Read Online The Last Vampire by Whitley Strieber - Free Book Online
Authors: Whitley Strieber
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world. From those paintings, a man could obtain the true balm of peace. The light that shone in from the garden at the Marmottan, that light was holy.
“God help me!” he cried out loud.
“Yessir!”
“Please, son, be quiet. And stop running people down.”
“I didn’t run anybody down. I just got around that truck.”
“You need to go back there later. Give that guy some dough for his cart.”
“Sir?”
“Without the cart, he and his wife will starve. Their children become prostitutes. Do you understand that?”
“Sir, I hardly think —”
“Do you understand that?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
Could this be a marine out of uniform? No, look at the hair. Foreign service all the way. He was just yanking Paul’s chain with his military lip. He’d be sneering later with his State Department buddies about the old CIA asshole he’d driven around.
With his cart wrecked, that fruit vendor might as well open his veins, and Paul knew this kid would not go back, he would not give the guy the twenty bucks it would take to put his life back together again.
Funnily enough, Paul was in his work because he liked people. He’d seen the CIA take such incredible shit over the years and save so many damn lives. The Company could not defend herself, not without giving away secrets she was bound to keep. So she just took it. He’d seen the effects of all the Company bashing in his own life. There’d been a time when the merest hint of a Company connection brought women swarming like darling honeybees. Not anymore.
The car swung around another corner, and the Royal Orchid Hotel finally appeared down the smog-hazed street.
What the hell was he about to find? This would be the first actual victim they had ever had a chance to study. The vampires were obsessive about destroying remains. Except, apparently, this time.
Still, there was something very bad about all this. He could smell it, but he couldn’t quite see it. A place is wrapped up, finished. Then, suddenly, it ain’t finished.
Okay, think. Think it out, Paul: All of a sudden, they leave evidence in a hotel. The hotel is on a continent that has just been sterilized of their presence.
It was not like them to taunt you. They were too shy, too careful for that. Their lives were incredibly precious to them, because this life was all they had, at least in Paul’s opinion. In his opinion, nature had given them immortal lives — potentially, if they were very damn careful — but they had not been given souls. They were damn animals and they knew it.
So if this wasn’t a declaration or a taunt, then it must be something else. The thing was, when the National Security Administration had cracked the language in the Book of Names, the whole vampire world had been opened up to Paul and his crew. He returned to the States to become head of a whole new division that would be devoted to eradicating the menace. There were to be units operating on every continent, using the methods that Paul and his group had evolved.
One of the reasons that he was racing back to the States so soon after completing his work in Asia was to deal with a stupid but potentially serious problem: The director of the CIA had been asking legal questions. Specifically, were these creatures to be regarded as animal or human? If they were human, then they were committing crimes, not killing prey.
Declaring that the creatures were human meant that a whole different approach would be necessary. There would have to be due process and trials and prison sentences, and the vampire would like nothing better than this type of leverage. The vampire was powerful and quick and so damn smart. It could get away from prison.
They were almost unkillable. Something about their blood gave them extraordinary powers of recovery. You had to blow that head apart, then burn the creatures to ash, to be absolutely certain they were dead. Then the lair had to be washed in acid.
How could you ever call anything that lived
“God help me!” he cried out loud.
“Yessir!”
“Please, son, be quiet. And stop running people down.”
“I didn’t run anybody down. I just got around that truck.”
“You need to go back there later. Give that guy some dough for his cart.”
“Sir?”
“Without the cart, he and his wife will starve. Their children become prostitutes. Do you understand that?”
“Sir, I hardly think —”
“Do you understand that?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
Could this be a marine out of uniform? No, look at the hair. Foreign service all the way. He was just yanking Paul’s chain with his military lip. He’d be sneering later with his State Department buddies about the old CIA asshole he’d driven around.
With his cart wrecked, that fruit vendor might as well open his veins, and Paul knew this kid would not go back, he would not give the guy the twenty bucks it would take to put his life back together again.
Funnily enough, Paul was in his work because he liked people. He’d seen the CIA take such incredible shit over the years and save so many damn lives. The Company could not defend herself, not without giving away secrets she was bound to keep. So she just took it. He’d seen the effects of all the Company bashing in his own life. There’d been a time when the merest hint of a Company connection brought women swarming like darling honeybees. Not anymore.
The car swung around another corner, and the Royal Orchid Hotel finally appeared down the smog-hazed street.
What the hell was he about to find? This would be the first actual victim they had ever had a chance to study. The vampires were obsessive about destroying remains. Except, apparently, this time.
Still, there was something very bad about all this. He could smell it, but he couldn’t quite see it. A place is wrapped up, finished. Then, suddenly, it ain’t finished.
Okay, think. Think it out, Paul: All of a sudden, they leave evidence in a hotel. The hotel is on a continent that has just been sterilized of their presence.
It was not like them to taunt you. They were too shy, too careful for that. Their lives were incredibly precious to them, because this life was all they had, at least in Paul’s opinion. In his opinion, nature had given them immortal lives — potentially, if they were very damn careful — but they had not been given souls. They were damn animals and they knew it.
So if this wasn’t a declaration or a taunt, then it must be something else. The thing was, when the National Security Administration had cracked the language in the Book of Names, the whole vampire world had been opened up to Paul and his crew. He returned to the States to become head of a whole new division that would be devoted to eradicating the menace. There were to be units operating on every continent, using the methods that Paul and his group had evolved.
One of the reasons that he was racing back to the States so soon after completing his work in Asia was to deal with a stupid but potentially serious problem: The director of the CIA had been asking legal questions. Specifically, were these creatures to be regarded as animal or human? If they were human, then they were committing crimes, not killing prey.
Declaring that the creatures were human meant that a whole different approach would be necessary. There would have to be due process and trials and prison sentences, and the vampire would like nothing better than this type of leverage. The vampire was powerful and quick and so damn smart. It could get away from prison.
They were almost unkillable. Something about their blood gave them extraordinary powers of recovery. You had to blow that head apart, then burn the creatures to ash, to be absolutely certain they were dead. Then the lair had to be washed in acid.
How could you ever call anything that lived
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