The Vampire Files Anthology

by P. N. Elrod

  Andy took a step toward me, then stopped. His blue eyes widened, just a little. “All of it?”

  “Everything.”

  I abandoned the case and raced into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator.

  The four doses I kept on hand for emergencies were gone. I found the bottles in the trash, empty.

  “Oh, Christ,” I whispered. Andy’s hands touched my shoulders, and I felt him behind me, solid and real.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I don’t need it yet.”

  “It’s not all right. It takes hours to brew, and—” A terrible thought struck me. I opened the pantry, where I kept all my supplies.

  Gone. I’d been cleaned out.

  I felt a numb horror go through me. “There’s nothing. I can’t even get the ingredients until tomorrow morning at the earliest, then it takes all day to brew the base—”

  “It’ll be all right,” Andy repeated.

  I turned on him, suddenly furious. “It’s not! Don’t you get it? I know you’re in pain already! It’s going to get worse, Andy, and if I don’t let you go—”

  His hands closed around my face. “Pain, I can handle. I ain’t leaving you alone. They’ve been here. They were in your house.”

  “Who?”

  “Somebody who knows you,” he said. “Somebody who knows what you’re afraid of.”

  I was afraid of hurting him. Again.

  He smoothed my hair back, and kissed me. It was soft and cool and gentle, but I sensed how much restraint it took for him to keep it that way.

  “I can handle this,” he said. “I will. You believe me, Holly?”

  I gulped and nodded convulsively. “Okay.”

  I didn’t, and it wasn’t. But he wasn’t finished.

  “Get dressed and pack a bag,” he said. “We’re going.”

  I pulled a suitcase from under my bed and threw a few items in. Then I opened a drawer and took out a pair of pants, a dark shirt, underwear, shoes, and socks: his own clothes, from the last time I’d brought him back. Somehow, I’d never been able to get rid of them. I put them on the bed, and Andy, standing at the door, gave me a long, measuring look that told me he understood why I’d kept them. Why they’d been so close.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Better change,” I said without looking directly at his face.

  “Holly—”

  “Not now.”

  As soon as he changed into the clothes, we left.

  NO MATTER HOW tough you are, nobody takes pain well when it comes on slow and cold, with nothing to cushion it.

  I kept dialing phone numbers, trying to get somebody on the phone who could help as we drove. Sam Twist wasn’t answering—not his phone, his cell, or his secret emergency number. I tried Annika. No answer there, either. I tried Detective Prieto, but it rang directly to his voice mail.

  I thought about calling 911, but what was I going to say? I have a dead man here who needs his medicine?

  I had no idea what to do. I could feel Andy’s pain, black and constant and growing, and I was helpless to prevent it from getting worse.

  “Holly?”

  I took my eyes off the road for just a second. His lights shone silver, unreal in the dashboard lights.

  “Why’d you bring me back?”

  Of all the questions I’d expected, that had to be last on the list. I held his stare for a long few seconds, then blinked and focused on the road. “Lottie,” I said. “They were going to do it anyway, and they were going to let Lottie—I couldn’t let that happen. I thought maybe it would be better for you if it was me, that’s all.”

  “That’s all.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a liar. Pretty one, but a liar.”

  And he was right. I was lying not just to him, but also to myself.

  I loved him. I’d grown to love him during that first resurrection, and I’d lost him, and it had hurt me. Having him back was a painful barbed-wire ball of a miracle, because it contained the seeds of its own destruction.

  My hand left the steering wheel and touched his, and his fingers closed warm and strong over mine.

  “Where we going?” he asked.

  There was only one place, really. The other witches had been abducted, dragged out without warning, which meant that their supplies would have remained intact.

  I needed to make him some potion.

  Lottie’s house was the closest.

  “THE COPS,” I said. “Are they following us?”

  Andrew had shut his eyes—fighting back pain, I could feel it—but he opened them as I turned the car out of the driveway and scanned the street. “Don’t see ’em,” he said. “Don’t mean they ain’t around, though. Since we’re bait in the trap, they’d like your killer to have room to breathe, seems to me.”

  I hoped the police would follow us, but I couldn’t wait to find out. Time was running out.

  On the way, I remembered to call in sick to work—not that keeping my day job was the most important thing in my world, but it was normal life, and I desperately wanted to believe that there would still be a normal life, after today.

  The sun was on the rise as we navigated morning rush hour, heading for Lottie’s neighborhood. She had a place in an upscale area, one story but sprawling. It was the kind of place that was deserted by day—working families out from seven to seven. The only sign of life along the street was a lawn-service truck in the distance, and a couple of guys on riding lawn mowers.

  Lottie’s driveway was empty, so I turned in and parked in the back. Yellow police tape fluttered here and there, but they’d finished their work in the yard. An official-looking seal was on the back door, and a newly installed padlock.

  I opened the trunk of the car and took out a rusty tire iron, which I handed to Andy. He weighed it in his hand for a moment, then nodded and popped the padlock with a single wrench. He had to stop for a moment and brace himself, and I felt the swirl of darkness between us as the inevitable tide rolled over him.

  “Andy,” I said. He shook his head.

  “Let’s just get it done,” he said. “This ain’t nothing yet.”

  He was right. It would get a lot worse. That didn’t mean it wasn’t bad, though, bad enough to drive most men to their knees.

  The death-tide was pulling him back. Pulling him away from me.

  I ripped open the seal on the door and stepped into Lottie’s kitchen.

  There were few signs of violence in here—neatly ranked pots and pans, shelves of supplies. I quickly rummaged through them, breathing easier with every single thing I found. Yes, yes, yes . . .

  I opened the refrigerator door, and inside saw not just a few bottles, but a gallon jar of swirling silver liquid.

  A gallon jar.

  Andy joined me, alerted by my expression. “Why’d she make so much?” he asked. I shook my head. There was absolutely no reason for Lottie to do a thing like that—the expense was enormous. Unless she’d found an effective way to really store the stuff—no, when I wrestled the gallon jar out of the refrigerator and onto the counter, I could tell that it was at least a week old, probably two. Not bad, but not fresh, either.

  In another week, it would be useless. It was a foolish waste. Why the hell did Lottie brew it like this?

  “She’s been up to something,” Andy said. He might have been reading my mind. “Makes you wonder why she wanted me back, don’t it?”

  I dipped up a cup of the potion, sniffed it again, and tilted it this way and that in the mug. “I don’t trust this,” I said. “It doesn’t feel right, Andy. I just—”

  He held up a hand to silence me.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “I think maybe someone’s here,” he said.

  I sealed up the jar and hefted it. We’d take it with us. It’d have to serve until I could brew my own.

  Andy turned his eyes back toward me, and there was something dawning in his expression, something grim and terrible.

  He lifted the mug
I’d filled and poured it into the sink.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Somebody’s been studying up.” Andy didn’t bother to keep his voice down. “Used this same trick myself, long ago. Made up a batch of poisoned brew, left it for the revenants to drink when they came looking. Did for quite a few that way, back in the wars.”

  Poison. I looked down at the jar and let it slide out of my hands and back to the counter.

  “Come out,” Andy said. “You want us dead, you do it barefaced.”

  “All right,” said a smoke-strained, whisky-rough voice from the hall, and a big redheaded man stepped into the light. There was a gun in his hand, pointed not at Andy, but at me. “How’s this?”

  Sam Twist. I’m just the dispatcher. “Sam—” I wet my lips. Andy stepped between me and the gun, and I heard three loud pops in quick succession.

  Andy just stood there and took the bullets, shook himself, and said in a voice I didn’t even recognize, “You all done, Irish, or you want to reload?”

  I slid slowly along the counter, angling for a view of Sam. He was calmly holding the gun at his side.

  “No need,” he said. “I was just softening you up a little. No question, you’re one hell of an opponent. That’s why I tried to get Holly to take a pass on bringing you back again.”

  “Mine,” scraped another voice, and the thing that shuffled into view next to Sam . . . if it had been born human, it hadn’t stayed that way. Misshapen, malformed as a dropped lump of clay, but roped with muscle. Dead gray eyes. Pointed teeth displayed by lips that had been cut or ripped away. Sam was a big man, and this—creature—topped him by a foot or more. Its shoulders were broader than the doorway.

  I remembered the photographs of the cops. Beaten to death. Necks snapped.

  Andy had never looked fragile to me until that moment.

  If he was worried, or even startled, it didn’t show. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, eyes fixed on Sam’s monster. “Well, ain’t you pretty?” he said, cool and quiet. “Your momma must be real proud.”

  The thing swayed, but didn’t move. Its blind-looking gaze strayed from Andy . . . to me.

  A low growl started in its throat, a diesel engine running rough, and I felt Andy’s whole body tense. “Get behind me,” he said. “Holly, dammit, do that right now.”

  I did, but not before I got a glimpse at the blood soaking the front of his shirt, and the tattered flesh beneath. Dead men could die, and they could feel pain, and no matter how focused and tough Andy was, he couldn’t overcome this monster.

  Not alone.

  “Who is he?” I whispered. Sam couldn’t have brought this creature back, not on his own.

  “He was my brother Donal,” Sam Twist said. “Before Lottie got hold of him.”

  He was Lottie’s. But Lottie was dead. Wasn’t she? “She—brought him back?”

  “He got knifed in a bar fight,” Sam said. “Strongest man I ever knew. I begged her to help, and she did. She brought him back. But I didn’t know what she’d do with him.”

  Sam moved over to the side, edging to where he could once again see my face, and line up a clear shot. Andy didn’t move. He clearly thought it was better to stand between me and Donal.

  “What did she do?” I was acutely aware now of the blood pooling at Andy’s feet, of the waves of darkness vibrating the air between us. Death was coming, and coming no matter how hard he pushed against it.

  “What does it look like she did, you bitch?” Sam spat, and the sudden raw fury in him exploded like nitro. “She used him. My own brother. She told me she put him back to sleep, but she didn’t. She set him to fighting other dead men like some trained bear, and brought him back, kept dragging him back until there was nothing left. She took bets.” Sam swal-lowed hard. “But he remembered. He heard my voice on the phone, and he remembered.”

  Sam’s face was red, distorted with anguish, and his eyes were glittering with tears. I swallowed hard to clear the lump from my throat. “He came to find you,” I said. “Oh, Sam, I’m sorry.”

  He sneered at me. There was no more sanity in his eyes now than in his brother’s. “Keep your pity,” he said. “I don’t want it. I’m putting you down, bitch. I’m putting all of you down.”

  Lottie wasn’t dead. Lottie couldn’t be dead, if Donal was still alive. Sam had her somewhere, under lock and key, maybe drugged or worse, but still breathing.

  She was Donal’s only vulnerability.

  I was still partly blocked from Sam’s view. With my right hand, I dug my cell phone from my pocket, flipped it open, and hit and held the speed dial number I’d assigned to Detective Prieto. I had to hope he’d answer or, at worst, that his voice mail would give him the clues he needed after the fact to put it all together. “You kept Lottie alive,” I said. “Right, Sam? To suffer.”

  “Damn straight,” he said. “When I’m done with you, I’ll take out Annika, and we can move on to the next town. You have to be stopped, all of you.”

  “You’re using Donal just as much as Lottie did,” I said. “Let him go, Sam. God—please, let him go!”

  “No,” he snapped. “Not until every single one of you is dead. Don’t move, Holly. I want you to watch what happens next.”

  He knew. He knew about Andrew; he’d heard how traumatized I was when I’d lost him before.

  He wanted me to watch him die again.

  ______

  DONAL WAS FAST, but Andy was faster. Even wounded, he was as lithe as a cat. He dodged Donal’s roaring charge, tripped the twisted giant, and bashed Donal’s skull hard into the marble counter. I backed away, dodged behind the fighting men, and screamed into the phone, “Prieto, it’s Sam Twist, find Lottie, Lottie’s the key—”

  Donal’s hand slapped the phone away from me, and it bounced and broke into scattered pieces against the far wall. A bone snapped in my hand, and I choked back a scream, then another as I felt Andy’s torment surge stronger. He was feeling my pain, too.

  He’d do anything to stop it, and that was so dangerous.

  I needed the gun Sam held.

  I settled for grabbing a cleaver from the block next to the stove. Lottie, like all good cooks and witches, kept her tools in order; the cleaver had a wicked fine edge, a silky deadliness that vibrated the air.

  I kept Donal between me and Sam as he sought for a clear shot. Andy slipped in his own blood; his strike at Donal’s massive throat lost its strength, and Donal’s huge gray hands closed on his shoulders.

  I felt Andy’s arm being wrenched out of its socket. I screamed. He grunted and pulled halfway free, but Donal bunched up a fist and drew back—

  I threw myself to the floor and swiped the cleaver through Donal’s Achilles’ tendons, and he toppled, howling, like a tree. The table collapsed under his impact. Andy squirmed free, panting, and I felt the tide coming faster, deeper, all that darkness swirling and clouding the air between us as he tried to get to me. . . .

  Sam fired twice. One shot hit Donal’s flailing arm and kicked a fist-sized chunk of flesh out of it. The second shot . . .

  The second shot took Andy in the chest as he lunged to cover me.

  “No!” I shrieked, and took his weight in my arms as he collapsed against me.

  There was no fighting the emptiness that rolled over me now, the call of endless peace, and I felt Andy slipping away.

  I felt him find some small, impossible anchor in that tide, and his body shuddered against mine, holding me tight against him. He can’t. He can’t make it. Even the dead had to die.

  But Andy refused to go.

  He pulled back, and his eyes were liquid silver, the color of the potion I’d dosed him with in the morgue. His skin was as pale as paper. Most of his blood was poured out on the floor, an offering to harsher gods than I could ever worship.

  But he stayed standing.

  He took in a deep breath, and closed his eyes. “Potion,” he whispered. “Give it to me.”

  The jar behind me on the
counter.

  Poisoned.

  “No,” I said. “No, Andy.”

  Another shot struck him. I screamed something at Sam, I don’t even know what, and he bared his teeth in response. Donal was crawling toward us across the floor. He couldn’t stand, but he wouldn’t give up. He wanted me dead as much as Sam did.

  Andy reached behind me, fumbled the gallon jar of silver liquid, and looked at me with the most heartbreaking plea. “Help,” he whispered. I felt the tide roaring in again, stronger this time. He couldn’t resist that, not even for me.

  I helped him lift the jar.

  One swallow.

  Two.

  Sam’s next bullet hit the jar and exploded it into a shower of glass. The potion coated us both and swirled in thick silvery streams in the blood on the floor.

  But it worked.

  I felt the black surging inside Andy fall away, and the sudden pulsebeat of life took over. For just an instant, his eyes locked with mine, and I saw a promise there.

  An acceptance, too.

  Donal’s huge hand swiped at his feet, but Andy sidestepped and waltzed me with him. He put me gently out of the way, and turned to Sam Twist.

  “You got plenty of cause to hate,” Andy said. “Your brother’s been used hard. But you took it too far, mister. You got no quarrel with Holly.”

  “She’s a witch.”

  Andy’s smile turned wolfish. “So am I, mister. And now you got a quarrel with me.”

  Sam fired again, and hit Andy. The bullet wounds didn’t seem to matter at all; with a bellow of rage, Sam rushed forward, still firing. Andy moved like a bullfighter, avoiding the attack, and swung his arm around Sam’s throat from behind. He threw his weight into the motion. Sam’s feet slipped in the blood, and his neck snapped with a muffled dry crackle. It happened too fast for me to really take in, and then the life was leaving Sam’s blue eyes and his body falling in that utterly empty way that only the dead can fall as Andy let him go.

  Donal howled, and it hurt me to hear it. He crawled past us and cradled Sam’s broken body in his massive arms, small as a toy.