I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) (25 page)

“Not saying too much now, are you? Huh?”
Shane taunted Bowie.

Bowie looked from the mirror to the vampire
holding it. “I’m still better looking than you, you fuck.”

One of the three warrior nuns snipped the
bloody meat scissors she held in the air.

“And that…” Bowie’s voice was fading as he
addressed Kreshnik, “…that’s a…a stupid fuckin’ hat.”

Tears had streamed down Gossitch’s face and
been absorbed by the gag in his mouth. Madison. Bowie. He sucked in
his snot and stared at the vampire sitting across from him. Santa
Anna. Boone.

“To be perfectly forthcoming with you,”
Rainford said to Gossitch. He waved a hand at the mutilated Bowie,
at Madison’s corpse. “This doesn’t interest me. Not at all.”

Several of the vampires and men in the
shadows had dropped their pants or undone zippers and were openly
stroking themselves, watching the spectacle before them. A female
slave stood between two men, staring at Bowie, seemingly entranced.
She was reaching out to either side, masturbating the men.

“This has never been about you,” Rainford
continued. “This is about the one you call Boone. The one who
burned Shane. The one who destroyed Kreshnik’s property.”

“He’s gonna get you,” Bowie promised. His
voice was ebbing. “All of you…”

“You imagine my kind
savage
.” Rainford
ignored Bowie, speaking to Gossitch alone. “And yet your men…” He
scoffed, then paraphrased from memory, something Fritz had written.
“They revert…to the innocence of wild animals. We can imagine them
returning…”

Shane leered into Bowie’s ravaged face.

“…returning from an orgy of murder, arson,
rape, and torture. Overjoyed with themselves. As though they had
committed some, some fraternity prank…”

Someone moaned aloud as they orgasmed.

“Deep within all lurks the beast of prey,
bent on spoil and conquest.” Two of the warrior nuns leaned on
either side of Kreshnik, running their hands up and down his
torso.

“This urge has to be satisfied from time to
time, the beast let loose in the wilderness...” The third woman
continued to snip at the air with the meat scissors.

Rainford stood, commanding two others. “Bring
him. You and I have much of which to speak.”

Gossitch’s chair was unbolted from the floor
and carried off, the man in it.

“It’s been real, Frank…” Bowie sputtered
through the red wash that was his face.

“What about this one, my lord?” Rainford had
turned and was leaving the room when Lein’s question made him
pause.

Men and women and vampires were moaning and
writhing around the room, limbs entwined, bodies quivering in
elation.

Lein was referring to Bowie.

The dark Lord shrugged. “Satisfy the urge,”
he replied.

“Let’s take out his other eye,” one of the
warrior nuns breathed.

“No.” Malice dripped from Shane’s tongue.
“Show him what his insides look like.”

“Come on, B,” said Father Mark, “I’ll drop
you off at your apartment.”

As Boone sat up from lacing his boots in the
locker room he reached into his gym bag for his pager. He was about
to affix it to his belt when he glanced at it.

Five calls.

All with the code Gossitch used to let him
know it was him.

Four of the calls had 9-1-1 after them.

“Yeah, let me use the phone first
though.”

Outside on the street Boone hit the pay phone
while Father Mark walked around the block to get his car.

He dialed Gossitch’s number but no one
answered the phone.

Mrs. Coyle woke up to pass water. As she got
older, getting around wasn’t as easy as it had been. Her knees. Her
Eddie had encouraged her to wear Depends when she slept, but she’d
be damned if she was going to wear diapers. Diapers were for
babies.

She swung one leg and then the other off the
bed, rousing Warrior and Leroi and sending them running. Both feet
on the floor, she reached out and felt around in the dark for her
night table. She found it and used it to lean against as she
stood.

One foot in front of the other, Mrs. Coyle
shuffled through the dark to her bedroom door and out into the
hall.

She passed Eddie’s bedroom. If he had come in
she hadn’t heard him. He was probably out with Carter and his other
friends. Drinking. Carousing. Out to every hour of the night.
Boys.

Mrs. Coyle turned on the light in the
bathroom.

“Come in if you’re coming in.”

Leroi purred and slipped into the bathroom
before she closed the door.

Boone got out of the shower and walked into
his living room naked. His hams and glutes weren’t hurting yet but
by this time tomorrow they’d be aching.

He walked into the cool living room and say
down on his couch. It was two thirty in the morning. He was a
little tired but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep
for awhile. Every time he trained legs, he couldn’t fall asleep. He
thought maybe it had something to do with pumping all that blood
down into his quads, hams and glutes.

He pressed the button on the remote control
and the television came to life.

Steven Seagal was beating some thugs with a
pool ball wrapped in a towel. It was dubbed in Spanish.

Click
.

“Oh isn’t this just marvelous?” Some young
hot thing was stuffing carrots into a Power Juicer while Jack
LaLanne stood by, smiling.

Click
.

Music video. Three Times Dope were singing,
“E-S-T, the Acknickulous One/ I’m the greatest man alive…”

Boone thought about Hamilton and Madison, how
they had gone home with those bitches two nights before. He
wondered when he’d see them again, find out if they’d fucked
them.

“E-S-T the unusual fellow—”

Click
.

Comedy Central.
South
Park
repeat. Boone had seen it before. The boys were trying to
cross-breed Kyle’s elephant with Cartman’s pot-bellied pig.

No sign of Stash tonight.

The light on his answering machine was
flashing.

When he reached over and pressed the button
the robotic voice spoke.

“You have two new messages.

“Message number one. Thursday, 8:30 P.M.”

Beep
.

“Hi Boone.”

It was Jennifer.

“Just wanted to say we had a good time seeing
you today. Say hi, Greg.”

“Hi Uncle Boone!”

His nephew. Boone smiled.

“And, Boone, listen. Why don’t you really
think about going away with us? Okay? Think about it. Love you
little brother.”

Boone scoffed.

“Thursday, one twenty, A.M.”

“Now I know how all those white women felt,”
Chef said on the television.

“Boone…”

A voice he didn’t recognize.

“Boone, Boone, Boone…”

He muted the television.

“My name is Lein, and Boone, I have something
I want you to listen to.”

It sounded like the guy was talking to
someone off the phone. “Say hi to your friend.”

“He said say hi!” another voice, evil.

“Boone…”

He sat up on his couch.

Bowie.

“Boone…”

“You should see your friend.” The voice that
had identified itself as Lein spoke. “But you probably wouldn’t
recognize him.”

“Let me talk to him, let me talk to
him...”

A commotion as the phone was passed to
someone else.

“Ever wonder,” a new voice, the evil one,
“how much blood a human being can lo

se, and still live?”

In the background: “Boone…”

“Wait, your friend wants to say something to
you.”

“Boone.” Bowie’s voice sounded distressed.
“Boone, you gotta, you gotta…” and just like that Bowie’s voice
went from tortured to maniacal. “Boone, kill ‘em, kill all of them!
Every last fucking one of—”

It sounded like someone yanked the phone away
from him and Bowie was muffled.

“Lein here again, Boone. Now listen to me
carefully, yes? I’m going to give you an address. Our little game
with your friend, Bowie, that’s almost over. But you get here as
soon as you can, maybe you can watch what we do to Gossitch.”

As the call ended, Boone was shaking. He
wanted to hurl the answering machine against the wall. But he had
to listen to the message again, get the address. This time he
jabbed the button, skipped Jennifer’s message.

“…what we do to Gossitch. Okay, here it
is.”

Boone scribbled the address down on a pad he
kept by the phone.

“See you soon, Boone. We hope.”

Someone laughed on the other end.

“Arrivederci,” said the one with the hateful
voice and the call ended.

“End of new messages.”

The answering machine smashed against the
wall and landed on the carpet in three pieces.

Boone was out of the BMW 318i, around the
back, and in its trunk before Hamilton even had it in park.

“Boone.” Hamilton watched the other man sling
a bandolier of magazines over his shoulder. Boone pulled a Colt SMG
out of the trunk and checked the mag in the well. There was a laser
sight affixed to the carry handle. “Boone, the sun’s barely
up.”

“You get back in that car.” Boone’s voice was
quavering. “Wait for me.”

“Boone—”

The conversation was over. Boone had already
turned and walked off towards the warehouse.

“Fuck.” Hamilton climbed back behind the
wheel of the BMW, cradling his Ingram Mac 10.

Boone strode from the car and across the
street to the ominous building. The sky above him was purpling with
the coming dawn. The blackened windows of the warehouse stared down
at him portentously, hiding whatever was waiting behind them. Boone
felt like he was being watched by a million eyes. The thought
enraged him.

One name echoed in his head as he walked up
to the front door of the seemingly abandoned building.
Gossitch
.

Clutching the Colt SMG close to his body,
Boone tried the door. It opened onto a dark room.

Across the street Hamilton watched Boone
disappear inside.

“Fuck,” he repeated. Boone was nuts.

The first vampire attacked Boone as soon as
he stepped into the dark. It launched itself from the opposite
ceiling, covering the space between them in seconds, hissing, lips
drawn back over its fangs. Boone swatted it out of the air with a
buttstroke from the Colt.

The creature skidded across the floor in the
dark until it got its footing and rose to a crouch. It fixed an
evil stare on him and hissed.

“Fuck off—” The red laser beam flickered on
its chest and Boone fired out half a clip, the silver bullets
pulverizing its face and head. It collapsed in an inglorious
heap.

“I’m here motherfuckers!” Boone roared into
the dark, his voice reverberating throughout the warehouse. The
body disintegrated, crumbling to dust. “I’m here bitches!”

Overhead came the sound of feet scrambling.
Boone looked up and snarled. He tipped the barrel of the SMG to the
ceiling and fired out the remainder of the clip, dust showering
down into the room.

“Come on then!” He screamed at the ceiling,
into the darkened expanses of the building.

“Boone.”

A lone figure stood at the opposite end of
the room, backlit in the door. Boone moved before it could, racing
forward, covering half the distance between himself and the
vampire, anticipation and adrenaline coursing through his body.

The creature took a step back but it was too
late. Boone had drawn the Colt back on the run and pitched it
forward, hurling it from his body. The silver tipped bayonet
secured to the barrel glinted in the light emanating from behind
the thing before burying itself in the vampire’s center of
mass.

It immediately let out a howl, a cry of agony
and disbelief as it clutched at the barrel protruding from its
abdomen.

Reaching the beast, Boone saw it was another
male vampire, but not the one he’d hoped it would be. That angered
him even more.

“Fucker!”

Boone wrapped one hand around the barrel of
the SMG and another around the trigger guard and yanked the rifle
free. The creature shrieked and immediately crumpled, the poison
coursing its way through its body.

Boone didn’t wait for the silver to do its
job. He savagely thrust the bayonet into and out of the
vampire—

“fucker-fucker-fucker”

—four, five, six, a dozen times, the beast
shrieking—

“fucker-fucker-fucker”

–its cries fading in intensity as Boone
speared it repeatedly.

When the thing stopped writhing on the floor,
Boone wrenched the bayonet free and spat down onto the corpse,
which abruptly disintegrated.

“You heard that?” He barked into the black.
“I’m coming for you. For all ‘a you motherfuckers!”

He dumped the magazine from the SMG and
slammed home a fresh one as he left the room, stepping into a long
hallway lit by bracketed torches. He could
feel
them nearby,
somewhere close, their evil presence lurking, waiting.

There were several doors off the hallway and
Boone kicked each open, the barrel of the SMG leveled. When nothing
jumped out at him from the dark he was disappointed and moved to
the next door, continuing down the hall unchallenged until he
finally reached a stairwell.

“Boone,” a vampire descending the stairs
called his name. He appeared unarmed. “My name is Lein. Let us
talk.”

Boone let the Colt fall on its sling and
snatched the thing from its feet and off the stairs, a hand around
the beast’s throat. It clutched at Boone’s hand and fought back but
Boone battered it against one wall and then the other. He drove the
sharpened point of a silver tipped stake through the thing, pinning
it to the hallway wall.