Stalking the Vampire (12 page)

“I don't suppose you'd like to give me a hint?” said Mallory.

There was an earsplitting bellow.

“Never mind,” said the detective.

“What the hell was that?” asked McGuire nervously.

“Something
big
,” said Nathan, hefting his spear. “Whatever it is, I'm prepared for it.”

Mallory looked up the street. “I don't think so,” he said.

The vampire and the dragon both turned in the direction the detective was facing.

“My God!” exclaimed Nathan as a huge carnivorous dinosaur lumbered into sight. “He's even bigger than
T. rex!
”

“Uh…aren't they supposed to be extinct?” asked McGuire, stepping behind Mallory and peeking out around his hip.

“Goddammit, Grundy!” said Mallory. “Call him off!”

“You're just speaking in a normal voice,” complained McGuire. “Shouldn't you be yelling to attract the Grundy's attention?”

“He can hear me,” answered Mallory. “If I yell, I'll give you three guesses whose attention I'll attract.”

“Whisper!” said the little vampire urgently.

“Put your spear down, Nathan,” said Mallory.

“Scaly Jim, damn it!”

“Sorry. Put it down, Jim. You can't kill him.”

“This is a pretty hefty spear, and I was second in the javelin throw in high school,” replied the dragon.

“Believe me, it won't do any good,” said Mallory. “He's already dead.”

“He looks pretty alive to me.”

“He's from the Natural History Museum,” said Mallory. “He's dead, all right. He just doesn't know it.” He stared at the approaching dinosaur. “It
happens every night. They've been so expertly preserved that they don't know they're dead, so once the place is closed and the lights go down, they start flexing their muscles and moving around.”

“And this is the Grundy's doing?”

“No,” said Mallory. He finally raised his voice. “But he can freeze time and make it stop.”

“If he freezes time, won't it stop for all of us?” asked Nathan.

“He can do it selectively.”

“Why should he?” whimpered McGuire. “From what I hear, you're his greatest enemy.”

“I'm going to be his deadest enemy in a minute,” said Mallory. “Come on, Grundy. I thought we had an understanding.”

The dinosaur saw the trio and altered his stride to approach them.

“
T. rex
hell!” said Nathan in awestruck tones. “He's
U. rex
, or maybe even
V. rex!
”

“And he hasn't eaten in sixty-five million years,” added McGuire. “He's got a lean and famished look to him.”

“Let's prepare to sell our lives as dearly as possible,” said Nathan, clutching his spear.

“Put it down,” said Mallory. “You'll just make him angry.”

“Angry, hungry, what's the difference?” said McGuire. “Somebody
do
something!”

The dinosaur opened its mouth and bellowed again.

“I can smell his breath all the way from there,” said Felina from her perch atop the lamppost. “He doesn't brush after every meal,” she added helpfully.

“He's going to reach us in another twenty seconds!” stammered McGuire. “
Do
something, Mallory!”

“Why don't you just turn into a bat and fly off?” said Mallory. “You too, Scaly Joe. You've got wings.”

“They're just for show, and to attract cheap bimbos,” answered Nathan. “I can't actually fly.”

“I can—but I can't change when I'm this scared!” whined McGuire.

“Well, at least let's spread out so he has to choose between us,” suggested Mallory, “and maybe the other two can scramble to safety.”

They did as he said, and the dinosaur watched them curiously for a moment, then continued approaching. It quickly became clear that he had singled out Mallory as his prey. He was perhaps two strides away when he opened his mouth and Mallory found himself looking down the black abyss of the monster's throat.

“I just hate magic!” the detective muttered as he prepared to be swallowed whole.

“Do you indeed?” said a familiar voice, and suddenly the dinosaur froze, its saliva-flecked jaws less than four feet from Mallory's head.

“Don't tell me,” said Mallory to the disembodied voice. “You were in the bathroom.”

“I admire your sense of humor, John Justin Mallory,” replied the Grundy.

“I don't admire yours,” said Mallory. “Why did you send this thing after me?”

“I didn't,” answered the Grundy.

“Come on,” said Mallory irritably. “We're three miles from the damned museum. Are you saying he got loose and then sought me out from among all eight or nine million residents?”

“Such ingratitude,” said the Grundy. “Didn't I just save your life?”

“After endangering it,” said Mallory. “I'd call it a wash.”

“I assure you I did not bring the dinosaur to life or set him free.”

“No, you just directed him to this spot so you could have a little fun. I'm surprised McGuire didn't wet himself.”

“Yes I did,” said the vampire softly.

“You can spend the next four minutes and nineteen seconds arguing with me,” said the Grundy, “or you can spend it putting some distance between you and the dinosaur, but that is all the time you have before he returns to life.”

“All right, we're gone. Did you contact Winnifred Carruthers?”

“Yes,” said the Grundy. “She has taken possession of her nephew's body. And thank you, Mallory.”

“For what?”

“For telling me to wait five minutes before contacting her. I haven't seen such carnage in centuries.”

“You're damned lucky you didn't send the dinosaur after
her
,” said Mallory. “My partner is one tough lady.”

“Three minutes and twenty-six seconds,” intoned the Grundy.

“We'll talk later,” said Mallory. He turned to his companions. “Come on.” He looked up at Felina. “You too.”

She leaped lightly to the ground. “It's broken,” she said.

“What is?” asked Mallory, hoping against hope that she hadn't damaged an ankle and that he wouldn't have to carry her.

“The dinosaur,” she said. “Its battery ran down.”

“Its battery is recharging right now,” said Mallory, heading off to the north. “Let's go.”

They ran to the corner, turned so they'd be out of sight, and slowed to a rapid walk. The dinosaur roared once, and then, a moment later, roared again; the second was much softer and more distant.

“You know,” said Nathan, “if there's one thing I hate running into on the street at midnight, it's a
W. rex.
”

“Put him in your book,” said Mallory.

“I never thought of that!” said the dragon. Suddenly he frowned. “But will anyone believe a dinosaur in a detective novel?”

“If they believe that Wings O'Bannon can get shot every fifteen pages and still bed three dozen women by the end of the book, they'll buy a dinosaur in Manhattan.”

“Do you really think so?” asked Nathan, his face brightening.

“Absolutely,” replied Mallory.

“I could set it on an alternate world, I suppose,” continued the dragon.

“I come from an alternate Manhattan,” said Mallory. “Trust me, tyrannosaurs are even rarer in that one.”

“What was your Manhattan like?” persisted Nathan.

“Not all that different from this, when you get right down to it,” answered the detective. “People still broke the laws, cops still arrested them, cheap shysters still got them back on the street before the cops could file their reports, judges still suspended sentences if you slipped then a quick twenty. We didn't have any animated dinosaurs, though.”

“How was the troll problem?”

“No worse than here,” said Mallory.

“How many species of dragon live in your former Manhattan?”

“I never counted,” replied Mallory.

“Got anything as evil as the Grundy?”

“Some would say yes, and some would say absolutely,” answered Mallory. “Mostly they run for office.” He turned north again. “What the hell am
I
leading the way for? McGuire, you're the one who knows where the Belfry is.”

The little vampire increased his pace, and within ten minutes they had reached Central Park. Suddenly McGuire paused, looking around with a confused expression.

“What's the problem?” asked Mallory.

“I did something wrong,” said McGuire. “This is the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street.”

“I know.”

“Well, it's not supposed to be. We'll have to backtrack.”

He walked south for a block, turned west for a block, then north, and then east. Somehow Mallory wasn't surprised when the street signs told him that they were now at the corner of Eerie and Eldritch.

They heard a flutter of wings overhead and looked up to see a harpy flying just above them.

Felina leaped up and tried to snare it with her claws, but it was too high.

“Nevermore!” cackled the harpy, banking and heading off to the Upper West Seventies, where ecologists and preservationists set food and even blankets out on all the balconies and lived in as close to a state of Nature with the harpies, banshees, and other winged denizens of the night as possible in the big city. (And on those occasions that the winged denizens relieved themselves on balconies or in rooftop pools, the residents would call in all the Second Amendment absolutists who lived in the West Nineties, and a mildly different state of Nature would be quickly and noisily restored.)

“You see any sign of Winnifred and her trolls?” Mallory asked his companions.

“I don't even know what she looks like,” answered the dragon.

“No,” answered McGuire. “But bats don't see very well. Just a second.” He put two fingers in his mouth and emitted a shrill whistle, which seemed to bounce and echo all across their surroundings. “Nope. Either she's already in the Belfry, or else she hasn't arrived yet.”

“All right,” said Mallory. “Let's go into the Belfry and find out.”

“You haven't asked
me
if I've seen any sign of Winnifred,” sniffed Felina.

“Would you tell me?”

“Yes, John Justin,” she said. Then: “Probably.” Then: “No.” Then: “Perhaps.” And finally: “Maybe.”

“It's comforting to know that you're as helpful as ever,” said the detective.

“I knew that would make you happy, John Justin,” said Felina.

A banshee circled high above them, screeching something they couldn't quite make out. Two harpies screamed back, an owl hooted, and before long they were surrounded by a cacophony of sound.

“Bats, lead the way,” said Mallory. “I'm surprised they didn't bring their own drummer.”

The little vampire led them halfway down Eldritch, crossed the street, and walked back to the corner of Eerie.

“Here we are,” he announced.

“I'd have sworn this building wasn't here before,” said Mallory.

“It's shy,” explained McGuire. “You just have to know how to approach it.”

Mallory studied the structure, which resembled a small Gothic castle. “There's nobody here, Bats. All the light are out.”

“Not all of them,” answered McGuire. “The club's in the basement.”

“You'd think there'd at least be a sign out front.”

“Why? Anyone who wants to find it knows where it is.”

McGuire pushed against the door, which creaked as if it hadn't been opened or oiled in years.

“This way,” he said, descending a dimly lit staircase that spiraled off to the right. Mallory, Nathan, and Felina followed him.

For five minutes no one spoke, and finally McGuire announced that they were almost halfway there.

“Halfway?” repeated Mallory. “Bats, we must be five hundred feet down.”

“The club was built to withstand earthquakes, hexes, floods, curses, nuclear devices of less than eight megatons, and termites,” replied McGuire. “It takes some getting to, but once we're there, you'll be secure in the knowledge that you're totally safe.”

“Unless I want to get out in a hurry.”

“No problem,” answered the vampire. “All the chairs have ejector seats.”

“How does that help if the room has a ceiling?” said Mallory.

“I never thought of that,” admitted McGuire.

“Somehow I'm not surprised.”

“You will be, though,” said Felina.

“Why?” asked Mallory.

She learned forward and sniffed the cool, damp, underground air. “There are dead things up ahead.”

“You mean like vampires?”

She shook her head. “No, vampires are undead. What I smell is
dead
”

“Permanently?” asked Mallory.

“Yes.”

“That's a relief,” said the detective. “You're sure, now—all the dead things you can smell are permanently dead?”

“Yes, John Justin,” said Felina. “Absolutely. Certainly. Positively.”