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.”
Chapter 29
By the time Crow and LaMastra got back from the farm goods stand, the others had things ready to go. Val was on the far side of the morgue, standing by one of the room’s two large stainless-steel surgical tables, arms folded under her breasts, head bowed, staring down at a body completely covered by a clean white sheet.
Ferro said, “What did you get?”
“Cloves and a couple of big jars of garlic oil in gelcaps. I had a brainstorm while I was out.”
“Hit me.”
“If we took a syringe and drew the oil out of the gelcaps and then injected them into shotgun shells, then maybe used a lighter to seal the punctures…”
“That might just be brilliant,” Ferro said.
“It’ll gum up the guns,” LaMasta said, “but who cares?”
Jonatha joined them and took one of the sacks of garlic bulbs LaMasta carried. “I’ll get to work.” She and Newton used a mortar and pestle to smash the bulbs into a lumpy paste and then smeared the door frame.
Weinstock fished in the other sack for a big bulb and began peeling off the papery skin. “We should all eat a couple of cloves,” he said, handing them out.
“I hate garlic,” Newton said, “it makes me sick.”
“Consider your alternatives.” Weinstock held out the clove, and Newton took it. Nobody liked the taste, but they all had seconds and thirds.
Ferro and LaMastra went to work on the shotgun shells and Crow went over to Val. He touched her face. She didn’t react, and he realized that tenderness was probably the last thing she needed right now, so he cleared his throat and withdrew his hand. “We’ll be ready soon,” he said.
Weinstock joined them, “Val, I don’t like the idea of you cutting herself and dripping blood all over, so I’m going to use a syringe and draw off a few cc’s. I think it’ll be safer that way. No telling what kind of infection we might be dealing with here.”
“Okay,” Val said. She held out her arm and Weinstock wrapped a rubber tourniquet around it, swabbed her with alcohol, slapped her inner arm to get a vein, and drew off a full syringe. He put a Band-Aid over the puncture and gave her some cloves to chew.
Val lifted the bottom corner of the sheet to show Crow what they’d done. Mark’s ankles were tied to the table with several turns of thick surgical gauze. “Wrists, too,” she said. Though her eyes were dry there was a strange deadness to her voice that scared Crow.
“We’re just about ready,” Ferro called.
Val touched Crow’s arm. “Give me just another minute with him, honey, okay?”
“Sure, baby, whatever you need.” He kissed her cheek and led Weinstock over to where the cops were working. As the detectives finished doctoring the shells Crow loaded them into the shotgun.
Very quietly LaMastra said, “Tell you one thing, Crow, and don’t take no offense.”
“Yeah?”
“Your lady has more balls than any of us.”
Crow grinned.
“Seriously,” LaMastra said, “you’re a lucky guy.”
Crow glanced over to where Val stood looking down at her dead brother. “Yes I am,” Crow said. He slid in the last shell in and handed the weapon to Ferro.
Ferro took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then jacked a round into the chamber. Val looked up at the sound. “Ready,” he said.
Everyone came and stood in a loose circle around the table. LaMastra crossed himself, drew his Sig Sauer 9mm, and racked the slide.
Val looked at Newton, who held two handfuls of the pulped garlic. Mush dripped from between his fingers. He nodded, genuinely unable to speak for the dry stricture of his throat.
“Saul?” she asked.
He raised the syringe. “Ready as I can be.”
Crow took a position by Val’s side. “I’m here, babe.” In his left hand he had one of the knobby uncrushed garlic bulbs, and in the other his Beretta 92F. “Let’s go,” he said, “let’s get it done.”
Faced with the moment of truth, even Val’s nerve wavered, but slightly. She reached out to touch the sheet that had been folded up to cover Mark’s chest and face. She paused, closed her eyes, and murmured something, perhaps a brief prayer, perhaps only her brother’s name, then she took the edge of the sheet between her strong fingers, made a white-knuckled fist, and pulled back the cloth.
If she expected to see a monster, she was wrong. Mark looked dead, and that was frightening enough, but nothing about him was actually fearsome. His familiar features were distorted to a waxy whiteness and a gauntness that was the result of a total loss of blood. He seemed much older, more like her father than ever, and shrunken. Weinstock had wrapped some gauze around his throat to hide the savage wounds, but Val could see the lumpy roughness along the left side just below the chin.
“Oh, Mark,” she whispered brokenly and bent forward to kiss his forehead.
Weinstock suddenly reached for her. “Val…don’t!”
She stopped, looked at Weinstock for a moment, then nodded and straightened. “Right,” she said. “You’re right.” She sniffed and angrily brushed away a tear.
Crow wanted to take her in his arms, hold her, tell her that it was going to be all right and be able to mean it. Instead he ground his teeth as a wave of bilious hatred for Ubel Griswold boiled up from deep inside. No hell would be deep enough or hot enough to punish his black, murderous soul.
“Okay, Saul,” Val said, “give me the needle.”
“I’d rather do it myself…”
“Saul. This is mine to do.”
Weinstock reluctantly handed over the syringe. Val held it up, looking at the dark red blood that filled its barrel, then turned the tip of the needle downward.
“Okay, troops,” warned Crow, “stay sharp.”
Val touched Mark’s face with the fingertips of her other hand. She stroked his cheek lightly, placed her fingers on his lips, and parted them gently, then she carefully inserted the needle between the dry teeth. LaMastra, Ferro, and Crow each slipped their fingers into the trigger guards of their weapons. Everyone was sweating heavily. Val’s breath was rasping as if she had been running for miles under a hot sun. There was a bright feverish quality to her face as she took one last steadying breath and depressed the plunger. Her own salty, clean, innocent blood sprayed into the open mouth of her dead brother.
Crow leaned forward, pointing his pistol at Mark’s temple. Ferro stood at the foot of the table, aiming the shotgun at the ceiling because Val and Crow were in the line of fire. Sweat dripped into his eyes. On the wall the, each tick of the clock was as sharp as the snap of dry twigs.
Mark did not move. Nothing flinched, nothing changed. As Val removed the needle from between his teeth a single drop fell onto his lower lip. It glistened in the fluorescent light.
“Step back,” Ferro said, and Val and Crow shifted out of the line of fire; Ferro brought the shotgun down and aimed it at Mark’s head. The barrel shook visibly as tension vibrated in every cell of Ferro’s body. The lines beside his mouth were taut as fiddle strings. Beside him, LaMastra held his pistol in a two-hand shooter’s grip and whispered, “Hail Mary, Mother of grace…”