John Steakley - Vampire$

He sat back, drained his glass. “But neither one of you is good enough to depend on your shooting. If you were that good, you’d already know it. I can teach you to be better than you are. But if you’re serious about this you’re gonna need something else.

“You’re gonna need a gunman.”

Annabelle spoke up. “You’ve already said you need at least two more men.”

Jack looked at her. “At least two.”

“Then one of ’em had better be a shooter,” added Carl.

“Or both,” said Adam.

“Or both,” Jack agreed.

Carl rattled the ice cubes in his empty glass. Jack took it and started to refill.

“The thing is,” Carl mused, almost to himself, “that the kind of man we need, the kind that fits in around here, well, he’s not likely to be good at this sort of thing.”

Annabelle frowned. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Well, no…” Carl admitted.

“You’re good at it.”

Carl nodded, took a sip from his new drink. “I am. An expert pistol shot. But the real gunmen I’ve known… and for our work it’s what we need… real gunmen. That’s just a different kind of a dude.”

Jack stood up suddenly. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He grinned and looked at the others. Then straight at Carl. “Carlos! Everything you say tonight reminds me of something. Silver bullets, and now…”

“A gunman?” Annabelle asked quietly.

Jack ignored the question. “Adam, call the Man and have some silver shipped to Dallas in a hurry. Annabelle, give him the address.”

“I can get us silver,” protested Carl. “Can’t the kid here bless it?”

“Kid.” Adam frowned. “It should at least be a bishop.”

“Okay,” said Jack. “Call the Man. Have him send an ingot or three… Hey! How about a shotgun? Anybody could with that! Or an M-16 or…”

Adam shook his head. “It must be a single bullet. It must be a small one. And it must have been part of a cross at one time.”

“How do you know this?” Carl wanted to know.

Jack did not. “Never mind. How small a bullet?”

“Any pistol will do.”

Jack looked at him. At his confident face. The kid knew his facts, it seemed.

“Okay,” he said. “Have ’em send us enough for a thousand rounds.”

Adam smiled. “How much is that?”

“We’ll know when it gets here. Carl, you sure you can melt the crosses? Pour the silver?”

Carl snorted. “Fuck off.”

Cat, grinning, leaned close to Adam. “Allow me to interpret. ‘Fuck off,’ in this case means: ‘Why, of course, Mr. Crow! I’m surprised you asked!’”

Adam smiled readily, but distantly. Cat noticed it. “You still with us?” he asked smiling.

Adam shook his head, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking.” He looked at Jack. “For over four hundred years… longer, really. But for four hundred well-recorded years man has been fighting vampires. And nobody has ever thought of using silver bullets before.” He paused. “His Holiness was right. You do have good instincts.” And then he blushed and sipped.

And when Cat saw that Jack was almost doing the same thing, he about laughed out loud. But he didn’t, thank God.

“Yeah… well…” mumbled Jack and then, abruptly, shook all that away and raised his glass in a toast. Everyone else did the same.

“Here’s to the great ones…” he began.

“There’s damn few of us left,” finished Cat and Carl and Annabelle and for a single instant, as Adam watched, a look of infinite sadness and… and what? Something else, passed between’ them. What is that look they share? wondered Adam. And then he recognized it.

Fatigue.

Bone-aching, soul-grinding tiredness. Because this job would never, ever, ever be over.

“So!” began Jack, suddenly almost cheerful again. “Tell me about the house in Big D.” The goddamn toast had been just a little too pertinent in this great empty house. “How many bedrooms?”

Annabelle offered him her empty glass. “Seven,” she replied. “And quite lovely.”

“There’s even room for Carl’s hobby,” Cat added, grinning wickedly.

Carl growled, drained his glass. “Hobby, my ass!”

“I’ll try,” replied Cat with an absolutely straight face. “But you have such a big ass. And I have such a small hobby.”

“Children!” snapped Annabelle, pretending offense.

“Right,” agreed Jack. “Enough of this shit.” He stopped mixing more drinks and came around from behind the bar. “C’mon, Annabelle. Let’s go get it over with.”

“You want to do the tape now?”

“Yeah. Let’s get it done.”

“But you can’t go under drunk!”

He gave her a hug and lifted her off the stool to the floor. “Young lady, you’d be damn surprised at the stuff I’ve done drunk.”

“Humph,” she said, rearranging her skirt. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“Hell,” Jack cackled, “I’ve even fought vampires drunk.”

She stopped, looked serious and school-teacher-like. “You have never gone to battle drunk.”

Jack nodded. “True. But if things keep on like this, I’m gonna start."’

And together, arm in arm, they marched in step from the room.

So Cat and Carl sat and talked to the young Father Adam to see what he was about. The first thing they discovered, with more than a little embarrassment, was that he considered them both to be heroes — make that Heroes. Heroes for Mankind, Heroes for the Church, Heroes for God.

It was awful.

Cat not only hated it but found it a complete mystery. This kid has heard my tapes and still thinks I’m a hero? Has heard all the times I was scared and all the times I screamed?

Hell, he’s heard me scream, by God, ’cause Annabelle said I did that once making a tape under hypnosis. And he thinks I’m a hero?

Cat fixed himself another drink and eyed the young man suspiciously.

I wonder if he’s on something, he thought to himself.

Carl was pretty much miserable, too. Not as much as Cat. Being base man got him a little less (but damn well not enough less) hero worship from the priest.

They learned a lot more about him. He was, for one thing, a good one. Adam was true Boy Scout blue, secure in his faith and in what it all meant and eager to do the right thing.

Maybe a little too eager, actually, but who knew if that was bad in this stupid job?

Born Adam Larrance, originally, in Berkeley, California, and infused with the “in” thinking of both that place and the new leftist leanings of so many priests concerning Liberation Theology for the masses in Central and South America, gun control, the death penalty, women’s lib, the two superpowers as synonymous and, of course, more welfare. But even with all of that, and the driving antiviolence that pervaded it, the lad knew just why he was there — to kill vampires. Just kill them. He didn’t want to “communicate” with them or get them government benefits or free mental health care or even try to bring them back to God.

He wanted them slain, purged, wiped out, wiped away.

He wanted them gone.

The punk had even learned to shoot a goddamned crossbow.

And yes, he did believe the silver bullets would work. And better still, he didn’t tell them why he thought so. It was close, but they managed to stay out of the werewolf business, too.

Then the kid did something else that surprised and confused and pleased them. He got up to go to the bathroom, paused, looked back at them and spoke: “I just want to say that I know I acted like an ass at the airport about the press thing. It was wrong of me. I humbly apologize.” And then he was gone to pee.

Carl and Cat looked at each other and frowned. They didn’t speak. Then Carl leaned away from the bar and fixed them both another drink. They went back to sipping and staring. Still, they said nothing.