“I have to move fast.”

“I’m fast,” Manuel insisted.

“You need to stay here,” Thompson said.

Manuel sat in the hall and wept. Thompson put a thumb drive and the CD he had burned off Father Patrick’s laptop on the kitchen table, betting that via one technological delivery system or the other, Bobby would be able to view the footage. Then he wrote a note:

Bobby, I’ll take care of this. Thompson. Then he hit the road.

— 14 —

Thompson didn’t know how much of a head start Walker and Little Sister had, so he pulled it out and barreled down the highway at speeds he had never dared before. Was Walker really planning to marry her? Or was he getting rid of the loose ends of the let’s-screw-up-Bobby-plot?

Thompson had been right. Walker had been feeding Bobby’s head as a form of misdirection — but for a different reason. See vampires everywhere, and you won’t see the one sitting across from you at breakfast. Or if you say you do, no one will believe you.

Thompson rode hard. Maybe someone else would have let them go. What the hell, Bobby was right. Vampires were coming over the border. Vampires were everywhere. Why not let Walker … walk?

Because she was only sixteen.

He rode all night. Once, a trio of shadows blipped across the road — animals, refugees? — but he blazed past, on his mission, wondering if Little Sister would be alive when he got there.

The dusty town two towns over was still asleep. He pulled across from the post office and waited. Dawn washed the horizon with lavender and pink, and he remembered a world before the ice melted and released the trigger. The world he’d known then was gritty and diseased, but he’d taken cold comfort in the knowledge that it was an underworld, practically an alternate dimension, separate from where the majority of human beings lived. But this new world was a world war. The V-War, they were calling it. There was no barrier.

The sun rose, and still no sign of Walker and Little Sister. Thompson wondered if Walker had passed disinformation via Manuel. If, infact, he had planned from the beginning to ride somewhere else entirely.

Thompson rode out of that town and on to the next one. And the next. Down the ribbon of highway with its ever-receding watery mirage. Past miles of nothing, and more nothing, and less than nothing. The heat pushed down hard, and he thought about the Bog Man.

In frustration, Thompson squinted up at the bright yellow desert sun.

And that was when he saw the buzzards. They were circling slowly, way up high, barely recognizable in the bright blue sky as they rode the thermals; then they angled downward, almost as if they were tiptoeing down a steep flight of stairs.

Thompson headed in their direction, trying to keep them in his sights, wondering how far away they really were. He found himself thinking of all the desert miles he had covered in service of his country, fighting the onslaught of controlled substances. Things were certainly out of control now.

The buzzards disappeared and he swore under his breath. Then more appeared in the cloudless blue, as if the word had gotten out that there was good eating to be had.

He put the pedal to the metal, stayed on the highway, and then he saw dark shadows to his right on the sand. One was moving, one was not.

The engine roared as he pushed against the road; and then he saw the whole tableau: not the Pietà this time, but The Nightmare, by Fuseli — the succubus crouched on top of the inert woman; the horse — this time a motorcycle — angled behind the couple.

Walker was crying. His lips were outlined in Little Sister’s blood. The vultures hopped close by, impatient for him to finish up so that they could get some, too. Sloppy seconds were the best.

“Thompson,” Walker cried. His eyes were coals in his sunburned face. His femur was protruding from his jeans leg. The white bone glistened. It had to hurt like hell. “We had an accident and we ran off the road. My fucking leg is broken. But she fell off the bike. I’m giving her mouth-to-mouth. God, call an ambulance!”

But Little Sister was in no pain at all. She was dead. Her eyes were unfocused, like Mendez’s.

“Walker,” Thompson said, “you know why I’m here.”

“I took the money out of Bobby’s room,” Walker said, crying and stroking Little Sister’s hair. Blood dribble down his chin.

“You know it’s not the money. I went to the church,” Thompson said.

Walker groaned. He cried a few more tears. Then he said, “I didn’t see the camera until after.”

“Yeah, it looked that way on the monitor,” Thompson said. He was reading Walker’s body language. Walker was try to figure out how to get out of it alive. And he was deeply remorseful about Little Sister.

That was nice.

“There’s a couple thou. Take it and leave me alone. I—I won’t do anything like this again. “

A couple thou? There had to be more.

“I thought you loved her,” Thompson said.

Walker sobbed. “I did. I just, you know, we were out here and she was dying and it’s not a good way to go. And-and I was thirsty.”

“Hungry, too,” Thompson said. “You take chunks out of her?”

Walker shook his head. “No. I couldn’t, not to her.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Thompson said, “it wasn’t just the camera. I already knew about the coffee cocktail. I knew you and Angela were planning something.”

Walker blubbered. “She wanted to do it for revenge. For her parents. It worked out with-with my … situation. I was afraid someone would figure it out. I thought it might you. You’re so quiet. But they were already so crazy. Bobby is so crazy.”

Walker stared down at Little Sister and whimpered like a whipped dog. “He’s crazy. The others are just loyal.” He wiped the tears off his face, then looked at his fingers. “God, there’s blood all over me.”

“Yeah, there is,” Thompson said. Then he added, “But you never figured it out.”

Then, stirred by the blood, by so much blood when he’d been fasting, because he stayed quiet and careful and under the radar, Thompson felt his own fangs extend. Knew his own eyes were two coals glowing.

Walker started screaming. He dug his hands into Little Sister’s chest for purchase, struggling to drag himself away. “You’re a fucking vampire!” Walker shrieked. “Like me!”

“Exactly like you,” Thompson confirmed. Walker screamed some more. Thompson kept coming. “I drink, and I eat, too,” he told Walker. “Eat their flesh. All those people Bobby killed in the desert? They’ve been my stashes. But you had to go fresh.”

“I’ll tell my brother! I’ll fucking tell him!” Walker shouted. And then he seemed to think better of that plan. “I won’t, Thompson. I swear Iwon’t. I won’t,” he babbled.

“You won’t,” Thompson affirmed.

Walker stared at him in horror. He burst into fresh tears and Thompson let him have his cry. He sounded younger even than Manuel. Thompson remembered all those impromptu funerals Walker had held. His dismay over Bobby’s savagery.

“We can team up,” Walker said. “Leave together.”

Thompson shook his head. He knew he had to sacrifice Walker. Let Bobby see the vampire across the breakfast table so he wouldn’t see the one riding behind him in the desert.

Riding behind him so he could do what?

Walker cried forever. Then he looked from Thompson to Little Sister. “I really did love her,” he said. “I didn’t mean to kill her.”

“I know,” Thompson said, although he didn’t know.

— 15 —

The roar of three motorcycles split the heavens like an atomic blast and the vultures shot back up into the sky. The president of the Ocotillo Militia, Bobby Morrisey, rode point; then his sergeant-at-arms, Fugly, and Johnny Rocket, his V.P. By then, Thompson knew that the flesh of vampires did have a special tang. It was extra spicy. By then, he had shot Walker in the chest to hide the evidence of his feast, and washed up with the bottles of water in the cooler strapped to Walker’s bike.

He hadn’t touched Little Sister. He showed respect.

The O.M.s were almost there.

I’m going to get my full patch, he thought, or I’m going to die.

He found, unexpectedly, that he was fine with either outcome. Except there was Manuel. Somebody had to look out for him, help him become something in the new world order besides a hardened biker chasing nightmares in a dead end desert.

And as the Ocotillo Militia arrived, he watched the buzzards, circling. Then he watched them give up, and fly away.

"VULPES" PT.1

Gregory Frost

— 1 —

Ruksana Vulpes pushed up her helmet and glanced across the glistening wall of ice to where Harry Gordon was descending on his separate line. Two ice axes hung off Harry’s harness, and both had orange snow baskets on them because Harry was terrified of losing them and finding himself stranded a thousand feet down. A ridiculous fear, given that they could be hauled up on winches if they didn’t choose to climb. Then again, three axes dangled, clinking, from her own belt; in case she lost her grip on one while climbing back up the side of the calved ice shelf. Everyone had their superstitions.

They went down in pairs. She was buddied with Vincent Dusault. He rappelled separately, too — above her at the moment. Harry was teamed with another American, John Bail. John and Vincent carried the core drills, like rifles slung on their backs. She and Harry had the rucksacks with the polymer tubes.

The ice shelf had calved only two hours ago, introducing more than a thousand feet of glacial face that hadn’t been exposed in millennia. By rappelling down the side of it and taking their samples horizontally at various levels, they avoided the longer process of drilling down from above while eliminating all possibility of contaminating their samples with matter from the upper strata. Plus, the four of them liked to rappel down mountains and climb glaciers. It was part of the reason they were here.