Limbo's Child (46 page)

“No!! No! No! Cwom vack! Dawn’t vo!” the vampire said as he scrambled on his hands and knees towards the doors. The doors just started to close as the vampire in the hoodie got up and lunged at them.

“AAAAAHHH!!” Lucy screamed and leaped back to the far corner of the elevator, but the vampire was too late. The doors slid shut and the elevator began to move slowly downward.

Lucy hugged herself and panted, unable to control her breathing. She was safe, for the moment.

As her eyes darted back and forth trying to think of what to do next the thoughts were so jumbled only one thought managed to push itself to the surface.

“Did that last vampire have a lisp?!”

“No! no! no! no! no! no! no! no! no! no! no! NO!!” Tim pounded on the closed, metal elevator doors but it was too late. He banged his forehead against them once in frustration. He slowly got up from his knees and muttered around the rancid, blood-tasting plastic teeth, “Skwaiwer is gwonna kwill me.” He repositioned the fake plastic teeth in his mouth. They did taste a little like wheat grass.

Just then an enormous crash came from around the corner and then everything went silent. Tim took a few steps in the direction of the noise.

“Mwilz? Ith dat woo?” Silence. “Mwilz? Woo okwaa?” Again nothing. Tim shuffled his feet uncomfortably. The lights were all out and the remaining light that managed to filter through the windows and all the plastic sheeting gave the floor an eerie look. Hospitals were creepy enough as it was. This place looked exactly like the set of “Hospital of Horrors VII.” Tim made a mental note to throw out his horror DVD collection when he got back home. He looked back into the silence for a long while before turning back to the elevators.

“Whoa!” Tim jumped back. Standing there behind him was a tall, elegant-looking woman in a black business suit and heels. Her short hair was a little mussed, her glasses askew and there was dust all over her front.

“Oh…sworry Mwam, I didn’ mean to skwar you,” Tim muttered around the plastic teeth. She looked at him with disgust maybe for half a second before she balled up a fist and punched Tim right in the mouth.

“Ouch!” The plastic teeth flew out of Tim’s bite and landed several yards away. Tim grabbed his jaw and massaged the pain away. “Hey! I said I was sorry! What’s the matter with you?!”

The woman looked stunned. She hit him again, but this time he raised his arm and turned his shoulder in to block it. “Ouch! Hey! Cut it out!!”

She pummeled him repeatedly, as hard as she could but she never really landed a solid punch past the first one where she’d sucker-punched him in the mouth. She was tall, but she was petite and wasn’t terribly strong and she didn’t know a
thing
about how to throw a punch. All-in-all Tim’s kid sister could hit harder, but Tim’s kid sister had grown up in a house of six boys.

Tim didn’t like getting aggressive with women but this had to stop. “Cut it out already!!” Tim grabbed her and pushed her away. “GEEZ! What’s up with you, lady?!!”

She staggered, stepped back and looked at Tim incredulously, panting through clenched teeth.

“WHAT ARE YOU?!!” she bellowed at him, throwing her arms in the air in frustration.

“What?” Tim asked, utterly confused.

“You’re no vampire that’s for certain! What
are
YOU?! Are you some new half-dead abomination Moríro cooked up?! Or did that
wretched
Sicilian butcher stitch a pile of cadaver meat around a living heart?!”

“Um…” Tim didn’t really know what to say to this, “I’m just Tim, the orderly from Wilkes-Barre.”

“UNNGH!” the woman groaned and paced furiously in a tight circle.

“OF COURSE!! YOU’RE MORTAL!!”

“Um…yeah?” Tim said uncertainly. Was this lady nuts or what?!

“How very clever of Moríro, because my powers don’t work on mortals!!” She was furious. The woman stormed off to the other side of the room and began frantically searching for something while muttering to herself. “When you can’t kill someone with a
rapier
!! You send around some lackey…WITH A LOG!!” she screamed indignantly while rummaging around. She found an old IV stand and began unscrewing the top part.

“Um…are you ok, lady?” Tim approached cautiously. This lady was seriously psycho, but Tim couldn’t help but feel a little worried about her. He must have scared her more than he thought.

“
I will be
in a few
minutes
,” she said in a false sing-songy way, “AS SOON AS YOU’RE DEAD!!” Tim was right behind her when she suddenly spun around. The top of the IV stand connected with Tim’s head.

“Ugh!” The metal bar dug deep into Tim’s temple and he went down on all fours. Sucker punched again!! He raised a hand to the wound only to have the second blow hit the back of his hand, HARD. “AAARGH!” The third blow hit between the neck and the shoulder blade. “OW!!” He fell flat on the ground with that one. Blood was streaming into his eyes and his left eye was swelling shut. He blinked his eyes to clear the blood from them, but she hit him repeatedly over the head and shoulders and continued screaming.

“FIRST! I’m going to KILL YOU!!
THEN!!
I’m going to bring your lousy carcass back to life so I can kill you
AGAIN!!
WITH!! MY!! POWERS!!” she hit him repeated shouting each word with defiance after each new blow. “I’M GOING TO TURN YOU INTO A ZOMBIE AND MAKE YOU SHOVE YOURSELF INTO A CHIPPER SHREDDER!!” Tim was losing consciousness rapidly. He was only spared total oblivion because she was so angry she wasn’t taking the time to carefully aim each blow. Tim looked up one last time through bloody eyes as she raised the IV stand up with both hands for the final blow. Tim was certain he was about to die. She screamed in rage and yanked down on the metal bar, only it didn’t move.

She turned around. It was Miles. He looked absolutely horrendous. His face was covered in bad scratches and a few deep gashes and his jeans jacket was totally shredded. He had grabbed the IV stand and stopped it just in time to save Tim’s life.

“YOU!” she screamed. She was a bit surprised to see him
alive
. “Why aren’t you DEAD?!!” She narrowed her eyes at him. “
You
, I can hurt.” She let go of the IV stand with one hand and delivered a backhand to Miles’ midsection. Instead of the impotent blows that had fallen on Tim, this one went off like a small explosion.

Miles was thrown back ten feet and into the far wall. He crashed to the floor. Miles grabbed his middle and rolled onto his knees. He could barely move. She threw down the IV stand and walked towards Miles dusting off her hands.

“My, my, my…aren’t
you
the tough one! Where did Moríro dig
you
up?! You two aren’t exactly top shelf, but he didn’t just find you on the street corner did he? Are you one of Hokharty’s slaves?! Is that old mummy still ordering you bloodsuckers around?”

Miles jumped up and charged directly at her. In the small space, she didn’t have room to dodge. He slammed her into the opposite wall and pinned her there with his shoulder.

“Ungh!” she groaned and writhed in pain, but it didn’t last long. She brought both hands together and hammered Miles with them, smashing him to the floor. Then she kicked him in the ribs and sent him flying across the room where he stopped hard against the wall and slid down in a heap. She charged across the room, transforming as she went into the dark, longhaired specter with hollow eyes. Miles leapt straight up a mere fraction of a second before she struck. He clung to the ceiling like an animal and she passed right through the wall behind him like a ghost. Miles dropped to all fours, a cloud of blackness gathering around him. He was becoming more dog-like by the second. He turned around in a circle like an animal. He could
smell
her, sense her somewhere just beyond his sight. She wasn’t gone, not yet.

The phantom burst from the opposite wall and crashed into him. Even though it was insubstantial to everything else, it hit Miles as solid as a brick wall. The two tumbled into a side room, clawing and tearing at each other. Miles broke free and jumped around the room trying to avoid the phantom, finally crashing through a solid wall to escape her. She was right on top of him, but he rolled over on to his back and gave her a savage kick to the head. It connected. She screeched like an eagle. She only hesitated a moment though before she swiped back sending Miles rolling down the hall and crashing into another wall like a puppy that she had just batted away.

The dark cloud surrounding Miles disappeared. He wasn’t the dog-monster anymore but looked very much like a broken and battered teenager lying in a pile on the floor. Miles struggled to get up, but he just slipped and fell forward again.

“I just don’t understand you,
vampire
,” she said at last. Miles looked back. The bird-like phantom was turning back into its human form. “Why aren’t you
dead
yet?!”

He had no idea what this strange woman was talking about, but for the moment, he was just happy she was talking instead of kicking his butt up and down the hall.

“
Him
, I get.” She folded her arms and tossed her head over her shoulder to indicate the fallen body of Tim. Tim was a lifeless lump on the ground behind her. “It makes sense to send a mortal, someone immune to the power of a necromancer’s blood. But
you
.” She pointed at him with one finger. “You’re no ordinary vampire, that’s for sure, but I can’t figure out what’s different about you. You should be dead, but you just refuse to stay down, don’t you?” The woman walked forward, bent over and grabbed Miles by his red hair. “Who
are
YOU?” She yanked his head back. “Who sent you?! Was it Moríro?! It doesn’t seem like his style.”

“I don…don’ know what the bloody heck you’re talking about,” Miles said weakly.

“Did Hokharty send you to get the girl?!!”

Miles said nothing, but she must have guessed the truth by the venomous look he gave her.

“Hmmph. If that mummy thinks he can go back on our…” but she didn’t finish. She just let go of his hair with a violent push, got up and walked away.

“Nice try, bloodsucker, but the girl is mine, and if Hokharty wants her he will have to come get her himself.” She reached down and picked up a large piece of splintered wood from the debris. “It’s not fire-tempered white oak,” she said with a satisfied smile, “but it will do.”

Amanda was relishing this moment of victory. Miles watched helplessly as the woman raised the splintered two by four over her head to pierce his heart, but then she stopped and her eyes got extremely wide. Just as she was about to bring the makeshift stake down, she heard something behind her…a heartbeat. She turned around desperately, but it was too late. The metal IV stand crashed down hard on the crown of her head. She collapsed, unconscious on the floor like a rag doll, right before Miles.

Miles looked up. Tim was holding the same IV stand she had been beating him with. His left temple was bleeding and the left eye was a big, purple mass, completely swollen shut.

“Who
IS
this psycho?!!” Tim dropped the IV stand to the floor with a clang.

“Bloody heck,” Miles breathed a sigh of relief.

Tim reached down and helped Miles to his feet. Miles groaned in pain. He gingerly took off his shredded denim jacket and used it to mop the dirt and blood off his face. He handed it to Tim who did the same. Once finished, Tim tried to hand it back, but Miles just shook his head and Tim tossed it to the side. Miles looked down at the unconscious woman with short hair breathing shallowly. She looked utterly harmless now.

“Is she a vampire?” Tim finally asked.

“I dunno what the bloody heck she is, but she is sure as St. Columkille no vampire.”

“How in the heck did she know about Hokharty?!” Tim agonized while pressing his hand against the swollen eye.

“I dunno,” Miles said holding his ribs and straining to stand upright.

“Hey, dude, why didn’t you tell me you could turn into a monster…dog…
thing
? I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Um…neider did I. That’s the bloody first time it e’er ‘appened.”

Tim turned his head to look at him with the one good eye. “Dude…
weird
.”

“Um…yeah,” Miles said stupidly, but inside his mind he was struggling to come to terms with it as well.

Miles stared at the woman in amazement. She looked so helpless now it was hard to believe she was a monster about to kill him mere moments ago. He suddenly saw flashes of sunlit wheat fields and a woman with long, dark hair slowly dying under some kind of flowering tree. He squeezed his eyes shut and the vision was gone.

“C’mon.” Tim tapped Miles on the upper arm to get his attention. “We gotta go find that
girl
before Schuyler has a fit,” Tim said as he started back down the hall.

Miles limply followed and shook his head. “I think we got bigger problems than Sky’s fits.”

Lucy decided to get off the elevator at the second floor rather than risk being seen in the lobby. She scrambled down the hall trying to avoid attention along the way. Even then there were a few “Hey!’s” and “You shouldn’t be here!’s” along the way, but she just ignored them and kept moving. She found her way to a stairwell that eventually led outside and to the parking garage. She burst through the last door and felt the rush of night air. Finally! She was outside! She didn’t dare go back inside, not after what she had seen. But she didn’t know where she was compared to the park where she had promised to meet Yo-yo either. So she just started running around the building hoping she would find it eventually. That was her only motivation now – saving Yo-yo. She hadn’t realized that Amanda didn’t know about Yo-yo and she was terrified she would get to him before she would. At least Amanda didn’t know
where
Yo-yo was. If anything happened to Yo-yo, she would never forgive herself.