Part 38 (1/2)

His heart leapt. This was where the killers had dug eleven years ago; the earth had never been replaced. There was room for someone very thin to crawl under. He looked at Tommy, and the boy understood.

Even Tommy, minus his jacket, sucking in his diaphragm, had trouble. He crawled and contorted his small body, and once he thought he was stuck, but then at last he was under and standing on the other side. He stepped over to the chain that hung down from a couple of iron pulleys along the wall and pulled. His shoulder muscles cracked, and the gate rose only a couple of feet before he had to let it down again. The next time he tried harder, and he discovered that the chain was just like a big Venetian blind cord; by pulling it at an angle he could lock the chain in the lower pulley and hold the gate steady. He got the gate up four feet and” could lift it no farther. Palatazin slipped under, and together they hurried past the bulldozer and U-Haul trucks to the door Benefield had entered.

It was latched from the inside, but three hard blows from Palatazin's hammer H was enough to break the lock. He shoved the door open. They faced a long flight of stone stairs that disappeared into inky depths. They started down, feeling their way along cold, wet stone walls veined with cracks. Rats squealed from their holes and skittered underfoot. Palatazin could hear the barking of the dogs very far below them. Other corridors branched off from the stairway, some of them sealed off by I iron bars like the gate Tommy had crawled under.

Palatazin was afraid there might be traps in those corridors-more iron-jawed leg-breakers, guns rigged up to doork.n.o.bs, a scattering of poison-soaked nails, a central stone that might pivot and shatter their ankles-so he thought it best to follow the path the dogs had taken. ”Do you have any idea where this goes?” he whispered to Tommy.

”I think the wine cellar in the lower bas.e.m.e.nt. Orion Kronsteen had about a million bottles down there.”

”The vampires won't sleep on the level where the dogs are kept,” Palatazin said.

”They might wake up with an arm or a leg chewed off. What's on the upper bas.e.m.e.nt?”

”Just big rooms.”

”That's probably where some of the caskets are.” The noise of the dogs was much louder now. ”I expect we won't catch many of them sleeping, though.” They heard the m.u.f.fled sound of blows. ”Get back!” Benefield shouted. ”I'll knock your ribs in!” A dog growled fiercely; there was another blow and a yelp.

The stairs ended at a closed door. Beyond it, Palatazin knew, lay the wine cellar and the dogs, Benefield and his wooden staff. He didn't think Benefield had become a vampire yet, not if the king was using him as a human servant. But did Benefield have a gun or knife as well as that staff? Palatazin pushed against the door; it creaked open a few inches. He saw a series of large rooms that seemed full of empty-shelved wine racks. A flashlight was set on one of the shelves, its beam playing over a frenzy of snarling, leaping dogs. Then Benefield stepped into view, cracking his staff on the floor to keep the dogs back while he tossed bits of raw meat at them from a leather pouch he had slung under his shoulder. A German shepherd rushed in, trying to steal a piece of b.l.o.o.d.y meat out of his hand before he threw it. Benefield shouted, ”GET BACK!”.

and cracked the animal across the head with his weapon. It yelped and staggered, and others scrambled over its body. ”I'd fix you if I had the dust!” Benefield said quietly, and chuckled. In the dim light his eyes were black holes in a pale skull. ”Oh, yeah, if I had the dust, I'd spray it in your faces and fix you all real good. Get back, there! Here, you s.h.i.+t!” He was standing with his back to the door, about fifteen feet away. Palatazin steeled himself and came through the door into the chamber, raising the hammer.

A gray mongrel whose muzzle was already b.l.o.o.d.y snapped its eyes toward the intruder and bared its teeth, emitting a series of ear-cracking barks. Benefield started to turn his head and Palatazin saw he wasn't going to reach the man in time. He jumped, and Benefield's eyes widened with recognition. The staff came whirling out of the darkness toward Palatazin's face, but he got his left arm in the way and took the blow just below the wrist. Then he crashed headlong into Benefield, and they staggered through the baying, hungry dogs to the floor. They rolled, Palatazin trying to strike at the other man's temple with the hammer, but Benefield clamped one viselike hand around his right wrist and started squeezing. Benefield had lost his staff; his free hand snaked up and found Palatazin's throat.

The dogs snarled around them, leaping in and grabbing at cuffs and sleeves, snapping at faces. Several of them started fighting among themselves over the sc.r.a.ps of meat; one grabbed the leather pouch, trying .to rip it from Benefield's shoulder. Palatazin struck the man's face with a fist that was rapidly going numb; blood began streaming from Benefield's nose, but he grinned and kept squeezing. A dog lunged for Palatazin's sleeve. Another bit Benefield's ear and tore a hunk of it away, but the man was beyond pain now, beyond everything but the l.u.s.t to kill.

He rolled over on top of Palatazin, got a knee on his hammer-hand, and started squeezing his throat with both hands. Palatazin fought for air; his temples were pounding, he could feel teeth gnawing at his left ankle, while another dog's fetid breath blew in his face. The animals swirled around the two combatants in a frenzy, leaping and howling with bloodl.u.s.t. Tommy picked up the staff, jumping away from another dog that snarled and rushed at him. He thrust the staff at it, catching the animal in the throat and driving it back. A hole opened around him as the animals avoided the familiar weapon.

Tommy took aim and swung into the back of Benefield's head. The man grunted but didn't loosen his hold. ”LET HIM GO!” Tommy shouted, and struck again. The staff broke off in the middle, leaving Tommy with a jagged three-foot shard of wood.

Benefield pitched to the side. His head hit the floor with a soft thunk, and Palatazin worked the frozen fingers out of their grooves in his throat. He stood up, backing away from the dogs that snarled on all sides. They didn't care about him anymore; now they went after Benefield's leather pouch with fierce pa.s.sion, straddling the body and fighting each other off. One of them ripped the pouch off and ran with it, the others right on its heels, some of them stopping to gobble up chunks that had scattered on the floor. They vanished into the far recesses of the chamber among the hundreds of high wine racks. Palatazin looked down at Benefield for a moment, then rolled him over, and felt for a heartbeat.

”Is he dead?” Tommy asked him, breathing hard. ”Did I ... kill him?” Palatazin stood up and took the flashlight off the shelf. ”No,” he said hoa.r.s.ely. His knees were shaking, and when he wiped the sweat from the side of his face, he saw that it was streaked with red. He straightened the pack across his shoulder, his fingers clenching and unclenching the hammer's handle. If he didn't kill Benefield, the man would warn the vampires. It was as simple, and terrible, as that. He knelt down beside the man, studying his toadish face, and raised the hammer to smash his forehead. At its zenith his hand stopped and hung there; his strength was gathered but not his stomach. It was one thing to kill a vampire, or to kill a human who was trying to kill you; it was quite something else to kill a helpless man in cold blood. Captain Palatazin, he thought, ex-Captain that is, do you want the boy to see you do this? He looked at Tommy and saw his glazed, sickened eyes. A vampire, yes, A man, no. Palatazin stood up. He had no way of knowing when Benefield would come around, or if he ever would. ”And I wanted you to stay home, didn't I?” Palatazin asked the boy, trying to smile. He failed miserably. ”Where do we go from here?”

”There'll be . . .” Tommy looked away from Benefield with an effort. ”There'll be another stairway here somewhere, leading to the upper bas.e.m.e.nt. I don't really know where it is, but . . .”

”We'll find it. Let's get out of here before those dogs come back. I don't think they feed them very well around here.” Gripping the hammer in one hand and the flashlight in the other, Palatazin plowed into the darkness with Tommy right at his side.

”Clever toys,” Prince Vulkan said, picking up one of the air tanks from the pile of equipment that lay at the center of the council-chamber table. He studied the nozzle for a moment with deep concentration, then turned its release lever and listened to the quiet hissing for a few seconds. He smiled and closed it off, setting the bottle down carefully beside the golden bowl. He picked up a mask, looked at it, and then dropped it back down. ”Clever,” he said. ”Aren't these humans clever, Kobra?”

Kobra grinned. He was standing near the fireplace where Father Silvera and Wes crouched on the floor. In his hand was his prized Mauser pistol, though it was hardly necessary. The priest's face was a study of pain, covered with bright beads of sweat that slowly dripped down onto his s.h.i.+rt. The trap was still clamped around his cracked left ankle, the iron teeth grating on bone. He lay on his side, his leg all but useless, and every few seconds he s.h.i.+vered with agony.

But he didn't make a sound. Beside him Wes sat on the floor, the fire crackling behind him. Outside, when Roach and Kobra had unbolted the front gate and stepped out, Kobra following as Roach probed at the ground with his staff for the traps he'd laid out during the day, Wes had instantly recognized the albino.

When Roach ripped Wes's oxygen mask off, Kobra had whipped that pistol from the inside of his black jacket with lightning speed.

”I've seen that sonofab.i.t.c.h before! Where do I know you from, f.u.c.ker?” The albino's eyes narrowed. ”Oh, yeah. Last night? Little party out in East L.A.?

That's a fine black piece you had there, man. I fang-f.u.c.ked her allllll night long . . .”

Wes had gotten to his feet, rage flaming in his eyes, but Roach had prodded him back with the staff. Kobra had laughed out loud, showing his fangs. ”Man, you're crazy. You know that? Uh-uh now, no quick moves. The Master says I can't have you . . . yet, but I sure could blow away your kneecap real fast!” Kobra had stepped forward across several sprung traps lying in the sand, abruptly stopping a few feet from Wes. He hissed and thrust a black-gloved hand before his face.

”He's got something on him that burns me, Roach! Find it and get rid of it!

Hurry!”

Roach had smiled and dug the staff into Wes's stomach, dangerously close to his broken ribs. ”You want to take your clothes off, don't you?” Wes had known it was no use. He started to reach into his inside jacket pocket for the resguardo, hoping to at least fling it in the vampire's face, but Kobra said sharply, ”Stop him!” At once Roach was on him, tearing his coat off him and throwing it out for the wind to catch; it sailed up and up, then disappeared over the cliffs edge. ”Yeah,” Kobra had said quietly. ”It's gone now. Take his gun.”

The .45 was pulled from Wes's waistband. Now all hope, even the hope of suicide, was gone.

Kobra had torn Silvera's mask off and knelt down to stare at the man's face, tracing the angle of his jaw with the Mauser's barrel. Silvera moaned, coming around from the shock. Wes had hoped he was dead, for the priest's own sake. Silvera's gun was also taken away. Kobra found the blade-whistled at it as he snapped it open-and then dug the bottle of holy water from a pocket. ”What's this s.h.i.+t?” he asked Wes. But Wes refused to answer, and Kobra stared at the liquid for a few seconds, slowly drawing his lips back into a snarl. ”Don't like it,” he'd whispered. ”s.h.i.+t! Burning my hands! Don't like it! DON'T LIKE IT!”.

He'd screamed suddenly, whether in rage or pain Wes couldn't tell, and flung the bottle far out into the night. Wes had thought he'd heard shattering gla.s.s, but he wasn't sure. At once, Kobra had been grinning into Wes's face, the Mauser right at his throat. Those two hot, horrible eyes bored into Wes's skull.

”Thought you'd trick me, didn't you? Thought I'd take that s.h.i.+t, whatever it was, right on up to the Master, didn't you? Huh? Your kind can't hurt us, man. We hurt you!” When Wes didn't speak, Kobra stepped back, blinking and uncertain; he'd stared at the gloved hand that had touched the bottle of holy water, and Wes could tell that even through the glove and the gla.s.s, the water must've scorched his flesh.

”Carry him!” Roach motioned with the staff toward Father Silvera. ”Move!” And so they'd gone through the gate into the castle's courtyard. Wes, supporting the priest so he wouldn't step on that injured leg, had winced when he'd heard Roach draw the bolt shut again. The castle stood high over them, a Bald Mountain in which horrors danced and partied. They climbed another wide stairway to the ma.s.sive front door, surrounded by grinning stone faces and bracketed by two hideous gargoyles in Thinker poses atop stone obelisks. Kobra pushed the door open and shoved the two men inside. The door was closed, and two bolts clanked into place.

As they walked along a wide, cold corridor, Wes was aware of figures moving around them, shapes scurrying across their path, glittering eyes staring hungrily from arched doorways, hideous pallid faces hanging like death masks in the darkness, whispers and chuckling and an occasional knife-blade pierce of freezing laughter. Figures shambled out and plucked at their clothes; there were many young girls-black, white, and Chicano-who had the sad and ravenous eyes of street prost.i.tutes but whose need now, Wes knew, was of a more terrible kind.

Kobra herded them up a long, twisting stairway. On an upper corridor something reached for Wes out of the darkness. A cold hand gripped his shoulder, fingers digging into the flesh, but immediately Kobra barked, ”The Master wants them!” and the thing scurried back to whatever hole it had crawled from. Another figure-a very beautiful blond woman in a black dress-stepped from a doorway and took Wes's hand. She smiled at him seductively and nipped at his knuckles with her fangs, then slipped away and was gone.

”Here,” Roach had said.

They had waited almost an hour, guarded by Kobra and Roach, before the door opened again. When the black-garbed figure stepped into the orange glow of the firelight-Halloween colors around a face as sharply cut as an alabaster sculpture but strangely, in its own way, angelic-Wes had known that this was the thing they'd come to find. The Dark Angel. The Master. But... a boy, hardly older than an adolescent. The vampire's eyes sparkled like emerald chips, his mouth twisted to one side in a mocking sort of smile. Beside him, Wes had heard Silvera catch his breath with a shudder. The vampire stared at them for a moment in silence, then his gaze had s.h.i.+fted toward Roach. ”Go to the balcony and call the dogs in. Feed them and lock them away for the night.” Roach had taken a metallic, high-pitched, dog whistle from a back pocket and left the room. Wes had noticed how Roach had stepped back, his shoulders slumping in deference, when the boy vampire had come in. Even Kobra had made a slight bowing motion with his shoulders. Royalty, Wes had thought. We're in the presence of vampiric royalty. And power.

Now Prince Vulkan picked up the .45 from the table, examined it, and set it back down. ”What my father would've given for weapons like that,” he said quietly.

”Ah! That's the thunder and lightning the dogs feared, isn't it? A theoretical question for you-if Alexander the Great had possessed such thunder, how long would it have been before the world fell at his feet? But then again, he made his own thunder, didn't he? The thunder of an unstoppable army.” The vampire sat in a chair, crossing his legs under him as any boy might do.

”When Alexander's enemies heard that sound, they knew all was lost. Oh, they fought, of course they did. But they fought like trapped dogs, without plan or purpose. They ran to the four winds, but they couldn't get away.” He smiled, his eyes glittering.

”The world is about to hear Prince Vulkan's thunder. It's going to roll eastward across this land, and then . . . they'll run, but they can't get away. This city is my Babylon. The noise of its falling will cause the world to tremble. And then they'll know the King of the Vampires is on the march with an army no power on this planet can stop.” He sat back, looking from Wes to Silvera, and stared at the priest's grimy white collar. ”You!” he said sharply. ”What's your name?”

Silvera didn't answer. Kobra stepped forward and thrust down with his boot on the trap's edge. The priest screamed in agony, the beads of sweat growing larger and streaming down his face. ”That's enough,” Vulkan said, and instantly Kobra stepped back.

”He was carrying something, Master,” Kobra said. ”A bottle of water that . . . burned my fingers when I held it.”

”And where is this bottle now?”

”I threw it away, over the cliff.”

Vulkan nodded. ”Good. So we have a lelkesz among us. A priest. You won't be the first to join our ranks, I promise you. Nor the last.” He giggled suddenly with high, childish glee and clapped his hands together. ”They're falling, left and right, up and down! Thousands and thousands of your kind down there right at this moment! All the humans are dying, and all the vampir are being born!” His gaze darkened like an approaching storm cloud, and Wes realized with a sudden start that he could see the shadow of the chair cast by the firelight on the opposite wall, but the boy vampire himself did not throw one.

”How did you find me?” Vulkan asked him. ”How many others know where I am?”

”I don't know,” Wes said. ”I came here to find someone else.”