The swamp, the Slayer decided, had never seemed so beautiful and serene to her as it did on the walk to Port Buck. It might be because the worst of its hidden creatures had all gathered somewhere else in preparation for their grand attack on the bingo hall tonight, but Asha intended to enjoy the feeling nonetheless. The lushness of the alder, elm, red bay, and ash trees was nearly surreal, and damselflies flitted from the arrowhead flowers to the wild pine to the swamp and spider lilies. It looked and felt like some strange tropical paradise instead of the swamp that Asha had grown up in, filled with tiny, harmless things like vinegar flies and leaf beetles rather than the deadly cottonmouths and ’gators she knew hid in the wet undergrowth.
That magical feeling disintegrated as soon as they crossed the line into Port Buck and houses quickly cropped up along the hard-packed road. They kept to the dirt-packed side streets to avoid being seen, using the darker doorways of closed businesses when they could, simply forging ahead when they couldn’t. Like most towns, the numbered streets in Port Buck counted down the closer a person got to the center of things; at Thirteenth and Hickory, the bingo hall where the Negro folk met for prayer and games was well away from the town’s main shopping area.
While it was a pretty good size, like most of the structures on the poorer side of town the building wasn’t fancy. But it was clean, with whitewashed clapboard siding and shining windows below a tin roof that was, like most things metal in this climate, losing a battle with rust. Cheerful light spilled from windows over which were fitted iron security bars, and Asha and Laurent could see the shadows of people already moving around inside. It was only seven-thirty—no doubt the vampires would wait until the meeting started to make sure they had as many victims inside as they could. They walked around to the back and found only one other door at the rear, propped open with a flowerpot so that air could flow from front to back through the building.
“Guess we’ll go on in,” Laurent said when they’d gone back to the front door. The Watcher stroked her pipe for a few seconds, but the tobacco inside had long burned away. She tapped it against the heel of her boot, then slipped it into her shirt pocket.
Asha didn’t bother to say anything, just led the way through the door. She wished she felt more confident and in control, but the truth was she felt more afraid tonight than she had ever before. She should have spent more of her time over the last two years in town, getting to know the people and learning, realizing, its dark undercurrent. How many vampires were there in this town, how many of the creatures had multiplied while she’d ignorantly fiddled around out in the swamp and staked the stragglers?
Still, she couldn’t dwell on the past or her fear, couldn’t let it cloud her judgment and senses. Inside there wasn’t much to speak of but people—at least forty or fifty—and a bunch of folding metal chairs. The walls were unadorned, and because tonight was a prayer meeting, the long tables, also folding, had been pushed up against the walls where they would be out of the way. A plain wooden podium stood at the back of the room, its sole decoration a good-size basket of lovely great laurel flowers. Against the wall behind it were a couple of tall stands holding lit, pine-scented candles.
Asha eyed the room and chewed her lip, trying to decide what to do. This wasn’t right at all—Joey had said eight o’clock. She and Laurent had planned on arriving and stopping the prayer meeting before it began, finding the bomb, then dealing with the vamps when they arrived and found an empty building—in the best of all possible words, Asha and her Watcher might be able to trap the creatures inside the very building they planned to destroy. But the boy had obviously lied to her about the time of the attack—this meeting was already in full swing, the seating almost full. Laurent had said they shouldn’t split up, and she was right, but there were two entrances. Would the vampires come through the front or the back? Or both? Finally she motioned to a couple of chairs in the middle of the rows. “Let’s sit there,” she suggested.
Laurent followed her without comment, ignoring the stares of the other people. She and Laurent had never been churchgoers to begin with, so their faces were unfamiliar in the God-fearing circles of the town. Where Asha might have normally blended in, her men’s clothes made her stand out and brought giggles from the children and teens, disapproving frowns from the men and women. Laurent was an outsider, plain and simple—Cajun she might be, but she was still white, and this was a Negro gathering. No one told her to leave, but the expressions on the dark faces around them were without a doubt completely bewildered and more than a bit suspicious.
Still, the people here were gathered for a prayer meeting and pray they would continue to do. At the podium an older man with close-cut salt-and-pepper hair clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. When he had it, he gave the crowd a warm smile. “Welcome,” he said and cast a gaze toward Asha and her Watcher. His voice was deep and melodious, the kind of calm tone that folks would like listening to. “Would the rest of you all quiet down a bit so we can continue, please?”
His words made it clear the meeting had started some time ago. The last of the people who’d been murmuring did as he asked, and when everything was still, he held up a Bible where everyone could see it. “For those who just joined us”—he looked again toward Asha and Laurent—”my name is Wilson Ray, and I’m the deacon of the Hickory Street Baptist Church. We’ve come here this evening to pray together and ask for God’s guidance and support in the troubled town of Port Buck.” His expression was solemn. “We all know about the recent happenings, people of color disappearing from their homes or the streets, people of other faiths—the Jewish, the Catholics—doing the same. The truth is these things have been going on for a long time . . . just not to this extent. For as long as I can remember, the Negro people in this town, in this county, have been prey for an unseen darkness, an evil that has just recently begun to run rampant in this community.”
Asha’s eyes widened as she listened. Did Deacon Ray, and perhaps other people, know about the vampires? And if so, what were they planning on doing about it?
“Tonight,” the deacon told them, “we will bow our heads and pray that the Lord in his Glory brings us salvation from the scourge that has been set upon us, from those who hide their hatred beneath robes of white and bring misery to others who have different skin or beliefs.”
“Amen!” called someone in the crowd, and it was echoed around the room at least a half dozen times.
Asha barely hid her disappointed frown. Prayer wasn’t going to help these people, only standing up and fighting for themselves, for their lives, would. To sit around like this and basically do nothing—they were like bait in a box, just waiting to be snapped up by the hungry.
“Guess you never thought of yourself as the answer to anyone’s prayers,” Laurent murmured from her side.
Asha turned and stared at her Watcher. “Me?”
“Uh-huh.”
She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it as she realized Laurent was right. These people—they were innocents and had no true idea what manner of beast stalked them. They were praying for salvation, for something, or someone, to save them. And here she was, Chosen a long time ago by some power greater than all of them combined. As Laurent had said: the answer to their prayers. Now, Asha realized, was not the time to hesitate—they would have to clear this building the hard way, with an old-fashioned “run for your lives” kind of announcement.
“In the course of the great darkness that has overtaken us,” Deacon Ray continued as Asha was about to get to her feet, “we need to hold tight to one another and. . . .” Without warning his words faltered and stopped, and he gazed over the crowd toward the main entrance.
Trusting Laurent to keep her eye on the other exit, Asha turned to look and was surprised to see the longtime Port Buck sheriff, Gabe Jenner, amble through the door and into the bingo hall, with one of his deputies not far behind. Sheriff Jenner wasn’t a large man, but he was sturdily built and muscular, with dark hair and hazel eyes that
Asha had always thought held a hint of down-home meanness; it wasn’t hard to imagine them peering out from the circular eyeholes of a tall, Ku Klux Klan hood.
“How’re y’all doing tonight?” His voice boomed over the group, falsely cheerful. When no one answered, he grinned and rested one hand on the butt of the revolver holstered at his side, then scratched at his ear with the other. She’d risen an inch or two off her chair, but the gun was something Asha hadn’t considered, a weapon for which she had no match, and she had to sink back onto her seat. She wouldn’t do anyone any good if she was arrested and taken away, or worse, left with her lifeblood leaking onto the dusty floor.
Standing there and smiling, Asha thought Jenner looked anything but friendly, more like something stupid but . . . predatory. She didn’t like the way his gaze scanned the crowd, but he was too far away, and there were too many people here for her instinct and sense of smell to kick in and help out, too many overwarm bodies mixing it up with the sweet, heavy aroma from the basket of flowers; instead she tried to think if she’d seen Jenner out and about Port Buck during the daytime recently. No, she was sure she hadn’t. “I thought this was supposed to be a prayer meeting, but it don’t seem to me like y’all are in a talkative mood at all.”
Asha sensed Laurent stiffen beside her, and when the Slayer glanced back toward Deacon Ray, she saw that another uniformed deputy had appeared at the back door. Just visible in the outside darkness, he was standing there and smoking a cigarette, trying to look nonchalant. “I guess we’ll just have to change our plan,” Laurent said beneath her breath.
“Tell you what,” the sheriff said loudly. He spoke like he and everyone in the room were old friends and it was the most natural thing in the world for a white lawman to walk into a Negro bingo hall. “Me and my friends, we’d like to join you. Maybe that’ll bring a little excitement to whatever it is you’re asking God for tonight.”
Uh-oh, Asha thought.
And vampires poured through the two entrances.
Sheriff Jenner’s face changed at the same time his deputies’ did, the eyes and brows pulling back into the familiar, sharply angular expression, teeth elongating and turning dirty yellow. Asha lost count of how many came through each doorway, thought that all told the number might be as high as twenty. The last one through each slammed the door, then shoved a key into the dead bolt and locked it. The windows were useless, the security bars that had been meant to keep the bad guys at bay now trapping the humans inside the building. These prayerful people would be no match for the stronger vampires.
The creatures waded in, and the screaming started as they bit whomever looked the tastiest and smacked away the troublesome, terrified attempts of some of the men who tried to stop them. Asha saw immediately that she and Laurent would never be able to stay together as they’d hoped—too many people would fall victim to the creatures if they didn’t take the initiative. As Laurent headed toward the podium end of the room, the Slayer yanked the hunting knife from its sheath with her left hand and leapt forward with a stake in the other. Unable to escape, people ran in all directions, their faces contorted with terror as they tried to dodge the vampires; a few tried valiantly to pull the beasts off their friends and family.
Asha staked one in the back, then left another writhing on the floor in agony as she buried the knife under his rib cage and pulled it around as she passed. She punched and kicked, her knife hand flashing out again and again, its sharp edge finding purchase far more often than the killing point of her stake in all the uproar. The windows broke as people threw chairs against them, but the security bars did their job all too well—if the vampires had any say in it, no one was getting out of here alive.
One of the vampires gave Asha a punch in the jaw that made her stagger and drop to one knee; she used the metal chair she grabbed for support to brain the creature senseless. Before it could jump on her again, Deacon Ray was there with a well-time kick to the vampire’s head that sent it momentarily into dreamland. Asha didn’t miss the chance to make sure it stayed there, and the preacher gaped at the swirl of dust.
The Slayer didn’t give him time to think about it. “Here,” she said, and shoved her stake into his hands. “Use this, but don’t be a hero. It’s more important to try and get these people out of here, now!”
Wisely, Deacon Ray didn’t ask for an explanation. Asha spun and kicked one of the deputies when he tried to grab her from behind, then buried her fingers in his hair and slammed his head against the flat of her other elbow. He howled and tried to jerk away, then looked down in surprise when Asha gutted him like a catfish. He sank to his knees and she kicked him aside and went for a more dangerous target—he might not be dead, but he’d have a hard time fighting with his insides hanging out.
Still, she and Laurent were outnumbered. The Cajun woman was holding her own at the far end, but she was older and not as strong as the Slayer, and at least ten people lay here and there among the chaos of overturned chairs, their bodies drained of lifeblood. She and her Watcher had killed or maimed perhaps a third of the attackers—they had to do better before more innocent people died.
Asha dodged in front of a vampire as he lunged for a screaming woman and buried the point of her hunting knife in his eye. His bellow of fury was cut short as she yanked a spare stake from a pocket in her pants and jammed it into his chest. Rage swept her as she glimpsed the sheriff ten feet away; he grinned evilly and clamped his mouth on the neck of a boy who couldn’t be any older than eleven.
She headed in that direction, offhandedly pulling an older man out of the way as a female vampire grabbed for him. Without even thinking about it, she hit the woman-beast across the collarbone with the outside of her arm, leaning into the blow and hearing a satisfying crack as the creature’s collarbone shattered. With her arms now hanging uselessly at her sides, the vampire screeched and ran in panicked circles.
Concentrating on his meal, Sheriff Jenner’s mouth opened and he bellowed in shock when Asha circled behind him, slipped her left hand over his forehead, and dug her first two fingers into his eyes. His child-victim fell to the floor, but quickly recovered and crawled away. Thank God for the strength of the young, Asha thought. She dragged the vampire lawman backward and tight against her, then shoved her other arm under his and to the front of his chest. His fighting ceased abruptly when he felt the deadly end of the stake press against it.
“Call off your dogs or die,” she said grimly. “I won’t ask a second time.”
He wasn’t stupid enough to think she was kidding. “Stop the attack now!” he roared. “No more!”
The remaining vampires froze where they were, their hideous faces confused and incredulous. When they saw their leader taken hostage, they released the men or women in their grasps, sneering at the humans as they stumbled away. As Asha had expected, they began to inch toward her; she, in turn, dragged the sheriff toward the podium end of the room where Laurent waited. The older woman’s chest heaved with exertion but she still looked triumphant.
“Unlock the door and let the humans leave,” Asha ordered. She kept her fingers hooked into Jenner’s eye sockets, working off the man’s hiss of pain.
“And then what?” he demanded. “Us against you?”
Then what, indeed? The truth was Asha had no idea how to get out of this situation. She’d never had the lives of so many people dependent on her at any one time, and they were badly outnumbered; if she didn’t find a way to keep the upper hand, a whole lot more people would die. She’d never considered having to make a decision like this, and the responsibility was nearly suffocating. “Then we’ll talk,” Asha managed to reply. Despite her fear, her voice was strong. “Otherwise I’ll send you straight to hell right now.”
Jenner growled in frustration, but he really had no choice. He couldn’t even move in Asha’s hold. “Do as she says,” he ordered.
Two of the vampires moved forward, one heading toward each door. “Oh, no,” Asha said, and stopped the second one with a fri
gid stare. “You just stay right up front there with your ugly friend. Then”—she jerked her head at Laurent—“pass my friend there both sets of keys. In fact, all of you disgusting vampires get over to one side where I can keep an eye on you, away from the window. And hurry up—the sheriff here wouldn’t want my fingers to get tired.”
Laurent moved to the front and yanked the keys from the hands of one of the deputy vampires. In another second she had the front door wide and the fresh, night air was pouring through the opening. Asha hadn’t realized how quickly the room had filled with the metallic scent of blood and the heavier smells of death and decay. People were crying and babbling as they rushed for the exit, some crawling, others pulling the injured to freedom. Asha wouldn’t let the misery playing out in front of her distract her or loosen her hold on Sheriff Jenner. The last one at the door was Deacon Ray, and he paused and looked to her and Laurent for instructions.
“Close it behind you,” Asha ordered. “No, don’t argue. Just do it.” Her grasp on Jenner tightened and he winced. “I’m going to have a little talk with our town’s friendly lawman.”
Deacon Ray looked anything but pleased at the notion of leaving her and Laurent in here with perhaps a dozen vampires, but ultimately he did as she commanded. When the door finally closed, Laurent didn’t need to be told what to do; she hurried forward and locked it, then stepped to the window and sent both sets of keys sailing into the outside darkness.