Twenty-four: Big Fight in a Big House
***
They reached the house under pouring skies. Black as a giant hole, the roof of Wooster-Boalt swept into view. Then the vampire dove, bringing it closer and closer. Keltie let out yet another scream. She was certain he meant to dash her against the grainy shingles, or perhaps eviscerate her skull on one of at least four chimneys visible in the murk.
Instead, he brought her down gently as a leaf, until his toes touched the back lawn, at which point he glided over the wet grass to a small, unassuming door.
“Keys,” he snarled.
Keltie blinked. “Huh?”
“Reach into my pocket and grab the keys. I’d have Lloyd at the door…but then you killed him, didn’t you? Of course you did.”
Her trembling hand found one of his pockets and dove in. It returned with a sealed packet of orange tin foil. Ribbed, for HER pleasure!
Bolt knocked it away. “Not that! My other pocket!”
She reached again and this time came back with the keys. Bolt snatched them, unlocked the door, pitched her inside.
She nearly hit her head on the coffin.
Black as death, it lay in the center of a candle-lit room. The lid was open. Clean, crisp pillows glowed on a fluffy white interior. What was this? Bolt’s bedroom?
“No,” he said, as if she’d spoken the question aloud. “This is what was known in the nineteenth century as a mourning room, girl. Residential funerals were a common thing. A loved one would die and be paid his last respects in the comfort of his own home, leaving family members to squabble over who got what, and for how much.” The vampire’s head tilted with an evil grin. “Lovely, yes? Sibling affection. And this house was built in 1830. Imagine how many families have come and gone. How many corpses rotted the tiniest bit in this very room before being fed to the worms.”
“I don’t understand you,” Keltie said.
And in the flickering light, Bolt’s fangs seemed to grow larger. “You never have, girl. So let me dispense with the poetry: Yours will be the next corpse to rot in this room. I’m going to tear out your throat. Then I will conduct a very private but proper funeral. It’s the least I can do for the feats you’ve managed.”
“If that thing in Sandusky had left my friend alone,” Keltie said, moving backward, “none of this would have happened.”
“Where are you going? I didn’t give you permission to leave.”
“Give me back Penelope, Bolt. Then we’re even. What do you say?”
His grin widened. “Funny girl. In the face of death, she laughs. I’m so old and yet I learn new things every day.”
“There’s a word for that,” Keltie said.
“Tell me.”
“Enlightenment.”
She threw a candle at his face. His hand moved to block it, but by then Keltie had yanked open the room’s other door. A bellow of rage chased her down the hallway. The front entrance waited at the opposite end, about a hundred feet off. Keltie didn’t much like her chances with that. She’d never get it open before Bolt caught her. So she turned right past the stairs. The heels of her boots slid on hardwood flooring. She cut right again and ran back the way she’d come. The house’s enormous living room blurred past, until she skidded to a stop at the old chalkboard. A third right would lead her to the library. Keltie was about to do that very thing when the gloom began to echo with Bolt’s deep, guttural laugh.
He’d followed her, calmly. Copied her footsteps. Now he was a mere fifty feet from where she stood.
The laughing stopped. “Ready?” he asked.
“For what?”
Bolt charged. His cape billowed; his snarl was like a dog’s. In seconds he would dive and rip Keltie in half. She could think of only one thing to do.
She charged back.
Grinning, Bolt dove. But before he could strike, Keltie slid on her knees, arching back to let her hair touch the floor. The vampire’s confused, furious scream cut the air. Then he struck the chalkboard full force, smashing it to pieces.
Keltie turned to find Bolt crouched among shards of two hundred year old slate—the house was used as a seminary for girls, Marty once said. He picked up several of the pieces, cradled them in his hands. The impact had broken the clasp of his cape. Dark fabric lay at his feet, a twisted heap of nonsense. But Bolt did not seem to care. It was the shards he cradled, caressed. All but wept for.
Then his eyes flashed. “Bitch! Look what you did! Look!”
“No. Not me.”
Bolt winged a shard at her head. Keltie dove, landed on her belly. The shard had missed by maybe an inch. But it had missed. And she realized that, since bringing her to the house, Bolt had lost his momentum.
Luck and speed and skill! The crazy bitch sang. Oh my!
Keltie was about to send a thank you when a hand grabbed her wrist and yanked her into the hall. Terrified the old bald man had somehow come back to life, Keltie twisted her head—
Marty stared at her. “Hello. Would you care to stand up so we can get the hell out of here?”
“I suppose,” she said, jumping to her feet. “If you really insist. Did you bring my dad’s truck?”
“It’s out back.”
Keltie looked down the hall. She could see the mourning room, candles glowing. Part of the coffin. “You came through there?” she asked.
“Yep. Where else?”
A dark shape appeared at the end of the hall, blocking the candles. Bolt. “My, my,” he called. “Another visitor. I’m sorry, young man, but the coffin is for Miss Burke. Don’t fret though. My brazen bull holds boys just as easily as girls.”
“Fuck you!” Marty yelled back.
Bolt walked towards them, his gait swift. Having no desire to linger and chat, Keltie pulled her boyfriend up the stairs. A second hallway waited at the top. Rows of old doors, old bedrooms. Giant windows rattling on stormy gusts of rain.
Now what? she wondered.
The question got answered when Bolt appeared at the far end of the hall. “The servants’ stairs are nowhere near pretty as the main,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they’re not useful.”
Marty stepped forward. For the first time, Keltie noticed he held a book. It didn’t take long to figure out which book: The Holy Bible.
Oh no, Marty, no…
“’Then it came about at the end of forty days,’” he quoted, approaching the vampire, “’Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made, and he sent forth a raven—‘”
Bolt grabbed him by the throat and lifted. The Bible clunked to the floor.
“Raven,” Bolt said, fangs caught in a flash of lightning. “Black bird. The bird that came back with nothing. Am I nothing to you, boy? Nothing?”
With a snarl of disgust, he threw Marty down the hall. The Filipino’s limp body disappeared through an open door. Bolt reached for Keltie next, but she was gone too quick, running fast as she could to Marty. He was crumpled beneath a window. Still as a rock.
“Marty! Marty are you all right?”
“You’re not going to believe this,” he muttered weakly, “but I’m starting to like this house.”
She drew back. “Yeah. That’s fucked up.”
“Go get the Bible.”
“Why?”
His eyes rolled. “Because Bolt’s a vampire, stupid. You can kill him with it.”
“Only if you believe in God, Marty.”
“Keltie,” the boy said, “there has to be something in that book for you to believe. Something. Find it.”
She glanced over her shoulder. No one looked back. Lightning flashed the walls; thunder pounded the windows. But Bolt had gone.
“I don’t know, Marty,” she said. “I just don’t know.”
“I do. Now go. Leave me here. If we win we win, and if we lose we lose.”
She glared at him, ready to challenge this proclamation. This wasn’t a beauty contest or a baseball game. They were talking about life. Breath and blood. How could he be so cavalier towards having it stolen?
“Okay,” she said, without knowing why. “Will you wait here?”
“Nah. I’m really in the mood for a strawberry sundae about now.”
“Yeah, me too.” She kissed his forehead. “Wait here.”
The hallway remained empty. Lightning and thunder beckoned, but her boots moved with deliberate slowness. On her left was the railing. To her right, more bedrooms, more places for Bolt to hide. Keltie moved like a girl underwater, certain a terrible fish would soon strike. Another flash of lightning revealed a shape on the floor: Marty’s Bible. In spite of his faith, she had no idea what she could do with it. Or rather, undo with it.
“Keltie,” Bolt’s amused voice suddenly rang out.
Keltie nearly fainted. Ducking down, she grabbed hold the banister and waited for her chest to loosen.
The voice became a laugh. “I can see you, Keltie. I can smell you as well. You smell of fear. Very wise. Because of course, all wisdom begins with fear, yes?”
She looked left and right, trying to see him. But Bolt did not seem to be in the hallway. Looking up, she could see he’d not chosen to hover, monster-like, on the ceiling, either.
“I am everywhere!” Bolt laughed. “Lurking in your libraries. Hiding in your dreams.”
“Show yourself,” Keltie tried to yell, with a voice that lacked spirit.
“You’re dead when I do.”
She picked up the Bible. The feel of its leather cover gave her courage, but only a little. Now she needed a plan. Run downstairs? She could perhaps escape by that route—get outside the way she’d come in.
It wasn’t an option. Not with Marty left behind.
She peered into the shadows. At the end of the hall, faintly visible, rose a second flight of stairs. They were narrow and plain. Attic stairs.
Up you go, girl.
Yeah. Any particular reason?
Not knowing whether Bolt would suddenly pounce for the kill or not, Keltie walked on. One step. Two steps. Three. A rogue breeze lifted curtains in silent rooms. A clock ticked. Five steps. Six.
This house was built in 1830…imagine how many families have come and gone.
And how many people, she wondered, had died in this dark, gigantic place?
She reached the stairs and started to climb.
“Ah!” Bolt’s delighted voice echoed. “You want to see more of the house! I’m flattered. Please indulge.”
On the half-landing a flash of light revealed something with raven hair and no face. Keltie screamed at the mannequin, tearing past in blind panic. At the top was a T intersection. She turned left, peered into a small bedroom, went right. A carbon copy bedroom lay here. Nothing else.
“Forgetting something?” Bolt asked, and his voice was close now. He was somewhere in the attic.
Flustered, Keltie stood at the top step. Where else could there be to go? Back to the living room?
Her eye caught gleaming metal on the wall. A latch. It held a small, sideways door in place. Slowly, Keltie unhooked it. The door swung…
And in a tremendous room of shadows, Bolt stood waiting.
Wooden beams larger than any Keltie had seen in her life criss-crossed an oval window of stormy night. Planks, struts, ceiling joists. A collar beam big as an oak tree. She’d seen Wooster-Boalt’s living accommodations and knew them better than she’d ever intended. Now, she was seeing its frame. The bones that held it all together.
Along with its owner—Bolt.
Confident as an owl, he stood smiling on one of the joists. Musty air, unsettled by the storm, ruffled his clothes.
“Come in,” the vampire invited, raising his arms. “Don’t let the beams frighten you. They’re large, but they’re only wood. And if you fall”—the palms of his hands turned up—“the floor’s not far. Maybe twenty feet.”
Keltie was not frightened. Bolt had no idea of this until, in one deft motion, she rolled through the door and found a beam of her own for balancing. Then his head tilted…and his smile faded.
Mister, she thought, as her boots began to strut on the beam, you just made a colossal mistake.
“A gymnast act won’t save you,” he warned. But he was walking the other way, circling to the east while Keltie moved west.
She hopped to another joist, barely needing to look. She’d done difficult maneuvers on beams much smaller than these. Scales, arabesques. Split leaps and handstands. Maybe Bolt would win anyway. Maybe he couldn’t be beaten. But whether he knew it or not, the battleground belonged to her.
He came at her with three tremendous leaps. His legs were quick, his roar dominant. Keltie moved quicker. She found a spanning plate, seized it, and swung to another joist. Undeterred, Bolt skidded to a stop and charged again. This time Keltie ducked. The vampire flew by to strike a second plate at full speed. Chips of wood cut the air. Howls of pain and fury tore out in zig-zagged flashes of lightning. Keltie jumped across the attic, taking joists like river stepping stones. He laughed when she slipped, then laughed some more when she found a broken piece of brick and threw it at him like the girl she was.
“Well now,” he smiled, “looks like you won’t be making any cricket teams in the near future. And you seem to be breathing heavy. Tired, are we?”
Keltie did not allow her expression to change. But the vampire was right. Doubtless realizing as much, Bolt came at her again. She had perhaps two seconds to decide what to do. Keep jumping around until she ran out of breath completely? Leap from the joist and take her chances on the attic floor? Both felt like certain death. Bolt was older, stronger, wiser. She could not hope to last in a prolonged match with him. And he was almost upon her. Almost here to eat her alive.
Keltie could think of only one trick.
She turned her back
Now she could not see Bolt, but she could hear him just fine. His rushing steps, his happy laugh. Click, click, click, on the beam, just like Santa Claus. Keltie waited another half-second before bending down to lean on Marty’s Bible with both hands. With her other leg, she kicked hard as she could. Her foot struck Bolt directly under the chin, sending him off the beam. He fell and struck the floor like a lump of coal.
“That’s called a Needle Scale,” she said to his motionless body. “Part of the gymnast act that won’t save me.”
Disgusted, she threw the Bible at Bolt’s face—
And his eyes flew open. He caught the book, sprang to his feet, and smiled up at her.
“Surely,” he asked, mocking incredulity, “you weren’t relying upon this? Oh yes,” he went on, “I heard you that night. The girl doesn’t believe in God.”
“You were listening,” Keltie said.
“Everyone hears a heretic. They provide an excuse for outrage. Here!”
Bolt tossed the book. It hit Keltie’s chest, where she struggled for a moment to control her grip.
“Read me some passages,” the vampire then urged. “Something for a funeral perhaps. You know why.”
“I’m not dead yet.”
“Open the book Keltie. The god you abandoned awaits.”
Keltie looked at her hands. In them lay Marty’s Bible. Leather-bound. Rough about the edges. One of at least a million copies all over the world.
“Show me,” Bolt challenged, “what a penitent girl can do. Open your heart to…God.”
He spat this last in pure contempt before climbing to rejoin Keltie on the beam. Slowly then, he began to close in. She moved backward until the wall touched her shoulders. From here she had nowhere else to go. Bolt—and Bolt’s house—had her cornered.
“Last chance,” he said. “Make me laugh before you die. Ask God to forgive you, you weak little girl.”
There has to be something in that book for you to believe. Find it.
Keltie swallowed once. Twice. The book, unopened, pressed beneath her breasts. “My grace…” she stammered.
Bolt’s smile got wider. He was loving every second of this, she knew. Every clumsy, inept second.
“My grace is sufficient for thee: For my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Bolt stopped. And for just one moment, his composure warbled on the beam. “Open it,” he commanded. “Your memories are a sham, girl. Mustn’t trust them. Let the Lord remind you.”
“No,” Keltie said. “He doesn’t need to. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities—“
“Stop that!” Bolt was trembling again, and his hands had gone to his head.
“—that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
“I’m warning you, bitch! Open the book!”
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge—“
She watched the vampire double over in pain and fight to keep his balance.
“—but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
“Cunt! Whore!”
“…hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother…”
Bolt screamed, and Keltie could see smoke rising from his clothes. This was not a good thing no matter what passages from the good book she managed to remember. Too late now, though. The die were cast. What would happen would happen.
“The lot is cast into the lap,” she suddenly yelled, “but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord!”
And still screaming, Bolt went up in heavy flames. He burned for