Part 35 (1/2)

1 he vampires.

”Bad vibes. Baaaad vibes!” He handed the stake back and wiped his hand on the leg of his filthy jeans. ”I've seen them, man. They're everywhere, multiplying like flies,on a fruitcake. You look in their eyes, and they get you-powl-just like that.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ”Couple of them chased me last night. I broke into Hoffman's Deli and got myself some food. On the way out there they were, right on the corner. I didn't know what they were at first, but then one of them flashed his chompers and I said, 'Uh-oh, old Ratty may have had some bad dreams in his time, but never like this!' So I took off, and they came after me. I was flying high on speed, and I was making moves like O.J. Simpson, but I still couldn't shake 'em. And all the time I was hearing these crazy voices, shrieking and screaming in my head.” A nervous grin flickered across his face. His eyes were bright, scorched blue. ”They chased me down into the line that runs underneath Hollywood Boulevard. I tried to hide in the dark. They move so ... quiet. They don't even breathe. They can come up behind you, and you'd never know it until it was too late. I stayed where I was for a long time, until finally I heard somebody scream way on down the line. I figured there were other people hiding in the sewers, too, and the vampires found them instead of Ratty. Lucky Ratty, huh?”

”Yes,” Palatazin said. ”Very lucky.” But now a terrible uncertainty struck him-what if there were more vampires down here? Could they move about freely in this dark world, or would they still be bound by their unholy fear of sunlight? He wondered where the sun was now. G.o.d! he thought. What time is it?

”We've got to hurry,” he told Tommy.

”How? We can't go anywhere up there!”

Palatazin paused. He glanced at Ratty, then back at the boy. ”You're right. We .

. . can't go anywhere up there.” ”Huh?” Tommy said.

”How far do these sewers go?” he asked Ratty. There was an anxious excitement in his voice. The man shrugged. ”Everywhere. Across Hollywood, L.A., Beverly Hills, up I -into the canyons . . .” He stopped and narrowed his eyes slightly. ”Where are you trying to get to?”

”Up above the Hollywood Bowl, just this side of Mulholland Drive . . .”

”Jesus! What's this, an expedition?” ”Of a kind.” ”Yeah, well, too bad you didn't bring your wadin' boots,” Ratty said, ”'cause you'd sure as h.e.l.l need 'em! That's a long way to go, man.” I”But could it be done?” Ratty was silent. He sat on his haunches and seemed to be thinking it over for a few minutes. Then he said, ”Where-exactly-do you want to go?” ”Across Hollywood to Outpost Drive, then up into the hills. There's another road branching off from Outpost, up higher, but I doubt if a sewer runs underneath it.”

”I know where Outpost starts. On the other side of Franklin Avenue. Goes straight up the mountain, doesn't it?”

”That's right.”

”Means a lot of s.h.i.+t pouring down the line, too. Hard going. Be like climbing a mountain covered with ice. 'Course now, not all the lines are the same size. Some of them you can walk in, some of them you crawl through, some of them . .

you hope you can get out of without gettin' stuck tight as a cork. It's about a three-mile hike from here to Franklin. You didn't answer my question. Where do you want to go?”

”The Kronsteen castle. Do you know where that is?”

”Nope, but it sure as h.e.l.l sounds like a place with bad vibes. You say it's up close to Mulholland? You're takin' about another couple of miles almost straight up. If you can get through the tunnels. If you don't take a wrong turn and get lost, because all the lines aren't laid down exactly underneath the streets.

I've got a nose for direction, man. I've been down here ever since I got back from Nam.” Something sharp and brittle pa.s.sed across Ratty's gaze. ”I'd rather be down here where it's safe. The world up there has gone nuts, you dig? Bad vibes all over the place! Anyway, I know the line system like you know the way back and forth from your b.o.o.b'tube to the John. But even I get lost sometimes, and there are a lot of places I ain't been. Got the picture?”

”You're saying it can't be done?”

”Nope. I'm saying you can't do it.”

”I know that,” Palatazin answered.

Ratty looked from him to Tommy and back again. Tommy could hear the m.u.f.fled roaring of the storm through the manhole cover above his head; it sounded like some huge animal gnawing at the iron, trying to get in at them. ”What's the deal?” Ratty asked.

”We're going after the vampires,” Palatazin said quietly. ”At best we've got only four hours of real daylight left because when the sun drops low enough the storm cover will bring early darkness. We can't make it to the castle up there.

We could make it by using the sewers. Couldn't we?”

”Maybe,” Ratty said. ”Don't like s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g with the bloodsuckers, man. That gives Ratty the creeps. You . .. going up to this place to give them the shaft, huh?”

”That's where their leader-their king-is sleeping. I think if I can destroy him, it might throw the rest of them into confusion . . .”

”Like Indians, huh? You get rid of the chief, and the rest of them are scared s.h.i.+tless?”

”Sort of like that, yes.”

”Yeah. I can dig that.” Ratty nodded and looked down into the stygian darkness of the tunnel. ”I mean, this could be like . . . the end of the world or something, couldn't it? Those bloodsuckers keep getting stronger all the time, more and more of them . . . less of us. Right?”

”Yes.” Palatazin held Ratty's gaze. ”I have to get up to that castle. We have to start now. Will you help me?”

Ratty chewed his fingernail for a minute. His eyes kept getting larger and larger. He giggled suddenly. ”Why not, man? I'm a crazy patriot. s.h.i.+t! Why not?”

He grinned into the darkness with all the good humor and courage his pills could give him. Then he stood up, his knees popping, and shone the light ahead along what looked to be an endless tunnel. ”This is the way.” He waited for Palatazin to stand and then start moving, his back seemingly permanently bent. Palatazin followed with Tommy bringing up the rear. The stink of sewage was getting stronger, but it was certainly preferable to the h.e.l.lish wasteland above. Water trickled at their feet.

Time was their enemy now, and time lay on the vampires' side. Palatazin felt freighted with responsibility, not only for Jo and Gayle and Tommy but for the hundreds of thousands of people still trapped in L.A. What might happen to them tonight and all the nights to come if the king vampire couldn't be found?

He felt as if he were going to do battle with an ancient adversary, a nightmare that had ripped away his childhood and plunged him into a world where all shadows were suspect, where every twilight was a terrifying reminder that somewhere the vampir were awakening.

He saw something move out of the corner of his eye, an indistinct shape touched briefly by the lantern's backwash. His first thought was that a vampire had gotten Tommy and was now coming up behind him, but when he looked over his shoulder, there was nothing there and Tommy was fine. And then he heard the faint whisper of a remembered voice brus.h.i.+ng past his ear. He was quite sure of what it said. Andre, I wont leave you . . .

That made him feel better. But there was such a long way to go, and nothing could stop the relentless descent of the sun.

TEN.

The Crab had slowed to a crawl. Brooklyn Avenue at Soto Street in the center of Boyle Heights was blocked by towering dunes that had built up around a horirendous traffic accident, nine or ten cars slammed together right at the intersection. Wes stopped the Crab. The visibility was so bad now that even the high-intensity y headlights couldn't pierce the dark amber gloom, and he had to drive as slowly as possible without stalling the engine to avoid cras.h.i.+ng into a dune or a twisted, wrecked car. The worst of the storm, he knew, had hit yesterday at rush hour, so there would be thousands of wrecked and stranded cars-all of them now sc.r.a.p metal for the dunes to grasp and grow over like pregnant yellow leeches. He wondered what had happened to the drivers of these cars. Had they found shelter before they suffocated? Or had the vampires found them first? ”Dead end,” he said to Silvera. ”We can't get around that.” ”Turn right on Soto. There's a Hollywood Freeway entrance ramp about eight blocks ahead.”

Wes was relieved to find that the ramp was clear; but when the Crab had crested it, the headlights picked out one wrecked or stalled car after another. The dunes s.h.i.+fted restlessly, threatening to spill over and bury the Crab. There were many corpses caught in the airless cars and many who had been caught out in the open as well. Some of them looked as if they were simply sleeping; others had died in agony, eyes and mouths filled with sand. Wes felt his nerve breaking. The Crab made it about fifteen yards before it was halted by another ma.s.s of sand and metal. The wind sucked and pulled wildly at the vehicle.

”Back down the ramp,” Silvera said tersely. He reached back and leaked some oxygen into the cab. ”We'll have to find another way.”

”THERE'S NOT ANOTHER WAY!” Wes shouted. ”Jesus Christ! Everything's blocked!” Silvera waited for him to calm down and said, ”Take it easy. That's not going to solve anything and it's sure as h.e.l.l not going to get us across L.A.” Wes was trembling. If he'd ever needed a joint or a plain old cigarette before, this was the time, but he had neither and there was no air to spare, anyway. Do you want to give up? he asked himself. No.' I can't! Like the priest says, we'll have to find another way . . .

”Back up,” Silvera said.

”I can't see a thing.” The rear winds.h.i.+eld was layered with sand, and he could envision backing into one of those huge dunes. It would be good-bye with a slither and a moan. The engine kicked a couple of times, and Wes's heart started to pound.

”All right.” Silvera got one of the oxygen masks from the rear compartment and slipped it on. The second of the oxygen tanks was in a backpack carrier that would allow it to fit right between the shoulder blades. Silvera fumbled for a moment while he attached the rubber line from the mask into the tank's small feed-out nozzle; there was a soft click as the male and female joints connected. He turned on the oxygen and took a breath of sweet, cold air, then shrugged the backpack over his shoulders. ”I'll go out to guide you down,” he said, his voice m.u.f.fled by the mask. ”I'll be right behind you. I'll slam on the right side when I want you to turn right, left for left. Got that?”

”Yeah,” Wes said. ”For Christ's sake be careful!” Silvera stepped out and the wind almost threw him to the ground. He moved like an astronaut in an alien atmosphere, cabled to his life-support system. There were two half-obscured corpses right beside the Crab, a woman clutching a little girl. He s.h.i.+vered and went around to the back as Wes put the Crab into reverse and started moving. Several times Silvera had to hammer against the sides to keep Wes from backing into either a dune or a wrecked car. When they reached the ramp, cold sweat clung to his face, and he was dizzy from hyperventilating. He quickly climbed in, took his seat, and removed the mask.

”You're clear,” he said. ”But I think we can rule out the freeways from now on.”

They pa.s.sed under the freeway and turned left on Marengo, moving past the dark buildings of the County General Hospital complex, where a doctor named Doran had told Silvera he was dying. Now he wondered if Doran had beat him there, or whether the good doctor might now be making a totally different kind of midnight house call. They curved slowly around the complex to North Main Street, which Silvera knew would take them across the river and through downtown L.A.

The Crab was almost across the North Main bridge when its headlights picked out the monstrous cl.u.s.ter of yellow dunes blocking their way. Rats in a maze, Wes thought as he braked the Crab. That's what we are. The headlights gleamed off the grillwork of a Cadillac caught under a mountain of sand. The dunes loomed up like the mountains of the moon.

”Back up,” Silvera said, tension crackling in his voice. His face had turned the color of dried clay.