The coach, p.1
The Coach, page 1
THE COACH
M.C. Sumner
She’s turning into a vampire. . . .
“I don’t want to be like Volker,” Talli whispered. “Don’t let me be a monster.”
“I won’t. I don’t know what to do,” Chris said, “but I promise I’ll find out.”
“I believe I might be of some assistance there,” said a voice.
His hands still linked with Talli’s, Chris twisted around to see a slim man in a long trench coat step from the shadows under the trees. Despite the calm expression on the man’s face, there was something menacing about him as he advanced toward them.
“Stay back,” Chris shouted.
“If I stay back,” said the stranger, “then how can I help?” Moonlight played along his teeth as his lips parted in a wide smile. Behind him, Chris saw another figure moving through the shadows.
“Who are you?” Chris asked. He started to step forward, but Talli pulled him back.
“No, Chris, don’t. It’s Them.”
“It’s who?” asked Chris.
“I believe she means we are vampires,” said the smiling man. “And she’s quite right.”
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 1994 by Daniel Weiss Associates, Inc. and Marc C. Sumner
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Alloy Entertainment. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), write to permission@alloyentertainment.com. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Produced by Alloy Entertainment
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Reprint edition 2016
For John, who always likes his coaches.
With gratitude to the Alternate Historians: Tom Drennan, Valerie Gaston, Laurell K. Hamilton, Deborah Millitello, Marella Sands, Janni Simner, and Robert Sheaff. And to the Tale Spinners: John C. Bunnell, M.C. Sumner, Karawynn Long, Mark Kreighbaum, Dan Perez, Sherwood Smith, and Kathleen Woodbury. It shouldn’t take all these people to nurse me through one book, but it does. Thanks, folks.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
About the Author
Chapter One
Monday
The policeman’s grip on his shoulder was a little too tight to be friendly.
Chris looked to the left as the officer steered him down a narrow hallway. They passed several windows made of security glass, the kind with crisscrossing wires worked into it. Through the windows Chris could see a large room where other police officers stood, or sat at paper-strewn desks.
Heads turned as Chris passed, and eyes followed his movement down the hall. Even when he looked away, Chris could still feel eyes on his back.
The hall ended in a small room, light gray from its carpeted floor to its high ceiling. Despite the bitter January cold outside, the room was stuffy and hot, smelling of old coffee and stale cigarette smoke. The only light came from a bare bulb that hung well out of reach overhead. An old, battered desk and a single metal folding chair were the sole pieces of furniture. One whole wall of the room was a gleaming silver mirror. Chris suspected that it was a mirror only from inside the room. He wondered how many police officers might already be watching from the other side of the glass.
“Have a seat,” said the policeman who had brought him in. He kept his hand on Chris’s shoulder until Chris was settled in the cold chair.
“Now what?” Chris asked.
“Now you wait,” said the policeman. “Someone will be in to talk to you in a few minutes. Okay?”
It was a long, long way from okay. Chris didn’t want to be there at all, but he didn’t think it would make any difference if he said that.
“Sure,” he replied.
The policeman nodded. Chris watched the man’s blue reflection in the mirror as he walked across the room, glanced back for a moment, then stepped out into the hallway. There was a solid click of metal as the door swung shut. Chris didn’t have to try it to know that the door was locked.
Do they expect me to do something? he wondered. In the mystery novels he liked to read, the police sometimes watched a suspect when he thought he was alone. They watched him to see if he acted especially worried, or guilty. Some of the detectives in those books seemed to learn an awful lot from that kind of thing. Especially if the people being watched really were guilty.
Chris wasn’t sure if he was guilty, but he was sure that he knew things he didn’t want to tell the police. He decided to try his best to act normal. He sat still, with his hands folded in his lap, and stared down at the edge of the table. He forced himself to concentrate on the rough brown streaks in the gray paint of the desk, no doubt the marks left behind by previous suspects’ cigarettes.
If I don’t do anything, they can’t learn anything, right? he thought. He glanced at the mirror. Maybe guilty people always sat still. Maybe it was innocent people who fidgeted. Stop it. You’re going to drive yourself nuts before they ask you anything. He looked down at the worn carpet and did his best to relax.
At least the officer was telling the truth—they didn’t make Chris sweat it out for more than a few minutes before the door opened and a man stepped in. He was very thin, with dull-black hair that was plastered against his skull, and a blue shadow of stubble on his narrow chin. Chris recognized him as one of the policemen who had come to the house.
Right behind him came a taller man with iron-gray hair. He had a barrel chest that strained the buttons on his uniform shirt, and massive arms that bulged under the sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves. “Hello, Chris,” he said.
“Mr. McAlister!” Chris said. He felt some of his tension lift. “I’m glad to see you.”
The thin man snorted. “This guy a friend of yours, McAlister?” he asked.
“Friend of my daughter’s,” said Jake McAlister. His eyes were fixed on Chris, but he didn’t offer to shake hands. The expression on his face was unreadable. “Tallibeth had him over at the house just a couple of days ago.”
“Well, that’s real interesting,” said the other man. He leaned back against the gray wall and smiled a thin smile. “Your being friends with a fellow under investigation for murder.”
“Murder!” shouted Chris. He started to stand, but Jake McAlister reached across the table and held him down.
“Don’t get excited,” he said. “Nobody’s charging you with anything. Certainly not with murder.” He shot a glance at the other man. “Watch what you say, Lansky.”
The thin man gave a dry laugh. “Just trying to get a rise out of the boy.”
Sergeant McAlister took his hand from Chris’s shoulder and straightened. “This is Sergeant Lansky. He’s here to ask you a few questions. Just answer them as best you can.” He glanced at the door with a frown. “I’ve got to go take care of something.”
Lansky waited until the sergeant had left the room, then pulled a cigarette out of his shirt pocket. “Ready for some questions?” he sneered.
“Questions about a murder?” Chris asked. He shifted in his uncomfortable chair. “I don’t know anything about a murder.”
“I see,” Lansky replied. “Well, then, let’s talk about what you do know.” He fished a cheap lighter from his pocket and rolled it around in his hand. “You knew Casey Leah Pays?”
“Casey,” Chris said, trying to think fast. There had been a knot of nervousness in his stomach ever since the police had come to take him away from the house he shared with his sister. Now that knot was threatening to unravel into full-fledged panic. “I knew her,” he said through a throat gone suddenly dry.
Lansky pushed himself away from the wall with a shrug of his narrow shoulders. “That’s interesting. Why do you say ‘knew’?”
“What?”
“You said you knew her,” said Lansky. “You didn’t say ‘know,’ you said ‘knew.’” He leaned toward Chris, an expression of obviously false concern on his face. “Why do you suppose you used the past tense, Chris? Is there something about Casey Pays’s current condition that you know and I don’t?”
Chris had seen a hundred movies and read a thousand books in which people being questioned broke down and confessed to a crime. He’d always thought it was stupid. Now that it was his turn to sit in a cold gray room and answer questions, it didn’t seem so dumb.
“I said ‘knew’ because you said ‘knew,’” he replied. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Lansky nodded and lit his cigarette. “Doesn’t mean a thing. Right.” He stepped away from Chris and stood in the corner of the small room, puffing on his cigarette.
“Is that what this is all about?” Chris asked when the silence had stretched out for a few painful minutes. “You think I killed Casey?”
“There you go again.” Lansky st
Because I put a silver knife through her chest, Chris wanted to scream out. You see, Officer, she turned into a vampire, and I had to stab her. For a moment the image of Casey, lying on the concrete floor and yanking at the knife, was so clear that Chris swayed in his chair.
Lansky reached out and took him by the arm. “You okay, kid? You don’t look too good.”
Chris nodded. “I’m all right.” He pulled himself up straight in the chair and rubbed at his burning eyes. “I’d be better if you’d stop smoking.”
Lansky snorted and let go of his arm. “In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re not in a place where you can tell other people what to do.” He looked down at Chris with an expression that resembled a genuine smile. “You’re not from here, are you, kid?”
Startled by the change of direction, Chris shook his head. “Chicago.”
“Yeah, you sound like Chicago.” Lansky dropped the cigarette on the gray carpet and ground it out under his heel. “Let me tell you something. These folks around here are a bunch of backwoods hicks. They wouldn’t know a real murder if it happened in the middle of the squad room.” The smile on his face turned into something else, something ugly. “But I was a real detective. NYPD, you understand?”
Chris nodded.
“If it wasn’t for bloody politics, I’d still be a detective.” Lansky’s voice rose in pitch until he was practically screaming. “Don’t you forget that! I was a real detective. This case is my chance to get out of this hick town, and you’re going to help me.”
He glanced at the door with its tiny window, then looked back at Chris. “I’ve got a dozen witnesses that say Miss Casey Pays was spending time with you. I’ve got her truck seen on your street the night she disappeared. I’ve even got someone who thinks they saw the girl going into your house.” He jabbed a finger so close to Chris’s nose that Chris flinched. “You tell me what happened to her, Christopher Delany from Chicago. You tell me what you did last Friday night.”
Chris was afraid that the words would catch in his throat, but his voice came out with surprising strength. “On Friday I had dinner with my sister and Talli McAlister,” he said. “Then Talli went home, and I went to bed.”
Lansky slapped his hand down on the metal table. “You’re lying to me! I don’t care if you are pals with McAlister and his kid. I’ll have you up on charges so fast you’ll get a nosebleed. You tell me what I want to know, and you tell me now!”
A cold feeling came over Chris. He wished he had never started poking around in what had happened in Westerberg. If only he hadn’t investigated the disappearances, he wouldn’t have suspected that there was another vampire in town. And if he hadn’t known that . . .
Then Talli would be dead, or worse, and maybe a lot of other people would be dead, too, he told himself. He had done only what he had to do.
Chris tried to pull his scattered thoughts together. He had to come up with something, some story to explain what had happened to Casey. Snippets of ideas swirled around in his skull, but he couldn’t put anything together. “I—” he began.
The door to the room swung open. Both Lansky and Chris turned as a tall man with a bony face and deep-set eyes leaned through the door.
“You can’t come in here right now, Mr. Pays,” Lansky said.
As soon as he heard the name, Chris recognized the man as someone he had seen around the high school. He was the head football coach at the school, and Casey’s father.
“Is this the one?” Coach Pays asked in a gravelly voice. “This the one that did something to my Casey?”
Lansky moved toward the man. “We’re in the middle of questioning, Mr. Pays. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“He’s the one, isn’t he?” Coach Pays’s blue eyes focused on Chris, and Chris could almost feel the weight of the pain churning inside the tall man. “Casey’s my only child, my little girl. If you’ve done anything to her, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” His mouth kept working, but no words came out.
Lansky stepped between the coach and Chris. “Come on, Mr. Pays. This is just questioning. You go back to my desk, and I’ll talk to you in a few minutes.”
The coach’s eyes dulled, and he nodded. “All right,” he said. Moving like a man twice his age, Casey’s father shuffled out of the room.
Lansky went to close the door, but before he could, Jake McAlister stepped through. “Sorry about that,” he said to Chris. “Mr. Pays came in the side door, and no one noticed him back here until they saw him through the . . . that is . . .”
“Until they saw him through the two-way mirror?” Chris asked.
The sergeant nodded. “That’s right.” He turned to Lansky, who was leaning against the wall. “We about finished in here?”
Lansky looked at Chris for a second, his mouth twisted in an expression of disgust. “I guess we are for now,” he said. “But I’m going to talk to you again, Chris Delany, and when I do, I want some answers. Is that clear?”
Chris stood up and shoved the metal chair under the table. “I told you what I know.”
“Sure you did,” Lansky said. “But I think you might remember a few things you forgot to tell me.”
Chris nodded quickly and headed for the door. Sergeant McAlister stepped aside to let him out.
“One more thing,” Lansky called. “I think we’ll want to talk to your friend, too.”
“Who?” Chris asked.
“The daughter of the good sergeant here, Ms. Tallibeth McAlister,” said Lansky, the unpleasant smile back on his face.
“Why do you want to talk to Talli?” her father asked.
“She was involved in the first set of disappearances back in November, and now it seems she was mixed up in this case, too.” Lansky looked as if he was enjoying himself. “Yeah, I think we’ll need to talk to her right away.”
“Talli’s got nothing to do with this,” Sergeant McAlister said. He looked over at Chris, and this time his look was anything but friendly. “I don’t know what this boy’s told you, but if Talli knew anything about what’s going on, she would have come to me.”
“I’m sure she would, Sarge. I’m sure she would.” Lansky leaned against the table and crossed his arms over his bony chest. “But you know, she might have seen something and not thought it was important. I definitely think she should come in.”
“Talli’s not feeling well,” said McAlister. “You’ll have to wait.”
“I’ll wait,” Lansky said, “but not for long.” He smiled again, but there wasn’t a drop of warmth in his face. “I’m very eager to talk to your Talli.”
He waited at the far edge of the parking lot, slouched down in the seat so no one would see him. The police didn’t want him around. “It’s just questioning,” they had told him.
For two days now it had been “We’ll keep in touch,” and “You’ll know as soon as we do,” and “When we learn something, we’ll call.”
He didn’t believe any of it. He didn’t believe they’d call him, and he didn’t believe they’d find Casey. Police in this town never solved anything. Thirteen kids were already missing from Westerberg, and the police hadn’t found out a thing. He wasn’t about to let it become fourteen.
He was ready to wait all afternoon—all night, if that’s what it took—but it was only a short time before the boy came out. He watched while the boy hurried across the street and began walking down the hill away from the police station.
He lives somewhere down on the east side. Casey told me that much. He waited until the boy was almost out of sight before he started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot.
Chris Delany knew something about what had happened to Casey, and Coach Pays was determined to find out what. And he had heard the other name the police officer mentioned. If he didn’t learn anything from the boy, he would see what he could get out of this Talli McAlister.
Chapter Two
Talli McAlister huddled in the comer of her room, being careful to stay away from the light that leaked in around the drawn curtains.
A few more hours, and I’ll be safe, she thought. She raised her hand up to her face and looked at the bum that stretched across the back and the fingers. The blisters had faded over the last two days, but the skin was still tender and red. All from ten seconds of the sun shining on her.
