John Steakley - Vampire$

“And it would be suicide to go down into those shadows away from the sunshine. Remember the ‘god’ in the Cleburne Jail?”

He didn’t wait for an answer.

“This Team has had it. No place to run, not enough firepower to fight, no place to hide — but one. Rome. We have got to get to Rome. And I mean: now.”

It was quiet after that. Uncomfortable and quiet and all eyes were on Jack Crow but it was the bishop who spoke next.

“If you will forgive me,” he began with a kindly nod toward Jack, “I think this young man is right.” He moved quickly to soothe his own words. “I don’t mean to intrude, Mr. Crow, I assure you. But I have tended people all my life and many of them were soldiers and… And you — all of you — must take rest.”

And all eyes went back to Jack and then there was more silence, long heavy silence, before he suddenly nodded.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

Too quietly for Felix. “What?” he asked leaning forward.

Jack looked up at him and his eyes were dead. “I said ‘okay.’ Rome.”

Felix nodded. Nothing more.

“Fine,” said the bishop, sounding relieved. “In the morning Father Adam and I will call..

“What about tonight?” interrupted Felix. “And while I’m at it, don’t you think we oughta get a move on? It’s full dark and they know we know the bishop, don’t they?”

The bishop smiled and rose up from his chair.

“I shouldn’t worry, young man. I should think being within these walls would cause them great pain.”

It did. It hurt.

Even here, from the far edges of the grounds, the wretched torment from that ghastly stained-glass glow blew racking agonies through the Young Master’s temples.

And the beasts… The beasts did not form at his gesture, did not close about him at his shining will. No. They circled and keened and stepped their dead souls’ weight from foot to foot with only the sweet smell of their decay and his own blissful memory of it to recommend them.

But they would obey him.

They would obey the Young Master on this, his premier solo task from the Great Master himself. They would obey.

Despite the pain.

Despite the searing misery of the Monster’s temple.

Because they were hungry.

Hours and hours they are risen this day and the thirst was rich and clasping their brute selves and they would obey.

They would obey if he must fling their rotting forms through those agonized windows.

“Beasts!” he shrilled to them, filling his own mind with the volume of his determination.

“Children!” he sang out mote and his thoughts penetrated them and they turned to him.

And he strode forward, ignoring the greater agony of this nearness, forward step after step, until he halted and raised a long beautiful pale hand and one shiny black nail and pointed at the shadows on the windows and spoke out loud and in his will:

“Food!”

“Food!!”

“ Fooood! ”

The collective hissing rose and broke happily upon his Young Master’s ears.

“Foooood…”

Felix was feeling pretty good just before it all caved in.

He had gotten what he wanted from Crow. Given Jack’s listlessness, that hadn’t been so hard, and he had felt some pangs about ramrodding everything past the mourning leader, but Felix figured none of that made a bit of difference if he could keep someone alive long enough to bitch about it later.

He had them up and off their butts and getting ready to move. The bishop and Adam had called Rome, had gotten transportation, had arranged all the passport difficulties. Getting back into America was going to be interesting, but that’s what voter-registration cards were for.

Frankly, Felix looked forward to seeing ’em try to keep Annabelle out.

All in all it was looking good. Better, even, than he had expected. For a change had come over the Team once it had dawned on them that it was over. A sense of grudging relief had come about, slowly at first, but after less than an hour, even Jack had given into it: Because, dammit, it was a relief to get down off your guard and know that rest was coming.

That vise-tight concentration, that desperate focus, was loosening up.

There were even some jokes as the men gathered together and organized their stack of weaponry and at one point Crow had looked around at the smiles on the faces and then turned to Felix and said, “Okay, Gunman. Okay.”

He hadn’t said any more than that. But everyone had known what he meant.

You’re quite a dude, Jack, Felix thought admiringly.

But he had been too hep to say anything out loud.

Looking good, thought Felix. And he glanced over to where She sat, talking quietly with Annabelle and the bishop. Just that was enough for Felix.

She would live.

Yeah. Looking good.

And that’s what they were doing, all fiddling and talking about the Common Room, with its wall of stained glass and beautiful furnishings and smiles, when Felix asked Cat about something that had intrigued him:

Carl’s wooden stake.

“We’ve all got one,” Cat told him. “We had this Belgian kid working with us a couple of years ago. Raised a carpenter. He carved them for everyone.”

“Everyone? You’ve got one, too?”

Cat eyed him carefully. “I do.”

Kirk, loading silver bullets beside him, grimaced.

Cat noticed and grinned. “You guys want one?”

“I think I’ll pass,” replied the deputy.

Felix was studying Cat. “Do they all say the same thing?”

“No. We all have something different. Mine’s even shaped different, it’s flat, like a paddle.”

“What does it say?”

“My name.”

“Is that all?”

“No. It says something else on the other side.”

“What?”

“I don’t think you’re ready for it.”

“Try me.”

Cat’s grin widened. “Okay. It’s the answer to the question: ‘How do you like your stake?’”

“Huh?” said Kirk.

“What does it say? ” Felix wanted to know.

Cat’s eyes were devilish. “Medium Rare.”

They had begun to laugh when the first of the stained-glass windows just blew into the room whizzing glass like shrapnel into the furniture and the far walls and then that smell — that smell of decay — and Felix thought, Oh, my God, my God! They’re here!

And he got to his feet and spun toward the sound and dragged out the Browning and for just an instant all was calm and eerie and… and impossible, because they had just been sitting here, just sitting here laughing and talking and ready to go, to get out of this, out of all of it.

And they all were there, frozen with surprise and dawning fear, their mouths open and their eyes wide, frozen and unbelieving and so tired. And then the beast who had burst within them as if thrown through the window shook its shaggy head and reared up from its place on all fours in front of the window and those blood-red eyes shone on them and the black mouth opened those glistening fangs and it hissed…

Felix raised the gun to fire as the second window exploded and the glass flew again and there were screams and then another explosion and then another and the whole wall of stained glass collapsed into the room and the smell was there and the brutes were clambering through with their dead rotting skin through the broken glass and shattered window frames and the hissing, the hisssssing filled the house of God and their air and Felix felt spears of pain on the side of his neck and then the blood running down and he knew the glass, the fractured, flying glass, had got him and he fired at something through the crashes of debris just as the next screams began.