F Wilson - Midnight Mass

Good.

He grabbed the gasping, whimpering Franco and turned him onto his back. The vampire stared at Joe's face, his expression terrified and confused.

"I'll refresh your memory, Franco. You allowed something called Devlin to lunch on me." Joe's anger flared again as he recalled his terror, his helplessness, and the searing pain of having his throat ripped open. "Remember?" He heard his voice growing louder. "Told me I'd soon be just like him. Remember? " He grabbed Franco by the neck and drew his face close. "Remember?"

He was shouting now and he wanted to rip Franco's head off.

No. Not yet.

He looked down and saw that the get-guards had reached the steps and were crawling up, their progress slow, tortured.

"Come on, guys," he said. "Move it. I haven't got all day."

Damn right. He glanced at his watch. He had maybe twenty, twenty-five minutes before he became as weak as they.

He turned back to Franco and saw that a light had dawned in the undead's eyes—realization, but not belief.

"The priest?" he whispered in a voice like tiny claws scratching stone. "You? No ..."

"Yes!" Joe heard the word hiss out like escaping steam. "The priest. Killing me wasn't good enough. You had to condemn me to an eternity of depravity, rob me of every shred of dignity, undo every scrap of good I'd done in my entire life. At least that was your plan. But it didn't work."

"How?" The word was an exhalation.

"I'm not even sure myself. All I know is this is how it works out in the end: I lose, but you lose too."

He flinched at a deafening report and the spang of a bullet ricocheting off the concrete above his head. Another shot and this time the bullet dug into his hip with a painful sting.

He stood and faced them, spreading his arms. "Go ahead. It won't matter. I'm one of you."

Not true. He'd never be one of them, but no reason they shouldn't suffer some confusion and dismay in their final minutes.

More shots. Most were misses because their weak, wavering hands were unable to aim, but a few hit home. He jerked with the impacts, felt the heat and pain of their entries, but it was nothing he couldn't bear. Finally they gave it up. He smiled at the alarm in their faces.

He turned to Franco and lifted him in his arms. "Let's go."

"Where?"

"To see the sun. Don't you miss it? We're too late for sunrise, but it promises to be a beautiful day."

Franco grabbed Joe's shirt and pulled on it. A feeble gesture. But Joe was surprised to see a nasty grin stretch his thin lips.

"You idiot! Devlin was my get! That makes you my get as well. When I die, you die!"

"I know," Joe said, returning a grin he hoped was just as nasty: "I'm counting on that."

Franco's jaw dropped open. "N-no! You can't! You—"

"I can. Because I don't want to exist like this."

Joe pushed through the door at the top of the steps and emerged into the green-tiled atrium by the elevators. Sunlight, searingly bright, blazed through the huge windows of the enclosed observation area that lay a few steps up and beyond. Only a six-foot swath, no more than two feet wide, penetrated the atrium.

I'm here. I've done it.

Amazing what someone can do when they don't care if they live or die, he thought. But they can achieve so much more, achieve the seemingly impossible, when they're looking to die.

He forced himself to look at that swath of direct light. That was where Franco would meet his end, sealing Joe's fate as well. But first he'd wait for the get-guards to arrive. He wanted as many as possible on camera when Franco bought it.

CAROLE . . .

Carole's stomach clenched as she stared at the monitors. "What is he doing?" "Just what he said he would," Lacey replied. "Getting as many get-guards onscreen before he pushes Franco into the sunlight."

"But there's a whole stairwell full of guards. Too many of them. He's letting them get too close. Why doesn't he have the cross out?"

"What can they do? After that display in the stairwell they know they can't shoot him."

"But they have those machetes."

"So? They can barely lift them. Don't worry, Carole. He's got them beat." Carole wasn't so sure. A lucky swing from a machete could sever an Achilles tendon, or worse, a higher swing could catch Joseph's hamstrings. He wouldn't be able to stand then. He'd go down and they'd swarm over him. One of them might be strong enough to behead him ...

Her chest tightened at the thought. She couldn't, wouldn't lose him.

"I'm going up there," she blurted.

"No way!" Lacey said. "Our job is to stay here."

Carole began pushing the desk away from the door. "No. I can help. I can use the cross to keep them back."

Lacey grabbed her arm. "Carole—"

Carole wrenched free. "Please don't fight me on this. I've got to go. I've just got to."

"Shit!" Lacey said. "Then I'll go with you."

"No." She cracked the door and peeked out into the hall. Empty. "One of us has to stay here. That's you."

Without looking back, she stepped into the hall and started for the elevators.

She heard Considine's voice behind her. "Tell her she's got to go down to one and catch an express to eighty."

"Carole—" Lacey began.

"I heard," Carole said over her shoulder.

"Keep your gun ready," Lacey called. "You see anything moving, shoot first and ask questions later."

"I will."

And she would. Joseph needed her and no one was going to bar her from reaching him.

BARRETT . . .

Barrett staggered through the Empire State lobby in a daze. His men lay strewn about like jackstraws. Blue-gray faces everywhere. Those who weren't dead were well on their way.

Obviously they'd been poisoned, but how? The water supply? The breakfast eggs? The coffee? Didn't much matter now. He just had to remember not to eat or drink anything within blocks of this building.

But all of his men? Surely there had to be a couple who'd missed breakfast. But he didn't know who and he had no way of contacting them. They were scattered throughout the building. He'd have to go floor to floor and door to door.

The other question was who. Who did this? What did they want? Were they after the cowboys, to send a message to anyone who collaborated with the enemy? Or were they after the undead too? If so, they'd be upstairs, on eight-five—where the vamps would be sitting ducks and the shit would really be hitting the fan.

Barrett turned and looked back at the front doors. His first impulse was to cut and run. As top cowboy the responsibility for all this would be laid on him. But on the other hand, he'd been looking for a chance to put himself in the spotlight. Maybe this was opportunity knocking.

He had to reach the Security Center. He could get the lay of the land there and decide what, if anything, he could do. He headed for the elevators. As he passed the security kiosk in the main lobby he remembered it was equipped with a couple of monitors.

He stepped up to the console and dialed through the various feeds but stopped when he came to the Observation Deck. He gaped at the scene playing out on the little black-and-white screen. Some guy with a scarred-up face had Franco. The head vampire hung in his grip like a rag doll. A couple of get-guards were crawling through the stairway door. Where were their guns? Why didn't they shoot?

They needed someone to take charge up there and take this fucker out.