John Steakley - Vampire$

Rock and roll!

He spun around and there they all were, his team, watching and waiting and wondering what was going on.

He didn’t tell them — this was his burden, godammit!

He gave them orders instead.

Get out. Get all the stuff you can carry easily and walk out of the hotel. Don’t check out or in any way hint that you’re not coming back soon. Women, take the limo.

Gents, I want you all to…

“Carl? What’s the range on that detector? Can you put the sensor in one spot and have it ring or whatever someplace else?”

Carl shrugged. “If it’s not too far.”

“How about from this room to a truck parked down on the street?”

“Sure. I… Hey! What’s going on?”

“Shaddup. Annabelle, take Davette and go to the Seven-Eleven on, I dunno, Mockingbird and Central, and get the number of the last pay phone in the row and start calling it after sundown every half hour. Don’t stop moving except to do that. Adam? You go with them. Make sure they call from a different spot each time. In fact, you do the calling. Don’t let them outta the car and don’t let the driver stop the motor. You hear?”

Adam nodded. “Yessir.”

“All right. Let’s go, folks. Now. The rest of us have got weapons to collect.”

No one moved. Then Annabelle stood up and faced him.

“Jack, I want to know what’s going on!” Her voice sounded frightened.

Jack regarded her calmly. “I don’t blame you. Get moving.”

“But I…”

“ Woman! This is not a debate! Move! ”

They moved.

At a quarter to nine their Chevy Suburban slid silently to the downtown curb. Cat was at the wheel. Jack sat beside him in the front seat, the crossbow between them. In the back seat Carl sat fiddling with his gadget.

Jack rolled his window down and began to chain-smoke and told the others to shut the fuck up until he said otherwise. They shut up.

At 8:54, on the dot, the detector went off like a fire bell. Carl and Cat jumped about a foot apiece. Jack just nodded to himself, a grim smile on his face.

“What,” asked Cat, staring up at the hotel, “does all this mean?”

Jack Crow took his eyes from the building and faced him.

“Rock and roll. Same as always. Only more so. Hit it.”

They made their connection at the phone outside the Seven-Eleven. Crow told Adam where to meet them, hung up, got back into the Suburban, and ordered Cat to drive to the Antwar Saloon.

Cat did so. But nervously, with difficulty. For he found it hard to take his eyes from Jack Crow, whose silently roaring presence filled the cab.

Jack stomped through the saloon doors with Cat and Carl trailing him. He hushed the waitress who tried to bar their ascent to Felix’s apartment. They found him at his desk beside the widow overlooking the bar. He had seen them coming.

Now he rose, frowning. “Look, Crow. I—”

“Cut the shit, Felix!” snapped Crow, striding toward him.

“But I—”

Jack’s fist slamming onto the desktop sounded like a thunderclap. It made the lamp jump.

“I said cut the shit! There’s no time! ”

And it was suddenly very quiet. Slowly, Crow sat down in the visitor’s chair. Just as slowly, Felix sat down in his own. They both lit cigarettes.

Then Jack leaned forward and told Felix what was what. In a calm, deliberate tone he explained about having to go to Cleburne, Texas, in the morning to fight vampires who not only knew they were coming but had arranged the trap just for them. Cat and Carl, standing by the door, exchanged pale glances.

“What do you mean it’s a trap?” Cat interrupted.

Jack didn’t bother to turn around. “Think back, Cherry. He called my name when he chased the truck.”

Cat blinked, thought back, went suddenly more pale.

“My God,” he whispered, almost to himself.

Felix listened without a sound, looking tight and grim and dark through the smoke, as Jack finished his monologue.

Jack was quiet for several seconds after he’d finished. Then he leaned backward in his chair and held out his hand. After a second Carl reached into a pocket and brought out a slim wooden box. Jack took the box without looking at Carl. He flipped the lid open and slid the box across the smooth desktop.

The silver bullets gleamed brightly in the light from the lamp.

“You still use a Browning nine-millimeter?” he asked gently.

Felix was staring at the bullets. He nodded. Then he looked up at Crow. “But I don’t own one,” he added hopefully.

Jack smiled. He snapped his fingers above his head. Cat stepped forward carrying a canvas bag. From inside he took and unwrapped from cloth three automatics and laid them heavily on the wood-grained desktop.

Then he stepped back.

Felix stared at the guns. He rose slowly, put his hands in his pockets, and stepped over to the window and gazed blankly down. No one spoke, watching him.

“I want fifty thousand,” he said after a while.

“Done.”

Felix nodded, looking miserable. Then he stepped to his phone and picked up the receiver. He pushed a button. Faintly, they heard the buzz of the phone at the bar below.

“Where? Felix. You’ll have to take over for a couple of days. Yes. Yes… No, I’m fine. Fine.”

Felix hung up. He stared through the window a few seconds longer. Then he lit a cigarette and put his free hand back in his pocket. When he turned back to them he said, “I meant it about the fifty grand.”

Jack Crow’s laugh was strong and loud and pure. He jumped to his feet and clapped his hands.

“I oughta charge you!” He stepped to the center of the room and raised his fist into the air. “Don’t you feel it? You’re about to go fight evil. Real live goddamned evil. The real stuff. You get to fight for the good side. How many people ever get a chance to do that?” He laughed again, strode to Felix, and shook his fist under his face. “Don’t you feel it?”

Felix stared at him in amazement. He laughed shortly, shook his head.

Damned if I don’t, he thought with astonishment. A little.

“Well, I do!” cried Cat from behind them. And he found himself grinning wildly. The Return of Jack Crow, he thought to himself, starring Jack Crow.

He turned to Carl.

“Rock and roll!”

Carl smiled crazily back. “Rock and roll,” he echoed.

Felix peered incredulously at the other three. “I must be crazy!”

Jack laughed again. “You really think that?”

Felix didn’t answer. But he really did think that. He shook his bead again. This time they didn’t even need that girl, he thought.

And then he thought: I wonder what her name is?

He looked at Crow & Co., still bright and vibrant and ready.

I wonder if I’ll live long enough to find out?

When he saw Jack Crow striding across the courthouse square — coming to get him — Felix turned and bent his head to light a cigarette and hide his screaming fear.

Crow was wearing full-length chain mail that covered everything from the soles of his boots to the top of his head with just the oval for his face left exposed. Around his waist was a thick black utility belt. Across his chest was a great white cross.

He does look like a crusader, thought Felix. Even if the chain mail was some high-tech plastic instead of steel and even if the cross was an electric halogen spotlight.

A crusader… I’ve got to get away from this man.

He had actually started to turn and walk away, when he remembered. He had taken the money. He had signed up. He was in.

They had him.

And all those periodic nightmares throughout his young life, thirty years of them, wrapped tight around his brain.