Dark Corner (47 page)

He'd gotten there on time, at seven-fifteen. The patrol
team had a desk and a few chairs stationed on the north wing
of the medical center, in front of a set of heavy doors. A
handwritten sign taped to the doors read, "Quarantine Area:
Authorized Personnel Only!" Past the doors, the half-dozen
or so rooms were full of sick people. (He could not think of
them as people who had been bitten by vampiric creatures; he preferred to think of them as being sick, it was easier to
get his mind around it.)

To get into the quarantine section, you had to be either a
member of the patrol team or a medical person-or be sick.
Curious, Junior had used his team member status to get inside, to look around for a minute. He peeked inside the
dimly lit rooms.

Many of the people that lay on the beds, comatose, were
folks that he had done work for in the past. Good people, all
of them. It disturbed him. But nothing disturbed him as
much as seeing Doc Bennett in a bed, too.

Junior stepped inside Doc's room. Mrs. Bennett sat at his
beside. She looked tired.

A woman lay in a bed on the other side of the room,
asleep. Junior didn't know who she was.

"Hi, Junior," Mrs. Bennett said, in a weary voice.

"Hi" He stood just inside the doorway; unconsciously, he
touched the pendant that lay on his chest, underneath his
shirt. "How long's Doc Bennett been sick?"

"Since yesterday."

"Oh" Junior lowered his head. "I hope he gets better real
soon"

"We all do" She sighed. "This is a quarantine area, sugar.
I can be here because I'm a nurse, but are you supposed to
be back here? I wouldn't want anything to happen to you,
too"

"I'm on the patrol team, ma'am," he said. "I was just
checking on people."

"You're a brave man, Junior. I'm praying for all of you"

Junior nodded. He didn't know what to say. He thought of
saying that it was partly his fault that Doc Bennett had gotten sick he was the one who had told Doc about the cave in
the first place-but Mrs. Bennett already looked so sad that
he didn't want to say anything that would make her feel
worse.

"Well ... let me know if you need somethin'," Junior
said.

"It's going to be night soon," Mrs. Bennett said. She
glanced out the window. Darkness was coming. "You be
careful, sugar, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am, I sure will."

He shuffled back to his post. He felt kinda sick himself,
but his pain was due to heartache. He wished he had been
assigned to go somewhere else. Here, misery hung heavy in
the air, as powerful as the antiseptic smell that characterized
all hospitals.

He sat on a chair next to his team members, and whittled
away the time chatting with them. Every now and then, Dr.
Green and his assistants would push ill folks toward the
doors, on stretchers, and then Junior's team would put the
sick individual's name on a list. Within an hour, they had
checked in eight people, and Junior knew every one of them.
But when the ninth person was brought in, he jumped up so
suddenly that his chair crashed against the floor.

It was Vicky Queen.

He knew she had been ill, and he'd figured that she was
sick with the same thing as everyone else, but seeing her
rolled in on a stretcher-it did something to him. He stood
in front of the doors, blocking the medical assistant's route
to quarantine.

"Miss Queen?" he said. "That can't be you."

The woman tucked under the white sheet was asleep. It
looked like Vicky, but then it didn't. She didn't have any
makeup on, but Junior had always thought she was so pretty
she didn't need makeup anyway. This woman had Vicky's
fine features, but she was drab and limp, like a wax dummy
or something. No, not like a wax dummy. Like someone
lying in a coffin.

He gripped the edges of the gurney in his big, callused
hands.

"Excuse me, please," the medical assistant said. "I need
to get this young lady into quarantine."

"Her name's Vicky Queen," Junior said.

"Are you a relative of the patient?"

"Huh?"

The assistant sighed. "Are you related to Vicky Queen?"

"No, umm, I'm just a friend. I've known her my whole
life."

"I see. Will you sign her in for me, please?"

"Okay, sure."

The assistant rolled her eyes, like she was annoyed at
Junior or something. He didn't get it, but sometimes people
did things that baffled him.

"What room is available?" the assistant said. "I have to
know where to take her."

Junior stammered. One of his team members stepped forward, put Vicky's name on the list, and said she could go in
room 113.

Vicky Queen was swept away through the swinging
doors. Junior watched her being taken into a room near the
end of the hallway.

He would make sure that he kept an eye on her. She had
always been so nice to him. He would hate for something
bad to happen to her. He would do whatever it took to protect her.

Darkness embraced the world.

The arrival of night thrilled Kyle. This one would forever
hold a valued place in his memory: the night that he and his
father stood side-by-side and launched a war against humankind.

The war was long overdue. For too long, vampires such
as Mother had lived in secret, preying upon humans as if
they were lowly parasites, like minuscule fish clinging to the belly of a great whale. The truth, as his father had forced him
to realize, was that vampires were the superior race, and it
was time for them to assume their rightful, dominant position in the world's hierarchy of species.

When Kyle had lived with Mother, he had often pondered
such ideas, but Mother, predictably, would turn his thoughts
away from fantasies of conquest. Mother was too wealthy,
too old, and too passive to care about elevating their race. But
Diallo hungered for blood and dominion, and he had stoked
the same flames in Kyle, too.

The prize of the battle in Mason's Corner was David
Hunter. Although Diallo had not shared with Kyle how he
planned to punish the man, Diallo's sly smile whenever the
topic arose made it quite clear to Kyle that the human would
curse his unfortunate lineage for all eternity.

As night sucked away the final threads of daylight, Kyle
and Diallo left the sheltering walls of their hideaway and
emerged outdoors. Diallo strode purposefully through the
grass. Kyle walked in step with him.

He admired his father's appearance in the black silk shirt,
jeans, and polished leather boots. Kyle wore the same clothing himself, he had acquired the tailored garments before
leaving Paris. Kyle imagined that together, they resembled
vengeful angels who had visited Earth to set matters right
between their kind and man.

He felt Diallo's strength; it emanated from his body like
cold air, demanding that Kyle keep a few feet between himself and his father, lest he grow numb from the aura of
power. There was no doubt that his father had recovered.
Diallo had said that he'd never felt such energy course
through him.

A dome of purple-black clouds covered the world. Thunder
grumbled. Lightning stuttered on the horizon and illuminated the vast, weed-dense field through which they walked.
Maple trees filled the area, looking like shadowy sentinels.

Kyle did not know where Diallo was headed, and he had
no inclination to ask. He would go wherever his father led
him.

A hill rose ahead of them. Diallo started to ascend it, and
Kyle followed, but Diallo stretched out his arm, stopping
him.

"I must do this alone," Diallo said. His eyes gleamed like
onyx. "Wait behind, and watch"

"Yes, Father."

Diallo marched to the peak, his shirt fluttering in the
wind like wings.

Kyle did not know what his father was about to do, but
his hands clenched in anticipation.

Atop the mound, Diallo faced the west. He knelt, spread
his long arms, and tilted his face upward.

Kyle recalled that his father had assumed a similar stance
when he had summoned the first canines that became his
slaves. Was Diallo conjuring more hounds? Already, they
had dozens of dogs under their command.

No, this must be something different, Kyle thought.
Father is about to perform something wondrous and awesome.

The atmosphere hummed, raising the hairs at the nape of
Kyle's neck. But he was not afraid. He was giddy, eager.

He felt as though he had lived his entire long life to be
ready to vividly experience events like this; the lackluster
life of luxury and tranquillity he had lived at his mother's estate had prepared him to feel the proper appreciation for his
father's electrifying power.

A jagged rod of lightning lashed across the sky and cast
Diallo's profile in stark relief. As motionless as he was,
Diallo might have been the ancient obsidian statue of a warrior god.

The breeze soughing through the trees picked up speed,
branches swaying, leaves rustling. The wind gusted faster ... faster ... faster, the pitch raising from a low moan to an anguished cry.

The collar of Kyle's shirt flew up. The wind shoved him
forward, and he dropped to his knees.

I did not know a vampire could possess such talents, he
thought. Mother had never spoken of influencing the weather.
He had thought that the ability for vampires to do such acts
was fiction. Once again, Mother had kept secrets from him.

Squinting his eyes against the cutting wind, Kyle raised
his face to watch his father.

On the hill, Diallo remained still, kneeling, arms outspread, though the gusts tore at his clothing and shredded
leaves whirled around him.

The sky appeared to be boiling, storm clouds churning,
shifting, roiling.

A hundred yards away, a sizzling bolt of lightning struck
a tree. Orange sparks flew. The maple, cleaved in half as
though hit with a giant axe, slammed against the earth.

Kyle suppressed an urge to seek cover. His father had ordered him to wait. Nevertheless, he drew up his collar to
guard his sensitive ears. But the makeshift hood could not
quiet the shrieking wind.

Thunder roared, so explosively that Kyle feared the ground
might open up and swallow him.

Then, in quick succession, several whips of lightning
slashed at the town. Kyle could not determine precisely
where they struck, only that they were in the vicinity of the
residential area. The sky was ablaze in gas-jet blue light.

My father is indeed a genius. What better way to stir the
humans into a frenzy of confusion and fear before we attack,
than by turning the elements against them?

The howling wind spat leaves and grit in Kyle's face. He
reached inside his shirt pocket, withdrew the aviator glasses,
slid them over his eyes. The storm-punished land seemed to
be drenched in darkness.

Diallo, resembling a giant shadow, finally rose, and began
to descend the hill. The furious winds did not hamper his
walk; they seemed to escort him, and for an instant, Kyle
thought his father was floating.

Although Kyle worried that the wind might flatten him,
he stood to meet his father. Diallo touched his shoulder. His
grip was like an iron clamp, and his fingers were so hot that
they singed Kyle's skin.

Power.

"Now, our army will arise," Diallo said, "and we will join
them"

Jackson was eager to get away from Jubilee. He never
wanted to set foot in the house again. He never wanted to see
it again.

He fleetingly thought of taking Mac's flamethrower and
spitting a stream of fire at the place, to erase it from the town
once and for all.

He and the team members carried Bertha and Ben out of
the basement. By the time they finally stumbled onto the veranda, night had imprisoned the town.

While they were in the cellar, Jackson had called Dr.
Green on his cell phone and asked him to come to the Mason
place, pronto, to pick up their fallen members. They needed
to be taken to quarantine immediately.

None of them spoke as they waited on the porch for the
ambulance to arrive. There was nothing that any of them
could say that would make sense of what had happened in
the basement. Every time Jackson shut his eyes, he saw
Deputy Dudu's blood-crazed face-the face of a monster.
The lurid image would stay with him for the rest of his life.

Christ, he wanted to get away from this place. From the
anxious looks on the faces of everyone else, they were as
ready as he was to get the hell out of there.

The wail of the ambulance-which normally alarmed
him-was the most appealing sound he'd heard all day. It
meant he could leave soon.

Tanya sprinted across the gravel driveway, to open the
gate. The vehicle rolled down the path, lights flashing.

Dr. Green typically would never ride in an ambulance,
but he was spending a lot of time in it today. As they had for
Jackson, ordinary procedures had been thrown out the window.

Jackson met the doctor as he climbed out of the vehicle.
Dr. Green, normally a robust-looking guy, seemed as though
he had aged twenty years in only a few hours.

Two assistants hurried to where Ben and Bertha had been
placed on the veranda.

"Had a mess up here," Jackson said to the doctor.
"Appreciate you coming as fast as you did."

Green dragged his hand down his haggard face. "What
went on in there, Chief?"

"We killed a vampire. It used to be my deputy, but he
wasn't himself anymore. We torched him with a flamethrower.
But he bit those two folks before we could take him down"

"I see," the doctor said. Jackson had steeled himself for a
frown, or a disdainful glare, but Green looked thoughtfuland scared. Jackson wondered what the doctor had seen
while making his visits throughout town to pick up the ill.

"I don't know if we'll ever be able to explain this phenomenon scientifically," Green said, "or treat their conditions with medicine. But I believe you, Jackson. I've seen
enough myself so that I'm left with no choice but to believe
you"