Paxton wasn’t alone. He had at least one assistant, the vampire who used the bat-wing suit to attack me.
I halted the car and craned my neck to see up through the windshield. I kept my eyes away from the sun. Without contacts, my retinas would be fried by direct sunlight. What I could see of the sky was as empty as the warehouses.
To my left, a shadow flitted on the ground. Seagull?
Definitely not a vampire, as he casts no shadow. Unless…
A vampire’s aura is what prevents him from being seen in a mirror or casting a shadow. Anything inside the psychic envelope is affected. A cap tossed through the air casts a shadow. But once a vampire puts that cap on his head, then no more shadow, no more reflection.
What if something protruded beyond the aura? Something wide, like a pair of wings?
The shadow whisked across the hood of the Maserati. Make that two shadows, a pair of matching triangles with scalloped edges. The tips of a pair of bat wings.
Circling closer.
Closer.
I pulled my Webley, pointed the muzzle right at the window in front of me, and cocked the hammer.
CHAPTER 63
The twin shadows approaching over the asphalt shrank and grew, but I heard nothing.
Suddenly boot soles pounded the windshield.
My kundalini noir withdrew into a coil, compressing, clenching like a fist.
A submachine gun chattered and bullets raked across the windshield, spraying me with glass. Bullets chewed the leather upholstery. A bullet ricocheted off the rim of the steering wheel. Another bullet punched my chest, a white-hot stab of pain.
But I was ready. I absorbed the pain and pushed it deep, letting my kundalini noir smother the agony.
I expected worse, but the vampire had not used silver bullets. His mistake but not mine.
I fired once, right between the toes of the boots. At this angle, my bullet could hit only one target.
His balls.
An Uzi clattered against the windshield. The boots rotated on their heels. The vampire, clad in black, fell ass first on the car. The black wings beat on the hood and fenders in pangs of suffering.
I held still to see if anyone reacted to the submachine-gun fire, the blast from my Webley, and the clatter of the metal wings on the Maserati.
All I heard was a distant and muted echo from the first warehouse: “Marty, line one.”
The beating of the wings slowed, as if to show the tortured fatigue of their owner. He lay with his back on the car. He cupped both hands over his groin. Blood seeped between his fingers.
He tried to sit up. He wore goggles with dark, circular lenses and a cloth helmet, black to match his overalls. I couldn’t see much of his face except for a mouth gaping in agony. His fangs glistened like a pair of shiny nails.
He wore a metal vest buckled to his torso, the vest a crazy mess of cables, pipes, and articulated fittings. The wings were thin black material sewn to black struts. The helmet, the goggles, and the wing contraption looked like he was dressed for a steam-punk costume contest.
“Here’s first prize.” I took aim through an area of clear glass between the pockmarks on the windshield. I fired once. Without the commotion of this guy dancing on the car and pounding bullets through the windshield, the Webley’s heavy blast surprised me with its intensity.
The heavy silver bullet hammered the vampire’s face. His nose disappeared behind a splash of blood and bone. A spasm rippled through his wings. He clutched at the air and fell flat on the hood.
I waited a moment.
Again, nothing but a distant “Marty, line two.”
I put the Maserati in reverse and gave the gas pedal a quick stomp. The car surged backward. The vampire slid off the hood and crumpled to the asphalt.
The vampire? No aura.
Definitely dead.
I had little to celebrate. The pain of the bullet wound percolated from my kundalini noir. I extended a talon from my left index finger and dug into the hole in my shirt.
My talon sliding through my flesh was another stab of white-hot pain.
My vision shrank as misery and blackness wrapped around me like a tunnel. With each scratch of my talon, the tunnel shrank until my eyes saw nothing but a black wall.
I found the slug three inches inside my chest. The bullet had smashed through an upper rib and lodged itself in the dead mass of my useless heart. I used my talon to dig the bullet out of the wound. The bullet coming free felt like a great pressure suddenly released. The tunnel vision grew with every pulse of my kundalini noir.
The bullet rolled down the front of my shirt and left a trail of clumpy blood drops. I grasped the lead slug and held it to the light. The blood dried into maroon flakes and burned into ash and smoke.
I pushed the bullet into a trouser pocket. Might keep the slug as a souvenir. Yeah, it was free but had cost me plenty.
Blood flowed from the wound. I ripped a swatch from the tail of my shirt and jammed the cloth into the bullet hole.
I laid the Webley on my lap and rested for a moment to let the shock of the impromptu surgery pass.
I pressed my hand over the wound. The area was warm, not vampire cool, as my body heated up in the effort to rebuild tissue.
I guided the Maserati forward and veered to avoid the dead vampire. I stopped beside him, got out, and did a quick scan to make sure no one was approaching.
The vampire lay on his back, the broken and torn wings spread about him like an open shroud. Spent casings from the Uzi littered the vicinity.
Moving slowly—the bullet wound still hurt like hell—I picked up the Uzi; the extra firepower would come in handy. I ejected the magazine to check the ammo remaining. Empty. The dead vampire had no extra magazines. I tossed the Uzi and magazine aside.
Who was this vampire?
I knelt by his head. My bullet had made hash out of the middle of his face. He looked Caucasian. Nothing remarkable. Maybe stood six feet. Athletic build.
Tiny cracks formed around the bullet wound. Now that he was dead, nature was hurrying to reclaim his corpse. We vampires exist on borrowed time. When the end comes, our flesh rapidly deteriorates in order to put the decay of our corpses back on their original mortal schedules.
I yanked off his goggles and helmet. Brown eyes gazed lifelessly from the bruised sockets. Still didn’t recognize him.
Makeup and sunscreen protected his skin from the sun, but his eyes were vulnerable. They smoldered and shriveled into a pair of dried figs.
I parted his lips to let the sun go to work on the inside of his mouth. Smoke rolled from between his teeth.
Flames danced in his eye sockets. Fire shot from his wound and mouth. More smoke wafted from under his vest and his sleeve cuffs and through the bullet hole in his crotch.
I stood and backed away to keep his smell from funkifying my clothes.
Smoke jetted from the vampire’s overalls. His head was a ball engulfed in fire, his fingers curling into black stubs. His vest popped, shooting sparks. Black smoke puffed from him and drifted over the parking lot.
Way at the front of the lot, at Pierson Marine Supply, LLC, the intercom called out: “Marty, line two. Marty, line two.”
No one watched the vampire burn.
No one cared.
The vampire’s flesh crumbled into dust, like the ash at the bottom of an outdoor grill. Smoke clung to his overalls. Tiny flames danced along the edges of his wings.
I paused for a second before getting back in the Maserati. My kundalini noir wilted as I inventoried the damage. The windshield had been chewed to pieces. The hood was dented and scratched. The leather interior was slashed by bullets. What a crime to damage the car like this. Hoped Angela forgave me.
I got in and drove to the end of the lot.
A colorful sign over the office of the last building in the complex said STONO RIVER ARCHITECTURAL MODELING AND SIGNWORKS COMPANY. The letters intertwined in a flowing Art Nouveau style. A pair of mermaids flanked the sig
n. There were two bay doors to the right of the glass office door.
Three cars and a van were parked together in front of the company. Somebody was at work?
Were they waiting for me?
I forced myself to relax. I cleared my mind to better read my sixth sense. The danger alarm hummed through my kundalini noir.
I studied the vehicles. All were older models. The van, a white Ford Econoline with a raised roof. The rest looked ready for the junkyard. Rust. Bald tires. Blotches of freshly leaked oil on the pavement. Holes in the doors where the locks had been pried out. Cracked windows. A Subaru coupe had red tape over a broken taillight.
I had no idea of Paxton’s agenda other than to kill me. He could’ve lured me here to finish me with a car bomb.
My sixth sense remained at a hum.
No bomb here.
I parked to put the cars between the building and myself.
Another scan to make sure no one was watching. The roofline was clear. No auras in the windows.
I rubbed my wound. The hard scab felt like a coin had been grafted to my skin. Normal. The scab should fall off in an hour.
I topped off the Webley and carefully exited the Maserati.
I checked the cars up close. Empty. Inside, the vehicles looked as forlorn as they did on the outside. Cracked vinyl. Faded bath towels cinched with bungee cords over the seat backs. Drinking straws, artists’ brushes, and scraps of paper trapped along the bottom of the windshield. Missing knobs on the dash. Fast-food bags and cups crushed along the floor. Flip-flops, rumpled clothes, tattered spiral sketchbooks on the seats.
The windows on the rear doors of the van were darkly tinted, almost opaque. The windows along the back of the cabin were blanked out, painted white to match the rest of the body. A Tommy Lift for a wheelchair had been attached to the cargo door on the right side. A quick glance through the front passenger’s window didn’t reveal much except for a handicapped-parking tag hanging from the rearview mirror.
Judging from the rain pattern on the dust of the windshields, none of the vehicles had been driven lately.
Except the van. The wiper smears on the windshield looked recent. We’d had rain yesterday.
The sixth-sense hum increased to a buzz.
I tried to piece the clues together. I was sure that whoever owned the cars worked here. The paintbrushes and sketchbooks belonged to artists, the kind of people you’d find working at a place like this. The condition of the vehicles meant they didn’t have much money. Typical artists.
But the van? The wheelchair lift and the handicapped tag?
I looked back at the vampire’s remains. Smoke lingered over the black lump of his corpse and the wing contraption.
I was after Paxton. So far I had this dead flying vampire. Plus the vampires that I’d killed my first day in Charleston. Add Paxton’s arrangement with Eric Bourbon.
But what about these artists? And the van for the handicapped?
None of this fit together. It was like trying to make something out of a pile of Lego pieces, model airplane parts, and broken dolls.
I kept my pistol tight against my thigh and approached the building.
I wanted to sneak in. How?
A back door? Too obvious.
The roof? Unless there was an overlooked access hatch, which I doubted, the only way in was to bust through the ceiling. Nothing sneaky about that.
I checked my watch.
King Gullah and crew were due to arrive soon. I better hurry if I wanted Paxton to myself.
The front door, then.
CHAPTER 64
I didn’t check if the door was locked. I simply kicked it hard, right on the dead bolt. The steel frame buckled. The glass shattered.
I pushed the frame and it twisted to the floor.
Granules of safety glass lay on the sidewalk outside and on the carpeted interior. There was a low counter to the left, stools and chairs scattered about, papers and posters randomly tacked to the wall. The phones and computers on the counter were silent.
I faced another door on the opposite wall.
I took a deep breath. The strongest smells came first.
Paint stripper. Mineral spirits. Epoxy. An odor of putrefying flesh. Feces. Urine.
From who?
The owners of the cars?
Another breath.
Alkyd paint. Welding flux. Latex paint.
A meaty aroma.
Human blood. Lots of it.
My sixth sense put the tingle in my ears and fingertips.
Whose blood?
I swiped a path through the shattered glass with my shoes and stepped over the threshold.
I stood to the side of the interior door and swung it open, thinking that if someone was waiting with a gun or a crossbow, they’d let fly right away.
Nothing happened.
I peeked around the corner.
The door opened into the shop area. Light filtered through a row of dingy windows high on the back wall. Fiberglass molds were stacked helter-skelter against shelves packed with cans, jars, and cartons. Drill presses, table saws, air compressors, arc welders sat randomly on the dirty floor. Hand tools, brushes, and spray guns lay everywhere.
The fiberglass crab that had almost flattened me must’ve been fabricated here.
Parallel marks crisscrossed the dusty floor. Could be from handcarts, dollies, or a wheelchair.
I crouched beside a plywood box containing lengths of black aluminum pipe, identical to the struts of the vampire’s bat-wing suit. Black cloth spooled from a roll lying on a workbench. I compared the cloth to the tattered piece I’d found in my hotel room. Identical.
The lower shelf of the bench was piled with fittings, small electric motors, wires, circuit boards, and a duplicate of the bat-wing vest.
This puzzle started to make sense. The artists had made the crab and the bat-wing suit. Where were they?
I hoped the odor of rot and blood didn’t answer that question.
The bay doors were to my right, the back wall and windows to my left. Shelves were behind me. Three doors to my front.
Door number one, at the right, was covered in marker graffiti and blots of sprayed paint. Somebody had written: MEN, which was crossed out and replaced with LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR A PENIS. Under that, the word WOMEN had also been crossed out and replaced with VAGINAL AMERICANS.
A shared bathroom, no doubt.
Door number two, in the middle, had placards for hazardous materials. Storeroom.
Door number three, on the left. More graffiti but no clue as to what lay on the other side.
I swiveled my head to home in on the smell of decay.
Door number three.
I approached the door, pistol at the ready.
My kundalini noir coiled like a snake ready to lash out. My fingertips buzzed hard. I swapped the revolver from hand to hand to wipe my fingers against my trousers as if to blot away the nervousness that infected them.
My hands again steady, I stood to one side of the door. The knob turned easily and I swung the door open.
CHAPTER 65
A nauseating odor of rancid meat and excrement surged out the room. The place stank like someone had butchered a rotting cow in a Porta Potti. The smell left a greasy texture in the air.
My fangs and talons were at full combat length. I flexed my index finger over the trigger of the Webley.
Slowly, my reflexes on a razor’s edge like I expected a bomb to go off, I peeked inside.
An orange aura blazed at the far end of a long and narrow room.
Vampire.
A head shaped like a stack of clay bricks. Nappy hair trimmed short.
Paxton.
No makeup. His complexion looked like brown wax. I remembered a full face; now his cheeks were drawn and his eyes sunken in deep, wrinkled pits. He sat in a motorized wheelchair.
Wheelchair? A vampire?
The last I’d seen of Paxton was him staggering away after I’d shot him in the back. Then a
murderous psycho had run him down in her car. When I returned to get Paxton, he was gone. Hadn’t heard from him since, until I got to Charleston.
The hit-and-run must have torn him up bad. A vampire can recover from most any injury but apparently not severe back trauma.
I didn’t pity him. The opposite, actually. I wondered if he’d suffered enough.
His aura teemed with bumps of intrigue. Tendrils undulated from the envelope of his penumbra.
He could be faking. Throw me off guard.
But his complexion. The squalor in this room. He wore a dark baggy suit that fit like he was wasting away. Paxton was skimming close to rock bottom. Maybe his desire for revenge was what kept him going.
My impulse was to shoot him. Get this over with. Don’t give him a chance to strike back or escape.
But I had questions. He better have answers.
I raised the pistol but kept my aim loose. I didn’t want to focus so intently on him, tense up, and not be able to react fast enough in case of a surprise.
“You’re somebody,” his voice croaked, “I never wanted to see…alive.”
“Don’t blame you,” I replied. “After all this time, to be found in this dump. Actually, it’s a step up for you that I’m here.”
Paxton pushed the control handle on the end of his armrest. The wheelchair eased forward with a whine.
I jabbed the muzzle at him. That’s far enough.
He stopped. The tentacles retracted into his aura. He acted too confident, too sure of himself.
I stepped to the right, away from the doorway in case someone came in behind me. I tossed quick glances about the room.
Cubbies holding odd sizes of lumber and plywood lined the wall to my right. The far wall had one window, protected by bars. On the left, computers and printers sat on a counter, every surface covered in dust.
Dead crows hung upside down on the wall behind the counter. Wendy’s crows? Paxton must have killed every crow that had come to spy on him except for the one he had poisoned and sent back to Wendy.
A red aura glowed faintly under the counter. A human. Male.
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