“Fifty-eight,” Silvera said.
Rutledge glanced back at the other marine, who Wes figured must be his driver. “That’s pretty strange, sir,” the lieutenant said. “In a six mile grid we’ve only found nine people. Just where is everybody?”
“Don’t you know?” Silvera looked at him incredulously, feeling a ripple of dark laughter vibrate through him.
“No, sir. I’m afraid I don’t…”
Wes, who’d put on his shirt and dark brown leather jacket, glanced again at that .45 and moved away. He turned his back on them, his heart pounding, and walked toward the rear of the sanctuary. He knew he was going to have to be very careful because never in his entire life had he done anything like what he was about to try. He only knew that he needed a way to get up to that castle. He slipped through the door into the priest’s meager living quarters.
“All right, everyone!” Silvera called out in Spanish. “We’re going to be leaving in a few minutes! Everyone’s going to be moving through the door single file! There’s a truck outside that will take us all out of here…”
Wes was frantically hunting for the weapons Silvera had confiscated. It took him a few minutes, but he found them—three pistols and a couple of switchblades—at the bottom of a chest of drawers. He picked up one of the knives and flicked it open; a nine-inch blade flashed out. He closed it and put it into his jacket. Of the three guns, only one of them—a .22 with a carving of Jesus on the white ivory handle—looked fit to use. The others were rusty things that might fall to pieces or explode in his hand. He only wanted to put a scare into the marines, but he knew he’d need a gun he could depend on later. It felt obscene and oily in his grip. He’d never liked guns, but now this one would help him find Solange. The ugly thought that he might have to use this gun surfaced within him, like something nasty floating on a slimy pool. His gaze fell upon the small ceramic crucifix next to the door. He didn’t know how much good it would do, but he lifted it off its nail and went out into the sanctuary.
People were gathering up their children and belongings, linking hands, and crossing the threshold into the wind. No one was in the bell tower now, but the storm’s force made the bell shudder every few minutes, and the clapper gave out a muffled, tentative moan. Wes saw Silvera standing at the doorway, herding the people out; he didn’t see the marines and assumed they were already outside, helping with the loading of the troop transport.
Wes waited for most of them to step across and, as he neared the door, the priest suddenly looked first at his face, then at the crucifix in his left hand and the gun in his right. “What do you think you’re going to do, amigo?” Silvera asked him quietly.
“Just stay out of my way, Father. I appreciate your help and all that, but now I’ve got to do this.” He started to step past the priest, but Silvera’s hand came up and grasped his collar.
“What are you planning? To take their jeep?”
Wes nodded. “I’ve asked you to stay out of my way.”
Silvera looked over his shoulder out at the transport truck. The rear gate had dropped down, and Lieutenant Rutledge was hustling people inside. In another few minutes everyone was going to be aboard. Silvera glanced at the jeeplike vehicle, then back to Wes. “Where do you think you’re going? There are several thousand places the vampires could’ve taken your friend.”
“I know where I’m going. I think they may have taken her up into the Hollywood hills, to…”
“The Kronsteen castle?” Silvera asked.
Wes’s eyes widened. “That’s right. What do you know about it?”
“Enough.” He let go of the man’s collar. “Give me the gun.”
“Father, I told you I…”
“Give me the gun,” Silvera repeated evenly.
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you? This may be the only chance I get and I’ve got to take it!”
“Chance?” Silvera frowned and shook his head. “What chance?” He gripped Wes’s wrist and pried the gun loose from his fingers. “You didn’t even know enough to release the safety, did you? Are you sure it’s loaded?”
“I’m not going to any goddamned Crystal Lake!” Wes said, his face reddening. “I’m taking that jeep if I have to—”
“What?” the priest asked blandly. “Fight for it barehanded? Kill for it? No, I don’t think you want to do that.” He glanced over and saw the last of his people filing into the transport. “I don’t want anyone else getting hurt. So do you think you’re going to be able to drive right up to that place—through this storm—and take on a hoard of vampires with a gun and a crucifix? What else did you take?”
“A knife,” Wes said. “Sorry, I didn’t see any stakes lying around here.”
Silvera regarded him for a moment in silence “You must love that woman very much.”
“I’ve…always been there when she needed me. She needs me now.”
“She may be like them by now. You know that, don’t you?”
“And maybe she’s not,” Wes said. “I have to know for sure before I…leave her behind.”
Silvera nodded. “You surprise me. But regardless of whatever rage you’re feeling, you’re going to need more than these implements. Much more.” He turned his head and saw Lieutenant Rutledge waving him over. Then he said to Wes, “You wait here. Understand?”
“Why?”
“Just wait.” Silvera left Wes, walking across the church to his room. He took a small, clear flask from a silk-lined black case resting at the top shelf of his closet. The flask was identical to the one he’d taken to Palatazin. Then he went out to the font of holy water in the vestibule, and dipped the flask down into the small, white ceramic basin. The flask filled quickly, with a little more than two ounces. He wasn’t sure how much effect holy water would actually have on the vampires, but he figured—he hoped—Palatazin had known that it would have some effect, even if just to frighten them. Silvera lifted the flask, capped it, and thought of something his mentor Father Raphael had said back in the tiny village of Puerto Grande. “Now, my son. You ask me why I dip up water from the Pacific Ocean for the rituals. The answer is both simple and complex. Well water is too precious here to deprive humans of it, no matter how holy the ritual. God saw human needs long before he saw the need for ritual. Secondly, what holier water is there than water from the cradle of life? God’s blessing only makes it more so, but the strength is already there. You’ve seen how saltwater heals wounds and sores, how it cleanses and purifies. Any water can be holy; it needs only to be blessed. But this—seawater—is twice blessed…”
Silvera had kept Father Raphael’s tradition alive, though now it was more difficult to bring jugs of water back from the Pacific. But now he needed a purifier, something to wash away this unholy evil that gnawed like a cancer at human flesh. He held the flask up; it felt slightly warm in his hand, and the warmth seemed to spread up his forearm. He was ready now. He returned to where Wes waited and put the flask in his inside coat pocket. “All right,” he said. “We can go now.”
“We?” Wes said. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m going with you. The holy water may help even up the odds. And that man won’t shoot me.” He motioned toward Lieutenant Rutledge, who shouted, “Let’s go, Father!” and waved impatiently. Silvera dropped the gun down to his side and, shielding his face with his forearm, walked toward the tractor with Wes right behind him. Lieutenant Rutledge and his driver stepped back to allow them up into the dark cavity, but suddenly Silvera turned toward him and thrust out the gun.
Rutledge stared incredulously at it, then looked into Silvera’s face. “What’s this shit?” the man shouted.
“My friend and I are taking your jeep, and we don’t have time to argue! Tell your driver there to give us the keys!”
“You want the Crab? What are you, crazy or something? We’re trying to get you out of this mess!”
“You can help us by giving us the keys! Come on!”
“Man, you take the c
ake, you know that? You and I both know you’re not going to shoot anybody, so let’s just forget this—”
Silvera yanked the hood off the marine’s face and put the barrel alongside his nose. “I don’t have time for a debate!” the priest said. “Hand them over!”
“Shit!” Rutledge lifted his hands now and glanced fearfully at the other marine. “Okay, okay! Whitehurst, give these maniacs the keys to the Crab! Look, you! Priest or not, you steal a military vehicle and your holy ass is going under the stockade!”
“Wes, take his keys! And the .45, too. You’ve got clips for that?”
Rutledge patted his inside jacket pocket. Silvera reached in, took out two clips, and handed them to Wes. Then he stepped away from Rutledge and backed toward the jeep. Wes slipped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“You’re crazy!” Rutledge shouted, pulling his hood back down. “Both of you!” Whitehurst grasped at his arm and guided him up into the transport vehicle, then in another few seconds the rear gate began to swing shut.
Silvera had a last glimpse of Rutledge’s furious face before he climbed into the jeep. Wes put it into reverse, backed along the sidewalk, and then swung out into the street. The vehicle’s tires gripped hard, carrying them between monstrous dunes and away from Silvera’s church. The priest turned to look back through the Plexiglass rear windshield. The tractor was moving away in the opposite direction, lumbering like a huge metallic beetle. He put the two guns down on the floorboard. “Can you drive this thing?” he asked.
“Handles like a dune buggy,” Wes answered. “Steering’s tighter, though.” The headlights were cutting clear yellow paths in the storm ahead, and the instrumentation panel—which curved slightly around Wes like a plane’s cockpit—glowed a faint green. He changed gears, noting the gearshift pattern depicted on a small metal plate on the dashboard—there were four forward gears and two reverse. The interior seemed to be stripped down to the bare minimum but was comfortable enough. It smelled slightly oily, just as Wes thought the interior of a tank might smell. He could feel a powerful engine behind him, pushing them along now at about ten miles per hour; he was afraid to drive any faster because of the dunes and wrecked cars that littered the street ahead, coming up swiftly out of the gloom. “I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into, Father,” Wes said quietly.
“I do.” Silvera leaned over and looked at the gas gauge—there was a little more than half a tank. He looked behind the seats into a roomy storage compartment, finding a full three-gallon can of gasoline, a coiled rope, maps of the city, and a couple of small red cylinders of oxygen in green backpack carriers. Near the oxygen bottles there were two green, rubber masks complete with wide-vision goggles. Those, he thought, might be especially useful, and he silently gave thanks for Rutledge’s careful preparations.
Wes put the knife and crucifix on top of the dashboard. Sand was beginning to pile up on the windshield so he turned the wipers on at their highest speed. The jeep thumped and jubbled over rapidly shifting sand dunes, but the thick tires gave them enough traction to get through without sinking. When Silvera looked back again, he couldn’t see his church or the troop carrier, just a solid sheet of blowing yellow. In another moment Wes turned a corner, the jeep barely sliding around two cars that had crashed together in the middle of the street, and found himself at the bottom of the freeway ramp he’d crawled down. He slowed and peered up. The ramp was blocked by a mountainous sand dune that had built up over another stalled car. Wes cursed softly.
“We’ll run into fewer of those if we stay off the freeway,” Silvera told him. “I think I know the way from here. Across the river and around L.A. Back up a block and turn left.” Wes did, the tires slipping with a sickening lurch but always catching just when he thought they were about to start digging a grave.
The air was getting bad. Silvera reached back, opened the nozzle on one of the oxygen tanks, and let some bleed out. He was sweating profusely, beads of moisture dappling his cheeks.
“You wouldn’t have shot that lieutenant, would you?” Wes asked as they turned onto the stark yellow desolation of Brooklyn Avenue in dead Boyle Heights.
“No one would die for a set of keys. He doesn’t care about the vehicle.”
“Why did you help me?”
“Not because I think we can find your friend. I don’t. But if you’re willing to go to that place, knowing what’s probably waiting up there, then I am too. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Fine with me.” The engine suddenly sputtered, then coughed out a wad of sand. Wes checked the temperature gauge; it was running hot, but what the hell. If the damned marines couldn’t build a vehicle that could plow through this fucking storm, then nobody could. Wes hoped their luck and good old American machinery would hold out just a while longer. If it didn’t, they would die; it was as simple as that.
A fierce wind struck them broadside, shivering the jeep as if it were made of cardboard. The vehicle slipped to the left, tires digging for a purchase, and then darted forward like a land crab scrambling away from a shadow across a wind-rippled beach. Wes remembered Rutledge calling it a Crab. That was probably one of those cute names the military stuck on everything, but it described the tenacity and responsiveness of the vehicle pretty well. A Crab it was.
Nothing moved on Brooklyn Avenue except the dunes, sliding like hot, yellow dancers to a mad maestro’s shrilling tune. Everywhere there were stranded cars, and Wes didn’t see the almost mummified corpses until the Crab had gone right over them, snapping them like twigs. His hands tightened around the wheel. Death was very close.
The boulevard stretched on out of sight. Behind them the way back had already closed.
NINE
Palatazin had been gone for almost twenty minutes when Tommy turned away from the window and said to Jo, “He’s going to die up there.” He said it quite calmly, without emotion and very seriously, because he knew it to be true.
“Why don’t you sit down, kid?” Gayle said. She didn’t want Jo to start crying again. There was a look in the boy’s eyes that scared the hell out of her. They were like an old man’s eyes, filled with pain and bitter wisdom. “Okay?” she urged. “Why don’t you?”
“He doesn’t know anything about the castle! I do! He’ll get lost in there!”
“Please…” Jo said weakly and collapsed in a chair.
“I could help him,” Tommy said, his gaze moving from Jo to Gayle. “I know I could!”
“Oh, Christ!” Gayle said, anger leaping in her eyes. “Why don’t you shut up? He’s going to be all right!”
Tommy stood motionless, staring at her. She looked out the window quickly, but she could still see him reflected in the glass. He walked back to the sofa and took the case off the pillow. “What are you doing?” Jo asked, but he didn’t answer. He put on his jacket, zipped it up to the neck, and raised the collar. “No!” Jo said. “You’re not!”
He folded the pillowcase into a square. “I guess you both think I’m a stupid little kid, don’t you? Well, I may be little…but I’m sure as hell not stupid! That man who just left here is stupid because he thinks he can get into the Kronsteen castle, find the king vampire, and get out again just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Or he may just be trying to fool himself into believing that, I don’t know. Well, he won’t be coming back…at least not as what he was when he left, I don’t help him. If I hurry, I can catch him…”
“You’re not going anywhere!” Gayle said firmly, taking a step toward him.
Tommy stood his ground. His eyes were like chunks of ice. “My parents are gone,” he said quietly. “They’re dead. I’m not a little boy anymore.”
Gayle stopped suddenly, realizing that he was right, he wasn’t a child anymore. Whatever had happened to him last night had changed him forever. And wouldn’t he have the same chances out there as Palatazin? Probably better. Certainly he could move faster, and his lungs were probably in much better shape. She glanced at Jo, then back at Tommy
. “Do you think you can get him in and out of there safely?”
“I know I can.” He stepped past her toward the door. “I’ll have to hurry. If I can’t find him, I’ll have to come back, but I’ll look as long as I can.” He put the square of cloth up in front of his face like a mask. “Wish me luck,” he said and slipped out through the door.
“That’s a very brave little boy,” Gayle said after he’d gone.
“No,” Jo answered. “A very brave young man.”
Tommy ran in the direction he’d seen Palatazin take. He was hoping he’d see footprints in the sand, but they’d already been blown away. He was half-blind, trapped within a cubicle of swirling yellowish-brown walls, his lungs scorched. His head was beginning to throb, but he welcomed the pain because it would keep him alert. He ran on, realizing that he might pass within ten feet of Palatazin and never know the man was there. Panic hit him—for a few seconds he couldn’t draw a breath. He made himself slow down to a walk and breathe through his mouth at a regular pace. Sand scraped his cheeks and forehead, and now he realized that even if he did want to go back, he’d never find the way.
Huge dunes stood all around him, most of them towering over the hulks of cars. They shifted and slithered down as he passed, threatening to collapse over him. The world was dim amber light, a shriek of wind, and the coarse hissing of sand. The wind whipped around him, almost throwing him to his knees. He thought be heard a high whining voice at the center of it, whispering Little boy, little boy, lie down and sleep…
He went on and in another moment a dark shape emerged from the twisting currents. It was a Lincoln Continental, the paint stripped down to the bare metal, most of the car covered over by a dune. He decided to get inside it for a few minutes to clear the sand out of his eyes and mouth. When he pulled the driver’s door open, a withered, blue-faced corpse came sliding out, its arms outstretched toward him. He swallowed a cry, spat out sand, and continued on. The wind whispered around his head—Lie down and sleep, lie down and sleeeeeep…“No!” he heard himself shout. “NO, I WON’T!”