CHAPTER 11
“It’s my fault,” Walker repeated.
Reginald stood up slowly. “I see that,” he said. He took a step back. Maurice stepped mostly in front of him.
“I couldn’t help myself. It was like I was outside of my body, watching myself do terrible things. I was so hungry.” He looked at Reginald, pleading. “So hungry, Reggie! I didn’t want to do it. I just woke up and all I could feel was hunger, and I knew what I could do. I knew it like instinct. Rutherford was down the hall, running from the others. I just thought, and suddenly, in an instant, I’d gone down the hall and I was behind him, ripping him apart. It didn’t take any effort at all. It was like he was made of straw.”
Reginald looked at Nikki. She put a hand on his. She knew what it was like to have thirst so intense that she could barely control it. But unlike Walker, Nikki had trained before being turned — mentally as much as physically. She knew how to step back, how to divorce herself from the raw feeling of need. She’d developed her will and knew what she’d be facing. Walker hadn’t had any training. One day he was a son of a bitch, and the next day he was a son of a bitch who was incredibly strong, incredibly fast, and incredibly hungry.
Outside, there was a strobe of red light, followed by a strobe of blue. Reginald’s head turned. The police had arrived from Walker’s 911 call. They were stepping out of their cars, visible through the window. Reginald watched as they drew guns and began pointing flashlights.
“I can smell it,” said Walker. “I can still smell blood.” His fanged teeth opened and closed. His eyes tried to roll up into his head.
“They’re police,” said Reginald. “Control yourself. Fight it down.”
In a streak of color, Walker was out of the closet and down the hall. Maurice was faster. He caught Walker and threw him back, down the entire length of the hall. Walker struck the water cooler, which exploded like a giant water balloon. Then Nikki was on him, but Walker put a hand on Nikki’s chest and pushed, and she crashed through the wall and into the kitchen, where she struck the table and collapsed it. The five coffee cups shattered in a scarlet rain.
Reginald, who couldn’t move fast, stood to block the hallway. How many times had Walker slammed him into the walls of this very corridor and complained that he was too wide of a load? It was time to see if Reginald could use that girth to his advantage.
Walker hit Reginald with the momentum of a truck. Reginald didn’t come close to standing his ground. Together, they slammed into the plaster wall beside the Xerox machine, Reginald’s back striking the wall without pain, cutting out a Reginald shape and cracking the studs.
“Fight it down, you son of a bitch!” Reginald yelled. But Walker wasn’t himself. Or maybe he was more himself than he’d ever been in his human life. His face worked. He was like an animal.
Walker was just tensing to flee — to run outside and drain the policemen — when Reginald felt a jolt and found Walker suddenly immobile. He looked to the side and saw a shiny metal shaft connecting Walker’s shoulder to one of the wall studs.
Reginald ducked out from between Walker and the wall. Walker started to struggle, but suddenly he was just a man pinned down with what appeared to be a giant fork used for turning hot dogs on a grill — probably from this summer’s company picnic. He was, again, only human.
When Reginald came around to Walker’s back, he noticed a shiny metal object hanging out of the wound where the barbecue fork had entered Walker’s shoulder. It was the late Clara Norris’s crucifix, which she never failed to wear around her neck every day of her adult life, on a long chain of pure sliver.
Maurice stood behind Walker, nodding with satisfaction. He looked up, through the window, at the policemen entering the building. But first things first. He placed one of his hands on each side of Walker’s head and prepared to twist it off. But before he could, Nikki held up a hand.
“Wait,” she said.
“What?” said Maurice. Walker was wriggling, trying to free himself.
“He can’t help it. He wasn’t prepared. Believe me, I know what it feels like.”
Maurice’s fangs were out. The expression on his face was like the snarl of a wolf.
“He’s a murderer,” he said.
“Aren’t you?”
Maurice looked at Nikki. “He’s a wildcard in a society increasingly filled with wildcards. And what’s more, he’s nearly as hurt, mentally, as those he’s murdered. Killing him would be a mercy.”
Nikki stared daggers at him. “No,” she said.
Maurice gave Reginald a look, asking for help.
“He’s not going anywhere with that silver against his blood,” said Reginald. It wasn’t help. It wasn’t even an answer. But it was the best he could do, because even though he wanted Walker dead as badly as Maurice did, he saw Nikki’s point. He could tell how much of herself she saw in the monster in front of them.
“Look,” Reginald continued, reading Maurice’s face. “Let’s go talk to the police. You can watch Walker if you want. Let’s think this out. And if we have to, in the end, we can always still kill him.”
After a minute, Maurice made a small, pained nod.
Reginald made jazz hands at Nikki.
“Showtime,” he said.