Part 20 (2/2)
”Why don't we just take it with us whenever we go on a case? We could be blowing up undead left and right. That'd be sweet.”
”Like I said, you've got a lot to learn. Wards aren't mobile. You can take them someplace and turn them on, but you can only do that so many times before they're worn out, which would be a waste. You've got to tune them for a location, but lots of important places get warded: the White House, the Vatican, NORAD, that kind of thing. But they're rare and expensive. The science of making them has been lost for hundreds of years. There's probably only a dozen ward stones in private hands in the world. I picked ours up off a guy that didn't need his anymore.”
We turned a corner. There was an intersection that branched off in different directions. There were a surprising number of tunnels. I was totally disoriented but could tell we were trending upward. ”Where'd you get ours from?”
”I looted it from Adolf Hitler's bunker...Ah, here we go.” He gestured at a rusty metal ladder sunk into the wall with heavy bolts. He immediately started up, not leaving me a chance to ask if he was pulling my leg or not. ”Kill the light.”
I shut down my Surefire, dropping us back into darkness. I was blind. There was a sc.r.a.ping noise from above as Earl moved some sort of cover out of the way. A small bit of light cascaded down the hole. It was blocked momentarily as Earl climbed through the gap. I followed.
It felt good to be in the open air. Crickets were chirping everywhere. It took my eyes a minute to adjust. We were just inside the chain-link fence, twenty feet from the front gate and main road. Earl was squatting to the side. He touched my arm and signaled for me to stay low. We were surrounded by kudzu. I sat in the slightly damp vines and waited. The nearest light came from the fat bulbs over the gate, hazy behind visible humidity. Swarms of miscellaneous insects buzzed around the lights, casting hundreds of tiny dot shadows.
”Where is she?” I whispered.
”Shhhh,” Earl hissed.
Then the crickets stopped chirping. I realized the temperature was dropping. Suddenly it was abnormally cold and p.r.i.c.kles of discomfort moved across my sweat-damp body. A feeling of dread and discomfort settled into my bowels. She was here. ”About time.” Susan's voice came from somewhere inside the shadowed forest. I scanned the trees but couldn't make out anything. ”It's good to see you again, Earl.”
”Hey, Granddad,” Ray said. ”Been a long time.” I couldn't spot him either but I kept scanning.
”Make it quick,” Earl responded, his voice sounding strangled. This was very hard for him.
”You don't have to be such a p.r.i.c.k,” Susan responded. ”I'm trying to do you a favor. We were family once.”
Earl stiffened. ”No. A human being named Susan Miner married my grandson, Ray. They were good people. I loved them. But they're dead and gone. You're just an empty sh.e.l.l with no soul and all their memories. So cut the bulls.h.i.+t, and say what you've got to say, you worthless monsters.”
Red eyes winked into existence through the fence. They were coming right at us. ”You don't want to hear what I've got to say, old man,” Ray was mad. ”You left me to rot in Appleton for something that wasn't even my fault. You've got more blood on your hands than a legion of vampires. Which one of us is the real monster?”
Harbinger stood. ”Well, why don't you just come across this fence and show me what's up then, boy?”
”I would,” Ray spat. The red eyes stopped, hovering a stone's throw away. ”But I don't feel like dying once and for all. Remember, I know all about your magic rock. Why don't you come over here and we'll finish up some family business.”
”Knock it off,” Susan ordered. She sounded just like Julie when she said that. ”We're not here to fight. I offered a truce, and I'm standing by it.”
”You've got your truce for now, but mark my words: I'm going to end your miserable non-lives eventually,” Earl vowed. ”You threatened my family, so you have to die.”
Susan was livid. ”I promised I would leave Julie alone.”
”We'll see...”
”What do you want?” I asked, speaking up for the first time.
A second pair of eyes approached, swaying through the trees. She stepped from the shadows, an eerie mirror image of Julie, wearing the same dress that she had in Mexico. Her white teeth cut a razor line through the darkness. She was hauntingly beautiful as the humidity turned into swirling fog around her legs. ”I want this necromancer gone. He knows I've helped you, and now he's trying to destroy me.”
”Help?” I spat. ”You can't call anything tainted from the Old Ones help help.”
”What's it done to you?” Ray asked eagerly. ”What did it unlock?”
”Don't answer him,” Earl ordered. ”Ray talks a big game but he sucks at black magic. d.a.m.n near tore an interdimensional hole out Alabama's backside. Caused the death of his own son. He always let his pride blind him to danger.”
”I told you that wasn't my fault!” Ray shouted. ”I did the best I could.”
”And little Ray got his guts torn out for it, as well as over a hundred and twenty other innocent people, including ninety-seven of my my Hunters. Appleton was too good for you. I should have left you in that rift with those Old Ones you love so much.” Hunters. Appleton was too good for you. I should have left you in that rift with those Old Ones you love so much.”
”I was lied to,” Ray insisted. ”The spell should have worked.”
”You can't blame anyone for that but yourself. n.o.body lied to you. You dabbled in things no man should, and we all paid for it. If I had known what you were doing, I would have taken you out myself, blood or not. The only person lying here is you. You even set the archives on fire to keep us from finding a way to close your precious gate. You knew exactly what you were doing.”
Ray laughed. It was an angry, bitter sound. ”I didn't torch the archives, you old fool. I was at Gulf Sh.o.r.es getting ready for the party when that bomb was set. I got suckered, just like you, just like everybody else.”
Earl hesitated. I could tell he was angry, itching to fight, but that had thrown him for a loop. I realized with a shock that this was the first time the two had actually spoken since the Christmas party that had almost ended everything. ”We always thought you were working on your own.”
”I promised Owen I'd tell him as soon as I knew for sure. The same man, or used to be man, that we're fighting now arranged it all...” Susan said. ”My poor, distraught husband did what he did out of love. He just wanted to bring me back. If only he had known I was a vampire, and being kept as a slave, unable to contact him- No, Earl, save that anger. Ray was used. This d.a.m.n necromancer preyed on his weakness, his mourning for me, and twisted it to his advantage, used him in an attempt to establish a bridge to the other side. That's your real enemy, and he's been your real enemy all along. He hates MHI for what it stands for, and he hates you personally, as he has for years.”
”No,” Earl stated. ”Enough of your lies. Don't make excuses for Ray's bad decisions.”
”What? You can't handle the truth? You don't want to hear that you punished your grieving grandson, when he was only trying to do the right thing? You don't want to hear that you've been wrong all this time? Well, too d.a.m.n bad,” Susan said. ”You screwed up. The real bad guy was under the nose of the mighty Earl Harbinger for years.”
”Who then?” he demanded.
”The man who arranged for me to be enslaved in '90. My death was part of his plan. Oh yeah, he was thinking that far ahead. He needed Ray broken and searching for something. The man who orchestrated the destruction of your company and the deaths of all your Hunters in '95, and when you stopped him there, the government completed his job and shut you down anyway. But it goes back even further, and you were too stupid and guilt-ridden to see it. You lost an entire team of Hunters to him before that, simply because one of them knew too much.”
”Give...me...a...name....” Earl said through clenched teeth. His eyes were bright gold now, and he was barely containing his rage. I honestly thought he was going to hop that fence and go toe to toe with both of the vampires.
”What's the matter?” Susan chuckled. ”Losing your cool?”
The forest suddenly ignited with light. A red parachute flare was drifting through the sky. The vampires were both clearly visible now. The alarm began to sound, an old-school air raid horn blaring one harsh note across the entire compound.
”It's a trap!” Ray shouted as he moved back into the darkness.
”d.a.m.n you,” Susan said as she melted away. ”I was trying to help.”
”No! Give me a name!”
But the vampires were gone.
”What did you do?” I shouted.
”Nothing,” he replied. ”Somebody must have picked us up on camera. I've got to go after them.”
”You'll never catch them. They're way too fast.”
”Watch me.” He dropped his Tommy gun on the ground and shrugged out of his jacket. ”A human couldn't track them, but I can.”
”You're going to change?” And not on the full moon? That was insanity. He never did that. It was utter and reckless stupidity.
But Earl was desperate. ”I've got to catch them. They're too d.a.m.n evil to live.” One impossibly strong hand grabbed me by the shoulder. The hair on his arms was now carpet thick and his fingernails were abnormally long. ”Don't let anybody follow. Get them inside the main building. It's too dangerous out here.”
<script>