Stars and Other Monsters Page 11

  Stan reached around his seat. He felt a shaft of wood with feathery tassels at the back end, stuck deep into the fabric. “Feels like an arrow,” he said.

  “Then he knows what I am,” stated Dalla. For the first time, he heard anxiety in her voice.

  Hunched in his seat, in the shaking side mirror, Stan could only see a blurry image of what was behind them. The minivan was spotless, sparkling in the starlight. The guy driving it was familiar; Stan had first noticed him in the hotel in Boise, paying the redhead at the café, and the van had been following at a distance since.

  Was he being rescued? Or was this guy another walking corpse, destined to be added to the pile already behind them?

  In the blurry mirror, he saw him hang out the window again.

  Stan put his arms around Bloody. “Get down!” he shouted instinctively.

  The vampire ducked. The truck’s wheels screeched as she swerved. Another arrow flew into the truck and hit the front windshield. It left a crack there, then ricocheted off another window before resting on Stan’s lap.

  Dalla regained control of the truck.

  Stan picked up the rod in his lap. “It’s an arrow. But there’s crap attached to it. It looks like … a dried sponge? Ew, it’s warm.”

  “Sponges have no muscles,” Dalla muttered to herself. “Throw it out the window. Now!”

  He squeezed the needle-sharp arrow in his mangled hand. The vampire’s eyes were on the road, concentrating. Would she react in time if he tried it?

  He flashed back to her lips around his cock. This is a favor. “Remember I did this,” he said, then rolled down the window and tossed the arrow out.

  The van behind them was gaining.

  “Take the wheel. Now.”

  He grabbed the wheel as the vampire opened the door and jumped out, but not before she wrenched Bloody from Stan’s lap.

  She raised her arms as if she expected to fly away. Instead, her feet hit the ground with a crunch, then she rolled end over end.

  “Bloody!” Stan bellowed. He hopped into the driver’s seat. The truck swerved sideways, but he managed to get his foot to the brakes. The truck slammed to a halt, but not before the vampire’s crumpled body and the minivan were already far behind.

  He fell from the car then stumbled back down the road.

  A bright light bloomed from a flashlight in the minivan driver’s hand; it shone brighter than any flashlight Stan had ever seen, and with a bluish hue. In the spotlight it created, steam rose from Dalla as she writhed on the pavement.

  Just as she stood to escape the light, the man produced an oversized gun from his belt, then pulled the trigger. She fell back to the ground, motionless. Bloody wriggled from her arms, but the man was upon her. He plucked Bloody up by the scruff of her neck with one hand. With the other, he dragged Dalla by her feet to the van’s sliding door. He tossed Bloody inside, hefted the vampire in after her, then slid the door shut.

  Stan arrived. The flashlight beam shone into his face. He held up his hand to block the blinding light.

  “A human,” said a mild voice from behind the glare. “Run along. You are safe.”

  “My dog,” Stan said, but his voice cracked and the man was already turning his back.

  The man hopped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

  The van was already moving when Stan started smacking the window. “My dog! Give me my fucking dog!” he screamed, but the man stared straight ahead as he pulled away.

  A moment later, the van was gone, tearing up the highway so fast that Stan would have no chance of catching it.

  “It’s two in the morning.”

  “I know, Paul. This is a big one. I’ll owe you more than just money this time.”

  On the other end of the line, Stan heard the muffled voice of Paul’s wife, the clink of a belt buckle being fastened, then a door being shut. “It better be important.”

  “I can’t explain, but trust me, it is.”

  The tune of a computer turning on. “Okay, give me the license plate,” Paul whispered.

  Shivering in the phone booth, Stan rattled off the memorized plate number. Paul was a childhood friend back in Michigan, and after he had become the sheriff of Luce County, he wasn’t above sharing the private information he had access to. At least not for a small share of whatever profits Stan brought in.

  “Jeffery Humber-Wilcox. Thirty-six years old, five foot eleven, blue eyes, brown hair. Married with four kids. Lives in San Ramon California; looks like a nice neighborhood. Has a blue Chrysler minivan registered to him. Two other cars and a motorcycle as well.”

  “Sounds like him.”

  “Wouldja look at this? A few misdemeanours on his record. Lots of traffic tickets. Ah, and criminal harassment in conjunction with vigilantism. Was arrested on a few more accusations but never charged. Looks like the lawyers helped him out there. Who is this fella, Stan?”

  “That’s what I want to know.”

  The clack of a keyboard. “He’s on Google. Looks like he’s a business guy; consulting, whatever the hell that means. B.S. if you ask me.”

  “Can you get to his credit card activity?”

  A muffled sigh. “Ya know how illegal this is already?”

  “It’s literally life or death here, Paul.”

  Stan jotted down the addresses that Paul gave him on the back of a newspaper. The last one wasn’t far.

  “Thank you. Remember how much I owe you, okay? When I’m back on the grid, you call me, for anything, any time.” He paused. “By the way, how is mom?”

  “She’s … she’s still here. You should come by to visit soon, Stan.”

  His heart dropped. “I will.”

  He hung up. In the yellow light of the phone booth, his breath forming clouds of vapour, he examined the arrow he pulled from the back of the truck’s seat. The shaft of wood was rubbed down with oil that was still slick to the touch. At the blunt end was a bundle of three different tassels: leather, silk, and a feathery material. Attached to the tassels were bizarre charms: a tiny crawfish claw, some crystals. Symbols were drawn on the arrow with marker. Near the tip, a blocky F.

  A watch battery was embedded in the other end. The whole thing was warm, a slight mist rising from it, and it smelled like herbs.

  He tossed the arrow onto the seat beside him. When he stopped to ask for directions at a gas station, he noticed knives for sale behind the counter. He bought the biggest one, then stuffed it in his pocket. They had binoculars, too. He used most of the cash from Dalla’s purse—the cash that wasn’t covered in blood, anyway—to buy those.

  Stan was getting his dog back, and neither a vampire nor a vampire hunter would stand in his God damn way.

  It wasn’t difficult to determine which room Humber-Wilcox was in. Besides the front office of the isolated motel, there was only one room with a light on. Stan parked across the street, beside a giant circle-shaped field, then turned off his lights. He got out his new binoculars.

  A few days ago, this would have been just another night on the job.

  The occupied room was the second-furthest from the office. Both rooms had wide windows and rust-stained doors that opened directly onto the motel parking lot. He focused on the office window first. Its curtains were open. The motel clerk was a rotund man with stubble on his cheeks and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt barely covering his belly.

  Stan was reminded of that woman Bob used to hang out with, long ago, in what seemed like somebody else’s life. That blunt homeless woman who always wore a Metallica shirt.

  The clerk sat watching television: a quiz show with a phone number flashing at the bottom of the screen. He sat with rapt attention, his hand hovering over an ancient rotary phone on the counter. Occasionally, he sipped straight from a two-liter bottle of Pepsi.

  Stan moved his attention to the occupied room. The curtains were drawn, but some rungs were missing so that they couldn’t meet in the middle. Through this crack, Stan could see that he’d come to the right place. The
man in the striped shirt—Jeffery Humber-Wilcox; what kind of a douchebag name was that anyway?—stood with his back to the window, beside the bed. From the shadow on the wall, it was clear that he had a knife in his hand.

  He bent over the bed, knife lowering.

  Stan had to get a better look. He got out of the truck, gently placing the door shut. He held his coat over his mouth, to at least partially keep his breath from sending little smoke signals into the air. He found a spot behind a dumpster in the parking lot. From there, he could get a good angle of the bed through a gash in the curtain.

  Dalla had thick ropes around her arms, binding them to the headboard. Around the rest of her body were chains with links as thick as hot dogs, wrapped completely around her and the bed at various angles.

  Stan got a small amount of sick pleasure seeing her tied up like that. But he had to wonder why she was still there. With her strength, she could have easily decimated the rope, and maybe even the chains.

  He crawled to the other side of the dumpster to get a different angle. When he looked through the binoculars again, he finally got a good look at Jeffery Humber-Wilcox. Above his ironed shirt was a blue-eyed, handsome-ish face, and hair that looked like it would be more at home in the ‘70s than the 2000s. Too big and perfect, it looked like a helmet.

  Jeffery bent over the bed, then stood up again, a splash of blood splattering onto his face. He calmly wiped it off with the back of his hand, then reached to his belt. From a pouch there, he produced what looked like a handful of sand. He scattered it onto the bed, then stood back and watched.

  After a moment, he turned to the table beside him. He scribbled something onto a notebook there.

  Shuffling back to the other side of the dumpster, Stan saw that Dalla had an ugly gash across her chest. Dark blood flowed from it onto the bed. The powder that Jeffrey had thrown on her sparkled in the dim light of a cheap lamp.

  Jeffrey picked up an object—another arrow, or maybe this one was a stake—then raised it above his head. Fear filled Dalla’s wide eyes. Even though her demise would be the best thing that could possibly happen, Stan found himself wincing, wishing that he wouldn’t kill her. Not just right then.

  Careful what you wish for, right?

  He brought the stake down, but turned it horizontally, breaking it on his knee. In a blur, half of the headboard ripped free from the motel’s wall, leaving Dalla with one free hand. She reached to free her other hand, and was already wriggling out of the chains, when Jeffrey brought out his flashlight again. When he turned it on, she was stunned motionless. He reached into his pouch, produced a syringe, and plunged it into her neck.

  He turned off the flashlight. Blisters sizzled on her face and chest. Again Stan felt an unwarranted sense of pity.

  Jeffrey returned to the bedside table, then scribbled in the notebook again.

  Where the hell was Bloody?

  There was a door, probably to the bathroom, at the back of the room. As Stan watched, it vibrated slightly. He climbed so he was looking over the top of the dumpster, and he could see the crack under the bathroom door. Multiple tiny shadows paced back and forth there—shadows that could only be formed by four paws. Thank God.

  Stan turned his attention back to the clerk. His eyes were heavy, even though the bottle of Pepsi was half empty. On the board of room keys beside him, he checked for the room Dalla and Jeffrey were in: 13A. The key was, of course, missing from its peg. There would be a skeleton key that opened every room, but the clerk would have it on him.

  Stan couldn’t resort to violence. He never had, in all his years of stalking. There was another way.

  The 13B key was still on its peg. A and B would surely be connected; in a crappy place like this, he was willing to bet by a single door, with the lock on B’s side.

  The clerk would need to piss soon.

  Sure enough, a few minutes later he stood, keys swinging at his belt, and Stan lost sight of him. He jogged lightly to the office door, then opened it as slowly as he could. Controlling his rapid breathing and stepping quietly, he dashed behind the counter, then grabbed 13B.

  He heard a toilet flush. The clerk didn’t seem like the type that would wash his hands.

  Stan leapt to the door. He opened it, willing himself to do it slowly, quietly, then closed it behind him and plastered himself to the wall.

  A second later, he saw a shadow in the splash of light from the window. The clerk’s nose appeared, then cupped hands above them, touching the window and leaving a smudge as he scanned the parking lot outside.

  The clerk stepped back.

  Stan let out a sigh of relief, careful to cover his mouth as he did.

  His back against the wall, he shimmied to the end of the row of rooms. When he got to 13A, he could hear a voice from the other side of the door. He passed it, then crawled under the window. A shadow danced back and forth on the curtains.

  He got to 13B’s door, then quietly turned the key and entered. As he suspected, there was a door in the wall between the rooms. He put his ear to the wood. On the other side, he heard Jeffery Humber-Wilcox chanting a repetitive pattern, like he was reciting haikus.

  Stan pulled out his knife. He’d have to do this quickly, and even then, if Jeffery was facing the door when he opened it, he could end up with an arrow in his chest. He needed a distraction.

  Then Bloody started barking. She must have smelled Stan. It was a relief to hear her voice.

  Jeffery stopped his chanting. “Shut up,” he snapped before trying to resume where he left off.

  The barking intensified. It was joined by scratching and pounding at the bathroom door.

  “Shut up. Filthy creature.”

  Stan’s grip on the knife tightened, sending shoots of pain from his severed finger up his arm. There was the sound of heavy boots stomping. This was his chance.

  He simultaneously turned the key and the knob, slowly, then eased the door open. Jeffrey’s back was to him; he hunched in front of a bag near the front door. Frequently being in places he wasn’t supposed to be had evidently taught Stan something, and that experience kicked in. He swept up behind Jeffrey, quickly, silently. He got his left arm around Jeffery’s head in a half-nelson, and held the tip of the knife to his throat.

  “Don’t move,” said Stan.

  “Hey, no problem buddy, you’re all right. You want money? Let me grab my wallet.”

  “I came for my dog,” said Stan, directing Jeffery toward the bathroom door, still rattling under Bloody’s paws.

  “Your dog!” Jeffery laughed. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

  Stan poked the knife harder into Jeffrey’s skin. “I know how to use this. Open the door.”

  “You’re playing with fire, kid. Let me go now or we’ll both end up corpses.”

  “Move!” shouted Stan.

  Jeffery turned the handle on the bathroom door.

  Dalla stirred on the bed. She smacked her dry, flakey lips.

  Stan turned to her. “You should have gotten it over with. I don’t care what she is; torture? Experiments? That’s not right.”

  “Believe me, buddy,” said Jeffery as he swung the bathroom door open. “I’d love to finish her off, but the future of humankind could depend on developing some new tricks. What kind of a man are you, criticizing what I do?”

  Bloody flew from the bathroom. She gave Jeffery a brief growl, then tugged at the hem of Stan’s jeans.

  “We’re going,” said Stan. He leaned close to Jeffery’s ear. “Hey, thanks for the rescue, but you will never come near me or my dog again. When I go, you better stake her while you have the chan—”

  The bed seemed to explode. The remaining half of the headboard tore free from the wall as Dalla’s other hand freed itself. Then the rest of the bed cracked in pieces, splinters flying from it under the strain of the vampire tugging at the chains until they dug into the bed like a chainsaw. She was free.

  Before Stan could react, Jeffery Humber-Wilcox was wrenched from his
grip. She held him off the ground with one hand around his neck. He kicked and gasped for breath. With her other hand, she brushed the powder off her dress. She took a deep breath.

  “Stanley! You’ve come to rescue me,” she said, her eyes, teeth and fangs gleaming in the middle of her blistered red mess of a face.

  Stan groaned.

  Her high-pitched laugh trailed behind her as she floated past Stan, burst out the door, then flew into the night, carrying Jeffery with her.

  “Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit,” said Stan. “This is our fault. That guy’s a shitbag but we can’t let him die, can we?”

  Bloody sighed.

  Stan searched the room for a weapon. On the table by the bed sat a checklist of items: grounding totems, restoration suppressant, sapping rod, fang salve, and more. Some of them were crossed out. Beside the list: a written set of recipes and instructions. At the end of it, exterminate subject, then return to clients, Frank Morgan and Damien Fox.

  Jesus Christ. The guy worked for Fox. How was that even possible?

  In the bag that Jeffery had been reaching for, Stan found a syringe, which he pocketed, and a crossbow, preloaded with a bolt. Crossbow in hand, he sprinted to the parking lot.

  “Where did she go, girl?”

  Bloody barked, looking above the motel. Stan ran to the side of the building, where he found a ladder to the roof. He looked at Bloody, who grunted approval.

  “Stay,” he said, then climbed the ladder. He followed the crossbow over the ledge of the roof.

  Dalla was perched on an air duct. Jeffery lay limp in her arms, and her jaws were clamped on his neck. She raised her head; her eyes, reflecting pale moonlight, were the only part of her face that wasn’t darkened by gore, featureless in the night. He pointed the crossbow at her.

  Her expression was cold. “You better jet, Stanley. You won’t want to see this.”

  Jeffery’s chest was still rising and falling. Blood still pumped from his neck.

  “Let him go,” said Stan.

  “Did you see what he did to me?” Her voice wavered. She pulled the rip in her dress to the side. A jagged gash there oozed, but already partially healed. “You know that I can feel pain.”