I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) (3 page)

“Method Man tears shit up for the same on his
song, no hook, no break."

“Method Man. That’s some bullshit there.”
Santa Anna shook his head. “Put on ninety-two three, would ya
Frank?”

“Give me a break,” Gossitch exhaled a trail
of smoke from a new smoke. “I can’t listen to that crap since they
switched to modern rock.”

“Okay. One-oh-four three then.”

On the radio, Dave Herman was introducing a
Smashing Pumpkins song.

“What’s this modern rock bullshit anyway?”
asked Santa Anna. “I go away and I come back and fucking Seattle
has taken over rock and roll?”

“They call it alternative or somethin’,” said
Gossitch dismissively. “Grunge.”

“Shit won’t last.”

“That’s what they said about rap,” offered
Boone.

“Those guys look like their balls smell.”

Three songs and a commercial break later,
Marcy Playground were singing about a girl in platform double
suede. Like disco lemonade.

Gossitch changed the station to CBS-FM. “Hot
town, summer in the city,” the Lovin’ Spoonful sang, “back of my
neck getting dirty and gritty.” Gossitch thought it appropriate,
given the weather.

“Po-pos,” muttered Santa Anna. A police car
was coming down the block form their east.

Gossitch stowed his binoculars under the
front seat and felt for the keys in the ignition. Santa Anna
reached over and killed the radio. In the back Boone slunk lower,
his hands disappearing in the flannel of the jacket shirt he wore.
The kid ignored the Colt SMG on the seat next to him.

If push came to shove they’d haul ass out of
there. Gossitch wasn’t going to throw down with the law. His
connections inside knew what he and his crew were about and they
generally left him and his guys to do what they did. He suspected
the men in the RV had their connections behind the blue wall too,
which would help explain why in their three hours out here this was
the first cruiser they’d seen.

The police car reached the corner and didn’t
slow for the stop sign. It continued down the street. They watched
its rear lights fade in the mist.

Gossitch turned the radio back on. Zager and
Evans were singing about the year 2525.

A few moments later Santa Anna asked
Gossitch, “Those years I was away, you ever have to do a cop,
Frank?”

This caught Boone’s attention. Ever since
he’d known the older man he’d known him as
Gossitch
. Of
course he’d known Gossitch wasn’t the man’s real name, just like
his wasn’t Boone. It was safer that way. He wouldn’t have thought
that “Frank” was his crew chief’s name either. Figured Gossitch for
some Jew-name, David or Benjamin or maybe even something
super-Jewey like Chaim or Shlomo. But
Frank
? Fuckin’ Frank?
Probably what Santa Anna called the old man, way back when.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Not one? Not even a crooked one?”

“They’re all crooked.” Gossitch flicked the
butt of his cigarette out the window of the car. “The kid’s come
close on a couple of occasions,” he said, making eye contact with
Boone in the rear view mirror. “But we always find a way to walk
before that can happen. Right kid?”

Boone didn’t answer.

Santa Anna turned around in the passenger
seat so he could look at either Boone or Gossitch when he wanted.
“Just like old times.” He shook his head. “And what’s that heater
you’re packing there, kid?”

Heater
, thought Boone. How long had
this nappy-headed fuck been away for? It didn’t sit well with him,
this fuck calling him
kid
. Gossitch could call him kid and
that was alright. The old man had pulled Boone out of some serious
shit in the past. Because of the old man, Boone was still
breathing, had more money than he knew what to do with. He
respected his crew chief and felt an attachment to him. Gossitch
called him
kid
, it didn’t register as a slight.

“That’s a Smith and Wesson .44 Mag,” Gossitch
answered for Boone, his eyes never leaving the RV. “The kid’s
partial to big bore revolvers.”

“Bit much for vamps, no?” Santa Anna
considered the 12-gauge Ithaca between his legs, the Glock 17 snug
in his jeans against his belly. The shotgun had eight buckshot
rounds in the tubular magazine and one ready to go in the chamber.
Each shell was a mixture of double-ought silver slug and
double-ought coated in silver. Boone and Gossitch carried Colt SMGs
and every other round in their 32-round magazines had been
silver-dipped, as was every round in the Glock 17s they wore.

The superstition that silver only killed
werewolves was garbage. It did a number on vamps as well.

By way of an answer, Boone said: “There’s
more than bloodsuckers out there.”

“Yeah, but what the fuck are you looking to
bring down with that thing? Hey, you know what? I don’t want to
meet whatever it is you’re thinking of taking out with that
piece.”

The kid chose not to say anything. He didn’t
owe Santa Anna an explanation.It wasn’t that Boone preferred heavy
caliber six shooters or even had a preference for revolvers. He
didn’t. But he’d run into something once that had made him wish
he’d had the stopping power of the Smith M29. One of those times
the old man had dragged his ass out of the frying pan. Though he
feared little in this world, Boone knew he’d been lucky to walk
away in one piece then. He figured he might cross paths with the
thing or something like it again one day. And because he preferred
to be ready for that occasion, should it ever materialize, he
packed the .44.

The question of his marksmanship was an
entirely different matter.

The rain had stopped hammering the car and
fell in a steady, lulling cadence. The skies were overcast, the day
washed out.

A blue and white Anthora cardboard coffee cup
was wedged between the dash and the windshield.
We
are
happy
to
serve
you
.

“You ever known a bloodsucker to do that?”
The question woke Santa Anna some time later. Smoke from Gossitch’s
Marlboros hung thick in the air. Santa Anna sat up in his seat and
moved the Ithaca from where it had shifted, leaning against the
door, to back between his legs.

A tall man had emerged from the front door of
the RV and walked slowly and deliberately across the street towards
the bodega. He was covered up with an expensive rain jacket and a
wide brimmed boonie hat that obscured his face. It would have been
difficult to see his face from this distance anyway. The man moved
through the downpour in no apparent rush, and Santa Anna noted that
his hands appeared to be gloved.

“You ever known a bloodsucker to do that,
Goose?” Boone asked again.

“No.” Gossitch’s hand gripped the wheel.
Light glinted off his wedding band. “Never seen that before.”

“Maybe he’s not a full blood,” offered Santa
Anna. “Maybe he’s just a slave?”

“Don’t know…” Gossitch watched with the other
two men as the lone figure disappeared inside the bodega. “This
crew working the blood drive, they don’t rely too much on
humans.”

“Almost guaranteed when we go in there,”
Boone was referring to the RV, “they’re all bloodsuckers.”

Santa Anna thought that the kid sounded like
he relished the idea.

“But walk outside in the sun?” mused
Gossitch. “Nah, vamps just don’t do that.”

“I don’t know,” said Santa Anna. “Not much
sun to speak of. And he was covered up.”

“Fuck this.” Boone opened the rear door of
the car. He left his Colt SMG on the back seat. “Only one way to
tell.”

“You going to find out?” asked Santa
Anna.

“Kid, try not to—”

“We go if I call it, okay?” Boone closed the
door behind him and walked off down the block towards the homeless
man, towards the line of people outside the RV and the bodega.

Gossitch frowned and shook his head, cracking
the window and tossing what remained of his cigarette.

“Kids got a hard-on for vamps,” remarked
Santa Anna. As they watched, Boone strode down the street
purposefully.

“That he does,” confirmed Gossitch. “Kind of
reminds me of the way someone else used to be.”

“That was a long time ago.” Santa Anna
thought of the way he’d been once, before prison, before the thing
in it. Enfermo. Things were different now. “Life has a way of
tempering that shit…if you live long enough.”

“Tell you what though, Carter,” said his
friend. “Shit hits the fan, there’s no one else you’d want to walk
into hell with. Stick with that kid, you’re likely to walk back
out. Even if he detours to kick a little red ass.”

“I’d ask if he can be trusted. But I know if
he runs with your crew, I don’t gotta ask.”

“He’s thinking the same thing about you,”
replied Gossitch, depressing the talk button on his walkie talkie.
“All eyes on Boone. We go on Boone’s call.”

Bowie didn’t respond on his radio because he
was down on the street in his soaked rags under the sagging
cardboard boxes, disguised as a homeless man. His ear piece masked
by the stained woolen cap he wore. Answering a radio call would
only draw unwanted attention to his person.

He shifted his weight inside the cardboard
box. He’d been camped out here overnight, watching the RV.
Occasionally he’d catch a cramp and have to straighten out an arm
or leg. It hadn’t been comfortable, but he knew when the dawn came
they’d do what they’d come to do, and then it would all be worth
it.

Bowie had watched the tall cloaked man leave
the trailer and cross through the rain to the bodega. Something
hadn’t been right about that shit. Bowie wasn’t able to make out
any of the guy’s features from where he lay inside his box, not
without making it obvious he was scoping the dude. All he’d been
able to tell from where he lay was that the guy was extremely tall,
was covered up, and there was definitely something nasty about him.
Was it a vampire? And how could that be, a vampire out here in the
morning like this, even if it wasn’t much of a morning with the
rain and all?

Boone swaggered down the block, in his work
boots and baggy jeans, flannel jacket shirt pulled closed. Bowie
watched him and wondered where Boone was going. He sure wasn’t
heading for the RV.

And then Bowie had it. Boone was going to
stroll right into the bodega behind the guy from the RV, check dude
out.

Shit
. Bowie had to shake his head and
snicker because
that
took balls. And if this was a crew of
vamps they had staked out, what kind of vamp came strolling out
into the day, even an overcast day like this one? Something they’d
never seen before. And there was Boone, going to check it out.

Nah
, thought Bowie, the tall guy
wasn’t a vamp. Probably just one of their slaves.

Still…

When Boone passed his box Bowie held out his
hand and muttered something. Anyone watching would have thought
he’d asked for money.

What he’d said was “Man the fuck up.”

The look on Boone’s face, thought Bowie. Like
a kid heading down the stairs on Christmas morning to see what
Santa had left under the tree.
Fuck
. He had an idea where
this was going, and it wasn’t anyplace good.

Bowie gathered his army surplus blanket
around himself and over his shoulder, concealing the Colt SMG
muzzle down, taut on its sling pressed against his side. His
cut-down assault rifle was loaded with a 20-round magazine, which
made it easier to conceal out on the street.

He sat up on the sidewalk and watched as
Boone walked into the bodega, then he stood slowly and purposefully
limped towards the end of the line of people outside the RV.

“He’s just going to walk in there like that,
huh?” It sounded like a question, but Santa Anna was talking aloud
to himself and Gossitch didn’t answer.

“How tough is that kid anyway?”

“He can control it, if that’s what you’re
worried about.”

A normal person would be terrified to know
for a fact that vampires and other creatures of myth actually
existed. The relatively few who were aware that vampires did indeed
walk the earth would have been bewildered and frightened by the
idea of a vampire that could walk outside in the day, even on a
clouded over, rainy one. A normal person would have high-tailed it
away from the bodega, the block, and this entire afflicted
neighborhood.

Boone was not normal.

With near to a thousand milligrams of
exogenous testosterone pumping through his blood stream, fueling
his muscles and aggression, he sauntered into the bodega, looking
for trouble.

“Eh, son, give me a pack of Marlboro, box,”
he told the turbaned clerk behind the plastic shield that encased
the register area of the store. From the safety of his
bullet-resistant cage the man was watching the two white men in his
store and listening to some kind of music Boone had never heard
before.

The song didn’t interest Boone much. Just
more towel-heads yakking on in their own bullshit language.

While he waited for the smokes Boone cased
the joint. There were no aisles, just a room with four walls, two
shelved from top to bottom with a variety of dry goods, bagged
chips, and household cleaning products. The dust on the shelves and
the products was thick and undisturbed.

Boone knew there were hundreds of bodegas and
little delis like this around the city. Slip the guy a fifty under
the glass and if he knew you and trusted you he’d slip you a half
gram of coke just like that. Everything else was to keep up
appearances.

Boone considered slipping the guy a fifty but
decided against it. Neighborhood like this, white boy like him
might be mistaken for an undercover. He already had what was left
of an eight-ball back in his apartment anyway, if Stash hadn’t hid
it. Where was Stash anyway? He had a way of showing up when Boone
was thinking of doing something stupid.