Dark Corner (65 page)

If I live through this, everything is going to change for
me, David thought. I don't know how, but it will.

He stashed the flashlight inside his shirt pocket, leaving
the beam on. He gripped the edges of the tomb, slid his leg
over the rim, and found a toehold on a ladder rung. He
swung his other leg over, balanced that foot on the rung, too.

Then he clutched the ladder in both hands. The stone was
cool and dry.

"It's steady," he said. "But take your time."

He began to descend. The sound of his breathing echoed
in the shaft. The walls, revealed in the backsplash of the
flashlight, were smooth, yet corroded in spots.

Above him, Nia positioned herself on the rungs and began
to climb down. Jahlil came soon after.

The combined noise of their breathing was disturbingly
loud. David had given up any hope that they would take
Diallo by surprise, unless the beast slumbered in a soundproof coffin.

Abruptly, one side of the shaft's wall ended. They were nearing the bottom. After he passed the next rung, his foot
touched solid ground.

He moved away from the ladder. He shone the flashlight
around.

He was at the end of a long tunnel. It was about the
width of a hallway in a large house, with a ceiling perhaps
eight feet high. Several dark doorways branched off from
the main corridor. The area reeked of damp earth, and old
dust.

Nia, then Jahlil, pushed away from the ladder and joined
him, their footsteps echoing in the passageway.

"Damn," Jahlil said, in a whisper. "So Ed Mason had his
own little crib down here"

"Yeah," Nia whispered. "But which room will we find
him in?"

"We're staying together," David said. "We'll check in each
one. We can't risk being separated"

He was about to ask them to draw their weapons, but they
automatically did so without him speaking a word.

David gripped the flashlight in his left hand. In his right,
he held the .3 8.

It was so quiet in the tunnel that they might have been a
thousand feet under the earth.

He was drenched in cold, sticky sweat. But his mouth was
dry, and when he ran his tongue over his lips, it felt like steel
wool scraping across his skin.

They crept down the corridor with the stealth of ghosts.
He felt, rather than heard, Nia and Jahlil moving behind him.

Does Diallo feel us coming, too? Is he toying with us by
allowing us to hunt him like this?

It was impossible to predict what their vampire nemesis
had in store for them.

He swept the light beam into the first chamber. The room
was full of old tables and chairs, and wooden crates that likely
stored more comfort items. Edward Mason had planned to
create a cozy home for himself down here.

But no living creature was inside. He shook his head to
indicate to Nia and Jahlil that nothing important was in there.

Silently, he moved toward the next room.

Nia was determined to stay on her feet.

She did not tell David and Jahlil the degree of her pain.
Her bitten leg throbbed, the bite burning as though the
wound had been soaked in acid. Worse, a cold numbness had
begun to spread throughout her thigh. She knew it would be
only a matter of time before the numbness consumed her entire body and she lost consciousness, like the others who had
fallen to the vampires.

I can't let that happen to me, she thought. God, I can't let
that happen. We've been through too much for me to fall before we reach the end.

She gripped the revolver so tightly her flesh seemed to be
fused to the metal. She kept the muzzle directed toward the
ceiling, ready to bring it down and start shooting the instant
she sensed danger.

David walked ahead of her. He had taken on a superhuman responsibility, and she admired and loved him for it.
She would not let any harm come to him. She would sacrifice herself to protect this man, and she knew in her heart
that he would do the same for her.

David directed the light inside the next room. He shook
his head. Empty.

Pain sizzled through her leg. She winced, and continued
forward.

Jahlil wanted for this to be over.

He hated that they had to climb down into this tunnel. He
understood why it was necessary, but he hated it all the same.
He hated those vampires. He hated what had happened to
Dad. He hated everything that he had seen.

He didn't know what motivated David and Nia to keep
going, but for him, it was simple: hate. Or maybe anger was
more accurate. He didn't know. He couldn't identify his own
emotions anymore. But it was easier for him to feed on
anger, and hate, than it was for him to give in to the storm of
other, more painful feelings that churned just below the surface of his thoughts. He could not afford to be weak.

His fingers tingled on his shotgun. Man, he wanted to blow
away that bastard Diallo so bad. Diallo was the reason why
all of this crap was happening. Nothing would please Jahlil
more than seeing Diallo's lunatic brain splattered against the
wall.

But where was he? They had checked two rooms so far,
and all they had found was a bunch of old furniture and boxes.

Jahlil looked over his shoulder every few seconds, to
make sure no one ambushed them from behind. He glanced
at the ceiling, too. He had learned his lesson. They could be
attacked from anywhere.

But the bloodsucker asshole had to know that they were
down here searching for him. He had all those crazy powers
and probably sensed them when they first came to the graveyard. So where was he? What was he waiting for?

I've got something for you, Jahlil thought. I don't care
how powerful you are, I'm not going out without plugging
some lead into your vampire ass.

Shotgun ready, he pressed onward.

David flashed the wand of light inside the third room.
Like the other chambers they had seen, it was full of only
furniture and crates.

Don't drop your guard, he reminded himself. Don't relax
and get careless. There are a few more places for us to check
out.

He shook his head, signaling that there was nothing of interest inside. He turned back to the main passageway.

As though the corridor had suddenly become a wind tunnel, a blast of cold wind picked him up and hurtled him forward.

He shouted in surprise. He heard Nia and Jahlil yelling,
too.

The roaring gale flung him into the chamber at the far end
of the tunnel. He smacked against a wall, the impact cracking
through his body. The flashlight fell out of his hand and rolled
across the floor, the lens broken, but the yellow light still alive.
He dropped the gun, too.

Nia and Jahlil tumbled on top of him in a tangled heap.
Jahlil swore viciously, and Nia moaned in pain.

Desperate to get his hands on the firearm and the flashlight, David struggled from under their bodies. He crawled
across the cold floor, grabbed the gun. Then he reached for
the flashlight.

An invisible force snatched it away from him and threw it
against the wall. Glass shattered. The light winked out.

Above him, an unearthly, blood-red glow blazed into life,
like a crimson strobe light.

The strange luminescence brightened most of the vast
room, which seemed to be the size of a high school gym.

Because of the ghostly light, the walls, floor, and ceiling
appeared to be painted with blood.

Diallo stood in the middle of the chamber, face tilted upward, arms outspread. Basking in the crimson rays.

As David regarded the vampire, he questioned their sanity for ever thinking that they could defeat this monster. He
was a giant whose powers defied explanation. What chance
did they have against him?

Nia and Jahlil slowly got to their feet. They wore the
same awestruck expression that David was certain was on
his face, too.

Diallo lowered his head and glowered at them.

"All of you are brave," Diallo said. His deep, melodic
voice reverberated through the room. "You have had assis tance from Lisha, my former companion, as well. But that is
not enough to save you"

Jahlil was the first to shake off the temporary paralysis
that pinched the three of them, and attack. He jerked up his
shotgun, aimed, and fired.

The boom of the gunshot echoed harshly.

Diallo took the hit in the chest. The giant rocked backward slightly, but he did not fall. A single shot would not be
nearly enough to destroy him.

David did not plan to wait for Diallo to make the next
move. Raising the .38, he squeezed off one, two, three shots.

Miraculously, each round hit the target, plowing into
Diallo's chest.

In his peripheral vision, David spied Nia. She was shooting at Diallo. Jahlil had pumped the shotgun and begun to
fire again, too.

The vampire quaked under the barrage of gunfire.
Staggering, he brought up his arms to shield himself. He
growled like a grizzly bear snared in a trap.

We're going to beat him, David thought, with a burst of
giddy optimism. It's not going to be as hard as we thought...

Diallo vanished. One second, he cowered under the onslaught of bullets. The next instant, he was gone.

Acrid smoke, drifting from their hot firearms, curled
through the air.

The blood-red orb that hovered above them continued to
glow, like a monstrous heart.

We didn't kill him, David thought. Anxiety gnawed at his
gut. He should have known better than to think finishing
Diallo would be so easy.

"Where is he?" Jahlil said. "He's still here, somewhere, I
can feel it."

Rich laughter thundered over them.

David spun around, searching. But he did not see Diallo.
The laughter filled the room, as though rolling from surround-sound speakers hidden inside the walls.

"He's playing with us," Nia said. "We didn't hurt the bastard at all."

"He's not invincible," David said, desperately. He
looked at Nia and Jahlil, their frightened faces washed in
crimson light. If he could make them believe that they
could win, maybe he could believe it, too. "Listen, we can
kill him-"

In a dark flash, Diallo reappeared in front of Nia and
Jahlil. He captured each of them in his gigantic hands, his
fingers closing over their throats.

They screamed.

David whipped around the gun, but he was too slow to
prevent what happened.

With the speed of a viper, Diallo bit each of them in the
neck.

"No!" David fired. He struck Diallo's shoulder.

Diallo stumbled, then tossed Nia and Jahlil to the floor as
if they were rag dummies.

Diallo smiled malevolently. "Sweet Nia had been bitten
by one of my hounds, but the blood requires hours to work
when delivered from them. When I deliver the bite myself,
the life force travels rapidly, Hunter. Both the boy and the
woman belong to me now."

Moaning, Nia and Jahlil writhed on the ground.

"No," David said. "It's not going to end like this."

He attempted to shoot the vampire again. Diallo knocked
the weapon out of his hands. He seized David by the front of
his shirt.

David punched him, but his fists were so useless against
the monster that he might as well have been slugging an oak
tree.

Diallo lifted him high in the air. The vampire's black eyes,
laminated with red light, were bottomless pools of oblivion.

Terror made David so dizzy he almost passed out. He
clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palms, and the
sharp pain was enough to keep him focused.

The stench of death poured from Diallo's mouth, like
flames from the lips of a dragon.

"Who are you to prevent the fulfillment of my destiny?"
Diallo said. "You are the descendent of a courageous man,
but he did not destroy me, and neither will you. Your family's
legacy ends here, Hunter"

Diallo hurled David across the room. David cracked
against the stone wall, and heard something in his body
snap. Crying out, he slid to the floor.

It was his left arm. The bones were shattered.

Diallo bellowed victoriously.

Against the far wall, Jahlil and Nia were curled in a fetal
position. Whimpering, they rolled back and forth, slowly,
suffering the terrible metamorphosis to vampirism.

It's over, David thought, trembling in pain and anger. He
tasted blood. He'd probably lost a tooth.

He spotted the duffel bag on the ground, only a few feet
away. It contained explosives that they hadn't used. But what
did it matter anymore? They had lost. Nia and Jahlil would
become creatures of the night, and he was going to die.

Scalding tears coursed down his cheeks.

Fangs bared, Diallo strolled toward him, to finish him off.

It's over. Everything we did, it was all for nothing. I wasn't called here to finish an important duty, I was called here
to die.

Closing in on him, Diallo hissed.

Suddenly, the red glow in the chamber brightened to a
brilliant white.

Diallo stopped, grunting in confusion. He turned to face
the light.

David, though he was blasted with agony, looked, too.

It was an apparition of a black woman. Ethereally beautiful, clothed in shimmering ivory garments, she floated beneath the orb of white light, like an angel.

David did not recognize the woman, but Diallo was
stunned.

The vampire shuffled closer to the vision, and then
dropped to his knees. In a voice full of reverence and awe, he
uttered the name, "Mariama."

He had forgotten about David. It was the only opportunity David needed.

David log-rolled across the floor, forcing himself to endure the pain in his crushed arm. He snagged the duffel bag
with his good hand, ripped down the zipper.

Diallo did not notice him. The vampire had his back to
David as he bowed before the mysterious specter. He murmured words that David could not hear.

David dug inside the sack. He grasped a Molotov cocktail
fashioned from a whiskey bottle.