button. "What?"
"Pup's hurt. He's cut bad. It won't stop bleeding!"
"Gear up!"
I donned my gear with a quickness. I headed to the armory and grabbed two Glocks. I was already wearing my Colt. I met them at the loading dock. I handed Nathan and Erin a Glock each and looked at Pup. He had his left hand clutched around his right forearm, and there was blood all up and down his arm. He had a bandage on it, but it was soaked through.
I put a ski mask on Pup's head. "How did this happen?"
Nathan said, "It was an accident, boss."
"Accident my ass. Get in the van!"
Tires screeched as I took off for the hospital. Pup's eyes started to roll back in his skull, and his eyelids fluttered closed. I shouted, "Stay awake, Pup!"
Pup moaned. "Why? I could just take a little nap…"
"No! Stay awake!"
"Fine."
The sun set as we pulled up to a stop at the emergency room door. We ran inside, and a nurse ushered us into an operating room. Dawn appeared from out of nowhere slipping rubber gloves on. She lifted the bandage off the cut, and blood spurted. She shouted, "Whole blood, stat!"
"It was an accident," Nathan said.
She howled so loud it echoed off the walls. "You were practicing with steel?"
Erin nodded.
I looked Nathan in the eye. "You've never slipped in your life. I don't fucking believe it was an accident."
Nathan stared at his feet.
I said, "Answer me!"
"I didn't mean to cut him that deep: in that respect, it was an accident," he said.
"Twice now you and Erin have lied to me. What else have you lied about?"
Neither of them said a word.
"You two are both liars," I said. "Spill your guts."
"We're under orders to recruit and train slayers," Erin said. "The test of steel is one of the tests you have to go through. You have to taste the steel to feel its power."
"We've seen your file," Nathan said. "It dates back to when you were a kid. Father Paul was a recruiter."
"Father Paul didn't try and recruit me," I said.
"Yeah, sure," Erin said. "Like they didn't try and recruit Nathan or me."
Nathan turned on Erin. "Shut up."
I said, "No, let her talk."
Pup groaned. "You're an idiot, Sidney. The church recruits from the survivors; they always have."
Chapter 43
None of us said anything for a few moments. Dawn looked up from the damaged arm. "It's going to scar, but I hear chicks dig that kind of thing."
Pup smiled.
"Wiggle your fingers," she said.
Pup lifted up his undamaged left hand and wiggled his fingers.
Dawn said, "I can give you drugs you won't like."
He squeezed his right into a fist and then wiggled his fingers.
She patted his hand. "Don't do anything with your right. Nothing. Don't even masturbate: when you get the urge use your left."
Nathan and Erin turned beet red. Pup just smiled and nodded.
Dawn looked at her watch. She looked us over. "You know it's past dusk. I can't give you beds for the night. You'll have to wait in the lobby until dawn."
I said, "That's fine."
Bullets Will Work: A Vampire Slayer Novel Page 23