Chapter Forty-Five – Sam

 

“Wh-wh-who is it?” Abigail’s breathless voice asked through the door.

“Sam Fitzgerald,” I said, as conversationally as possible. “We met last night? Your neighbor who offered to try and get you out of here?”

Behind me, the dim lights in the parking lot had just begun to flash on as the sun finally set behind the western trees. Daylight seemed to last forever in Texas, with the state as flat as it was. The skies here really were bigger.

I’d stopped in at the main office and lied about my situation. After a small fee, they replaced my key. Back in my room, I gathered the rest of my kit and stuffed it away in the trunk of the Camaro, moving as quickly as I could.

Now, standing in front of Abigail’s door, I knew what I needed to do. Inside my spare coat, I kept my finger on the trigger of the sawed-off double-barreled shotgun, with its rock salt loads. I’d had the option of putting silver buckshot or slugs into it, but that would defeat the purpose. I wanted Tanchovsky’s newest vampire in one piece. This might hurt her, but she’d still be as close to alive as she’d ever get when I was done with her.

After all, I couldn’t use a corpse to bargain for Faith.

I still couldn’t believe I’d been so dull as to not realize who she was. What she was. Or, for that matter, that the man I’d seen her arguing with the night before was actually Dr. Lawrence.

Abigail’s shadow darkened the little peephole in the door for a moment as she peered out at me. “You’re alone?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding a little as I looked around to see if anyone was coming up the walk. Any bystanders who walked by weren’t going to understand what I was doing. Hell, even I had some moral qualms about it, despite the fact that I knew she was the source of the murders. Of course, at the end of the day, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to get Faith back. Even if it meant I was going to force this woman to go with me at gunpoint.

The peephole shadow disappeared, and she slid the security chain into place and flipped the deadbolt back. She cracked the door open, peering out at me from the shadows of her dark motel room. The smell of incense, spicy and deep, along with that of raw meat and blood, came rolling out from around the edges of the door.

“What can I do for you, sugar?” she asked, her voice shaky, but still as southern and sultry as before. “Wanting to take me up on that offer? Or to see if I changed my mind about your own? Because it’s no to both.”

I shook my head. “Not quite. I met your master today. He and I came to a sort of agreement. Mind if I come inside?”

She sniffed a little, her nostrils flaring as her dark eyes locked with mine.

My eyes stayed on hers, my heart quickening a little as I fingered the trigger of the shotgun. I didn’t want to bust down the door, but I would if I had to. The last thing I wanted, though, was to cause any more commotion than was necessary. My only chance to get in there, though, was to somehow convince her that I was one of the newest Renfields in Tanchovsky’s little company of damned souls.

“He wants me to check on you. There’s been a complication. Dr. Lawrence is dead. I’m kind of his replacement.”

She kept her gaze on me for a moment, a sort of resignation in her eyes. Not distrust, necessarily, but one of her having to just take the hand life had dealt to her. “Just gimme a second, sugar,” she said, closing the door and taking off the chain. She opened it back up and let me inside, one hand tucked behind her patterned sundress as I walked past her.

“Jesus Christ,” I breathed as I stepped inside, my eyes falling on the corpses of the two slaughterhouse workers lying on the bed. Almost fittingly, they’d gone out the way they’d lived, with their bodies slashed open. Blood was everywhere. On the walls, all over the comforter, even on the ceiling. Behind me, the door slammed shut, and I spun around. “What the hell is going on here?”

“I’m never going back!” she screamed as she pounced on me like a lioness, leaping through the air with a gore-stained butcher knife in hand.

The wound in my side felt like it was ripping itself back open again. “Stop!” I roared as I caught the wrist of her knife hand with my free one, halting the blade just inches from my face as we tumbled backwards onto the motel’s carpeted floor. Despite her slight form, she’d been able to pack a lot of strength behind her attack. Not as much as Tanchovsky, of course, but he was far older than Abigail, and therefore more powerful. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

Her eyes, just inches from mine, blazed red like two brilliant LEDs. As I spoke, though, they began to fade, began to dim. “And here I thought you were just happy to see me, sugar.”

“Get off,” I growled again through clenched teeth. “Or you’re going to find out what a belly full of rock salt feels like. And believe me, it ain’t fun.”

She seemed to weigh her options for a moment before finally getting off of me. “You’re not really one of his, are you? One of his…servants?”

“No, I’m not,” I replied as, keeping the shotgun trained on her, I climbed to my feet. “I’m just trying to get the woman I love back from him. Kill him if I’m able.”

“And me too, I’m guessing?” she asked, a little smile on her lips. “At least you’d save me the trouble.”

“Fed up with it all, then?”

“Fed? Ha.”

“You know what I mean.”

She nodded, frowning a little as she brushed a curly strand of hair from her face. “Yeah.”

“What’s with the two men on the bed?”

“They were protecting me, at first. From a hunter or something. Someone here to kill Augustus. Guess that was you?”

I nodded.

“Then they got a call, telling them to bring me back to him, that he was turning another girl tonight.” She glanced down at the bloody butcher knife in her hand. “I ain’t never going back to him.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I see that.”

“They talking about the woman you love, sugar?”

“They were. I was planning on taking you as a hostage, getting in there to trade you away.” I glanced around the room, at the Renfield blood splattered all over the room. “Doesn’t seem like you’d take too kindly to that.”

She cocked her head to the side and just eyed me like she was thinking of how easily she could plant that knife in my chest.

“No, I don’t believe I would.”

“Mind if I ask you a question?”

“You’re the one with the gun, ain’t you?”

I smiled a little, tightening my grip on the shotgun. “How’d all this happen? How’d you get involved with him?”

She shrugged and went over to sit on the edge of the bed, a sharp contrast to the two bloody corpses that were draped across the comforter like throw blankets. The worn mattress sank a little, and one of their heads lolled to the side, sending its vacant eyes staring up at the ceiling. She hung her head a little, and the curls came down around her face like curtains as she idly fingered the bloodied blade in her hand. “I was working as a bartender, moonlighting by doing some private events and catering stuff.”

I moved around so I could keep an eye on her, keep my gun trained on her. Despite her statements about her wanting to die, about how much she hated and feared Gus, I still didn’t trust her. And, as I eyed her more closely, the flecks of blood visible on the front and at the hem of her sundress, just accentuated that point more.

“Well, Gus’s company was doing a private event out in Garrison, something for some Japanese investors. I never really ever went out that way, on account of the creep factor, but I was short on rent, and the money was too good to pass up. And that was when I met him. Handsome, rich, mysterious. We kinda, sorta started dating. He paid my bills, made sure I wasn’t in debt. When he told me about what he was, finally, I decided I wanted to be with him forever.” She paused, fixed me with a hard stare. “He’d never told me about how much killing I’d have to do, early on at least. All he’d said was that he just fed on animal blood. That was all he needed.”

“Guess he didn’t tell you about the skin, either?”

She chuckled, shook her head. “Nope. That definitely wasn’t part of it, neither. Just immortality and everlasting youth. I mean, he didn’t sparkle or anything, and he had money. But to tell me that I had to stay here, right around the corner from my old house? For years, till I was strong enough to leave with boxes of soil, like him? I mean, I like a mud bath as much as the next girl. Seems so foreign and elegant. But this?” She waved her hand around the room, gesturing to the depressing surroundings. “If I leave here for any longer than just a short walk, I start to flake away. Flake, Sam. Like some kind of leper.”

“What happened the first night? The night you killed Eb Shook’s pig?”

She sighed and looked away. “God, I felt bad about that one. Apparently, he had no idea I’d get so hungry. I drained two of his servants all the way down, then I broke out of his old house and went hunting for something to…to eat. Poor piglet.” She hung her head again for a moment before looking back up at me. “Sugar, I don’t even like pork.”

As she spoke, though, the wheels started to turn, and a plan had begun to come together.

“Abigail?” I asked quietly, seriously. “What if I gave you the opportunity to get even with him? Would you take it?”

She gave me a blank look for a moment, turning away again as she worried away at her lower lip with her perfectly normal-looking teeth. I knew they wouldn’t grow into fangs until she was ready to feed. “Get even?”

“Screw him as hard as he screwed you. I know you love him. If you don’t want to help, I can just give you the means to end this charade. I can do that much, even if I have to go out there alone.”

“Loved,” she corrected, spitting out the words. “He ruined my life. This is all I have now.”

“Would you take it, then? And save Faith while you’re at it?”

She looked me right in the eye and gave a deliberate nod. “What do you need me to do, sugar?”