by Ward Parker
“None of the guards have pissed off Schwartz as much as I have. And I told the cops all about him.”
Rudy slammed on the brakes.
“Bro, I think you gave me whiplash,” Bernie said.
“You told the cops about Schwartz? That he’s a vampire?”
“Nah, not that he’s a vampire. Though I was tempted to while sitting there in the interrogation room, thinking my life was over. I only mentioned he threatened me. And that I saw him lurking at the ice cream shop. And maybe he killed the mayor’s daughter.”
“You idiot! This better not get back to him or you’re out of a job.”
Bernie didn’t answer. He sulked the rest of the way to Squid Tower and thought again about quitting. The piano lounges in Orlando were surely waiting for him.
An hour into Bernie’s next shift, the phone in the gatehouse rang. His heart practically leaped out of his throat. He let it ring five times and picked it up.
It was Schwartz. He said he was expecting company. A young lady friend. He wanted Bernie to let her through the gate.
Bernie choked out a yes and hung up. What was going on here? Schwartz never had visitors. Was he having a vampire friend over for tea?
More important, there was no trace of extra menace in Schwartz’s voice, so hopefully he hadn’t gotten wind of Bernie’s big mouth at the police station.
He was falling asleep again when headlights suddenly flashed through the windows. A car pulled up, an old Camaro with fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. Bernie slid open the door of the gatehouse and stepped down to look inside the car.
“I’m here to visit a Leonard Schwartz. I’m his niece.”
She had a huge mane of bleached-blond hair, pink plastic earrings and a tight purple top revealing a Grand Canyon of cleavage. She was binge-eating Snickers bars. A vampire she definitely was not. And the candy was not a good idea before meeting Schwartz.
“Sorry miss, but I really don’t think you should go up there.”
“Why? The building’s on fire or something?”
“Look, I’m not sure how to say this . . .” How would he say this? “I have reason to believe Mr. Schwartz has hurt some people before. Really hurt them.”
“Oh, he didn’t say he was into that,” she said. “But I’ve been around long enough to be able to take care of myself. Now go ahead and open the gate.”
“I mean I think he’s killed people before. You shouldn’t go up there.”
She opened the door and got out. Bernie stepped back and tried not to look at her breasts.
“You really don’t want me to go in, do you?” she asked. “You got an offer that’s better?”
“You’re not listening. He’s a vampire. You’re his dinner and he’s having you delivered like a pizza.”
“I’ll play along with anything you want,” she said.
“Just get out of here.”
“C’mon, if I cancel this appointment the service is going to be really pissed at me.”
“Please go now, or I’m calling the cops.”
As she finally backed up and turned around, the gravity of what Bernie had done began to sink in. Why did he care about saving some stranger’s life when he was putting his own at risk?
It wasn’t long before he sensed an evil presence.
“What did I do to deserve a moron like you?”
Schwartz. He was standing in the open door of the gatehouse, his pot belly protruding beneath a Panama shirt. His eyes glowed like beacons in the fog.
“I didn’t tell anyone anything about you,” Bernie blurted out. “Not a word.”
Schwartz wasn’t listening.
“The board of directors of the condominium association, they tell me to leave you alone,” he said. “They say you’re the only human stupid enough to work this job without causing trouble for us. I’ve been wanting to kill you ever since the oil stain. And this time you pushed me too far. I was expecting an amorous evening, and now I’m really pissed.”
“Amorous? I thought you were going to feed on the young lady and possibly kill her.”
“You have a problem with an old man being with a hooker? You think my parts aren’t in working order?”
“No, I . . . so you wanted the hooker just to be a hooker?”
“That’s it. I’ve had enough of your idiocy,” Schwartz said, moving into the booth.
He’s coming inside, Bernie thought with panic. So, Missy’s protection spell was truly only a laxative spell.
“Please don’t make me a vampire.” Bernie knew it was a dumb thing to say, but he was too scared to be witty.
“I’m not making you a vampire. What, and have to put up with you for centuries? No, I’m just going to kill you.”
He bared his fangs. Bernie hadn’t realized they made fang dentures, but now he knew.
Schwartz’s body tensed, about to spring at his prey. But he paused.
His shoulders slumped and he deflated with disappointment. His eyes were glued to Bernie’s chest.
Where his amulet hung from its leather cord. His vampire repellant, courtesy of Missy. At least this protection worked.
The one thing vampires don’t expect is for their prey to run towards them. Bernie bolted for the door, somehow slipped past Schwartz, and almost got caught as his shirt snagged on the door latch. He pushed through and sprinted across the parking lot toward the beach. As he climbed the dune crossover, he looked back. He couldn’t believe Schwartz wasn’t following. The charm must have truly freaked him out.
But something felt wrong. He patted his chest and the back of his neck. The amulet was missing. The cord must have gotten caught on the gatehouse door latch and broke. He couldn’t go back for it now. In fact, he couldn’t go back ever again. His career guarding Squid Tower was effectively over.
He kept running, as far as he could down the beach with no clue of how he would get to his apartment. A few miles later, he collapsed exhausted and out of breath, not far from a lady combing the beach for shells.
As Bernie watched the elderly lady hunting for shells walk in his direction, something about her was familiar. Yet as she got closer, he couldn’t recognize the shadowy face. Actually, from this distance it seemed hideous. He stood up. The woman came closer.
The face was like a giant festering wound. Blood, pus, and raw flesh barely covered the bone. Her hands were the same. As was the rest of her body, unclothed and skinned.
“Hello, Bernie,” said the woman in a voice he instantly recognized.
“Philomena?” It couldn’t be her, not this zombie-like hag. Icy fear trickled into his stomach.
“It’s me. Do you like what you see?”
She came closer and he smelled blood, sulfur, and dank rot. She had no skin, just the exposed flesh as if she’d been flayed alive.
“Um, did you forget your makeup tonight?” he asked.
“I left my skin behind as I always do when I hunt.”
“My god, are you a vampire like the rest of them?”
She was uncomfortably close to him now and the stench was making him nauseous.
“I am a soucouyant, what we call vampires in my homeland.”
“Are you . . . are you the one who’s been killing the people near Squid Tower?”
She smiled. A row of needle-like rat teeth appeared beneath her oozing mouth.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
“Because I was hungry.” She laughed. “I have to eat, no? But I did all my hunting there because those vampires are such snobs. They deserve to be blamed, man. Since I work days, I only deal with them when I come early or stay late, but every time they treat me rudely. They think they’re better than me because I’m from Martinique and they’re from New York.”
“New York rocks!”
“Shut up, you idiot. You rejected me.”
“Are you the one who put the woman’s credit card in the gatehouse?”
“I wanted to punish you. No one rejects me.”
“I didn
’t reject you. I—”
Bernie tried to scream as Philomena jumped on him, smothering his mouth with hers—the foul, oozing gaping wound of a mouth. Her needle teeth punctured his lips, his tongue, his throat.
Then she shoved him, sending him careening into the sand behind a dune, the wind knocked out of him. She pounced upon him biting his hands, face, neck, ankles, and thighs. She moaned and slurped.
He felt too weak to struggle. Spots swam across his eyes.
And then it went dark.
He woke up, not knowing how long he’d been out. Every inch of his body burned with pain and his mouth was filled with blood.
Something was different. All his senses were off-kilter. He didn’t feel like himself. Was he dead?
“I drank too much of you,” Philomena whispered in his ear. “I couldn’t stop myself, I was so hungry and you’re too tasty. But instead of leaving you dead, I made a soucouyant out of you. As a male, you won’t be able to fly. You’re basically an ordinary vampire. But you will live forever now and be my mate until the end of time.”
Bernie howled in horror. A vampire was bad enough, but her mate? Forever?
He ran away from her, back up the beach, in the vain attempt to return to a life that was forever gone.
33
Delaying Action
As she walked to the front of the building, Missy noticed the gatehouse was empty and its door left hanging open. Missy assumed Bernie had gone to the men’s room, but after several minutes went by, she sensed something was wrong. When she spotted the amulet she had given Bernie dangling with a broken cord from the door latch, she was certain. She unhooked the amulet so she could return it to him.
“Can you believe that dolt has been away from his post for over an hour?” Schwartz said as he approached from the shadows.
“I’m worried about him,” Missy said.
“Did you know he was arrested last night? There were almost two hours without a guard here until they found a replacement.”
Missy pretended to be shocked. “I didn’t know.”
“The day guard found a credit card belonging to the mayor’s daughter and they figured maybe Burdine was the one who killed her. The security service had footage that gave him an alibi, though. Too bad.”
“Who put the credit card there?” Missy asked, wondering if it was Schwartz.
“How would I know? Now, that little coward better get his butt back here.”
“Coward?”
“Yes, well, I, uh, had a little confrontation with him earlier and he got scared and ran away.”
“Did you attack him, Mr. Schwartz?”
“Verbally is all. And maybe I threatened him a bit. But he’s supposed to be a guard. He needs to have a backbone. Can’t let some old man’s words make you abandon your post.”
“Did you threaten to kill him?” she asked in a low voice.
“Maybe. In a metaphorical sense. But c’mon, he had to know I wasn’t being literal.”
“Which way did he run?”
“To the beach. Like a frightened little rabbit. And a rabbit has more brains than Burdine.”
“I’m going to look for him,” Missy said, heading for the dune crossover stairs.
“You’re crazy,” Schwartz muttered.
The beach was deserted, and the light from a mere sliver of crescent moon was dim. After she crossed over the dunes, Missy didn’t know which way to go. On nothing more than a gut feeling, she went south toward the public beach. If she believed she were being chased by a vampire, a more public area is where she would go.
The wind was steady from the southeast and she didn’t see a single soul on the beach ahead of her as she trudged along in the soft sand near the dunes.
A man’s scream was carried to her by the wind. Oh no, she thought, was that Bernie?
The beach curved inland slightly then seaward again, and at the far side there was movement. A figure detaching itself from the shadows of the sea grapes covering the dunes, stumbling along the beach toward her.
And a flare rising from the same spot on the dunes, flying rapidly towards her. It looked like it was coming right at her but passed several feet above and took a slow turn away from the beach and toward the west.
It was a ball of fire. And within it she thought she could make out a human face.
The ball of fire could only be the soucouyant. If the monster was heading back to its home, Missy had to delay it in order to allow Carriacou Jack and Matt to find its skin.
There was no time to think of a spell. Missy could only try to stop the fireball’s motion, hoping her telekinesis power would work once again. She focused on the ball as it sped away from her, envisioning it stopping, willing it to stop. But it was moving away too quickly, like a fireworks rocket. And now, a tiny firefly, it grew ever smaller until it finally disappeared.
No, it appeared again. And now it was growing larger. And larger.
It was coming back toward her. Was it because of her? Did her telekinesis power truly work? She was thrilled.
But only for a moment. Now she was getting concerned. Problem was, getting the soucouyant to return wasn’t what she had hoped to accomplish. She had simply wanted to stop it. She had no idea what to do now, but she had to think quickly.
She ran toward the nearest dune crossover belonging to an unfamiliar building. The gate at the bottom of the steps was unlocked and she scrambled up to the boardwalk, somehow feeling safer here than on the open beach.
A binding spell—that’s what she needed. She had begun learning one but had no confidence it would work. She had to try anyway. As the ball of fire sped toward her, she summoned what power she could from within her and held the power charm in her pocket to add more. She spun the power into invisible strands of steel-like strength and then wove them into an imaginary net she suspended in the path of the fireball.
The fireball neared her. The soucouyant’s face inside it stared at her with angry eyes and a gaping maw of needle-like teeth. The face was female and the essence of raw hunger. The ball was seconds away from consuming her.
Missy dropped to her knees on the dune crossover, trembling, trying to marshal her strength.
Then the fireball struck the net only a few yards away from her. The net would be invisible to others, but Missy could see it flex as the fireball slowed, like a baseball hitting the foul-ball netting protecting the stands. The net wrapped around the fireball as Missy had intended. The fireball darted erratically like a panicked bee.
The soucouyant shrieked a jagged, ear-splitting sound that could probably shatter windows up and down the coast if they weren’t impact-resistant hurricane windows.
The fireball strained against the binding spell’s net, dropped back, then slammed into the net over and over. Missy worried that it wouldn’t hold. Could the monster’s fire somehow burn through the strands of magick power?
The fireball plunged forward again, pushing closer than before. The net strained to hold together and not break. The face inside the ball fixed its eyes on Missy and snapped its jaws, anxious to tear her apart.
Missy wondered what she needed to do now. And perhaps it was the brief moment of indecision that created the weakness allowing her spell to falter. Suddenly, strands of invisible steel wire hit and wrapped around her, a fragment of the net she had spun, still hot from the fireball. She was yanked into the air, and knocked off the crossover. Part of the net attached itself to the railing and she ended up hanging over the dunes below, suspended upside down like a bug in a spider web.
The soucouyant’s fireball made a sharp turn and headed inland, quickly disappearing from her upside-down view.
This is embarrassing, she thought. The expression, “hoisted with her own petard,” came to mind.
At least the soucouyant was more anxious to get home than to kill her. Maybe the web of the binding spell protected her even as it was wrapped around her.
She managed to free one hand enough to pull her phone from her pocket, put it
on speaker and call Carriacou Jack to warn him. She told him to text her with his location when he found the soucouyant’s home.
Then she tried to figure out how to dismantle her spell before any early risers wandered down the dune crossover, coffee mug in hand, to find an incompetent witch dangling helplessly below them.
34
Into the Lair
Matt had the distinct impression Carriacou Jack resented having him tag along. Matt didn’t care. Reporters had to have thick hides, and when Missy had called and told him to hurry to Squid Tower before Jack left, Matt decided there was no way he was going to miss this. He didn’t mind that, when they left the car to continue on foot, Jack forced him to carry the twenty-pound paper sack of salt and ten-pound plastic bag of rice.
First, Carriacou Jack had performed some magic ceremony on the seating area at the beach end of the dune crossover. He lit several multi-colored candles that almost died out in the sea breeze, and burned a strange-smelling powder in a copper dish. The wind succeeded in blowing the burning powder out of the dish and straight into Matt’s face. He had to smack his own face to put out the fire in his beard.
Then, the obeah man chanted in an unfamiliar language for, it seemed, an eternity. He had painted stones in his hands which he rubbed between his palms. The chanting picked up in intensity. And then his eyes rolled up in his head until only the whites were showing.
“Um, dude, are you okay?” Matt asked.
“Man, seriously?” The eyeballs were normal again and glared at Matt with anger. “I’m trying to get my obeah on.”
He began chanting again, eventually dropping into a trance again. When his eyes rolled up, Matt remained silent.
Carriacou Jack’s body quivered and shook. It looked as if he were about to levitate. Then he growled like an animal and Matt had an unpleasant reminder of Chainsaw.
Finally, the obeah man grew quiet and his body sagged. His eyes popped open, alert and excited.