would slow 'em down. A little. And be believed Holy Blessed silver bullets might slow 'em down. A little. And when Carl had ringed the buildings with his little detectors and turned them on, Felix believed the instant clanging alarm was, in fact, caused by the presence of vampires within the building. He believed his radio headset would enable Carl Joplin to hear his death shrieks.
He even believed in the Plan. At least, that it was a good Plan. And he turned his unseeing eyes away from the young priest and focused once more on the electric winch with its huge spool of cable and decided once again that Jack had had an inspired idea here.
Forbidden by the city powers to destroy a downtown building with explosives, which is what he would have preferred, Jack Crow had given up on the idea of trying to kill the goons while they were in the building itself. Too dark in there. Too many teeth. Too much to go wrong too fast.
No. Jack's plan was to get them outside, where the sunlight would do the work, and that's where the winch came in. Jack was going to fire that massive crossbow through a ghoul's chest, wait a second for the barbs to get lodged tight, then holler on the radio for Carl Joplin to start the winch pulling that long cable attached to the crossbow bolt, and with it the ghoul, right through the front doors of the building into the sunlight to burn.
Then Adam was to grab the cable and bring it back inside to attach it to another one of Jack's bolts. It was Cat's job to keep the monsters off Jack in the meantime. Felix was supposed to back up Cat.
Felix believed it was a good Plan.
He didn't believe it was going to work.
And he caught himself mouthing those words again.
Then the mass was over. They stood. It was time.
"Rock and roll!" barked Jack fiercely.
Felix stared at him. Then he took his position beside the others. He took several deep breaths, heard the others do the same. There was a brief distraction when some new cop type, a young redheaded man wearing a different kind of uniform, appeared beside the other cops and began arguing loudly with them.
Too late, thought Felix. Nothing that could be said or argued or written out or screamed was going to stop this thing.
Jack gave the signal and the four men stepped through the doorway into the dark.
Cooler in here, he thought before the stench hit him and he thought God - my God, what is that awful... Oh my God is that them? Is that the vampires? And he started to reach down and turn on the halogen cross so he could see, see what was making that awful smell, but then he remembered they weren't supposed to turn on their crosses because that would drive the monsters back and they wanted them coming, coming at them, for chrissakes, and Felix thought of that idea and wondered if Jack Crow was completely and totally insane - Let's get the hell out of here!
And then the lanterns came on beside him, one in Jack's hand and one in Adam's. Jack moved off to the right to place his and Felix heard his hard voice calmly instructing the priest to place his lantern farther to the left to give a wider range of view and everything seemed to be whizzing around Felix, his ears thumping and throbbing with his pulse and the slightest sound amplified in that cavernous dusty cement floor with the walls all torn out before remodeling and only the fifty-year-old support posts left spaced every dozen paces like a checkerboard and... Oh, yes! There in the dust in front of him he saw the sliding footprints going this way and that and crossing back over one another.
Oh, yeah. Somebody's been walking around in here. A lot of somebodies. A lot of somethings...
Damn-damn-damn, he couldn't seem to get set, couldn't seem to get placed, like he was always leaning backward ready to run but he wasn't going to run, was he? So why not just get set and placed or at least reach down and get your weapon in your hand... ?
But he couldn't even do that. He knew he was wearing guns but he couldn't remember exactly where they were on his body and the notion of taking his eyes off the shadows for even a split second to find them, and having