Bad Moon Rising

Chapter 28

(1)

The bottle of Scotch was half empty. Ferro got up and walked over to the couch and stared hard at Crow.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what, Frank?”

Ferro’s hand snaked out and took a fistful of Crow’s shirt and pulled him roughly to his feet. He was six inches taller than Crow and his face was filled with fury. “Why did you bring us into this…this…?”

Crow began to say something but Val stood and put her hand on Ferro’s wrist. “No, Frank,” she said. His eyes snapped toward her and they seemed to generate heat. Val raised her other hand and put her palm on his cheek. “No.”

Ferro’s eyes went moist. He let go of Crow and stepped back.

Val said, “We brought you in because we’re scared and we’re desperate and we didn’t know where else to turn. You and Vince are outsiders, which means we can trust you. We can’t say as much for the police here. Gus is a fool and Polk…well, there’s a possibility that Polk is involved.”

“It was wrong of you to call us,” Ferro insisted, but his voice lacked conviction.

“I won’t apologize, Frank,” Val said. “I’ve lost too many of the people I love to want to play it coy. I’ll do anything I have to do in order to stop this. Anything.”

Ferro tried to hold her gaze, tried to win the contest, but there was just no way. His eyes dropped and he turned away, swatting at the air as if he could put the whole thing behind him.

Crow cleared his throat. “We have other help on this.” He told them about Jonatha Corbiel and filled them in on all of the information she’d dug up. “She’s doing the deep research for us, her and that reporter, Newton. Maybe she’ll come up with something.”

“Frank…Vince,” Val said, “sit down. We have to tell you all of it now. From the very beginning.”

Their faces registered the horror that each of them felt at the thought that there was more, but Val was implacable. She waited them out and they did sit down. Then she and Crow told them about Griswold and what they believed he was; about the Bone Man; about everything they knew and believed. Weinstock brewed a pot of coffee and everyone had a cup. When they were about three-quarters through the story Newton and Jonatha joined them, crowding the office. The detectives’ greeting was less than cordial.

“This is like a plague,” Crow said. “And the plague started with a single vampire. The main vampire.”

“In folklore the paradigm is known as the ‘vampire over-lord,’” Jonatha said.

“This is getting out of hand,” growled LaMastra. Anger was replacing shock by slow degrees. “Vampires, werewolves, and ghosts?”

Ferro held up a hand. “There’s something wrong with your theory about this, Crow. All the stories about werewolves I ever heard of say that whoever gets bitten by one becomes one. So why didn’t the mayor ever turn into a werewolf after all this time?”

Jonatha fielded that one. “There is very little in the folklore that suggests that the bloodline of a werewolf follows through victims of their bite. That’s a fictional device. Like vampires, werewolfism is something that manifests based on a person’s nature. An evil, twisted person can become a werewolf. Unlike a vampire, though, this can happen while the person is still alive.”

“So, Mayor Wolfe—and excuse me if I don’t think that his name is just too goddamn bizarre—is not in danger of becoming a werewolf?”

“I didn’t say that. Actually, we don’t know. From what Crow and Val said, he was going through a terrible psychological breakdown, including intense dreams about becoming a monster.”

“Shit,” Crow said.

“So if he does carry the curse—or infection, to use Val’s word—then his own good nature has probably been at war with the werewolf nature all these years.”

“That’s why he tried to kill himself,” Val said, her eyes going wide. “My God…he thought he was losing the struggle. He tried to kill himself to save Sarah.”

Weinstock covered his mouth with his hands. “Dear God.”

“On the other hand,” Jonatha said, “there is evidence in the folklore to support the theory that a werewolf is not inherently evil. Take the case of the Benendanti of Italy. They are ancient families who claimed that they became werewolves at night and descended into Hell to fight vampires and other monsters. Some were put on trial by the Inquisition, and there’s at least one case where a Benendanti was acquitted because the inquisitors could not prove—either through evidence or coercion—that the werewolf was not a servant of God.”

“I read about them in a couple of books,” Crow said. “The name means…”

“‘Good walker,’” Jonatha said. “Though their nicknames are ‘The Hounds of God.’”

“You think that’s what Terry was?” Val asked.

“Oh, I have no idea,” Jonatha admitted. “I’m shooting in the dark here, trying to make what’s happening fit somewhere into what’s in the folklore.”

“Christ,” said Crow, “I don’t think Terry tried to kill himself just to protect Sarah…maybe he was afraid of the beast getting out and starting a new series of murders, like the Massacre. I think he did it to protect the town!”

“I feel sick,” LaMastra said looking into the bottom of his empty coffee cup.

Val said, “So what we’re dealing with is both the werewolf’s bloodline in Terry and with the fact that after thirty years, the monster that killed my uncle and Crow’s brother and all those other people has come back as a vampire. Only now he’s stronger. He’s making more like himself. And it’s pretty clear that he’s doing a lot of this on the QT.”

“How do you figure that?” Ferro asked.

“Look at it. It’s been going on for a while and we’re only just putting it together now, and we wouldn’t even be this far if it hadn’t been for the lucky accident of the morgue’s video cameras.”

“‘Lucky accident,’ he says,” complained LaMastra.

“It makes me wonder how much else is going on that we don’t know about,” Crow concluded.

“Well, we know some of it,” said Newton. He shot a look at Crow, who nodded and gave Newton a wan smile of encouragement. “We know he’s organized, and we know he has help. Probably human help.”

Ferro shot him a glance. “Human help? How do you figure that?”

Quickly Newton related the trip down to Griswold’s house and all that happened there. After the horrified reactions had calmed down, he said, “Crow pointed out that the lumber was fresh, and so was that chain. Can you see a vampire going to a lumberyard and a hardware store?”

Ferro shook his head.

Crow said, “Then we should assume the presence of human help. I mean, in the books and movies about vampires, doesn’t he always have someone who looks after things during the day? A Renfield sort of character. So, either we have a human handyman, or we have a vampire that likes to use tools.”

“That can give us a starting place, can’t it?” asked LaMastra, but Val shook her head.

“In farming country nearly everyone knows some basic carpentry. No, the point is that the helper is probably someone local.”

Ferro scanned the faces of the others. “So…does anyone have a useful suggestion for what we should do now? We have to be careful about how we release this information. You have a full town here, and we could be wrong…I mean, sure there may be vampires, God help us, but Ruger could actually be dead and rotting out in some shallow grave and this whole thing could be over.”

“That’d be nice,” Newton said. “Crow and the Doc dug up those two cops and they seem to be pretty well dead. So, maybe this is all after the fact.”

“Regardless,” Ferro said, “I don’t think it’s wise to tell anyone about this just yet.”

“What are you talking about?” LaMastra said, goggling. “I intend to tell every frigging person in the tristate area. This is not the time to play it close to our vest.”

“It could cause a panic. We can’t risk that.”

“Well fine then, Frank. Let’s have a panic. Let’s do ’er up pretty, too. Let’s have everyone in this end of the country running around with crosses and stakes. Hey, I’m all for the whole villagers with torches thing here.”

“If we have a panic,” Ferro said patiently, “it will be impossible to control the situation.”

“Control it? Christ, Frank, we are not in control of it now. Like, I’m all for calling the National Guard and maybe even the Vatican. Let’s have a Vampire Slaying party. Invite your friends. Control it? Jesus, you’re right out of the movies.”

“No, Vince,” said Val quietly, “Frank’s right. If people start panicking, then how are we going to try and organize our attack?”

“Our attack on whom?”

“Why…on the vampires,” Val said so softly that it chilled everyone in the room. After a moment Crow, Weinstock, and Newton all nodded.

LaMastra folded his arms and sat back in his chair. There was an enigmatic smile on his lips. “Have you guys been smoking crack? You just told us that Griswold dropped a porch on you and then called up a couple billion friggin’ roaches to run you off. You never even got inside. Who knows what would have happened if you had and Boyd or Ruger had been there. You’d both probably still be there with beer taps in your necks.”

“Yeah,” Newton snorted, “we were so damn lucky.”

Jonatha nodded gravely. “Luckier than you think. We don’t know what these things can really do. In folklore there are all sorts of powers associated with vampires, and if only a tenth of it is true then we’re in real trouble.” Everyone turned to look at her, each face registering a different degree of distress. She plunged ahead. “Here’s what we already know—from what Crow, Val, and Dr. Weinstock have observed. Vampires are stronger than us, though if we’re dealing with more than one species the level of strength may vary. Some of them are smarter than humans, too, though the literature suggests that the intelligence increases because of longevity. Immortals, for lack of a better word, have more time to learn.”

“Ruger was crafty,” Crow said, “but nothing he did suggests he was Einstein with fangs.”

“Boyd was more like a zombie,” Val said. “A killing machine, which sounds corny, but believe me there was nothing corny about him.”

Jonatha nodded, continued. “Some vampires can call on storms and affect the weather.”

Val looked at Crow, her eyebrows arched. “That might fit. We’ve had a lot of storms this past month, and more cloudy days than sunny.”

“Right,” Crow agreed, “and that started the night before Ruger and Boyd came to town.” He looked inquiringly at Jonatha. “Griswold?”

“If he’s a true psychic vampire, then, yes, that would fit.”

“How bad can these storms get?” Val asked.

“I don’t know. The stories are often exaggerated. I mean, some vampires are supposed to be able to cause eclipses, which is of course impossible.”

“Even for something…supernatural?” LaMastra asked.

Jonatha smiled. “Bringing corpses back to life is one thing, causing storms is another…but moving the sun and the planets seems a bit much even for a vampire.”

“Well, thank God for small favors,” Ferro muttered.

“In the movies,” Crow said, “Dracula can command rats and bugs. Considering the whole army of roaches thing I think we can assume Griswold has that ability, too.”

“What about shape-shifting?” Newton asked. “Dracula turns into a bat and a wolf…”

“Oddly, in folklore vampires never turn into either bats or wolves. Those vampires that are theriomorphic are—”

“That are what?” Ferro asked.

“Sorry. Shape-shifters. Theriomorphs are what we call creatures that are able to change their shape, or at least their appearance. I don’t know if our vampires can do that, though since Griswold was once a werewolf we can’t rule it out.”

Ferro reached for the coffeepot. “This conversation has become surreal.”

LaMastra held out his cup. “Hit me.”

“What else?” Weinstock asked as he poured.

“Please”—Jonatha said, holding up a slim hand—“please remember that this is all speculation.”

“Yes, we get that. Go on.”

Jonatha folded her arms. “Hmm. I don’t suppose anyone has mapped the ley lines of this town, have they?”

“What the hell are ley lines?” demanded LaMastra.

“It’s a belief held by some that there is a kind of energy grid covering the world, somewhat like the imaginary lines of latitude and longitude, but acting more like the lines of energy in the human body they call meridians. In healings arts like acupuncture and acupressure the belief is that energy flows through the body along invisible pathways and disease comes from blockages in the normal flow and health is restored by removing those blocks. Ley lines are similar in that spiritual earth energy flows along them. Now, there have been folkloric studies of ley lines and in places where the normal flow is somehow blocked there have been all sorts of phenomena like hauntings, plagues, and blights.”

“Hmm,” Crow said.

“You and Newt said that you felt a very negative energy in Dark Hollow, right? Well, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that the natural flow of earth energy probably warps around that spot.”

“How does this New Age crap help us?” LaMastra said.

“It might not,” Jonatha admitted, “except to help understand the scope of this thing. Do you have a map of the town, Doctor?”

“Sure.” Weinstock took a book from a shelf, a big glossy history of the town. He rifled the pages then stopped at a two-page aerial photo.

As Jonatha bent over it, Crow tapped a few spots. “Okay, here’s Dark Hollow, and there’s Griswold’s farm.”

“What’s here?” Jonatha asked tracing a line in a semicircle that skirted the Hollow.

“Well, the center section here is Val’s place. Then there’s some sections of the campus, some forest, and a few farms.” He named the farms.

Jonatha looked at Val. “Your farm wasn’t affected by the blight, was it?”

“No.”

“What about these others?”

As Val looked at the map deep frown lines formed between her brows. “God…!”

“What?” Newton asked.

“Holy crap,” Crow said. “Those are the only farms unaffected by the blight.” There was a stunned silence.

Jonatha nodded. “I’d bet my tenure that the natural ley line warps around the Hollow and crosses each of those farms, and because those farms—and only those—would in essence be pinched between the next natural ley line and the warped one, they sit in a zone of higher natural energy. That intensified energy kept them safe from the blight.”

LaMastra looked from the map to Ferro. “You buying any of this bullshit?”

“Actually,” Ferro said softly, “I’m starting to.” He sat back in his chair and swirled the coffee around in his cup. “However, as fascinating as the backstory is, Dr. Corbiel, I think we need to determine two things right now. No, make that three things. First, we need to know how to kill these bastards.”

“I’ll drink to that,” said LaMastra, and did.

“Then we need to know where they are,” Ferro continued. “And finally, we need to know how they’re created. If that’s a process we can identify, then maybe we can cut it off. Like when you’re getting rid of termites in a house…if you can kill off one breeding cycle you kill the infestation.”

“Well,” Jonatha said, “as far as where they are…I think Dark Hollow has to be the hub. Griswold’s almost certainly buried somewhere down there.”

Ferro looked at his watch. “There’s not enough daylight to go out there today, but I think we should plan on going there tomorrow.”

“I take it you’re signing on,” Crow asked.

Ferro gave him a withering look. “Yes, and when this is over I hope to Christ that I never see any of you again.”

“Amen,” agreed LaMastra. “When this is over I’m moving to Florida.”

“Why Florida?” Newton asked.

“Why not?”

“The second point is killing them,” Jonatha said, “and that might be some good news. The folklore has a lot to say about that.”

“What, we need to get a bunch of hammers and stakes?” LaMastra asked.

“No,” Weinstock interjected. “Val’s pretty much shown us that severe brain trauma will do the job. Though it’s possible that spinal damage might be a factor. At least one of Val’s shots severed Boyd’s upper spine and also broke his neck. All of those are possible or even probable methods of killing them. When in doubt, aim for the brain stem.”

“Beheading should work, too,” Jonatha said, “and we can probably count on fire.”

“Burn baby burn,” LaMastra said under his breath. Crow reached over and offered a high-five, which LaMastra, to his surprise, returned.

“And don’t forget garlic, that’s very important. In every culture where there are vampires, garlic is used both to ward them off and to kill them. I’m not sure how we’d introduce it into their bodies, though.”

“Garlic oil,” Weinstock said, looking at Ferro. “Could we use that somehow? Some kind of weapon?”

“Doable,” said the detective thoughtfully. “Definitely doable.”

“What about the last point,” Val asked quietly. “That matters most to me because of Mark. Can we do a test to determine if Mark is infected?”

Jonatha looked at her for a long time before she answered. “Yes,” she said slowly. “There is a way…but it’s dangerous.”

“So what else is new?” asked Newton sourly.

(2)

After Jonatha outlined her plan, Val said she needed some time. Crow walked her down to the hospital’s chapel, but at the door she stopped him with a gentle hand on his chest. “Honey, I need a few minutes to myself. I have to think this through…and maybe talk to Daddy about it.”

He nodded. “You don’t have to be there when we do this. Saul and I can do it. We have the two cops…”

“No.”

“You’re pregnant, Val…Crow Junior doesn’t need his mom to—”

“I said no, Crow.” She put a finger to his lips, then kissed him, sweetly and long. “Give me fifteen minutes, okay?”

Crow sighed, nodded, hating it.

Back in Weinstock’s office, he saw that Newton and Jonatha were gone—out to get sandwiches for everyone—and the others were watching TV coverage of the Halloween parties that were in full swing in town.

“There’s a lot of people in town,” Ferro said dubiously. “I don’t like it.”

“Tomorrow it will be even crazier,” Weinstock said.

“That’s just peachy.” LaMastra rubbed his eyes. “No way to keep control of this.”

Ferro said, “We’ve established that the Halloween stuff is going to happen. What precautions have you taken?”

Crow told them about the security team he’d brought into town. Ferro was familiar with BK and Billy Christmas. “They did security a couple of times for some big-ticket election events in Philly. BK’s a levelheaded guy.”

To Ferro, Weinstock said, “Are you concerned that something is going to happen during the holiday activities?”

Ferro pursed his lips, then shook his head. “I doubt it. With all the media coverage…it’d be too high profile. But with all that’s going on, we’ll have no way of seeing what is going on behind the scenes. There’ll be no way to keep track of who goes missing, which means we have to take a closer look at those statistics you’ve been keeping over the last month, Saul. You’ve logged an increase in mortality rates, and although each of them individually appears to be normal—house fires, car accidents, heart attacks, and such, in light of what we now know we have to ask ourselves whether any of these could have been attacks by Ruger or Boyd. And, if so, are any of these people also likely to be infected?”

“There’s also tourists. How would we know if any of them went missing?” LaMastra asked.

Crow looked at Weinstock. “Saul, how many people do you actually think may have been attacked?”

Weinstock licked his lips with a nervous tongue. “There’s no way to know for sure. I didn’t examine everyone. And I couldn’t arrange for all of them to be exhumed.”

“That’s not good,” LaMastra said. “If there are even one or two more of these things out there…”

Crow nodded. “I know.”

“Hey,” LaMastra asked, snapping his fingers, “what about holy water and crosses?”

“Jonatha said that wouldn’t work. At best it would depend on the faith of the vampire—not, as is sometimes mentioned in fiction, on the faith of the person holding the cross. At worst they won’t work at all. Besides, even if the vampire is religious, it’s a crucifix, not a cross.”

“Not if the vampire is a Protestant,” Ferro offered. “They don’t use the crucifix, they go for the empty cross, symbolic of the resurrection, not the whole death-for-sins thing.”

“Sure,” said LaMastra. “Plus, the vampire could be Amish or a Mormon, or even a Jehovah’s Witness.”

“Or Muslim or Buddhist or Hindu,” Crow said.

“Or Jewish,” Weinstock offered hopefully.

“Great,” snapped LaMastra. “Go wave a Star of David at Ruger.”

Weinstock shook his head. “Actually a mezuzah would be better. It’s symbolic of the torah and the laws of Moses. Far more religiously significant than the Star.”

“Oh.”

“But even so,” Weinstock continued thoughtfully, “would that protect men against a vampire who didn’t believe in Judaism?”

Crow said, “My, my, here we are discussing the actual power of God.” He smiled and shook his head. “I mean, think about it. We are discussing which symbols of God will stop vampires. That’s quite a topic. And doesn’t it suggest that God is actually real? That He has power that can actually affect things in our world?”

“Well no shit,” said LaMastra. “What’s your problem? Don’t you believe in God?”

“Not much, no.”

Ferro asked, “What were you before you lost your faith?”

Crow’s eyes were like flint. “A child,” he said. “I had it beaten out of me at an early age.”

“I’ll stick with fire,” Weinstock said. “Fire purifies, as the saying goes.”

“It would be interesting,” said Ferro, “to see how we could burn them without burning down your whole town and all the surrounding forestland.”

They sat and thought about that for a while. Crow said, “Okay, this is farm country. Getting plenty of garlic is not a problem. We ought to be able to rustle up a hundred tons of it if we have to.”

“I’m toying with the idea of bathing in it,” said LaMastra.

To Crow, Ferro said, “Is your fiancée going to be okay with this? With what we have to do to her brother?”

“It was her idea in the first place.”

“She’s a pretty tough lady.”

“You have no idea, Frank.”

Ferro nodded. “You agree we have to do this, right?”

“Yeah, damn it.”

“Mark is my brother,” Val said from the doorway. They could all see that she’d been crying, but her mouth was a hard line. “He’s…dead, and that’s something I’ll have to live with, but I can’t go on without knowing if he…if he…” Even she could not say it. No one blamed her. “But we have a responsibility to this town. If Mark and Connie are infected we have to know. I have to know. I owe it to the town, and to my baby.”

“I’m sorry,” Ferro said softly.

She nodded, accepting it. “It’s getting dark. If we have to do this, let’s do it now.” She paused and stifled a sob.

“Val,” said Ferro, “you should probably stay here while we—”

“No!” she snapped. “Listen to me, Frank. All of you listen. Mark is my brother. I love him. Do you think I’ll let him be alone through this?” Her voice was as harsh as a slap across Ferro’s face, and he winced. “Jonatha said that in order to test him we have to make him taste blood, that we have to put it in his mouth. Well, here’s what we’re going to do. Crow, you and Vince are going to hustle your asses out to the closest farm stand and buy all the garlic they have. As soon as you get back we’re going to go right down to the morgue, and you men are going to hold him down, and I am going to cut open my thumb and spill my blood, my family’s blood, into my brother’s mouth. That is what’s going to happen. Don’t you dare try to tell me it’s not.”

The men stared at her in amazement, each one of them trying to measure their personal courage to see if it came close to matching hers. At that moment, there was not a man in that room who wouldn’t have died for her.

“And if my brother is one of them, if he’s become a…a…”

“Val,” Crow whispered, touching her.

She looked down at his hand then into his eyes. “If Mark is a vampire,” she said in a deadly whisper, “then we will do what needs to be done!” She paused for a moment. “And may God have mercy on us all.”