When I had everyone’s attention, I said, “You will sleep for the next thirty minutes. You will not notice the loss of time. When you wake up, you will swear off chocolate and drink lots of water for the next six months. Soda will taste like cardboard, and you will have no appetite for sweets or fried food. Except for you three.” I waved my arm at Dusty, Trey and Nick. “You three are off the hook. Now sleep.”
Every head except for the Three Stooges dropped to the gaming tables with a sound like so many unripe watermelons dropped from a bridge onto a passing truck. I actually knew exactly what that sounded like from a past experience.
Nick and his cohorts were still awake and aware, and a little freaked out.
“What was that, some kind of mass hypnosis?” Trey asked.
“Yeah, something like that,” I said.
“What was the bit about chocolate and fried food?” Dusty asked.
“I figured if I had the chance to help these poor schmucks get a date for once in their lives, may as well take it,” I replied. “Now, guys, we need your help. I don’t know exactly what Greg has told you about us, and I don’t care. For tonight, we’re in a hurry. An actual life is at risk.”
They looked back at me blankly, giving me their best ignorant stares, so I knew Greg had spilled the beans.
“Go ahead, fellas, he knows the deal,” Greg said, and the nerd brigade sprang into their own strange brand of action.
Nick ran into the store and came back with a backpack and a huge flashlight. Trey whipped out a laptop and fired up a browser window, while Dusty just sat there looking a little confused.
“I’m ready, team!” Nick announced, brandishing his flashlight like a lightsaber.
“I think right now we need a little more of Trey’s kind of help and a little less charging blindly into the fight,” Greg said gently.
Nick looked crestfallen and put his flashlight through his belt.
I patted Nick on a shoulder. “Don’t sweat it. That’s my first instinct, too. Unfortunately, that’s kinda what got us into this mess.”
“What am I looking for?” Trey asked, fingers twitching over the keys.
“We’re looking for a vampire who calls himself Professor Wideham and his gang of bloodsuckers over by the college. We went to their main lair tonight, but it was abandoned. So we need to figure out this guy’s identity and where he might be hiding out,” Greg said, leaning over Trey’s shoulder.
“Oh, is that all?” Dusty said, coming out of his semi-trance and looking around.
“What do you mean, is that all?” I asked him. Talking to Dusty was always a little like talking to Rain Man. I never knew whether what came out was going to be pure gold or pure crap, and it usually took a long time to figure out which.
“I know Dr. Wideham. That guy’s got one of the best Gold and Silver Age collections in the state. He used to come in here all the time on Game Night, but he never played anything, just looked through the back issues for hours. Said it was the only time he could make it into the store. He knows everything there is to know about Silver Age Justice League, and Flash in particular.” Dusty looked pleased with himself, kind of like the look a cat would have when he dropped a dead mouse at his owner’s feet.
“That’s great, D. But do you know where to find him? Like we said, the frat house was empty.” Greg spoke softly, so as not to spook the savant.
“Yeah, man. He hasn’t lived there in years, since one of the guys messed up his Justice League Number 77. Took him like three years to replace that book, so he took all his stuff and moved into a place of his own.” Dusty’s gaze fogged with recollections of Silver Age Justice League issues, and Greg had to snap his fingers to bring him back.
“Sorry, man,” Dusty apologized.
“It’s okay, D. Where does he live now?” I asked.
“Who?” Dusty looked confused again, and I was afraid I was going to eat him if we didn’t get to the point sometime soon.
“Dr. Wideham. Where does the Professor live, Dusty?” I spoke slowly, using small words.
“Oh, I don’t know off the top of my head, man. Somewhere up near the university, but not with the other guys anymore. Not since they—”
I cut him off. “Ruined his Justice League Number 77, we know. But how would you get in touch with him if you found a rare comic that you thought he’d want to see or maybe buy?” I thought if I used his terms, maybe that would get Dusty down out of the clouds for a couple of precious seconds.
“Oh. I’ve got his address in the computer, man. Why didn’t you ask?” He wandered off toward the computer at the front of the store, shaking his head.
“Go with him. Make sure he doesn’t get lost,” I told Greg with my face in my palm. He came back a few minutes later with a slip of paper.
“Got it. Two known addresses for Dr. Wideham, who sometimes uses the name John Jones for anonymous auction-type stuff.” He grinned when he said the name, like I should recognize it.
“I give up. Who is John Jones?”
“The secret identity of The Martian Manhunter, J’onn J’onnz, dude! This guy is a total Justice League nerd.” Greg used a tone that said I needed to turn in my nerd card for not knowing that one.
I still didn’t get it, but I nodded enough to get him to leave. We were almost to the back door of the shop when I heard Dusty’s voice coming from the cash register. “Hey, man, if you like, exterminate him, can I have his comics?”
Chapter 23
I grabbed the scrap of paper with Wideham’s addresses on it from Greg as we walked to the car. Then I stopped cold. He kept going for a couple of seconds before he noticed I wasn’t with him anymore. “What’s up?” he asked, jogging back to where I stood.
“Well, we don’t have to worry about which address he’ll be at.” I pointed to the paper.
“Why’s that?” Greg asked.
“Nothing about this address looks familiar to you?” I asked, waving the paper in front of his face.
“Not at that speed, no.” He grabbed it from me and looked closely at the numbers Dusty had scrawled. After a couple of seconds, it hit him. “Oh, crap.”
“Yeah. Oh, crap is right. Think it’s a coincidence that this Professor character has an apartment in the same building the Master of the City has a fancy restaurant?” I took the paper from him and threw it over my shoulder.
“Not so much. So, what do we do?” Greg didn’t look too keen on any more run-ins with the Master, and truth be told, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea either. But Sabrina needed my help, so I swallowed hard, got in the truck and cranked the engine.
“We don’t do anything tonight. We’ve only got a couple hours left until dawn, and I’d bet anything that Tiram has told Professor Wideham all about our little visit by now. We need to hole up someplace and make a plan. And I know just the place.” I pulled the truck into traffic and started back toward the campus. Greg looked at me quizzically, but I just smiled and dug out the phone I’d swiped from Tiny back at the pawn shop.
King answered after a couple of rings. “I almost didn’t answer, but I figured not knowing the number doesn’t mean much around here.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I’m tough on cell phones. This one’s a loaner.”
“Does the owner have any use for a cell phone anymore?” the werewolf asked.
I stared at the phone for a minute in confusion, then the meaning of his words sunk in. “Dude! I did not kill the last guy that had this number. Seriously. Now meet us at the back entrance to the church in ten minutes. I’ve got the address. Greg wants to grab a few toys out of the safe at our old place, then we’re going to go be very, very violent.”
It took more like five minutes to get to the church, and we loaded everyone into the pickup. Abby and I took the back seat, and we headed for what used to be our apartment.
We drove right through the yellow police tape, and Greg hopped out, running straight to the burned-out shell of the garage. His boots kicked up little puffs of ash as he r
an, and I looked around the desolation that used to be a decent apartment, albeit an underground lair type of apartment. Greg let out a wail of anguish and fury when he got to his car. His beloved 1967 GTO was nothing but a frame on melted tires, barely enough left to recognize it for the badass muscle car it had once been.
I left him to his grief and jumped down into the remnants of the apartment to poke around. Not much was left standing, just the major support beams and a couple of walls. The cheapo desk Greg’s computer had lived on had made it out almost unscathed, confirming my belief that particle board was made of magical components to reduce cost and increase weight. I wandered dumbly through the den and kitchen that had been my home for more than a dozen years, thinking about the good times we’d had there. I made my way into what used to be my bedroom, kicking debris out of the way, until I saw a glint of metal. I reached down and picked up the sword that had come back from Faerieland with me, still in its leather scabbard. The scabbard and sword belt seemed none the worse for wear, and when I drew the sword, the blade gleamed just as brightly as when I had used it to fight trolls in the castle of the Faerie Queen.
Before climbing out of the hole, I paused by what used to be our kitchen and kicked over the refrigerator. The door fell open, spilling exploded beer bottles and bags of boiled blood onto the ground. Our safe was intact, so I yelled up to Greg for the combination. I didn’t understand why he picked 11-10-60, and didn’t care, because when I pulled the door open, there were stacks of cash and a bag full of fake IDs and credit cards for both of us. I stuffed whatever would fit into my pockets and carried the rest up to the truck.
“Nice haul,” King said.
“Well, you always forget something when you go on a trip, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s not always a hundred grand and half a dozen passports.”
“Boy Scout motto is be prepared.”
“You were no Boy Scout,” Abby said from the backseat.
“Yeah, but I’ve drunk a couple of Eagle Scouts in my day. Besides, most of this is Greg’s.” I gave Greg another moment or two to mourn his car, then waved him back into the truck.
“What’s the plan?” Greg asked, as he slid into the backseat of the pickup.
I looked back at him. “We go get our friend back. And kill anything that tries to get in our way. Agreed?”
“Agreed. And maybe get a little revenge for what they did to Maybellene.”
“You called your car Maybelline? Like the makeup?” Abby asked.
“No, like the old song, you know?”
“No. I don’t. And why do guys have this obsession with naming things, anyway?”
“We are so not having this conversation.” Greg turned to look out the window, and we rode the rest of the way in silence.
That sucked for me because I didn’t need more time to think about what they might be doing to Sabrina. Or to worry about Abby’s role.
I wasn’t crazy about bringing Abby in if we were going to fight a bunch of vamps, but we’d seen how well leaving her behind had worked. We parked at the far end of the front parking lot, and I gathered everybody in to explain what little plan I’d devised.
“Here’s the deal. We’re going in blind, with no idea what’s in there waiting for us. Judging from the traps laid out around the frat house, it seems like our friend is a wee bit security-conscious, as well he should be. So we don’t know if Sabrina’s in there, or where she’s being held or how many bad guys we might have to face to get to her.”
“So, it’s hopeless?” Abby asked.
“Well, if we weren’t already dead, I wouldn’t have a lot of confidence in our coming out of this alive. But since that matters less to us than to a lot of people, I think we’ll be okay.” I didn’t think anything of the sort, and I could tell from the nod King gave me that he knew it. But Abby was scared enough, so there was no point in giving her anything else to worry about. “Now, we have enough firepower here to seriously ruin a vampire’s day, but you have to know what you’re doing.”
“I’ve never even held a gun before, but cool!” Abby struck a pose straight out of Tomb Raider. Just what I needed, a psycho gun-nut cheerleader coed to raise as if it were my very own. Next time I’m totally getting a cactus.
“That’s why you’re on the shotgun. Point, pull the trigger and rack the slide. Lather, rinse, repeat. Anything in front of you will have a tough time getting through all the lead you’ll be slinging.” I handed her a twelve-gauge and a couple of boxes of ammo. “When you’re out, put shells in here. If you run out of time, use it like a baseball bat.”
King was already neck-deep in the stack of guns I’d swiped from the pawnshop. He grabbed an AR-15 and a pair of 9mm handguns.
“I don’t know if I have ammo for that rifle, King,” I protested.
“I do.” He reached into a toolbox bolted to the bed of the truck and pulled out a box of rifle shells.
“But you don’t carry a gun?” Abby asked.
“Ammo isn’t illegal anywhere, darlin’. Guns are a different story. It’s not usually a big deal to pick one up wherever I am, but it’s not something I want to have in the truck if I get pulled over by a nervous state trooper.” He took a few magazines, then put one in the gun and the others in his back pockets.
Greg got out of the truck and helped himself to a couple of pistols and a shotgun. I took another AR-15 and started loading my own clips. After a few minutes, we were as ready as we were going to get.
I looked at my motley crew. “I don’t know if we’ll find anything. Might be all that happens is we scare the crap out of a few bankers and move on to the next house on our list. Or we might find a nest of vamps ready to kill us all. But . . .” I ran out of words trying to let them know how important it was to go in and get Sabrina to safety.
Greg stepped up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go get her back.”
We all nodded and headed toward the front door, bristling with fangs, firearms and bad attitude.
The entrance to the restaurant was separate from the apartment lobby, so we had at least a passing chance of getting upstairs without the Master knowing about it. I walked in the front door and strode to the security desk as if I owned the place.
“Can I help you, sir?” This came from a polite blond kid with a crew cut and some fierce acne.
I leaned my elbows on the counter and locked eyes with him. “Everything is normal. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened tonight. You lost your security badge somewhere.” I reached out and snatched the magnetic ID card from around his neck. “You never saw anyone except residents and guests.”
The mesmerized guard nodded slowly, and King took a second to strip down to his undies before shifting into his tall, dark and furry form. I thought I saw Abby lick her lips at the werewolf’s trim form, but pushed any comment aside for later as we got in the elevator.
“We know his apartment number, so that’s the easy part. King and I will go in first. Greg, you follow five seconds later with Abby.” They all nodded, and I took a deep, and completely unnecessary, breath as the elevator dinged at the penthouse level. We crossed the foyer to Wideham’s door, King on my heels and the others about twenty feet behind.
“What’s the plan?” he whispered.
“I’m making it up as I go along. Can you hear anything?”
“No, but gimme a second.” He put his nose to the hinge side of the door and sniffed deeply. He bent over and repeated the process at the bottom of the door, then stood back up. “There are at least two vampires on the other side of the door, both packing.”
“How—” I started to ask, but he waved me off.
“Stale blood and gunpowder. How do we go?”
“Fast. I’ve got the left.”
King reared back with one huge foot and kicked the door off its hinges. He and I were the first ones through, and what we saw in there made us both stop cold. There were about a dozen vampires in various states of undress, sleepwear and drug-induced stupor.
<
br /> But my eyes locked on Sabrina. She was tied to a straight-backed kitchen chair with a skinny vampire standing over her. He didn’t look like any professor I’d ever seen, and he didn’t exude that sense of power over the other vampires that would make me think he was their creator, so I pegged him for just another punk bloodsucker in a Widespread Panic T-shirt.
“Make another move, and I’ll drain her before you can blink,” the vamp said. “She’s pretty empty already, what with my boys here snacking on her for the past couple of days. It shouldn’t take more than another nibble or two, and she’ll never need sunscreen again. So put down your weapons, and let’s pretend to be civilized.”
I knelt and laid my rifle on the carpet. As he smirked at me, I reached behind my back, grabbed the .357 revolver I had tucked into my belt and shot him once in each eye.
Chapter 24
The vampires reacted to stress a lot like humans, especially the ones that hadn’t been dead for very long. It wasn’t surprising, since we started off as human, and no one gave us a vampire behavior manual when we were turned. So it wasn’t unexpected when about a third of the vamps took off at a dead run once the shooting started, because that was what about a third of humans would do. Another third sat there like morons and screamed, which made them particularly easy to dispatch, but the final third presented a little more trouble.
I shot the three screamers in their foreheads. The large-caliber bullets wouldn’t kill them since they weren’t silver, but they weren’t going to be any threat for the rest of the night. I tossed the pistol aside and bent down to pick up my rifle again. Before I could raise it, I heard the roar of a shotgun and felt the breeze as pellets flew over my back. I dropped flat onto my stomach and rolled over to see Abby standing over me, barrel smoking. Her eyes were huge, and I followed her gaze to where a vampire lay in two pieces on the tattered rug. A twelve-gauge at eight feet made a big mess, and Abby had gotten the guy full in the gut.
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