John Steakley: Vampire$

The Man waited until the other had come within a few feet. “It is good to see you again, Jack,” he said easily. Then he offered his ring.

Crow stared at the ring with apparent bewilderment. Then he smiled. He put his cigarette in his mouth, transferred the wineglass from his right hand to his left, shook the hand holding the ring, and said, through cigarette smoke, “How the heck are you?”

Despite repeated and insistent orders, it was all the servants could do to restrain themselves.

The Man did not stir. He met Crow’s piercing gaze without rancor. He smiled. “We are quite well, Jack. But I see you are injured.” He indicated the bulky bandaging underneath Crow’s corduroy jacket.

Crow felt his arm absently. “Oh, it ain’t much, priest, considering. Everybody else is dead. Except for Cat and me. Everybody else, though. The Team is dead. All of ’em.”

“Yes, Jack. We know.”

The two locked eyes for several seconds. Then Crow turned abruptly away, flicking an ash onto the carpet and reaching for the decanter of wine. “All dead. Everyone of ’em slaughtered.” He poured some more wine into his glass. Then he plopped back down into his chair and spoke with a voice blood-rich with bitterness. “So, tell me about your week.”

Crow became increasingly more profane, more insulting. He referred to the man as “Your Assholiness.” He put his cigarettes out on whatever was nearby, the plate, the glass, the tabletop. He was loud. He was vicious. He was disgusting.

The Man said little, his mournful sadness filling his end of the small chamber. He was becoming more and more concerned about the servants, who seemed frozen into a comalike state certain to erupt in violence.

“All of you,” whispered the Man, his gaze taking in the four servants on both sides of the room. “Leave us now.”

It took them several moments to react. But they did, moving stone-faced and dry-hinged to the exits. Luigi stopped briefly before the door and looked back.

The Man smiled reassuringly. “We will call you if we need you.”

Luigi still stared.

“It will be all right, my friend,” added the Man gently.

And then they were alone.

“Now that’s more like it,” cackled Crow. “Now we can get down to the serious drinkin’.”

He reached over to grab a chair from the wall and slide it over next to the Man. But he had trouble, first with his balance, then with the weight of the massive chair on his right arm. It seemed to bring out something even darker than the bitterness and fury. Something deeper. Something worse.

He finally got the chair alongside the Man and banged down into it. Then he realized he was almost out of wine. He stared forlornly into the near-empty decanter in his lap.

The Man, still calm, still cool, said, “We have some, Jack,” and reached for the carafe by his plate.

“Fuck, no! ” roared Crow suddenly, inexplicably. He half-rose to his feet. He shot out one hand to intercept the wine and with the other, his right one, his injured one, slammed the pontiff back into his chair.

Dead silence. Each man stared, wide-eyed in shock at what had just happened. Crow dropped the decanter onto the table. It shattered. Red wine began to flow around the plate and toward the edge of the table.

Crow tried. He really tried. He lurched crazily forward to stem the flow. He cracked his forearm down on the edge to dam it up. But nothing could stop the scarlet stream from spattering across the Man’s milk-white, snow-pure robes.

And for a moment each simply stared, not at each other but at this.

And then Crow exploded. He leapt to his feet and roared and screeched, splashing the wine from the table onto the robes over and over again, roaring and roaring louder and louder as he sprayed it, yelling at the top of his lungs: “Take it, goddammit! Take it, you papist motherfucker! It’s about time you got some of the goddamned blood!” and the Man just sat there, frozen in his chair, his eyes closed to the spattering drops covering his robes, his head, his face, and above him Crow still raged and roared and then.

Then was utterly silent.

The Man opened his eyes to the vision of the giant trembling above him, his hands and face and clothes covered with wine and fury and…

And agony.

“My son,” be whispered and his compassion was a thing alive. “Oh, my son.”

Jack Crow’s face, rock-taut with ferocity, cracked in two. Then it began to melt. Tears welled up in his eyes and began to rush down his cheeks. His cry of pain was irretrievable and lost.

Then he was falling to his knees and sobbing, his massive arms snaking out to wrap around the other man’s waist as a child’s for safety and comfort and the old man held him and rocked him as the great shoulders shook with the great sobs that simply would not stop but went on and on and on.

“Oh, Father! It was so horrible!” whimpered the giant “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” he cried later and both men knew it was for nothing that had happened there this night. And later, when the giant was almost asleep and his voice was a dry cracking hiss pleading, “God, forgive me, forgive me, forgive me…” over and over the old man forgave him again and again and again.

And later, hours later, when they could not get their master to rise rather than disturb the sleeping giant curled into his lap, they thought it was his infinite compassion, his infinite love that kept him praying all this night for the soul of this great weeping beast.

But it was fear.

For the Man was certain that Jack Crow would be forgiven for his sins.

But who would forgive him for sending this poor soul out still again to face the monsters once more?

Jack Crow awoke with a start from some nameless horrible on the flight from Rome and beheld the angelic face of his newest team member, Father Adam, sleeping across from him.

He’s a sweet kid, thought Jack. I’ll probably get him killed, too.

Then he went back to sleep because any other thoughts were better than these.

“I need a vampire,” said Carl Joplin for the hundredth time. Cat burped and ignored him. Annabelle placed a soft white hand on Carl’s great fat shoulder and said, “I know, dear.”

The rest of Team Crow had been at the bar at the Monterey Airport for four hours. One hour to get primed for the homecoming and the three more the plane turned out to be late. It was not a pretty sight.

Except, thought Cat, for Annabelle. She was always a pretty sight. Even when she wasn’t. He propped his elbow very carefully against the edge of the bar, made a fist with his hand, put his cheek on it, and examined her.

He had known her his whole life and… Waitaminute. That wasn’t true. He had known her six years. No. Seven years. Almost seven years, since before her late husband, Basil O’Bannon, had founded Vampire$ Inc. And anyway, she was still the same. Still pretty and still plump and still mostly blond and still forty-something or sixty-something years old — it didn’t seem to apply — and still able to outdrink God.

Time to take a piss, he decided. He lifted himself off the barstool, careful not to get the toe of his boot caught on the railing like last time, and ambled off on his mission.

Carl Joplin looked up from rubbing his wondrous belly and said, “I need a vampire.”

“I know, dear,” said Annabelle.

“It’s gotta be tested!” he insisted.

“I know, dear. We’ll ask Jack when the plane gets in.” Carl snarled and sipped his drink. “Jack! Shit!” He was still mad at Jack and likely to stay that way. “Jack!” he repeated disgustedly.

Carl Joplin was the weapons man and the tool man for the team. He made the crossbows for Jack and Cat’s wooden knives and everything else they took with them into battle, but did he ever get to go into battle? Hell, no! “Too valuable,” Jack would always say. Somebody had to be free and clear of the fight at all times to make sure the fight could go on. Carl could buy that. It made sense. But how come it had to be him every goddamn time?