Black Magic Woman (3 page)

"What is it, podner? What's the matter?"

Hank shook his head a couple of times. "Jolene's out there with the leeches. She's one of 'em."

Mitch didn't know what to say, so he kept quiet.

"I kept tellin' myself, maybe they didn't do her yet, ya know? I was hopin' maybe they'd like, I dunno,
save
her, to fetch and carry for them in daylight, or somethin'." Hank shook his big head again, like a boxer trying to get past the effects of a haymaker before the next round starts. "Fuck, who'd I think I was kidding? Just myself, I guess. Like fuckin' usual."

He pulled out one of the chairs from a nearby table and sat down heavily. Still unsure what to say, and afraid of making it worse by coming up with the wrong thing, Mitch decided to leave Hank alone with his pain for a while. He turned his attention back to the carnage in the street.

Now that he started looking at the vampires as individuals, he could recognize Hank's wife Jolene easily enough. Along with Walt the barber, Tom Jesperson the sheriff, and three teenagers who used to hang around the pool room all day long when they should've been in school. In fact, every one of the creatures out there gorging on the cows' blood was someone Mitch had once known.

It took him a few seconds to realize what that meant.

"Where's the fuckin' Master?" he said out loud.

Hank took his head out of his hands and looked up. "Huh? What're you sayin'?"

"The
Master.
The dude that come into town and started all this vampire shit. That's what Jack told us they's called, remember? Masters. Well, I know every damn person out there, known 'em all for years, same as you. So, who's the fuckin' bloodsucker that begun it? And
where is he?"

Hank peered across the street, at the open doorway of the Goliad. Inside the hotel, back a little way from the door, he thought he could just make out something red… no, two somethings. He squinted hard, and suddenly knew what he was looking at—eyes. A pair of eyes, glowing red.

"Oh, fuck," Hank said quietly. "The bastard's still inside."

"Fuck
is right," Mitch said, pointing to the left. "Lookee there."

Walking rapidly along the sidewalk across the way, staying in shadow whenever possible, was Quincey Morris. Carrying a fresh branch of wild rose in one hand and a big staple gun in the other, he was headed directly for the Goliad Hotel.

The creatures across the street were still gorging themselves on cows' blood and paying no attention to what might be going on behind them. As he crept along, Morris mentally rehearsed his moves for the next few seconds: close the hotel doors, quickly staple on a fresh branch of wild rose, jump in his Mustang parked a few yards away, and take off before the vampires knew what was going on. Then let things take their course.

He had reached the Goliad and was just taking hold of one of the front doors when he realized that Bobby fucking Burns was proved right again, as the Master vampire leaped out from the hotel entrance and took him by the throat.

The impact of the Master's charge put them both on the sidewalk, the vampire on top. Morris had the breath knocked out of him, and the impact of the back of his head on the concrete hadn't helped, either. But he knew that unless he did something
right now
he was on his way to joining the ranks of the undead, and he was
not
going to let that happen.

He'd lost his stapler in the fall but still held the other object he'd been carrying, and as the Master vampire brought those predator's teeth down to tear out his throat, Morris jammed the branch of wild rose between the creature's jaws and pushed back, hard.

None of the experts who have written about the vampire's nature, not Van Helsing, or Blake, or Tregarde or any of the others, has been able to explain convincingly why the undead are repelled by certain natural substances, such as garlic, wolfsbane, or wild rose. Perhaps it is a sort of allergy, or there may be a deeper, spiritual meaning. But for pragmatists like Morris, wondering
why
these things work against the undead is far less important than knowing that they
do.

The Master reared back, gagging. He yanked the branch of wild rose from his mouth and flung it aside, furiously spitting out small fragments onto the sidewalk. That only took a few seconds, and then the Master turned back to his victim—only to be struck hard by Morris's open palms, just above the eyebrows. The impact against the vampire's forehead was enough to break the small plastic bubbles, each about the size of a pregnant quarter, that were glued to Morris's hands.

Earlier, he had cut the bubbles from a sheet of packing material, and then used a small-bore hypodermic needle to carefully fill each one with about 50 cc of holy water—most of which was now running into the Master vampire's eyes.

The effect, similar to what you'd get from sulfuric acid splashed on a human, was immediate and devastating. The Master clutched his ruined eye sockets and fell sideways onto the sidewalk, howling in agony.

Morris did not waste time staring at the creature. He picked up the branch again, and, after a few moments' fumbling, found the stapler where he had dropped it. Scrambling to his feet, he hastily closed the Goliad's front doors and then affixed the branch of wild rose across them, putting on three staples, just for luck.

Then he turned around and saw that luck was something he was shit out of.

Seventeen vampires were standing in front of the hotel now, and they were all looking right at him, their faces full of rage— and hunger.

"Yeah," Hank replied. His eyes were slits of intense concentration.

"Maybe he's got some more of that holy water he used on their Master. That might—"

"Shut up and listen," Hank said through clenched teeth. "Got me a idea." It took him only a few seconds to lay it out for Mitch, whose eyes went wide as he listened.

"You can't be serious about goin' out there, man," Mitch said. "Christ, there's a whole shitload o' them fuckin' leeches, and we're—"

"I'm goin'," Hank rasped. "Either alone, or with you to back me up, but I'm goin'. Which way's it gonna be?"

Mitch took in a big breath then let it out. "Okay, okay, all right." His voice sounded shaky. "Let's do it before I get me some sense and change my mind."

Hank nodded, and drew the knife from its sheath. "Just let me cut the line off of these here chair legs."

He knew that his chances weren't good. There were probably too many of the vampires for his half-ass plan to succeed. But he was
damned
if he was just going to cower there, like some heroine in a bad horror movie, and wait for them to take him. If they wanted his blood, they could damn well fight him for it. He was gathering himself for the rush when he suddenly heard Hank Dexter shouting: "Hey, you fuckin' leeches! Over here!"

Several of the vampires turned at the sound of Hank's voice. Morris could see Hank standing on the sidewalk in front of Emma's Cafe, and it looked like Mitch was positioned a few feet behind him.

"Still hungry, are ya?" Hank yelled. "Then how 'bout some of the
real
stuff?"

Hank held his hands out before him, revealing long, hairy arms in a shirt-sleeved shirt. The right hand held the hunting knife, and in a quick, economical motion Hank slashed the blade across his own left wrist. Arterial blood began to spurt immediately. Hank waved the wounded arm wildly back and forth, spattering his blood on the street in an arc that looked black in the streetlights. There was near hysteria in his voice now as he screamed,
"Come get your dinners, you low-rent motherfuckers!"

All of the vampires were focused on Hank now, and as they began to surge toward him, Morris made his move. One vampire was still between him and the Mustang, and Morris hit him with a stiff-arm that Jim Brown might have approved of. He thought there might be a few drops of holy water left in the deflated bubble glued to his palm, and the scream from the vampire told him he'd been right. Unhindered now, he yanked open the Mustang's door, jumped behind the wheel, and quickly got the door closed and locked. He thought starting the engine might attract some of the undead's attention, but they were too interested in the sight and smell of Hank Dexter's fresh, pulsing blood to pay any notice.

Seeing that he'd accomplished what he wanted, Hank gripped his bleeding wrist tightly and began to back toward the open door of Emma's. The vampires started to follow, and that was when Mitch McConnell stepped forward.

He held one of the chair legs in each hand, and as the vampires approached he brought them together before him in the form of a cross. He had seen a guy do something similar in one of those old Dracula movies on TV, and it had done the job then, driving the evil count back like an irresistible force. Mitch silently prayed to God and Sonny Jesus that it would have a similar effect this time, too.

It worked just fine.

The vampires frantically reversed course, cowering back before the power of the holy symbol Mitch held in his trembling hands. Their dismay and confusion gave Hank Dexter the chance to get back inside Emma's, where he immediately began to apply to his arm the fishing line tourniquet he and Mitch had prepared a few minutes earlier.

Across the street, Morris gunned the Mustang and sent it hurtling up Main Street in a spray of dust. The front bumper caught one of the vampires, a woman, and knocked her sprawling. But Morris only went fifty or sixty yards before jamming on his brakes, turning the wheel hard left as he did so. These actions, combined with the film of dust on the street, allowed the Mustang's rear end to swing around 180 degrees in a perfect bootlegger's turn that had the car facing back the way it had just come. Morris hit the gas again, then flicked the headlights on high beam.

Earlier in the day, he had used the last of the black paint to paint a cross carefully on each of the car's headlamps. This meant that turning on the lights sent two cross-shaped shadows wherever the car was pointed.

Right now, it was pointed at the group of vampires in the middle of Main Street.

Smoke and screams arose whenever the cruciform shadows touched one of the undead. Morris aimed the Mustang right for the center of the mob, and the vampires scattered like tenpins. He drove through them, past them, and on for a couple of blocks before repeating the rum-runner's maneuver to turn the car around again. He let the car's powerful motor idle while he surveyed the scene he had just left.

The sidewalk in front of Emma's was empty, which meant that Hank and Mitch were both safely inside, protected by the crosses painted on the cafe's doors and windows. The vampires were milling around the street in apparent confusion. Since the Mustang's headlights were still on, Morris didn't think any of the vampires would be heading his way.

Then he raised his gaze a little and beheld a sight he had viewed many times in his life, but never with such profound relief.

Sunrise.

The vampires became aware of the coming of dawn at about the same time and they immediately began to scramble around in a desperate search for shelter. But there was none to be had. Every door and window they approached bore a painted cross that barred their entry as effectively as steel bars.

It was less than a minute before the vampires began to burn.

The first to go up was a man in a mail carrier's uniform, and even from two blocks away Morris could hear his screeches as the sun's purifying rays turned him incandescent. The others followed soon afterward—first one, then another, then two more, and finally all of them were ablaze, rending the air with screams of pain and rage. The Master, far older and stronger, went last, staring up at the sky with his ruined eye sockets, unable to see the great glowing orb that was turning him into a torch.

Then it was over.

Morris drove slowly back the way he had come and parked in front of Emma's. Up and down Main Street, people were starting to venture from their homes. They came out cautiously, a few at a time, the way folks will do after a tornado has passed through.

As Morris got out of the Mustang, the door of Emma's opened. Mitch came out first, followed by Hank, who now had strips of tablecloth tied tightly around his left wrist.

The three of them stood on the sidewalk staring out at the debris left in the street—the four dead cows, the pools of blood that were already starting to attract flies, and eighteen piles of ash that had once made up a colony of the undead.

After a while Mitch said, "Anything special we oughta do with them ashes?"

Morris thought for a moment. "You got a stream around here, or a creek—any kind of naturally running water?"

Mitch nodded. "There's a good-sized crick runs past the north edge of town."

"Put the ashes in there, then. Probably an unnecessary precaution, but it never hurts to be careful. You might say a prayer while you do it, too."

"I'd do that anyway, most likely," Hank told him.

"That was a brave thing you boys did, coming out there like that," Morris said. "Saved my sorry ass, for sure."

Hank twitched one side of his mouth. "I don't reckon a fella like you needs to talk much about
brave.
You got more guts than a pissed-off grizzly, Mister Morris."

Mitch was looking at Morris closely. "This ain't your first rodeo, is it? You done this kind of thing before."

"Yeah," Morris said, his voice sounding tired. "Yeah, I have. It's part of my profession, you might say."

"How's a fella end up doing this kind of thing for a living?" Mitch asked.

"It's kind of a family tradition," Quincey Morris told him. He reached inside his jacket pocket, found his Ray-Bans, and put them on. "Now, we've got some cleaning up to do here— but first, Hank, we better get the local doc to look at that arm of yours. I expect you're going to need some stitches, podner."