C.O.T.V.H. (Book 2): Judgment (2 page)

“Mike, damn it, not now,” Cort said angrily.

“I’m just saying . . .”

“Mike.  For the love of God, man, my house just got destroyed!  My grandson is laying in there dying!”

“He’s not dying, Pop.”  John rolled his eyes.

“Shut up boy!  He’s lying in there,
severely wounded
, so I don’t need this whole
oooohh the Coalition is so evil and we’re all so stupid for supporting it
, speech right now!”

“Alright, alright,” Mike said holding his hands up in defeat.  “Excuse the hell out of me.  Man he’s cranky.” He whispered loudly to John.

“Yeah well, you’d be cranky too if a bunch of vampires decided to kick your door in at four in the morning, then crash through the ceiling like some goddamn Santa Claus on steroids,” Cort said giving his chair a hard kick for good measure.  “Ruining perfectly good chairs . . .” he trailed off.

“I’ll buy you a new chair!” Mike said throwing his arms up in the air.

“I don’t want a
new
chair!” Cort roared.  “I want
that
chair!  I’ve worn my ass imprint into it just right.  Do you have any idea how long that took?”

“I’m guessing forty years.”  Mike said sarcastically.

“You’re goddamn right it took forty years!   Forty of the most comfortable sitting years of my life!  Why I watched Super Bowl number one in that damn chair!  Billy and I bought the pair of them when John was still just a boy!”

“I’m going to go check on Jake,” John said excusing himself. 
Man Pop is upset about Jake.
He thought to himself.  He knew the older Bishop was just using the chair as an excuse to vent his frustrations.  He had always been like that.  John supposed it was easier for him to do that than face what was really eating at him.

John stepped into the tiny room barely bigger than a closet, to find Pam checking Jake’s pulse.  “How is he Doc?” he asked leaning against the dented door.

“He’s going to be fine,” she smiled weakly.  “Just a concussion.  Looks like he hit his head pretty good so you guys will need to keep an eye on him for a few days.”

“Yeah I think something came through the door, spooked him and he fired off a round then tripped over some boxes.  There’s some vamp blood on the door, walls, and ceiling, so he must have hit what he was aiming at.  Poor kid,” he said looking down at his only child.  “I’m betting he was scared out of his mind.”

“Here, let’s get him on his feet into his room.”

“That might not be such a good idea,” John said sourly.  “His room has a few of our, ‘guests’ in it.  Well, what’s left of them anyway.”

“Oh.”  Pam crinkled up her nose.  “Okay then, where can we lay him?

“Let’s get him into the backseat of my truck.  I’m taking him and Pop to a hotel.  We need to get in at least a few hours sleep before we have to come clean up the place.  I’m sure Mike and his guys will keep an eye on things until we get back.  Probably raid the fridge, drink all of our beer,” he chuckled.

“How’s Jake doing?”  Cort poked his head around the corner.

“He’s okay Pop.  It’s just a bad concussion.  We’ll need to keep an eye on him for a few days.”

“Damn,” Cort cursed.  “The boy should have been ready.  He’s more than old enough.”

“He’s only fourteen, Pop,” John said.

“That’s a year older than you were when you started training.”  Cort ran his hands through his long gray hair.  “Johnny, he could have been killed tonight.”

“I sure could go for some Pop-Tarts,” Jake said groggily.  “Cherry Pop-Tarts.  They’re the best . . . or blueberry pancakes!  Remember when Mom used to make blueberry pancakes?  Man
that
was the best . . . Mom?” he said his eyes tearing up.

“Shhh, Jake,” Pam said touching his forehead.  “Just take it easy.  I know things are confusing right now, but everything will be better in a few days.”

“Yes Mom” he muttered.  “Mom?  Mom!  Where have you been?  I’ve missed you so much.”

John sighed then lowered his head to his chest.  “You’re right, Pop.  I hate to say it but it’s time.  I’ll call Billy and get him signed up for the training.  If he’s going to do it, he might as well do it with the best.”

“The best?  Shit,” Cort said.  “I doubt a bunch of government punks can teach my grandson how to hunt like I could.”

“Not to rain on your macho vampire killer parade, but why don’t you guys just get out of here?  Move to New York City or Miami or just about anywhere east of the Mississippi.  Didn’t you say that vampires won’t cross the river?”

“I’m not running again, Pam,” John said coldly.  “I tried that once.  It didn’t work.”

“I know that, John,” Pam argued.  “But Julia wouldn’t want this for her son.  You know she wouldn’t.”

“Pam.  Enough.  This is our life.  You chose to stay out of it, we didn’t.”

Pam sighed.  “There is just no arguing with you people!” she said angrily.  “You’re just as stubborn as Billy.  Stupid, stupid, stupid!

“Look.  I don’t need this crap.  I’m coming off an eighteen-hour shift at the ER . . . I went home to get a couple of hours of sleep and had just dozed off when who should call me?  Why my old friends the Bishops!  That’s who!  The ones that
only
call when someone is either dead or needs to be patched up!”

“Pam I’m sorry . . .” John started to say.

“Oh and guess what else?”  She interrupted.  “I’ve got to be back at work in two hours!  Two hours!  So I’ll tell you what, next time one of you gets hurt, don’t bother calling me.”  She picked up her bag pulled out two bottles of antibiotics and tossed them at John then headed for the door.  “If Jake gets any worse take him to the ER.”

She stopped right outside the door.  “You two . . .” she poked her finger at John, then at Cort. “Get your wounds stitched up and get on those antibiotics before you both get sick and die.  You know how poisonous those scratches are.  What am I saying?  Of course, you know!  You’ve both been scratched at least a hundred times by those monsters!” She stormed out still ranting.

“Well . . . that was awkward.”  John said reaching down to help Jake to his feet.

“You’re telling me,” Cort said peeking around the corner of the broken steel door.  “What the hell did she mean by
you people?
”

“Pop . . .” John shook his head laughing.  “Go pack a bag.  We’re going to a hotel.”

“Hotel?  I’m not paying to stay at some damn hotel.”

“I’m paying Pop.”

“Yeah?  Hell then, let’s get going,” he said, rushing down the hallway to his room.

Chapter 1

Jake

10 miles South of San Angelo, TX.

Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 1998

5:29pm

Jake tucked his head tightly to his chest and thrust his shivering hands deeper into his coat pockets as he watched John scrape the accumulated ice off the windshield of their ‘86 Ford F-250.  They had been on the road for over six hours and the icy hell storm was only getting worse. The truck’s heater/defrost had gone out only twenty miles outside of Lubbock making matters a hundred times worse. This had been their fourth deicing stop in the past hour.

“Burrr!”  John exclaimed climbing back into the driver’s seat.  He tossed the red ice scraper back into the glove box, snapped it closed, then blew into his hands trying to get some feeling back into his frozen digits.  “Damn it’s cold!”  He brushed the snow from his coat then pulled back his hood.

“It’s not much better in here,” Jake said through chattering teeth.  “Tell me, why we couldn’t just take Grandpa’s Bronco again?  It’s just been sitting in the driveway since you bought him that brand new Chevy Silverado.”

“Pop doesn’t let anyone drive the Bronco but him,” John said, slowly pulling the truck back onto the icy highway.  “Might have something to do with me driving his ’57 Chevy into Buffalo Springs Lake when I was about . . . fourteen, I think it was.”  John laughed heartily at the memory.  “Man he loved that car!  Only one he ever bought that wasn’t used.  And boy let me tell you, he tanned my hide good for that one!”

Jake pulled the zipper up tighter to his chin.  “Gee, thanks, Dad.  Now I get to freeze to death because you wanted to take a joy ride, what?  Fifty years ago?”

“Hey I’m not
that
old!  Besides, it wasn’t my fault.  Well, not entirely.  Wes Turner bet me twenty dollars I didn’t have the guts to take it out without Pop’s permission.  True, using it as a submarine wasn’t part of the bet,” he chuckled.  “Still, I won twenty bucks out of the deal.”

“Terrific,” Jake pulled down on both sides of his far too small wool cap, trying in vain to get it to cover his ears.  “Thanks for that, Dad.  Now my children and grandchildren will know the pride of their grandfather winning a bet with Bloody Wes Turner!  That is if I survive this trip to have any children.”

“Hey now,” John said, his voice going deadly serious.  “Don’t ever call him that.  If Wes heard, you say that, he’d be furious.  He hates that nickname.”

If the shoe fits . . .
Jake thought.  “Yeah, I forgot.”  He turned his head looking out the window so John wouldn’t see him roll his eyes.

Jake had never met Wes Turner. In fact, he had only heard secondhand stories about him from his grandpa Cort.  From that alone, he could tell that Turner was more than a few cards shy of a full deck.  Which was saying a lot in an environment full of people that hunted vampires for a living.

“I only called him that because that’s what Grandpa calls him.”

“Yeah well, when you get to be as old and mean as he is, you can call people whatever you want too.  Till then, show some respect to your elders?  Okay kid?”

“You know what else Grandpa says?” Jake said, voicing his thoughts.

John picked up his red handkerchief and wiped at the already fogged up windshield.  The frozen windshield wipers scraped noisily against the glass. “Pop says a lot of things.  He’s a very opinionated guy.  That doesn’t mean everything he says is true.”

“He was right about Riker,” Jake said thinking back to his
other
grandfather that had kidnapped him when he was only eleven years old.  “He said he was a real mean son of a bitch, and boy was he right.  I’d been there barely two days when he decided to trade me to vampires for a chance at immortality.”

“Boy,” John said sternly.  “Stop cussing.  You’ve been spending too much time around your Grandpa.”

“Maybe I have,” Jake admitted.  “But he was right about Riker, so maybe he’s right about Bloody Wes . . . I mean Mr. Turner.”

John gave him a hard look mumbling something under his breath about ‘teenagers’ then turned to wipe the windshield again.  “What exactly did he say about Wes?”

“He said he did a lot worse than kill vampires.  That he tortured them.  Butchered them while they were still alive.  That he ran with a bunch of murdering, raping, lunatics that no other
real
Hunter would associate with.  That some people say he even killed civilians that got in his way.   Is it true?”

John remained completely quiet.  The only sound in the truck was the constant violent scratching of the frozen wipers, which suddenly became stuck in the middle of the windshield.  “Damn it to hell!”  John exclaimed pulling the truck to the shoulder.  He grabbed the ice scraper from the glove compartment then climbed out leaving Jake’s question unanswered.

Not this time, Dad. 
Jake thought.
  I love you, but it’s time you finally answered a few questions about the year you were away.

“Well?” Jake declared when John had climbed back into the cab.

“Well what?” John said exasperatedly.  This time he didn’t even bother putting the scraper back in the glove compartment but tossed it onto the dash.

“Tell me Grandpa is wrong.  About Mr. Turner.  Tell me he didn’t earn his nickname by slaughtering vampires in ways that would make Jeffrey Dahmer sick to his stomach.  Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll never call him ‘Bloody’ again.  Please Dad, just tell me the truth.”

“You want to know the truth, Jake?” he turned in his seat so that they were now facing each other.  “Do you
really
want to know?”

Jake was completely taken aback by his father’s sudden intense look.  He nodded dumbly that he did.

“The truth is that I’ve earned that nickname just as much as he has,” John answered coldly.  “I was trying to find your mother.  So I did
whatever
it took to get the information I needed.”  John looked back to the highway and carefully pulled back onto the icy road.

“We’re in a violent business, Jake,” he said when the truck was back at its top speed of forty miles per hour.  “You know that just as well as I do.  You’ve seen what those monsters can do.  Do you think they would think twice about torturing you if given the chance?”

“But killing civilians?”

“Pah!” John said angrily.  “That’s some bullshit rumor some idiot Wes beat in poker started spreading!  Not a bit of truth to it.”

After a few minutes of silence Jake finally asked the question he’d wanted to ask for three years, “What happened out there, Dad?  Like . . . how did you get that . . . wicked looking scar on your face?  You were gone a year and you’ve never once talked about any of it.”

John cleared his throat then absentmindedly rubbed at the long scar running from his eye to the corner of his mouth.  “If you ask me to tell you, Jake, I will.  We made a deal after my secrets led to your mother . . . after . . .” he cleared his throat again.  “I’ll tell you everything if that’s what you want.  But if I do . . . you will never look at me the same way again.”  Jake started to speak but John held up his hand stopping him.  “Please, kid.  I’m begging you, as a favor to me.  Don’t make me tell you.  I did things that no man should ever have to do.  Things that no son should know about his father.”

“Okay, Dad,” Jake said quietly.  “I won’t ask.  Though someday you may
need
to tell me.  When that day comes, I want you to know that no matter what you did, you will always be my dad.  Nothing can ever change that.”