The Cactus Killer (The Inglewood Chronicles) (21 page)

“
He’s been able to do so
much to us. Sometimes it is easy to forget that fact. It is rather
ironic that we are supposed to be the monsters, yet the name Warren
Tucker in our community might as well be the Boogie
Man.”

“
That is what he uses,
fear. Fear has motivated him to take up this cause because he does
not understand and fear is his main weapon. Do not let him become
more than what he is, because if you do, he has already
won.”

One of these days I would
be the one who was right and full of wonderful insight and she
would be the eye candy. Unfortunately, that day was not today. “You
can stop being right all the time. It’s not cute, no matter what
anyone else says.”

She flashed a fangy smile
at me, “Everything I do is cute. The real question at hand is why I
think most of your foolishness is cute? And the answer is I enjoy
being right and you give me ample opportunity to do
that.”

I couldn’t retort due to
the road becoming increasingly bad. Dirt was soon replaced with
loose rock and the higher we got, the narrower the ‘road’ became. I
was starting to think his plan was for us to fall to our doom. What
an anticlimactic end that would be. Just when I figured I would
have to park it for a few minutes to reclaim my nerve, the road
opened up and once again became dirt.

“
I think we are here.” Liz
pointed off in the distance and sure enough as the road leveled
off, a ranch surrounded by a tall, barbed wired fence loomed off in
the background.

“
He sure does like to go
for stereotypical doesn’t he?”

We continued driving and as
we made our approach, I saw the front gate was wide open. Upon
closer inspection, there were three buildings that made up the
complex. There was a main house, a giant barn, and what looked like
an old butcher/processing plant. The place also looked
abandoned.

“
Is this the
place?”

“
I think so, Liz. I didn’t
see a mail box outside that said Tucker on it, but I don’t see any
other places in the area.”

I pulled the car up to the
main house and parked it. We got out and both of us started to look
around. A quick sniff of the air told me there was a lot of blood
in the area. It was coming from the direction of the old processing
plant.

“
I think that might be
where he is doing all of his experiments.” I pointed at the old
building and Liz took a look.

“
Should we go over there
and take a look?”

I wasn’t sure what to do.
It was dusk and we were at the only place he could be. I figured he
was making us sweat for dramatic purposes. “I don’t know. This
whole situation is so eerie. I think maybe it is time we made him
come to us.”

I leaned up on the hood of
my car. I half expected a phone call, but remembered that I had no
cell service out here. He might have a way of getting reception
(probably satellite calls), but I didn’t think he had any voodoo to
get me a signal. Liz started to snoop around the main house area in
the meantime. I didn’t know what she expected to find, but nothing
except blood hit my nose. Worse, there was no noises either, not
even the sound of electricity.

Just as I was about to call
this a waste of time, I heard a generator kick on off in the
distance. Soon, a light came from in the main house too.

“
I think someone is finally
ready to see us.” Liz walked back over to where I was.

A quick check told me she
had one of the tantos under her jacket. I had the other one
strapped to my back as well, plus Roscoe fully loaded, and three
more silver knives ready. I took a deep breath, letting the cool
air in.

I heard some more noises in
the house and finally caught my first smell. Like it had come from
nowhere, the musky scent had returned. It wasn’t strong, but there
was just enough to know it was there. Based on this, I guessed
there were two people in the house.

“
Get ready Liz, I think we
are about to be greeted by our hosts.”

I tensed up as I heard
footsteps coming to the door. A turn of the knob and bright light
flooded out of the house. Two men walked up and onto the porch. The
first was a rather tall man, dressed like some sort of samurai,
complete with some weird mask. But the second man didn’t even need
to introduce himself. Salt and pepper hair, a thick mustache, and
cold gray eyes met mine. Not quite as tall as me and a little on
the stocky side, Warren Tucker was here.

“
Welcome to my little
hide-a-way in the mountains, Victor and Elizabeth. Come with me, we
have quite a bit to discuss now that you are here.” 

Before he could even take a
step, I pulled out Roscoe and pointed it directly at him. “I don’t
think we are going to go anywhere, Tucker. We are here, but we
aren’t going to go waltzing into a trap either.”

His eyes never left mine,
“If I wanted you two daemons dead, my associate would have already
delivered the final blow. But if it makes you feel better, we can
hold our parlay right here for the time being.”

“
How about you cut to the
chase, Tucker? You have a lot of backbone calling us up here after
everything you have done to the werewolf and vampire
communities.”

“
Communities?” He spit on
the ground in disgust. “What you all are is the work of Satan,
daemons sent from the depths of hell to corrupt man into doing your
evil bidding. There is no place for you here and I will continue to
do the good work needed to make sure of that.”

As he was talking, I took a
glance over at his body guard. I could see two swords sticking up
from behind him. The mask, which was white with black swirled in,
had two eye holes and a few small holes around the area a nose
should be. The eyes staring out from behind were black as night. I
could say for pretty good certainty that this was not a
human.

“
You talk of us as some
sort of plague, but if I had to make an educated guess, I think you
have one of your self-proclaimed daemons working for
you.”

He looked back at the
samurai and then back to me. He grinned as if this joke was just
too good to let go. “How would I expect either of you to recognize
warriors from the Light?”

“
Or is it you Tucker that
can’t recognize the good from the bad anymore? This Hammer of
Jehovah has twisted you so badly that you sent your own son to his
death!”

“
Do not talk to me about
being twisted, creature! My son sacrificed his life to a higher
calling!” The veins above his eyes were now protruding, “The Hammer
of Jehovah has led us to this point! Victory will soon be here for
the righteous!”

I was getting heated, but
Liz put a hand on my shoulder and walked forward. “Warren, if I may
be so bold, why have you brought us here to meet under the flag of
truce?”

He composed himself again
and continued, “The purpose of this meeting is to show you what you
are up against. Maybe seeing how futile your position is will give
you the push to make the right decision.”

I didn’t know what he was
playing at, but this was what we were after. “Showing your hand
isn’t a smart move in poker Tucker, so don’t mind me for doubting
you here.”

“
When you hold all the aces
Victor, why not show them? Now, may I show you what awaits you if
you do not surrender?”

Liz nodded at me and I
holstered my gun. Tucker and the samurai guy took that as a sign
they were now free to come down without the chance of hostilities.
Liz and I stood close together as they passed and we fell in line a
few steps behind them. They were walking towards the old processing
plant.

Taking a conversational
tone with us, “Holy Methodist and the abandoned hospital provided
us with a good start, but out here, we were able to expand our
operation. Our failures there have paved the way to our ultimate
success.”

“
Yeah, your Holy Water
you’re injecting people with. We found out all about
that.”

“
Victor, do not judge me
for what I have accomplished. It is a time honored method to use
your enemies’ strengths against them. In this case, the right
amount of werewolf and vampire blood, mixed with mercury and silver
nitrate provides us with the boost we need.”

We made it to the entrance
before I could get riled up once again. Tucker punched in a code to
the door and it swung open. The smell of blood was borderline
overwhelming. He made a gesture for us to go first, but we both
just stood there. Shrugging his shoulders, him and his goon went in
and we followed. It was a long hallway that had a door on the other
end.

“
Now, just on the other
side of this door is my greatest achievement. Beyond lies a small
army of soldiers ready to extinguish the evil from this
world.”

He reached for the door and
opened it. As we walked through the scene that was here in front of
us was terrifying. Where the old warehouse had been was now some
sort of housing facility for the monsters Tucker had created. Each
was in some sort of cylinder that resembled one of those space age
cryogenic tubs that freezes people.

“
What have you done,
Warren?” The sound in Liz’s voice was filled with both fear and
pity.

“
Elizabeth, you of all
people should understand the price of war. My followers have been
transformed into weapons to be used against the daemons. These are
the ones who survived the process. One hundred and fifteen perfect
soldiers who will do exactly as I tell them to.”

“
This is madness! All of
these men will end up dying one way or another!”

It was Tucker’s turn to
look at us with pity. “You still do not understand. They would
rather lay down their life to my service than live in a world
corrupted by you and your spawn. Do not pretend to mourn them or
understand.”

Looking around the room,
trying to look passed the twisted experiments and their blank
stares; I took in the rest of the layout. At the back of the room,
in the western most corner was a structure that looked to have been
added on. I could hear the feint hum of power emanating from that
direction. I’d bet anything that was the power source to all of
this.

“
I think you have made your
point, Tucker. You have an army and we don’t have
anything.”

“
Are you going to surrender
right now? You two can be the first, martyrs for the rest of your
kind to follow.”

My blank stare probably
answered his question, but to make sure I gave him another piece of
my mind. “I don’t think that will be happening today. You might
think you are holding four aces, but a good card player has a few
tricks up his own sleeve.”

“
I hope you realize you
signed your death warrants. I am a man of my word and you are free
to go today.”

He moved out of the way and
let us pass. We continued walking out the front door and headed
over to my car. Liz and I got it and sat there for a few
seconds.

“
You are planning
something, are you not, Victor?”

“
I think I can bring this
whole place down.” Her eyes lit up. “But only if you are on
board.”

“
What do we need to
do?”

I was backing the car out
and Tucker and his goon were standing at the entrance watching us.
“The southwest corner houses some power source for this place. I’m
going to drive the Mustang right into it and hopefully blow his
minions sky high.”

The look of shock on her
face was priceless. “What do you need me to do?”

“
I’m about to take off in
that direction. Radio Cristof and the guys and get them up here.
Then hop out and hope to hell we can take these two on with no
problems.”

She nodded and I slammed
the accelerator. Looking out the window I saw Tucker’s face change
from smug to terrified. I heard Liz send out the SOS and continued
to plow forward. Showing your hand is never a good play, I don’t
care how well off you think you are. We were closing in on the
building and I gave Liz the signal to jump out. She did, but I kept
my foot on the gas. I heard her yelling mixed in with Tucker’s
enraged cries.

I glanced at the
speed-o-meter and saw I was pushing sixty-five. My car was seconds
away from impact and I finally dove out. I rolled into the dirt and
covered my head as impact was made. I must have hit something good,
because within seconds multiple explosions were going off. Liz was
running towards me and Tucker had dropped to his knees
screaming.

“
Vic, are you okay? Answer
me!”

“
Yeah, yeah I am fine. It
looks like we did it.”

I got up and dusted myself
off. The processing plant was in flames. Tucker was still in the
middle of the yard cursing and screaming, but his goon was nowhere
to be found.

“
You wretched creatures!
Your lives are now forfeit! Judgment shall strike you
hard!”

“
It looks like it is just
the three of us, big guy.” I pulled out Roscoe and pointed it at
him, “Give me one reason why you should see another
sunrise.”

He looked up at me and
laughed. “Fool, it is you who should be begging me.”