Vampire a Go-Go

FIFTY-TWO

“Allen, help me!”

Cassandra clung to him, panic in her eyes. Blood spilled from her ears, left bright red trails down her white skin. An eyeball popped and oozed.

Allen backed away, shaking his head, eyes wide and horrified. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

“What went wrong? I can’t believe this.” Bitterness laced Cassandra’s voice. “All the time and effort. So many plans.” The skin under her eyes came loose, began to slide down her face. “Damn it. This is bulls-”

Her bottom jaw fell off, landed with a wet splat on the cavern floor. Teeth knocked loose rattled on the stone. The rest of the skin melted off her body, revealing organs and bone, a beating heart.

Allen screamed. He took a dozen steps backward but was unable to avert his eyes. He was transfixed by the woman coming apart in front of him.

Cassandra cried a final, strangled scream before collapsing into a pile of steaming meat.

There was no psychotherapy on earth that would ever erase that image from Allen’s mind, but he felt something unclench in his chest, a veil lift from his eyes. He was free.

Cassandra was gone, and Allen was in possession of his own soul once again.

Father Paul led them over the dam, down the narrow stairs to the stream below, kept walking until the waterwheel came into view. He saw flickering torchlight. Someone was definitely down here. He kept his shotgun ready, motioned for the others behind him to stay alert.

He spotted Allen sitting on the bottom step of a raised dais, strange gizmos hanging over him, big glass discs. This must have been the machine he’d described before.

Father Paul jogged toward Allen. “Are you okay? We came as fast as we-what the hell is THAT?” He backed away from the still-melting heap of flesh and bone.

The others arrived and saw it too. Penny groaned. Amy turned away, made a gagging sound but managed to refrain from vomiting.

“That’s Cassandra,” Allen told them. “Or what’s left of her. She’d wanted to use the machine on herself all along. I guess she was tired of being a vampire, wanted to be human again. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I felt sorry for her. I saw the whole thing. She came apart right before my eyes. It was awful, the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

Father Paul looked at the machine, then back at the melted pile of Cassandra. “What went wrong?”

Allen shrugged. “No clue. Maybe the thing never worked at all.” He hung his head, rubbed his eyes with his palms.

“It’s all over now,” Father Paul said. “I’ll take the stone back to the Vatican, hide it in the secret room where we keep the Ark of the Covenant.”

Allen looked up at the priest. “What?”

Father Paul laughed. “Just fucking with you. But we’ll put it in a safe place.”

The sound of a shotgun shell being pumped into a chamber forced all eyes to Father Starkes.

“Change of plan.” Starkes leveled the shotgun at Father Paul. “The stone comes with me. Drop the weapons, and I won’t splatter you with buckshot.”

Father Paul said, “I have to say, Starkes, this comes as a bit of a surprise.”

“You want a surprise?” Starkes smirked. “Check this out.” He held the shotgun on Father Paul one-handed while he pulled a thin vial of red liquid from his pants pocket with the other. He thumbed out the cork, drank the liquid in one rapid motion.

Starkes’s face began to twitch, the skin going rubbery. It stretched and distorted, then re-formed itself into the leering likeness of Abraham Zabel.

“It’s that asshole,” Amy said.

“I’m the asshole? You little fuckers burn down my whole house, and I’m the asshole?”

“You paralyzed us in your basement,” Amy shot back.

“Oh, yeah,” Zabel said. “Well, tough shit.”

Penny took a step back, kicked off her deck shoes.

Zabel frowned. “What the hell is she doing?”

“This.” Penny grunted, fur spreading across her body as she transformed into the half-wolf.

She sprang at Zabel, claws extended.

Zabel flung his hand up, barked a command word. Lightning sprang from his fingertips, caught Penny in midair. Her body convulsed with the electrical impact. She fell, hit the stone floor hard, and lay still.

Allen leaped to his feet. “Penny!”

Father Paul already had the.45 out of his shoulder holster. He ran for cover while squeezing the trigger, four quick blasts shaking the cavern.

Zabel blasted with the shotgun. Buckshot ricocheted off stone. He pumped in another shell, blasted again. Penny dove for cover one way, Allen another. Zabel and Father Paul exchanged fire. The priest scurried behind the protective lead wall, and Zabel followed him with the shotgun, pumping, blasting, and pumping in another shell.

“Stupid goddamn priest,” Zabel shouted. “All I wanted was the stone. Now it’s got to be hard. You want it hard? You got it.”

Zabel scooped three gray pebbles from his pocket, blew on them, and tossed them to the floor of the cavern. They grew into armored spiders the size of beagles. They scurried behind the lead wall to attack Father Paul.

Father Paul’s.45 thundered behind the wall. He ran out, the last spider pursuing him. It jumped at him, and Father Paul squeezed the trigger twice. The spider crumbled in midair, fell and rolled over on its back, legs curling up.

But Father Paul had broken cover. Zabel leveled the shotgun and squeezed the trigger. It bucked in his hands, buckshot scorching Father Paul’s chest and belly. The priest spun and fell to the ground, hand going to his guts, blood oozing between his fingers.

“No!” Allen shouted. How had it come to this?

“Okay then,” Zabel said. “Anyone else want to get dead? I didn’t think so. Now, I’m taking that stone, and I’m going to walk straight out of-”

The shotgun suddenly glowed fiery orange in his hands. “Shit!” He dropped the shotgun, blew on his scorched palms. “What the hell?”

“Sorry for the dramatic entrance.” Jackson Fay stood by the waterwheel, hands on hips, a manic gleam in his eye. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”