by Megan Hawke
"Are you panicking yet, Black Heart?" Jeff said, leering down at me. All four of them had looks of wicked glee on their faces. "I hope so. Because now. . . ," he leaned onto the stake, smiling cruelly as the tip penetrated the skin and pain lanced into me, "You are going to die."
I felt the magic holding me evaporate the instant the stake penetrated. Morphing into a wolf or bat wouldn’t stop the stake from driving into my heart. The pain was incredible, as if my body understood it was a mortal wound being delivered. So I willed myself to sink into the earth.
"No! You bitch!" Jeff cried.
I went down, and willed myself right back up. They weren’t expecting that. I exploded out of the earth, reached around to the base of my spine, and pulled the wooden stake. Lashing out, I backhanded Charlie Joe, pounded a roundhouse kick into Ben’s face, and found myself facing Jeff. He screamed and thrust the stake at my heart.
My left arm swung around, blocking the stake aside with my forearm. My stake was in my right hand and I thrust it straight at Jeff’s heart. I expected him to block it. I was wrong.
"Jeff!" Valerie cried. "Benny, she staked Jeff!"
I still had one pistol. I pulled it and started shooting. I hit Ben a couple times, then popped Valerie once. Once was enough to put her on the ground. Talk about being surprised.
Charlie Joe began a spell. He pointed the fist with the ruby ring at me. I swung the trusty Glock around, and pulled the trigger. First shot shattered that hand. Second shoot shredded his heart. Witches die nice and prompt when you shoot them, and you don't need silver.
A great grunt went up all around me. Zombies started tumbling over. They stiffened up, and fell over. I didn’t realize killing the animator would kill the zombies.
"Oh," Jeff cried.
Whirling around, I discovered that Ben had pulled out the stake. Jeff was reanimated. I shot them each once in the head, and started for Jeff.
Valerie plowed into me. She took me down, and I rolled her over so that I was on top. I still had the pistol and swung it around to shoot Jeff again.
"Dammit all!" I cried. Jeff and Ben were gone. Then Valerie barked a laugh, and morphed into a bat. My father and Dane were running towards me as I looked around, feeling foolish. "That worked out well."
Sirens filled the night as both police and fire arrived. Why did the police always arrive after the vampires left? Glancing south, I spotted the three bats that were Jeff, Ben, and Valerie, winging it away hard. Were they wary of the police, or afraid of me?
"Oh no, you aren’t escaping my wrath, boy," I snarled at them.
Seeing my father approaching, I reached down and refastened my top. Topless around Daddy wasn’t cool. It would embarrass him.
I spotted Henri still atop that nearby building. The other vampires departed once the battle was decided. Henri nodded in acknowledgement of my victory, smiling. Then he and his son morphed into bats and were gone.
They left us in a nightmarish scene. The bodies of zombies and dead followers were everywhere. I couldn’t sort them out just with a glance. There was no way to count our dead. Worse, the church was fully engulfed in flames.
"We have to go," Dane said, pulling on my arm
"Get," Daddy said. "Hurry. The police are coming."
"But what about you?" I cried.
"We’ll be fine," Daddy said. "The police warned us the vampires would try to kill us. They were expecting it."
Heidi pulled up in my car. Gabe was sitting in the passenger seat looking half excited and half nervous. Dane jumped into the back seat.
"Come on, Sable!" Dane called.
"Go," I said, and my wings sprouted. People gasped and scrambled away. Even Daddy backed up, staring open-mouthed. "I’m going after Jeff. He’s going to pay, and pay dearly."
I quickly gathered up my dropped weapons. Once I had both Glocks snuggled securely in the holsters, I strapped the katana across my back, between the wings.
"I said leave!"
Heidi floored it and they were gone. The police didn’t even bother giving chase. There were over a dozen other cars getting the hell out of Dodge as well.
"I’m sorry, Sable," Daddy said. "This is all our fault."
I glanced at all the bodies, then at the church. Families were shattered, destroyed. In some cases, both husbands and wives were dead. There were a lot more orphans and widows in Plano. The church was a total loss.
"I’m sorry, too," I said. "But now it’s time to put an end to the monster that did this."
Without further ado, I leaped high and started flapping hard. I circled the church, rising higher and higher. Once I was a good two hundred feet up, I turned south and started flying with all I had. Jeff would not escape me. Not this time.
Chapter 19
One thing I’d learned. Bigger wings meant faster flying. At least for vampires. I flew a helluva lot faster like this than by morphing into a bat. Even so, Jeff and company had a pretty good head start.
Within minutes of taking off in pursuit, I realized Heidi, Dane, and Gabe were pacing me on the street below. Heidi’s link with me allowed her to know my exact location. I wouldn’t be able to shake her. So I didn’t try.
"Welcome to the party," I muttered.
No one said vampires were the brightest monkeys in the tree. Jeff, Ben, and Valerie flew straight down Preston Road. I caught up close enough to spot them just before Belt Line, north of Loop 635. As bats, I couldn't tell them apart. They were just three bats, with really big and evil auras. Okay, truth was, I could pick out Valerie.
Valerie was trailing behind about fifty feet. Her aura was the weakest, and I could distinguish male and female. Jeff and Ben were impossible to tell apart as bats. Their auras were of a similar strength.
They were hugging the earth, flying just over the tops of the traffic and street lights. I moved past them unnoticed about two hundred feet up. At least none of them acted as if they noticed me above them.
I was directly over them when they crossed over Loop 635, Valley View Mall to our right. I pulled my sword at that time, slowly to avoid any noise. With it in my right hand, I filled my left with a Glock 31. Silver bullets, baby. Big ouch for vamps. I wanted to hurt them bad.
By the time they reached Forest Lane, I was far enough ahead. I twisted in midair, looped around, and power dived. About fifty feet from them, I pointed the pistol and started shooting.
Talk about surprising them. All three squawked and tried to brake. I grazed one of the leading bats, and may have actually put a bullet clean through Valerie’s tiny bat body. Valerie morphed back to human a good twenty feet off the ground, and did a belly flop on the street below. Sanctified silver bullets did that to the best vamps when they were shot in bat or wolf form.
She did jump right back up, but then Heidi rammed her at about forty miles an hour. I winced at the crunching sound. I wasn’t concerned with Valerie, but my beloved Mustang. Why did everyone that drove it feel compelled to use it as a battering ram?
As Dane, Gabe, and Heidi piled out of the car, gunfire erupted and I forgot Valerie. She had her hands full. New-made vamps had little resistance to blessed silver. I had a bigger problem. Jeff and Ben split up, and I still didn’t know which was which.
Since they were heading in different directions, I had to choose one. I banked left and went for the lighter brown bat. He squeaked and dropped lower. I had greater speed and power with my huge wings, but the bats were more maneuverable and could fly lower to the ground. They could also fly though trees and weave through obstacles that I had to avoid.
Morphing to a bat crossed my mind, and I was sorely tempted. I had some experience fighting as a bat. Not much, but did any vampire really have that much? How often did the opportunity present itself? But by doing so I would lose everything I carried. I didn't want to lose my pistol, sword, and clothes.
It was easy enough to track the bat as he flew through the trees of the residential area. To pass he had to navigate with a series of squeaks for his sonar, and
I could hear them perfectly. I might be twenty feet above the treetops, but I could hear his heart beating. He, of course, could hear mine.
"You are one noisy little bloodsucker," I called down. "Come on out and fight like a man."
He flew from the protective branches of one tree to another. I scowled down at him.
"Pussy," I called. "Coward."
He squawked and turned up. I braked with my wings, trying to hover as the little monster streaked up at me. I prepared to skewer him on the sword, and then shoot his head off with the pistol. That would kill a vampire.
I waited. Waited. And he quickly grew closer and closer, looking totally enraged. I had to skewer him and shoot him in the head in a matter of one or two seconds. The silver casing on my blade was etched with crosses and was blessed by a priest. When the katana penetrated his body the sanctified silver would force him to morph back to human form. I wanted to blow his head off before that happened.
"Which one are you?" I cried and lunged at him.
I was so focused on that bat, I didn't notice the other one loop around behind me. He flew into my face at that second, biting my nose and clawing at my eyes.
"Aaiiee," I cried, slapping at him.
Jeff morphed back to human, seized the wrist with the sword and head butted me. Ben slammed into us from below, and also morphed to human. We started slowly falling, though I was vainly trying to stay up by flapping furiously.
"You made a fatal mistake, Sable," Jeff said. Ben sank his fangs into the wrist holding the sword, right into a nerve and my hand spasmed. The sword fell out of my grasp. "You shouldn't have followed us."
He grabbed my chin and head, about to snap my neck. Broken neck meant temporarily paralyzed, but I was sure Jeff would ensure it was a more permanent situation. Like dead-dead.
I kneed Jeff in the cójones. He froze, eyes bugging out. He would recover in a matter of seconds, but even vampires suffered intense pain when struck down there. I only needed seconds.
Twisting the pistol around, I started pumping silver bullets deep into his chest. At the same time, I drove the long stiletto heel on my right foot into Ben's neck, just above his collar bone. He wailed and released me to start falling away. My then free right hand yanked the pistol out of the right holster, and started pumping bullets into his chest.
Ben fell all the way to the street below. With all that blessed silver inside his body he couldn't morph. And it burned. Like white-hot-pokers-in-the-chest hot.
"Good boy," I said, seeing that Gabe had followed on the ground. He was running towards Ben, a stake and hammer in hand.
I jabbed the end of the Glock's barrel into Jeff's left wrist, the one holding my chin. I pulled the trigger and his wrist was shattered. He cried out, broken out of his silver-in-the-chest-induced daze. With his grip on my head broken, I kicked away from him.
Jeff fell just inside a fenced backyard, only fifteen feet from where Ben landed. Gabe was straddling Ben, and I watched with supreme satisfaction as he frantically pounded that stake through Benjamin Rothschild's heart.
One less stinking bloodsucker to worry about.
"Gabe, watch out!" I cried, seeing Jeff leap over the six-foot privacy fence.
I folded my wings back and power dived. Jeff surprised me and ran in the opposite direction than I expected. I swooped down and back up, turning around just in time to see him reach my car.
Jeff jumped into the idling Mustang, and burned rubber as he headed south down Preston. Yeah, it irritated the hell out of me to see him driving my car.
Neither Dane nor Heidi was anywhere to be seen. Both were very much alive, and not feeling particularly threatened. I could also tell they were still trying to catch Valerie. Apparently being hit by a car wasn't enough to keep that new vamp down. Since they didn't get her right away, there was little chance they would succeed. Dane, at least, should know better than to pursue a vampire like that.
"Heidi! Come back! Bring Dane!" I didn't have the most powerful voice, but it carried well at night. And Heidi at least should hear me. "Jeff took the car. Help Gabe cut out Ben's heart! And cut off his head, too."
"Okay," Heidi said. "Will do."
I dropped down long enough to pick up my sword and put it back in the scabbard strapped to my back. With both pistols holstered and strapped down, I leaped high and took off straight down Preston.
"Be careful, Gabe," I called, and started after Jeff.
As a rule flying straight towards downtown from any point in Dallas was faster than driving. But Preston was pretty much a straight shot. There was almost no traffic, and Jeff wasn't even slowing down for red lights. He was quickly leaving me behind.
I flew higher, and from that vantage point I could see further. Keeping my eye on the rear lights of my Mustang, I flew with all I had. To my surprise, Jeff pulled off into a high rise apartment building in Uptown. A very expensive, very exclusive residence.
When Jeff pulled off Preston I lost eye contact. It took me another few minutes to catch up. My Mustang was out front, engine still running, doorman looking inside and acting miffed. I dropped down beside him, totally freaking out the uniformed doorman. He cried out, stumbled backwards, and tripped over the curb.
"Watch it there, fella," I said. I caught his eyes, and mesmerized him in an eye-blink. "Does Jeff Howell live here?"
I reached inside and turned off the engine. Stuffing the keychain in my left bra cup, I turned back to the doorman.
"I've never heard of him," he said.
One of his thralls might live there. Or, like Boney, he bought residences through other people.
"Did you see the man driving this car?"
"Yes."
"Do you know him?"
"Yes."
I waited a second or two. He did not elaborate. That happens sometimes. Some people will spill their guts when you asked a question. Others gave the simplest answers possible.
"What is his name?"
"William Davies," he said.
"Does he have an apartment here?"
"He owns the penthouse."
I looked up. Jeff was doing pretty good if he could afford a penthouse in that building.
"What number? Which one?" I said.
"There's only one," he said, and I expected him to sniff and put on airs. But he didn't. He was under my control. "The top floor."
"The entire top floor?"
"Yes."
I thought about that. The entire top floor was a pretty good place for anyone to live, especially a vampire. Talk about easy access. He could fly in and out with ease.
"I can take the elevator up?"
"No. There is only one elevator, and Mr. Davies took it up and will lock it down," he said. "Like always."
"Can you unlock it from down here?"
"Yes, I have a key," he said.
"Do it. Bring the elevator down," I reached inside my car, pulled out a pen and paper. I scribbled my note and handed it to the doorman. "Place this on the floor in the middle of the elevator, and then send it back up."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, and headed inside.
I grinned roguishly, and then took off running. Within ten steps I was airborne. I circled the building as I rose higher and higher. It was late Friday night, and most of the lights were out. I noticed two cocktail parties still going, and a middle-aged couple on their balcony. . . um, coupling.
Spiraling up, I continued past the top of the building. When I passed the top floor I didn't see Jeff inside, even though I briefly looked in all the windows. Only a few dim lights were even on in there, and I spotted the elevator door through a pair of open double doors. But I heard his heartbeat. It was fast. I smiled.
"Nice," I said, surveying the setup on top. He had ornamental trees in large pots, several different areas for different purposes. There was a small swimming pool and a very large hot tub. "Jeffy is doing well for himself. Shame he spoiled it all by attacking my family."
I felt Jeff's heart rate spike. Then he hurried towards th
e middle of the penthouse. Over by the elevator.
"Waiting for me?" I said, and began my attack.
I made a big loop through the cold night air. Heading straight for the window through which I spotted the elevator. Before reaching that window I heard the elevator ding, then a burst of gunfire. Sounded like an Uzi. Then the doors actually opened.
Jeff cursed.
Seconds before smashing through the window, I heard Jeff read my note aloud. "Turn around?"
And I hit the glass at full speed. Glass exploded into the penthouse all around me. I sucked in my wings, hit the ground running with two pistols in my hand.
Bam-Bam-Bam-Bam-Bam!
I was pulling both triggers so fast it sounded like a machinegun. Jeff whirled around, then started jerking as he stumbled backwards. My bullets were ripping into him, my aim pretty good. Dane would be proud of my shot pattern. I bet eight out of ten hit their mark, and that was the head and chest.
Jeff started shooting, and grazed my right cheek and punched a hole in my liver. Oh, it hurt. Stick-in-the-eye kinda hurt. Jeff was shooting sanctified silver, just like me.
The shot knocked me off balance and I fell, but rolled right back to my feet. Jeff was gone. The elevator was still there, open with flickering lights. I dropped to one knee, both pistols pointed out and ready. Then I listened.
Naked and barefooted, Jeff's tread was whispery quite, but I heard the faint creak of hardwood floors as he moved as well as his racing heart. Jeff moved quickly. He knew the layout. It occurred to me that it would be prudent to leave at that time.
I wasn't feeling prudent.
"Hey, Jeff! Nice place you have here. Nice place for you to die," I said. I ejected both magazines and slammed two more back into the Glocks. "Have you made your final arrangements? Do you want me to ram your ashes down Valerie's throat with a broom handle?"
What can I say? I really liked that visual.
