Nightblood

by T. Chris Martindale

  It was just as the vampire shifted back to drive that he finally caught sight of the note pinned to the crossbar of the steering wheel. His breath caught and refused to release. Another happy face. Only this one he didn’t have to open. The C4 packed around the engine only minutes earlier went off before he got the chance.

  The hood fluttered into the air like a windblown petal and the windshield shattered. The explosion triggered the gas tank in turn and with a sudden whoosh the car became a mobile bonfire. It careened down the block out of control, hit a truck and a mailbox before crossing the road to collide with a tree. There the flames consumed it. But not its driver. He lay senseless in the middle of the roadway fifty feet back, flanked by fiery streams of spilled gasoline. The blast had tossed him through the open driver’s door, but this time he did not roll as he came down. He slid. A trail of skin marked the distance, and the left side of his face now shone clear to the bone. He sat up with some difficulty and tried to cradle his head in his hands but found only one arm willing. The other, from the bare socket down, still clutched the steering wheel of the inferno down the street.

  Running footsteps came toward him. Faces hovered above, as pallid as his own, mimicking human concern as best they could. “Master?” these new arrivals said, “let us help you.” Hands lifted him up from the pavement.

  The stark report of gunshots, even after the many explosions Danner had heard that night, were startling just the same. The vampires on either side of him jerked backward as if pulled by unseen wires, and were dead when they hit the ground. The scatter­guns’ efficiency, and that of their silver pellets was spelled out in no uncertain terms on their ruined torsos.

  He was there, Danner knew without turning. He felt him. He knew he would be there, right in front of him. All he had to do was . . .

  Look up.

  There was a demon in the road. It stood backlit by hellspawned flame, its wings folding and unfolding restlessly, its impossibly long arms drooped at its sides and reaching all the way to the ankles. But it was just an illusion of the fire. For in a few moments the vampire’s eyes adjusted and he saw the truth. The wings were just the billowing tails of an overcoat. The arms, one of which raised to point at him, were not what they seemed; the middle section was in fact the man’s forearm, while the lower extension proved not organic at all but cold steel with a 12-gauge bore. Still smoking.

  One of the shotguns roared again. Danner staggered and fell, clutching his crotch or what was left of it. His cries were caused less by the blast than the silver it left behind. “How does it feel?” the avenging angel asked in a soft, vehement tone. Stiles’s voice.

  “HELP ME!” Danner cried out. There had to be more of his children in the area, there had to be! “Kill him! Tear him apart!!”

  “Forget it, Sebastian,” Stiles said as he strolled forward, both sawed-off shotguns pointed square at the prostrate figure’s knees. “It’s just you and me this time.”

  There was a bestial hiss from atop a car parked along the curb and the soldier turned just as the spidery figure there lunged. The shotgun blast caught the vampire squarely in the chest from point-blank range, but it could not halt the creature’s momentum. The body slammed into him full-force and knocked him right off his feet. One of the shotguns slid away across the pavement. The soldier wrestled the cadaver aside and killed it and went for Danner again, but by now there were others there to protect him, four of them at least, with more on the way. He caught the next one coming in with another chest shot, sidestepping the hurtling body this time. A female caught him from behind and immediately began frantically clawing for his throat. The shotgun flew backwards into her ribs with crushing force, over and over, and once the hold was loosened he turned and dealt with her permanently.

  More of the creatures were starting to gather, almost ten now, including a pack of children who sealed Danner away from the action and seemed anxious to take Stiles in a solid wave. But handfuls of Charlie Bean’s fragmentation shells came whistling into the street like New Year’s favors and their swarming stings dispersed the monsters and sent them howling into the night.

  While the deputy kept them from attacking en masse, it was still Stiles who bore the brunt of the attack. And he bore it with an unsettling relish.

  He was fighting even after the guns were empty, even as he reloaded, keeping two of them at bay with scything spin kicks until the shotgun could dispatch them completely. Danner watched him fight and could not believe that this was the same man he had tortured the night before. He did not move the same way, did not favor his crotch or the ribs and fingers that the vampire had taken perverse pleasure in breaking. He fought with a maniacal fervor that took even Danner aback. And worried him.

  Stiles took out another adversary, this time only temporarily with a point-blank blast to the forehead, and then he looked back at Danner. In that one instant, as if rehearsed, the fireglow played on Stiles’s face. They were the same bruised, puffy features, all right, perhaps even worse now. But their expression was different. His face was drawn and frozen in a mask of barely controlled rage, a face almost translucent, unable to hide the roiling emotion beyond. It was a madman’s face.

  And then it smiled.

  “Your turn, Sebastian,” he said almost casually, turning the shotgun one-handed in Danner’s direction. The vampire froze—whether from pain already inflicted or not, he simply couldn’t will his limbs to move. And in that split second, for the first time in decades, he was afraid. But then another of his creatures leaped onto Stiles from behind and drove him to the ground and the gunshot went wild. It struck Danner high on the left shoulder, just enough to rupture the deltoid and throw him into the fender of the car behind him. But the vampire did not cry out; instead he used the searing pain to fuel his movements. He scrambled away on his three limbs like a great wounded spider, across the yard’s soft grass where Bean’s antipersonnel devices couldn’t reach him and then full out for cover. Despite the deputy’s gunfire from somewhere in the darkness he made it to the corner of the house.

  An anxious look back showed Stiles still down on the ground, wrestling and pummeling his assailant but not getting loose. Three more were moving in from behind him. Danner tried to be satisfied with that. “Make him suffer,” he wished silently under his breath, but he did not wait to see further. He had learned better this night. He hobbled back along the side yard till he reached the chain-link fence that separated it from the neighbors to the rear and tore it aside with a groping hand. Another yard and another fence and a driveway later and he was crossing Cedar again and running along it to the next block, heading toward the main road. The gunfire was intermittent behind him and ceased altogether within the next five minutes but he would not slow. Instead he sent every vampire he came across back in that direction. “Two men,” was all he would have to say before their hungry eyes would light up and their lips peel back from their canines in primal anticipation. They loped off into the night at the slightest mention, barely giving notice to Danner’s condition or displaying any trepidations about what caused it.

  They would find out, he thought. If Stiles were still alive, they would most certainly find out.

  Danner stopped when he reached the small brick building of Isherwood High School and caught himself flattening against the wall for cover. The soldier couldn’t possibly have kept up with him, he knew. Still . . . He closed his eyes and felt for him, reached out for his scent, his presence. But he couldn’t find him. The vampire sagged against the brick in relief. It meant the man was dead, or at least out of range. Danner’s confidence grew. It was only a matter of time, he reassured himself. Stiles and his cohort could only fight so long before running, and with all the vampires that Danner had set on their trail, they would not run for long. He regretted that he could not be the one to kill them. He would have relished it.

  He almost slid to the ground and had to haul himself back to his feet. The pain was
pervasive. For the first time he began to doubt his chances of getting home. But Katrina’s face was suddenly there in his mind, that lovely form strapped to the table in the cellar, that soft young throat untouched save for that first nip he’d given upon finding her. What nectar. The image sent a ripple of anticipation through him. The thought of his lips on that neck, of her warmth flowing into him might have given him stirrings of excitement had there been anything left between his legs. At the very least it gave him purpose to leave that crutch of a wall and forget the pain, or at least ignore it.

  The fountain beckoned.

  His thirst was consuming, but it did not completely override his sense of self-preservation. He took the time to feel for Stiles once again before leaving cover. Still nothing. So he headed around the corner and along Main Street at a determined if haggard pace. But on foot and badly mutilated, it still took precious time to cover the roughly two blocks to the Tri-Lakes and then cross open fields to get to Sykes Road. He could have gone cross-country and saved himself some distance, but he could not afford the risk. The ground between the town and his own land was hilly and hard to travel, especially in his present condition. Besides, he’d had no time to reconnoiter that area—someone could have put up fences or other barriers over the years, or Stiles may have even booby-trapped such an obvious shortcut. So instead he stuck to the side of the road, in the shadow of the trees. It took him longer to reach the Tunnel and beyond, but at least it was a route free of obstruction, and he made it there unmolested.

  He clambered over the wall of the estate at nearly the same place Tommy Whitten and his friends had gone over, but did so with considerably less aplomb. The pain was almost blinding now; the silver burned everywhere, in his legs, his crotch, his shoulder, and it grew worse with each step he took. But he kept on. His only thoughts were of that precious elixir awaiting him, crimson waves of it, washing over him, wearing down and vanquishing the wall of pain that was building around him, brick by brick. Blood would save him. Blood would conquer the pain, would bring back the power. It would make him invincible.

  He quickened his limping pace, fell once, twice, scrambled like an animal on his hand and knees. Not much further, he assured himself as he tore through the underbrush. Not much . . . further . . .

  The trees around him gave way to thicket and then ceased entirely, replaced by clear moonlight. The vampire broke into the open; the house lay just across the open field. The sight of it brought a mad cackle bubbling to the surface. He lunged into the thick grass and waded for home. Katrina was pounding in his temples already as he entered through the garden; he could all but feel her heartbeat as he mounted the porch and staggered through the doorway, swallowing in anticipation of each glorious pulse. He headed for the cellar door.

  “Mrs. Daaaa-ner.” The voice came from outside. It was almost as lifeless as one of his own followers. “Mrs. Daaaa-ner, can S’bastian come out and play?”

  Danner froze. It couldn’t be him. It wasn’t possible. He concentrated again, rechecking what his pain-wracked senses already told him. There was nothing—no empathy, no contact. It couldn’t be him. He hurried back to the doorway and peeked out into the night. A lone shadow stood in the overgrown garden, completely still. Only his coat moved with the breeze.

  But it can’t be him . . . I can’t feel him!

  As if in response, the man out there moved. He turned ever so slightly, just enough so that the moon could light his face. Then Stiles grinned. It was an entirely isolated expression; it didn’t spread to the rest of a face turned stony and cruel. Like an assassin.

  “No,” the vampire muttered, backing away from the door. “It can’t be . . . I can’t feel you, I—”

  Something sailed through the window of the dining room to his right—a white stick that hit the wall and rolled somewhere beneath the old dining table. Another stick flew into the hallway to his left, and he heard the clatter of a third as it cleared the balcony and landed in the bedroom upstairs, scaring a cloud of starlings into the night. But the last object came through the garden door right before him; it skittered across the floor and came to rest in a bar of moonlight. Almost a foot of PVC pipe, capped at both ends, one of them threaded by a short length of fuse. Burning.

  “Damn you to hell!” was all Danner managed before the house went up.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bean slammed on the brakes, skidding Stiles’s van to a halt in the middle of Sykes Road. The soldier’s sign was straight in front of him; a fluorescent arrow had been sprayed on the pavement, pointing to the right, straight at the wall of the Danner estate.

  Don’t go in there, Charlie boy, it’s tainted land.

  A chill ran up the deputy’s spine as Papaw’s words now rang true. But he couldn’t let it deter him—there was no turning back now. Stiles might need him. He stomped on the gas and wrung black smoke from the wheels as he shot off down the roadway and around the next bend, until the front gate of the property came into view. He picked up speed coming down the straightaway, then turned in and rammed the gate full force. Metal crunched audibly and he was nearly jarred from the seat; the windshield shattered and part of it fell in his lap. But the vehicle’s momentum won out. It tore both gates from their moorings and flung them aside, allowing access to the first vehicle in years. The van lurched to one side and almost hit a tree, then plunged into the darkness, torturing its suspension on the weed-choked drive. “Christ!” he muttered, fighting to control the van’s wild bucking as he peered into the tree-lined blackness before him. “How the hell am I supposed to find him in here?”

  There was a jarring clap of ground-level thunder in reply, and the flash of the explosion through the trees to guide him. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed, punching the gas pedal even harder. The van lurched forward, bashing a fender into the trunk of a spruce before turning the right way. The high beams found a thicket directly ahead; Charlie gunned it through to the open fields beyond. There, in the cold gleam of the moon, was Danner House. At least what was left of it. A few sections of wall and chimney were all that stood of the great structure now. It looked as if a great hand from on high had just mashed it flat. Small fires burned here and there, lighting the destruction further, but he could see no sign of Stiles. So he followed the remnants of the drive and skirted what was once the main entrance, circling around to the gardens and rubble-strewn courtyard. That is where the lone figure came into view. It whirled at his approach, leveling two sawed-off shotguns at the hip. They stayed there even after the van halted and Bean leaped out. “Whoa, simmer down there, bud,” he said, not daring to take a step. “It’s just me, okay? Look.” He opened his mouth, pulled back his lips for a quick inspection. Stiles nodded and shouldered the weapons, and Bean breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” the soldier said.

  “I almost didn’t. Right after you went for Danner, the fuckers started pouring out of every nook and cranny. I’ve never seen anything like it. I even knew some of them.” The recollection bothered him. He cleared his throat and stepped away, staring instead at the shattered remains of the house. “Was he in there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we got the sonuvabitch!” Charlie said, his smile widening. “It’s over, at least the first part. The rest of ’em won’t be too hard to deal with, right? Right?” He noticed the other’s cynical expression and it sobered him. His smile slid off his face. “Uh oh. What now?!”

  Stiles was staring at the ruined building. It was hard to tell with his face so bruised and battered and smudged with paint, but his brow was knitted and his swollen jaw looked set in concentration. He looked as if he smelled—or sensed—something bad. “He isn’t dead,” he said. “Not yet. I can still feel him.”

  “Feel him? What’s this shit?”

  “You probably won’t believe this, but we’ve got some kind of empathy going here, me and him—don’t ask me how or
why. But I can feel that bastard. That’s how I tracked him as fast as I did.”

  “Empathy?” Bean repeated, considering the word. He finally shrugged. “Hell, why not? After vampires, things tend to go down pretty easy. Now, this empathy . . . does it mean he can feel you too?”

  Stiles shrugged. “I think so. When I let him. It’s an old trick we learned in ’Nam. Some of the boys thought that Charlie—the Vietcong—could sense your fear, home in on it. It might sound stupid now, but it didn’t out there in the bush. So we found a way to fix him. We called it shutting down. No extraneous thought, no emotion. Just put a lid on everything. I don’t think Danner can see through it. At least he was surprised when I showed up.” He took a few steps toward the rubble. “I swear, Charlie, I can feel him. That bastard isn’t dead yet.”

  Bean looked at the man before him and saw a lull in his defenses, an instant when his facade slipped. He saw inside to the rage that drove him, and the pain as well, enough to force a man to his knees. And he could finally reconcile the image that tonight’s battle had instilled in his mind: Stiles was no superman as he’d appeared earlier. He had simply kept his injuries bottled up all evening, by sheer force of will, and that in itself was somehow even more astounding. The pain was in there, roiling, waiting to take control again. But the merest flash of it and the defensive wall immediately went back up. Stiles blinked, and the blank look returned. He was shut down. He was safe again. He motioned to the deputy. “C’mon. Let’s take a look.”

  They stepped cautiously onto the porch and began sifting through the splintered beams and bricks and roof shingles with the toes of their boots or their gun barrels. Stiles did not do so at random; he moved through the ruined house with a purpose. He stopped every few steps, stiffened, and swiveled his head like a hunting dog catching the scent. He picked at a pile of debris, first brushing aside the bricks and pulling at the fallen beams, then digging intensely, until Charlie joined in. They soon unearthed the fallen cellar door and, hidden beneath it, the partially caved-in staircase leading down into darkness. Stiles holstered one of the shotguns, drew a flashlight from his belt, and shined it down into the hole. From what they could see, the cellar was still intact.