“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.”