The Vampire Files - The Dark Sleep Part 32

No way to tell the time.

Pain distorts it, slows it down, turns a minute into an hour.

I couldn't tell how many seeming hours oozed by before I heard a faint groan from the dining room. Other less identifiable noises followed, then a couple of unsteady footsteps.

I knew when Coldfield reached the hall by his sharp intake of breath.

"Sweet Jesus, kid, what did you do?" he choked out.

You've got no business blaming me. This is Escott's fault.

He came closer, cursing softly, and I felt him lift the paper free of my shirt. "What the h.e.l.l? Is he crazy?"

Yes, very. Now just do what he said to do.

"Aw, s.h.i.t. G.o.d in heaven, this ain't fair."

d.a.m.n right. I didn't deserve this.

"Not... fair."

Hurry, G.o.ddammit!

The fire around the bolt, which in a strange way I'd nearly gotten used to, flared white-hot-hotter-all over again.

I couldn't cry out, not until he pulled the thing free, and he wasn't doing a very good job of it. I thought his hands were shaking. He kept muttering unhappily to himself.

Then he snarled, and I felt something unholy tearing my chest apart, and suddenly the d.a.m.ned thing was out. The aftershock flattened me like a lead brick. I could move but didn't want to; the one thing I could do-couldn't help but do-was vanish.

Surprised, Coldfield cursed loud and at length. He hated, really hated being surprised. This one couldn't be helped.

The damage was too much for me to hold out against; my body did what was best for it and took itself away to an instant release from the pain.

I floated in the comforting bliss of nonfeeling for a while, trying to ignore Coldfield's increasingly noisy demands that I come back. He sounded angry at first, then apprehensive, not knowing what exactly had become of me. Far too soon for my recovery of spirit, I made myself fade back to solidity again, but took my time.

Coldfield watched, wide of eye, as I gradually reappeared, sitting weary to the bone on the stairs. It felt like a few dozen elephants had been jumping on me, and I hunched forward, hugging myself.

"You doing that slow for dramatic effect?" he asked after a minute.

I laughed once, and was amazed that it didn't hurt. "Just being careful. I wanted to make sure everything was working."

"You all right?"

"I think so." I ventured to straighten and checked myself over. There was a lot of blood on my clothes, but it could have been much, much worse. The one time I'd been truly staked by someone determined to kill, I'd lost too much blood to simply vanish and heal. Tonight had been different, though, because Escott had missed hitting my heart. On purpose. He'd wanted to stop me, but not permanently.

I unb.u.t.toned my shirt. Coldfield stared at the spot where he'd pulled the bolt out. My skin was stained, but the hole was all sealed up like new. He next stared at the bolt itself where he'd dropped it on the floor. Spatters of blood radiated out from it.

"What happened to you?" I asked. We both needed our minds to be elsewhere.

"Charles clocked me when he got that crossbow down from the wall." He shrugged himself away from wherever he'd gone and gingerly touched the back of his head behind one ear. "Not too bad. I've had tougher knocks sparring with the boys. But you-how did-"

"He's on a real bender." I peeled my ruined and b.l.o.o.d.y shirt off and told him what happened. I expected him to not want to believe Escott's shooting of me, but he accepted it quite readily. After all, Escott had cracked his skull without a second's thought. "He's off and running on the edge again, only this time he'd going to go right over."

Coldfield watched as I strode purposefully upstairs, stumbling only once. "You got a plan?"

"No, just a clue and not much of one," I called back while snagging a fresh shirt from my room. A black one. I pulled it on as I hurried down again. His coat and hat were hanging from the hall tree. I tossed them at him and continued b.u.t.toning. "It's something LaCelle said. I think I know where they're taking Charles."

"You think! And if you're wrong?"

"We both know the answer to that."

Coldfield was still pretty shaken, so I did the driving while he slumped in the pa.s.senger seat and tried not to look sick.

"How hard did he hit you?" I asked.

"Enough so he's going to regret it when I get in swinging distance of him again."

"Seriously, you got any double vision, ringing ears, stuff like that?"

"It just hurts. Doc Clarson can check me over later. You just step on it."

I stepped on it, going along the route Shep had driven me earlier. It seemed to take longer this time, or more likely impatience and fear were distorting my perception. I cut through lights and doubled my speed when I could, knowing I could take care of any traffic cop who stopped me. None did, though, and we were soon sailing next to the wire fence of the truck yard.

"This is Dalhauser's place. Why here?"

"Something he said to me that LaCelle pretty much repeated. It's isolated and Dalhauser's off in Cicero making an alibi for himself. Seemed like a good place for them to bring Charles so no one would interrupt." "It doesn't take long to kill a man."

"I know." I hit the gas for one last spurt and rounded the corner to the road that ran past the little gatehouse. I pulled into the entry. The gate was shut. The watchman was there, and he was alert. He came out, on guard for trouble, but unprepared for a smile and a fixed gaze from me. Seconds later and he was opening the gate for us. He'd readily told me that two cars had gone in not long ago, but he hadn't checked inside them. Sometimes it's best not to notice certain faces. I told him his shift was over and that he should go home. He thanked me and left, whistling as he drove off in a battered Ford. He wouldn't remember anything of the last few minutes for a long time to come.

"Cripes, I need you to be working for me," said Coldfield. "I'd have a lot bigger territory and run it more smoothly if I could talk people into things the way you do."

"You don't want the headache." I shifted gears, fed it some gas to get speed, then let the big car coast quietly forward.

"Seems to me it'd be worth it."

The door to the cavernous garage was shut, and I recalled Shep leaving it open. Above and to the left of it were the wide windows Dalhauser had used to survey the yard, and I discerned the form of a man standing in almost the same place.

"We've been made," I said. "There's someone up top who must have seen the gate guard pa.s.s us in. Maybe we can make them think we've got business here, too. Keep them busy while I go in."

"I'll ask for Dalhauser."

"Great, but if they give you trouble, take off."

"Okay."

He gave in to that a little too readily, but I didn't have time to argue. I braked in front of the door, rolled down the car window, hit the horn a few times, then vanished. Unused to it, Coldfield said "s.h.i.t" in reaction. I flowed out and over, and went right up the side of the building.

It was made of sheet metal, which is d.a.m.ned dense for getting through. I wasn't even sure I could get through it. In the past there'd always been a convenient crack or an open seam. Now I just kept going until I felt a subtle change in the surface that marked where the windows began. I didn't like going through gla.s.s, but could if I had to.

Just when it seemed like it was about to break, it didn't, and I was inside. I cast around, trying to locate the man I'd seen, but he wasn't on the upper landing anymore. That, or I'd miscalculated and drifted the wrong way. Very slowly I took on form, balancing it just right so I had enough of me solid to the point where I could see, but hopefully not be seen. It made me semitransparent, and the result was alarmingly like a Hollywood movie ghost.

I got alarmed myself when I realized I'd risen too high, and was some ten feet above the landing.

I really hate heights.

Easing down to the floor diffused my near panic, then I unexpectedly went solid. There was a fluttering behind my eyes, and a fog of weakness wrapped around me. It was the blood loss, and there'd been no time to stop at the Stockyards and replenish. It was bad, not fatal, but I didn't like the uncertainty. What if I had to go invisible and suddenly reappeared at an inconvenient moment? What if I couldn't reappear at all?

The man at the window was neither Shep nor the prizefighter. I'd hoped that LaCelle would hold down the numbers of his goons, but apparently he trusted them to keep their mouths shut. This mug's mouth was definitely shut when I got through with him. His eyes, too. I dragged him over to a patch of shadow by the outer wall and rolled him face in so he wouldn't be noticed right away, and relieved him of his gun.

The service lights were out, so there was a whole lot of darkness above and below, and though I could see fairly well, I didn't like it. It might mean that they'd already killed Escott and no longer needed illumination to work by.

I held still and listened. Outside, Coldfield was arguing with two men, trying to convince them that he had a meeting with Dalhauser. They didn't sound like they were buying his story, but he stubbornly held to it.

Moving farther inside, I tried to pick up any other voices. Nothing. Not up here, anyway. I tiptoed along the walkway to the other side of the building and used the second set of stairs there, reasoning that everyone's attention would be focused toward the front.

I had better luck on the ground level and saw two men standing by the entrance, watching the others with Coldfield. They looked like Shep and his boxer friend.

Parked near them were two cars, which gave me an idea of the odds. There could be from eight to ten men here, including LaCelle, Grant, and Escott. Four were occupied, one was unconscious, leaving maybe one or two others lurking about.

A line of what looked like offices ran along the right-hand wall beneath the walkway. Lights showed under the closed doors of one. A man paced up and down before it, out of boredom rather than any sense of making rounds, I thought.

If I took him out, it would be noticed by the two up front, but I was reluctant to spend the energy going invisible and staying that way, which I'd have to do once in the room. I thought of a compromise, though. Vanishing, I hurried forward and slipped under the door next to my target. When I came back to solidity the weakness. .h.i.t me again, but much worse and I nearly made noise stumbling against a table. I was using myself up. d.a.m.n Escott for complicating things.

The dim room I stood in was an office with the usual stuff in it. I pressed an ear to the wall it shared with the lighted room.

The first voice I picked out was Ike LaCelle's. "Yeah, it's nothing. Some guy came here by mistake. They'll get rid of him."

"You sure about that?" Archy Grant.

"It's fine. Now you gonna finish this or stay here all night?"

"Oh, I'm finishing it, but he's gotta tell me a few things first. Isn't that right, Charlie-boy?"

"Then you're gonna be here all night," said LaCelle. "I know that kind of look, and you ain't getting squat from him without a fight."

"I don't have to fight, not while I've got bolt cutters handy. You see these, Charlie-boy? They're great for snipping off fingers, noses, and even itsy-bitsy toeses. Maybe I should start with that honker of yours. What do you think?"

"I'd rather you didn't," said Escott, sounding tired and more sober than before.

"Of course, and I'd rather I didn't, either. It'd make such a mess, and I just paid for this suit, you know."

"How much did that face cost you?"

"What?"

"The plastic surgery. When you lean close I can just see the scars. It is an excellent job, they're barely noticeable."

Grant chuckled. "Yeah, the doc did do a good job. Made me even more handsome."

"But you could not change or hide your walk, the set of your shoulders, the shape of your head. Your voice."

"It still threw you for a while, though. G.o.d, what a laugh you gave me sitting with the rest at that party, staring and staring and not being able to figure it out."

"Obviously it was not a very long laugh. I'll wager I also made you sweat, else you'd not have tried to kill me in such a hasty and ill-planned manner last night."

"It woulda worked. I thought it had worked, but, jeez, how many guys are crazy enough to wear a bulletproof vest to a G.o.dd.a.m.ned party? You take the cake, Charlie. But never mind that, right now I want to go down memory lane with you. What's the old gang doing these days? I want to know what happened to them."

"I'm sure you do. You're becoming quite famous, aren't you? The last thing you need is to have another someone like me turning up and identifying you as Raymond Yorke."

"That's it in a nutsh.e.l.l. I want to know where the rest of them are, the bunch that was in the truck. You know, don't you? You'd make it your business to keep track of them. How about we start with Katherine Hamilton? Where's she keeping herself?"

"She went back to London and succ.u.mbed to influenza a year after you murdered her sister."

Grant was silent a moment. Thinking, maybe. "You know, I didn't really mean to kill Bianca, so it's not really murder. She just hit her head too hard. It was an accident."

"And the others? Were the other eleven also accidents?" "It's funny, but I don't remember much of any of it. That was a lifetime ago. I'm a completely different man now."

"You remember all right. Not as I do, but you remember it all the same. Every second of it."

"I was just a kid." Grant's tone was light, dismissive.

"And you simply made a mistake?"

"The only mistake I made was making too much noise. If I'd been quieter I wouldn't have woke up Queen Bianca.

She's the one who started it all with her fussing. The one thing I did right was not getting caught. What's so funny?"

Escott made that dry whispery sound. "Your boundless honesty."

"I'm telling you, Archy, he's off his rocker," said Ike, who seemed to be on the far side of the room. "You weren't there to see, but he shot down his partner just like that." The sound of a finger snap. "Didn't even blink. Dead as a doornail. I've asked him why, and he says it was to keep his friend from trying to save him. He's crazy."

Archy made no reply. I could imagine him giving Escott a good long look.

Escott said, "And what is your interest in this butcher, Mr. LaCelle? You two met some ten years past, did you not?"

"More like twelve. I helped him get the new face."

"And he began doing comedy work in the vaudeville houses? Became successful at it? He turned out to be a good investment for your time and efforts on his behalf, and you benefited him with connections to people who could advance his career. Quite a fortunate symbiosis for you both. How many others have had to die along the way?"

"Hey, I don't have to talk to a crazy man if I don't want to, and I don't want to. Archy, if you're going to do something, do it."

"Yeah, yeah. Okay, Charlie, what about Klopner? You remember him? Where's he?"

"He died three years ago of a bad liver."

"And Eric Lynd?"