‘It was cold inside that metal ship. Colder than the nights on the high plateau, when the ice storms blow sideways and no shelter is ever enough, and no fire can adequately warm you. But I was still angry, and I thought to see the glow of lamplight upon golden plate. Greed overcame me, and I struck deeper into the craft.’
‘What did you find?’ asked Weiss anxiously. There were only twenty-eight minutes left now, and he would need five minutes at least to reach a fixed phone. Now that death was so imminent, he wanted to do more to postpone it, and this strange, cursed, voluble creature might be the means of doing so.
‘Not gold. I found a creature. A great shining lizard-thing, trapped in the wreckage of its chamber. Longer than this tower, it was, and only one vast clawed arm free, but that was enough. It was quick, as quick as the small lizards that dart across the stones. Even as I drew back, it gripped me and took me in. Its grasp burned and my flesh boiled away at its touch, and the pain … the pain was mercifully cut short, as I lost my senses and fell into a swoon. It was while I was insensible that it tried to do its work—’
‘Hold that thought!’ cried Weiss, unable to listen to any more, his eyes fixed upon his watch and the inexorable circling of the minute hand. ‘I must … I must send a message from below. I’ll be back.’
He had his feet over the edge of the platform and was feeling for a rung when he felt a terrible, burning pain across his forearms and was dragged bodily back up. The walking man set him down in the corner and quieted his screams with a firm but final tap to the middle of his forehead.
‘Tried to do its work,’ he continued, speaking, as he had done so often, to a corpse. ‘To make me into what it was, to serve its purpose. But I did not wish to be a dragon, and with the grace of God, it could not complete its foul purpose, and so I have remained at least half a man.’
He bent down and kissed Weiss on both cheeks, his lips leaving a burning brand. ‘Half a man, who cannot touch a lover, and who cannot be slain, nor drown, nor die at all. Or so I thought, until at last Mrs. Harrison told me that my prayers were answered, and that there is a way to slay my dragon.’
Weiss’s watch said sixteen minutes to twelve, and the detonation was set for noon, as set by a bank of electric clocks and three separate control cables. But when the dragon embraced the bomb and tightened his grip, it was enough.
Nine miles away, as he stood mute while being scrubbed in the decontamination showers, Karadjian felt the floor shake for several seconds, and the flow of water from the showerhead slowed, stopped, then restarted again. It was a much bigger shock and a heavier ground wave than for a mere ten-kiloton test.
‘Hey, Sarge,’ called out Anderson. ‘Reckon that guy went up then, with the bomb?’
‘What guy?’ asked Karadjian. ‘There never was no guy.’
He was right. Five minutes later, still wet from the showers, they signed the forms that said so, while the mushroom cloud fell into itself in the middle distance.
Infestation
THEY WERE THE USUAL MOTLEY collection of freelance vampire hunters. Two men, wearing combinations of jungle camouflage and leather. Two women, one almost indistinguishable from the men though with a little more style in her leather armor accessories, and the other looking like she was about to assault the south face of a serious mountain. Only her mouth was visible, a small oval of flesh not covered by balaclava, mirror shades, climbing helmet, and hood.
They had the usual weapons: four or five short wooden stakes in belt loops; snap-holstered handguns of various calibers, all doubtless chambered with Wood-N-Death® low-velocity timber-tipped rounds; big silver-edged bowie or other hunting knife, worn on the hip or strapped to a boot; and crystal vials of holy water hung like small grenades on pocket loops.
Protection, likewise, ticked the usual boxes. Leather neck and wrist guards, leather and woven-wire reinforced chaps and shoulder pauldrons over the camo, leather gloves with metal knuckle plates, Army or climbing helmets.
And lots of crosses, oh yeah, particularly on the two men. Big silver crosses, little wooden crosses, medium-size turned-ivory crosses, hanging off of everything they could hang off.
In other words, all four of them were lumbering, bumbling mountains of stuff that meant that they would be easy meat for all but the newest and dumbest vampires.
They all looked at me as I walked up. I guess their first thought was to wonder what the hell I was doing there, in the advertised meeting place, outside a church at 4:30 p.m. on a winter’s day while the last rays of the sun were supposedly making this consecrated ground a double no-go zone for vampires.
‘You’re in the wrong place, surfer boy,’ growled one of the men.
I was used to this reaction. I guess I don’t look like a vampire hunter much anyway, and I particularly didn’t look like one that afternoon. I’d been on the beach that morning, not knowing where I might head to later, so I was still wearing a yellow Quiksilver T-shirt and what might be loosely described as old and faded blue board shorts, but ‘ragged’ might be more accurate. I hadn’t had shoes on, but I’d picked up a pair of sandals on the way. Tan Birkenstocks, very comfortable. I always prefer sandals to shoes. Old habits, I guess.
I don’t look my age, either. I always looked young, and nothing’s changed, though ‘boy’ was a bit rough coming from anyone under forty-five, and the guy who’d spoken was probably closer to thirty. People older than that usually leave the vampire hunting to the government, or paid professionals.
‘I’m in the right place,’ I said, matter-of-fact, not getting into any aggression or anything. I lifted my 1968 vintage vinyl Pan Am airline bag. ‘Got my stuff here. This is the meeting place for the vampire hunt?’
‘Yes,’ said the mountain-climbing woman.
‘Are you crazy?’ asked the man who’d spoken to me first. ‘This isn’t some kind of doper excursion. We’re going up against a nest of vampires!’
I nodded and gave him a kind smile.
‘I know. At least ten of them, I would say. I swung past and had a look around on the way here. At least, I did if you’re talking about that condemned factory up on the river heights.’
‘What! But it’s cordoned off – and the vamps’ll be dug in till nightfall.’
‘I counted the patches of disturbed earth,’ I explained. ‘The cordon was off. I guess they don’t bring it up to full power till the sun goes down. So, who are you guys?’
‘Ten!’ exclaimed the second man, not answering my question. ‘You’re sure?’
‘At least ten,’ I replied. ‘But only one Ancient. The others are all pretty new, judging from the soil.’
‘You’re making this up,’ said the first man. ‘There’s maybe five, tops. They were seen together and tracked back. That’s when the cordon was established this morning.’
I shrugged and half unzipped my bag.
‘I’m Jenny,’ said the mountain climber, belatedly answering my question. ‘The … the vampires got my sister, three years ago. When I heard about this infestation I claimed the Relative’s Right.’
‘I’ve got a twelve-month permit,’ said the second man. ‘Plan to turn professional. Oh yeah, my name’s Karl.’
‘I’m Susan,’ said the second woman. ‘This is our third vampire hunt. Mike’s and mine, I mean.’
‘She’s my wife,’ said the belligerent Mike. ‘We’ve both got twelve-month permits. You’d better be legal too, if you want to join us.’
‘I have a special license,’ I replied. The sun had disappeared behind the church tower, and the streetlights were flicking on. With the bag unzipped, I was ready for a surprise. Not that I thought one was about to happen. At least, not immediately. Unless I chose to spring one.
‘You can call me J.’
‘Jay?’ asked Susan.
‘Close enough,’ I replied. ‘Does someone have a plan?’
‘Yeah,’ said Mike. ‘We stick together. No hotdogging off or chasing down wounded vamps or anything like that. We go in as a tea
m, and we come out as a team.’
‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘Is there … more to it?’
Mike paused to fix me with what he obviously thought was his steely gaze. I met it and after a few seconds he looked away. Maybe it’s the combination of very pale blue eyes and dark skin, but not many people look at me directly for too long. It might just be the eyes. There’ve been quite a few cultures who think of very light blue eyes as the color of death. Perhaps that lingers, resonating in the subconscious even of modern folk.
‘We go through the front door,’ he said. ‘We throw flares ahead of us. The vamps should all be digging out on the old factory floor, it’s the only place where the earth is accessible. So we go down the fire stairs, throw a few more flares out the door, then go through and back up against the wall. We’ll have a clear field of fire to take them down. They’ll be groggy for a couple of hours yet, slow to move. But if one or two manage to close, we stake them.’
‘The young ones will be slow and dazed,’ I said. ‘But the Ancient will be active soon after sundown, even if it stays where it is – and it’s not dug in on the factory floor. It’s in a humungous clay pot outside an office on the fourth floor.’
‘We take it first, then,’ said Mike. ‘Not that I’m sure I believe you.’
‘It’s up to you,’ I said. I had my own ideas about dealing with the Ancient, but they would wait. No point upsetting Mike too early. ‘There’s one more thing.’
‘What?’ asked Karl.
‘There’s a fresh-made vampire around, from last night. It will still be able to pass as human for a few more days. It won’t be dug in, and it may not even know it’s infected.’
‘So?’ asked Mike. ‘We kill everything in the infested area. That’s all legal.’
‘How do you know this stuff?’ asked Jenny.
‘You’re a professional, aren’t you,’ said Karl. ‘How long you been pro?’
‘I’m not exactly a professional,’ I said. ‘But I’ve been hunting vampires for quite a while.’
‘Can’t have been that long,’ said Mike. ‘Or you’d know better than to go after them in just a T-shirt. What’ve you got in that bag? Sawed-off shotgun?’
‘Just a stake and a knife,’ I replied. ‘I’m a traditionalist. Shouldn’t we be going?’
The sun was fully down, and I knew the Ancient, at least, would already be reaching up through the soil, its mildewed, mottled hands gripping the rim of the earthenware pot that had once held a palm or something equally impressive outside the factory manager’s office.
‘Truck’s over there,’ said Mike, pointing to a flashy new silver pickup. ‘You can ride in the back, surfer boy.’
‘Fresh air’s a wonderful thing.’
As it turned out, Karl and Jenny wanted to sit in the back too. I sat on a toolbox that still had shrink-wrap around it, Jenny sat on a spare tire, and Karl stood looking over the cab, scanning the road, as if a vampire might suddenly jump out when we were stopped at the lights.
‘Do you want a cross?’ Jenny asked me after we’d gone a mile or so in silence. Unlike Mike and Karl she wasn’t festooned with them, but she had a couple around her neck. She started to take a small wooden one off, lifting it by the chain.
I shook my head and raised my T-shirt up under my arms, to show the scars. Jenny recoiled in horror and gasped, and Karl looked around, hand going for his .41 Glock. I couldn’t tell whether that was jumpiness or good training. He didn’t draw and shoot, which I guess meant good training.
I let the T-shirt fall, but it was up long enough for both of them to see the hackwork tracery of scars that made up a kind of T shape on my chest and stomach. But it wasn’t a T. It was a tau cross, one of the oldest Christian symbols and still the one that vampires feared the most, though none but the most ancient knew why they fled from it.
‘Is that … a cross?’ asked Karl.
I nodded.
‘That’s so hardcore,’ said Karl. ‘Why didn’t you just have it tattooed?’
‘It probably wouldn’t work so well,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t have it done. It was done to me.’
I didn’t mention that there was an equivalent tracery of scars on my back as well. These two tau crosses, front and back, never faded, though my other scars always disappeared only a few days after the wounds healed.
‘Who would—’ Jenny started to ask, but she was interrupted by Mike banging on the rear window of the cab – with the butt of his pistol, reconfirming my original assessment that he was the biggest danger to all of us. Except for the Ancient vampire. I wasn’t worried about the young ones. But I didn’t know which Ancient it was, and that was cause for concern. If it had been encysted since the drop it would be in the first flush of its full strength. I hoped it had been around for a long time, lying low and steadily degrading, only recently resuming its mission against humanity.
‘We’re there,’ said Karl, unnecessarily.
The cordon fence was fully established now. Sixteen feet high and lethally electrified, with old-fashioned limelights burning every ten feet along the fence, the sound of the hissing oxygen and hydrogen jets music to my ears. Vampires loathe limelight. Gaslight has a lesser effect, and electric light hardly bothers them at all. It’s the intensity of the naked flame they fear.
The fire brigade was standing by because of the limelights, which though modernized were still occasionally prone to massive accidental combustion; and the local police department was there en masse to enforce the cordon. I saw the bright white bulk of the state Vampire Eradication Team’s semitrailer parked off to one side. If we volunteers failed, they would go in, though given the derelict state of the building and the reasonable space between it and the nearest residential area it was more likely they’d just get the Air Force to do a fuel-air explosion dump.
The VET personnel would be out and about already, making sure no vampires managed to get past the cordon. There would be crossbow snipers on the upper floors of the surrounding buildings, ready to shoot fire-hardened oak quarrels into vampire heads. It wasn’t advertised by the ammo manufacturers, but a big old vampire could take forty or fifty Wood-N-Death® or equivalent rounds to the head and chest before going down. A good inch-diameter yard-long quarrel or stake worked so much better.
There would be a VET quick response team somewhere close as well, outfitted in the latest metal-mesh armor, carrying the automatic weapons the volunteers were not allowed to use – with good reason, given the frequency with which volunteer vampire hunters killed one another even when only armed with handguns, stakes, and knives.
I waved at the window of the three-story warehouse where I’d caught a glimpse of a crossbow sniper, earning a puzzled glance from Karl and Jenny, then jumped down. A police sergeant was already walking over to us, his long, harsh, limelit shadow preceding him. Naturally, Mike intercepted him before he could choose who he wanted to talk to.
‘We’re the volunteer team.’
‘I can see that,’ said the sergeant. ‘Who’s the kid?’
He pointed at me. I frowned. The kid stuff was getting monotonous. I don’t look that young. Twenty at least, I would have thought.
‘He says his name’s Jay. He’s got a “special license.” That’s what he says.’
‘Let’s see it then,’ said the sergeant, with a smile that suggested he was looking forward to arresting me and delivering a three-hour lecture. Or perhaps a beating with a piece of rubber pipe. It isn’t always easy to decipher smiles.
‘I’ll take it from here, sergeant,’ said an officer who came up from behind me, fast and smooth. He was in the new metal-mesh armor, like a wetsuit, with a webbing belt and harness over it, to hold stakes, knife, WP grenades (which actually were effective against the vamps, unlike the holy water ones), and handgun. He had an H&K MP5-PW slung over his shoulder. ‘You go and check the cordon.’
‘But lieutenant, don’t you want me to take—’
‘I said check the cordon.’
The serge
ant retreated, smile replaced by a scowl of frustration. The VET lieutenant ignored him.
‘Licenses, please,’ he said. He didn’t look at me, and unlike the others I didn’t reach for the plasticated, hologrammed, data-chipped card that was the latest version of the volunteer vampire hunter license.
They held up their licenses, and the reader that was somewhere in the lieutenant’s helmet picked up the data and his earpiece whispered whether they were valid or not. Since he was nodding, we all knew they were valid before he spoke.
‘Okay, you’re good to go whenever you want. Good luck.’
‘What about him?’ asked Mike, gesturing at me with his thumb.
‘Him too,’ said the lieutenant. He still didn’t look at me. Some of the VET are funny like that. They seem to think I’m like an albatross or something. A sign of bad luck. I suppose it’s because wherever the vampire infestations are really bad, then I have a tendency to show up as well. ‘He’s already been checked in. We’ll open the gate in five, if that suits you.’
‘Sure,’ said Mike. He lumbered over to face me. ‘There’s something funny going on here, and I don’t like it. So you just stick to the plan, okay?’
‘Actually, your plan sucks,’ I said calmly. ‘So I’ve decided to change it. You four should go down to the factory floor and take out the vampires there. I’ll go up against the Ancient.’
‘Alone?’ asked Jenny. ‘Shouldn’t we stick together like Mike says?’
‘Nope,’ I replied. ‘It’ll be out and unbending itself now. You’ll all be too slow.’
‘Call this sl—’ Mike started to say as he tried to poke me forcefully in the chest with his forefinger. But I was already standing behind him. I tapped him on the shoulder, and as he swung around, ran behind him again. We kept this up for a few turns before Karl stopped him.