Masters of Midnight

The pain in Ben’s leg was getting worse. As he limped along behind Titus, he longed to stop for a moment. He would even welcome being caught by the police. At least he wouldn’t be running for his life then. No, your life would probably be over, he reminded himself.

“Where are we going?” he asked, wincing as a stab of pain sliced through his knee. He’d landed on it when he’d jumped, and it was moving with an odd clicking sensation. Titus seemed to take no notice of his injury, however, moving quickly through the streets.

He could still see the faint flashing of the police car lights several blocks behind them, the sky around them turning alternately red and white. The officers were certain to have found the bodies. What would they do next? he wondered. Where would they look for the killers? For us, he thought. Where will they look for us?

He knew that he and Titus must be the prime suspects in the crimes. After what had happened during the past few days, their names would be foremost in the minds of the police. Ben suspected, too, that Blackwood may have worked some of his evil magic on them. The vampire seemed to possess powers that Titus didn’t.

They reached the library and Ben took the keys from his pocket. His hand shook as he unlocked the door and let Titus in, following behind him and securing the bolt so that anyone else attempting to get in would have at least that minor difficulty to contend with. It might, Ben thought, provide them with a few extra seconds in which to escape.

Titus went into the main room, not bothering to turn the lights on. “Blackwood!” he called out, his voice trembling with rage. “Show yourself!”

“This was where he began his work,” said Titus, turning around in a circle as he peered into the shadows.

“Yes,” said Titus. “He would befriend them, gain their trust, so that when the time came to take them they wouldn’t fear him. Not at first.”

The realization of what Blackwood had done stunned Ben. He had pretended to care about the children he’d killed. They’d gone to him willingly, seeing him as someone they could believe in. And in turn, he’d torn their souls to pieces, throwing away their bodies like spoiled fruit.

Ben drew closer to Titus as Blackwood emerged from the darkness of the children’s room. Instead of inhabiting the horrific form of the Death Puppet, he looked as he did when the photograph on his book jacket had been taken. He reached for a light switch and flipped it on, flooding the room with light.

Ben stared at his face. It was the face of a man in his middle years. His hair was neatly cut, and he wore small, round glasses that magnified the size of his eyes. He was dressed in brown pants and a white shirt, the collar and cuffs neatly starched. When he moved, it was with neither the ungainly gait of the Death Puppet nor the smooth movements of a man confident in his powers. Instead, it was with the slightly stiff walk of a man whose body was beginning to slow down.

“You see,” he said, directing his comments to Ben, “I am not such a horrible creature as you imagine me to be.”

Blackwood smiled. “Perhaps not now,” he replied. “But it was then, when the things Titus accuses me of took place.”

Titus looked away as Ben tried to meet his gaze. “What’s he talking about?” asked Ben. “There are more of you?”

Blackwood laughed harshly. “Indeed there are more. Dozens more. Perhaps even hundreds. Hidden in the woods and mountains. Living openly among you. We are not the first, nor shall we be the last.”

Blackwood smiled and nodded his head. “We shall see about that,” he said. “Already the people come for you. Already they are remembering John Rullins and pairing his name with yours.”

“Why did you come back here?” asked Titus. “With the whole world at your disposal, why did you return?”

“This is the place of my greatest achievement,” Blackwood said, gesturing at the library. Then he looked directly at Titus. “And of my greatest failure.” He paused. “You could have been magnificent,” he said. “You could have surpassed me in power. But you turned your back on it. You betrayed me.”

Blackwood walked toward him. Ben saw Titus stiffen as the vampire approached, his eyes watching Blackwood warily. Blackwood stopped in front of them. Reaching out, he ran his finger down Titus’s cheek.

“Do you remember how it felt to lie in my arms?” he asked. “Do you remember how our bodies moved against one another, how our mouths hungered for the taste of one another?”

Titus said nothing. Blackwood looked wounded. “You don’t remember?” he asked, his voice teasing. “But you told me that you would always love me, that you would do anything for me.”

Titus grabbed hold of Blackwood’s wrist and twisted it sharply. With a scream of rage, he pushed the vampire forward and into one of the stacks. It fell backward, showering them with books as they tumbled to the ground. Blackwood let out a furious hiss.

Blackwood’s free hand went to Titus’s throat, the fingers wrapping around it tightly. Ben saw the nails begin to bite into the skin, and blood welled up from beneath them. Blackwood seemed to gain strength from the sight and feel of the blood. He struggled against Titus’s hold, slowly bringing his pinned wrist up and taking hold with that hand as well.

Ben knew that Titus, despite his strength, was going to be overpowered. He was tired and weakened from running. Blackwood had the strength of desperation to aid him. He had nothing to lose, and he knew it. He also had his hatred of Titus to power his body.

Do something, Ben thought. Help him. But what could he do? He’d already proven that he was no match for Blackwood. He had no powers, no magic with which to attack the vampire.

Suddenly he recalled the book in which he’d read about the Death Puppets. They had been killed, he remembered. But how? The details escaped him. He hadn’t been interested in such things then.

The book, however, was still in the box beside his desk. As Titus and Blackwood continued to struggle, Ben ran to his office. Switching on the light, he opened the box and looked for the book. When he had it in his hands, he raced to locate the illustration of the Death Puppet. Behind him, he heard the grunts and muttered curses that accompanied the fight between Blackwood and Titus. Time, he knew, was running out.

He fumbled with the pages, flipping through them until he found the drawing. Forcing himself not to look at it, he scanned the page opposite it. “A total of nine deaths were blamed on the creatures before they were eventually rounded up and destroyed,” he read. “Reportedly by setting them afire.”

Fire. That was the answer. He threw the book down and stood up, looking around the room for anything he could use against Blackwood. Opening his desk drawer, he found a box of matches that Martha had left there. These he held tightly in his hand as he ran back to the great room. There, he found Blackwood on top of Titus, their positions reversed. The wounds on Titus’s neck were bleeding freely, and Blackwood was bending down, his snake-like tongue extended toward the blood.

Frantic, he ran at Blackwood and smashed into him with all his might. The vampire slid sideways, falling off of Titus. Ben opened the box of matches in his hand and struck one. It flared to life, and he held it out toward Blackwood.

As he spoke, his face changed, becoming younger. A moment later, Trey looked up at Ben. “You couldn’t save me,” he said. “What makes you think you can save anyone now?”

Ben stared into Trey’s eyes, mesmerized. The flame burned down the thin spine of the match, scorching his fingers and going out. He didn’t even notice as Blackwood’s hands closed around his throat.

Ben began to black out, his consciousness dimming quickly as Blackwood choked him. Then he felt a violent wrenching as he was pulled from the creature’s grip.

Titus stood over Blackwood. He was holding in his hand a can of some kind. “Give me the matches,” he ordered Ben.

Ben did as he was told. Titus took one of them and lit it. Holding it in one hand, he pointed the can at it and pressed a button on its top. A faint mist burst from the nozzle. When it touched the match’s flame, it bloomed into a cloud of fire. The cloud streamed at Blackwood’s face and surrounded it.

The vampire uttered a shriek of pain and tried to shield its face from the fire. But it was too late. The flames clung greedily to his clothes and hair. Blackwood staggered to his feet, the flames spreading wildly over his body. He beat at them uselessly with his hands, screaming. As he turned first one way and then another, the flames reached out and caught hold of the things he touched. Tongues of fire leaped from the open pages of books, and the old wood of the shelves quickly followed.

Ben and Titus moved toward the door as the library became a crucible kindled by the whirling dervish of fire that Blackwood had been transformed into. It seemed to ignite with ferocious eagerness, as if the books themselves had been waiting for the chance to devour the thing that had once used them for its unholy purposes. Blackwood danced in the hellish ruins of the collection, writhing in agony as his tortured body transformed into a myriad of shapes before settling once more into the twisted form of the Death Puppet.

Titus looked down at the can in his hand. It was furniture polish, an old can that Ben had found in a desk drawer and used to remove the dust of summer from the library’s tables. Titus tossed it into the flames, where it exploded in a shower of sparks.

The fire was crawling up the walls of the library. Thick smoke already filled the room. Titus grabbed Ben’s hand and led him to the door and out into the warm night.