The President's Vampire (22 page)

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Authors: Farnsworth| Christopher

BOOK: The President's Vampire
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Dazed, it thrashed weakly at him, tried to bite.
Cade’s hand darted in between those needle-like teeth, grabbed and yanked.
He came out with the Snakehead’s forked tongue and some other things that used to be stuck in its throat. It began choking, scrabbling at its neck in pain.
Now that it was distracted, Cade easily hooked one of its claws and tore it free.
Then he used the claw like a knife to slice open the Snakehead’s belly.
It was not too deep—not enough to gut the creature—but it was enough to make the blood run. He punched the Snakehead back to the ground and swabbed it with the bloody tongue. He stomped on its knee, keeping it from gaining its feet.
Cade hooked his hand under the Snakehead’s jaw and began running down the steps, dragging it behind. It painted a trail of blood wherever he went.
THE
VIRTUE
WAS a big ship, nearly the length of four football fields. Cade had to settle for making two circuits of the upper decks. He could not go down any deeper; he’d be hopelessly outnumbered and caught.
The idea was to be the fisherman, not the worm.
They came after him halfway through his second trip. Drawn by the blood of one of their own, they began chasing him.
As he reached the main deck again, Cade finally looked back. Dozens—maybe even hundreds—of Snakeheads were following him now, eagerly, jaws snapping, in a frenzy. He heard their claws on the metal like rain. Saw them scrambling over one another. Some peeled off into minor fights and tangles, like little storms breaking out of a massive thundercloud.
The thrill of the hunt had overridden any other caution or instinct they had. All they wanted was the meat.
Cade ran faster and tried not to think about what it meant for the crew if the Snakeheads were still this hungry.
He reached the rear of the ship. Below him, the
Virtue
’s twenty-six-foot propeller churned the sea with enough force to shove the seventy-ton ship through the water.
He didn’t let go of the still-living Snakehead until after he’d leaped over the railing.
Unable or unwilling to stop, the mass of creatures surged over the side after him, a green-black wave pouring into the sea below.
His fingers wedged into a seam of the ship’s steel plating, Cade watched as they fell. Some even seemed to look at him where he clutched the side of the hull.
The prop caught them in its backwash, drawing them into the metal blades. The Snakeheads were made for the water, but even they couldn’t outswim the pull of the giant metal screw. It sucked them down, again and again, cutting them to pieces.
In minutes, there was nothing left but a stew of lizard skin and bone.
Cade watched to make sure nothing else surfaced. Then he began climbing back.
 
 
CADE LISTENED CAREFULLY ONCE he reached the top deck.
Not everyone who had been attacked had been killed. He heard the groans of pain, the screams of people asking for help.
The worst part, however, was what he didn’t hear: no one was rushing to assist. There were no barked commands from anyone in authority. The Snakeheads had had
hours
. No one was left to come to the rescue.
All that remained was the wounded.
Cade knew they were infected. Given time—almost no time at all, really—these people would become the same things that nearly murdered them. There was no way around it.
There would be no survivors.
He walked toward the closest sounds of pain, knowing that he’d end their suffering, at least.
It was no comfort.
TWENTY-ONE
Then there was the mysterious “Mr. Gray” or “Mr. Grace” who showed up in New Orleans at Guy Banister’s offices, which just happened to be the same address given by Lee Harvey Oswald on the flyers of his “Fair Play for Cuba Committee.” Banister—who also investigated UFO sightings when he was still employed by the FBI—wasn’t known to be a pushover, but witnesses said he did whatever Grace/Gray said, despite the fact that the mysterious stranger was much younger than he was; barely out of college, in fact.
 
—Cole Daniels,
Black Ops: The Occult-CIA Connection
CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA
B
ell and Zach showed up at the office at nearly the same time. They were a little shy of each other, but not so much that Book noticed.
He had other things on his mind.
“Candle’s missing,” he told them.
“He’s probably just late,” Bell said.
“No,” Book said flatly. “He’s not.”
Bell looked to Hewitt and Reynolds. They sat, almost sheepish.
Zach tried to pick up on the subtext. Something wasn’t being said out loud.
“How do you know he’s not late?”
Book ignored him. Bell didn’t reply. Zach got it in a second.
“You know he’s not late because you know what he was doing,” he said. “And it’s something you didn’t want me to know.”
Bell had the courtesy to look embarrassed, at least.
“He might have followed us to that place we went yesterday.”
For a moment, Zach thought she meant his apartment. Then he realized it was worse than that. It was the morgue.
He’d broken protocol, revealed a deeply classified secret lab to an unauthorized private contractor, and allowed some fat bastard who was probably working for the most evil organization he’d ever known to find out where it was.
All things considered, Zach was pretty restrained in his reaction.
“Oh, son of a
bitch
,” he said.
 
 
IT WAS THE FIRST TIME Zach had seen the morgue and thought it really looked like death. Slicks of blood on the floor and red spatters on the walls. Paper in heaps, tables and medical equipment smashed and scattered.
Book had wanted to come. So had Hewitt and Reynolds. Zach only brought Bell, because he figured that he’d already spilled that milk. And, frankly, he didn’t trust the others.
Now it was looking like a big mistake for anyone to be here.
Bell thought the same thing. “We need to get out of here,” she said.
Zach walked inside anyway. The fluorescents overhead buzzed and flickered where they weren’t broken.
“Zach, did you hear me?”
“Shhh,” Zach said. Something was in the room.
Zach looked around. He saw the cold-storage drawer, torn open, and put it together.
“It wasn’t dead.”
Bell followed his gaze. She got it. “Oh Christ,” she said. “We have to get out of here.”
She was right. Zach stepped forward to go.
Then he heard the noise again, and knew it was too late. A clicking, hissing sound. He’d never heard anything like it, but he knew where it came from.
The Snakehead reared up behind the overturned autopsy table, showing them its razor-sharp smile.
As it lunged for them, Zach could see bits of flesh lodged in its teeth.
 
 
ZACH WOULD HAVE BEEN lunch had he not been training with Cade.
Eleven months earlier on his first assignment, Zach had to admit he’d been basically useless in a fight. Cade had remedied that in his own style.
Zach had been in the Reliquary, doing paperwork at what was now his desk. Without warning, Cade picked him up and threw him down on the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” Zach had screamed. For a split second, every nightmare he’d ever had of Cade rushed through his head.
Cade simply stood there.
“You need to learn how to fight,” he said.
Zach dragged himself to his feet, wincing at the places where he’d hit the stone floor. “Isn’t that why I’ve got you?”
“I won’t always be around,” Cade said.
“This is not a good time for me.”
“You might be killed before we get another chance.”
Zach considered this. “I’ll clear my schedule.”
So Zach had learned, the hard way. Cade would attack, and Zach would defend himself as best he could. He never lasted more than a few seconds. Cade would stop short of the fatal blow.
“That would have been your head,” Cade said, his hand like a knife at Zach’s neck.
“Son of a bitch,” Zach said, panting and sweating. “Haven’t you heard of sparring?”
“There’s no point. You are either fighting or you’re not. No middle ground.”
“Yeah, but what if I accidentally hurt you?”
Cade’s lip curled.
“Right,” Zach said. “Stupid question.”
“You can’t hurt me,” Cade said. “But by all means, you should try. Use whatever you can find. Use your teeth, your hands, your feet, your clothes, anything on the ground. Everything is a weapon. Don’t play by any schoolyard rules. Don’t be afraid to be desperate. Desperate is better than dead.”
So Zach learned. He doubted there was any cool name for the martial art he invented. He knew he must look ridiculous, flailing away, still wearing his coat and tie, eyes and mouth wide open. Maybe someone would call it “The Way of the File Clerk” in a hundred years or so.
But when he began seriously trying to hurt Cade—to kill him—he began to last a little longer.
Not much longer, true. Thirty seconds, instead of three. But Cade said he’d made progress. “You might survive,” he’d said.
High praise.
 
 
ZACH THOUGHT of that now as he dropped out of the Snakehead’s path.
It hit the floor and rolled, then turned toward Bell.
Bell made her first mistake then. She froze up. Disbelief all over her face.
Zach couldn’t blame her. It was unbelievable.
Unfortunately, unbelievable was a daily part of Zach’s job.
Zach dove over a desk to intercept. His hands automatically grabbed for a weapon. He snagged the scissors out of a pile of office junk spilled from a coffee mug.
With a quick, hard snap, he broke the screw holding the scissors together, giving him two makeshift knives. He put a blade in each hand and stabbed wildly at the Snakehead.
One blade bounced off the folded scales under the creature’s neck and fell to the floor. The other Zach brought around and jammed hard into its eye.
The Snakehead let out a high squeal and lashed out, backhanding Zach away.
The blade in its eye stayed stuck where it was.
Without eyelids, it couldn’t clear its vision of the fluid and gore dripping from its eye socket. It flailed wildly, still grinning its crocodile grin, shrieking in pain.
Zach came up immediately. Never stop, he heard Cade telling him. Never surrender for a second.
He reached out and snagged the handle of a short, two-drawer file cabinet. He nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket as he heaved it around, swinging it like a club, into the Snakehead.
It staggered, but Zach had given it a target. It turned toward him, knocking the file cabinet easily to the floor. Paper spilled everywhere.
“Hey,” Bell screamed. The Snakehead turned as she threw something.
Glass broke. Liquid splashed all over the Snakehead, dripping to the floor. Zach felt its odor sting his nostrils. He needed to get away. Fast.
Zach kicked, pivoting on the ball of his back foot, putting all his weight behind it.
The sole of his shoe connected solidly with the Snakehead’s chest, shoving it back. Zach used the space to dive clear.
Bell, on the other hand, did the unthinkable. She got closer. She darted a hand out, holding a lighter to the spilled puddle beneath the Snakehead. She barely needed to touch it. Her hand was caught in the sudden bloom of heat and light.

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