F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 Page 21

  "So what are we going to do with you, Mister Vampire?" she said. "Your friends might show up and find a way to fix you up. Not that I can see how that'd be possible, but I wouldn't put anything past you vipers."

  What was she saying? What did she mean? What had happened to him?

  "If I had a good supply of holy water I could pour it over you, but I want to conserve what I've got."

  She was quiet a moment, then turned and walked off. Had she decided to leave him here? He hoped so. At least that way he had a chance.

  But if she wanted to kill him, why hadn't she said anything about driving a stake through his heart?

  He tried to move but his body wouldn't respond. Somehow the blast had paralyzed him. He noticed his vision growing dim, his sense of hearing fading. What was happening? He felt as if he might be drifting toward true death ...

  No! That that couldn't be. He was only paralyzed.

  Through his misting vision Gregor saw her coming back. Her hands were bright yellow. How? Why?

  "The only thing I can think of doing is to set you on the east end of the porch and let the sun finish you."

  No! Please! Not that.

  The woman rested the flashlight on a broken timber and reached for his face. He saw now that she wore yellow rubber gloves. He tried to cringe away, but again—no response from his body. She grabbed him by his hair and . . . lifted him. How could she be so strong? Vertigo spun him around as she looked him in the face.

  "You can still see, can't you? Maybe you'd better take a look at yourself."

  Vertigo again as she twisted his head around, and then he saw the hallway, or what was left of it. Mass destruction . . . shattered timbers, the stairs blown away, and . . .

  Pieces of his body—his arms and legs torn and scattered, his torso twisted and eviscerated, his intestines stretched and ripped, internal organs reduced to large, unrecognizable smears.

  As his vision faded to black in the final fall toward true death, Gregor wished his lungs were still attached. So he could scream. Just once.

  LACEY . . .

  A stink filled Lacey's nostrils as she noticed that Olivia's rapid-fire French seemed to be fading away. She dared another look. The Brit's face was slack now and the flesh was starting to decompose. She lifted her head to look beyond him and saw Olivia and her crew backing into a stairwell, heading down to what Lacey assumed was the basement.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Lacey raised her head further and looked around. Except for the bodies of the four dead vampires, she was alone. She'd been forgotten. But for how long?

  She struggled to rise, groaning with the pain in her joints and muscles, but especially in her pelvis. She slipped on the wet floor and banged her elbow as she went down. She tried again, clinging to the wall, using it to steady herself as the room spun about her. Clenching her teeth against a wave of nausea, she rose to her feet and hugged the wall.

  When the room steadied, she looked down at her bloody, naked body and wanted to retch. What did they do to her?

  She'd deal with that later. Right now she had to get out of here and back to the church. But where was here} She knew from the signs on the wall that she was in a Post Office. But how did she find the church once she got out?

  First things first, she told herself. Get out of this undead nest, then worry about finding your way back.

  Still holding the wall, she edged toward the doors. She looked longingly at the clothes on the corpses of the dead vampires, but their rot was already seeping through the fabric. She'd rather be naked.

  She spotted a clock on the wall. It read 3:12. It couldn't be that late. Then she noticed the second hand was frozen at the half-minute mark. An electric clock, and the power had been off for a long, long time.

  Lacey pushed through the doors and the cool night air hit her, sending a cold tremor through her body. She kept moving, padding across the moonlit concrete to the surrounding shadows. She needed some clothes, and not just for warmth; couldn't turn up in front of the people in the church, especially her Uncle Joe, looking like this. She had to find a house, go through one of the closets—

  "It's you!" cried a voice behind her. "How did you get away?"

  Lacey turned and stared at the figure advancing toward her from the other side of the street. The bottle blonde from the boardwalk, dressed in lowrider jeans and a cutaway denim jacket. Her boots thudded on the pavement. Lacey saw a flash in her right hand, heard a clink, and realized she'd just flipped open a knife. The stainless steel blade gleamed in the moonlight.

  Lacey said nothing. Her brain seemed sluggish. All she could think was, Not now ... I can't handle this now.

  "Guess it doesn't matter how," the Vichy woman said with a throaty laugh as she reached the grass and kept coming. "I'm just glad you did. Because we got a score to settle, you and me."

  Lacey tried to remember some of the defense moves she'd learned in her martial arts classes and couldn't come up with one. So she started backing away.

  "You can run but you can't hide," the blonde sing-songed. "I don't care how much they want you alive, you ain't walkin away this time."

  She was closing in. Lacey held up her hands. "No, wait..."

  "No waiting. Looks like a few of my friends had a party with you, now it's my turn. I'm gonna cut you, girl... cut you good!"

  With that the blonde lunged forward with a vicious, face-high slash, and Lacey found her limbs responding on their own. She didn't need to remember the moves. Hour upon hour of practice had programmed them into her nervous system. Her right leg shot back and stiffened, her left knee bent, her hands darted forward, grabbing the blonde's knife arm at the wrist and elbow, pushing it aside, twisting it, using the woman's own weight and momentum against her to bring her down.

  Her Vichy earring flashed near Lacey's face and sudden visions of similar earrings dangling over her while her three captors—

  Rage detonated in Lacey. Gritting her teeth she gave an extra twist to the falling woman's arm and was rewarded by a scream of pain as bones ground together, ligaments and tendons stretched, snapped. The woman screamed again, louder. She'd be drawing a crowd soon. Lacey's hand flashed forward, landing a two-knuckle punch on her larynx. With a crunch of cartilage the screaming cut off, replaced by strangled noises as the blonde began to kick and writhe, clutching at her throat with her still-functioning left hand.

  Lacey picked up the knife from the grass and stepped back, looking around. Was anyone else coming after her? She and the blonde were alone in the shadows. She watched her struggles, waiting for them to run their course.

  "So," Lacey said. "You were gonna cut me, huh? Cut me good. I don't think so."

  She checked the knife blade: tanto shaped with the front half of the cutting edge beveled and the rear half saw-toothed. Wicked. If Ms. Vichy had had her way, this blade would be jutting from Lacey's chest about now.

  The choking sounds faded, the kicking and writhing ebbed to twisting and twitching. With a final spasm the hand clutching at her throat fell away and she lay limp and still.

  Lacey waited another minute, then dropped to her knees beside the dead woman. Mastering her revulsion, she began unbuttoning her cutaway top . . .

  CAROLE . . .

  Sister Carole trudged through the inky blackness along the street, hugging the curb, hurrying through the moonlit sections between the shadows of the trees, towing her red wagon behind her. She'd loaded it with her Bible, her rosary, her holy water, the blasting caps, her few remaining bombs, and other essentials.

 

  "I suppose I will," Sister Carole said aloud to the night.

  "Hello?" said a woman's voice from the darkness ahead. "Is someone there?"

  Carole froze, her hand darting into the pants pocket of her warm-up, finding the electric switch, flipping the cover, placing her thumb on the button. Wires ran from the button through a hole
in the pocket to the battery and the cylindrical charge taped to her upper abdomen.

  God forgive her, but she would not be taken alive.

  She held her silence, barely breathing, waiting. She sensed movement in the shadows ahead, and then a young woman stepped into a moonlight-dappled section of the sidewalk. She held an automatic pistol in each hand.

  "I don't want trouble," the woman said. "I just want to know how to get back to St. Anthony's Church."

  Carole looked around, wary. Were others lurking in the shadows?

  "I think you already know the way," Carole said.

  "No, really, I don't."

  Carole eyed her spiky hair. "Don't try to fool me. You work for them."

  "I don't, I swear."

  A plaintive note in the woman's voice struck Carole.

  "You dress like one"—although this one's clothes did not fit her well— "and you're armed."

  "The clothes are stolen. So are the guns. I've already been attacked twice today. It's not going to happen again."

  Again, the ring of truth. Carole squinted through the shadows. This woman did look battered.

  "Look," the woman said. "I don't want to hurt you and you don't seem to want to hurt me, so can you just point me toward the church and we'll go our separate ways."

  Carole decided to trust her instincts. "I'm headed that way. You can come with me."

  "Really? I don't remember seeing you there last night."

  "I wasn't." Carole noticed that the woman was barefoot and limping. "You said you were attacked. Did they . .. hurt you?"

  The young woman nodded, then sobbed. "They hurt me bad. Real bad."

  And then she was leaning against Carole and crying softly on her shoulder. Carole put her free arm around her and tried to soothe her, but kept her thumb on the button in her pocket. You never knew ... never knew ...

  After a few minutes the sobs stopped and the young woman stepped back. She wiped her eyes with her bare arms.

  "Sorry. It's just... it's been a long night." She pushedof the pistols into her waistband and stuck out a hand. "Lacey. With an 'e.'"

  "Carole," she said, shaking the hand and smiling, just a little. Something likable about her. "With an 'e.' "

  "Were you a member of St. Anthony's parish?" Lacey said as they started walking again.

  "I was a nun in the convent."

  "Get out! Then you must know my Uncle Joe. He's been a priest there for years."

  Carole stopped walking and stared. Could this tough-looking tattooed young woman be related to Father Joe?

  "You're Father Cahill's niece?" She couldn't hide her disbelief.

  "It's true, and I need to get back to him. He's got to have noticed I'm missing by now and he'll be worried sick."

  The genuine concern in Lacey's voice made Carole a believer, but sudden fear stabbed her.

  "Hurry," Carole said. She flipped the safety cover closed on the button in her pocket and broke into a fast walk. "We've got to get you back before he goes out searching for you. Once he's away from the church he's in danger."

  JOE . . .

  They'd started the search with the church grounds—the convent, the rectory, the graveyard—and then crossed the street to the office building. Finding that empty, Joe and the five other men in the search party, all armed to the teeth, had moved through the surrounding houses and buildings. The discovery of a man named Enrico stabbed to death in a neighboring Victorian had shaken them all, especially Joe. He'd opened every door to every room in the old house with the expectation that he'd find Lacey in the same condition.

  But no. No sign that she'd ever been in the house. Lacey seemed to have vanished without a trace.

  Finally, at Joe's insistence, they'd returned to the office building because that was the last place Lacey had been seen.

  Joe stood now at the head of the stairs in the dark third-floor hallway. He turned off his flashlight—to heighten his hearing as much as to save the batteries—and called her name.

  "Lacey! Lacey, can you hear me?"

  He stood statue still and listened, but all he heard were the voices of the other members of the search party on the floors below.

  He felt numb, heartsick. Lacey... how had he let this happen? She'd made it all the way down here from Manhattan on her own, and now she was gone, snatched from under his protective wing. He could see how it had happened. She'd felt safe here with other living around, armed with crosses and guns, ready for anything. She'd let her guard down, got careless . . .

  "Lacey! Please!"

  And then he heard it. A sound . . . scratching ... so soft it was barely audible. He opened his eyes, then squeezed them shut again, trying to locate the sound. It seemed to come from everywhere at first, echoing off the walls of the hallway, but as he concentrated he felt sure it was coming from somewhere ahead and to his left. He opened his eyes and flicked on his flashlight.

  There. An open doorway with a red plaque saying something about AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY—ALARM WILL SOUND. No, it won't. It needed electricity for that. And besides, the door was already open.

  Joe played his beam along the concrete steps within. They ran one way: up. To the roof. The scratching sound was louder here. Definitely coming from the top of the empty stairwell. Someone was scratching on the other side of the roof door.

  "Lacey?" he called as he took the steps two at a time. "Lacey, is that you?"

  He hesitated at the door, hand on the knob, afraid to turn it, afraid to see what was on the other side, afraid it might be Lacey, horribly injured. And afraid it might not be Lacey. Might be one of them, lying in wait for a victim.

  He'd hung his big silver cross around his neck before leaving tonight. He unslung it and held it ready, to wield as either club or firebrand. But still he hesitated. This was foolish. He should call for the others, go out there as a group.

  He turned and was about to call them when he heard the voice, a faint, agonized rasp.

  "Help me . . . please. . . help''

  "Lacey!"

  Joe shoved the door open and stepped up onto the moonlit roof. Something heavy struck him at the base of his neck, sending shockwaves of pain down his arms and driving him to his knees. He lost his grip on the cross. Then a thick quilted blanket was thrown over him. Before he could react he was knocked flat, rolled, and trussed up like an Oriental rug. Panicked, he kicked and twisted, but he was helpless. He shouted for the others but knew his cries were too muffled by the fabric to be heard.

  Joe felt himself lifted by his feet, dragged along the roof, and then he was falling. They'd thrown him off the roof!

  No. The cold, steely grip never released his ankles. And now he was rising instead of falling, being carried through the air.

  But to where?

  - PART TWO -

  TWILIGHT MAN

  - 6 -

  JOE . . .

  Joe had lost all track of time during the seemingly endless flight. But he knew when it ended: the cold fingers released their grip on his ankles and he fell. Before he could cry out his terror, he hit hard, head first. Only the multi-layered padding of his blanket cocoon kept him from cracking his skull.

  "This is the priest," said a harsh voice. "Search him and take him upstairs. Franco is waiting for him."

  Joe was then rolled over—kicked over was more like it. As he felt the ropes binding him loosen, he tightened his fists and prepared to fight. But when the blanket was pulled away from his face he found himself blinded by light.

  Fluorescent light. Somebody had electricity.

  As he blinked in the brightness he was kicked again, in the ribs this time. He struggled to a sitting position and felt something cold and hard as steel slam against the side of his head.

  "Easy, god-boy," said a new voice to his left, and someone on his right brayed a harsh laugh.

  Joe groaned with the pain and clutched his stinging scalp. He blinked again, and finally he could see.

  He sat on a sidewalk in a pool of light outsid
e the brass and glass revolving doors of a massive granite building. The rest of the world around him lay dark and quiet. A red canopy blocked out much of his view above. He did notice the number 350 above the revolving doors. Surrounding him were half a dozen men wearing earrings he knew too well. The nearest held a huge revolver; most likely its long barrel was what had slammed against his head.

  Vichy.

  The one next to the gun-toter was playing with a knife with a nasty reverse-curve blade, twirling it on a fingertip as he said, "This supposed to be one of them vigilantes from down the shore, huh? The guy that killed Gregor?" He kicked Joe's thigh. "Don't look so tough. Hey, Barrett. What say we soften him up before passin him on to Franco?"

  Vigilante? Joe thought. Zev had mentioned something about a group that was killing off the local Vichy. Was that why he'd been brought here— wherever it was?

  "Not on my watch," said the one with the gun. Barrett. The same voice that had called him god-boy. He was dressed in a tan silk Armani suit with a white shirt open at the collar. It looked tailor-made for him. "He won't want damaged goods. When the damage gets done, Franco will want to do it."

  Joe looked around. "Where am I?"

  "In big trouble," said Barrett.

  The one with the knife, bearded and denimed, brayed again. "Yeah. Big trouble! Wouldn't wanna be you no-how."

  "Drag him up to the office," said Barrett. "We'll search him there."

  A pair of the Vichy grabbed him under the arms and roughly hauled him through a glass door set beside the revolving door. They entered a vaulted lobby of polished gray-beige marble. At the opposite end, floor to ceiling in chrome and marble, was a bas relief image of a building known the world over.

  The Empire State Building. I'm in New York.

  They'd kidnapped him and flown him to Manhattan. For what purpose?