by P. T. Phronk
A gunshot rang out. The lead shagg’s mask exploded. He gasped for oxygen as he toppled over and red water poured out of his tank. Another shagg ran from the crowd and put her mask over his face, but he was unable to draw a breath through the ragged hole that used to be a throat, and convulsed on the ground while the woman at his side shook with sobs.
Stan turned to face the source of the gunshot. Joey Bussichio clomped down the steps of Town Hall, carrying a rifle, dressed in a blue business suit and a red tie so expensively shiny that it reflected the yellowish streetlights around him. He was followed by a mixed gang—some people Stan recognized as longtime city councillors, who had sparred with his mom back when she served. Other people were the ones who voted for the councillors, dressed in plaid, with well-worn boots and beards. They all carried guns, big and small, legal and not.
“Nobody move,” Joey shouted. “Stay put, and we can negotiate this without losing any more. This town has already lost too much over a conflict that none of you understand.”
A few shaggs joined the crowd from between buildings—latecomers who had still not gotten a chance to participate in the chaos. Linda growled quietly as her head swiveled to take in the group of her old colleagues and constituents that had stepped between her and the shaggs.
Joey kept his gun raised. “When the others return, we’ll sit down and work this out like adults. I suspect most of you don’t know why you are fighting. You have felt like outsiders in this town for too long, and these newcomers have exploited that feeling for their own ends. My friend and I have plans to set you free.”
Christ, it was like he was running for the seat of the mayor, who had been conspicuously missing since Stan came back to town.
Joey pointed his rifle at Mike. “You. Put down the gun.”
Mike took a glance at the shagg who had been shot in the face, and had now stopped moving, except for the thick blood still gushing from his face. He tossed his gun to the street.
Joey adjusted his aim to Linda. Stan tensed. “You,” Joey said. “I … don’t know what the heck you are, but my friend warned me there would be some unusual aspects to this negotiation. So you, whatever you are, don’t you dare move a muscle.”
He angled his gun up a few degrees, aiming it at Stan’s head. “And you. Stanley Lightfoot. I thought I told you to leave town.”
The blood rushed from Stan’s head and he nearly toppled from his seat. Linda’s muscles tensed, but he patted her head and told her to wait. He still didn’t know if whatever she was could stop bullets.
Stan spoke. “Joey, you don’t have to get involved in this. None of us do! I’ve got what I came for. I have nothing to do with your new ‘friend,’ whoever that is. Let’s just all put our weapons down and walk away.”
“You’re not getting it, old buddy. My new partner, he and I made a business agreement. Money changed hands, promises were made, and I intend to honor those promises. I honor all my promises. And if you’ll search that tiny skull of yours, you’ll recall that you and I had an agreement, sealed with a fist to your face. You leave town, or the next time it’s a bullet to your face.”
He aimed down the sight of his rifle.
“I’m leaving,” Stan said.
“The agreement was for you to have already left.”
“You’ll need me here to work this out.”
“Get it through your massive skull. This has nothing to do with you.”
“Wait, didn’t you just say I had a tiny skull?”
The tip of the rifle bobbed as Joey’s hand tensed. Stan squeezed his eyes shut.
“A promise is a promise,” Joey said. “Goodbye, old buddy.”
He fired. Linda turned, sending Stan flying off her back, where he thudded to the ground. He pawed at his face; no holes there yet. Joey missed. But it wouldn’t take long to try again, and Stan refused to use his mother for cover. He scrambled away from her, back toward the grasp of the shaggs.
One of the creatures leapt from the crowd. Stan felt cold skin and fabric wrap around him from behind, then he was twisted to face the other way. The second shot rang out, and Stan heard and felt a thud instead of pain. He smelled blood, but it wasn’t his own.
Stan was dragged to the sidewalk, behind a concrete waste receptacle. Shouts erupted, a few more gunshots rang out, and there was a flurry of movement. When the grip around Stan eased off, he pulled back to get a look at his rescuer.
“Paul?” Stan said, his voice coming out as only a hoarse whisper.
Paul’s throat had been crudely stitched shut. Above that, he wore a mask that looked like it had come from World War II. He still had his uniform on, stained red with his blood, the loss of which made his already-pale skin nearly blue, translucent and spiderwebbed with veins. He nodded. His voice was barely a hum underneath his mask. “They saved me, Stan.”
“Who?”
Paul gestured toward Town Hall. Stan peeked over the edge of the waste bin. It was Miriam, the shagg he had captured and tortured. She had somehow wrestled Joey’s gun away, and had it pointed at him. The rest of Joey’s mob had their guns pointed at Miriam. And the rest of the shaggs edged forward, ready to take down the mob.
“Stop,” Miriam said.
Another shagg spoke up. Stan recognized her voice; it was Ruth, the one who had rescued Miriam from the lodge. “Listen to my daughter, please.”
They all stopped moving, resulting in a proper standoff.
“We’ve been manipulated. All of us,” Miriam said. “We Qallupilluit have been manipulated by the man calling himself Neville. The others have their own manipulators. We have all done wrong in service of these men, and do we even know why anymore? We were scared. We do not think when we are scared. We are vulnerable to men with promises.”
“We do bad things when we are scared,” said Ruth. “It is not the first time.”
The crowd of shaggs nodded uncertainly.
“These are not bad people, but they have also done bad things,” Miriam said, gesturing toward Stan, Linda, and Mike, who had gathered together. “We are not bad people, but we have done bad things. And these men here, with the guns, they have treated us poorly for years and made us scared, but even they are not bad people.”
“What about the demon?” one of the shaggs shouted.
“There is no demon. It was created by Neville. The demon is simply…” Miriam trailed off.
“Simply what?” the shagg shouted.
Joey’s hands were in the air, but with one of them, he bent his wrist and pointed toward a man walking up the road from behind the group of shaggs. “The demon is simply behind you,” he said.
The demon wore a mask. It had once depicted some vaguely familiar cartoon character—like the plastic costumes that Mom had gotten from the Family Dollar store at the last minute then strapped on Stan’s face before he went out trick-or-treating. Except the demon’s mask had been painted red and hardened with lacquer; the fuzzy edges of the character’s face were matted solid, and its bulging eyes were no longer cute, but dead crimson orbs. Two tiny horns stuck out from the sides of the mask. Straps that had presumably been a flimsy elastic were replaced with leather and sturdy buckles, matching the black trenchcoat that he wore, with hints of color peeking through at the collar and where his round belly parted the buttons. He marched up the street with an eerie calmness that caused the shaggs to part and let him pass.
“It is as Neville foresaw,” muttered one of the leather-clad shaggs, backing away from the new player.
Bloody and Wilcox followed behind him, each looking tense and angry, but thank God Annie was okay.
The masked demon glided into the middle of the standoff. “Hey, everyone,” he said. He turned to Joey and his crew. “Heeeyyy Joey. Thanks for keeping things under control, my man, my dude. Ma’m, you can stop pointing the gun at him.”
Miriam didn’t budge. Her eyes were fiery as she stared at the demon.
“Oh. Oh! I see what’s happening here,” the demon said. “This guy tol
d you I was a demon or something.” He jabbed his thumb at Wilcox. “A demon. Isn’t that silly? Listen, listen, I just need to borrow Stan Lightfoot for a quick sec. Is there a Mister Lightfoot in the audience?”
Stan didn’t have a choice. Everyone knew who he was. He raised his hand like he was about to get in trouble when the principle walked into the classroom. He could almost hear the oooooohhh jeers of the rest of the class.
“There’s my man!” the demon said. “Let’s the three of us have a coffee and a chat. The rest of you can keep pointing your guns at each other until we work this out, if that’s what floats your boat. Just a little FYI though, I’m not a big scary demon. Look at me!”
Indeed, he was rather short.
“Aw crapnuggets, with all this kerfuffle, I forgot to introduce myself. You can call me John.”
26. The F Word
BREE POURED STAN A MUG of coffee, and brought Wilcox a bowl to lap at. When she went to pour John a mug, he waved her away. She fumbled the mug with her shaking hands as she reached around Wilcox, and it would have shattered on the floor of Tweed’s if John hadn’t reached out to catch it, his hand so fast that Stan didn’t even see it move.
This dude was a vampire. A quick check in the reflection in the brand new diner windows confirmed it. With the mask on, John’s reflection looked almost normal, but the invisible hands gave him away.
“Thank you,” Bree said as he handed the mug back to her. She gave Stan a worried glance. Stan tried to give her an easy smile to reassure her, even though he wasn’t really feeling so sure himself, and with his puffy, grime-splattered face, his smile was more of a dumb smirk. Still, some of the tension in her shoulders eased when she turned to go back to the kitchen.
John looked from Stan to Bree, then back to Stan. “You two banged!”
“We dated when we were kids.”
“Oh no no no.” He inhaled deeply. “Her shame smells fresher than that. Isn’t she Bussichio’s wife? Stanley, you dog.” He turned to Wilcox, who was sitting beside the booth, as he was far too big to fit on a seat. “No offence to dogs.”
Wilcox lapped at his bowl of coffee with a massive tongue. Stan took a sip of his coffee, too, and he had to admit, it made him feel slightly more conscious.
“Well,” John said, “I strongly believe that negotiations go better when all parties are fully caffeinated. Now that coffee is in our bellies … we are gathered here today.” He giggled in an odd, childlike way that reminded Stan of Dalla. “No, no, just kidding. I came here to suss out where the two of you were four months ago.”
Stan and Wilcox exchanged glances. Even as a wolf, Wilcox was somehow able to express smugness with his eyebrows. “Why?” Wilcox asked. “What could possibly have happened four months ago?”
John’s demeanor shifted. Blue-gray flashed behind the honeycomb of holes in the bulbous eyes of the mask. “I lost someone very dear to me at that time. I intend to be compensated for that loss.” He stared down at the table, silent for a moment.
Bree watched from the kitchen. When Stan looked over, she showed him the tip of a gun. He subtly shook his head. It would do no good even if things did go to shit. On his other side, beyond the window, Linda and Bloody took quick glances his way every once in a while, but their attention was divided between Stan and the standoff between the shaggs and Bussichio’s people.
Stan tensed when John reached into his jacket. He slipped a piece of wood out of his pocket, then slammed it on the table, making the coffees wobble. “Do either of you recognize this?”
Wilcox nodded and smirked. “I do.”
The blood left Stan’s face and he saw stars in his vision. Stars that twinkled like Dalla’s eyes did, just before he drove that very wooden stake through her heart. He dared not say anything as the details started fitting together.
“Stanley? I asked you a question, son.”
“I recognize it.”
John shook his head. “That complicates things.”
“Because you came here for me,” Wilcox said.
“Yes. And you knew I was coming, correct? Is that what this very unwelcoming welcome party is all about?”
“Yes. I have methods of detecting danger—methods I learned from unusual friends and worthy enemies. You showed up on my radar as soon as you formed the intention to kill me.”
Stan remembered the array in the old high school. “That thing in the high school. That’s the ‘method’ you’re talking about.”
Wilcox’s shaggy eyebrows squeezed together; he looked annoyed. “I knew John would find me wherever I hid, but a remote town would give me a few extra days. And this remote town held the mother of one Stanley Lightfoot.” He faced John. “You intend to kill me, but your assumptions are all wrong. This man is the real MVP.”
John flipped the stake over with fingers that moved too fast. “What’s this, then?” He pointed to an inscription around the blunt end. Three letters: J. H. W. Jeffery Humber-Wilcox.
Stan had never noticed those three letters when he was the owner of that stake, for about fifteen horrible minutes, four months ago.
A vein twitched in John’s neck. The fur on Wilcox’s back bristled slightly. He cleared his throat. “My initials, clearly. Got a sec? I’ll tell you a story.”
“The newspapers are saying it’s the end of the world,” Edgar’s son said to his father, who was busy tending to his prized hawthorn bush.
“Only the yellow press, son. Think nothing of it.” Edgar snipped at the bush with his clippers, each tiny cut smoothing out its surfaces. “Halley’s comet is the least of our worries.”
“You talkin’ about Mother’s sickness?”
Edgar nearly clipped too deep into the bonsai bush, ruining the smooth surface. Of course, it was not actually smooth. Inside the bush were thousands of surfaces, poking at odd angles to compete for what little sunlight reached Northern England. The bush’s surface only appeared perfect due to Edgar’s careful, violent pruning of its leaves. “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed your mother’s ailment. We tried to hide the signs.”
His son smiled. “I’m sure it won’t last long, Father. Like the comet, it’ll come and go, and like the comet, it’ll be 1986 before we need to deal with any sorrow again.”
Edgar ruffled his son’s hair, then put down the clippers and took one last look at the hawthorn bush. It still had one branch jutting out from the middle, which was too big and gnarly to trim without letting the rest grow out a bit first. Other than that branch, the bush resembled a smooth, perfect crucifix.
The vampire that had been draining the boy’s mother arrived that night to claim her prey for good. The bush’s shape had likely tipped her off, letting her know that Edgar knew what was happening and who she was. What she was.
Edgar was ready, but the vampire was strong, and their fight progressed through the house in a series of crashes before arriving at the garden, where Halley’s comet soared overhead in the star-filled sky. The vampire hissed and leapt at Edgar, who managed to duck out of the way just in time, and that was when the vampire collided with the hawthorn bush, failing to notice that last jutting flaw of a branch, which slipped between her ribs and nicked her heart, killing her instantly.
The crucified vampire lay heavy on the bush’s branch, pouring blood that nourished its roots, as the mother came out, and she was crying at the vampire’s feet, and the father and son asked, “Why are you crying? It’s over, it’s over.”
But it was not over. Soon, Edgar’s son was dead—the stress of seeing what he had seen left a void, which was filled by illness. Edgar’s wife would cry by the bush, grieving over her lost son, grieving over her lost lover, until it was too much for her to bear and she was dead too.
When he was the only member of his family left alive, Edgar cut down the hawthorn bush. Causing the bush great pain, he snapped off the branch that had slain the vampire, and whittled it into a point that he vowed would slay every vampire.
Then he found out there were a lot of vampires
.
The stake did kill many, mostly while they slept. Edgar worked out a system for finding the lairs and nests they created in small towns throughout the country. He taught that system to an orphaned child, who became his protégé, who taught it to his son, who traveled to America based on rumors that vampires had infiltrated some of the country’s most powerful institutions. Then, when Edgar’s spiritual grandson infiltrated one of those institutions too deeply and became a vampire himself, he was slain by Jeffery Humber-Wilcox, who picked up the stake, said “nice stick,” then carved his name into it and took it with him everywhere.
The stake was with Jeffery when he claimed to have killed every vampire in Los Angeles. It got to visit its home country again when Jeffery wasted time investigating the Highgate Vampire in London. It stood by his side even when he started living with a vampire, presumably in hopes of leading to more vampires’ lairs, but the stake did go many months without slaying a single one, and it had to put up with the ultimate humiliation when Jeffery shoved the blunt end deep into his vampire girlfriend, not to slay her, but to satisfy her.
It got ignored in later missions. Jeffery had found new toys, like his crossbow, within which were bolts rubbed with strange oils and engraved with powerful runes. The stake just had Jeffery’s dumb initials on it. Such a shame, because the stake was at its best lodged in a vampire’s chest cavity, ideally put there by the hands of a skilled hunter, who knew enough not to go through the sternum and instead come in at an angle that avoided bone. Bone always scuffed its polished surface. With disuse, the stake developed hairline cracks from drying out, lacking the moisturizing nourishment of the thick, dark blood of a vampire.
So perhaps it was a good thing when Jeffery left the stake behind just over four months ago, discarding it as he rushed off to that hotel to track down his prey: the vampire Dalla and her human minion, Stanley Lightfoot. The stake just sat, discarded, barely even considered, in the remote Canadian mansion belonging to the movie star Damien Fox.