their occasional starts and jumps at some imagined movement at the edges of the shadows. The detector never beeped, their radios retained clear and crisp reception.
But it scared the hell out of both of them.
The stairwell was too goddamned narrow and the shadows too goddamned dark and the smell grew so strong they felt they could lean against it and their boots sounded harsh and rasping on the dusty steps and they couldn't help but notice the scores of other footprints besides their own. The basement was worse.
It was a crypt. Nine bodies in all - six townspeople and the three policemen who had gone inside to save them. Their bodies were rank and swollen, unevenly, grotesquely bloated. And there were maggots. Thousands of maggots swarming in the chests.
"How could they rise up after that?" gasped Felix, staring at the maggots.
Jack shook his head. "I don't know. But they do. Every time. Unless we do this right." He put down his crossbow and reached back for the ax strapped across his shoulders.. "Or unless I do, rather. You don't have to do anything. But pay attention to what I do. Okay?"
Felix nodded, moving over against a bare wall.
Jack steeled himself. Get hard, dammit! he screamed inwardly. But it didn't work. It didn't help. Not even the hatred of the vampires made it any easier. It never did.
But he did it. He chopped the heads off and put them in one pile and then he dragged the torsos into another heap' and then he poured gasoline on both piles and set them alight.:
They burned like dry, dead leaves.
Jack and Felix hunkered down in one corner underneath the cloud of smoke to breathe.
"Sometimes the fires go out," offered Jack by way of explanation.
After that they didn't talk for several minutes. They just sat there and watched the flames that burned so brightly and so angrily, flames that never would have appeared over normal corpses.
Only here, thought Jack, and he sneaked a look at his companion. He couldn't see much in the uncertain light, but... there! There was the glimmer of tears! And only after he had seen Felix's could Jack bear to lift a hand and wipe away his own.
How can this sicken me so much, he thought as he always thought, and still break my heart at the same time?
And then he stood up to retrieve a blazing skull that had rolled away from the flames. He eased it gently back into the fire with the head of his ax.
Eventually the flames did their work and Jack was able to get up and spread the ashes and then the two of them walked back up the stairwell that seemed not frightening at all now, only sad and lonely and forever and ever empty.
Outside in the sunshine, Madame Mayor had already begun the celebration. She had a table set upon the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. On it was a white tablecloth and a large silver ice bucket holding a magnum of champagne. All the city father types stood around her as she began some little speech about the gallantry and bravery of Team Crow.
Jack's inclination was to insert that bottle of champagne, cork and all, into a certain place in her body. But he was smart enough to control his anger. Even smart enough to signal to his troops to play along. And so they all stood there on that sidewalk while somebody began to pour and they all drank and they all smiled and they all pretended not to notice that too-strident cheery tone the mayor was pumping out.
That's a terrified woman, Jack thought behind his grin. What if we win? Or, hell, what if we lose? Either way she's had it.
But he just kept smiling until he had a chance to interrupt graciously and inform the audience of Team Crow's desire to rest and get cleaned up and change clothes and all that before the dinner in their honor.
Fine they all said. That's just fine! Good idea! 'Cause ya'll are gonna need your rest for the shebang we're hitting ya with tonight! And we got just the place for ya!
And with that they escorted Team Crow the two blocks through the early afternoon sun to the William Willis Inn, the finest hotel in town. Through the lobby door and past the desk to an ancient elevator that required three trips to accommodate all the hangers-on to the top floor and the presidential suite, where food and drink and