John Steakley - Vampire$

“Is there a place… a room, where we could talk?” he asked.

The doctor eyed him gratefully and led them around a corner to a small anteroom that, judging from the cigarette smoke, served as the break area for the Emergency Room staff. It had a couple of tables covered with soggy cardboard coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays, some plastic chairs, a vending machine, a pay phone.

The three men sat down and added to the smoke.

“Jack,” Cat all but whispered, “we’re going to have to risk it, you know.”

Crow didn’t look at him, didn’t respond, just puffed hard on his cigarette.

Cat exchanged a look with Felix before trying again.

“We can’t move her, Jack. And… well, we can put sensors outside, out in front, so we’ll know they’re coming. Hell, they might not even come.”

Crow glared at him. “They know she’s hurt, Cherry. Do you really believe they won’t come?”

Cat just looked at him.

Crow turned to Felix. “Do you?”

Felix met his gaze. “No.”

And it was quiet for a while.

“But we’ve got some options here,” Cat continued. “We don’t have to fight. They’ll probably come in the front — why wouldn’t they? And we’ll hear them and we can move her then! ”

“Give us that again,” said Felix, interested.

“We move her out the back. Miles of hallways in this place. We’ll just wheel her down the hall and into an elevator and just pick a route out the back. Look, I’ve checked it out. I know just where to park the Blazer…

And he went on for a while in convincing style and much detail, like it was, really, a great opportunity instead of the disaster it was.

Felix sat in silence as be spoke, hating it. They all knew better. When would they come? From which direction? How many? How were they going to stop them at night? And did anyone really believe they could just trot through this hospital wheeling a critical patient? Fighting vampires along the way?

Felix sat there and listened to Cat and watched Jack Crow and saw him again, haggard and beaten but coming through to tend to Carl’s body. And then relaxed and relieved and hopeful before ten minutes later having to save the whole show single-handed.

And now Cat trying to convince everybody this was all going to be all right.

The Gunman smiled.

Cat stopped talking abruptly when he saw the smile.

“What is it, Felix?” Jack asked. “What do you think of the Plan, here?”

“It stinks.”

“I suppose you’d like to just get out of here.”

“I sure would.”

“Are you?”

Felix felt his own smile growing. Do you bastards really think I’d abandon Annabelle? Or you, Crow, after what you’ve done?

“Jack,” he said at last, “you’re a real prick.”

Crow eyed him a moment. “True,” he replied seriously.

And… “Okay, okay, okay,” he continued wearily. “I guess we’re stuck with Cat’s little scheme. Unless the Gunman here has something new?”

“’Fraid not.”

“’Fraid you’d say that. Okay. But I want two escape routes. Get back to the bishop’s and fetch the motorhome. I want two ways out of this place. You and Cat figure out where we should stash the vehicles. And you’d better take Davette somewhere. Where were we supposed to stay last night? The one by the Galleria?”

“She won’t go,” said Father Adam from the doorway. “Huh?” asked Jack.

Adam shook his head. “She won’t leave Annabelle’s side.” Felix snorted. “Like hell she won’t. You just—”

Cat shook his head, too. “She won’t, Felix.”

Crow and Felix exchanged looks.

“This is crap,” said one of them.

Cat leaned forward on the table.

“Hey, guys,” he said gently. “We’re getting down to it. And everybody’s got his own style.”

Felix stared at him like he was from Mars.

“‘His own style,’ eh?” muttered Jack, almost to himself. “Well, that’s nice.”

Then he leaned over and put his cigarette out and started giving orders.

“We set the detectors and we fetch the motorhome and we scope out two escape routes and then, a couple of hours before dark, somebody — you, Gunman, it’s your woman — pick up our pretty little martyr and her style and put her ass in a motel because that’s my style and I run things here.”

Felix grinned along with the rest of them and wondered why? Why? We haven’t got a fucking prayer…

“Mr. Crow?” came from behind Adam. It was Annabelle’s nurse. The men got to their feet.

“Is she…?” Jack began.

The nurse smiled tightly. “She’s awake again. She wants to talk to you.”

“Right,” said Jack, already moving. “The rest of you get moving. I want the motorhome here in an hour, with all the beds down. We’ve got to get some sleep before tonight.”

Annabelle, near death, white as a sheet, surrounded by beeping electronics and pierced through with running tubes, still managed to be radiant.

Talk about style, thought Jack to himself as Davette got up and he took her seat.

“Annabelle,” he whispered to her, “don’t you ever sleep?”

She didn’t even bother to smile. “Jack,” she whispered huskily, “we’ve got to talk…”

But only she talked and Jack listened and he absolutely hated what he heard.

Annabelle had figured it out. She was half-dead, but she knew the score. She knew she couldn’t move. She knew the night was coming. She knew the vampires, just like Jack, had their own connections. They knew who the Team was, knew all about them. Knew about her, had actually seen her and knew she was hurt.

And she knew they would come for her and the police would never know how to react or possibly even believe what they’d seen after it was all over.

No. She had decided. They must leave her here.

And Jack tried to reassure her, tried most of the junk Cat had just finished throwing at him, that it wasn’t like they were trapped, they could always get out the back and, besides, there was no guarantee the vampires really would show up here and…

And she knew better, as always.

“Jack!” she pleaded, her eyes frantic, “you must go. You must save yourselves!”

And Crow looked right at her and said, “We’ll see.”

And she knew she had lost.

“At least get Davette.”

“I’ve already taken care of that,” Jack whispered to her “I put Felix on it.”

And she almost smiled. “About time.”

Then she sighed and looked away for a moment. When she looked back her eyes were filled with tears and she reached up her pale skinny arm to him and he leaned down so she could caress his dirty, unshaven face.

“Jack…” she sighed. “Sweet Jack. You were… You were always such a good boy…”

And he didn’t cry because he couldn’t let her carry that, too. But his eyes were hot and her tiny fingers on his face were the softest touch he had ever known.

Then she gave him a playful slap and pushed him a way.

“Where’s my purse?” she demanded. “I must look a fright.”

“Huh? You look fine…” sputtered Crow.

“What do you know about it?” she replied in her lady voice. “Find my purse, please.”

So he rummaged around and found it and opened it and handed it to her.

“Oh, good,” she said after she had glanced inside. “I’ve got my mirror. Now, run along.”

Jack frowned. “Don’t you think you should be resting? Or—”

“I repeat: what do you know about it? Now go away.”

He rose, uncertain. “I’ll get Davette,” he offered.

“Oh, please, Jack. I think I can put my own makeup on after so-and-so many years. All of you: leave me alone to myself for just one instant. Please!”